Nancy Richa's Recipes from Bishop Hill

I've been asking my lovely friend Nancy Richa to guest blog for a while. Nancy is now retired, but used to work with me at the library. She is a wonderful cook, has a great sense of humor, and reads voraciously. When she retired, she gifted me with several of her Mother's cookbooks, which I treasure. Enjoy Nancy's stories and recipes! - Amy Alessio


My friend Amy would like for me to write a little about my growing up in my little Swedish town. I come from a little town name Galva in Western Illinois and 5 miles west of Galva is even a smaller town named Bishop Hill. Bishop Hill is the first Swedish colony east of the Mississippi River. On Christmas eve we had a very close friend of the family which we always called her Grandma Miller and she would come and cook Lutfisk for us, but I am not including this recipe in the blog, because I could not stand eating this fish. But she also brought her Rosettes which was one of the best cookies I have ever eaten and my mother also made a huge container of her Spritz cookies. My mother was the best baker of cookies, pies and rolls. She always made these rolls for special mornings like Thanksgiving & Christmas and now I am carrying on that tradition for my family and teaching my daughter.


Mom's Refrigerator Caramel Rolls

Dissolve 1 1/2 sticks of margarine in 1 cup boiling water. Add 1 cup cold water. Add 2 pkgs of yeast and stir into this mixture. Add 2 beaten eggs, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp salt. Lastly stir in 6 cups flour. Place this dough in the refrigerator over night and cover with saran wrap. This dough will last for a week in the refrigerator. You need four round cake pans buttered and sprinkle with brown sugar. Roll the dough on a flour surface into a rectangle and smooth butter on and sprinkle with brown sugar and then roll it up and cut into 7 to 8 rolls. Set in you pans and let them rise double in size and bake in oven @350 F. As soon as they come out turn them over onto a plate. Enjoy!

Socker Struvar-Rosettes

2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
pinch of salt

Beat eggs. Add sugar and salt and beat. Add milk and beat. Add flour and beat. Use a rosette iron and fry in hot oil. Before serving, dust with powdered sugar.

Another cookie we had to have a Christmas was the Spritz cookies

Mandel Kakar-Spritz

1 lb butter
2 cups sugar
3 egg yolks
1 tsp. almond flavoring
4 cups flour

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add other ingredients. Mix and use cookie press. Bake at 350 F. Watch carefully! They burn easily.

Amy asked me to include some of my favorite authors, too. She and I often swap book suggestions. Authors I love include: Karen Kingsbury, Julie Hyzy, Debbie Macomber
Mary Higgins Clark.