 Mom's home-cooked meals are often intertwined with our childhood memories.
Fried chicken, cooked up crispy and golden. The first sweat peas of the season paired with new potatoes in a creamy sauce. Fresh-picked cabbage, shredded into a refreshing cole slaw. A rich coconut cream pie, topped with meringue and flakes of toasty coconut. This springtime meal was Ginny Werkmeister's favorite as a young girl in Oklahoma. "We had canned meat and vegetables all winter long, so fresh fryers with spring potatoes and peas were a treat," she said. "We always had cole slaw with this meal, and my mom always said this pie is so good, it is fit for angels, so she called it Coconut Cream Angel Pie." About seven years ago, Werkmeister, now of Tilden, decided to enter her mother's recipes in a contest sponsored by the "Taste of Home" magazine. To enter, she would need to send in at least four recipes and a background story about her mother, Enoth Bratten. Click here to read the article, originally published in Taste of Home's April/May 2009 issue. "I basically did it because I wanted to honor my mother that way," Werkmeister said. "I never thought I would actually win. They are pretty old-fashioned recipes." A year later, a staff member from "Taste of Home" contacted her. "They wanted to use my story, but they wanted me to cut it down," she said. "And they tested all of the recipes before printing them." Werkmeister said they revised her pie recipe slightly, since a similar one had been featured in an earlier issue. "I think all they changed was the cornstarch," she said. "I use 1/8 cup of flour and 1/8 cup cornstarch. They made it 1/4 cup cornstarch and left out the flour, but I like it with flour better. There is a little difference in texture and I like the flavor better." Her recipes were finally published in the April/May 2009 issue and later featured in the "Taste of Home 2009 Annual Recipes Cookbook." She received $75 and a free magazine. Click here for the Coconut Cream Angel Pie recipe. Click here for the Fried Chicken With Pan Gravy recipe. Click here for the Creamed Potatoes and Peas recipe. Click here for the Garden Coleslaw recipe. Werkmeister said the best part was reconnecting with an old friend she hadn't seen in more than 50 years. Her friend, who had moved to Texas, saw the magazine article and contacted her. Werkmeister and her husband Marvin were able to visit a couple times before her friend lost her battle with cancer four years later. "Doing something like this can get more return than just money," she said. Five years after the article was published, Werkmeister is surprised the magazine continues to feature her mother's recipes. A link to her pie recipe was just posted on the magazine's Facebook page today. It read, "Happy Coconut Cream Pie Day! Celebrate with this highly-rated coconut cream angel pie recipe shared by Ginny Werkmeister of Tilden, Nebraska." "I had no idea that they would still be using this recipe this many years later," she said. |
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