Front Porch Antiques & Produce

Winter Squash Enchiladas

2009-11-09T16:01:00.001-08:00

It always frustrates me when a recipe calls for winter and summer squash in the same dish. Maybe they are ready at the same time where you live, but not here! However, thanks to our amazing new greenhouse, tomatoes are ripening during both winter and summer squash season. And our pepper plants are safe inside the greenhouse, too. Thus, it calls for making Mexican dishes with winter squash: a fun, if not authentic, challenge.

I tried a recipe for enchiladas before that used only winter squash, peppers, and garlic as the sauce. But it was a bit dry and “squashy” for me. This time, I put into the blender cooked winter squash, some hot peppers, and some tomatoes. Inside the flour tortillas, I used leftover venison taco meat and the last bit of the purple cabbage and green tomato salsa, rolling the tortillas tightly into the pan. I spread them with a can of un-healthy, fattening, non-organic cream of mushroom soup, just because I love the flavor it adds to my enchiladas! Then I topped them with a generous amount of blended squash, peppers, and tomatoes (all grown organically, of course), making sure the sauce made it down in between and below the individual enchiladas.

Smothered in cheese and cooked ‘til bubbly and slightly browned, it was moist and delicious!

tomato soup

2009-11-04T16:20:00.000-08:00

Our favorite tomato soup recipe turned out extra-pretty this week with the
addition of yellow heirloom tomatoes.

It's a simple recipe: just saute diced onion and garlic in butter. Then add
diced tomatoes and a bit of beef broth, then salt, pepper, thyme, and
parsley to taste. Simmer for a few minutes and it's the perfect side to go
with grilled cheese sandwiches or any Italian meal!

of homemade tomato sauce

2009-10-28T09:29:00.001-07:00

Have you ever tasted homemade tomato sauce? From tomatoes grown in the dirt around your home. Tomatoes that have been chopped on your kitchen counter. Tomatoes that have simmered for hours on your kitchen stove. Until the extra liquid has evaporated and the tomatoes have reached the smooth perfection of…homemade tomato sauce.

Last week I made homemade tomato sauce. Then I diced up a leftover chicken breast (from a whole chicken that had boiled on my wood stove in a cast iron pan), and tossed it with pasta, artichoke hearts, mozzarella cheese chunks, and some Italian herbs. Topping it with my homemade tomato sauce, making sure some cheese was near the top to peek its way through, I popped it in the oven.

The bubbling and browned delight that came out was absolute perfection. Most especially because of the homemade tomato sauce.

Autumn is in the air...

2009-09-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

And we have all the fruits and vegetables for the taste of autumn at the Front Porch! Winter squash and pumpkins for pies and savories. Apples and pears for canning and crisps. Onions and potatoes and carrots (and lots more!) for everything in between. Stop in for a taste of autumn...

Rumor has it...

2009-08-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

...that our corn is pretty yummy-tasting this summer!

Summer is here!

2009-07-22T20:41:00.001-07:00

It's the time of year for BLT sandwiches, fresh tomato slices topped with basil leaves, tomato and cucumber salad (panzanella, anyone?)...

Every combination of recipes using fresh tomatoes, of the beefsteak and heirloom variety...

And we've got it all here at Front Porch... Come enjoy the luscious taste of summer!

Rhubarb

2009-06-09T14:24:00.001-07:00

Rhubarb. Just seeing the word in print is enough to make my mouth water. It's in profusion here on the farm this time of year. And when my cousins were visiting last week, we found opportunity to bake and consume more than one rhubarb dish! The coffee cake is a longtime favorite around here that my mother-in-law found and adapted (after all, what is coffee cake without oatmeal on top?!). The last, with jello, I have yet to try, and it's obviously full of sinful things out of boxes...but it sounds fabulous. Of course, the fact that we will have red ripe strawberries this week means that I'm going to have to go hunting for the perfect strawberry rhubarb pie recipe...because we all know that is rhubarb in its perfected state! Strawberry pie in and of itself is too sweet for me, but strawberry rhubarb pie is a taste of heaven on earth...which I've been much too long without!

Rhubarb Coffee Cake
adapted by Liz Acheson from A Collection of the Very Finest Recipes Ever Assembled Into One Cookbook

Cream:
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter
1 egg
1 c. buttermilk (or 1 c. milk plus 2 t. lemon juice)
1 t. vanilla

Add:
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

Fold in:
3 c. chopped rhubarb

Pour in greased and floured 13x9 pan.

Top with crumbly mixture of:
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. butter
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 c. oatmeal

Bake 35 to 45 minutes at 350 (until toothpick comes out clean).

Rhubarb Butter Crunch
from The Madison County Cookbook

Combine and place in a greased 8x8 pan:
3. c. diced rhubarb
1 c. sugar
3 T. flour

Blend with pastry cutter and sprinkle over rhubarb mixture:
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. oatmeal
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. butter

Bake at 375 for 40 minutes.

Easy Rhubarb Dessert
from The Madison County Cookbook

4 c. chopped rhubarb
1 c. sugar
1 box white cake mix
1 (3 oz.) box strawberry gelatin
1 c. water
1/3 c. butter (melted)

Placed ingredients in a 13x9 pan in the order given. The cake mix and gelatin goes on dry. Water and butter on top. Bake at 350 for 45 to 60 minutes.

Spring and Chicks

2009-05-01T08:33:00.001-07:00

Chick Day. Our local feed store has three “Chick Days” each spring. Everyone from moderate-scale chicken farmers to backyard poultry keepers place their orders weeks in advance. The hatcheries make sure to have just the right number of eggs ready to hatch out the day before chick day. And when the little fluffy guys and gals show their pretty little heads outside the eggs, they are boxed up and mailed overnight to our feed store. The nutrition that was in their egg yolk keeps their tummies from growling until the time we pick them up, take them home, dip their beaks in water, and give them all the food they will eat. It’s a pretty amazing process. But we have a pretty amazing Creator Who designed the baby chicks!

This year we had the feed store save us eighteen Barred Rock Pullets (pullets are hens-or female chicks). Last year we bought mostly Red Sexlink Pullets (”sexlink” means they are bred so that the boys are one color, the girls another, for easy gender identification of baby chicks). We plan to cycle through our favorite breeds every few years, buying a different breed each year, so we know which birds are older and need to be culled out without having to band them (put a “bracelet” on one of their legs) or guess at their age.

But we never can stick with just one breed. Our customers like green eggs, so we bought four Araucana Pullets this year. And those Silver Laced Wynadottes were just too cute. Four of those pullets came home with us as well. Which made for an even two bakers’ dozens of baby chickens! At least we got out of the feed store without the rabbit Ruth Ann was squealing in delight over. She was excited enough about the chicks themselves to scare the poor things half to death.

Our little babies have spent the last week in a feed bin, protected by chicken wire, warmed by a heat lamp, with a blanket over the top for extra insulation against our cold nights. We’re still working on ideas for a brooder we can use year after year. At least now we have a shed where their temporary home can reside! Last spring it was so cold our baby chicks hung out in the middle of my kitchen for their first week of life. Between the hungry, peeping chicks and the hungry, crying baby girl I didn’t get any sleep!

Yes, a brooder house is going to be a project for another spring-the shed area we park our cars has been ample protection for the chicks this spring. Meanwhile Merritt has been making all sorts of modifications to our “Chick Inn“-the latest is slanting the bottom of the laying boxes so that the eggs roll down into a covered area where we can retrieve them but the chickens can’t. Not only does this help with the egg eating problems that rear their ugly heads once in a while when the hens get too bored, but the best part is that in our muddy springs and autumns the eggs still stay relatively clean-because as soon as they are laid, they slide away into safety!

And the chicks aren’t the only signs of spring activity here on the farm. The chives in my herb garden are already several inches tall--or were, before the hens got to them. The rhubarb is poking up its curly head. And I could nearly use the parsley if I wanted to! My amazing, hard-working husband is building me a pretty little fence around my herb garden this spring, too-now that it is at its permanent location next to our new shed. The wire is smaller at the bottom so the hens won’t get to my herbs-yet tall enough to keep out the deer who have already trimmed my Sweet Williams and Primroses!

Today when we replaced the wood shavings in the bottom of the chicks’ tub, Ru took turns kissing each of the baby chicks (though sometimes it looked more like she was just smelling them-what did my grown-up nose miss?!). After she petted the soft feathers on one of our week-old chicks she reached up and patted her own fuzzy head. We never cease to be amazed at all the correlations she makes at just 16 months old. I s’pose next year she’ll be able to take care of the baby chicks all by herself, just from helping Daddy this year.

But right now, my farmer is out harrowing our field, and Ru was promised a ride before bedtime. So off we go to meet Daddy for Ruth’s first tractor ride…

(written for ylcf.org)

Twice the greenhouse, for twice the veggies!

2009-03-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

First things first--we'll be back open for business on Fridays and Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., starting Friday, April 17 (the week after Easter)!

And now to "the rest of the story" of our winter here on Front Porch Farm. On Christmas Day our 35 by 96-foot greenhouse joined Stevens County's long list of snowstorm wreckage. There's no good way to shovel the snow off a greenhouse! And that snow just did not slide...

But the good news is that our guys were able to salvage many of the parts, and with them put together a slightly smaller but taller greenhouse. And, we'd been talking about getting another greenhouse anyway, so now we have two greenhouses. Bigger and better than ever!

As always with our farm projects, my dad came up to help. For three weeks the guys worked in the sun, snow, and rain, and now we have two beautiful greenhouses to start planting in--a total of 4,600 square feet!

Come visit us on April 17. And watch for produce coming out of those brand new greenhouses soon!

Giving thanks..

2008-11-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

Winter squash. Autumn leaves. Pumpkin pies. Blessings.

It's that time of year. A time to rest and reflect. A season of thanksgiving.

As we bake our pumpkin (squash) pies, as we stuff the turkey, we look back on a full year. It's been a busy one, but a good one. And that is thanks to you, our customers!

We are so very blessed as a family because we get to work at home together, doing what we love--and make a living at it. It's not easy, but it is rewarding. And for that we are so thankful.

Thank you for making our business successful. When we count our blessings, we count you twice!

Wishing you a thankful Thanksgiving with those you love...

P.S. By popular demand, here's a recent picture of our biggest little blessing!

Pumpkins for Sale!

2008-10-22T12:19:00.001-07:00

How to Preserve a Husband

2008-10-17T14:03:00.001-07:00

It's the time of year for canning and preserving. My husband and I canned tomatoes last week. This week it was grape juice. But as I rinsed off the jars of dark purple juice this morning, my thoughts were not of food preservation. They were of preserving my marriage.

I once ran across directives on how to preserve a husband, long before I had a husband of my own. But while garage saling this spring with my husband and baby girl, I saw a simple platter with a similar recipe for husband preservation.

The owner laughed when I asked how much he wanted for it. "I knew someone would like that," he said.

I quickly agreed to the couple dollars he wanted. I knew that platter belonged in my kitchen. As a reminder to work at preserving my marriage every day of the year, not just during canning season...

How to Preserve a Husband

Be careful in your selection. Do not choose too young.

When selected, give your entire thoughts to preparation for domestic use.

Some wives insist upon keeping them in a pickle, others are constantly getting them into hot water. This may make them sour, hard, and sometimes bitter; even poor varieties may be made sweet, tender and good, by garnishing them with patience, well sweetened with love and seasoned with kisses.

Wrap them in a mantle of charity. Keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion and serve with peaches and cream.

Thus prepared, they will keep for years.

-from a platter advertising "Ball--the only modern line of canning supplies"

(written for ylcf.org)

winter squash time!

2008-10-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

I did not grow up eating winter squash. In fact, I didn't really know what it was until I met my husband's family. Probably part of it had to do with the fact that my daddy didn't like squash or sweet potatoes. I always knew that if Daddy didn't like it, I probably wouldn't like it (sour kraut being the primary example). But I had to be polite and try this new dish at the home of a guy I liked, right? So began Gretchen's love of winter squash (not to mention Merritt...). I was eventually prodded into trying candied sweet potatoes at a family potluck, and found out that my daddy was actually wrong once in a while (at least where food is concerned). Soon I was frequenting Burgerville for their sweet potato fries during the holiday season, and buying winter squash at a local farmer's market when I hadn't been to visit my boyfriend's family lately.

Now that I'm married to that wonderful man, I get to cook winter squash for him all the time (and unlike growing up, the head of this household doesn't complain about winter squash on the menu). As much as I love summer squashes and zucchinis, I'm always excited for the frost to bring the harvest of all the delectable varieties of winter squash.

Since it's such a winter staple around here, I'm always experimenting with new dishes using winter squash. (Our little girl thinks it's just great cooked and pureed, but her daddy appreciates the variety.) Here are a couple of favorite recipes--but there are lots more to be found here on the CSA website's "Veggie ID" section (not to mention pictures to help you figure out which kind of winter squash you ended up bringing home).

Squash and Potatoes

1 lg. sweet onion, chopped
several cloves garlic, minced
small winter squash, peeled (with carrot peeler), seeded, and chunked
potatoes, peeled and chunked

Fill a 13x9 pan with the vegetables and garlic. Drizzle with several tablespoons olive oil. Season liberally with sea salt, lightly with fresh grated pepper. Stir to coat veggies well. Cover tightly with foil. Bake at 350 one to two hours or until veggies are tender. Stir halfway through if desired.

Braised Winter Squash

2 lbs. Winter squash, peeled and sliced into 2/3 inch chunks
2 T. butter
2 c. apple cider
1 tsp. salt
Rosemary and pepper to taste

Melt butter in skillet with rosemary. Add the squash, salt, and cider (add additional cider or water as necessary to cover the squash). Bring to a boil and braise for 20 minutes or until tender. At this point the juice should be reduced to a glaze. If not, raise heat for a few minutes until excess liquid evaporates. Add pepper and a splash of balsamic vinegar, if desired.

Sweet Squash Soup

1 T. butter
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped
1/4 c. minced parsley
1 lb. winter squash, peeled and chunked
1 3/4 c. chicken broth
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. each salt and black pepper
14 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 c. milk
1/3 c. half and half

In large saucepan, melt butter. Add onion, carrot, and parsley; cook for five minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring often. Add squash, broth, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes or until squash is tender. Cool slightly (do not drain). In a blender, process mixture, half at a time, until smooth. Return to saucepan. Stir in milk and half and half. Cook, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until heated through. Serve hot or cold. (Soup will keep in refrigerator for one week. If serving cold, stir 1/4 c. milk into soup before serving.)

tomatoes and soup

2008-10-03T18:35:00.001-07:00

Last week Merritt and I spent an evening canning tomatoes. It's that time of year where everyone's plants are finally producing, leaving some extras for us to can. And I'm so glad, because I'd already used up all my canned tomatoes from last year. They are just too good with all that Italian food that winter weather seems to call for.

Since I knew I'd be salivating over the smell of the tomatoes the whole time I cut them up, I decided to make tomato soup for lunch just to curb my tomato appetite.

I got out my big cast iron skillet with the "drip-drop" lid, and sauteed a sliced onion in a dab of good old fashioned bacon grease. I added chopped tomatoes, a whole head of minced garlic, and more than a dash of salt and pepper.

Topped with some fresh parsley and basil, it was the perfect companion to the French bread I'd just pulled out of the oven. And I made it through canning tomatoes that evening without eating too many cans' worth!

autumn frost

2008-09-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

The first day of autumn brought with it the first rain and frost of the season, all within twenty-four hours. We're always sad to know the time for fresh veggies is drawing to a close for the year, yet we also breathe a sigh of relief as the season of busyness winds down. And this really is a later frost than we were expecting. But I guess the Lord knew that since we had snow in June we'd be thankful not to have a frost until near the end of September!

The forecast frost meant we picked all the tomatoes, peppers and summer squash yesterday. So if you're looking to do any canning or freezing, now is the time. We're going to have chicken fajitas tonight with all those yummy peppers... And whatever peppers we don't sell I'm going to can for the chili relleno casserole I make all winter long (with the wood stove going, it seems a shame not to cover it with cast iron skillets of rice and beans to complete our Mexican meal).

summertime on the menu!

2008-07-12T17:29:00.001-07:00

I'm afraid that when there is much news to write on this farm blog, we're too busy to write it. And when we have time to write, the farm is in hibernation for the winter. But while my baby girl is playing quietly I thought I would pop on to let you know that we didn't blow away in Thursday's windstorm. We're still here, with everything that smacks of summer on the menu!

Yesterday we enjoyed fresh cabbage salsa, with chopped tomatoes (green tomatoes are best in cabbage salsa!), cilantro, Ancho Pablano & Bell & Jalapeno peppers, and grated cabbage and sweet onion. Top it off with a little salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar, lemon and lime juice (the only things that don't come from our garden!), and you've got the perfect complement to nachos or an entire Mexican meal.

Of course, last night I ate an entire tomato all by myself--sliced, with salt and pepper... It was one of the Caspian Pink heirloom variety and oh was it delicious! A few fresh basil leaves are the perfect complement to any tomato, of course. Speaking of basil, I have to share our newest favorite basil and chard recipes...

Garlicky Baked Chicken with Chard and Basil

Gretchen's revision of a recipe from Church Suppers

1 whole chicken, cut up

2 large heads garlic, chopped

4-6 stalks/leaves Swiss Chard, chopped

1/4 c. olive oil

3 T. fresh lemon juice

2 T. chopped fresh parsley

1 c. chopped fresh basil

1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1/2 tsp. grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 375. Arrange chicken in baking dish. Sprinkle the garlic cloves over the chicken. Combine all remaining ingredients except lemon rind, and pour over the chicken. Sprinkle lemon rind on top. Bake, covered, for 40 minutes, or until chicken is tender. Uncover and bake for 15 minutes longer.

Tomato Basil Pasta

Heat all ingredients thoroughly in skillet. Add grated Parmesan cheese and milk or half and half, and reheat (don't let milk boil). Salt and pepper to taste.

summertime ingredients:

sliced summer squash and zucchini

diced tomatoes

chopped fresh basil leaves

cooked pasta

garlic scapes or minced garlic

winter ingredients:
cooked, diced chicken
whole olives
mushrooms
sun dried tomatoes
frozen basil leaves (when I have leftover basil, I freeze it to preserve the just-picked flavor--the leaves then crumble easily straight out of the freezer)

cooked pasta
minced garlic

Up and spinnin'

2008-06-05T19:37:00.000-07:00

From Our Windmill

If you're not one of the blessed ones of us who gets to drive the roads in this beautiful valley every day, let me fill you in on the newest thing to appear in the skyline...

A windmill at the Front Porch Farm!

I'm not sure whose idea it was to get a windmill as a landmark for our store, but Mason remembered seeing one advertised in the Capitol Press, and after lots of digging through old newspapers, we found it hidden in the classifieds. A windmill for sale in Oregon. Sounded like a project that should include my dad, since he lives in Oregon, and almost everything semi-crazy that Merritt's dad has done for the last twelve years has included my dad, too.

So last spring when Merritt's folks took Marlys to school, the guys went and disassembled our new windmill. A Dempster, originally from the midwest, brought out to Oregon, and now spinnin' in its new home in Washington!

Merritt spent some time this last winter fine-tuning it and replacing a few parts. And finally, we had time to devote to the project--and the help of my dad once more!

Now you don't need to watch for the power lines crossing the highway or count the miles from Addy. Front Porch is easy to spot. We're right below the windmill...

Something's in the air...

2008-05-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

If you've driven past Front Porch recently, you may have noticed some changes in the air...

Thanks to lots of help from my family who is visiting from Oregon, we're getting lots of things done on the farm. Including this latest project, which will help you find us better...

Keep an eye out as you drive by. And watch for pictures (and maybe even a video or two) of the setup process coming soon to our blog!

New website address!

2008-04-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

Check out our new, easy-to-remember website address:

www.frontporchfarm.net

And keep checking back to our site for all sorts of new stuff this summer!

Maybe spring is finally here?

2008-04-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

We've been taking advantage of the first three days this week without rain or snow to get lots of planting done! Yes, if you check your calendar, this good weather arrived on the last three days of the week. But hey, it's been a week of record-breaking temperatures--record low highs and such. So we're taking the good weather wherever we can get it.

This is the second weekend we've had our store, Front Porch Antiques and Produce, open. It's been good to see your familiar faces when I've been in the store--and when I'm not, I often recognize your cars from my kitchen window. We have lots of new inventory, and plenty of dried fruit and eggs, so be sure to stop in and see us.

Dad and Mom are planting tomatoes in the green house today! We planted lots of strawberry plants yesterday, so hopefully next year you'll see some beautiful red berries in the store. And all those yummy onions are in the ground busy growing. We finished planting them Thursday. Yes, I managed to get out there during a few of my little girl's naps. I find it much easier to plant when I'm not fighting morning sickness and fatigue--I'm just busy with a precious little person most of the time. (I'm sure I managed to plant at least as many onions as I plan to eat this year--and I eat lots of those delicious sweet onions!) The potatoes are in the ground, and the greenhouse has beautiful lettuce and chard plants... It's all coming along, and as soon as we have some consistently nice weather, I'm sure everything will sprout up like weeds--even the weeeds!

Springing into planting

2008-04-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

It may have snowed last night, but the sunshine this morning sure renews the promise of spring!

Mom and Marlys started planting in the greenhouse today. Meanwhile, the menfolk are enlarging our deer-fenced garden area, so that we can leave part of the ground fallow each year, and still have lots of room to grow veggies.

No fooling, summer and all its wonderful produce will be here before we know it!

My Cook Book Shelf

2008-04-01T18:26:00.000-07:00

"Food prepared with a light heart and in a happy frame of mind is often the best food. Preparing the special foods that are favorites of those you love...making just a little effort to garnish the salad with a sprig of parsley, a bit of grated cheese, or a wild strawberry from the nearby meadow. This says 'you cared enough to do the little extra things.' This makes cooking pleasant and satisfying."
-"Meal Planning," Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, 1956

My cook book shelf is filled to the overflowing. A yellow plastic shelf that began its useful life in my mother's college dorm room, it then became my toy shelf, and now more than 20 years later holds a place of honor in my kitchen as the home of my cookbooks. There are glossy magazines from MaryJane's Farm and Taste of Home, antique hardbacks, three-ring binders, spiral-bound collections of friends and church family, and a stack of copied recipe pages that should be organized into that Mary Engelbreit notebook sometime when I'm not cooking. There's an authentic Mexican cook book and a Chinese cooking school cook book right next to Jan Karon's Mitford Cookbook and a menu for Afternoon Tea.

But if I was stranded in a kitchen with only one cook book, I would want the expertise of Betty Crocker or Fannie Merritt Farmer at my fingertips.

Everyone knows that Betty Crocker is the ever-young, ever-fashionable, most versatile cook in the U.S.A. I, however, prefer the vintage 1950's Betty Crocker, who had just discovered the value of photographs in cook books. Not only does Betty Crocker teach the beginning cook how to do everything from scramble an egg to making a meringue (complete with pictures), as well as set a table and plan a menu, she has so many versatile recipes that even the pro will always be turning back to her pages. The antique versions of this famous cookbook are best, because back then they knew how to cook from scratch--not from cans and boxes. (See "Recipe for a Good Cook Book.") And what I love about the older versions of Betty Crocker (in addition to the wonderful way it is organized!) are all the key recipes--they tell you how to make a basic recipe, then give you several variations. And once you master the key recipe, of course, you can experiment to your heart's content. At the moment, I have only two copies: a spiral-bound Betty Crocker's New Picture Cook Book (first edition, third printing, copyright 1961), and my favorite, a hardbound copy of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book (second edition, second printing, copyright 1956). But being a collector of antiques as well as cook books, I pick up a Betty Crocker whenever I find a good deal, and sometimes I even let one go as a gift to someone I know will appreciate it as much as I did.

I'll admit the reason I first picked up Fannie Merritt Farmer's Boston Cooking School Cookbook was because Merritt is the name of the man whose heart I wanted to win (and we all know the way to a man's heart is through his stomach). But when I finally got my own copy it became an invaluable tool in my kitchen. I like to compare Betty Crocker's recipes to Fannie Merritt Farmer's, often ending up with a combination of the two. I'm guessing Fannie Merritt Farmer was the more gourmet of the two back in their day, but either is gourmet compared to today's home-cooking standards. Fannie Merritt Farmer was apparently the first to bring "level measurements" into popularity--her original cookbook was published in 1896 (mine is the tenth edition, revised by her niece, from 1959). You won't find photographs in her cook books, but the black and white facts of every culinary art will be a great asset to your cooking.

As you can see, though I have two especial favorites, there are more cookbooks on my shelf...

Back in 1995 my grandparents gave me a Reader's Digest cookbook called Like Grandma Used to Make. Often as I flip through it, I find the little sheets of menu plans my cousin Melissa and I made up for one of our fancy dinners for the family (which usually turned out to be semi-disasters, with Gretchen making the messes and Melissa following her around with a dish rag). This book is filled with delicious, down-home recipes you'll always have the ingredients for. It may not have every recipe you'll ever want to make, but it has a lot you'll want to try. Whenever I'm lacking creativity, I turn to the pages of Like Grandma Used to Make.

If you're a working mom or have little time and lots of freezer space, Once a Month Cooking by Wilson and Lagerborg is for you. I used this method for my family when I still lived at my parents', cooking 30+ meals in one day, and filling the freezer with a variety of menu items that lasted over a month. Now that I'm just cooking for two, I've modified the method--I cook lots each meal, and freeze the leftovers for hurried days when I don't have time to cook. For more, read my blog post "Dinner's in the Freezer."

Make-a-Mix Cookery (by Eliason, Harward, and Westover) is an amazing book I've only skimmed the surface of. My mom always made the best pie crusts--straight from this book. The best part was, she made enough dough for 10 pie crusts at a time. Then, when we were ready for a blackberry pie (with berries fresh from the field!), she would take the dough out of the freezer, thaw it, and roll it out. And that's just the beginning of the mixes you'll find in the pages of this book!

It took me one look to fall in love with The Farmer's Wife Cook Book. My grandma gave it to me my first birthday after becoming a farmer's wife. The redhead waving to the man on the John Deere tractor looked just like us... One of these days, I would love to find an original copy of that issue of The Farmer's Wife: a magazine for farm women (published from 1893 to 1939). Meanwhile, I enjoy the recipes from the magazine, compiled into a new cookbook by Martha Engstrom. With old advertisements and photos, and original articles from The Farmer's Wife (such as "Use Butter Generously" and "Why Not Hominy?"), it's a trip into the history of the farm kitchen. My farmer and I especially enjoyed the article on "Choosing a Refrigerator", from a 1930 issue of the magazine. It stated that there were really only two or three months out of the year when a refrigerator was necessary, and at least 5 cubic feet of storage space would be a good idea for a family of 4 or 5 (these newlyweds started out with 14.3 cubic feet of refrigerator space, 12 months out of the year!). If you can't find a vintage Betty Crocker that will fit your budget, The Farmer's Wife Cook Book will at least give you a flavor of good old-fashioned cooking methods (you might discover some new favorites--like baked custard or rice pudding). (And if you see a copy of the magazine with that tractor cover picture, I want it!)

Church Suppers, coupled with a casserole dish and insulated carrier, was one of the most creative and practical wedding gifts we received. A huge notebook of recipes for church potluck and home alike (by Barbara Greenman). The best thing about it is the selection from across the country--from down-home Southern cooking to a variety of New York cheesecakes.

Better Homes and Garden's Vegetable Recipes and Fodale Press' The Green Thumb Cook Book are thrift store finds with recipes organized alphabetically by vegetable--great for fresh ideas for that veggie that's practically coming out of your ears!

For this winter squash fanatic, Reader's Digest's Pumpkins and Squashes by Caroline Boisset was a delightful discovery. There just aren't enough recipes using squash--but this is a book full of them, as well as pictures and descriptions of all varieties of summer and winter squash.

Williams-Sonoma's Best of the Kitchen Library is a bit more on the gourmet side, but any of the cookbooks in this collection are enough to inspire you to new heights. And then there's Gourmet magazine. It's a very inexpensive subscription (especially for us because we borrow my sister-in-law's!), and the magazine is full of mouth-watering recipes. Or, look for Gourmet's "best of..." recipe book collections on sale. Your cooking will wow your friends. And even if you don't have all the ingredients each recipe calls for, you can usually figure out a substitute.

Lorenz Books has an amazing line of cook books, too. I only own the Potato book, but it's true to its name: "the definitive guide to potatoes and potato cooking." The recipes are gourmet and down-home at the same time. I'm sure I'll have to pick up another at a garage sale one of these days.

And then there's the next cook book I'll buy... Every cook knows she can never have enough cook books. There's always one more, with yet more recipes to stir your creativity. Like the library's copy of Ed Wood's Classic Sourdoughs that is making me want to find its twin for my own. Or Sally Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions I'm trying to justify buying.

But enough about cook books. I need to get cooking! I'm making curried carrot soup from Church Suppers to go with the "Lowell Inn Crescent Rolls" from Betty Crocker. And my man will be home for dinner in just a few hours...

"The momentous question of 'What shall we eat,' which comes to the housekeeper three times every day and which must be met with a well-supplied table--whether everything else in the house goes undone--becomes monotonous and wearying. We hail suggestions as a ship-wrecked mariner does the distant sail."
-"Table Talk," The Farmer's Wife, May 1912

(written for ylcf.org)

Recipe for a Good Cook Book

2008-03-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

Flipping through a new cook book, just glancing at the pictures can make your mouth start to water. But before you pay for it based on salivary appeal alone, take a second look, and see if you can actually make the recipes included. Is it so gourmet that it calls for ingredients that aren't in your cupboard, let alone in your food budget? Or is it so modernized that it calls for boxes and cans and packages, instead of from-scratch ingredients?

Here's a recipe for a good old-fashioned cook book you'll reference the rest of your life...

Turn to the index, and find a recipe for spaghetti. If it calls for a 16-ounce jar of spaghetti sauce, don't even give it a second look. If it tells you how to simmer your own spaghetti sauce, the cook book may have some promise.

Next, look up minestrone soup. If it calls for a 15-ounce can of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed, forget it. If it tells you the proper dried measurements for soaking, rinsing, and cooking your own kidney beans and chickpeas, you're onto something.

Finally, sniff your way through the pages to pumpkin pie. If it calls for a can of pumpkin, it still fails the test. If it tells you how many cups of pureed pumpkin to use, it's a good cook book. If it mentions substituting winter squash as well, you've really got a winner.

Anyone can open a can of beans in the interest of speed, or follow the recipe off the can of storebought pumpkin. But only a good cook can substitute the perfect from-scratch with-plenty-of-garlic spaghetti sauce when the recipe just calls for a 16-ounce jar. And every gardener knows that squash pie is better than pumpkin any day.

(written for ylcf.org)

Ratatouille and other farm-style delicacies

2008-03-16T15:16:00.001-07:00

It's one of those cozy, rainy autumn afternoons meant for curling up by the fire with a good book. Everyone must have felt it, for it was a slow day at the store, and Merritt and I did just that--sat by the store's wood stove with our books. I convinced him to try a George MacDonald, The Fisherman's Lady, and I had a fun read in Who Gets the Drumstick? by Helen Beardsley.

Then I got to come home, feed the chickens (who love the mud and the rain), laugh at the kitties (who try to delicately shake the mud from their feet each step they take), light all the candles, and make dinner for my husband who will soon be home from work. (Meanwhile, I'm keeping one eye on the fields in case a buck should present himself as steak for our winter's dinners.)

Tonight I'm trying Bortsch (beet and cabbage soup) for the very first time, as well as making my mother-in-law's standby sausage and potatoes (a simple white sauce and sausage gravy over mashed potatoes) in case Merritt doesn't like the Bortsch.

As the end of a second season on the farm draws to a close, I'm realizing how much living off the bounty of the garden has taught me about cooking. I thought I cooked from scratch before. I may have grown up with a few Costco or Schwans prepared dinners in the freezer to fall back on in emergencies, but I knew how to grind wheat, bake bread of all kinds, and make lasagne (sauce and all). Now I'm making salsa with tomatoes, peppers, and onions I planted, and cilantro from my pot outside the door. Not only is the beef in the enchiladas from our cows (I grew up on our own beef and venison), but my husband farmed the alfalfa hay that fattened those cows up. And the vanilla and honey baked custard is made with eggs from our own chickens and ducks.

But more importantly, I'm learning to cook according to what's in season. This spring it started out with cream of spinach soup and broccoli casseroles with green salad. (And this pregnant lady's favorite keep-away-the-nausea snack eaten at least twice daily, of a tortilla smeared with cream cheese, layered with spinach and salsa, and rolled to perfection.)

As soon as the first little summer squash showed itself, we had squash and zucchini with every meal (sauteed in a cast iron skillet with just a dab of butter, salt and pepper). My favorite summer lunch was an "open-face sandwich", with some of my sister-in-law's homemade bread, toasted, buttered, and topped with bacon, onion, tomato, and cheese, then broiled just until the cheese browned--I could get fat on those!

The week the peppers and tomatoes came into profusion, our favorite Mexican meals began showing up frequently in the menu. My latest experiment was winter squash enchiladas, with a sauce of pureed winter squash, garlic, and jalapeno instead of the traditional tomato sauce. (While I didn't grow up with it, I have become a fan of winter squash in every way, shape, and form!)

But the one farm-style delicacy I didn't get to try this year was Ratatouille. My mouth has been watering ever since we saw the movie by the same name at the drive-in. I came home and dug through all my cookbooks, very proud to find that my non-gourmet cookbook library had several versions of the recipe. And upon reading the ingredients, I found out why the movie characters were so scandalized at serving such a "peasant dish" to the gourmet food critic: the primary ingredients of Ratatouille are zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant! There were never any eggplant to spare this summer, but I've convinced Mom and Dad to plant a few eggplants again next year just so we can make Ratatouille.

Maybe you can always find eggplant and zucchini at the grocery store. But there's nothing so gourmet as food straight from the garden. And nobody eats better than those who live off the land, eating what's in season, and preserving the abundance for winter.

(written autumn of 2007, for ylcf.org)

Planting Begins!

2008-03-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

March 10th...

Mom and I started planting the first of the starts last Saturday. Spinach and lettuce, cabbage and kohlrabi. And a new one this year--brussel sprouts.

Hard to believe it's that time already. A year ago, my little girl was smaller than the lettuce seeds we were planting... This year, she's 3 1/2 months old, and "helping" Mommy plant! Next year she'll have so much fun playing in the dirt. This year, the trick is keeping her hands out of my trays of seeds and soil blocks.

And both seeds and little girls grow so quickly, one can almost see it happening before your eyes...