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June 2007 Cook's Profile
For your dining pleasure
Shirley Todd shares recipes because ‘people need to enjoy them’
 When Shirley Todd sent in her Cook’s Profile nomination letter she had one thing in mind: exposure. Not for herself. She wanted readers to have access to four recipes that she considers the best of their kind. “Why should people go without these recipes?” the Bartholomew County REMC member asked us. “People need to enjoy them.”
She thought sharing her meat loaf recipe, which she perfected after years of experimentation, was important because “all the men in the state of Indiana are eating bad meat loaf now. Men like good meat loaf.” Hers, which she adapted from a recipe she found on the back of a potato chip bag in 1963, is flavorful and tender. After it was printed several years ago in the Columbus newspaper, local country clubs began using her recipe, she said. The chef at the Overlook Lodge and Restaurant at Salt Creek Golf Resort in Nashville, Ind., traded her a stained glass hanging for instructions on how make her succulent meat loaf.
Her French Coconut Pie is “a delicacy,” akin, she said, to expensive European desserts. It won her a first place award in a pie-baking contest held at Tipton Lakes, where she lives in Columbus.
Todd’s recipes represent down-home cooking at its finest, but interestingly, she seldom cooks these days. She donated most of her cooking utensils and plates to a homeless shelter after her husband, Lindell, passed away in 1998. Her recipe box now has a note attached to it: “Oct. 14, 1998 — Retired.” Shirley said, “The day he died, I no longer had the desire to cook. All the cooking I did was for him.”
Shirley didn’t learn how to cook until after she married at age 21. That’s when she turned to her aunt, the best cook she knew, for culinary advice. “It’s OK to ask for help,” Shirley explained.
It wasn’t long before Shirley was cooking up a storm, baking homemade bread and making her own jelly, and tending to a vegetable garden and canning the crops. When she was raising her kids and working the night shift seven days at week at Cummins Engine in Columbus, she’d have a full dinner waiting for her family before she left for work. Because Lindell enjoyed her cooking so much, “he didn’t want to eat out.” Much of the time, she was in the kitchen: cooking, cleaning up, then getting ready for the next meal. “I’d love to see him (Lindell) brag on me. I’d love to please.”
Nowadays though, Shirley is out of the kitchen, on the go and having the time of her life.
She enjoys traveling (she recently returned from a 40-day tour of Europe and will be in Egypt this month to ride a camel on her 65th birthday) and volunteers for 34 organizations including Big Brothers Big Sisters. Every year, she joins two new organizations. This past year, she joined Girl Scouts and Book Buddies, a volunteer tutoring program.
With her busy schedule, Shirley frequents restaurants. Since being diagnosed with diabetes last year, she watches her diet, avoiding the carbohydrates and fried foods that were once staples in her family’s meals. By altering her diet, she’s lost 37 pounds and is healthier because of it.
Even though she doesn’t normally cook anymore, last December she cooked an 11-dish meal for an elderly friend — and prepared everything in one pan! The feast included her friend’s favorites: meat loaf, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry salad and homemade chocolate pie. Piemaking is something for which she’s known, Shirley said. “The meringue on my pies is so high.”
Shirley has been active in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in Columbus for seven years (she was named Big Sister of the Year for the community and school last year) and her “little brother” Corey, 13, will only eat hamburgers that she prepares.
Shirley’s apartment is overflowing with collections of country-style decorations, dolls, and pictures. She also keeps past issues of “Taste of Home” magazine, with favorite recipes noted on the covers. Though she prefers taking trips and going to the opera by herself, she has enjoyed entertaining others with Carol Burnett skits, hip-hop dance routines, and Columbus Philharmonic and church choir performances. A self-confessed “wimp who got strong” through life’s adversities, she feels blessed when she can do things for others. “If I do something good, it’s not for self glory. I’m the behind the scenes person.” — Emily Schilling, editor, Electric Consumer
Shirley’s tips
• Struggling to keep the critters away from your tomato plants? Sprinkle black pepper around your plants. The animals will find the smell offensive and leave the tomatoes alone.
• Garlic salt perks up the flavor of meats. Shirley’s “little brother,” Corey, loves her hamburgers. Her secret? A hot skillet, extra thin patties, and garlic salt on the raw meat, followed by a liberal sprinkling when the patty has been flipped and flattened with a spatula. She likes her burgers to have a nice brown “crust” similar to those served at Steak ’n Shake.
• To be a good cook, find a cook whose food you enjoy eating and “strive to be like that person you admire.”
• Shirley loves to fish. Instead of dipping the filets in batter before frying them, she recommends a light cornmeal coating to accentuate the fish’s flavor.
 Shirley’s recipes
Deviled Eggs
6 hard boiled eggs
1⁄4 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
1 t. vinegar
1 t. prepared mustard
1⁄4 t. salt
Dash of pepper
Paprika (for garnish)
Remove shell from eggs. Halve eggs lengthwise. Remove yolks and mash in a bowl. Add mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper, and mix together. Scoop or pipe mixture into the eggs. Garnish with a sprinkling of paprika.
Baked Macaroni and Cheese
1 pkg. (7 oz.) macaroni
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
13⁄4 cups milk
1⁄2 t. salt
1⁄8 t. pepper
1⁄2 lb. (2 cups) cheddar cheese, diced or grated
1⁄3 cup bread crumbs (Shirley uses the crust portion of bread slices to make her bread crumbs)
11⁄2 T. melted butter
Cook macaroni as directed; drain. Melt butter in heavy saucepan; blend in flour. Stir in milk slowly and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. Add seasonings and cheese, stirring until cheese is melted. Add macaroni and transfer to a buttered 1 quart casserole or individual casserole dishes. Combine bread crumbs and melted butter; sprinkle over macaroni. Bake in a 400 F oven for 20 minutes. Yield: 6 (7 oz.) servings.
French Coconut Pie
3 eggs, beaten
11⁄2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1⁄2 cup butter, melted
1 T. all-purpose flour
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. vinegar
1 cup firmly packed shredded coconut
1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except pie shell. Pour filling into the pie shell and bake at 400 F for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 F and bake 50 minutes or until top is golden and the center is almost set. When cool, store in the refrigerator. Yield: 8 servings.
Meat Loaf
1 pound ground beef
1⁄2 pound Tennessee Pride mild sausage (Shirley says using this brand is the key to this recipe)
2 eggs
1 heaping cup of crumbled saltines (crumble with hands)
1⁄2 t. salt
1⁄8 t. pepper
1⁄4 cup chopped onion
1⁄4 cup chopped green pepper or celery (Shirley prefers green pepper)
1⁄2 cup ketchup
1⁄2 cup milk
Mix together all ingredients by hand in large bowl. Divide mixture into 2 small meat loaf pans and bake at 350 F for 1 hour, 15 minutes. Optional: Drizzle ketchup on top of both loaves and put a thin slice of green pepper on top of each loaf for decoration.
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 5/31/2007
Number of Views: 509
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