My Mother's Cookies or the Quest for Tea Cakes

Recently Carrie, Alison, Vicki and I have been trying to find my mother's tea cake recipe, and I understand that there was a bit of a "discussion" with their Uncle Ken about whether or not she made cookies. Let me set the record straight - she did. (sorry, Ken - maybe she had stopped by your "only child" days, but she made them plenty of times!) These are the homemade cookies that I remember.

SUGAR COOKIES: When I was a little girl, Mother & I always made cookies at Christmas time, and one of my favorites were plain old sugar cookies. Of course, my reason for loving those the best was because she would let me decorate them. I remember cookie cutters of Christmas trees, stars, and a gingerbread man shape. I am sure there were more, but those I remember. We would also cut out circles with the ring from a mason jar lid. Mother would mix up an icing using a little melted butter with powdered sugar, and if it got too thick, she added a few drops of water. Then she would divide it up in little bowls, and add a couple of drops of food coloring to each one. She would give me a butter knife and "sprinkles" to decorate the top. I loved to add the sprinkles and to make faces and buttons on the gingerbread men. (I don't remember ever making real "ginger" bread men, just the sugar cookies shaped like gingerbread men) When we still lived in Concord, Mother and Daddy would have "socials" after church on Sunday nights sometimes where the teenagers from Mt. Olive would come over and play games. I remember making sugar cookies for those, Christmas time and other times too. BTW - these cookies were often burned around the edges too; part of the "art" of applying the icing was hiding the burned edges!

ICEBOX COOKIES: These were the famous Grandma Sanvidge icebox cookies. Ken doesn't want to remember them because he didn't like them! No one in our house liked them except for Daddy and me. VERY rarely Mother would make up a batch. You shaped the dough into a long roll, wrapped it in foil and put it in the frig overnight before cutting it into slices and baking them. Still my very favorite cookie!

FRUIT CAKE COOKIES: My Mother's favorite cookie and my least favorite! I think the recipe is probably the same as the sugar cookie, but I'm not sure. Then she would add chopped pecans and pieces of candied fruit (the kind you put in fruit cakes) to the batter and spoon it onto cookie sheets before baking it. Something about those little pieces of candied fruit that I didn't like - I never liked fruit cake either (and yes, she made those too).

I believe that my mother's own quest for tea cakes came later in life, after she had grandchildren. I don't ever remember making them or even hearing her talk about them when we were growing up, but after I reached adulthood, she started talking about them. I think one of her older sisters (probably Sister, Sara or Janie) made them, and she wanted to make them too, but didn't want to admit to them that she didn't know how! She began making them, and like you girls remember, always had them in the jar for y'all, always burned around the edges. Mrs. Prosser made a wonderful tea cake and would bring her some a lot of times later in her life - I think that was after y'all were all grown, or at least past the age when she would share her cookies with you.

While I'm on the subject of her baking, my Mother used to bake a lot more than she did in later years. She used to make fruit cobblers a lot - those were a cheap dessert I guess when we were growing up. She would make fruit cakes and give them away a Christmas. Occasionally, she made pound cakes (a favorite of hers) but never thought hers were as good as her sisters, so didn't make them often.

We all joke about my Mother's lack of cooking skills, and I'll be the first to say, she was not the best cook in her bunch of sisters by a long shot. She didn't experiment; she kept things basic, although she was never one to worry about "substituting" often with disasterious results! However, although I never really had a cooking "lesson" from my Mother, I guess I learned some things from her, though not how to make TEA CAKES!

Hungarian Cabbage Rolls

When your dad and I first married, one of his favorite dishes that Nanny made was Cabbage Rolls, or stuffed cabbage. When she was living she taught me how to make them, but of course, I can’t find the recipe now. The other day Jeff came home with a recipe that he had gotten from a family recipe book that he was leafing through in a co-worker’s office. We have no idea who “Wanda Kittle” is, but this is her recipe, as I received it – as mixed up as it is written.

Hungarian Cabbage Rolls
2 Large heads of cabbage
2 lbs. ground beef
1 ½ cups rice (uncooked)
2 small onions chopped
2 large eggs
1 tsp salt
1/3 tsp pepper

Put cabbage in boiling water. Set 40 minutes so you can pull leaves apart. Chop rest of cabbage and lay in bottom of large dutch oven. Combine next 5 ingredients mix well set aside.
Take cabbage leaves and put 1 tbsp. mixture in each one and roll up. Lay on top of chop leaves.
Slice onions very thin. Take bell peppers slice very thin – chop garlic up – about 5 cloves very thin – 2 cans diced tomatoes 3 tbsp. brown sugar mix all of this together pour over top and bake on 350 until done about 2 ½ hours.

Now, I didn’t tell your dad this, but this recipe has me pretty confused to put it mildly. What peppers and garlic? They are not mentioned in the ingredients at all! Brown sugar? Tomatoes? Where did that come from?
The similarities to Nanny’s seem to me to be: cabbage, ground beef and rice – that’s all. But I am going to try it. Immediately, these are the changes I am making:

1 head cabbage
2 lbs ground chuck
1 ½ cup rice uncooked
1 large Vidalia onion chopped
1 bell pepper chopped
5 cloves garlic chopped
2 large eggs
2 cans diced tomatoes
3 tbsp. brown sugar blend

Boil cabbage in large pan (I’m using my soup pot with the colander insert), completely covering the cabbage with water. I’ve just started it cooking, and I have left it whole, and set the timer for 40 minutes as instructed. However, I am thinking that I could have separated the leaves before cooking, and they might have cooked quicker.
I am going to sauté half of the onion, bell pepper and garlic until just tender, then mix this with the ground chuck, rice, salt and pepper. I am going to roll enough meat mixture into the cabbage leaf to make a roll about the size of an egg roll. Then I am going to place a layer of chopped cabbage leaves in the bottom of a large casserole dish and place each roll on top. I am going to mix together the brown sugar, the rest of the onion/pepper/garlic, and the tomatoes and pour over the top. I will cover the dish with foil, and bake at 350. For how long? That remains to be seen. I find it hard to believe that it will take 2 ½ hours! More later………….
That was my plan. However, while the cabbage was cooking, I started looking online at recipes, and changed things yet again. It was DELICIOUS!!!!!!! But, as we were eating, we realized a couple of more changes that needed to be made to perfect the recipe. So, the final REAL recipe is below.

2 heads of cabbage
2 lbs ground beef
1 ½ cup long grain uncooked rice
1 large Vidalia onion sliced thin
1 large bell pepper sliced thin
2 large eggs
2 cans diced tomatoes
¼ cup brown sugar blend
2 cans sauerkraut
salt
pepper

Cut the bottom off the cabbages, and place in a large soup or stew pot. Cover completely with hot water. Boil until cabbage is tender enough to be flexible. Remove cabbages from water, but save 3 cups of the water the cabbage cooked in.
While the cabbage is cooking, mix together ground beef, rice, ½ of the bell pepper, 2 large eggs, salt and pepper.
After the cabbage is taken out of the water, let it cool enough to handle, then carefully separate the leaves, and spread them out on a cookie sheet. Have a box of toothpicks handy! Take a small handful of meat mixture, and shape it into a “log”. You will get the feel for how much meat to put in each one quickly. Beginning at the bottom end of the cabbage leaf, wrap the leaf around the meat, and secure with a toothpick. You will have enough meat for about 20 – 25 small cabbage rolls. Take the inner most part of the cabbage (too small to use to wrap) and chop it up. Place it in a small and mix with a can of sauerkraut. Put a layer of cabbage/sauerkraut on the bottom of the soup pot. Top with a layer of cabbage rolls. Place a layer of bell pepper & onion slices, and another layer of rolls, placing all the rest of the cabbage rolls in the pot (on top of each other is ok). Top with the rest of the cabbage/kraut mixture. Top with 2 cans of tomatoes and sprinkle the brown sugar on the top.
Put the top on the pot. Turn the burner on medium high and set the timer for 1 hour. After an hour, check to make sure there is still plenty of liquid in the pot, and set the timer for 1 ½ hour. (add water if needed) At the end of the 2 ½ hours, eat up! I served it with mashed sweet potatoes.
They were fantastic! Of course, I have enough for Pharoah's Army, as Grandmother would say! Looks like I know what I'm having for lunch this week!