Lexington cookbook author shares budget-friendly holiday recipes that taste rich

During the course of her 87 years, Barbara Harper Bach has worn many hats — daycare operator, artist and illustrator, food columnist, cooking instructor at both Williams-Sonoma and Wild Thyme Cooking Schools, author of 22 cookbooks, and fittingly in the commonwealth, an equestrian, having taught horseback riding at the University of Kentucky.

However, it’s as a cookbook writer that she has gained the most notoriety, and to put it in equestrian terms, she says she’s had her last rodeo.

In early November, she capped her cookbook writing career with a book signing at My Favorite Things boutique to promote her newest and, she says, last book, “The New Holiday Sampler Cookbook.”

“At 87, I think I’ve earned a rest, don’t you?” she asks as she slices a piece of homemade chess pie for me in her cozy kitchen.

Decked out in bright autumn colors and with perfectly coiffed hair and manicured nails, she looks the embodiment of the made-for-TV home cook.

The only thing that suggests a need for a slower pace of life — one without deadlines, book tours and interviews — is the walker she uses to get around after breaking three vertebrae in her back a few years ago. Even then, it was impossible to keep a good woman down — as Harper Bach likes to say, “the thing behind every good woman is ... herself.”

Recuperating at home after a lengthy rehab at Cardinal Hill Hospital, Harper Bach realized she wouldn’t be teaching eager students to cook or riding horses in the foreseeable future. She found that what she could do was continue writing and illustrating her series of cookbooks.

“I wrote three books while I was recuperating; I guess you could say I am an overachiever,” she says with a hearty laugh.

Indeed, she is. She wrote her first cookbook in 2008 as a way of keeping busy when her son and daughter-in-law moved to California with her grandkids.

“I had to have something to keep me occupied,” admits Harper Bach.

That something was “From My Mother’s Kitchen,” in which she shared recipes for southern favorites such as pimento cheese and comfort foods like vegetable soup that she remembers watching her mother make when she was a child.

“I still use those recipes today,” she says, adding that the cookbook took off like wildfire, and still remains her favorite of all those she’s done.

To bring things full circle, she penned a companion book, “From My Daughter’s Kitchen” (getting her inspiration from her daughter, Rebecca) for members of a younger generation “who prefer dishes like Bundt pan lasagna,” says Harper Bach.

In between the generations came a series of specialty cookbooks on everything from weddings to her family’s Irish heritage.

She points to the blue ribbons on her kitchen wall. “Those are from the 15 pie contests I won,” she says with pride.

“There might have been more, but I quit after I started receiving hate mail from surrounding counties,” she laughs. “Instead, I wrote a pie cookbook.”

Harper Bach claims some of her most satisfied customers haven’t even been human.

“I wrote a dog cookbook and when I did a book signing at Pet Smart with appropriate samples, the canines were just as happy as their humans.”

But when asked about her most popular cookbook, Harper Bach doesn’t hesitate.

“Had to be my Derby cookbook,” she says, “with the most popular recipes being the Hot Brown — the original from the Brown Hotel in Louisville — and bourbon balls, also the original recipe.”

About the latter, Harper Bach recalls as a seven-year-old going to Wolf Wile’s in downtown Lexington with her mother to purchase a box of the liquor-infused candy.

“I remember my mother had to show her driver’s license before they would let her buy it,” she says.

Her latest cookbook is available at My Favorite Things while supplies last. And you can order copies of many of her previous cookbooks online at bluegrasscookingclinic.com.

It’s clear that Lexington is losing an original of its own with Harper Bach’s retirement, but she assures friends and fans she’s not quite ready to retire her recipe card file with her.

“I will still be putting daily recipes on my face book page, so send me a friend request,” she says.

Being friends with Harper Bach has many rewards, not the least of which is an inexhaustible supply of delicious and low cost (important in today’s economic climate) recipe suggestions.

To get you started, here are two of her recommendations just in time for the holidays.

French Onion Casserole

Harper Bach says this recipe came to her from her friend Gayle Deaton in Louisville and goes well as a side dish with most meat options. “It tastes like French onion soup, only better. I love it,” she says.

• 5 large sweet onions
• 1 stick butter or plant butter
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 20 Saltine crackers, crushed coarsely

Slice the onions into thin slices and sauté them in butter in large skillet, stirring often until softened.

Put half the onion mixture into a greased casserole dish and sprinkle with half the grated Parmesan. Top with half the cracker crumbs. Repeat layers and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Early American Chess Pie

This is one of Barbara’s blue ribbon pie winners.

• ½ cup melted butter
• 1 and ½ cups sugar
• 1 and ½ teaspoons cornmeal
• 1 and ½ teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 and ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 jumbo eggs
• Freshly grated nutmeg for sprinkling top
• 9-inch Crisco pie crust

Mix sugar and melted butter with mixer at low speed until well-combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating on low until incorporated. Add remaining ingredients, beating just enough to combine. Pour into unbaked pie shell and put into a 450-degree oven. Turn heat down immediately to 400 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes, then bake at 300 degrees for 30 more minutes or until pie puffs way up and center will not jiggle. Let cool before serving.

Serve with fresh blackberries strewn on top. Helps cut the sweet.