The Farmer's Wife

A good cracker goes with anything.

September 1980

The recipes I want to share with you have been piling up on me, so I’ll try hard to be brief and make room for them.

After experimenting for over a year on a whole wheat cracker, I’m ready at last to call this recipe the best as I can do.

My goal was to achieve a crisp cracker that was fairly simple to make; it had to be low in fat and sugar content, too.

Whole Wheat Crackers

¼ cup shortening

2 tablespoons sugar

3 ½ cups of whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon soda

1 cup milk

Put dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Stir to mix. Add milk and shortening. Mix with heavy duty mixer or by hand until dough has a smooth consistency. Add more flour if necessary.

Divide into two balls. Grease two cookie sheets that do not have sides. Place a ball of dough in middle of sheet and roll out until sheet is completely covered. Try to have an uniform thickness. Trim edges even with pan.

Score with knife into squares or triangles cutting completely through dough. Prick each cracker deeply with a fork several times. Repeat with other ball.

Bake at 400° F until light brown and all softness is gone. It is usually necessary to remove those crackers on te outer edge first and then continue to bake the rest. It takes around 20 minutes.

Remove crackers and cool. Store in cookie jar. Before the crackers are baked, they may be sprinkled with plain, garlic, or seasoning salt or any kind of seed if desired.

Easy Tomato Catsup

16 pounds tomatoes

3 large onions

1 pint vinegar

4 cups sugar

3 tablespoons salt

½ ounce of your favorite spice

Cook tomatoes and onions until soft. Put through sieve. Drain in jelly bag. Throw away juice. Remove pulp. Add rest of ingredients to tomato pulp. Bring to boil and cook ten minutes. Put in jars and seal.