100+ old-fashioned recipes Bonnie grew up cooking — with real measurements, temperatures, and the by-feel details ordinary recipe cards leave out.
Skillet biscuits, cornbread, Utah scones, breads, beans, preserves, and the plain suppers that fed a houseful.
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Saturday morning. Supper. A slow Sunday.
The measures first. The by-feel underneath. That is the whole method. My mother called recipes “receipts.” It was the old word, and I kept it.
12
Iron & Hearth
Heat the oven near 450. Cut the cold fat in till the lumps are peas. A shaggy dough, patted an inch thick, folded on itself. Cut straight down with a floured glass. No twisting, or you seal the edge shut so it cannot rise.
The by-feel of it. Cold fat and a soft, near-sticky dough. If it is easy to handle, you have used too much flour.
13
Iron & Hearth
Sweet cornbread is cake pretending. Put the drippings in an iron skillet and set it in a hot oven while you mix. When the fat is smoking, pour. It should hiss and spit.
The by-feel of it. Listen for the hiss. No hiss, no crust. If the skillet is not hot enough to frighten you a little, wait longer.
Five parts of the settlement kitchen, from the everyday skillet to the garden and the gathered.
Saleratus biscuits, settlement cornbread, Utah scones, the everlasting starter, milk gravy, and iron kept well enough to outlive the cook.
One pot, two meals. The drippings crock. Flour, milk, beans, potatoes, honey and whatever was already in the house.
Bottled fruit, kraut, pickles, drying, and the keeping work that carried a family through winter — with modern tested guidance wherever safety matters.
Ward suppers, funeral meals, chicken and dumplings, baked beans, pot roast, breads, and the dishes meant to feed a crowd or carry to a grieving house.
First greens, roasting ears the day you pick them, wild food named for dead certain, and leaving the bees their winter share.
Five useful companions come with the book — quick references, printable pages, a weekend starter, and Bonnie’s kitchen-table stories.
Quick-start booklet
A 5-page quick-start with Bonnie’s biscuits, settlement cornbread, and Utah scones — three recipes chosen to teach you the book’s by-feel method.
Printable kitchen reference
Old kitchen measures and oven terms translated into cups, spoons, and degrees, plus simple make-do swaps — with a two-sided reference made to print and keep nearby.
Seasonal almanac
A 9-page season-by-season guide to what was planted, gathered, put up, and cooked through the settlement year — with modern safety guidance wherever preserving matters.
Kitchen-story companion
Five short stories from around the recipes: the family starter, the drippings crock, the grieving house, the cricket year, and learning to cook by feel.
Family-recipe workbook
A 9-page printable workbook for preserving your own family recipes — how to measure the handfuls, capture the by-feel, record the story, and build your own family receipt collection.
I am Bonnie. I learned to cook at my mother’s elbow here in the valley, where food was put by in the good months because there was no buying your way out of a lean winter.
I kept a garden, a cow, a few hogs, hens, and a hive out past the currant bushes. And there was always somebody else to feed — a ward supper, a grieving house, a neighbor who needed a pan carried over. That was what a settlement kitchen was for.
My grandchildren are scattered, and not one of them can cut a biscuit by feel. I am near about the last one along this bench who still cooks this way. So I set it down while I still can.
I had not made a biscuit worth eating since my mother passed. The cold fat and the dough that wants to stick finally gave me the starting point she never did.
M. · Utah
The cornbread with no sugar in it took me straight back. I have started writing my own people’s receipts in the blank pages.
Ellen · Idaho
These are the plain receipts I grew up on, spelled out so a body can actually cook them. No frills. Just the way it was always done.
Ruth · Arizona
No. It is a digital book. Read it on your phone, tablet, or computer, and print the companion pages at home if you want them on paper.
No. You pay once, and that is the end of it.
No. Three of them are the useful parts of the main book, printed separately so you can pin a card or cook this weekend without hunting. The Kitchen Table stories are five short reading pieces from around the recipes. The Mother’s Hand pages help you write down your own family recipes and the little details that were never measured.
Those sections are marked “A word of care.” For exact canning and curing times, salts, and methods, use a current tested guide from your county extension.
$37
The Settlement Receipt Book + all five companion guides and printables. Instant digital download. Nothing mailed.
Get the book — $377 days. Cook one thing. If it is not what you hoped, the money comes back.