QUILTING BEES AND THE LADIES AID
I knew it was Ma’s turn to host the quilting bee at our house when she hauled out the quilting frame from the back closet and, with Pa’s help, put the frame together across the dining room table, which had been extended to its full length. For several weeks before this, Ma had been sewing together blocks, which would form the top cover for the quilt. Each quilt would also require a middle layer, called batting, and a bottom layer, one large piece of cloth.
Quilting bees were held one afternoon a week for several weeks in the dead of winter. (As I recall, the quilting bee moved around the neighborhood, each winter at a different home, as they helped each other make new quilts.) A half dozen or more neighbor women walked to our place and helped sew Ma’s quilt together. It was a slow, painstaking work. But the women enjoyed it immensely, for a quilting bee was as much a social event as work that needed to be done. Before the women left for home late in the afternoon, Ma prepared a simple lunch for them.
When Ma began cleaning the parlor, I knew one of two things was about to happen: either city relatives were planning a visit, or it was Ma’s turn to host the Ladies Aid, an organization associated with Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Wild Rose. The group numbered about eight or ten, plus the pastor, who always attended.
Pa often joked that to be hired as a pastor in our church, the fellow had to be able to balance a Bible on one knee and a lunch plate on the other. I never observed this pastoral balancing act, as Ma would not let my brothers or me near the Ladies Aid gathering. I considered it some sort of secret society, and it was only years later that I learned what they did at their meetings: a little Bible study, some discussion of how foreign missions needed help, and news about what was going on in the church (depending on how much the pastor was willing to share of his sometimes rather juicy insider information, such as who had not been seen in church recently and why, or possible reasons that the young couple recently married had to move up the wedding date).
After the more formal gathering, Ma served lunch. She wanted her Ladies Aid lunch to be perfect—and if possible just a notch better than the lunch served at the last gathering at another member’s home. She even caught on to the idea that if you called the lunch a luncheon it somehow increased its value.
2 cooked chicken breasts, chopped
1 cup chopped celery
⅔ cup mayonnaise
½ cup toasted slivered almonds
2 tablespoons diced fresh onion
Dash of vinegar
Sour cream to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh fruit can be added for flavor: blueberries, sliced grapes, raspberries
Sliced bread and lettuce, for serving
Mix all ingredients together well. Serve on bread with lettuce.
Pecan Finger Rolls
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
¾–1 cup ground pecans
½ cup powdered sugar, plus more for rolling out
2 teaspoons vanilla
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat butter until creamy. Mix in flour, ground pecans, ½ cup powdered sugar, and vanilla. Mix well and set in refrigerator to chill. Roll about a teaspoon at a time in palm of hand to make a finger shape. Bake on cookie sheet until set but not brown, 10 to 12 minutes. When baked, roll in powdered sugar.
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a cookie sheet. In medium bowl, beat the brown sugar and butter until creamy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir the sifted ingredients into the butter mixture until well blended. Roll the dough into ¾-inch balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake until lightly browned around the edges, 8 to 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
Pineapple Refrigerator Dessert
16 graham crackers, crushed
¼ cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons sugar
32 marshmallows
½ cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup whipped cream
Grease a 9 × 13-inch pan. Mix crushed graham crackers, butter, and sugar and press into bottom of pan, reserving some of the mixture for the top.
Melt the marshmallows with the milk in a double boiler or in a metal mixing bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Cool. Add the pineapple and whipped cream. Spread fruit mixture over the graham cracker mixture. Sprinkle with the rest of the cracker mixture. Set in the refrigerator overnight.
2¼ cups shell macaroni
1 pound ground beef
2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons melted shortening
⅔ cup tomato puree
1 cup canned tomatoes mixed with 1 cup water
1 can corn (16 ounces)
1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans, drained
2 teaspoons salt
Dash of pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Boil noodles in salty water until tender and drain. Brown the ground beef and onion in melted shortening in a frying pan. Add the tomato puree and the tomato-water mixture. Add corn and kidney beans, if desired. Add the salt and pepper. Add the cooked noodles to coat with the sauce. Stir well. Put the mixture in a baking dish and bake for 1 hour.
Whipped Lime Cottage Cheese Salad
1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple
1 package (3 ounces) lime-flavored gelatin
12 marshmallows, cut up fine
2 cups cottage cheese
Drain juice from pineapple and add enough water to juice to make 1 cup liquid. Heat liquid to boiling and dissolve gelatin in it. Add marshmallows to hot gelatin liquid. Let cool.
After gelatin has cooled and partly set, whip into a feather-like consistency. Fold in drained crushed pineapple and cottage cheese. Pour into 2-quart mold and refrigerate until set.
1½ cups boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup sugar
½ cup shortening
2 eggs, beaten
1½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
TOPPING
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 × 13-inch pan. Mix the boiling water and baking soda. Pour the water over the dates and let cool.
Beat the sugar and shortening together in a large bowl until creamy. Add the beaten eggs and mix. In another bowl, mix the flour, dates, baking powder, and salt together. Add the flour mixture to the sugar and egg mixture. Pour the batter into pan.
To make the topping, mix the chocolate chips, nuts, and sugar together. Sprinkle over the batter. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool completely. No frosting needed!