Vintage recipes:
Grape Nuts
Pinwheel Date Cookies
Drop Doughnuts
Rice Krispie Treats
Orange Drop Donuts
Chicken Casserole
Watermelon Pickles
8/10/26
My Grandmother's Recipe box (revisited post 1)
Revisiting Great Grandma's Recipe Box... for my kids. Photos of your Great Grandmother's Recipe's straight from her box (1945-1980)
A couple years ago I started a series of posting the recipes from my grandmothers recipe box, which I inherited from her before she passed away. I would include a photo and then painstakingly (sometimes) have to try to read the faint writing to type it out. It was time consuming, and I loved posting them but... I just didn't have TIME. Not when this page is just for personal use and I have ZERO income from it.
Slowly it died out... I didn't post those, or much of anything. This site faded.
I have been searching (FOR YEARS) for a certain frosting/icing recipe I remember from childhood and the hundreds and hundreds of icing recipes I've read or tried haven't been "it". Even though I knew (KNEW) the icing recipe I am always searching for isn't in 'her' old box, I took the box out of the back of storage anyway and decided to flip through it.
I realized that although I don't have time to re-type her old recipes, I could take photos and just post them - for my use - but also for my (adult) kids use... since they are Great Grandma's recipes collected from 1945 to about 1980. The last one in the box I could find any date on was a recipe she clipped out of a newspaper or magazine that had a coupon on the back showing it was from 1979 and the coupon expired in 1980.
Most of the recipes from Great Grandma's recipe box are from 1945-1960.
She had a sweet tooth so most of them are desserts, along with a crazy amount of recipes for pickles. LOL. I don't have a sweet tooth so I haven't made most of them, but I DO remember HER and my Aunts that lived at home making them. I remember eating some of them as a child, and seeing others they would eat that I didn't want.
I know she had far more recipes than these... but these are the only ones that survived the years and made their way to me. I suspect she had another recipe box (I think she had a white metal one...) but I only have the gray metal one.
So... for my kids and grandkids... these are Great Grandma's recipes..... I'll try to post a few recipe cards on each post as there are quite a few of them. It may end up being about 20 posts.
8/8/26
Atkins Snack Bars - HALF the size of the wrapper it comes in
I was going to open a little peanut caramel snack 'candy' bar from Atkins, the first out of a brand new box I had just bought.
I noticed it felt like it was mostly air so I laid it down and marked with a pen where the end of the food product was. You can see it is literally only half the size of the wrapper it comes in.
And opening it.... a sideview
And placing it on top of the wrapper.
Atkins literally makes their product HALF the size it is supposed to be.
And YES every peanutty overload bar in the box was this size, it was not an anomaly.
Atkins literally makes their product HALF the size it is supposed to be.
And YES every peanutty overload bar in the box was this size, it was not an anomaly.
5/21/26
Making a different kind of food... mini clay foods for the Superheroes - ha ha
I'm NOT a 'mini' maker. Never have done it before in my life.
Don't even play with Play-Doh much less clay.
But I bought a super cheap pack of poly clay off Amazon (like, dirt cheap) and probably the lowest quality you can buy... but meh.
My plan is just to make some mini fake food for the kids to play with in their "Superhero House" (like a Barbie House but for the 11-12 inch size Superheroes).
Two nights ago I just sat down at the desk, put "Friends" episodes playing in the background and started to make some fake food.
Didn't matter how good (or bad) it turned out as my audience is literally a 5 year old and 3 year old... and they are more than thrilled with what they've gotten so far!
The very first thing I ever made... some avocado's.
Then I tried to make some donuts and an orange.
Then I tried my hand at some 'cake' because the boys always play thatthe Superhero's are having a birthday party.
They've got some little Brownies there too.
This morning the boys were given the miniature play food to play with... and then when I put the 3 year old down for his nap, I walked by his little truck he was playing with and saw this...
He was hauling his play food in his truck! :)
He was hauling his play food in his truck! :)
5/12/26
Grocery Receipt from Costco in 2008 verses the same items today in 2026 (Almost 20 years later!)
I was going through some old files on my external hard drive, downloaded over the years from various laptops or computers we had at the time. I saw an old receipt from Costco... Spring of 2008.
Just for fun, I decided to look up what the same items would sell for today, in spring of 2026 - almost (almost!) TWENTY YEARS LATER.
Honestly I was surprised as everyone wants to complain how expensive groceries are right now, but they were very, very similar to the price we were paying almost 20 years ago!!!
Obviously beef is higher now, and the one I found to be really kind of crazy is the cost of GUM now compared to then, but also, bagged snack foods are really high now compared to then.
Many items are CHEAPER today than they were back in 2008.
A couple items I didn't have a comparison for today when I looked it up this morning using Costco and Sam's - but I also wasn't sure what one or two of them even were... like the 'juice blast'.
We buy many of the same items today but back then I had three (3) kids still at home so we were buying just a few things different that I don't buy now (like a package of oreos, juice blasts or the gel cups or frito snacks). But generally speaking we ate similar meals back then as we do now so it was easy to know immediately what they were, and even what I pay for them now.
My receipt from Costco, 2008
THEN (2008) and NOW (2026)
Crumbled feta 5.49 7.28
HB White 2.99
mangoes 6.99 9.88 (for an 8 pound box)
bacon 10.75 12.83
6# freezer patty 11.49 30.57
Hoagie rolls 1.95 6.98
Breaded tilapia 11.88 13.96
Fuji apples 7.99 7.96
Sour cream 3.79 5.54
cereal 6.95 6.78
green beans 6.29 5.74
juice blast 7.69
hamburger buns 2.45 3.84
orange chicken 13.89 12.98
spring rolls 8.99 8.96
organic broccoli 5.59 6.36
asparagus 3.99 8.86
garlic potato 6.59 8.78
romaine 3.49 4.96
1 % milk 2.79 2.94
broccoli 4.49 3.74
strawberries 8.99 4.37
onions 4.79 6.22
pizza sauce 2.69
hellman mayo 5.15 9.48
large kiwi 5.99 7.96
salmon burger 11.69 14.96
soy sauce 3.92
oreo cookie 5.08 10.98
org egg 18 count 3.99 5.94
part skim mozzarella 11.72 12.17
org med rice 5.85 4.98
strbk 2 lb 9.99 21.78
crumbled bacon 6.99 8.98
1 lb butter quarters 6.32 10.96
fancy mixed nuts 10.99 14.98
3 lb. cream cheese 4.99 6.47
dole fruit gel 5.99 9.98
celery 3.79 4.24
sliced swiss 7.99 7.82
eclipse variety gum 9.79 18.98
pretzel sandwich 6.79
frito snack 36 ct 8.45 18.48
whole fryer 6.86 15.87
I've always loved keeping track of the price of groceries and comparing them, so I have various odd excel spread sheets I've made, or word docs I randomly (for fun) did comparisons on. I'll have to post some of those!
One I'll have to look for I found interesting at the time was the spreadsheets I was tracking during Covid - when prices and shortages were all over the place. It was fun to keep track though (for a geek like me it's fun anyway!). ha ha.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)