A recipe from my most special cookbook--Old-Fashioned Noodle Pudding

Old-Fashioned Noodle Pudding
The Complete Everyday Cookbook Copyright 1971

5 tablespoons butter, divided
2 ½ cups peeled cooking apples, cut into ½-inch slices I used Golden Delicious
7 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 ¾ teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
2 tablespoons finely chopped walnuts I omitted these
2 ½ cups drained, cooked broad noodles
½ cup sour cream I used lite
1 ¼ cups creamed cottage cheese, sieved I used 1%
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, well beaten

Melt 3 tablespoons butter in heavy skillet. Add sliced apples; sprinkle with 3 tablespoons sugar. Stir until apples are completely coated with butter. Cover, cook over low heat about 8 minutes.

Mix brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and nuts well. Spread mixture evenly over bottom of well-greased 8x8x2-inch pan. Add 2 tablespoons of butter to noodles and toss until well-coated. Add sour cream, cottage cheese, salt, eggs, cooked apples and their liquid and 2 tablespoons sugar that has been mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon; blend well. Put noodle mixture over brown sugar layer in pan. Bake in moderate oven (325 degrees) for 50 minutes, or until done. Immediately sprinkle with a mixture of 2 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon cinnamon over top and serve at once.

Makes 7 servings.
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First of all, thank you very, very much for all of the wonderful birthday wishes. I was tickled pink to see all of the comments. I know it's not possible or even necessary for readers to comment on every post but I'm only human - I got excited to see so many comments. I appreciated the lurkers coming out of lurkdom and of course I loved hearing from my regulars. That was the best birthday gift. I feel rejuvenated.

If you asked me which one cookbook I would rescue in a fire, it would be this one. Strange, since this is the first time I'm cooking from it, but this is probably the first cookbook I ever read. My mother had a copy of this cookbook, actually she still has it. Unfortunately, it's in pieces and there are no identifying parts left to it. Yet somehow, within one day, I found a copy of this cookbook to buy over the internet. I did that with only a general guess as to what year it was published and the names of a few chapters.

I've had it for at least a year, maybe two. I think I've been afraid to try any of the recipes since I didn't want to be disappointed but it doesn't really matter, it will always be a special cookbook for me. The recipes really aren't the point - even my mother only used it for a few baking recipes yet it still made quite an impression on me.

I've been wanting to make a noodle pudding for years. I remember my mom making it once. She made a lot of things only once that I've never forgotten. Noodle pudding is just one of those things that there are so many variations out there, which one to try first? I don't think my mom's had apples in it but this is still the one that caught my eye.

This was a good starting point. I don't think it needed the brown sugar on the bottom, certainly not that much of it. It wasn't quite as creamy as I had hoped but it could have been my fault for using the lite sour cream and lowfat cottage cheese. Next time I try a noodle pudding recipe, I'm going full-fat. I don't know when that will be though. I ate more of this than I would ever admit and it might be a while before I can look at a noodle pudding again. It's probably a good thing that I used the lower-fat ingredients.

Question of the Day: Is there a special cookbook that your mom or grandmother had that you remember?