From Donna C. Horsfield

Yum Yum Cake - Donna's Grandmother
1 c shortening
2 c sugar
2 c water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 box raisins

Boil above ingredients together and let cool. Dissolve 1 tsp baking soda in 1/2 cup of hot water and add to the boiled mixture. Add 4 cups of flour. Mix well. Grease and flour 9x13 pan. Bake 1 hour at 375. 

Molasses Cry Babies
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 c crisco (or other shortening)
1 1/2 heaping tsp baking soda
12 oz molasses
3/4 cup boiled coffee
3 eggs
2 lbs flour
1 tsp ginger

Place sugar, shortening, molasses, eggs, ginger, and cinnamon in large mixing bowl. Mix baking soda with hot coffee slowly adding it to the coffee and using a bowl big enough so it won't overflow. It will bubble up. Add coffee mixture to the other ingredients and mix well. Slowly add the flour a little at a time. (I suggest buying a 2 ib bag of flour because its easier to measure that way).

Drop on greased cookie sheets by the tablespoon. Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes - more or less according to size. Let cool and store in airtight container.

Corned Beef Hash
My mom just made her regular mashed potatoes and then added a can of corned beef, broken up and shredded and mixed into the potatoes.

Lima Beans and Corn
Mom would take fresh lima beans and cut corn off the cob and boil them in water and butter and then add a little bit of milk to it. That was a side dish for us in the summer.

Broiled Hamburger
Mom would take two pounds of hamburg, add some salt and pepper, shape it into a big square, pour catsup (ketchup) all over the top of it and then broil it for (I'm guessing) 20 minutes or so, until it no longer has red drippings coming from it.

Fresh Strawberry Pie
This is the best with fresh picked strawberries - not store bought. To die for!

4 c fresh strawberries, washed and capped
3 TB cornstarch
1 c sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
Few drops of red food coloring
1 baked 9 inch pie shell

Spread 2 cups of whole berries over bottom of cooled, baked pie shell. Mash or break up remaining berries. Add sugar, cornstarch, baking powder and mix thoroughly in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil gradually. Reduce heat and cook stirring constantly for about 10 minutes or until thick. Add a few drops of food coloring to deepen the mixture color. Cool and pour over whole berries in pie shell. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Top with whipped cream.

Bacon Soup
My mom made this when she could get bacon on sale. I tweaked it a bit to use the center cut bacon (less fat) but mom made a big pot of this and it usually lasted a couple meals.

2 lbs bacon (I use the 3 pack of 12 oz center cut from BJ's - less fat)
4 large cans (28 to 32 oz) tomato puree
2 large (46 oz) cans V8 veggie juice
1/2 1 can water (or add more to desired thickness - start with 1/2 can and then adjust when you add the macaroni)
1 lb elbow macaroni
1 large onion chopped
3 or 4 stalks celery chopped

Salt and pepper to taste (you don't need much salt because of the bacon) Cut bacon into 1 - 1/2 inch pieces. Try to separate pieces as you put them into the pot. Using large stock pot, cook bacon for about 10 minutes and then throw in the onion and celery and sauté for another 10 minutes. Add tomato puree, veggie juice, water, salt and pepper and simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the macaroni and cook for about 20 to 30 minutes. (You can cook the macaroni separately and add it, but it will require less water if done that way). This is where you adjust the amount of water, and you'll only have to cook it another 10 or 15 minutes. If you freeze some, you'll probably have to add a bit of water again.

Pepper Hash, Oyster Stew and SOS

Pepper Hash - Joyce DeHart-Gibson
Chop cabbage and green pepper and add equal parts of vinegar, sugar and water.  Store in the fridge in a glass container for a long time. I  also put celery seed in mine but you don't have to.

Oyster Stew - Margaret Konschak

1 pint oysters, shucked, with juice
1 quart milk or 1 quart half-and-half
1/4 cup butter
salt and black pepper
Old Bay (optional)

Cook oysters in their juice until edges just begin to curl.
Add milk, butter, salt and pepper.
Heat slowly, being careful to NOT boil.

Blind Stew - Carol L. Garrison
Same as Oyster Stew but leave out the oysters!

Dried Beef Gravy (SOS) - Anyone Who Ever Lived In Millville
                                                      1/4 lb dried beef
                                                      2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk Melt butter in skillet.

Tear the dried beef into small pieces & stir into the butter.  Brown meat lightly.  Stir in flour.  When flour is dissolved into butter, add milk, stirring constantly.  Salt and pepper to taste, but remember dried beef is salty.  Cook over low heat until the mixture thickens. Serve on toast, waffles, biscuits or almost anything.



Variations of SOS:
Robert Bruce Land - Graveyard Gravy:  Remove the meats and serve over either toast or biscuits. 

Butch Beebe - Red Eye Gravy:  My Grandmom and Mom would use bologna, hamburger or ham slice and make gravy.  Fry the ham slice and get some of its flavoring in the pan, add some butter and flour and then milk and a little coffee.  Back in the day, grandmoms and moms alike could stretch a dollar from here to Vineland and back when it came to cooking.  They had to.  And whatever they made tasted good and kept us alive.  Thank God for moms and grandmoms!!

Judi Grau Shute - Graveyard Stew:  Salted, buttered toast soaked in warm milk.  It was what we ate when we were very sick and could keep nothing else down.  Ready for the grave I guess is where it got its name.  My grandmom had 15 children and she always had family and friends in to eat.  She would make 6 pies at once.  Everything homemade.  This was before blenders and microwaves and anything convenient.  She used a wood stove with round grates on it with this special handle to remove them.  No one went hungry.

More Millville Favorites

Mother's Clam Pie - Bonnie Hopman Reynolds
Use a 9x13 pan.
10 chowder clams (reserve juice) Cut out the black and chop them up.
3 medium pre-baked potatoes
8 hard boiled eggs

For Pie crust:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 Tb salt
1 cup crisco
1/2 cup cold water (may need a little more)

Mix crust ingredeients together and roll out thin on a floured board.  Line pan with crust and then layer sliced potatoes, sliced eggs, clams, salt and pepper and then repeat with another layer.  Fill with clam juice and top with crust and seal edges tightly.  Cut slits in top and bake in a 400 degree oven for 50 minutes on the center rack and then 15 minutes on the lower rack.

You may wish to sprinkle a little Old Bay seasoning on top before the top crust is put on to give it a little more flavor.

From Ravyn Camilla Guiliani:
My grandfather George Oscar Pangburn Sr. Had a casserole he called "Salamagundy" and it was elbow macaroni cooked in a white sauce (like a bechamel/milk sauce you might cook scalloped potatoes in) with "hamburger" (ground meat), onions, celery, and stewed tomatoes (in chunks) some grated cheese and topped with toasted bread crumbs.

South Jersey Pork Chops - Sue Schwegel
8 loin pork chops
2 TB oil 1/4 c chopped celery
1/4 c choppede onion
16 oz tomato sauce
1 1/2 c water
2 TB brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp basil
1 c uncooked rice

In a skillet, brown chops in hot oil.  Remove chops and add celery and onion.  Cook until soft and drain.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Return chops to skillet, bring to a boil and reduce heat.  Simmer covered for 30 minutes.

Beef Goulash - Judy Gentile by way of Donna McCafferty Kalita
1 or 2 TB vegetable oil
1 lb ground meat
3 c uncooked medium egg noodles
2 1/2 c water
1 8oz can tomato sauce 1 (1 3/8 oz) envelope dry onion soup mix
chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in a skillet.  Cook meat until light brown and drain.  Sprinkle uncooked noodles over meat.  Combine water tomato sauce and onion soupmix.  Pour over noodles and do not stir.  Cover and bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes.

Odorless Stewed Cabbage
Boil medium finely cut cabbage in salted water. Do not cover kettle, but keep cabbage well covered with water to avoid odor in cooking. When tender, drain and add a little milk, butter, and pepper and also a little thickened if desired. Cabbage cooked this way is white and digestible.

From Deni Finch-Frederick

The next few are from Deni Finch-Frederick.  Her note says that the following recipe came to her from her former mother-in-law whose husband was very actice in the GBBA for years.  Allegedly it is originally from the Union Hall on Sharp Street, across from Millville Manufacturing.  She remembers going there with her dad and the family in the 50's for supper once in a while and says that this tastes like what she remembers.

Union Hall Bar-B-Q
Cook 4-5 lbs. lean beef, covered with water, about 6 hours until it falls apart. Fry two onions in butter, then add 2 cups of meat stock.

Add 2 TB sugar, 1 bottle catsup, 1 bottle chili sauce, 1 bottle bar-b-q sauce, 3 TB Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp hot sauce, 2 TB vinegar, and 1 tsp salt and pepper. Stir in meat.

Raisin Sauce
Use with ham steak:
1 1/2 cups raisins
1 cup water
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup vinegar

Put raisins and water in pan. Heat slowly about 10 minutes to plump raisins. Add sugar and vinegar. Boil slowly about 15 minutes until thickened.

Yum Yum Cake
From Deni's mom's childhood - in the mid 1930s.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup crisco
1/2 box raisins
1 cup cold water
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves

Mix together, creaming crisco and sugar together first. Sift together:
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Add to first mixture. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Old Millville Favorites

PIEROGKI (Polish Dumplings) - Ron Risley 
With Sauerkraut Filling:
3 Cups Sauerkraut
1 Lg Onion. Chopped.
½ cup butter

Rinse sauerkraut thoroughly in warm water, then squeeze dry.  Sauté the onion in butter until golden brown; add sauerkraut and season to taste with salt and pepper.  Cook over low heat for about a half hour, until flavors are blended and mixture is no longer watery.  Set aside to cool.

With Potato and Cheese Filling:
3 Cups: mashed potatoes
1 Cup: pot style or large curd cottage cheese
4 Tbsp butter
1 tsp. Salt and Pepper

Mix well together and set aside.  Make dough by combining 2 Cups flour, 2 eggs, well beaten with ½ tsp. salt and ½ Cup of water.  Roll dough thin on floured board and cut into circles with large biscuit cutter.  In center of each circle, place 1 tablespoon of filling, then fold over the edges and press together with your fingers making certain that the edges are free of filling.  Place Pierogki into 3 Qts of boiling salted water and continue to boil them 4 minutes after the float.  Place into Colander and spray with a little cold water.  Garnish with melted butter or sour cream.

Kelly’s Clam Pie - Tack Kell 

In 3 quarts of water, simmer for 2 hours:
2 cut up carrots
3 stalks celery diced
5 medium onions diced
Add 3 hard boiled eggs sliced.  Dice and brown ½ lean salt pork and add to pot.  Add 2 ½ to 3 dozen chowder clams minced with their juice.  (8-9 quarts)  Add: parsley, garlic salt, oregano, salt and pepper. 1 ½ to 2 hours before serving, add noodles. (?)
*(The question mark was in the recipe so I left it there.)

The rest of the posts on this page are from Donna McCafferty Kalita.  She has sent many more recipes, but here are just a few to get started. 

Peas and Egg drop Dumplings - Janice McCafferty
Peel fresh peas..rinse cover peas with water when they come to a boil turn down to slight boil..add salt and pepper and some sugar cook about 50 min.the last 5 min. add butter (i use a half a stick) bring back to a boil...for dumplings i use 2 eggs,pinch of salt, scramble with fork and add flour slowly till it becomes like a thin pancake batter..drop by tsp. into peas and cook until tender..can only make when June peas are in season.

Fried Tomatoes and Gravy - Janice McCafferty and my granny also
3 or 4 large tomatoes.

3 T. flour
2 T. butter
2 c. milk
salt, pepper
Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. cut up ends and save for gravy. salt and pepper slices and dredge in flour. heat fat in large iron skillet when hot brown tomato slices on both sides. remove ..and cover..add butter and chopped tomato pieces to pan; mash and saute' a few minutes...stir in 3 Tbls. flour; add milk and seasonings to taste, stirring until it becomes as thick as you like it. simmer about 4 min...pour over tomatoes...we always used white bread and added tomatoes on top and then poured gravy over..also would put on mashed potatoes or home fries...

Fried Tomatoes - Margaret Konschak
My mom's recipe for Fried Tomatoes is basically the same as the one above, but she always fried a pound of bacon in a heavy skillet first.  Then remove the bacon and fry the flour-dredged tomatoes in the bacon grease.  The rest of the directions are the same except she would leave the last two tomatoes in the pan and smash them with a fork to help make the gravy.

Corn Pudding - Granny Frances Brandriff
2Tbsp. cornstarch
2 large eggs
3/4 c. sugar (I reduce sugar)
2 Tbsp. melted butter
1 can creamed corn 1 (13oz ) can evaporated milk

Mix first 3 ingredients well. add milk and corn, mix again. butter a 2-inch deep casserole. pour mixture into dish. pour melted butter over top. bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until firm.. it will be like baked custard.

Molasses Cookies - Great Grandmom Bailey's
1 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
1 c. molasses
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. salt stir all together then add;
1 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 1 cup hot water 4 1/2 c. cake flour stir in one egg

Drop by spoon on greased and floured cookie sheet. bake-350 degrees 12-15 min. can add nuts or raisins ...

Jersey Asparagus Soup
Clean and cut off ends of asparagus. (I use two bunches)
Cut asparagus into 2 inch pieces.
1 small to medium onion chopped.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Cover with water and bring to a slow boil and cook about 15 minutes.
Add diced potatoes (I use about 2 medium)
Cook another 20 minutes or until all is tender. Add a stick of butter. (or less)
Add about a cup of light cream or milk. Do not let the milk boil - just heat.
Then enjoy...you'll probably need to add more salt near the end.