WEST PARIS — If you drive six miles north on Route 26 from Market Square in South Paris, you might miss the antique, pale yellow farmhouse on the right. You will notice the green metal roof before you spot the Hungry Hollow sign on the front of the building.

You also can’t tell from the outside how much fabulous food you’ll find on the inside.

Shirley Damm, owner of the Hungry Hollow Country Store in West Paris, has been baking pies — at times up to two or three dozen in one day — for 26 years. Hungry Hollow is much more than a bakery, though. In one stop you can stock up on meals for the week, including fresh or frozen soups, stews and casseroles, baked beans, breads, bars, cookies and lots more. And with a large enough freezer and a little clever planning, perhaps even enough to supplement your own cooking for an entire month.

One of her trademark items is what she refers to as the “heat-and-eat” entrees. Since everything is homemade, it could possibly be the most old-fashioned, grandmotherly “take out” food you’ll ever see. It’s almost as if fast food had “gone country.”

“All our foods are made from scratch using unbleached flour and natural sea salt, with no trans fats,” she said. “Chicken pies are our specialty.” Because of their popularity, she whips them up almost every day.

Thursday is Chicken Divan day, a creamy casserole with large chunks of chicken meat, broccoli and cheese. “Most of my soups,” she said, “are vegetarian, and most are dairy-free.” The soup menu varies weekly, and often includes potato and broccoli, or spinach and carrot. Hungarian mushroom soup was on the menu the day I stopped by. Made with a flavorful dark base, it was loaded with mushrooms and seasoned with Hungarian paprika and dill weed.

Since her early days of operation, Damm’s focus has been to provide simple yet tasty New England-style cooking. Case in point: Tucked in between fresh casseroles and containers of soup, I found a rare find — Indian pudding, a rich dessert made with cornmeal and molasses that she keeps in stock year-round, both fresh and frozen. She has, over the years, referred many times to Marjorie Standish’s “Cooking Down East” cookbook, a collection of Maine recipes originally printed in 1969 (a tried-and-true standby in my own kitchen).

Damm shared two of her favorites from that book. The Old-fashioned Hard Gingerbread Bars, she said, “are like gingerbread cake, only firmer.” She prefers to tweak the Indian pudding recipe a bit by cutting back slightly on the molasses and adding brown sugar, which lessens the intensity of the molasses flavor. To watch her put together and bake a crock of Indian pudding, go to www.sunjournal.com/pudding

One of Damm’s helpers, Linda Wakefield, believes their most popular bar is the double-chocolate/cream cheese brownie, a piece of which had somehow (but not surprisingly) jumped into my hand.

Open seven days a week, her baking and cooking schedule varies. Duties are usually divvied up between five or six employees, and although they are somewhat “specialized” in certain areas, Damm tends to make most of the fruit pies and the baked beans.

Most of her fruit pies are made with a crumb topping instead of the traditional pie crust top. She believes apple is her most popular, although “all of them have their fans,” she laughed. Almost any flavor pie is available, from blueberry and raspberry, to pumpkin and custard. She sells mostly larger pies at the bakery, and brings smaller-sized pies to local farmers’ markets. Hungry Hollow items can be found at the Norway farmers’ market on Thursdays and at the South Paris market on Saturdays.

Damm bought the nearby apple orchard in 1979, and soon after rented, and then purchased, the house, built in the early 1800s. She always “liked to grow things,” she said, “and liked farming.” She considers herself a self-taught farmer and learned as she went along — reading books and referring to the Department of Agriculture for assistance.

“From then on,” she said, “it was working 12- to 14-hour days.” Over the years, they expanded out into what used to be the milk room, and she reconfigured the home’s original kitchen area to accommodate her cooking and baking.

Because of the close proximity of the apple orchard, most of her baking 26 years ago involved apples. She shared the recipe for one of her very first bakery items, Apple Walnut Bars. She said she loves this recipe because they can conveniently be made with any type of apples you have on hand.

Because the country store is in the perfect location, she gets both seasonal and year-round customers. June through December is her busiest season, with January through March bringing traffic from skiers headed up to the mountains. While there, you can grab a fresh cup of coffee and browse through her gift shop. She also sells natural and organic foods, gourmet teas, locally produced butter, honey and maple syrup, snack foods and Green Mountain coffee. Four years ago, she began to offer gluten-free products.

At 77, Damm admits she would love to retire soon, and hopes to sell her business in the near future. She assured me “all the recipes would go with the sale of the business.” She hopes a new owner won’t change anything and just pick up where she leaves off.

Recipes

Baked Indian Pudding

3 quarts of milk, divided in half

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup molasses

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 teaspoons cinnamon

1.5 teaspoons ground ginger

Scald 1-1/2 quarts of the milk. Mix cornmeal, salt, molasses, cinnamon and ginger together. Add slowly to the scalded milk. Continue stirring and cook until mixture is thickened.

Turn into a large, well-buttered casserole dish, oven-proof crock or bean pot. Bake uncovered for one hour at 300 degrees. Stir, then pour remaining 1-1/2 quarts of cold milk into the casserole. Stir all together. Continue baking at 300 degrees for two more hours.

Shirley Damm suggests you serve it warm with whipped cream or (her preference) vanilla ice cream.

Old-Fashioned Hard Gingerbread Bars

1/2 cup margarine (or lard)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup molasses

1 teaspoon soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon hot water

1 beaten egg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoons ginger

2 teaspoons salt

4 cups flour

Start by sifting 3 cups of flour with the spices. The remaining 1 cup of flour may be added, if needed. This dough is extremely stiff. It should be firm enough so that it may be patted by your fingers into a greased jelly roll pan (or a greased cookie sheet may be used).

Melt margarine (or lard) and butter together; add sugar and molasses and stir. Make sure this is cool, then add soda dissolved in the 1 tablespoon of hot water, add beaten egg. Add sifted dry ingredients. Mix until smooth. Add remaining cup of sifted flour, if necessary. Only add enough flour to make the dough firm.

Using a buttered 12-by-18-inch pan or cookie sheet, pat the dough as smoothly as possible into pan.

Place in 350-degree oven. After gingerbread has baked for 10 minutes, sprinkle top of dough with granulated sugar, continue baking for 10 minutes longer. Cool in pan, cut into squares.

Apple Walnut Squares

Makes 15 bars

1.5 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

5.5 ounces vegetable oil

2 cups thinly sliced apples

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped walnuts

Pinch nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat eggs. Add sugar gradually. Beat until light and fluffy.

Stir in oil and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Fold in apples and nuts.

Bake in a greased 9-by-13-inch pan at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.