INTRODUCTION

I didn’t know much about cooking when I got married in 1967. My mom could make her specialties like the German food we all loved but on most dishes, she was a little creatively challenged. My dad knew how to cure meat and make killer sausage or a great vegetable soup but mostly he didn’t do that much family style cooking. Being the youngest in the family meant that I wasn’t required to do too much to help so, when I left home, I had to learn to cook on the job, so to speak.
There were many times early on that my culinary concoctions went into the garbage pail and we went out for a hamburger or when we got our first dog, a beagle named Jake, he would eat all my mistakes as long as I put them into a pancake batter and made him “Jake cakes”. (If I remember right, he eventually ran away!)
By the time our sons were old enough to eat solid food, I was well on the way to educating myself in the art of cooking, not to mention, gardening, canning, dehydrating, and the all-around concept of self-sufficiency. I found out about healthy eating and cooking by reading books by Adele Davis and Euell Gibbons and subscribing to Organic Gardening. I agreed with the “you are what you eat” concept because it seemed logical. I could see in my garden plants that they would grow, be healthy and produce good harvests if they were nurtured with healthy soil, homemade compost and a lotta love. So, I thought, why wouldn’t that work for me and my family?


I devoted the next 35+ years to my family and our health. Don’t get me wrong, I still made bloopers in the kitchen, but with a little luck and a lot of cheese and Tabasco sauce, I could either salvage them or I knew (with some exceptions) my compost pile would love the fuel. I became a ‘left-overs’ expert partly out of economics but mostly because it was a personal challenge to make good eats out of what I had on hand...and my frugal German upbringing would never let me throw something out until all the possibilities were exhausted!

This cookbook represents a lot of trial and error and a lot of satisfaction. It is a work in progress as our tastes as well as our likes and dislikes have changed over the years but these recipes are the ones that are always a sure bet.

I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to sit down and try to quantify the amounts of ingredients that make up a recipe. I have always been a ‘stick my finger in and taste’ kind of a cook so if those who try my recipes want to season them differently, have at it. I figure these recipes are a starting point not the last word.

Finally, I want to dedicate this cookbook to my husband, Denny. He has always encouraged my creativity, in the kitchen or in anything that I am doing. He knew that I would be happier, (and he and the kids too) if our meal times were filled with great food and good memories. Also, to my sons, Abe and Nate who didn’t fuss much about food and paid me one of the highest compliments by eating a chocolate cream pie that had slipped from its pan onto the grass before I made it into a family gathering. Now, that’s ‘Just Plain Good Eatin’!