Mother Hubbard Recipes

A couple of recent threads got me thinking about old recipes designed to make a meal out of almost nothing to make a meal with. Thought it would be fun to ask what people's favorite something-from-nothing recipes might be.

Here are a few of my Mother Hubbard pie recipes:</span>

Desperation Pie
(There are many variations on this in the form of chess, shoofly, buttermilk, and sugar pies, etc., but I think this variation on sugar pie may take the cake...errh, pie...because it even makes its own sorta-crust so you don't need enough ingredients for a crust.)

2 c brown sugar (which can be made from white sugar and molasses)
2 oz softened butter
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 t salt
1/2 c flour
1-1/2 c milk

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C) and grease a 9-inch pie dish.

Cream brown sugar with butter until light. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in vanilla extract and salt. Beat in flour a little at a time and then beat in the milk to make a batter. Pour into the prepared pie dish.

Bake in preheated oven for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and cover rim with aluminum foil to prevent burning.
Return to oven and bake about 15 minutes more (until middle sets and the top forms a crusty layer).
Let the pie cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Vinegar Pie
(Makes a slightly apple-flavored custard pie. You can add a few chopped dried apples if you have them...or not.)

Single pie crust in a 9-inch tart pan
2 large eggs
1 c sugar
1 T flour
1 c cold water
2 T apple cider vinegar
Cinnamon for dusting

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Blind-bake pie crust with foil and weights for 20 minutes, then remove them and bake until golden, 8 or 10 minutes more.

Whisk together eggs and 1/4 c sugar until well blended. Whisk together flour and remaining 3/4 c sugar in a 1-quart heavy saucepan, then whisk in water and vinegar. Bring to a boil, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Add to egg mixture in a slow stream, whisking constantly.

Pour filling into saucepan and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until filling coats back of spoon and registers 175°F on an instant-read thermometer, 12 to 15 minutes. (Do not boil.) Immediately pour filling into a 2-cup glass measure. If pie shell is not ready, cover surface of filling with a round of wax paper.

Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Pour hot filling into baked pie shell. Set in middle of oven and cover rim of crust with a pie shield or foil (to prevent overbrowning).
Bake pie until filling is set, 15 to 20 minutes, then cool completely in pan on a rack. Dust evenly with cinnamon.

Shoofly Pie
(A got-no-eggs-either pie)

3⁄4 c dark molasses (sorghum is good)
3⁄4 c boiling water
1⁄2 t baking soda

1 1⁄2 c flour
1⁄4 c shortening, butter, or lard
1⁄2 c brown sugar

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust*

Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add molasses.
Combine sugar and flour and rub into shortening to make crumbs.
Pour 1/3 of the liquid into the unbaked crust.
Add 1/3 of the crumb mixture.
Continue alternating layers, ending with crumbs on top.
Bake at 375 for approximately 35 minutes.

*Oil Pie Crust
(For when the lard tin or shortening can is empty. Also the only kind my mother could ever make )

Preheat oven to 425F.

Whisk together
1-1/3 c flour
1/8 t salt
Mix in a cup until creamy
1/3 c plus 1 T vegetable oil
¼ c cold milk
Pour the oil mixture over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until blended.

Pat the dough evenly over the bottom and sides of a 9-inch pie pan or roll it between sheets of wax paper and flip it into the pan. Crimp or flute the edge.
Thoroughly prick the sides and bottom with a fork and bake until golden-brown, 12 to 18 minutes.

If filling the crust with an uncooked mixture that requires further baking or if not prebaking it, you can whisk 1 large egg yolk and a pinch of salt and brush the inside of the crust with it. Place in oven for 1 to 2 minutes to set the glaze and then fill.

And a couple of Mother Hubbard soups:

Boiled Water Garlic Soup
(There are many variation on garlic soup, most made with broth and more ingredients, including the delicious Galician Sopa de Ajo loaded with paprika, but this is the stone-soup version.)

4 to 12 thin slices of stale bread (1 to 3 per person,*enough to cover the bottom surface of your soup plates)
4 T olive oil
4 c water
salt
24 garlic cloves, sliced lengthwise
2 bay leaves
1 sprig sage or 1 t dried sage in a cheesecloth bag
(grated gruyere or other hard cheese if you've got it)

Brush the bread slices with olive oil and toast until dry.
Combine the water, salt, garlic, bay leaves, and sage in saucepan.
Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to medium low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes or until garlic is very soft.
Remove the bay leaves and sage sprig, and puree the soup.
Pour it back into the pan, cover, and let steep until you are ready to serve, at least 10 minutes.
Heat your soup plates in the oven for a few minutes, and cover bottoms with toasted bread slices.
Sprinkle the toast with the cheese and any remaining olive oil.
Reheat the soup to a boil, ladle it over the toast, and serve.

Avgolemono Soup
(This is delicious enough for a fancy meal if made with homemade chicken broth, but its still good no matter what you are reduced to using.)

Any broth (even from bouillon cubes if that's all you've got)
Eggs
Lemon juice
Any grain/starch (rice, barley, small pasta, whatever you have)
(Optional diced carrot)

Bring broth to boil.
Add enough grain/starch of your choice to make anything from thin soup to thick stew according to your need of the moment. (Try 1/4 c rice per pint.) Add optional carrot or other optional veggie if you want.
Simmer until starch is cooked.
For each pint of broth, whisk 1 egg together with 1 T lemon juice until foamy.
Turn heat off under soup.
Gradually whisk a ladle of hot soup into eggs and lemon so eggs don't curdle. Whisk in a second ladle.
Whisk egg mixture into soup.
Taste and adjust lemon juice/seasoning.
Put lid on pot, let sit a couple of minutes, and serve.
If you reheat, be sure not to heat to a boil or you'll have egg drop soup instead of avgolemono.

Being part Scots, of course I have to add the simplest goodie in the world: Shortbread.

Martha Walker's Shortbread
(circa 1840)

1/2 lb (8 oz) cold salted butter (chilled Red Feather works great)
1/4 lb (4 oz) fine-ground raw or light-brown sugar
(1 to 2 T good Scotch whiskey if you have it)
Cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy, beat in whiskey, and then add a cup at a time, mixing well with a strong fork:
1/4 lb (4 oz) fine oat flour (you can grind oatmeal fine in a blender)
1/2 lb (8 oz) whole wheat flour
Or you can use all oat flour if you want to taste the original Scottish recipe or don't have any wheat flour.
(don't try to use the mixer for this--it's much too thick a dough)

Pat the dough into a round, square, or oblong pan.
(I prefer using a couple of small 7-inch round glass pie plates to make petticoat tail wedges, but you may not have such. You can use a 9 x 9 square pan or an 11 x 7.5 oblong pan, which will make it about 1/2-inch thick, and cut it into rectangular shortbread fingers instead. If you like thicker shortbread, you can use an 8 x 8 square pan--just watch that the bottom doesn't brown too much before it bakes through.)
Prick with a sharp fork all through, top to bottom, in a pretty design.
If making petticoats, press up a slight edge and mark it with the fork tines going all around the pie plate for a decorative border.
Bake in 325 degree (very slow) oven for 45-60 minutes. Don't let shortbread get brown on top.
Mark and cut into pieces while still warm.

Okay, what have the rest of y'all got for offbeat recipes using few ingredients or that can be made when you don't have one or more usual ingredients?

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Mother Hubbard Recipes