Italian Pork Chops and Grandma's Molasses Cookies

My Great-Grandma Gladys was the model homemaker.  She raised four children (all less than 1 year apart), was her husband’s right-hand man on the working farm, cooked and cleaned.  I don’t think there was anything she couldn’t do.  Every year for my birthday, she would make me a large batch of molasses cookies.  Her molasses cookies were her signature treat and could not be replicated no matter how hard I tried.  Even with the recipe in hand, I couldn’t mimic the soft, chewy, yummy texture of this treat.  It may have something to do with cooling the cookies on paper bags, pushing the rolled balls down ever so slightly with a sugared juice glass, or the love she put into each cookie.

The recipe below is not Grandma’s recipe that she used. However, it produces a cookie that tastes just like the one’s she made me when I was young.  “It doesn’t matter how you get there, just so you end up at the same place.”  Grandma Gladys has been gone for several years now.  I wish she was still here so we could sit at the kitchen table together with a glass of milk and molasses cookies so her great-great granddaughters could hear the stories she once told me about The Farm.

For dinner, I served Italian Pork Chops – the second batch from Freezer Cooking Day.  With a simple shake in the crumb mixture and into the skillet, dinner was done!

Grandma’s Molasses Cookies

Makes 3 dozen

1-1/2 cups butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup molasses

4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup coarse sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and molasses. Combine the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.

Shape into 1-inch balls and roll in coarse sugar. 

Place on an ungreased baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  With a juice glass, press down on the dough ball lightly.  

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until tops are cracked. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Italian Pork Chops

Serves 6

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