A Request From One of My Cousins

I called my cousin Lorna down in Salt Lake this afternoon as we hadn't talked for a long time.  Her mom was my mom's youngest sister.  And they and their older sister and one brother grew up on a hop farm outside of Sunnyside, Washington.  It was during the depression and grandma fixed things they had a lot of every way she could think of, so make them more appealing.  My mom recalled that they had rutabagas (all year long, in the winter out of the root cellar) and asparagus (it grew like weeds over there) almost daily in the summer.  We got to talking about all that and I told her that I had the recipe for our grandmother's most famous asparagus dish.....she asked for a copy of the recipe and so I thought I would share it with my journal land friends, too.  So here all you asparagus lovers is ;

Grandma Stern’s Famous Escalloped Asparagus

 

2 lbs cleaned, uncooked asparagus

12 soda crackers crumbled

4 or 5 hard boiled eggs

2 cups medium white sauce **

grated cheese

 

Butter casserole dish & layer the ingredients, except white sauce & grated cheese.

After all ingredients are layered, pour on white sauce and then sprinkle with grated cheese.  Bake about 25 mins at 325*

 

** medium white sauce-  2 tablespoons butter or margarine, 2 tablespoons flour, dash of salt and 1 cup milk (evaporated milk makes a richer sauce)  In a microwave able 2  cup Pyrex measuring cup; melt butter for 30 seconds, stir in flour and salt…blending to make a paste.  Add milk gradually, stopping to stir mixture every few seconds.  Cook for at least 1 minute , stir, cook another

1 ½  to 2 ½ minutes longer, stopping to stir every 30 seconds until mixture boils.  Stir well after removing from microwave .

 

Now grandma didn't have a microwave in which to cook her white sauce.  She did it in the dead of summer (eastern Washington gets very hot in the summer) on a wood burning cook stove. No doubt it took a watchful eye to keep it from scorching. 

 

If you try it, tell me what you think............Linda