Barbara Swanson

“You’ll have to learn to cook now,” Barbara Swanson’s mother, Vernice Tutor, told her when she married at age 16. She could cook a little when she and Earl married, but, “you learn a lot when you have to,” said Barbara, adding that her mother and mother-in-law, the late Earline Swanson taught her a lot about cooking. Her mother also told her that anybody could make biscuits.

“I have never learned to make biscuits. Mother showed me 500 times how to make biscuits, but I have given up,” and “Earl’s mother tried to show me, too.”

She can make yeast rolls, and said she kept on trying the rolls until she got it right, but that didn’t work with the biscuits.

Barbara makes a lot of sweets because they like them. Lemon Crunch is her favorite, and she makes it a good bit.

They also like spicy food, and a hot cabbage recipe from Earl’s aunt in New Mexico fills the bill for that.

She likes to pair it up with Mexican cornbread in which they put slices of bacon in the bottom of the skillet first. She says it’s real good.

She and Earl cook a lot and enjoy it, and most Saturdays they cook something different. She looks through cookbooks and old recipes from their mothers for new things to try.

They also like to cook some kind of meat on the grill, along with cream cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers or Roma tomatoes, wrapped in bacon. The Swansons have a big garden this year, besides raising Day Lilies. She says they do a lot of vegetable eating, and she cans tomatoes for making spaghetti and chili.

Sometimes they have people from their church to eat at their house or at the community building. The Swanson family reunion is held later in the summer, and she enjoys cooking for both groups.

She usually makes five or six dishes for the reunion and “it’s hard to decide what to fix, but you don’t bring much home!” she said.

Hot Cabbage
2 lbs. pork steak cubed and fried (save grease from frying pork)
1 cabbage cut up, large cut
Put cabbage back in grease and cook until tender. Drain. Stir cabbage up with enough soy sauce to taste. Put in about two chopped jalapeno peppers. Stir well and serve.

Mexican Cornbread
Line cast iron skillet with bacon.
1 1/2  cups cornmeal
1/2 can cream corn
1 large jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 egg
1/2 pkg. Oscar Mayer bacon bits
1/2 cup cheese
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
Enough buttermilk to mix like cornbread. Mix and bake until golden brown at 390°.

Apple Dumplings
1 container crescent rolls
2 Granny apples (quartered)
1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice
Roll out rolls in triangles. Sprinkle cinnamon on triangles if you prefer. Roll one quarter of apple in each crescent roll. Place in pan. Mix butter, sugar,and orange juice together and heat until butter is melted. Pour over rolls in pan and bake at 350° until brown.

Earthquake Cake
1 1/2 cups coconut
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 pkg. German chocolate cake mix
1 stick margarine
1-8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 lb. box powdered sugar
Grease 13×9” pan. Sprinkle bottom with nuts and coconut. Make cake according to directions. Spread on top of nuts. Mix margarine and cream cheese together then add powdered sugar. ?Spread on top of cake. Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes. Center will be gooey and cake will crack as it bakes.

Chicken Spaghetti
1 chicken cooked and deboned, save broth
2 lbs. Velveeta cheese
1 onion chopped
2 cans Rotel
1 can English peas
12 oz. vermicelli noodle or little spaghetti
1 can cream corn
1/2 stick oleo
Cook noodles and onions. When noodles are done, cut up cheese, stir until melted. Combine all other ingredients. Cook at 350° until done.