Recipes from the Road - Thrifty Cooking

Now I can't have you go two whole weeks without a food post now can I?

I cherish the cooking memories my Grandmother and Mom left me, but I am also someone that puts great store in food storage and adequate supplies. In an earlier post I had mentioned some of my Mom's old recipes. Here is one which I have also seen an adaption of in a number of places, including a couple of church cookbooks.

Back in my grandparents time, eggs were scare, so was butter and other ingedients. This cookie recipe, typed up carefully by my Mom on a typewrite Roberta X would probably love to have, originally used bacon fat. But I "lightened" it up by using lard. Yup. Lard. Did I mention butter was sometimes scarce? Lard isn't the evil you think it is unless perhaps you're vegetarian. It's not healthy, but it's definitely healthier for you then vegetable shortening which is trans fat of the worst kind. But if the thought of lard throws you, just substitute your fat of choice in this recipe. It has just a few simple ingredients. No milk, only one small egg, some vanilla, sugar, a tiny bit of flour and 3 cups of old fashioned oatmeal.

Made the old fashioned way, with flour that was four years old. Yes, four years old. I'll be honest, I was tempted to not use it when it was excavated from the back of my pantry during a clean out, but I sifted it, smelled it and frankly, what someone much wiser than me told me had worked. The flour was clean, free of any bugs and fresh. The secret? Freeze the flour for at least a week, in 10 pound bags, then store in an airtight containers. Even years later, stored where it was cool and dry, it was still good.

Freezing grain and flour first is not a ‘cure all’ for future bug infestation, but if add this step to proper to food grade storage pails or airtight containers it's an extra measure that seems to work. There might be a slight degradation in the protein in long term storage but not enough to make appreciable difference.

Just make sure you don't mix up your flour with drywall powder I guarantee that won't make light cookies. But these cookies, made with my own touch of a little Penzey's Vietnamese Cinnamon, baked up light, chewy and spicy and even on a camouflage table-spread, dissipated fast. A coworker had some and proclaimed them the "best oatmeal cookies, ever". The lard? That will be our little secret.

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