Take Me Back Tuesday: High School Home Economics Class Revisited and a Recipe

Cooking has always been a big part of my life. From an early age, I was always baking something in the kitchen. Some of my favorites were recipes that I normally might not have tried.....I remember my mom being at work, and I'd take out a cookbook and hunt for something that we had all the ingredients for in the cabinets. Sometimes, that lead me to recipes that I might not normally look at....my favorite was always pound cake, and then of course any kind of cookies. I will say this, I used to make the very best pound cake you would ever taste...it was simply amazing. Not too long ago, I found the very recipe I used all of those years ago for pound cake, and made it. I hope it was the change in ingredients through the years and not my cooking skills, because it was just a mess.....and I have not tried again. I know sometimes I have issues with memory...I just hope the cooking skills don't go out the window with the memory cells too.....

It was not until I took home economics class in high school that my range of cooking changed from baking to actually cooking a meal. I still remember that home economics cooking class with our high school teacher Mrs. Summers. I think there were 4 cooking stations complete with ovens and sinks, and we worked in groups learning the basics of cooking a meal. I really loved this class......it was fun and besides that...we got to eat.....in class....yep...don't get any better than that.

Sunday, I did a lot of cooking, most for the week ahead and some to share with my friend's family while she recovers from surgery. I pulled out several of my recipes looking for something different. Now, I have kept lots of recipes over the years, many I have forgotten about. However, Sunday I discovered a piece of paper that had a recipe on it from long ago....it was from home economics class in high school.....and it just so happens to be the very first thing we ever made. Seriously, sometimes things pop up and manifest themselves from a long ago forgotten memory and it just makes you wonder.....or at least it does me.

I have not thought about this recipe in YEARS. I can still remember coming home from school and instructing my mom to buy all the ingredients, I was going to cook dinner. And cook dinner I did. Now, as a young girl, I thought this was a wonderful meal simply because I made it myself.

In a far corner of my mind, after I thought about this on Sunday, I am sure my mom did not think it was too grand, but she was just gracious enough not to say anything. And my poor little brother did not even have a choice...he just had to eat it. Now, I am not saying this is bad....it really was not, but if I sat this on the table to my family today....I think they would look at me like I was a alien....really.

The only other recipe I remember from home-economics class was a Mexican casserole, which I loved. Right after my husband and I first was married, I made it, and well, he GRACIOUSLY ate it but asked not to have it again....and it was really wonderful...to me, not my husband. So all of what I learned and first cooked in high school with my friends, were a thing of the past, long forgotten. After all, if my husband was not going to eat it, I did not need to make it.

The common denominator in this memory, was not so much the recipe being discovered after years of safe keeping inside a cookbook which I barely open these days. It was while I was searching for a recipe to make for my sweet friend, "whom by the way, was in my home economics class all of those many years ago," that this long forgotten recipe was discovered again.

Along with the recipe, wonderful memories came flooding back....memories of learning to cook and eating in class, learning to sew.....(baby blue and pastel pink over-alls) I kid you not....things that we did together long ago....when we were inseparable from each other in high school. I spent the greater part of the afternoon, remembering all of these things while I did the cooking......all those memories behind a recipe on a slip of paper....forgotten inside a cookbook and now discovered and remembered.

And yes, I am sharing this recipe with you today.....I had to search online for a photo...because I certainly did not have one to share, after all it has been about 26 years since I last made this, much less even thought about it.


Hamburger Cups

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 onion
1/2 c. BBQ sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1 T. brown sugar
1 can refrigerator biscuits
grated cheese

Brown the ground beef and drain the fat. Add the chopped onion and stir till onion is cooked. Stir in BBQ sauce, salt and brown sugar.

Roll the individual biscuits or flatten them so that the fill fit into the bottom and sides of muffin tins. Spoon the ground meat mixture into the biscuit “crust”.

Bake at 400 for 10 – 12 minutes.
Top with grated cheese and place back in oven til cheese melts.

Thanks for stopping by on this Take Me Back Tuesday.....it certainly took me back with fond memories this week to a very dear time in my life. Now, if you try this recipe...be sure to stop back by and tell me what you think.

Vintage Thingie Thursday : Vintage Bear Books - Re-run

Welcome everyone to Vintage Thingies Thursday. If you are new to this party, please take the time to read and follow the instructions for participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday, click HERE. I try and keep things fairly simple, so please make sure you follow the instructions. Please only ONE link per week. Lastly, if you link in, LINK back to my blog, so everyone can see all of the vintage goodies being showed that day. If you don't link back here, they won't know who to visit......thanks so much.

****This post is a re-run post from way back when I first started posting for Vintage Thingies Thursday when The Apron Queen was the hostess, in 2008. I have sort of lost my mojo this week with so many things going on and the worry of a very ill family member. My heart just was not into creating a new post this week....so I cheated. I will try and visit everyone if time allows. Hope to be back in full swing next week. Thanks for understanding and allowing a break this week.


Re-run post from summer 2008

This week, I have some vintage books. Not just books...but Vintage BEAR books. To remind you, I have mentioned here on VTT about collecting black bears. I also have a fondness for bear books as well. Imagine That! Take a look at some of the great books I have found.


I found this book at a garage sale a few years ago, in fact, I almost passed it up. It was missing the dust jacket, but the word forest and the cute bear paws got my attention and I opened the book. My heart was skipping beats when I discovered it was a book about bears in Yellowstone National Park. The Author Essie Forrester O'Brien spent summer vacations in Yellowstone. It seems while O'Brien's husband and son were off fishing, she contacted officials, rangers, employees, cooks and old-timers in the area. She collected first-hand information on the lives and habits of the Park's wild animals. The stories in "Clowns of the Forest" are based on this material.





The stories, together with the pictures, portray the life of the bears in the park. This was published in 1948. This is a wonderful book, I loved it from cover to cover. It takes you back to a time when Yellowstone was a different park than it is today. Really good and entertaining reading.


This cute little book is titled Bear Stores Retold from St. Nicholas Magazine. Published by The Century Co. 1904. This charming little book has bear stories with black and white pictures of bears. The pictures are animated for the most part, but it adds a certain charm to the book.












This adorable little book is titled A Black Bear's Story by Emil E. Liers. I purchased this book on-line. It was a children's library book. The back of the book still has the library card sleeve. It is stamped:
North Saaplon School, 10475 McDonald Park Road, Sidney, B.C.
The book is in great condition and has wonderful stories of a black bear family.







This book is loaded with wonderful bear drawings to accompany the story lines. I really love this book, the outside is very colorful and it is a wonderful addition to my shelf of bear books.

Look at the mama bear sweet talking her cub out of the tree. Sweet I tell you.


This adorable little book is titled, Go West, Young Bear by Elizabeth Hamilton. Copyright 1948. This charming book is a tale of a friendly bear who lives in Eastern Canada and whose one ambition is to meet people and live a social life. However, the people are not too friendly. This bear happens upon a book about Yellowstone Park, and sets out on his quest for the Park who loves bears. This is a really cute book and loaded with cute pictures. The inside of the book has a sticker that says the owner was Miriam Babbitt Simpson.








Well, this is just a few of the bear books in my collection. I hope you enjoyed a peek into the charming illustrations of vintage books. I have about 15 vintage childrens bear books in my collection. I am always on the watch for more to add to my bookshelf. I have read every one of these books. They provide great stories and cute pictures and hours of entertainment.
See you next week.... Thanks for allowing me this rerun post this week, hopefully next week, I'll be back to myself.