Old Recipes

There are two best days when we are conducting a sale...the first day we begin working and the last day of the sale.  The first day is my favorite because everything there is new to us, all those treasures just waiting for us to discover!  And yes, every home has certain things that most all homes have but each one also has something that is unique, quirky, rare or just weird.  (More about that later.)  The last day of a sale is always fun because it signals a job finished, another family that has allowed us to help them liquidate their loved one's estate and another opportunity for us to learn and deepen our commitment to this calling that also happens to be the way we make a living.  Ok, and yes, by the last day, we are tired.  So it's a good day because we get to rest for a minute afterwards!

Anyway, one of the things we frequently find is recipes and cookbooks.  I love looking at them and seeing if I can figure out which ones were favorites...notes written in the margins of cookbooks are the best!  I especially love when they note what occasion they made the dish for and how it went over.  You won't find that at Books-A-Million!  The cookbooks we sell with these personal reviews are so much more valuable than a new one in my opinion!  

My mom was a great cook...she doesn't cook anymore but I got some of her handwritten recipe books down this weekend and copied them.  I found her recipe for bread pudding and decided to make it.  It was SO GOOD...

 The pan is a 9" x 13" so it is quite a bit.  The recipe calls for baking it 35-40 minutes but I actually baked it an hour.  I kept checking it and this seemed right.  Everyone's oven is different though so check often after about 40 minutes.

This is the sauce or "sop" as we call it.  It was also very good!  The recipe called for lemon extract, I used vanilla instead and loved it.  I think I will try rum or bourbon next time...

I stored it in the fridge, covered in Saran Wrap and warmed it and the sop when serving.  It's wonderful with some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla too!  Now y'all know why I can't get rid of these extra pounds!  

If you'd like to try it, the recipe is pictured below.  I'll post some more as I get a chance, I copied quite a few.  This is mom...

And here's her bread pudding recipe:

Enjoy!

Remember I said we usually find certain things in almost every house we liquidate?  One of those things is a yardstick.  Care to guess what the other is?  We find it in probably 90% of the homes we do sales in and it's something most people have probably never used...leave your guesses in the comments, I'll tell y'all what it is later this week...