Book Review: Four Girls of Forty Years Ago by Nina Rhoades

Seems I can post book reviews I do on Goodreads here as well, so why not?

I gave this children's story five stars. That means I think it's worth telling other people about and worth rereading.

This was really good! I think that younger fans of Anne of Green Gables would like it.

While the four girls aren't technically orphans, with their mother dead, their father working far away, and the fact that they're living with a step-grandmother who's not fond of children, this does feel like that kind of book.

Dulcie, the oldest, is an avid reader and teller of tales, and believes that the fictional stories she reads reflect real life. This is forever getting them into trouble, for example, when they decide a young girl they see on the street is a stolen child and needs to be restored to her rightful family. While they often go astray, their hearts are in the right place.

For those who are concerned about political correctness, there is one character in the book (not one of the girls) who firmly believes that the higher class you are, the better person. And there is an unflattering description of the home of an Irish family living in poverty, though the family itself is portrayed as loving. And a fistfight between two boys, if that sort of thing bothers you. All perfectly normal for the period in which the book was written.

Product Review: Giovanni Rana Fettucine Mushroom Sauce with Mild Italian Sausage Meal Kit

Saw this in Walmart’s fresh food section the other day and it sounded good, so I picked up a package. By the heft of it, I thought it would abundantly feed the two of us, so the eight bucks plus sticker price wasn’t too outlandish.

When I opened the outer wrap to prepare dinner, I found a very large microwaveable container, a package of fresh pasta, and a package of sauce. Fresh pasta, eh? That did make the sticker price sound better.

I spread the pasta out in the dish as instructed and shook up the sauce package, then poured it over. Looked and smelled like Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, but I like Campbells. The dish, however, wasn’t even half full. I started to have doubts as to whether it would feed both of us. Maybe it would expand on cooking? Nope.

Did cook perfectly fine in the microwave, however (I did it for 6 minutes since I’m not fond of al dente). Tasted quite good, too, more like something you’d get in a restaurant. As for servings, while the website claims the package makes 2.5 portions, I’d say 2 would be more realistic, and then only if you were serving it as a side dish, with perhaps bread and salad. And dessert, of course. Or wiener schnitzel. It would be awesome with that.

I was disappointed that other than the microwaveable container, none of the packaging was recyclable. That seems to be more and more common these days and I don't understand why.

 

Coconut Sour Cream Drop Cookies

Here’s another variant on the Sour Cream Drop Cookie recipe from the Betty Crocker Picture Cooky Book. I actually made it several weeks ago, but life got in the way.

Just for fun, I made it with banana yogurt rather than sour cream, thinking banana would go well with coconut. However, you could only taste the banana if you already knew it was there. Not a wasted experiment, though, as I now know yogurt can be substituted for sour cream, if that’s what you’ve got in the house.

½ cup shortening

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream* (half a 500 ml tub)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup shredded coconut

2 ¾ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

 

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs. Stir in sour cream and vanilla. Stir in coconut.

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir into shortening mixture. Chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 425⁰F. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until delicately brown.

Makes about 5 dozen.

Granola

With the price of everything, including breakfast cereal, sky high these days, I decided to pull out my old recipe for homemade granola. Making your own is easy, cheaper than store-bought, and you know what’s in it. Don’t like raisins? Allergic to nuts? No problem. Use your own add-ins. I like dark chocolate curls and banana chips.

 

6 cups quick cook oats

6 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cinnamon

3 ounces vegetable oil (coconut gives a nice flavour if you happen to have any on hand)

2/3 cup water

Add-ins (optional) such as raisins, almonds, dried pineapple…

Combine oatmeal, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir in vegetable oil and water. Spread thinly on one or two cookie sheets (the ones with sides, not the flat ones) and dry in a 225⁰F oven for two hours. Stir in desired add-ins.

Sportsmanlike Conduct

The winter I was eight, we must have had a lot of snowstorms followed by thaws. There was a small paved patch near our house, and that year it got covered with a layer of ice, turning it into a mini rink. While it was small, it was much more convenient than going to the official rink a few blocks away, which was also outdoors. This was especially so since we always had to walk to the rink wearing our skates (with guards on the blades, of course).

I was out on the mini rink by myself one morning, skating slowly around, when I saw a group of boys headed my direction and carrying hockey sticks. Since the ice wasn’t big enough for them to play on and me to skate on, I started moving faster, determined to enjoy the last few seconds before they kicked me off. After all, I was a girl and I was alone. I understood the laws of the playground.

The boys arrived, and we eyed each other warily. Though they must have been from the neighborhood, I didn’t know any of them, not surprisingly since they were a little older than me and we hadn’t been living there that long.

Finally, one of them spoke. “Do you know how to play hockey?”

I shook my head. I barely knew how to skate.

They looked at each other. Here it comes, I thought. “Okay, why don’t you play goalie?” he said. And so I did. They marked off a goal at one end with piles of clothing, and I stood in front of it, while they skated around and took shots. I even managed to stop a few. I felt pretty good about it as I walked back to the house.

Looking back, I realized the boys were probably happy to have someone else in net—that gave them all the chance to try and score goals. It was still very generous of them to share the ice with me (even though I was there first). Their willingness to share the game they loved, even with a girl, has left me with a fond spot for hockey in my heart ever since.

Burnt Butter Icing

Here’s the icing from the Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book to go with the Butterscotch Drop Cookies. It only makes enough to cover 30 so you’ll need to do a double batch if you want to ice all of them.

 

4 tablespoons butter

1 cup icing sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

hot water

Melt butter until golden brown. Blend in icing sugar and vanilla. Stir in 1-2 tablespoons hot water until icing spreads smoothly.

Note: Since the cookies are rather craggy, there is no way the icing is going to spread smoothly. Get it to a good modelling consistency and, once cool enough to handle, take a small quantity and smoosh it over the top of each cookie.

I haven’t tried this on anything else yet, but am thinking it would be good on cake or thinned down to a glaze for doughnuts.

 

https://www.katesvirtualkitchen.com/2024/02/butterscotch-drop-cookies.html

Butterscotch Drop Cookies

Here’s the first variant on the Sour Cream Drop Cookie recipe from my last post. They tell you to just substitute brown sugar for white and add nuts, but rather than make you go back and look, I’ve typed it out below.

I’ve been on a quest for a cookie that actually tastes like butterscotch for years, only to be disappointed every time. Even using butterscotch pudding mix or butter pecan cake mix didn’t work. So I didn’t think a simple swap of brown sugar for white would magically produce butterscotch. It didn’t, though it’s a good cookie, but the icing! That does taste like butterscotch. I may have to try using brown butter in some of my cookie recipes to see if that’s the answer I’ve been looking for.

½ cup shortening

1 ½ cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream (half a 500 ml tub)

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¾ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

2/3 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans zapped in my coffee grinder until coarse)

 

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs. Stir in sour cream and vanilla.

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir into shortening mixture. Stir in nuts. Chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 425⁰F. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until delicately brown.

Cool. Ice with burnt butter icing.

Makes about 5 dozen.

 

https://www.katesvirtualkitchen.com/2024/02/old-fashioned-sour-cream-drop-cookies.html

https://www.katesvirtualkitchen.com/2024/02/burnt-butter-icing.html