12 egg yolks

1 lb. confectioner’s sugar

1 quart bourbon

2 quarts cream

1 quart milk

6 egg whites

½ teaspoon salt

Beat 12 egg yolks until light. (5 minutes on high).  Color should be light yellow.

Beat in gradually:

1 lb. confectioner’s sugar

Add very slowly, beating constantly:

1 quart bourbon

2 quarts cream

1 quart milk

Whip until stiff:

6 egg whites

½ teaspoon salt

Fold them lightly into other ingredients.  Serve sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg. 

Makes about 5 quarts.

My grandmother, Helen Allen Williams, passed down this recipe and I remember she used to make eggnog on Christmas morning in her Monahans home.  She served it in a silver pitcher and tray set that she received as a wedding gift.  I now treasure that pitcher and tray and make the recipe for my family as it has become a favorite tradition to be served on Christmas morning.

“Then there was this Christmas morning at our house when lots of people came to dance in the living room and drink eggnog.  The rugs were always pulled back after having been rolled up.  Fiddlers made the music.  The whiskey came from a vault in the sheriff’s office, confiscated bootleg.  I can remember going with mother to get the whiskey.  Of course, Reeder Webb, the sheriff and his wife, Rose, always came to the dances.”

-excerpt from My Name is Helen Glenn Allen Williams, January 1999

48 rolls (makes one jelly roll pan full of rolls)

2 c butter= (4) 8 oz. sticks-[half of the butter at room temp]

3/4 c sugar

2 t salt

1 c All Bran Cereal

1 c boiling water

2 pkgs yeast

1 c water heated to temp specified on yeast package

2 eggs (well beaten)

6 c all purpose flour (plus more for rolling dough out)

Place 1 cup of room temperature butter [(2) 8 oz. sticks], the sugar, salt and All Bran Cereal in a large crock or bowl.  Pour 1 cup of boiling water over these and stir until all are melted and the bran is dissolved. 

In a separate small bowl, dissolve the two packages of yeast in 1 c of water heated to the temperature specified on the yeast package.  Use a good thermometer and then a tiny whisk or a fork to stir and dissolve the yeast.

Use your thermometer and check the temperature of the bran mixture to ensure it is not above the highest temperature specified for the yeast.  If its too hot, wait a few minutes for it to cool.  Then, add the 2 beaten eggs and the yeast mixture to the bran mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon.

SIFT before measuring and add 6 c of All Purpose flour.  Beat the batter with the wooden spoon.  Grease your jelly roll pan with butter.  Melt the remaining butter and using a pastry brush, spread melted butter on top of dough.

There are 2 options now.  

Option #1- Cover the bowl and let dough rise in a warm place until double in size.  Punch down a couple of times and proceed to “Rolling Out Instructions”

Option #2-Cover the bowl with tightly crimped foil and place in refrigerator for up to three days.    Remove from frig about 5 hours before baking.  Punch dough down a couple of times.  Rest the dough for up to 30 minutes.

Rolling Out Instructions

Flour your hands and flour your cutting surface. (I use a cold slab of marble).  Scoop the dough out of the bowl and flour it just enough where it isn’t sticky.  Roll with a rolling pin (but I find I can press it out with my hands just as well) to about a 3/8” thickness.  Using the pastry brush, spread melted butter on the surface of the dough. Lift one edge of the dough and fold a top layer of dough over onto a bottom layer.  Using a round cutter 1 5/8” in diameter, cut rolls out and place next to each other in prepared pan.  Scoop remaining scraps together and roll out again (using as little flour as possible) repeating cutter process.  Using pastry brush, spread melted butter over rolls in pan.  Place someplace very warm but not hot in kitchen to rise double in size (takes about 4 hours).

Bake in a preheated 420 degree oven for 18 minutes.  Rolls should be very brown on top and the centers should be cooked and soft, but not doughy.  (This recipe can be doubled or tripled as needed)

This recipe originated from Ollie Mae Lake Arrington’s mother-in-law, Sarah Caroline Burnette Arrington (wife of Texas Ranger, Capt. George W. Arrington).  “Miss Ollie” likely baked these rolls for family dinners for 50 + years.  Even if you have no experience baking a yeast bread, you should try this roll recipe;  you will be loved and appreciated for it.  These rolls are a favorite of all who have been privileged to have them!  It’s a family tradition for our Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve dinners.  

(for a small tenderloin or 4 thick pork chops)

1 T fresh lemon juice

3 T white wine

2 T teriyaki sauce

1 T soy sauce

1 T Worcestershire sauce

fresh or dried rosemary

Combine all ingredients except rosemary and pour over meat.  Sprinkle with a few rosemary leaves and marinate for 1 hour (rotating meat once) and adding a few more rosemary leaves.  If grilling thick pork chops, build a hot charcoal fire, and cook chops off the fire -about 25 minutes a side with lid closed.  Double or triple recipe as needed if cooking a large tenderloin or many chops.

My Dad, William Lake “Bill” Arrington I (son of Ollie Mae Lake Arrington) concocted this marinade in the 1970’s.  Slaw and pineapple pair delightfully with this pork.

1/2 c mayonnaise

1/2 T white sugar

1 t lemon juice

1/8 t salt

3 apples-peeled, cored and chopped

1 c thinly sliced celery

1/2 c chopped walnuts

In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, sugar, lemon juice, and salt.  Stir in the apples, celery, walnuts. Chill until ready to serve.

Waldorf Salad was a favorite of my grandmother, Ollie Mae Lake Arrington (daughter of Mary Daggett Lake).  She served it often at Sunday family dinners in the 1970's and 1980's and likely served it to her bridge club, etc.

According to Wikipedia, “ Waldorf salad is named for the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, where it was first created for a charity ball given in honor of the St. Mary's Hospital for Children on March 14, 1896. 

The Waldorf-Astoria’s Oscar Tschirky developed or inspired many of the hotel's signature dishes and is widely credited with creating the salad recipe. In 1896, the salad appeared in The Cook Book by "Oscar of the Waldorf^".

The original recipe was just apples, celery and mayonnaise.  It did not include nuts but they had been added by the time the recipe appeared in The Rector Cookbook in 1928.”

1 jar Cherries

1 can crushed Pineapple

1 small pkg Cherry Jell-o

1 small Coke, heated

1 cup Coke, cold

1 cup nuts

Mix all together.  Add nuts.  Chill.

This jello salad was one of my grandmother’s favorite salads.  She, Ollie Mae Lake Arrington (daughter of Mary Daggett Lake), served it often at Sunday family dinners in the 1970's and 1980's.

Left over roast beef

Mayonnaise (not sweet)

Chopped onion

Chopped Dill Pickles

Salt and Pepper

White Bread

Grind the beef in a meat grinder. (You could mince with a knife or use a food processor).  Add just enough mayonnaise to bind.  Add onion, pickles, and salt and pepper to taste.  In the old days, this was served on white bread.

William Lake “Bill” Arrington I often talked about the Beef Salad sandwiches he had growing up.  In the summers, he had to work the fields on a tractor from daylight until dark at his father’s Arrington Ranch in Hemphill County, TX) on these days, his mother (Ollie Mae Lake Arrington) would bring him (2) beef salad sandwiches for supper.  He said it was a wonderful sight to see her driving towards the field with those sandwiches and a cold jug of fresh cow’s milk.  (He also related that when he was a young boy, they kept a side of beef hanging on the north side of the ranch house and would cut off pieces as needed for cooking- I guess this was how it was done before deep freezers).

Chicken

Fish

Campfire Rotisserie Chicken

Get your camp fire to a point where there are plenty of hot coals in the pit.  Meanwhile truss your chickens and rib them with butter and salt and pepper (perhaps our forbears stuffed them with wild onions and other foraged herbs?)

Skewer the chickens firmly onto the rotisserie spit over your campfire.  The chickens should be about 30″ above your hot fire. Smoke is good and heat is good, but flames are bad! Don’t let the flames touch your chicken.

Rotate spit every 20-30 mins (10-15 if your fire is roaring). Add wood to the fire as needed to keep fire nice and hot but don't let flames touch the meat.  Do not leave your slow-cooking chicken unattended. Depending on the size, temperature of the fire and wind conditions, cooking times may vary greatly.

Cook chickens for 4-8 hours depending on how hot your fire is. Chicken is done when thickest part of bird is 165˚. Let meat rest for 10-20 minutes before carving. 

To Roast Fish in the ashes of a campfire:

Burn the flame down to red hot coals and flatten an area large enough for the catch of the day. Score the fish skin crosswise into diamond shapes before laying the fish into the coals. Make sure to flip it only once, allowing the coals to create a charred skin that will peel when you’re ready to eat. Season the flesh with a little salt, butter, and a squeeze of lemon and it’s delicious!

The other variant of this method is the fish-on-a-stick style. With your cleaned and gutted catch, slide a sturdy, sharpened stick through the mouth and poke it into the flesh at the rear of the rib cage. Jab some smaller sticks through the belly meat perpendicular to your spit stick in order to stabilize the fish and keep it from spinning or falling off. Then you slowly roast the fish near the flames, much like you would a marshmallow, until it’s cooked through.

LAURA ALICE PALMER DAGGETT (WIFE OF E. M. “BUD” DAGGETT) TOLD OF Family picnics in her book, “REMINISCENCES OF MY LIFE AND FAMILY”. 

“Then, there were the delightful days when we all, sometimes just our family, and sometimes friends of the children as well, would drive (by horse and wagon) to our ranch on Big Fossil for the day -taking part of our lunch and adding to it by barbecuing chickens (wild prairie chickens?) on the camp fire and roasting fish in the ashes which the boys and sometimes the girls, too, would catch from the creek.

Pork Tamales

3 1/2 lbs pork shoulder or 3 1/2 lbs pork butt, trimmed of fat and cut up

10 cups of Trinity River water or Cold Springs water

1 medium onion, quartered

3 garlic cloves, minced

3 1/2 teaspoons salt

4 cups red chili sauce (see recipe below)

3/4 cup shortening or lard

6 cups mass harina

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

50 dried corn husks about 8” long (hand prepared by your sons)

Red Chili Sauce

(Makes 4 cups)

15 large, dried, chiles (such as Anaheim, New Mexico, California, or pasilla

4-5 garlic cloves

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons flour

2 teaspoons melted butter

Pork Tamales Instructions:

In a 5 qt Dutch oven, bring pork, water, onion, garlic and 1 1/2 salt to boil.

• Simmer covered, about 2 1/2 hours or until meat is very tender.
• Remove meat from broth and allow both meat and broth to cool. (Chilling the broth will allow you to easily remove the fat if you desire to do so).
• Shred the meat using 2 forks, discarding fat.
• Strain the broth and reserve 6 cups.
• In a large sauce pan, heat the red chili sauce and add meat; simmer, covered for 10 minutes.
• To make masa beat shortening on medium speed in a large bowl for 1 minute.
• In a separate bowl, stir together masa harina, baking powder and 2 teaspoons salt.
• Alternately add masa harina mixture and broth to shortening, beating well after each addition. (Add just enough broth to make a thick, creamy paste).
• In the mean time, soak corn husks in warm water for at least 20 minutes; rinse to remove any corn silk and drain well.
• To assemble each tamale, spread 2 tablespoons of the masa mixture on the center of the corn husk (each husk should be 8 inches long and 6 inches wide at the top. If husks are small, overlap 2 small ones to form one. If it is large, tear a strip from the side).
• Place about 1 tablespoon meat and sauce mixture in the middle of the masa.
• Fold in sides of husk and fold up the bottom.
• Place a mound of extra husks or a foil ball in the center of a steamer basket placed in a Dutch oven.
• Lean the tamales in the basket, open side up.
• Add water to Dutch oven just below the basket.
• Bring water to boil and reduce heat.
• Cover and steam 40 minutes, adding water when necessary.
• A luxury Grandmother Daggett didn’t have: To freeze these for future meals, leave them in the husks and place them in freezer bags. To reheat, thaw and wrap in a wet paper towel and reheat in the microwave for 2 minutes for one or two or re-steam them just until hot.

Red Chili Sauce Instructions:

Remove stems and seeds from dried chili peppers.

• Place peppers in a single layer on a baking sheet.
• Roast in 350°F oven for 2 to 5 minutes or until you smell a sweet roasted aroma, checking often to avoid burning.
• Remove from oven and soak in enough hot water to cover for about 30 minutes or until cool.
• Put peppers and 2 1/2 cups of the soaking water into a blender (save the remaining soaking water).
• Add garlic, cumin and salt.
• Cover and blend until smooth.
• In a 2-quart sauce pan, stir flour into melted butter over med heat until browned.
• Carefully stir in blended chili mixture.
• Simmer uncovered for 5 to 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. (If sauce gets too thick, stir in up to 1 cup of the remaining soaking water until you reach the desired thickness)
• Note: When working with chilies, use rubber gloves to protect your skin, and avoid contact with your eyes. Wash hands throughly with soap and water to remove all of the chili oils.

Laura Alice Palmer Daggett in her book, “Reminiscences of My Life and My Family” wrote “…often on Saturdays we made tamales.  The boys would cut and gather the shucks at the barn, and I would do the rest.”  Perhaps this recipe for pork tamales is similar to hers?

Use any cooked, left-over beef (such as a roast).  If bones are left, boil in two cups or more water for several hours to make a good stock.

Cube all beef

1 or 2 Onions, chopped large

2 or 3 Irish Potatoes, chopped large

Saute in bacon grease onions, add potatoes and stir, then add meat.  After several minutes, add liquid.  Plain water will do.

Cook covered on top burner about an hour, low. 

Add seasoning and Lea & Perrins for flavor.

Remove lid at last if still soupy. Also a light smooth flour and water paste can be used to thicken.  This is so good with a top pie crust and put into a hot oven for about 15 minutes.

This recipe is from Helen Daggett Allen.

1 8 oz. can Red Salmon, do not drain

½ Onion, chopped

1 Egg

½ c. cracker crumbs

2 Tbsp. Flour

Salt

Pepper

Extra Cracker Crumbs

Mix Salmon with onion, egg, crackers & flour.

Season with salt & pepper.

To form Croquets, roll a handful of salmon mixture into a 2 inch log and flatten ends.  Will look like a large hush puppy.  You can also form into patties.  Makes 4 to 6.

Coat Salmon Croquets or Patty with cracker crumbs. 

Just cover bottom of skillet with cooking oil & fry over medium heat until brown on all sides.

Serve with Catsup!

This was originally Helen Daggett Allen’s recipe. 

My family ate these all the years I was growing up, made in the same kitchen of her beloved ranch house!  It was always a treat!

1 can Tomato Soup

¾ c. Vinegar

¼ c. Sugar

1 ¼ c. Wesson Oil

2 tsp. Salt

½ tsp Paprika

1 tsp. Onion, chopped fine

2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce

1 clove Garlic, chopped fine

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly and beat with a rotary egg beater.  Bottle, seal and it will keep indefinitely.  Refrigerate, of course.

From my Grandmother, Helen Allen Williams:

This recipe is by Mrs. Sam Ross, wife of the former owner of Fort Worth Horse and Mule Barn.  Aunt Lake sent it to my Mother, Helen Daggett Allen.  

Original letter with recipe attached.

½ c. Butter

2 c. Sugar (little extra sugar)

2 Eggs

1 T. Milk

3 ½ c. Flour

3 tsps. Baking Powder

Flavoring: Lemon & Vanilla & Nutmeg

Mix all together.

Roll thin and cut.  Bake, not too fast.  Just very light brown.

Recipe from Helen Allen Williams. 

This recipe was passed down from her Mother, Helen Daggett Allen.

½ lb. Dried Prunes

½ c. Powdered Sugar

½ pint Whipping Cream

Cover prunes with water and boil.  When cool, remove seeds, mash up and add Powdered Sugar.  I used by mixer to beat up prunes with powdered sugar. Then beat whipping cream, whipped stiff.  Blend together.  Chill.

From my Grandmother, Helen Allen Williams:

I was introduced to this dessert at the Lily B. Clayton School in Fort Worth in the fifth grade [that would have been about 1928]. This was Allen’s favorite dessert for many of his younger years.

3 Tbsps. olive oil per 1/2 cup unpopped kernels.  

This will yield about 4 regular servings (2 quarts) of popped corn 

Put your pot over medium heat, pour in the olive oil and the kernels, stir to coat wth oil and keep stirring occasionally until the kernels start to sizzle.  Put the lid on the pot and nudge the dial halfway between medium and medium-high.  Don’t go anywhere!  Soon, but not too soon, popping noises will come from the pot. After that’s been happening a minute or two, pick up the pot with the lid closed and shake it up and down.  This is to prevent the dreaded problem of unpopped kernels.  You’ll hear them in there taunting you.  Let the kernels continue popping, but if you see any wisps of smoke escaping, immediately lower your heat to medium.

When the pops have subsided to an eruption every couple of seconds, turn off the heat. Set the lid askew so that some steam can escape, because soggy pops are an abomination. After a minute of steam release, pour the popcorn onto a rimmed baking sheet, or your biggest, widest bowl.

Immediately drizzle ¼ cup olive oil or melted butter or coconut oil all over the popcorn. This needs to happen while it’s still hot, and then you have to toss thoroughly and with the intention of coating all the kernels with oil. When they’re glossed up, sprinkle salt, or chile flakes over the top  liberally, then toss vigorously to disperse it. If you want to add grated cheese, Parmesan cheese or lots of pepper or “what have you”, you should feel free to do so, though Grandmother Daggett would probably not go for that kind of coloring outside the lines.  The important thing to remember is that you need to add the fat first, then add anything dry—spices, salt, etc. and toss, toss, toss.  Otherwise, your dry seasonings won't have anything to stick to.

Your ancestral grandmother would advise: “To make popped corn, you need a cooking pot (with a lid) which offers room for the popped corn to expand.  The lid keeps the popping corn from flying all over your kitchen.  I am an orderly, no-nonsense frontier woman.  I would never allow popcorn to fly over the kitchen.  You also want to use a pot that conducts heat well.  A large Dutch oven is ideal, but you can “make do” with a heavy duty stockpot.

Likely, Grandmother Daggett did not have olive oil in her pantry.  Hopefully she had vegetable oil, but maybe she had to use butter or lard?

You might find yourself eating more popcorn than you have before when you try Grandmother Daggett’s method.  And, you might like to know that popcorn is a whole grain meaning  it’s likely good for you.

• 1/2 cup Molasses
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 ½ Tbsp. vinegar
• ½ cup water
• ¼ tsp. cream of tartar
• ¼ cup butter
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda

1.In a heavy bottomed pot, combine molasses, sugar, vinegar and water. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring often, until mixture reaches 255 F (or when a small amount dropped in cold water turns hard).

2.Remove from heat and add butter, cream of tartar and baking soda. Pour onto a buttered, sided cookie sheet.

3.When cool enough to handle, pull pieces of taffy until light in color. (Butter hands before pulling).

4.Twist and cut into 1” pieces. Wrap in waxed paper.

LAURA ALICE PALMER DAGGETT (WIFE OF E. M. “BUD” DAGGETT) TOLD OF PULLING TAFFY WITH HER CHILDREN IN HER BOOK, “REMINISCENCES OF MY LIFE AND FAMILY”. LIKELY, THIS RECIPE IS SIMILAR TO HERS.