Cooking traditional family recipes and giving meaningful gifts are at the top of my “to-do” list this year. Crafts are always a great way to create a special gift – and among the Top 5 crafts is scrapbooking, according to industry trends.

Historically, scrapbooking was a tradition similar to storytelling, but with a visual and tactile focus.

Recently, I attended my first scrapbooking retreat where everyone was hard at work preserving photos and other memories with beautiful store-bought embellishments, like stickers, paper, ribbons and buttons. In addition, there are gadgets, tools and techniques galore to help create the perfect paper shape or lettering one might want to adorn pages.

While I don’t have time now to compile cherished photos into a decorative book, I did come across a wonderful way to preserve treasured family recipes – and to make a present worthy of giving this Christmas.

I discovered there are scrapbooking supplies specifically for creating books containing recipes. And, I had the good fortune of talking with Jackie Wynia, creative director at Sulyn Industries, who offered advice on how to go about doing that.

“As the children in my family were growing up and leaving for college, they began requesting family recipes from my mom, their Grandma Rose,” Wynia said. “She decided to make the kids notebooks of her recipes and wanted to decorate and embellish the pages. In searching through craft and scrapbook stores, she found very little cooking and food-related images and paper-crafting products,” Wynia explained.

So, Wynia created the Cookbookin’™ line of scrapbooking supplies for Sulyn.

With some help from Wynia and a visit to Memory Lane, a scrapbooking store in Auburn, I undertook a project to preserve some of my favorite recipes from my mom.

The first recipe I chose is an old family favorite I found on old, yellowed paper in my maternal grandmother’s handwriting. My granny, Emily Marshall, who died in 2003, was very dear to me. She and my mom used to serve this wild rice casserole recipe for guests. My mom said that the “men loved this dish.” I think the sausages made it a “man-pleasing” dish.

With a closer look at the recipe, I picked up on some unique traits, like the fact that casserole is spelled incorrectly. I can no longer read how many people the dish will serve because water, or perhaps grease from the sausage, created a smudge over that information. In the upper right-hand corner the word “good” is written in someone else’s handwriting. This is my mom’s tip. She suggested a long time ago that I write comments on recipes as I cook them. When I first started cooking, I never thought I would forget whether I tried or if I had liked a recipe. But I admit that now I appreciate her advice.

In an attempt to make this dish a bit healthier, I made some modifications. At first glance, I didn’t know what “accent” was. A quick search on the Internet revealed this ingredient to be monosodium glutamate or MSG. Since many people are allergic to MSG and it doesn’t have a distinct taste of its own, I opted to omit it from my version of the casserole. I am not sure what “banquet” chicken broth means but regular chicken broth works just fine. A quick call to my mother revealed that she is the one who crossed off the 1 tablespoon of salt because she felt the dish tasted too salty.

With a good tip from one of my vegetarian friends, I substituted 14 ounces of Gimme lean ground sausage style veggie protein for the sausage. This is a wonderful healthy meat-free alternative. Because I did not use real sausage, I added some salt back into the recipe, but this time only 1 teaspoon.

Marshall family wild rice casserole

(with a few adaptations by Scholer)

Ingredients:

14 ounces Gimme lean ground sausage style veggie protein, (or 1 pound sausage) available at both Shaw’s and Hannaford supermarkets in the produce section

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound mushrooms

2 medium onions, chopped

2 6-ounce boxes Uncle Ben’s original recipe wild rice (don’t use spice packets)

For the sauce

2½ cups chicken broth

½ teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Method:

Sauté sausage-style veggie protein in a medium-size frying pan with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and set aside. In the same frying pan, sauté mushrooms and onions in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the wild rice according to the box directions without the spice packs.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all sauce ingredients in medium-size sauce pan. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly so the mixture does not burn. Heat until mixture is thick (about 5 minutes). In a large bowl, mix sauce with all ingredients (veggie protein, mushrooms and onions, and wild rice). Prepare a 13- by 9-inch casserole dish with cooking spray. Put entire mixture into dish and cook for 25 minutes. Serve warm.

What to do with family favorites

Here are some tips for making a cookbook scrapbook from Jennifer Crowell, owner of Memory Lane in Auburn.

Christmas is a great time to prepare a recipe scrapbook. Try to have each “cook” write a recipe in his or her own handwriting. It makes Grandma’s apple cobbler recipe that much more special if she writes it down for you. Or, if you have the actual copy she kept in her kitchen for generations, that’s even better. (In that case, you’ll want to consider protecting it from aging and wear and tear.)

Add some history to the page. Include a photo of the person with the recipe. Add some personal details. What makes the recipe special? On what occasions was it made? Who was the ‘cook’? How was that person special to you?

Create a recipe album specifically to pass down to your children or grandchildren. Include photos of occasions that meal or favorite dessert was served. Write down little facts about each recipe. Did you have holiday traditions that included certain meals or foods? Did you make a special cake for each birthday? Tell the recipient why you shared that particular recipe.