Farm Journal Cookbooks for Your Country Kitchen

Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook: More Than 1,000 Tested Recipes

Half the recipes came from farm kitchens across the US, while the other half were developed in the Countryside Kitchens. After figuring out what farm cooks wanted, they sent the “blueprint to 500 farm women, members of Farm Journal’s Family Test Group, to obtain their reactions. With their guidance, we started to put together the Cookbook you hold in your hands. There’s never been one like it,” Nell said.

Except that there is in paperback form with the Country Cookbook Special Edition (Amazon) published the same year (and not as appealing visually).

Either way, at 422 pages, images dotted here and there (plus filling the front and back covers, the book is a treat in every way.

Chapters include:

• How This Book Came to Be
• How This Book is Different
• Company Specials
• Dishes to Tote
• Eating Outdoors
• Cooking for a Crowd
• Coffee Break
• The Cookie Jar
• Meats
• Chicken and Other Poultry
• Potatoes
• Eggs
• Butter and Cream
• Milk and Cheese
• Apples
• Special Sweetenings
• From the Garden
• From the Freezer
• Homemade Relishes
• From Stream and Field
• Make-Ahead Dishes
• Quick and Easy Cooking
• Master Recipes
• Money-Maker Recipes
• Old-Fashioned Recipes
• Regional Dishes
• Guest Cooks in Our Test Kitchens

It may prove tricky to find some things, since the section for Eggs not only includes eggs, but also a section titled, “Favorite Desserts Made with Eggs.” Why? Because the chapters or groups of recipes are “divided in just the way country women think of food.” Good thing there’s an index.

This is one of my favorite Farm Journal cookbooks.

It combines the best of vintage photography, menus are interspersed within different chapters (like Meats, Outdoor, and Guest Cooks), and it has a ton of recipes.

Frosted Molasses Creams, Poppy Seed Rolls, Hot Dog Relish (wow!), and Savory Boiled Tomatoes (which feels like something my grandma would have made) are a few gems. I find something new and interesting each time I crack it open.

Farm Journal’s Timesaving Country Cookbook: 1000 Recipes and Menus with That Wonderful Home-Cooked Taste (1961) by Farm Journal

Flip to the index and you’ll see three symbols to stand in for make-ahead, no-watch, and last-minute icons accompanying every recipe title. I think it’s kind of neat.

People could have flipped to the section of cake and looked for what could be completed ahead of time in the 254-page book.

Chapters in the FJ “Timesaving Country Cookbook” include:

• What You Will Find in this Cookbook
• Meats
• Chicken and Turkey
• Fish and Sea Food (not a typo)
• Cheese and Egg Main Dishes
• Main Dish Sandwiches
• Vegetables
• Salads and Salad Dressings
• Cakes and Frostings
• Pies
• Other Desserts
• Cookies
• Breads
• Relishes and Sauces
• Appetizers and Snacks
• Beverages
• Menus for Short-cut Meals
• Food to Meet the Occasion

Menus are always my favorite and, wouldn’t you know, this cookbook offers up a few hidden in the book. Obviously, the chapter entitled “Menus for Short-cut Meals” has menus, but so does “Food to Meet the Occasion.” Hooray!

On the downside, it does include way more mixes and packaged things than other Farm Journal books. In some cases, the convenience foods are an easy swap, such as switching out a homemade pie crust for packaged, that kind of thing. it’s still a fun read, but I’m not as likely to cook from it.

Farm Journal’s Freezing & Canning Cookbook (1963) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

I’m not particularly surprised to see this 352-page book featuring an extensive selection of freezing and canning cookbooks. Nell was big on freezing and canning food, mentioning both in many of her cookbook’s prefaces.

Chapters include:

• What You Will Find in This Cookbook followed by a heading: Freezing Foods at Home with the following chapters:
• Slick Freezing Tricks: Fruits and Vegetables
• Meat, Poultry, Fish, and Game
• Dairy Foods and Eggs
• Homemade Breads
• Cakes, Cookies, and Pies
• Main Dishes
• Soups, Salads, and Sandwiches
• New heading, Home Canning: Jams, Jellies, and Other Spreads
• Fruit Juices to Can and Freeze
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Meat, Poultry, and Game
• Pickles, Fruit Pickles and Relishes
• Curing Meat, Poultry, and Fish

There are multiple versions of this cookbook. This version also looks good. Savory buns, Cheese Olive Rolls (because I LOVE green olives), and Oregon Apple Dapple make me want to stock my freezer.

Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook: 700 Best Dessert and Main-Dish Pies in the Country (1965) by Nell B. Nichols and the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Get out of your pie rut with hundreds of pie-related recipes over 308 pages (including the index, of course). Note that a few recipes have appeared in previous Farm Journal cookbooks, and are noted as such. I don’t mind, since it’s still impressive, but figured you should know.

Of course, I have more pie cookbooks to tempt you.

Chapters in “Farm Journal’s Complete Pie Cookbook” include:

• All About Pies and Pie Crusts of All Kinds. Heading: Dessert Pies (with the following chapters):
  • Fruit Pies; Custard and Cream Pies
  • Refrigerator and Ice Cream pies
  • Deep-Dish and Cake Pies, Cobblers, and Dumplings
  • Tarts and Turnovers
  • Fast-Fix Pies; and Pie Toppings
• New Heading: Main-Dish Pies with chapters including:
  • Meat and Chicken Pies and Cheese, Fish, Sea Food (not a typo)
  • Vegetable Pies

Chapters further divide, as noted within the description following each chapter. Another page and another list of chapters, this time for the Color Illustrations. Find author, recipe illustration, and the page number.

Apricot-Strawberry Pie, Chocolate Pie Spectacular, Chocolate Toffee Pie, and Chocolate Cherry Pie (said to taste like chocolate-coated cherries) top my list.

I think I could easily get lost in the “Exciting Chocolate Pies” subchapter (it’s found within Refrigerator and Cream Pies). I don’t make enough pies. This book makes me want to change my ways.

Let’s Start to Cook: 300 Never Fail Recipes for Beginners by the Food Editors of Farm Journal (1966) Edited by Nell B. Nichols

Trusted recipes for beginner cooks and bakers include step-by-step drawings and 300 must learn recipes. Sidebar call-outs provide further explanation (such as “Why Custard Weeps” next to the recipe for Steamed Custards if you want to learn how to make custard.)

Every bit of this cookbook is well-planned and well-done (plus adorable).

The chapter heads and the rest are confusing, so this is what I’m going with. Chapters inside the “Let’s Start to Cook” book include:

• Specially for You
• The Way Good Cooks Do It
• Learn the Cook’s Language
• Cookies You’ll Love to Bake
• Favorite Cakes and Frostings
• Pies that Please
• Homemade Breads
• Desserts—Pride of Good Cooks
• Beef and Pork
  • and that’s all I know. Can anyone help?

I know I have looked at this cookbook before. My mom doesn’t have it, so I’m thinking it must have been at a used bookstore. I am kicking myself for not getting it then, because it is the cutest thing ever.

Yes, the recipes are the same Farm Journal goodness (Fudge Brownies, Quick Cocoa Cupcakes — still homemade, Pecan Cookies A La Mode), but the illustrations put this one over the top.

How to Bring Up a Good Cook: A Guide to Let’s Start to Cook (1966) Edited by Nell B. Nichols

Not only did Editor Nell B. Nichols collect recipes from farm wives, she wanted to make sure mothers could help their 12 year old kids (and younger) understand how to cook.

Learn the characteristics of good cookies and cakes and everything else in this “how to” companion guide for Let’s Start to Cook (above). It’s a manual instructing moms who maybe didn’t learn how to cook who can then aid their kid who is using the main book.

Chapters in the “How To Bring Up a Good Cook” book Include:

• Introduction
• Cookies They’ll Love to Bake
• Favorite Cakes and Frostings
• Pies that Please; Homemade Breads
• Desserts—Pride of Good Cooks
• Beef and Pork
• Chicken for Dinner
• Fish is Available Everywhere
• Country-Fresh Eggs
• Main Dishes Made with Cheese, Macaroni Products, and Rice
• Sandwiches—Hot and Cold
• Vegetables—Garden Goodness
• Picture-Pretty Salads
• Snacks—Little Fourth Meal
• Cooking Over Coals
• “Come and Get It!” Meals

Yes, even the essential equipment is listed, which is fun to see. Not much differs from then as now in that regard. This companion guide may not be large, but it is full of vintage goodness.

See the proper way to make and serve all manner of items, just like they did back in 1966. Farm Journal completionists will want to get their hot little hands on this hard-to-find title (hard-to-find, not impossible).

Cooking for Company (1968) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

I’m drawn to this 431-page cookbook often. Compared to other Farm Journal cookbooks, the cover nor spine is all that thrilling. But, somehow, I seem to browse it quite a b it. With over 900 “extra-delicious recipes and menus” I feel like I find something new each time.

Chapters in “Cooking for Company” by Farm Journal include:

• What this Cookbook is About
• How to Make Food Taste Wonderful
• Vegetables Country-Style
• Colorful Salads and Salad Dressings
• Homemade Country Breads
• Country-Best Cakes, Cookies, and Pies
• Great Country Desserts
• Beverages, Snacks, and Appetizers
• Cooking for a Crowd;
• Cooking over Coals.
• Hostess How-To Chapters include:
  • How to Plan Company Menus (LOVE this chapter)
  • How to Set an Attractive Table
  • How to Dramatize Food with Garnishes
  • How to Serve Guests Graciously

I’ve marked Lemon Buttermilk Cake, Flaming Plum Pudding (because that whole flame factor would be rather fun), Fish Sauce Provençale, and Stuffed Pork Chops (even if it uses a dry onion soup mix), I’d sub in my own).

Yes, convenience mixes appear in these recipes, but with so many recipes, it doesn’t feel inundated with them. Menu lovers like me will have a field day.

Homemade Bread (1969) by The Food Editors of Farm Journal

Don’t confuse this title with Farm Journal’s Homemade Bread (they are different books). Nell’s version is 152 pages, opening with this invitation, “If you like to settle down to read cookbooks, we invite you to this fascinating story of bread.” How did she know? It never occurred to me that people read cookbooks then as now.

Chapters in the 1969 “Homemade Bread” book include:

• All About Breads, then the heading: Yeast Breads—Convention Method for Baking Bread
  • Loaf Breads
  • Rolls and Buns
  • Coffee Breads and Rolls for All Occasions
  • Country Yeast Specialties, Can-Do Quick, CoolRise (not a typo)
  • Easy Mixer, Instant Blend and Short-Cut Mixer
  • Rapidmix (also not a typo)
  • No-Knead Batter Breads
    • Quick Breads for All Occasions.
  • Color Illustrations, author, and page follow

Swedish Rye Bread Supreme, Cinnamon Twist Bread, Onion Bread, Orange Bread, and Golden Pumpkin Bread sound so good — and those recipes are found within the first 25 pages of the book. Look how much more there is to explore.

Some recipes appear in other Farm Journal cookbooks and will be noted as such. Recipes include variations in flavor for a multitude of options in one handy little book.

America’s Best Vegetable Recipes: 666 Ways to Make Vegetables Irresistible (1970) by the Editors of Farm Journal

Though 1971 brought another vegetable book, it is nothing more than a condensed version of America’s Best Vegetable Recipes. They called it: “Farm Journal Garden Fresh Favorite Vegetable Recipes” (Amazon) (eBay) and also “Vegetables Your Family Will Like“, so neither one doesn’t include all the recipes that “America’s Best” possesses.

Funny story, when I was in my very early twenties, I worked in the Made-to-Measure and Retail Drapery Department at the JCPenney Home Store in Greenwood, Indiana. I LOVED that commission-based job (I was a top ten seller in the region my last year there). A senior woman was going to pay with a check, as people used to do once upon a time.

When she noticed the check number was 666, she gasped, tore it out, folded it up, and put it in her purse to throw away later, while mumbling about how she shouldn’t use it.

As someone who once had to ring up customers, and the way check writers created instant lines in grocery stores a decade ago, I would agree that checks are the devil.

I’m afraid of what this book title would have done to her. Maybe the multitude of veggie variations in the 336-page, inch-book would have won her over?

Chapters in this Farm Journal vegetable cookbook include:

• Garden-Fresh Vegetables
• Frozen Vegetables
• Canned Vegetables
• Dried Vegetables
• Mixed Vegetables
• Vegetable Main Dishes
• Vegetable Salads
• Vegetable Soups
• Seasonings, Sauces, and Salad Dressings
• Appetizers and Relishes
• Freezing and Canning Vegetables

“Have you ever gathered tomatoes, warm from the sun and about to drop from the vine in plump goodness?

Have you husked sweet corn on the way from the field to the house so you could hurry it into the big kettle of boiling water with no delay?

Popped a few peas from the pod into your mouth to savor their sweetness?

Enjoyed the lovely sharp tang of hot vinegar and bacon drippings trickling over tender leaves of the year’s first wilted lettuce?

If you have, you need no “sell” on this cookbook; you already have a high regard for garden-fresh vegetable flavors.

Nell B. Nichols, Preface

Nell wrote it so well, I’m going to leave it at that. Make veggies fun again with this useful FJ cookbook.

Homemade Candy (1970) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Read the beginning chapters and the cute story of a young woman’s Christmas Eve in a new home. I even learned something with this book just flipping through.

Did you know that people used to monogram homemade chocolates with an “N” for nougat, a “V” for vanilla, or an “X” for caramel? At 224 pages, it’s a nice-sized book.

The cover is vintage fantastic with a pink background to the pastel green and yellow candies arranged on the front.

Chapters in “Homemade Candy” from Farm Journal include:

• Everyone Likes Candy!
• How To Make Perfect Candy
• Major Ingredients in Candy Making
• Equipment for Candy Making
• Memorable Traditional Fudge
• Newer Fudge Varieties
• Country Kitchen Cream Candies
• Old-Fashioned Penuche
• Divinity and Nougat
• Dipping Chocolates for Christmas
• Centers for Dipped Chocolates
• Fondant Delicacies
• Homemade Candy Bars
• Crisp Nut Brittles
• Butterscotch and Toffee
• Tempting Bark Candy
• Pralines
• Jellied Candies
• Perfect Caramels
• Try a Taffy Pull Hard Candies
• No-Cook Candies; Confections—First Cousins of Candy
• Sugared and Spiced Nuts
• Fruit Confections
• Popcorn Confections
• Cereal Confections
• Bread, Cracker, and Cookie
• A second section contains the name, page number, and author of the wonderful color illustrations

This cookbook boasts more than 250 recipes, 50 of which feature fudge alone. Yes, there are the usual flavors of fudge, and plenty of unique kinds too.

Discover Italian Cream Fudge, Danish Fudge, Confectioner’s Sugar Fudge, Serviceman’s Special Fudge “It travels to faraway places with cheerful greetings from home,” and Mother-Son Chocolate Fudge to offer up some variety.

In non-fudge recipes, try Almond Toffee, Peanut Crunch Bars, Mallow Candy Bars, French Crème Candy Bars, or Chocolate Peanuts.

A condensed 1971 version “Choice Candy: From Your Own Kitchen” (eBay) offers up far fewer recipes, FYI.

Farm Journal Christmas Book (1970) by the Editors of Farm Journal

I would get this book for the cover alone, displaying it over the holiday season, if it didn’t have “100 festive recipes.” Avid FJ readers likely have some of the recipes, since the contents composing this book range from 1948-1968.

The soft cover edition appeared in 1966, followed by this hardback book in 1970. They are arranged differently, even if they use the same material.

Chapters in the “Farm Journal Christmas Book” include:

• The Flavors of Christmas:
  • Cookies
  • Candy
  • Food Gift Wraps
  • Breads
  • Holiday Dinners and Suppers
  • Taste-Table Snacks and Punches
  • Puddings, Tortes, and Cakes
  • Recipe Index
• Christmas All Through the House:
  • Decorations:
    • For Table, Wall, Mantle, Door
    • Tree Ornaments
• Gifts to Make:
  • Handcrafts
  • Gifts to Sew
  • Christmas Bazaar
• Children’s Corner

The illustrations showing “Clever Packaging for Food Gifts” is a wonderful thing as are the tabletop tree images. Then there is a suggestion to bake a cookie family as a gift for a kid. It’s actually pretty cute. I could see doing that.

Recipes are in typical FJ style, with sentence intros. This is a gorgeous book brimming with cheery holiday retro flair.

How to Make Your Home More Convenient (1971) Compiled by Jean Gillies

Expanding on 200 Ways to Streamline your Kitchen and Laundry (Amazon) (eBay), wow, this book is a winner. If you can’t get enough of vintage style, and design like it’s 1970, you’ll especially love it.

At 160 pages, you’ll come way from this read with some home organizational tips practical and relevant today.

Chapters include:

• Improve Your Home — 350 Ideas
• Kitchens
  • Heart of the Home
  • How Convenient is Your Kitchen?
  • Five Idea Kitchens
  • 1. Take-It-Easy Kitchen
  • 2. Compact Work Area
  • 3. Help-Yourself Kitchen
  • 4. Little Ways to Make Work Easier
  • 5. A Dozen Great Ideas in One Kitchen
  • Mix Centers
  • Mix Centers Behind Doors
  • Built-Ins Where You Bake
  • Spice Shelves — One Row Deep
  • Pullouts at the Mix Center
  • Cook Centers
  • Handy Storage for Pots and Pans
  • Extra Counter Space
  • Custom Storage for the Cook
  • Keep Some Seasonings at the Range
  • You Can Put the Range in an Island
  • Sink Centers
  • Which Sink for You?
  • Add a Special Faucet
  • Built-Ins Suround the Sink
  • Give the Wastebasket a Home
  • Small Appliance Storage
  • Base Cabinets with Outlets
  • Counter-Top Cabinets
  • Pantries
  • Take Part of a Storage Wall
  • Make Full Use of Doors
  • Big Turntables for Deep Storage
  • Use Imagination to Locate a Pantry
  • Storage for Home-Canned Foods
  • Bonus Kitchen Ideas
  • <snip>The rest of the subchapters are lengthy. So I’ve left the main headings below.
• Laundry Centers
• Sewing Centers
  • Sew Almost Anywhere
  • Five Centers to Build
• Activity Areas
• Desk Spots
• More Handy Ideas
  • Shelves
  • Tailor-Made Storage

Get a load of the u-shaped kitchen on page 12. They put the fridge in a peninsula. They include a blackboard in the chapter, with the father saying, “It must have saved $1000 worth of paper.” Hilarious!

Busy Woman’s Cookbook: Containing Short-Cut Cooking and Make-Ahead Cooking (1971) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

This is a “completely revised and reorganized edition of Farm Journal’s Timesaving Country Cookbook” mentioned above. It is a much different book, even when it comes to the illustrations. The image for “Strawberry Royale” is truly amazing.

Chapters in the “Busy Woman’s Cookbook” include:

• Part 1 Short-Cut Cooking:
  • Introduction
  • Main Dishes
    • Meats
    • Poultry
    • Fish
    • Eggs
    • Cheese
  • Vegetables:
    • Salads
    • Salad Dressings
    • Sauces
    • Relishes
  • Sandwiches and Breads
  • Desserts:
    • Pies
    • Cakes and Frostings
  • Cookies
  • Other Desserts
  • Dessert Sauces
  • Snacks, Nibbles, and Beverages
• Part II Make-Ahead Cooking:
• Introduction
• Main Dishes
  • Meat, Poultry, Fish, Eggs, Cheese
  • Vegetables:
    • Salads
    • Salad Dressings
    • Relishes
    • Sauces
• Sandwiches and Breads
• Desserts:
  • Pies
  • Cakes
  • Cookies
  • Other Desserts
  • Salads, Nibbles, and Beverages
• A list of color illustrations (spanning over 15 different pages), appears with the name, author, and page number.

This version ditched the symbols in the index of the “Timesaving” cookbook and the sentence or two intros before every recipe (and I love those).

Comparing the indexes for “Cookies” reveals different recipes, brownies as a part of the chapter in the newer version, and, in the case of the Scotch Shortbreads, the same ingredients, but different instructions (including oven temperature and baking time). Complete your collection or try this fixed version.

Homemade Cookies (1971) Edited by Nell B. Nichols

I wince each time I open this fancy-looking cookbook; the cover creaks. But how can I possibly resist the colors and food styling? Retro fabulous.

With 320 pages of cookies, and over 460 cookie recipes, I doubly can’t. Some recipes have been published in Farm Journal, while for other recipes, it is their first time in print. Eat up!

Chapters in Farm Journal’s “Homemade Cookies” include:

• Choice Homemade Cookies from Countryside America
• How to Bake Good Cookies Every Time
• How to Pack Cookies for Mailing
• Bar Cookies
• Drop Cookies
• Rolled Cookies
• Refrigerator Cookies
• Molded Cookies
• Pressed Cookies
• Meringue Cookies
• Cookie Confections
• Pie-Bar Dessert Cookies
• Ready-Made Cookies
• Cookies to Make from a Mix
• Cookies Children will Love to Make
• Cookies for Special Occasions
• Followed by Color Illustrations, with name, author, and page number. The illustrations are so good.

Finnish Shortbread Cookies, Circle Ranch Oat Cookies, Soft Chocolate Chippers, and French Chocolate Pie Squares have been on my baking list for ages.

The trouble is that every time I grab this cookbook, I find something else to add to that list. I need to whittle that list down and get baking — and soon. We can always use more cookies in our life.

Homemade Ice Cream and Cake (1972) Edited by Elise W. Manning

What a great cover. It makes you want to pick it up and bake something out of it — so kudos to whomever made that decision several decades ago.

At 223 pages, including the recipe index (as always), this book mostly includes the one sentence intros and new chapter lengthier intros we all know and love — so it’s still a good choice for reading.

Chapters in the “Homemade Ice Cream and Cake” cookbook include:

• Do Stop By for Homemade Ice Cream and Cake
• Vanilla and Variations
• Choose Your Flavor
• Refrigerator Tray Ice Creams and Sherbets
• Ice Cream Spectaculars
• Sauces Make It Special
• Everyday Cakes the Family will Love
• Cakes Your Guests Will Remember
• Easy-Does-It Cake Decorating
• Frosty Ice Cream/Sherbet Coolers
• Next, as usual, are the “Color Illustrations,” with the name, author, and page number.

Chocolate Bark Cake, Ice Cream Petite Fours (and a glorious image!), Marbled Pound Cake, Fruited Honey Cake … this cookbook has a long list of great or unique recipes for every day and for entertaining. What will you bake up next?

Farm Journal Christmas Idea Book (1972) by Kathryn Larson

It’s another three books in one with 300+ recipes, ideas, or things to do to better ring in the merry season over 160 pages, with content copyrighted from 1956-1971.

This Christmas book combines crafts, gifts, décor, and food in one handy title. You know them separately as Holiday Cookbook, Handcrafted Gifts, and Festive Decorations.

Chapters include:

• Holiday Cookbook: Gather Together for a Festive Feast:
  • Meats and Poultry
  • Vegetables
  • Garnishes
  • Casseroles
  • Soups
  • Salads
  • Cakes
  • Pies
  • Desserts
  • Condiments
  • Snacks and Beverages
• Gifts from Your Kitchen:
  • Cookies
  • Candy
  • Jellies
  • Relishes
  • Breads
  • Doughnuts
  • Fruitcake
  • What to Feed the Birds
  • Festive Decorations and Gifts to Make/New Crafts to Try Yes, those last two chapters include a list of the projects, but we’re all about baking here, so I’m just including the food chapter details.

Whipped Strawberry Delight and Russian Cream Mold recipes open up a section on make-ahead chilled desserts. German Twists, Vanilla Almond Crunch, Raspberry Swirl … you don’t have to dig deep to find tasty recipes.

All those chilled desserts (and cookies, candy, and the rest of it) would be great for the summer too, so this is one holiday cookbook that should receive year-round use.

Family Favorites from Country Kitchens (1973) Edited by Elise W. Manning

When the oldest was little, he saw me reading a cookbook, and asked me the name of the cookie in a picture on the page.

I said, “Rosemary Pine Nut Cookies.” He repeated, “Roseberry Pineapple Cookies? Sounds good!” as he danced away. This cookbook has a recipe for Pineapple Nut Cookies reminding me of those days, plus over 450 other “tried-and-true” recipes over 278 pages.

Chapters include:

• I’m unsure. Can anyone help me with that, please?

Rhubarb Custard Kuchen (the woman wrote her husband liked it for breakfast too), Pineapple Cinnamon Buns (that’s different), and Miniature Cheese Loaves (though I’d swap out the canned soup) fit my kitchen.

Informal Entertaining, Country Style (1973) Edited by Nell B. Nichols

Nell comments on the way country meals work:

“…the meals are likely to be “planned potluck”—actually a contradiction.

But it is an improvement farm women have made over the old custom: “Bring a covered dish.” This could result in a dozen bowls of coleslaw and only one main dish!

Cooperative meals appropriated the name “potluck” even though every woman is assigned food to bring.”

Funny, as I never considered the term “potluck” before. Now, it makes sense. Homemade brownies are, I believe, the “too many” item found at any “bring something” kind of shared meal.

The chapters in this book have a lengthy list of subheadings. I am only including the chapter name and description here or this article will end up a million words long (too late).

Chapters in the “Informal Entertaining” cookbook include:

• Informal Entertaining Country Style
• Entertaining Before Noon—Coffee Breaks…Coffee Parties…Brunches
• Entertaining at Midday—Luncheons with Feminine Appeal
• Entertaining at Supper—Great Evening Meals
• Entertaining at Dinner—Midday or Evening Meals
• Afternoon and Evening Refreshments
• One last section features the color illustrations, artist name, and the page number.

For such an old cookbook, Nell does offer up timely advice, like depending on good home-cooked foods, planning ahead what you will serve, and to make and serve yeast breads (to name a few). That’s pretty neat.

Of course, she also includes a bit about offering appetizers, and having your husband “assume responsibility by serving and keeping guests happy during this course, while you are in the kitchen.” Hello, 1973.

All in all, this is a fun, fun, FUN read of 100 menus and recipes — and one vintage cookbook purchase you won’t regret.

Everyday Cooking with Herbs (1974) by Mary A. Collin with the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Author Mary has a great story as to how she began in the herb business — during World War II.

Mary reveals that her two most popular recipes, those for Herb Mustard and Herb French Dressing made up 50% of the business, and that:

“… after all these years, I still receive cards, letters, and telephone calls asking for these two herb mixtures.

The recipes for both are included in this book — I give them to you and you’ll find them outstanding.”

Recipe sharers are the best people.

Chapters in the “Everyday Cooking with Herbs” cookbook include:

• How I Got into the Herb Business
• Part 1: Herbs for Variety in Everyday Meals
  • The Most Common and Useful Culinary Herbs
  • How to Make Your Own Herb Blends and Vinegars
  • Appetizers, Canapés, and Hors D’oeuvres
  • Savory Soups
  • Herb Teas and Other Beverages
  • Breads, Rolls, and Muffins
  • Quick and Easy Casseroles
  • Egg and Cheese Dishes
  • Seafood Specialties
  • Marvelous Meat Dishes
  • Choice Chicken Dishes and Stuffings
  • Colorful Vegetables with a Difference
  • Fruit and Vegetable Salads
  • Superb Sauces and Dressings
  • Sandwiches and Special Spreads
  • Delightful Desserts
  • Homemade Herb Jellies
• Part II: How to Grow Your Own Herbs
  • Planning and Designing Your Herb Garden
  • Growing Herbs in Your Garden
  • How to Grow Herbs Indoors and Under Artificial Light
  • Herbs Make Glamorous Gifts
• Two indexes will help you get to where you want to go, with the second index pertaining to herb usage.

Prosciutto and Oregano Squares, Chive Spoon Bread, St. Lucia’s Cardamom Rolls, and Ham and Rice Bake are homemade dishes using herbs I wouldn’t mind trying.

Some recipes turn to a boxed mix or, in the case of her “Herb French Dressing, it begins with a bottle of French dressing. No bother. Make your own favorite bases, then continue using Mary’s recipes. Like most FJ cookbooks, this one also includes a sentence intro with every recipe for your reading enjoyment.

Guittard Chocolate Cookbook: Decadent Recipes from San Francisco’s Premium Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Company (2015) by Amy Guittard

This 282-page cookbook is ahead of its time, asking the reader to use math and figure out the cost of items using price per ounce. But, it’s also quick to point out that a bargain isn’t a bargain if it’s too much for the family to use before it gets stale.

Overnight Tossed Salad, Lemon Crisp Supreme, Potato and Ham Salad…these don’t feel like budget recipes. Just good old-fashioned comfort food.

Chapters include:

• Cooking with Taste and Thrift
• Homemade Mixes Save Time and Money
• Economical Meat Dishes
• Chicken, Turkey, and Fish
• Eggs and Cheese
• Hearty Main-Dish Soups
• Vegetables-Nutritious and Necessary
• Thrifty Salads
• Satisfying Simple Desserts

The “Memo to a Meal Planner” is a nice touch. Appearing at the bottom of some recipes, this callout gives the reader (assumed to be a female housewife, of course), an additional serving side suggestion, relays more info about a recipe (such as the texture), or what to expect.

For example, the Cornhusker Bean and Corn Salad memo tells readers that homemade corn relish is good to use in the salad, what to serve it in, and what proteins it best complements. Neat.

Country Fair Cookbook: Every Recipe a Blue Ribbon Winner (1975) by Elise W. Manning

Is there anything more wonderful in a small town than a fair or festival? Nope. Capture the 1970s fair feeling with 215 pages of recipes and tips.

Note that this cookbook is geared toward recipes that would earn the submitter a blue ribbon award, and not recipes for the kind of food you would buy at the fair.

Chapters include:

• Introduction: Heigh-HO! Come to the Fair
• Homemade Breads…
  • Country Fair Bounty:
    • Country Yeast and Batter Breads
    • Outstanding Yeast Rolls
• Sweet Rolls…Irresistible
  • Very Best Quick Breads and Biscuits
  • Fabulous Fruit and Nut Quick Breads
  • Muffins You’ll Want to Make Again and Again
  • Delicious Doughnuts from the Fairs
• Top Winners…Tender-Crumbed Coffee Cakes
• Homemade and Handsome Cakes from the Fairs:
  • Family-Style Cakes
  • Good Snacking Cakes
  • Choice Chocolate Collection
  • Potpourri of Spice Cakes
  • Great Gingerbreads
• The Elegants…Angel and Sponge Cakes
  • Prized Chiffons
  • Praise-Winning Pound Cakes, “Company’s Coming” Cakes
  • Spectaculars for Special Occasions
  • Show Stoppers: Decorated Cakes
• Homemade Cookies…The Fairs’ Finest:
  • Brownies and More Brownies
  • Freeze-Ahead Favorites
  • Lunch Box Specials
  • Especially For Bazaars and Bake Sales
  • Heirloom Cookies for the Holidays
  • Great Gift Assortment
  • The Family Cookie Jar
• Homemade Pies that Deserve Their Ribbons:
  • Award-Winning Apple Pies
  • Plump and Juicy Fruit Pies
  • Good Old-Fashioned Pies
  • Traditional Thanksgiving Pumpkin and Pecan Pies
  • Cream and Custard Pies—Smooth as Velvet
  • Special-Occasion Pies

The intro sentence above a recipe may let you know if it’s from a state fair ribbon winner, the state where a recipe is from, or some other tidbit about the author. I adore this kind of cookbook and the cover.

The Swedish Limpa Loaves are a “ribbon winner” and combination of several recipes (and I loooove Limpa bread). Marshmallow Fudge Squares, Toffee Pecan Bars (a Blue Ribbon winner in a Missouri fair), and Danish Apple Bars are but a small sliver of what you’ll find.

Cooking with Apples (1975) by Shirley Munson and Jo Nelson

Shirley Munson was a University of Minnesota Department of Horticultural Science researcher and head of the Sensory and Quality Evaluation Lab where fruits, like apples, were rated on a variety of things.

For 15 years prior to the publication of this book, she and her staff created an exhibit of apples and apple dishes—and this book features the best of those recipes.

Chapters include:

• Apples in America
• How Well Do You Know Your Apple Varieties?
• Tender Loving Care from Grower to You
• Good to Eat and Good for You, Too
• Preserving Apples
• Recipes:
  • Beverages
  • Breads
  • Bars and Cookies
  • Cakes
  • Desserts
  • Pies and Pastries
  • Preserves
  • Salads
  • Fun with Apples

Pie, crisp, and stove-top scalloped apples are about all I do with them. Apples are the youngest and my favorite fruit, so I don’t have gobs of older apples to deal with.

This apple cookbook may mean I’m buying more apples than ever, just to make things like Rosy Apple Cake, Finnish Apple Sugar Cake, Apple Cereal Cookies (using oats, spices, and things), Apple Molasses Bars, and Apple Dream Bars … it’s hard NOT to find recipes to try.

How to Dry Fruits and Vegetables at Home and 50 Good Recipes for Cooking With Them (1975) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Drawing on the expertise of Extension bulletins and their authors, this book aims to reassure and guide every home cook interested in drying food.

At first, I didn’t think this book was for me. But then, I read about a dip mix and now, well, now I am intrigued. At 124 pages, it is on the smaller side.

Chapters include:

• Dry It Now…Enjoy It Later
• How Drying Preserves Food
• What You’ll Need for Drying Food
• Drying Fruits
• Drying Vegetables and Herbs
• Sun Drying
• Packaging and Storing
• Cooking with Dried Food

Getting back to those dip mixes … They offer up two recipes using dried veggies for dips. One is for Onion Parsley Chip Dip using dried onion and dried parsley, while the other is for a Creamy Mushroom Spread using dried mushrooms, onions, and parsley.

Browse recipes using your other dried items like Fruit Cobbler, Old-Fashioned Green Beans, Apricot Swirl Buns, and Mushroom-Gravy Pork Chops.

The friendly approach here is nice, gently urging readers to begin home drying “in a spirit of experiment and adventure.” Just as we should consider every baking project, right?

Christmas with a Country Flavor (1975) Edited by Rachel Martens

I’m going to make a mess of the chapters because there are a jumble of headings, so I’m omitting the details for any chapter beyond food. Hey, this is a baking site, and really what we are all here for anyway.

Page 20 pretty much sells me on everything and makes me want it to be Christmas NOW (and not last month). It’s an image with a roast turkey and side items in front of a large window showing snow-covered trees. Treat yo’ self to 174 pages of holiday awesome.

Chapters include:

• Introduction: Christmas with a Country Flavor
• Community Projects:
  • Light Up Your Yard for the Holidays
  • Plan a Cooperative Christmas Dinner
  • How to Run a Successful Bazaar
• Home-Cooked Foods: Christmas is Sharing:
  • Cooperative Christmas Dinner
  • Sharing Family Favorites During the Holidays
• Food Gifts:
  • Festive Breads
  • Pickled Vegetables
  • Homemade Cookies
  • Two Quick and Easy Candies
• Jewel of a Gift…Jellies
• Christmas is Feasting: Four Heirloom Dinners
  • German Trim-the-Tree Supper
  • Italian-Inspired Christmas Week Dinner
  • Swedish-Style Holiday Smorgasbord
  • Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas Feast
  • New Turkey Dishes
  • Wonderful Smell of Christmas Baking
  • Holiday Decorations
  • Handmade Gifts
  • Gift Giving Suggestions
  • Patterns and Instructions

Magnificent menus may need a little tweaking to fit today. Flip through for pages of enticing recipes like Spicy Pumpkin Bars (which will always make me remember my Aunt Hazel), Homemade Ravioli with Sausage-Tomato Sauce, Turnips and Potatoes, Baked Onions, Lemon Sponge Pie … I could go on.

Great Home Cooking in America: Heirloom Recipes Treasured for Generations (1976) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Two versions, one produced in 1976 and the other in 1985, have different covers and book jacket text. They do share the same interior text in typical chatty style, with one difference: The 1985 version doesn’t have any of the charming vintage “illustrations.” Even so, the Great Home Cooking in America cookbooks are the same length, at 312 pages.

Chapters include:

• Part 1: Our 200-Year Heritage of American Cooking: Introduction:
  • American Food Originals
  • Southwestern Specialties
• Part II: From the Old Country to the New Land: Introduction:
  • The Heritage of English Cooking
  • The Heritage of German Cooking
  • The Heritage of Dutch Cooking
  • The Heritage of Scandinavian Cooking
  • The Heritage of Eastern European Cooking
  • The Heritage of Italian
  • Other Mediterranean Favorites

Both books offers up a paragraph intro, like a serving suggestion, to the majority of recipes—which you know I love. Scandinavian Hash, Swedish Meatballs with Sauce (no mention of lingonberry sauce), Mexican Rice, Amish Vanilla Pie, and Streusel Pear Pie sound fab.

It was harder to narrow down the list of recipes I’d want to try. This is a surprisingly good cookbook. Some foods are given full paragraphs segmented into background info or history and more details for the recipe itself.

With more than 300 authentic recipes, it’s another worthy addition to your cookbook collection.

I Love Ice Cream (1976) by Carolyn Vosburg Hall and the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Hand-illustrated and single-subject, this 1976 cookbook offers facts and recipes over 64 pages. It’s not arranged like a typical cookbook since the chapters are often the recipe titles and, at most, two pages long.

Remember that this cookbook appeared in the days before electric ice cream makers too, so the directions are a little different, yet easily adaptable. The recipe for “No Machine Ice Cream” is made without any ice cream maker at all.

Chapters include:

• Easiest, Oldest Ice Cream
• Let’s Make Real Ice Cream
• How to Freeze Ice Cream
• What’s in Ice Cream?
• Number One: Vanilla
• Ice Cream Cookery
• Ice Cream Inventions
• As American as Apple Pie
• George Washington Loved Ice Cream
• No-Machine Ice Cream and Sherbet
• Hooray! It’s Good for Me!
• The Ice Cream Machine
• Ice Cream has Cousins by the Dozens
• The Ice Cream Cone Arrives
• How to Eat Ice Cream
• Scoops and Dippers
• Fountains and Floats
• Belch Water and Moo Juice
• How to Drink Ice Cream
• Sundaes for Sundays
• Banana Split and Rainbow Sundae
• Ice Cream on a Stick; Sandwiches and Snowballs
• Happy Birthday (Ice Cream Cakes)
• Pancakes and Pies
• Make Molds: It’s a Bombe!
• Would You Eat a Moose?
• Ice Cream All Day Long

Honestly, I am a big fan of this book. Using cream and eggs, the recipes make custard-style ice cream (which is always the best!). The ice cream variations (especially banana) don’t skimp on flavor.

Favorite Fruit Sherbet, recipes for hot fudge, butterscotch, and caramel sauce, plus more sauce flavors and recipes for a banana split create a fantastically useful little cookbook. The drawing of the clown face cone (page 35) reminds me of Baskin Robbins in the early 1980s.

When my parents and I went to get ice cream, that’s where we went — and I always made a beeline for the clown face cone in the glass case.

I Love Popcorn (1976) by Carolyn Vosburg Hall and the Food Editors of Farm Journal

Opening with a brief explanation of popcorn, this book shares a multitude of recipes from the simple (different seasoning blends) to the more complex (involving a stove-top). At 64 pages, with hand-drawn illustrations from Carolyn, it’s another neat retro book.

Chapters include:

• Private Popcorn Party
• Buttery Popcorn
• Movie Popcorn
• Campfire Popcorn
• Spanish Popcorn
• Peruvian Popcorn
• Breakfast Bonanza
• Peanut Butter Popcorn
• Crunchy Lunch
• Finger-Food Snack Supper
• Crunchies, Munchies
• Wow Your Friends
• Party Popcorn
• Pizza
• Easy Caramel Corn
• Trick or Treat
• Popcorn Sculpture
• Summer Suckers
• Easter Eggs
• Happy Birthday
• Chocolate Popcorn Bars
• Hawaiian Popcorn Bars
• Popcorn Fudge
• Croutons and Experiment

While we will steer clear of Recipe #9 in: “Let’s Munch a Crunch Lunch,” with dried beef, butter, chopped celery and popcorn, the popcorn aficionado in our home (our youngest , age 12) declares several recipes worth trying. He eats popcorn almost daily.

Molasses Popcorn Balls, Peruvian Popcorn, Chocolate Popcorn Balls, and even Peanut Butter Popcorn would perk up any movie night.

Farm Journal’s Homemade Snacks: How To Eat Better When You Eat on the Run (1976) by Nell B. Nichols

Take a look at what 1970s cooks were whipping up to eat on the go. You’ve got to dig the red and yellow color scheme of the book’s interior cover design. It features “Grocery Shopping for Good Nutrition” in the front and “Eating Right for Good Nutrition” in the back.

Chapters include:

• Snack Your Way to Health
• Nibbles that Nourish
• Snack But Stay Slim
• Capitalize on Fruits and Vegetables
• Breads with a Health Bonus
• Milk…Still the Dependable
• Substantial Snacks for Meal-Missers
• Sweets to Eat with a Better Conscience
• Make Snacks Count in the Day’s Meals
• Grocery Shopping for Good Nutrition

Any cookbook including Caramel Chocolate Apples as a healthy snack (Nibbles that Nourish) is A-Okay in my book. Recipes do range from the stuff you’d expect to see as a snack option to a bit more out there, such as the mini casseroles section for “Meal-Missers.”

With 200 recipes tested in the Farm Journal kitchens, Farm Journal fans will find it easy to get their snack on with these “new” recipes.

Best-Ever Recipes (1977) by Elise W. Manning

The premise of this cookbook isn’t much different from other Farm Journal cookbooks, in that they once again turned to their readers to ask about their favorite recipes.

But, this time, they asked for readers’ favorite recipes from Farm Journal. Each of the 200 recipes include a big honkin’ paragraph with people’s responses (and the state they are from).

Chapters include:

• Farm Journal’s Best -Ever Recipes
• Meats and Main Dishes
• Vegetables
• Salads; Pickles and Relishes
• Yeast and Quick Breads
• Cakes, Frostings, and Fillings
• Pies and Piecrusts
• Cookies
• Other Desserts

Strawberry Glace Pie, Yellow Lard Cake, Gingerbread Deluxe (because I do love gingerbread), and Sweet Dills are instant eye-catchers in my book.

Wow, that is one weird mix of recipes there, but at least you get the idea on how varied this cookbook compilation is. It feels like a larger print than usual, so it’s easier on the eyes too.

Farm Journal’s Great Dishes From the Oven (1977) by Rita Holmberg

You’ve gotta love the intro on “Making the Most of Your Oven,” and how “Many homemakers have been extravagant in the use of oven heat.” They describe the things people do, like turning on an oven to heat up a couple rolls or heating longer than needed.

After you learn what not to do, you’ll enjoy a mix of menus and recipes over 156 pages.

Chapters inside “Great Dishes from the Oven” include:

• Make the Most of Your Oven
• Family Meals from the Oven
• Company Fare
• Roasts with Extra Dividends
• Head Start on Entertaining
• Make-Ahead Dishes that Carry Well
• Bake-Ahead Breads and Cookies
• Scrumptious
• Fix-Ahead Desserts
• Hints and Helps

Here’s a fancy “Company Fare” menu for you: Roast Whole Beef Tenderloin, Special Stuffed Baked Potatoes, Herbed Frenched Green Beans, Avocado-Grapefruit Salad, Hot Garlic Bread, Pineapple Cheesecake, and a Beverage.

The intro text proclaims, “You’ll win an award for this dinner!” Recipes don’t have an intro sentence, but each menu does include a paragraph for your reading pleasure.

Friendly Food Gifts From Your Kitchen (1978) Edited by Elise W. Manning

Food Editor Elise W. Manning reached out to readers requesting giftable recipes—and she received plenty. The 275 recipes in this 255-page book are the result of testing and tweaking.

She does suggest that these recipes are so good, you should expect to include them in your own cooking too. For the most part, I would agree.

Chapters include: Introduction:

• The Nicest Gift of All…a Homemade Specialty from Your Kitchen
• Welcome to Our Neighborhood
• To Cheer a Sick Friend
• Made with Love for Your Birthday
• Food to Comfort Friends and Neighbors
• Gifts that Say “Thank You”
• To Share with a Shut-In
• All-Occasion Gifts to Please the Palate
• Christmas Gifts…Every One a Holiday Jewel
• How to Create Your Own Containers for Food Gifts
• As usual, Color Illustrations and their page number follow.

If you, like me, thought this would be a book of nothing but cookies—we’re both wrong. It isn’t. Yes, there are candy and cookie recipes (Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies sound great), that’s not the whole story.

Herb blends, flavored vinegar, portable meals like Big Read Meat Loaf, Potato-Topped Meatball Casserole, and salad dressings are found here too.

I’ve noticed a fair bit of “use a can” recipes here, just so you know. Many recipes outside of main dishes are still entirely homemade.

Farm Journal’s Choice Chocolate Recipes (1978) Edited by Elise W. Manning

Once again, the editors reached out to readers, now asking for chocolate recipes. Readers obliged, sending over 10,000 recipes.

How much fun would that have been, opening those recipes, reading the letters, and deciding what was worth keeping? It sounds like something my mom would love too.

Chapters include:

• All About Chocolate
• Plain and Fancy Cakes
• All kinds of Cookies
• Batches of Brownies
• A Potpourri of Pies
• Downright Delicious Desserts and Sauces
• Fudge and More Fudge
• Mmm! What Good Candy!

FJ wasn’t planning on making an entire cookbook devoted to chocolate at the time, but all those recipes changed their minds. Thank goodness — this is a great 224-page cookbook.

Not only are the recipes homemade and amazing (Marbled Chocolate Rum Pie, Brownie Twirl Baked Alaska, and Chocolate Cream Cake) but they’ve printed reader’s accompanying comments.

This results in a longer than usual intro to the recipes that cookbook readers (like me) will absolutely love.

Farm Journal’s Complete Home Baking Book (1979) Edited by Elise W. Manning

Hundreds of recipes for baking? Try 350+ of them over 352 pages. Bake it or read it. Or both. Probably both, right?

Recipes include the intros and you’ll find plenty of homemade items to get you out of any recipe rut you’re in. It won’t be hard, with the 150 baking tips and how-to sketches.

Chapters in “Farm Journal’s Complete Home Baking Book” include:

• Basics of Baking
• Great Country Yeast Breads
• Best Country Quick Breads
• Beautiful Country Cakes
• Fun-To-Eat Country Cookies
• Finest Country Pies

It’s morning as I write this, so the quick crumb Coffee Cake and Butter-Rich Coffee Cake sound especially appealing. It’s not all breakfast and dessert (mmm…Special Strawberry Sponge Cake).

Look at the image for the Meatball-Vegetable Pie with a flaky pastry. It has me wishing I had something like that for lunch leftover

Farm Journal’s Cook it Your Way (1979) Edited by Nell B. Nichols and Betsy McCracken

Know what’s fun? This is a mother-daughter writing team. It’s also a cookbook about options. Choose among your slow cooker, microwave, electric frying pan, oven, or stovetop.

The 200+ recipes inside the 282-page cookbook were originally tested for a stove or oven, but have now been retested to work in a microwave or other small appliance. No images *sad panda.*

Chapters include:

• Cook It Your Way
• Making the Best Use of Your Appliances
• Soup Sampler
• Adaptable Main Dishes
• Vegetable Variety
• Hospitality Foods
• Winning Breads and Desserts

Notes above the recipe advise the reader what method to choose if they prefer more gravy or what to choose if they want flavors to better develop. Porcupine Meatballs, for example, note that it’s a time-saving recipe since the meatballs aren’t browned in any version.

Recipe ingredients and then the recipe instructions are included for the stovetop, electric frying pan, microwave oven, and the pressure cooker, with cooking time. Expect canned and frozen items here and there in this one.

Hungarian Pork with Sauerkraut, Reuben-Style Meatloaf (I don’t even know what to think about this one), and Brownie Pudding Cake are intriguing to me.

Farm Journal’s Homespun Christmas (1979) by the Editors of Farm Journal

Not all of the craft pages will make the leap to 2022. I’m looking at you, “Ornaments of Calico” and “Woven Frame.” But hey, it’s still fun to browse — especially considering the more than 60 recipes for holiday feasting for all sorts of occasions.

Chapters “Farm Journals’ Homespun Christmas” include:

• Introduction: Christmas in the Country
• The Christmas Story
• Family Feasting: The Foods We Remember
• Holiday Dishes to Share
• O Christmas Tree
• Deck the Halls
• The Joy of Giving
• Christmas is for (can’t make out word, can you help?)

You know my love for menus. Check out this one for Christmas Dinner or, as they call it, “A Christmas Dinner to Celebrate.”

It includes Creamy Mashed Potatoes (using cream cheese and chives), Range Top Pecan Dressing, Butternut Squash with Peas, Golden Parmesan Rolls, Cranberry Blender Relish, Hot Mince Pie, Pumpkin Pie, and — a Roast Turkey, of course.

With images and homemade recipes, this cookbook feels holiday bright.

Farm Journal’s Country-Style Microwave Cookbook: 104 Favorite Family Dishes Converted for Microwave Cookery (1980) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

See: Farm Journal Country-Style Microwave (1984) below.

Farm Journal’s Meal and Menu Planner Cookbook: Menus Enough for Every Day of the Year (1980) Edited by Elise W. Manning

There are 50 creative brownie recipes and nothing BUT brownie recipes in this 9.2 x 0.7 x 9.2 inch, 160-page book. If you are a brownie baking beginner, or need a refresher, Connie provides excellent hints and tips.

Farm Journal’s Everyday Favorite Recipes: Savory Country Dishes for Family Meals (1980) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

I don’t own this book and cannot find information.

Farm Journal’s Speedy Skilled Meals (1980) Edited by Patricia A. Ward

Folks who don’t mind “a can of this” and a can of that” kind of meals will get the most from this 232-page cookbook. It’s about making food at home with a skillet (stove-top or electric), fast.

Chapters include:

• 30-Minute Specials
• Easy Stir-Fried Dishes
• Family-Style Favorites
• Company-Pleasing Specialties

Midwestern-Style Chili is like no chili my Midwestern mom made. Speedy Sauerkraut Supper uses a can of “pork lunchmeat product.” Hmm.

Round out your collection and chuckle over the color photos for things like Cheesy Egg Puff, Pork Chop Skillet Dinner, and Quick Ham Macaroni Skillet.

Farm Journal’s Best-Ever Cookies (1980) Edited by Patricia A. Ward

Ignore the boring cover. Over 400 cookie and bar recipes, favorites of the Farm Journal Food Editors, make every one of the 279 pages pure excitement. Cookie lovers, you’ve been warned.

Chapters in the Farm Journal cookie cookbook include:

• All About Cookies
• From Grandmother’s Kitchen
• Cookies in a Hurry
• Especially For the Kids
• Super-Nutritious Treats
• To Tuck in a Lunch Box
• Bake Sale Sellouts
• Penny-Wise Treats
• To Give as a Gift
• For Very Special Occasions
• Country Christmas Favorites

Oh — the chapter titled “Especially for Kids,” isn’t kid-friendly cookies (whatever that would mean) but recipes intended for families to make together.

The cookies are simple enough for a 10-year-old to handle alone. Frosted Coconut-Orange Cookies, Winning Sugar Cookies, and Jumbo Oatmeal-Peanut Butter Cookies need to fill my cookie jar.

Farm Journal’s Picnic & Barbecue Cookbook: 250 Recipes Plus Sample Menus (1982) Edited by Patricia A. Ward

Menus! This one has heaps of menus! With 250 recipes over 150 pages, they’ve included 60 different menus to get the picnic party rollin’.

Each menu offers an intro and then gets to it, with detailed recipes. Some recipes aren’t my cup of tea, as they say, but with a little mix-and-matching, it’s a super addition to any cookbook collection.

Chapters include:

• Let’s Eat Outdoors
• Springtime Celebrations
• Summer Reunions
• Autumn Gatherings

They had the good sense to leave winter out of it (I happen to be writing this mid-January days before we’re expected to get 6″ of snow, so I’m feeling particularly over winter at the moment). Beneath each chapter, you’ll find the name of a menu idea and the page number.

“Mother’s Day Barbecue” is a London Broil, Creamy Potato Board, Broccoli-Egg Salad, Buttery Blue Cheese Loaf, and Strawberries and Cream. I am totally good with that menu as is.

Farm Journal’s Country-Style Microwave Cookbook 2 (1982) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

See: “Farm Journal’s Country-Style Microwave Cookbook”.

Farm Journal’s Complete Cake Decorating Book (1983) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

We can all use more cake in our lives. Let this cake cookbook show you why. Color images and helpful illustrations provide clear direction for even a beginning decorator.

The cakes are divided into type, so you can flip to where you need to go in the 172-page cookbook and guide.

Chapters inside this FJ cake decorating cookbook include:

• First the Cake
• Then the Frosting
• Simply Beautiful Cakes
• Decorated Cakes for Celebrations
• Cakes Just for Children
• Cakes for Holidays and Seasons
• Cakes for Engagements, Weddings, and Anniversaries

Each chapter breaks down further, with subheadings like “Pretty Layer Cakes” and “Cakes for Birthdays,” as an example.

Some of the decorating is a little outdated for today’s tastes, but there are still some great good looks (and, you know, over 200 “never-fail” recipes). Yes, even a selection of microwave recipes. Odd, but there you go. A sign of those times.

Decorations make use of just six decorating tubes, so you won’t need to break the bank to give this one a go. It also means it isn’t super in-depth though either.

Farm Journal’s Homemade Pies, Cookies & Bread (1983) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

You may have this cookbook in another form. This is a compilation of three FJ books:

• Farm Journal’s Complete Pie
• Homemade Cookies
• Homemade Bread

As you would expect when you combine not one, not two, but three cookbooks together — it’s a whopper. At 794 pages, this will keep bakers and cookbook readers engrossed for days.

Chapters inside “Farm Journal’s Homemade Pies, Cookies, and Bread” cookbook include:

• Pies:
  • All About Pies
  • Pie Crusts of All Kinds
  • Dessert Pies:
    • Fruit Pies
    • Custard and Cream Pies
    • Refrigerator and Ice Cream Pies
    • Deep-Dish and Cake Pies
    • Cobblers, and Dumplings
    • Tarts and Turnovers
    • Fast-Fix Pies
    • Pie Toppings
  • Main-Dish Pies:
    • Meat and Chicken Pies
    • Cheese, Fish, Sea Food (not a typo), and Vegetable Pies.
  • Cookies:
    • Choice of Homemade Cookies from Countryside America (wow, that’s a chapter heading)
    • How to Bake Good Cookies Every Time
    • How to Pack Cookies for Mailing
    • Bar Cookies
    • Drop Cookies
    • Rolled Cookies
    • Refrigerator Cookies
    • Molded Cookies
    • Pressed Cookies
    • Meringue Cookies
    • Cookie Confection
    • Pie-Bar Dessert Cookies
    • Ready-Made Cookies
    • Cookies to Make from a Mix
    • Cookies Children Will Love to Make
    • Cookies for Special Occasions
    • Bread:
      • All About Breads
      • Yeast Breads—Conventional Method for Baking Bread:
        • Loaf Breads, Rolls and Buns
        • Coffee Bread and Rolls for All Occasions
        • Country Yeast Specialties
      • Newer Ways to Bake Bread:
        • Can-Do Quick
        • CoolRise (not a typo)
        • Easy Mixer, Instant Blend and Short-Cut Mixer
        • RapidMix (also not a typo)
      • No-Knead Batter Breads
      • Quick Breads for All Occasions

You’ll have intro sentences and chapters to read like nobody’s business. Like this one for Grandma’s Soft Sugar Cookies: “Grandma centered seeded raisins in her memorable man-size cookies.”

Powdered Sugar Cookies, Wheat and Oat Crisps … those are all on the same page and I’m completely sold. We’ve already discussed these books separately. If you don’t have a

Farm Journal’s Cooking and Entertaining in America: Heirloom Recipes for All Occasions from America’s Great Rural Tradition (1983) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

“Cooking and Entertaining in America” is a compilation of the following two titles:

• Great Home Cooking in America
• Informal Entertaining Country Style

Browse 596 pages of anecdote and culinary lore. More than 500 recipes and 30 historical menus will keep you reading until the cows come home.

Chapters include:

• Part 1: Our 200-Year Heritage of American Cooking
  • Introduction
  • American Food Originals
  • Southwestern Specialties
• Part 2: From the Old Country to the New Land
  • Introduction
  • the Heritage of English Cooking
  • the Heritage of German Cooking
  • the Heritage of Dutch Cooking
  • the Heritage of Scandinavian Cooking
  • the Heritage of Eastern European Cooking
  • the Heritage of Italian and Other Mediterranean Favorites
• Introduction: Informal Entertaining Country Style
  • Entertaining Before Noon
  • Entertaining at Midday
  • Entertaining at Supper
  • Entertaining at Dinner
  • Afternoon and Evening Refreshments

Recipes have large introductions. Cook New England Boiled Dinner and learn how to serve the dish to guests. Red Flannel Hash gets into the history of the dish. If you don’t have these two books, it’s great.

Farm Journal’s Best-Ever Vegetable Recipes: A Fresh Approach to Main Dishes, Appetizers, and Snacks, Soups, Salads, and Desserts—with 400 Never-Fail Recipes (1984) Edited by Alice Joy Miller

Line drawings! Okay, that’s almost as good as vintage images. This cookbook based on veggie everything also includes info for over 40 kind of vegetables and what to do with them, with updated cooking techniques. Hey, this was 1984, so expect plenty of rad recipes over 278 pages.

Chapters in this FJ vegetable book include:

• Vary the Vegetable
• Incredible Edibles
• Fresh Beginnings
• Country Soups
• Spectacular Salads
• Satisfying Main Dishes
• Side by Side
• Seasonings, Sauces, and Salad Dressings
• Goodies with Goodness
• After Your Garden Grows
• Then, there are page numbers for charts like “Microwaving Fresh Vegetables” and “Seasonings for Vegetables” plus a section for the page numbers of the color photos.

Mexican Lima Bean Skillet with a Cornbread Topping, Vegetable-Chicken Bake, Carrot Ravioli with Spinach Filling (interesting!), or Cheesy Corn Chowder.

Some recipes include alternative methods of prep, instead of the stove-top, using the microwave or pressure cooker. Choices, choices.

Farm Journal Country-Style Microwave (1984) by the Food Editors of Farm Journal

This is a cookbook for “family-style recipes with the flavor of country cooking.” The nuker was newfangled. Farm Journal readers sent letters talking about their lack of microwave success.

“For instance, a California homemaker wrote, “I’m just about to give up. My husband is not a complainer, but so far he has not liked one thing I have cooked in the microwave oven except a butternut squash. I have too much invested to use it as a planter. What can I do?”

The editors tested recipes and this 120-page book is the result. I later discovered there is a second edition 1982: (Amazon) (eBay) AND a compilation book of the two 1984: (Amazon) (eBay).

Chapters include:

• Introduction
• Microwaving: Before You Begin
• Speedy Main Dishes
• Quick Soups and Entrees
• Vegetables and Salads
• Great Country Desserts

I don’t even make popcorn in the microwave. I melt butter, boil water, and reheat a muffin for 10 seconds in the microwave when I’ve had one and that is just about it.

I’m not the best judge as to the “goodness” of this cookbook. I don’t much see the point in making a pot roast (no kidding) or a layered beef casserole in the microwave. Consider it a cookbook to add as a FJ completionist.

Farm Journal’s Homemade Breads: Over 250 Home-Baked Recipes from Good Country Cooks (1985, (Amazon) (eBay)) & (1994, (Amazon) (eBay))

What could be more confusing than two Farm Journal cookbooks having almost identical titles? Scroll back to 1969 and you’ll find a title of a similar nature edited by Nell B. Nichols (Homemade Bread).

Chapters include:

• Part One: The Basics
  • Ingredients
  • Utensils
• Part Two: Quick Breads: Basics of Quick Breads
  • Coffee Breads and Tea Loaves
  • Muffins, Biscuits, Crackers, and Popovers
• Part Three: Yeast Breads: Basics of Yeast Breads
  • Breads and Rolls
  • Sweet Yeast Breads
  • Extra-Special Yeast Breads
  • Batter Breads
• Part Four: Breads to “Bake” Outside the Oven:
  • Pancakes, Waffles, and Other Griddle Breads
  • Doughnuts, Fritters, and More

The back of this cookbook sells itself. Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Bread, Jewish Sour Rye Bread, Coconut-Almond Ring Twist, Bear Claws — just wait until you dig into it.

Farm Journal’s Best-Ever Pies: Over 400 Tried-and-True Recipes from Good Country Cooks (1981) by Patricia A. Ward

“You can like cake, you can be fond of ice cream — but pie is dessert!

And this collection of more than 400 tried-and-true recipes from good country cooks will tell you everything you need to know to make the best homemade pies you’ve ever tasted.”

Interior Book Flap, Farm Journal’s Best-Ever Pies (1981).

You’ll enjoy the Foreword by the Associate Editor of Farm Journal, Dick Seim. It almost makes me want to try Sweet-Cream Raisin Pie. Almost.

Chapters include:

• All About Pie
• Secrets of Successful Pastry-Making
• Fabulous Fruit Pies
• Extra-Rich Cream Pies
• Silky-Smooth Custard Pies
• Refrigerated and Frozen Pies
• Savory Main-Dish Pies

If you can dream it, the recipe is likely found within these 278 pages. As with most FJ books, there are a handful of (wonderful) images. Chocolate-Cherry Pie from a Colorado ranch wife, Sliced Green Tomato Pie (all I ever do is fry green tomatoes), even pizza appear in this one. A FJ cookbook must.

Farm Journal’s Cream of the Crop (1998) by Karen Freiberg and M.J. Smith, R.D.

How do you feel about 300 recipes in 296 pages (including the index)? Yes, it sounds like this is a cookbook that will offer “fat-skimming options” with each recipe. But it’s not that type of low-fat or no-fat cookbook.

They include the original recipe (no paragraph or intro sentence in this one) and then after the list of ingredients, they include a call-out box of ways to “lighten it.”

Some recipes don’t have the option. The bottom of each recipe includes the nutritional analysis of the untouched recipe.

Chapters include:

• Appetizers, Snacks, and Beverages
• Breads
• Desserts
• Eggs, Cheese, and Legumes
• Fish and Shellfish
• Pasta, Rice, and Grains
• Poultry
• Preserved Foods
• Red Meats
• Salads
• Soups, Stews, and Sandwiches
• Vegetables

Hot Bacon Spinach Dip, Banana Lemon Loaf Bread (I never thought to pair banana with lemon before), Chicken and Double-Corn Dumplings, Garden Club Sandwiches, Ham and Cheese Caesar Sandwich, Spinach-Filled Steak Rolls, and Gourmet Cheese Potatoes sound great.