Joy to the Rescue!

I remember a day when my mother (Alberta Kennedy) was cooking dinner for the farmers who had been helping my dad (George Kennedy). The gravy was not thickening and my mother was getting very nervous and upset. Joy calmly walked to the cupboard and got the cornstarch and made a thickening. The gravy thickened and was delicious and she calmed my mother down. I remember that many times when I am making gravy.

- Phyllis Kennedy Bishop

daughter of Alberta and George Kennedy 

(Friends of Joy and Hollis Miller and Neoma and Ben Ridlen) 

Joy Miller's Gravy Method

Ingredients:

Meat Drippings

Splash of Cream or Milk (add more until desired richness is met)

Cornstarch (for clear gravy) or Flour (for opaque gravy)

Water

To make the thickening agent incorporate the cornstarch/flour into the water at a ratio of 1.5 parts cornstarch/flour to 1 part water. This will be used later.

Heat the meat drippings in a cast iron skillet over medium heat. 

Add the cream to the meat drippings and stir constantly with a wisk.

Bring the mixture to a low boil.

Be sure to continue stirring to prevent burning.

Once it starts to boil you can start to add the thickening mixture. 

Add a little bit of the thickening mixture in at a time and stir constantly to prevent lumps. 

Add the thickening mixture in as needed until the desired consistency of the gravy is met.

Bring the mixture back to a low boil and continue to stir until done. 

When the gravy is done you will see the surface change from a dull sheen to a satiny shine. 

Remove from heat and enjoy!

Thanks for the great story Phyllis!

Favorite Grandma Joy Recipes

Grandma Joy holding Marcia with Fluffy by her side (Sept. 1962)

My sister Tammy had family members write up recipes for a cookbook shower present when I got married. These are two of my favorite recipes that Grandma Joy put in that book:

The Banana Salad is a long time favorite. Don't miss my added note at the bottom. This is one of those secret recipes within a recipe. Grandma wrote up the original recipe but that's not the way she made it. I always loved it when Grandma or Aunt Marie brought it to a summer family picnic. We often met once or twice a summer in between our house and the farms to eat, play softball, and sometimes exchanged kids. Donna and Tammy would spend two weeks together, one at our house and one in SW Iowa. Kathy and I would do the same at the other location.

I always like Grandma's No Bake Cookies and even did a 4-H demonstration making them. I use the peanut butter instead of adding nuts.

- Marcia Chadly

daughter of Max and Shirley Miller 

Banana Salad 

Joy Miller's handwriting; Marcia Chadly's handwritten note at bottom

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

2 heaping tbsp flour

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp vinegar

1/2 dozen bananas sliced

1/4 to 1/2 cup (Spanish) salted peanuts

Put 1 1/2 cups milk in a sauce pan. 

Heat until bubbles show being careful not to scorch.

Beat 2 egg yolks, add other 1/2 cup of milk, flour, sugar. Stir until smooth.

Add to hot milk and cook until it thickens. Cool and add:

            1 tbsp vinegar

            1/2 dozen bananas sliced
            1/4 to 1/2 cup (Spanish) salted peanuts 

Serves: 10 or 12

*Marcia's Note: Grandma doesn't add the vinegar! 

*Joy Miller's Note: My Aunt (Martha Spratt Parker) always brought this to family dinners. The original recipe calls for 5 cents salted peanuts so it is over 60 years old. 

Fourth of July At Grandma Joy’s

The cousins left to right: Beth Herzberg, Will Figgins, Kevin Herzberg, Jennifer Figgins

There were so many things that I loved about going to Grandma’s house for the Fourth of July, but my all-time favorite part was seeing the whole family. Every year the whole family would get together for a picnic outside. The day’s events usually started off with the guys spending the better part of the afternoon in the garage taking turns cranking away on the ice cream maker. Every once in a while if we were lucky the guys would let one of us kids have a turn, but that never lasted very long!

While the guys were cranking away on the ice cream the ladies would be setting up a table outside in the yard, filling it with fix’ins for the wiener-dog roast and the most wonderful side salads. We would have coleslaw, potato salad, sometimes if you were lucky banana salad, deviled eggs, celery sticks, carrot sticks, and it wouldn’t be complete without a variety of Jello salads! Yumm! Not to mention an array of delicious desserts!

The kids always had the job of gathering up sticks for the fire and readying the roasting sticks. When we had enough sticks stacked up by the old willow tree the guys would light the fire. I always thought that the best part of the wiener-dog roast was that you got to pick your own stick. I didn’t even have to share it! It was so cool! It was also the one time that you were allowed to play with your food. It’s not everyday that you get to stab a hotdog with a stick and swing it over a fire!

Marie, Mary, Marlin, and Max roasting hotdogs (1966)

After we successfully burned all of the hotdogs and stuffed ourselves to the gills it was marshmallow time! Stuffed or otherwise there is always room for s’mores, they just smoosh and melt into the cracks! Donna was always in charge of supervising the s’more making, after all she is the expert marshmallow burner. Still to this day I have never seen a blacker marshmallow than hers! I remember asking her one year why she always burned them to a fluffy crisp and she replied it was the only way they were good, and besides that how else did I think she kept her hair so dark and curly!?! You know after all it was the black coffee that shrunk her… she used to be over 6’ tall… and it was the burnt marshmallows that turned her hair black and curly! LOL

Barb roasting marshmallows. (1969?)

Then around dusk the guys would gather together at the end of the lane and assemble the fireworks show for the night. While they were getting ready the rest of us would set up lawn chairs and spread blankets at the top of the lane. While everyone waited us kids would put on a sparkler show. We would scroll our names through the air and spin around and around until we were too dizzy to stand! Mostly I think our show kept us busy and somewhat served as a bug deterrent …although, I don’t recall it ever working very well on the Junebugs. Nasty little critters!

Once the large fireworks were done we got to light our glow snakes. Oh, and just for the record if your much older cousins tell you it's okay to stomp the snakes when they are all done growing… don’t listen to them! Mom had a much different idea about that! She wasn’t too excited to find us covered head to toe in black soot! After the fireworks were said and done the party would move indoors for a night full of pinochle. Then to finish off the night, well before us kids went to bed, everyone would have a nice big bowl of homemade ice cream! Yumm!

- Jennifer Figgins
daughter of Jesse Figgins and Mary Bryan

Homemade Ice Cream (Uncooked Vanilla Ice Cream)

Now this isn't Grandma Joy's recipe, I'm still looking for it, but this year we used the following recipe and it turned out just delicious!

Ingredients:
5 pasteurized eggs
2 cups sugar
3 cups cream
3 tbsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
5 1/2-6 cups milk

Beat eggs until light and lemon-colored; gradually add sugar.

Continue adding cream, vanilla extract and salt; chill.

Pour mixture into the chilled container of a 1 gallon dasher type freezer.

Add milk, filling container two-thirds full; cover tightly.

Churn-freeze according to manufacturers directions.

Yield: 1 gallon

_  ________________  _
 

Apple Pie  (Mrs. Shellberg)

Recipes by Mrs. Shellberg, Joy Miller's handwriting.

Ingredients:
6 medium sized apples
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tbsp flour
cinnamon & butter as desired
cream or milk

Mix 3/4 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tbsp in pie shell.

Place Sliced apples on top.

Mix the remaining flour and sugar together and sprinkle over apples

Drop butter and cinnamon on top of apples.

Cover with crust and brush crust with cream or milk before baking in 400 degree oven for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

_  ________________  _

Dutch Apple Pie  (Mrs. Shellberg)

Ingredients: 

6 medium sized sliced apples

3 tbsp flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream 

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

Mix flour, sugar, and sour cream together.

Place apples in pie shell.

Pour sour cream mixture over apples.

Sprinkle remaining sugar and cinnamon on top.

Cover with crust and bake same as above Apple Pie recipe.

_  ________________  _

Here’s to a Happy 4th of July!

 

Friday Night Homemade Ice Cream & Cake

When I was growing up we spent every Friday night (it seemed like, anyway) with Jack and Gertrude Holmes and their family. One Friday Mom and Gertrude would clean our house and we'd have supper and make homemade ice cream and the big folks would play pinochle. The next week it was cleaning the other house and supper and ice cream and pinochle.

We kids all loved summer nights when the darkness was warm and lit up by fireflies. We would run around playing hide and seek while my Dad and Jack sat on the front step and used the flat side of an axe to smash big chunks of ice in a gunny sack. They broke the ice into small pieces perfect for packing around the round metal cylinder holding the creamy mixture that would become the yummy ice cream. They would turn the handle until the ice cream froze and then sometimes we got to lick the inside paddle while the ice cream was dished up for everyone to share.  There were always big pieces of chocolate cake to go with the ice cream.

Hollis Miller breaking ice with his axe

We always petitioned the adults to make chocolate ice cream, but they wouldn't. Leroy and I, being the oldest of the youngest four children, figured out that mixing chocolate cake in vanilla ice cream made a nice substitute for chocolate ice cream. It was working very well until the younger two kids started to imitate us and made some messes. We were banned from mixing cake and ice cream after that. Until we came up with the argument that sometimes the cake just fell into the ice cream and we were certainly willing to eat the result rather than throw it away. Again, that worked well until the younger two kids started to imitate us. <sigh>
 

- Mary Bryan

daughter of Hollis and Joy Miller 

Brownstone Front Cake

Recipe by Margaret Ridlen (Mama) in Joy Miller's handwriting

Ingredients: 
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup lard
2 eggs
1 tsp soda
1 cup sour cream
2 heaping tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla 

Cream 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/2 cup lard.

Add 2 eggs (unbeaten) to the creamed mixture and beat well.

In a separate bowl mix 1 tsp soda 1 cup sour cream .

Mix 2 heaping tablespoons cocoa with a 1/2 cup boiling water.

Add cocoa mixture to batter; then stir in 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt.

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and beat well.

Pour batter into an 8" x 11" pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. You can also divide the batter evenly between 2 or 3 round layer pans.

Once the cake is cool to the touch frost with cooked fudge frosting. 

 *Note from Joy Miller: I have never been able to make this cake successfully using an electric mixer.