Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble: A Novel (31 page)

Sauté 2 cups of finely chopped celery and 1 small finely chopped onion in
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cup of butter until tender.

5 cups cornbread, crumbled (can make early and freeze)

2 cups herb-seasoned stuffing mix

2 teaspoons rubbed sage

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teaspoon poultry seasoning

Salt and pepper, to taste

3 eggs, beaten

14
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-ounce can ready-to-serve chicken broth

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine the cornbread, stuffing mix, sage, poultry seasoning, and salt and pepper in a large bowl. Add the celery mixture, eggs, and chicken broth. Stir until moist. Pour into a 13 × 9 × 2-inch baking dish. Bake for about 30 minutes.

(Lillian says that this looks complicated but it’s not. She says you can cut down on preparation time, especially on a busy holiday, by chopping up your onions and celery the day before and storing them in Ziploc bags in the refrigerator till you’re ready for them the next morning. And you really should make your cornbread about a week ahead of time and freeze it. That way, the dressing can be put together and ready for the oven in just a few minutes.)

These next four recipes are for vegetable casseroles. As you know, every meal (except breakfast) should have at least two vegetables, the fresher the better. If you ever want to do plain vegetables, like green beans, or collard, turnip, or mustard greens, plan to spend all day on them. Once you’ve shelled, snapped, picked over, and washed them, then run to the store for a streak-of-lean and let them cook for several hours, you’ll probably decide to open cans the next time.

10
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-ounce can cream of chicken soup

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cup mayonnaise

Juice of
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lemon

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teaspoon curry powder

Mix all the ingredients together and stir well. No need to heat—just pour over hot broccoli (fresh or frozen) and serve.

Makes about 3 cups.

1 stick margarine

8-ounce package Pepperidge Farm cornbread stuffing

2 pounds yellow squash, cooked, drained, and mashed

10
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-ounce can cream of celery soup

1 cup sour cream

2-ounce jar chopped pimento

5-ounce water chestnuts, drained and chopped fine

2 small onions, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Melt the margarine and, in a bowl, pour it over the stuffing. Line the bottom and sides of a 9 × 11-inch baking dish with half the stuffing.

Mix the remaining ingredients together and pour into the lined dish. Sprinkle the remaining stuffing on top. Bake for 30 minutes.

Serves 6 to 8.

Three 10-ounce packages frozen chopped broccoli, cooked and drained

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cup mayonnaise

10
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-ounce can cream of mushroom soup

1 medium onion, chopped

1 egg, slightly beaten

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 cup Cheddar cheese, grated cracker crumbs for top

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix all the ingredients, except the Cheddar cheese and cracker crumbs, and pour into a casserole. Sprinkle the top with the grated Cheddar cheese and cracker crumbs. Dot with butter. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

Serves 8.

One 16-ounce can French-style green beans, drained

16-ounce can whole kernel corn, drained

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cup mayonnaise

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cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

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cup chopped green pepper

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cup chopped celery

2 tablespoons chopped onion

1 cup soft bread crumbs

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Combine all the above ingredients except the bread crumbs and butter. Place in a baking dish.

Combine the bread crumbs and the butter and sprinkle over the top. Bake for 30 minutes or until the crumbs are toasted.

Serves 6.

(Hazel Marie, I tried to get specific amounts for the following recipes, but Lillian said to just put in what looks right. Good luck with that.)

Here is a neat little trick that Lillian says she wouldn’t recommend if you’re cooking for a crowd. But for just one or two, you can take a sheet of tinfoil, put diced yellow summer squash on it, add a little cut-up onion, salt and pepper, and butter. Fold the tinfoil over it all and put it in the oven at 350°F until the squash is soft.

Do the same with potatoes, peeled and diced, instead of squash. And furthermore, Lillian says you can bake apples the same way, although you leave out the salt and pepper. Instead, you add a good bit of sugar and be generous with the butter, especially if you’re using Granny Smith apples.

Lillian says she has so many dessert recipes, both in books and in her head, that if you want to try anything other than the ones here, just let her know. She recommends that you find (by trying several different ones) your favorite recipe for old stand-bys like apple pie and pecan pie. That way, she says, after you’ve made them half a dozen times, you can whip up either one blindfolded. I think I’d just keep the recipes close to hand.

Stir together:

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-ounce can sour red cherries with juice

20-ounce can crushed pineapple with juice

1
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cups sugar and 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour (combine before adding to fruit)

Mix the above and in a pot and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat and add two 3-ounce packages of orange Jell-O. Stir until dissolved and let cool at room temperature.

Add 1 cup of chopped pecans and 4 sliced bananas.

Pour into a baked 9-inch pie shell. Chill 2 to 3 hours.

Serve with whipped cream on top.

Serves 6 to 8.

3 tablespoons butter or margarine

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cup brown sugar, firmly packed

4 canned pineapple slices

At least 5 Maraschino cherries for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a 9-inch heavy skillet, melt the butter with the brown sugar. Cool slightly and arrange the pineapple slices on the sugar mixture and garnish with the cherries.

Prepare the following:

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cup butter

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cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1
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cups sifted cake flour

1
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teaspoons baking powder

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teaspoon salt

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cup milk

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teaspoon vanilla

Cream the butter and sugar until light. Add the egg and mix well. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together into a separate bowl and add alternately with the milk to the butter mixture, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla. Pour this over the pineapple and cherry mixture.

Bake the cake 50 minutes. Turn the skillet upside down to turn out the cake. Serve warm.

Serves 6.

(Hazel Marie, the above recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake is a very old one—you can tell by the instruction to sift the flour. Lillian says you don’t have to do that now because flour is finer than it used to be. Anyway, she says her granny got the recipe from a lady she used to cook for in Georgia, and that lady got it from another lady, who saved it the time that Atlanta went up in flames. I’m not sure I believe all that, because in the case of a fire, a recipe would be the last thing I’d have on my mind.)

Cake Batter

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

12-ounce can chocolate syrup

1 cup self-rising flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer (you may use a hand mixer). Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each. Add the vanilla. Stir in the chocolate syrup and flour alternately. Beat only until the ingredients are just blended. Pour the batter into two well-greased and floured 8-inch cake pans. (You may also line the pans with wax paper cut to size to prevent sticking.) Bake for 25 minutes or until the cakes test done. Cool slightly and turn out the layers onto a rack. Cool completely before icing.

Icing

1 stick butter

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cup heavy (whipping) cream

6-ounce package semisweet chocolate morsels

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teaspoon instant coffee (optional)

1
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cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

Melt the butter, cream, and chocolate morsels in a double boiler or heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cool. Whisk in the confectioner’s sugar until it reaches a desirable spreading consistency. Makes approximately 1
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cups.

Serves 8.

(Hazel Marie, the finished cake can be held in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to serve it, warm each cake slice in the microwave just until the icing begins to melt. Serve with vanilla ice cream. If you like chocolate, and I know you do, you’ll love this cake. Lillian just told me that it’s the one she decided not to make while you were expecting. She was watching your weight and didn’t want to tempt you.)

Well, that’s it, and I say that with a great sigh of relief—not because it’s been a burden but because there have been so many distractions to hinder me. But I hope that you will find these recipes helpful, and if you don’t, that you will at least enjoy reading them and knowing that they were both given and collected with love.

Julia S. Murdoch

LuAnne Conover showed up again at my house a week or so later, just when I thought my recipe project was over and done with. Having finished copying Lillian’s recipes into the book, I was just about to wrap it for a formal presentation to Hazel Marie. To tell the truth, I was hoping that LuAnne had forgotten about her Helpful Household Hints, but she came bustling in, confident that Hazel Marie couldn’t run a house without her help.

“Now, Julia,” she said, “you don’t need to rewrite any of this. You can copy it all into your book just as I have it, and I want Hazel Marie to know every word came from me.”

I glanced at the notes, handwritten on her personal stationery, and assured her that I wouldn’t dream of changing anything. “In fact,” I said, “I’ll put your name at the top of the page.”

That was because I didn’t want Hazel Marie to think they were my recommendations. Sometimes LuAnne gets carried away, and this was one of those times.

After looking over what she gave me, I said, “LuAnne, Hazel Marie doesn’t play bridge. She doesn’t know how, and, besides, bridge parties aren’t as popular as they used to be.”

“Oh, Julia, bridge is just an
example.
Now, listen,” she went on, “I wrote these just as they occurred to me, so they’re not in any particular order. But that just makes them more interesting, don’t you think?”

Glancing farther down the list of Helpful Household Hints, I wondered if, in spite of my promise to keep them as written, I could safely omit a few that were over the top. Hazel Marie was so naïve about many things that she might take them to heart and try to follow them to the letter. Maybe I could get away with a little judicious editing.

Keep a guest book on a hall table, so you’ll always have a record of who visits and who doesn’t.

Always stay abreast of your social obligations. If someone asks you to a party, a dinner, or whatever, you must return the favor. It is not necessary, however, to return tit for tat. For instance, you may be invited to a dinner party, but that doesn’t mean that you have to have your hosts for dinner as well. It is perfectly acceptable to invite them to a bridge party or something similar.

When you decide to have a dinner party, invite only as many people as your dining table will seat comfortably. You may think that is self-evident, but you’d be surprised at the hostesses who will seat eight in the dining room, then have a card table for four in the living room. That’s like discrimination or something, and it’s no fun to be cut off from the main party.

Anyway, when you plan a dinner party, you would be smart to plan some other event for the day after—like maybe an afternoon tea. And if you’re really smart, you’ll plan something else on the day following that, like maybe a small luncheon. That way, you only have to clean your house real good one time. You’ll have your good china out and your silver polished, ready to use, and your flower arrangements should hold up for three days. You’ll be killing three birds with one stone, and get a lot of paying back done in one fell swoop.

Afternoon teas or morning coffees are excellent ways to fulfill your obligations. You can invite those people you owe, but who you don’t feel especially close to or don’t even like. It’s easier to entertain them in a crowd of women who’ll stand around and talk over each other than it is to have them at your table, where you actually have to make conversation with them.

Remember that it is an honor to be asked to pour at a tea or coffee, so you should ask someone special to do it. It can be your closest friend or the minister’s wife or anyone else except the honoree, if you have one. The honoree should be at the door with you to greet guests as they arrive.

Whenever you use your good silver, be sure to count each piece as you wash it afterward. If you’re missing a piece, look through the garbage before throwing it out. Chances are the missing spoon will be there, or else in the laundry, along with the table linens.

You should hand-wash your good silver, especially the knives, because the heat in the dishwasher will loosen the silver handles from the blades.

Whenever you receive a wedding invitation, it’s a good idea to send the bride a piece of her silver or, if she’s especially close, a place setting. As a general rule, if she doesn’t get all her silver as wedding gifts, she may never get it.

It’s also a good idea to select a silver pattern for each of your daughters while they’re young. That way, you can add a piece over the years on their birthdays and at Christmas. By the time they’re engaged to marry, they could have complete sets. I realize that many young women these days don’t even list a silver pattern with department stores, preferring instead an everyday pattern in silver plate. They are making a bad mistake, especially if they marry well and are expected to entertain with some formality.