The Herald’s former food columnist Judyrae Kruse retired a few years ago, but her fans still ask for her recipes and the recipes that readers shared with Judy.
Today we begin a monthly rerun of Kruse’s homespun columns, a series we are calling the Best of Judyrae.
For nearly four decades, Kruse wrote for the Everywoman (and man) home cooks of Snohomish County.
The food featured in Kruse’s column “The Forum” was affordable, available and familiar.
Judyrae’s husband Wayne, who writes about hunting and fishing for The Herald, is proud of his wife’s enduring legacy.
“Judy says her column was like a conversation over the back fence,” Wayne Kruse said. “That’s the way readers took it. And she drew a really big crowd.”
The recipes Kruse and her readers shared always included a story about how the dish was served or who in the family first made it. Many were beautiful, touching food memories.
Herald writer Julie Muhlstein headed the features department here for a while and was Judyrae’s editor during years when readers’ handwritten notes — smudged with batter and lined with coffee cup rings — accompanied Kruse’s column, fresh from the typewriter.
“The stories Judy and her readers told made the column special,” Muhlstein said. “These were recipes my mom made; food I grew up with. Even now, in this era of the locavore, those recipes still are popular.”
To read Judyrae’s column is to read a diary of life in Snohomish County, wrote former features editor Melanie Munk in the story announcing Kruse’s retirement.
“Readers loved to share their fond memories of making do and cobbling together a family treat during hard times.” Munk said recently.
The recipes often followed the calendar: Crock pot meals in the fall. Supper ingredients pulled from the pantry after a week of ice and snow. In warmer weather, there were salads, gelatin desserts, grilled meats or whatever was being harvested in the valley or caught in the inland waters that week.
The Kruse family favorites included crab chowder, chicken and dumplings, scalloped corn, layered egg and onion salad and Judy’s four-layer chocolate cake, said husband Wayne.
“If I was forced to choose one of Judy’s recipes, the chowder would have to be the one,” he said.
In a column last month, Wayne offered up another long-time Kruse family favorite fish recipe concocted by Judyrae years ago:
Start with a half-cup of brown sugar and add enough zesty Italian dressing to produce a marinade about the consistency of syrup when mixed thoroughly. If it’s too thin, add more sugar; if too thick, more dressing. Fashion a “boat” out of heavy-duty aluminum foil, large enough to accommodate two filets (one fish), skin side down. Score the fish and cover with marinade, basting occasionally, for about three hours. Put the boat/fish on the grill at a medium-high heat and poach for 30 or 40 minutes under heavy smoke and basting occasionally.
One time a reader wrote to Judyrae Kruse looking for a sauerbraten recipe, Muhlstein remembered.
“I think we had six months of people sharing different recipes or discussing sauerbraten,” Muhlstein said. “People loved that.”
And it wasn’t just the recipes that were important, Munk and Muhlstein agreed.
It was the people, the names attached to the recipes, that were special.
One of those was Bonnie Teeter. Every year about this time, Kruse ran Teeter’s recipe for dinner in a pumpkin.
In October 2011, Judyrae Kruse wrote:
“Really now, would it be Halloween if we didn’t have dinner made in and served from a hollowed-out pumpkin?
“Let’s not chance it. Let’s hop out there while pumpkin pickings are at their peak, then shop for whatever ingredients might be needed for whichever or whatever.
“First, of course, comes what has become a classic, a tradition, something that became an instant Forum favorite from the minute the late, popular Lynnwood recipe-sharing Bonnie Teeters gave it to us just about forever ago.
“In what would shortly became a roaring understatement, Bonnie told us, ‘Everyone who has eaten it loves it. It really is delicious, and spooning some of the baked pumpkin out along with the filling is a must. Oh, it is just so good.’”
Just like Judyrae’s folksy column. So good.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
Bonnie Teeter’s Dinner in a Pumpkin
1 medium pumpkin, preferably about 5 to 7 pounds (bigger is better)
11/2 pounds lean ground beef
1/3 cup chopped green pepper
3/4 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 can (4 ounces) mushrooms
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 cups cooked rice
Optional decorations: olives, steamed carrot, whole cloves, fresh parsley
Wash, dry and cut lid from pumpkin; set lid aside. Scrape out the inside of the pumpkin well, discarding all seeds and membrane; set pumpkin aside. In a large skillet, brown hamburger, green pepper, celery and onion. In mixing bowl, mix together the salt, pepper, soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, soup and rice, then add to the hamburger mixture. Mix well and turn into the prepared pumpkin. Put lid on, place pumpkin on foil-lined, rimmed cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 11/2 hours. To serve, be sure to scrape up some of the inside of the cooked pumpkin along with the hamburger mixture.
To decorate the pumpkin, use toothpicks to attach black olives for eyes, steamed carrot for the nose, and whole cloves for the mouth. For hair, use fresh parsley around the top.
Oven-made apple butter
6 pounds cooking apples
1 cup water
21/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Note: Kruse always included a counterpoint dish, a salad or a dessert, in her column. Since pumpkin time is also apple time, here’s a recipe for apple butter originally shared by Diane Sheridan of Everett.
Peel, core and slice apples in eighths; place in large, heavy saucepan and add water. Cover tightly and cook 5 minutes over moderate heat. Stir and add a little more water if pot appears dry. Uncover and continue cooking until apples are tender, about 3 to 5 minutes longer. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cooked apple mixture with remaining ingredients in a large, deep, heatproof baking dish. Bake 3 to 4 hours until thick and dark, stirring occasionally. A spoonful of the cooked butter should have almost no liquid surrounding it when done. Apple butter keeps well in the refrigerator for 3 weeks.
Best of Judyrae
For nearly 40 years, Judyrae Kruse shared with Herald readers thousands of recipes in her Forum column. Once a month we will be republishing some of those columns on the Food page. If you have suggestions or memories of your favorite Judyrae recipes, email Aaron Swaney at aswaney@heraldnet.com.
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