Recipe for Fun!

Welcome to Poetry Friday!  Today’s host is Liz at Liz Steinglass. Click over to her site where you’ll find a wealth of poetry-loving people, who are sharing that love with all of us.

A Poetry Challenge for NaPoMo

This year I had decided to participate in National Poetry Month by posting a poem that I had written with a food theme, each Friday of April. I’ve enjoyed stretching my writing muscles in this way, so I’m planning to continue posting on Fridays in this way. For now, I’m enjoying the food theme and have gone down the “rabbit hole” of food, family, and recipes.  This has me looking deeper into my family, memories, and my family’s history and heritage.

Me and my brother, Jeremy
1976

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

When I was a kid, I loved it when my mom made Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes. It was always so much fun eating them. I'm pretty sure she made them for me to take to school for a birthday celebration. Of course, since my birthday was in July, I brought them in the last week of school. Mom would also make them for my actual birthday and sometimes that would be a slumber party. Eating cupcakes in the form of an ice Cream Cone was always extra special. 

Naturally, I had to make them for my own girls. These cupcakes were a staple in our house. Birthdays, just for fun days, lemonade stand days, girl days, a fun activity to do with our cousins day, and even for snack days at school. On those days, we substituted a muffin recipe for the cupcake version. 

My daughter Sarah making them a couple weeks ago.
2020

Recipe for Fun

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Birthdays
Snack days
Lemonade~stand days
Just~for~fun days

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Favorite cake mix
Fill cones
just to the brim
Bake and cool

Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Waiting is so hard
Frosting on top
Lots of sprinkles
Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes

  

My girls and my nieces baking ice cream cone cupcakes
2006

Me and all my little bakers.
2006

Ingredients:

Flat bottom ice cream cones

Cake mix 

Frosting 

Sprinkles 

Directions:

1. Make cake mix according to package directions. 
2. Spoon batter into ice cream cones, leaving about ½ an inch from the top of the Cone. 
3. Carefully arrange cones inside muffin tin for baking. 
4. Bake according to package directions. 
5. Allow ice Cream Cone Cupcakes to cool thoroughly. 
6. Frost Cupcakes and embellish with sprinkles. 
7. Enjoy eating an ice Cream Cone cupcake anytime of year for any occasion!  
8. Read a great book while eating your ice cream cones. 

Here are some of my favorite cupcake books!

Grandma’s Potato Pancakes

Welcome to Poetry Friday. Today’s host is Christie at Wondering and Wandering.  Make sure to visit her site for lots more poetry inspiration.

Recently, I have been pondering potatoes and their versatility in a variety of recipes. Different members of my family and friends, all seem to have a go~to favorite recipe for preparing a potato dish. I originally began to create a list poem about all the wonderful ways that one can eat potatoes. But then I became interested in the history behind my grandmother’s recipe for making potato pancakes. I played around with a poem idea for potato pancakes but it wasn’t working out. Then I  decided to try my hand at writing a poem from grandma’s point of view (thanks to inspiration from Amy LV’s daily poetry chats ~  Poems Can BeWritten in the Voice of Another). I also ended up writing part of the poem using the structure of a recipe (Which Amy LV talked about today~ I was excited that I had used a structure that she had mentioned). Again, I’m not a pro but here’s my poem for now.

Grandma with my dad and aunt

My Grandma

Dinner

I work for a Jewish family.
I prepare meals for them
Potato latkes.
At I home I prepare meals for my family.
Potato pancakes
from my Irish and German heritage
Peel and grate potatoes and onion
Add an egg
and some flour
pinch of salt
sprinkle of pepper
Fry them up
for dinner
Potato pancakes
I learned from my mother
Different heritages
Different names
United
Potato latkes
Potato pancakes

Since I’ve had potatoes on my mind, I couldn’t help but think about these splendid picture books that feature the very versatile spud.  Happy reading. And happy eating!

Recipe

As I was working on a poem for this week’s post, I became immersed in searching through my old recipe boxes for my grandmother’s potato salad recipe. I don’t need it to make the salad (because I know it by heart) but rather for my post. As I spent the day reminiscing over the handwritten recipes, today’s poem bubbled up. I was also thinking about acrostic poems. Amy LV had written one at her blog, The Poem Farm. and in her wonderful Notebook Keeping videos, she’d talked about them. I also got to thinking about handwritten recipes shared between friends and family. When I was first married, I collected recipes for my own boxes- one for desserts and one for all the other categories. I treasure these small cards that not only hold a recipe, but also hold memories and a bit of each person who shared the recipe, through their unique style of handwriting. You can’t get any of that from recipes online. Here’s my tribute to handwritten recipe cards, a lost art.

My recipe boxes
(I have my grandmother’s metal box, too but it’s not pictured here)

My handwritten recipe cards 

Recipe

Recollections of memories from another time
Early days when directions were handwritten
Culinary delights, some ordinary, some extraordinary
Impressions of bygone days
Preserving handwriting of loved ones and friends
Engraved with stains- traces of the past to be treasured.



Here’s one of my recipes that I’ll share this week. It’s a favorite that my mother-in-law always made. I’d forgotten about it until I saw it this week. I am baking some as I write this!  Remembering her through her recipe.

Recipe from my mother-in-law

Pumpkin Cookies

For more poetry fun, stop over to Nix the Comfort Zone, where Molly is hosting the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Grandma’s Nut Roll

Welcome!  This is the second Friday of National Poetry Month, which means it’s time for me to share a food related poem that I’ve written.  This is my way of celebrating NPM. Today’s poem is a story poem that honors my Grandma, Hilda and her delicious nut roll that she made each year for our family’s Easter celebration.  

My Grandma (Hilda) is holding my mom (Elizabeth), my Grandpa (John), and my aunt (Mary Lou).
Photo by Amy

Grandma’s Nut Roll

Each year just before Easter, 

Grandma made her famous nut roll. 

Sometimes I got to help. 

Recipe, mostly in her head ~

a few notes scrawled in old cookbooks. 

The first day, she mixed the dough,

letting its yeasty goodness rise.

The next day, 

it was time to roll it out

and spread the sweet, nutty mixture

on the flattened circles of dough. 

Then we’d roll them into loaves.

As the nut roll baked

the smell was like heaven.

Afterwards, Grandma would give 

each family member their own nut roll

to be eaten on Easter Sunday,

along with hard boiled Easter eggs.

But the afternoon of baking,

we always sampled our hard work. 

“Time to taste!” Grandma announced. 

Now that Grandma’s 

no longer with us,

I carry on her tradition. 

Each year, as I pull out her “recipe,” 

I’m reminded of so many 

sweet memories

of Grandma and her nut roll. 

My art journal spread honoring Grandma and her recipes.
Photo by Amy

1

Grandma’s “recipes”
Photo by Amy

Grandma’s Nut Roll Recipe

Ingredients
5 cups flour.         5 Tbsp. sugar
Pinch of salt.        1/2 lb. butter
4 egg yolks.          1/2 pint sour cream
1 yeast pkg. dissolved in 1/4 c. Water & 1tsp. Sugar

Nut Filling 
1 lb. grated walnuts.         4 egg whites
1 cup sugar (or less).        1 Tbsp. Lemon juice

Mix ingredients

Directions
Sift flour, sugar, salt
Beat soft butter, add egg yolks, sour cream, and yeast mixture.
Knead until dough is soft (add milk if needed)
Place in fridge overnight.
Roll and fill. Let rise until double.
Brush with beaten egg & 1 Tbsp. Water
Bake at 350° For about 30 minutes.

Happy Easter!



Amy at The Poem Farm is hosting today’s Poetry Friday round up. Make sure you hop on over to The Poem Farm to sample all of the poetry goodness. 

Bananas for Banana Bread

It’s National Poetry Month and it’s Poetry Friday! I’m celebrating by writing a food poem and posting it here on my new blog. I’m not a “professional” poet but I am having fun and doing so much more writing.

The other day, as I pulled out my old, worn copy of the little children’s cookbook from Gold Medal Flour, called Alph~Bakery, to make banana bread, a poem of my own came to life in my head. As my bread baked in the oven, I began to write a poem on how to banana bread.

Here’s the little treasure of a cookbook that inspired my poem.

Photo by Amy 

Bananas for Banana Bread

Brown, squishy bananas
Hmmm, I scratch my head
It’s time for banana bread!
Heat oven to 350 degrees
With my recipe
This will be a breeze
Mash bananas
Mix in sugar, oil,
vanilla, and some eggs.
Stir in flour, soda,
Salt, and baking powder.
Add chocolate chips!
Grease the pan.
Pour in batter.
Place in oven
Baking takes at least an hour.
We start to drool!
Smells so delicious.
Let it cool.
Some for you.
Some for me.
Enjoy with milk.
Or have with tea.
Banana bread is such a treat
That my family loves to eat!

Bananas for Banana Bread!

This is the recipe that I follow for making the banana bread that my family goes bananas over. I always tweak it by adding chocolate chips and extra vanilla. 

Photo by Amy

A fun book that you may wish to read, while eating your banana bread, is Fruit Bowl by Mark Hoffmann, published by Knopf, 2018.  Tomato wants to join the fruit bowl, along with bananas, an apple, and others. Should he be allowed?  Is he a fruit?  This is a humorous story, as the fruit have discussions with tomato, via speech bubbles. This would be a fun read aloud, as well as, a fun reader’s theater. 

Photo from Amazon. 

Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe is hosting today’s Poetry Friday gathering. Click on over to read about all the wonderful poetry sharing that is happening today. 

Happy National Poetry Month 2020!

April is National Poetry Month!

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ve decided to write and share a poem each Friday (as part of Poetry Friday). I’ve recently read the book, Eat This Poem by Nicole Gulotta, where she shares a food related poem and then offers her thoughts on the poem, personal stories, and recipes inspired by the poem. It’s a delicious read and I’m trying many of  the recipes in my own kitchen.   Eat This Poem got me thinking about children’s poetry, food, and recipes that could be inspired by those poems. For the month of April, I will be writing my own poems about food and sharing a recipe or two to accompany my poem. I will also share other foodie published poems or books. I hope you’ll join me in this delicious feast of poetry goodness.

You can read more about National Poetry Month at Poets.org

Photo from Goodreads

Check out the round up of others who are participating the celebration of poetry at Jama Kim Rattigan’s site, Alphabet Soup. 

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