Lynn - Youre cookin it country: my favorite recipes and memories

Copyright 2004 Loretta Lynn All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. The authors and publisher of this book assume no liability for, and are released by readers from, any injury or damage resulting from the strict adherence to, or deviation from, the directions and/or recipes herein. Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 1-4016-0179-0 (hardcover)
1. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 1-4016-0179-0 (hardcover)
1.

Cookery, American. I. Title.
TX715.L967 2004
641.5973dc22 2004009266 Printed in the United States of America 04 05 06 07 08 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This cookbook is dedicated to my family,
friends, and fans with all my love. CONTENTS M y daughter Patsy came home the other day and said, Mommy, youre going to have to do something about your cooking. I asked her why, and she said, People today dont want the recipe unless they can do it in three minutes. I said, Im sorry. I do my own cooking when Im home, and I do it the old-fashioned way.

It takes me a little while to cook, but I know what Im fixing, and it doesnt bother me. Today, I feel that most everybody can open up a can or open up a box. But when I go home, I cook. And I dont cook like that. Its much, much better if its homemade. I love to cook.

I love to make bread. If Im home and Ive got somebody coming for dinner, Im going to have it done. When Jack and Meg White from the White Stripes came down to the house before we started working on my album Van Lear Rose, that morning I made four loaves of bread. When Jack left, he said, Thats the best bread Ive ever eaten in my life. Sonofagun, if the last time he was out, he didnt say, Did you bake any bread? I want you all to know this cookbook was a total accident. I never set out to write a cookbook, but a year or so ago I started writing down some of my recipes handed down to me from my mommy and from Doos mom, Angie Lynn.

I wanted to give them to my kids and let them pass them down to their kids like my mommy done for me. Ive always included a little story about each recipe or a memory that had to do with a certain dish. I think it is important to pass along memories. My kids thought this was the greatest gift in the world, and so did my manager, Nancy Russell. She called me up on the phone and asked me if I would be interested in turning these recipes and stories into a cookbook, so thats what we did. If you want a really good old homemade meal and you want to do it right, if you pay attention to this cookbook, youll make it.

If you dont, then youre liable to do like me. Youll have to try it three or four times, get it thrown out and get run off. The worst happened to me, so I know now. Of course, I wasnt old enough to know how to cook to begin with. I was just thirteen years old when I got married to Doolittle Lynn. Doo threw out my cooking for at least six months.

He run me off and told me I couldnt cook. That taught me a whole bunch. I learned how to cook pretty fast. After six months, he began eating it. When I got to cooking, Doo loved just about everything that I fixed. I would cook around the stuff that he really liked, like the roast and steak.

After we got to making a little money, he had to have meat with every meal. Before that, it was possum or rabbit. Or hamburger. We could get hamburger now and then. But at first we couldnt. It was bad, but we made it.

After we moved to the state of Washington, and I started cooking, Doo would always say, Ill put my cook up against anybodys! So he really liked my cooking. He said he taught me everything I know about cooking. Ha! He told me once, Youre one of the best cooks Ive ever seen. I thought that was good, coming from him. Im not a pretty cook. But my cooking tastes better than it looks.

Doolittle would look at it sometimes and go, Woman, what in the hell have you cooked? Id say, Well, its a such and such. Well, it dont look like it to me. But he kind of dived into it when I put it on the table. I enjoy making things good. If it turns out good, I love it. If it turns out not really good, then I dont like it, you know.

Ive got to look at the recipe just a little better. I may have to try them three or four times before they turn out, but my daughter Patsy says some of my best creations come from my mistakes. Usually, I dont go by recipes. I cook like my mommya pinch of salt, a pinch of this, and a pinch of that. I taste everything as I go along, to see if I got enough salt in it. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it dont.

Thats why, before its ready, I make sure Im tasting of it. If I make something and it looks good, it probably doesnt taste good. Doo learned that early on. The night we met, he bought a pie that I had made for a pie social. I had made this chocolate pie, and it looked good to me. But I had made it with salt instead of sugar.

Its important that you pay attention to what your mothers teaching you as you grow up. Mothers have the good recipes, and folks dont make things like they used to, you know. When I lived in the state of Washington, there was this old lady named Blanche Green. I helped her with the cooking and with cleaning the house for these two bachelors, her nephews. Thats how I got my rent paid for. I learned a lot from her.

I would say I learned as much from her as I did Mommy. Mommy never had the food to cook like Blanche Green had. Our family had pork, and we had chicken now and then. Outside of that, it was taters and beans, friends. If it wasnt for taters and beans, I wouldnt be sitting here writing to you. We eat anything and everything we could find in Butcher Holler, Kentucky.

Daddys favorite dish was possum. I would get so mad, because I didnt care for possum that well. I loved rabbit. In fact, I had a rabbit the last night I seen Patsy Cline. Squirrels one of my favorites, too. When you dont have nothing to eat, things are pretty hard to come by, and possum and rabbit tastes pretty good.

If you want to try possum, Ill teach you how to make it just like Mommy did. Mommyd always cook that possum until it got tender. Thered be grease an inch thick on it. Shed pour off the water and grease and lay sweet potatoes all around the possum in her baking pan. That was Daddys favorite food. I hope all of you enjoy this book.

I never had measured anything in my life, so I cant promise it will all turn out. If it dont, blame Nancy, since this was her idea. I also want to thank William Smithson, Michael McCall, Tim Cobb, and all my kids for helping get everything together for this book. Love you,
Loretta BUTTERMILK BISCUITS
CAT-HEAD BISCUITS
COUNTRY SAUSAGE GRAVY
OZARK MOUNTAIN BREAKFAST
COUNTRY MORNIN BREAKFAST CASSEROLE
HASHBROWN CASSEROLE
SAUSAGE PINWHEELS