I needed to test a recipe for an upcoming Amish cookbook, that is actually a remake of an earlier book, Countryside Cooking and Chatting: Traditional Recipes and Wisdom from Amish & Mennonites, compiled by Lucy Leid, Herald Press, 2004. Next year it is being renamed and republished as Gather Round the Amish Table. The new cookbook will be illustrated with appetizing full color photos.
The book has many lovely, delicious and authentic Amish and Mennonite recipes. In fact they are so authentic they’re a little loose on directions and specifics. So the project editor had several questions she needed answered about this particular recipe which didn’t have enough detail. The Amish women, readers of a weekly “plain” newspaper, Die Botschaft, submitted recipes but last names were not published, which we understand to be out of modesty and community values. So there was/is no way to contact the original recipe submitters.
So the questions were: How long to bake it? What size of pan to use? The way it was written sounded like it was for one pan, but how big, since the recipe calls for 6 cups of flour and 4 cups of sugar, enough for two normal cakes!
Indeed it was a huge amount of batter, needing an Amish family-size mixing bowl, my quart sized measuring cup and an 11 x 15 inch baking pan. When I asked at the office whether anyone had an 11 x 14/15 inch pan, no. So I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond which did have one (for a huge lasagna pan) and I could imagine several uses for it in the future so, uncharacteristically for me, I bought one. (Slow to purchase new gadgets or kitchen items for myself: I even put spatulas and potholders on my Christmas list.)
Two key differences in this recipe from most cake recipes is that it calls for no eggs, and asks for lard. Of course other shortening can be substituted, and sometimes you have to hunt or ask around where/whether old fashioned lard can be found in your area. But I knew just where to go because of having used lard in my Amish noodle experiments last year.
It is nice to have a fall-back homemade cake recipe that doesn’t call for eggs since we all run out from time to time. Cooks in older times or homesteaders today, who depend on their own flock for all their eggs, know why there was a definite need for recipes without eggs: chickens, normally in the fall but it can vary as length of day shortens, go through a hormonal change resulting in a molting period and losing their feathers where they get a break from laying eggs. Here’s a pretty good beginner’s description. So there may be 6-8 weeks of no eggs. Hence, in times or areas where you can’t just run to the grocery store, there was a need for recipes without eggs.
Turns out, it had the same basic ingredients as one used in my own cookbook, Whatever Happened to Dinner: Sheri’s cake, which I shared here, which also doesn’t call for eggs.
Why would anyone make this much cake at a time? Amish families often have 8 -12 or more children. Many families longer ago had this many (and more children). A book I’m reading which I’ll cover in an upcoming post speaks of a family with 18 children, long before the Duggar family. You get the idea.
But, if you have just 2-4 kids and need a monster cake for the soccer team, a potluck at church, signing up to bring a cake for a funeral dinner, soup kitchen, or other large feeding program, this is a great recipe. I had enough to test with two different groups (knowing my empty nest household would take forever to finish it and suffer from too many calories). Or, if you bake it in two 9 x 13 inch pans, eat one and freeze one—it freezes well.
Ruth’s Chocolate Cake (Original from Countryside Cooking and Chatting)
Makes 2 – 9 x13 cakes or 1 – 11 x 15 inch cake
In a big bowl, mix:
4 cups sugar
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup lard
1 ½ cups hot water
2 cups sour milk (If you don’t have sour milk on hand, make it sour by first putting 2 teaspoons vinegar in a measuring cup, than adding enough milk to make the needed 2 cups of sour milk.)
6 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
In a big bowl, mix sugar, coca, and lard. Add hot water and milk. Add rest of ingredients, mixing well. Pour in two 9 x 13 pans or one 11 x 15 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes if using the 9 x 13 pans, (or until a toothpick comes out clean), or 45 minutes for a 11 x 15 inch pan. Frost with your favorite frosting.
Bonus topping, wherein I turned a mistake into a success!
I topped this with Carmen Wyse and Wayne Gehman’s Penuche frosting from my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner, recipe here (and photos showing normal process!) I was in a hurry and make a mistake: instead of adding the milk to the brown sugar and butter and bringing it to a second boil, I put in the powdered sugar and milk after taking it off the heat. Oops, a mistake I couldn’t rectify except by beating the frosting smooth. It ended up like a glaze with a few powdered sugar lumps I couldn’t beat out, which easily covered the whole 11 x 14 inch cake; I covered up the slightly lumpy glaze with chopped pecans. The normal penuche frosting is very thick and paste-like and hard to spread (although delicious) and would never have covered the whole 11 x 15 inch size. Just sayin’ if you want to benefit from my mistake. The pecany glaze made a great, thinner topping, with candy-like sweetness on the chocolate. I’m getting hungry again.
***
If you enjoy cooking and following new recipes, and would like to volunteer for occasional recipe testing for cookbooks we are publishing at Herald Press, let me know! We’ll put you on a list.
***
Have you had a cooking mistake that you turned out to like?
For over 15 years I’ve helped maintain the Clothes Closet ministry at our church that followers of this blog or my newspaper column have heard me mention in stories from time to time, such as here and here.
Saturday was our twice yearly “Switchover Day:” restocking the racks of our church clothes closet with the next season’s clothes, a chore that becomes fun when you do it with a group of willing workers. Conversation flows more freely and deeper than even the coffee hour at church allows. Every week, a smaller group of volunteers hangs fresh clothing on the racks, but it is a bigger operation to remove all of the prior season’s clothes, and bring out clothes for the coming weather. (And there are just two seasons in Virginia when it comes to clothing, right? Warm weather clothing and colder weather clothing.)
Most of us are more than busy with a long list of to-do’s at home, so volunteering your labor at a food pantry or free clinic or clothes closet or Habitat build is something you choose to do because you believe in the community that is built as you give of your time. I so enjoyed the work on Saturday for some of these reasons:
–Helping “train” a new volunteer and member of our larger congregation—what a great way to get better acquainted. 
–A beautiful mother and children whose family immigrated from Iraq have helped us for several years in this biannual activity, and we have enjoyed learning to know her and her family, and appreciating Basima’s growing language skills.
–Over the morning, Lana, (left) who was at first either sleepy or worried about leaving her mommy out of her sight, gradually warmed up and began casting shy smiles my way.
–It is a time to catch up with each other about summer highlights, grandchildren, new jobs for children, illnesses and other trials.
–It is one way we help our community recycle clothing and save it from the landfill.
There are suitable jobs for all. Our oldest helper, Jim, helps by making tags for the clothing that we remove from racks and take to Mercy House’s Used Clothing Store.
Children have frequently helped through the years. Here is a shot of my daughter Tanya, middle, and Kevin, far left, helping out William Ramkey at the Closet, a retired Presbyterian minister. The Closet has been in several locations around town, and at that point was housed at Community Mennonite Church.
Basima’s son, Mustafa, is old enough now to be a great help moving and lifting boxes in the storage.
And what crew of workers is not spurred on by the promise of a pizza lunch!
It is a simple, straightforward operation, this clothing closet. We take in clothing donated by the church, other churches, community, and often from many of the clients. And we give it away, absolutely free. That is the best part, which sometimes amazes new clients. The founding pastor of this congregation, Don, now pastor emeritus and a member of the group which keeps the Clothes Closet going, says giving out free clothes reminds him of God’s grace and the Bible passage in Matthew 10:8: “Freely you have received, freely give.”
Pastor emeritus Don Allen pouring out communion
grape juice at a house church worship service.
It is also a literal living out of the powerful parable told by Jesus himself in Matthew 25:36: “I was naked and you gave me clothing.”
Our crew on Saturday morning “Switchover Day”:
Front row: Janet, our awesome mission coordinator; Mustafa; mother Basima with daughters Lana and Danella; Patti, Karla.
Back row: Fred, Cheryl, John, Jim, Bill, Sue and her son home for a visit, Mark. Also missing from this photo, Elaine and her adult granddaughter.
What do you enjoy about volunteering or giving of your time in the community?
***
Here’s the front of our church building, Trinity Presbyterian, a historic pre-civil war home. To get to the Clothes Closet, you drive around to the back parking lot. Anyone is welcome, regardless of income: college students, friends, family. We are able to accept donations of clothing only on Wednesday mornings from 9-11 a.m.
The Closet is open for clients Wednesday evenings 6:30-7:30 p.m., and the first Saturday of each month from 10-11 a.m. Two other churches help us staff the Clothes Closet for which we are very grateful: Muhlehburg Lutheran and Harrisonburg Baptist Youth Group.
Fresh homemade salsa! Salsa is one of those things that does not taste at all like the cooked or canned store variety. I like the canned store variety o.k., but fresh—it feels like a vegetable dish instead of just a condiment.
But the question is cilantro. Do you like it or not? Is your salsa not salsa unless it has cilantro? Fresh basil? How hot is too hot? Or not hot enough? These were all questions I stared down as I made a batch to take to our monthly themed potluck lunch at work, the “Summer Vegetable” bonanza.
The first time I remember having cilantro where I knew what it was, was in Pico de Gallo Fajitas, with grilled chicken breast/tenders, marinated in juice of limes, cilantro, olive oil, minced garlic and salt and pepper. Wayne Gehman, husband of Carmen Wyse (one of the food editors/recipe testers for my book/cookbook Whatever Happened to Dinner) made Pico de Gallo Fajitas years ago for a similar office potluck event. I fell in love with that sauce and cilantro. So I tried to duplicate the dish for my family a couple weeks later.
They liked the chicken but not the cilantro taste peeking through. Huh? Who were these morons, I wondered, not to like all that deliciousness. When I learned that the taste for cilantro is somewhat genetic and that even great chef Julia Child picked cilantro out of any dish, I didn’t feel so bad about my family’s first reaction. Several of them love it now.
If you wondered if salsa and pico de gallo is basically the same thing, Kitchen Savvy does a decent job of plumbing out the differences.
Fresh Summer Salsa – adapted from Simply in Season, Herald Press.
6 medium fresh tomatoes (diced)
1 medium red onion (diced)
1 large green pepper (diced)
2-3 hot chili peppers (diced)
1 large peach (diced)
¼ bunch fresh cilantro (chopped)
4 cloves garlic (minced)
3 tablespoons fresh basil (chopped) or 2 tablespoons dried
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon lime juice
½ teaspoon salt or to taste
Combine in bowl. Let stand 30 minutes and serve.
(Original from Marc and Hannah Gascho Rempel, Ardis Diller, Jo Ann Heiser)
I think fresh salsa is my new favorite condiment for grilled hotdogs. Does that make hot dogs healthy?
This salsa also makes a decent topping for garlic bread toasted and applied as in bruschetta, and you could certainly sprinkle shredded mozarella on top. Jennifer, over at Mama’s Minutia blog just yesterday posted a bruschetta recipe, (for which the tomato part is a lot like a salsa) which had her and her family (at least some of them?) swooning. Her pictures are to swoon over, too. I give you permission to go there now.
***
Are you a cilantro lover or hater? Or have you learned to accommodate it? How?
***
Carmen also has a recipe for a mango salsa, plus their original concoction for a huge batch of canned salsa in Whatever Happened to Dinner. If you have a lot of tomatoes to use up, this might be the ticket (makes 14 quarts).
I can send you a free copy of the canned salsa recipe by email. Let me know!
Mom had a small birthday bucket list wish for her 90th birthday. She knew her grandchildren and great grandchildren wouldn’t have a huge amount of fun at the cake, punch and ice cream reception in the dining hall of her retirement apartment complex. She also knew how difficult it is to entertain a passel of kids without them doing things they aren’t supposed to do (drown, skateboard/bike on the sidewalks, get lost, get carried away playing pool, wreck property).
So she wanted to do “something fun” the day after for the grandkids (and by now we have greats and great greats in this growing family).
We ran through the options and had at first settled on a day trip to Chicago 100 miles away by train, to avoid driving. Group tickets could be obtained for a decent price and we would visit Chicago’s Navy Pier where there is a huge, grand, Ferris wheel, and wild fast boat rides available on Lake Michigan.
Chicago 2004: Daughter Michelle, Mom (at 80), Doreen, Tanya, sister Nancy, her grandson Jacob.
(Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan on the Seadog Extreme Thrill ride, which went so fast my Dad had to hold on to his hat.)
Some of us had made this trip by car for her 80th birthday when Dad was still living and had a splendid time, except for the drive home from Chicago in rush hour. (Not so fun.)
(Dad and Mom look on as grandchildren Michelle, Doreen, and great grand Brittney, light 80 candles at Mom’s 80th birthday, 2004)
We topped that day off though with a birthday cake back at home in which my father insisted we make a last minute run to a store to buy candles to put 80 candles on her cake, and light them. All. Which we did. (No mean feat.)
So Mom wanted a repeat visit to Chicago with more of the family and a Ferris wheel ride and boat ride.
Backstory & logistics for planning a group family vacation: Dad, in the early 1990s, had also come up with the idea of giving the family, in lieu of Christmas presents, a summer vacation together every other year, at scenic, and entertaining locations. He said instead of making us drive to Indiana (which, let’s face it, is a great place to be from, but not that great with touristy destinations)—why not all go to someplace scenic, different, and with large vacation cabins available where all or most of us could stay together for a couple of days. Zillions of families do this, I know, and I was so glad Dad started this tradition for our family. We went to the Smokies a couple of times (centrally located for us) where we navigated several whitewater rafting trips, the beach (Florida and North Carolina, including snorkeling) and the Rockies (rafting the Arkansas River), among other destinations over the years. Mom and Dad provided the lodging and in the beginning, money for all food (cooked in the cabins, all taking turns) and one dinner out; but eventually as the family grew (and cabin rental went up) us kids took on the food expenses. We also always paid our own ways for entertainment or activities like the rafting. It was a way for our far flung family to stay connected, at least every other year. As our families grew, it also became harder and harder to pick a date and work around the varying demands of jobs, so gradually we got used to the idea that not everyone could come even every other year. So those who could come, did, and those who couldn’t, just missed out. No guilt. Mom and Dad sometimes sent those who missed out the money they would have spent on our vacation.
So this year when Mom had serious surgery in late April, all plans and bets were temporarily laid aside for a post-90th birthday party family excursion. Her recovery looked promising though so we knew we could still have some kind of party. But all of us getting up the next day to drive 45 minutes to a train station by 6:30 a.m. looked a little, er, daunting.
We ran through other options: the zoo, the Indiana Dunes (on Lake Michigan), a park with a swimming pool, an afternoon of mini-golf. Everything seemed like a “been there, done that” option.
Then Mom saw an advertisement for Indiana Beach, a small amusement park about 2 hours away in Monticello, almost in the middle of nowhere. Getting there wouldn’t be difficult traffic-wise, although in the end my one daughter, husband and 8-month-old decided not to go because of the long car trip (on top of having driven to Indiana from Virginia). There was a Ferris wheel and a boat excursion, both on Mom’s birthday bucket list. Then Mother came up with the idea that she would give the park fee as this year’s Christmas present for all who could make it. Sweet!
So, the day after her party, some 25 of us headed to Indiana Beach. A day which could have been miserably hot at the end of July was just right. There was no rain, and Mom (with the help of a wheelchair) enjoyed the day to the max.
I would say it was a toss up on who enjoyed the day more:
This trio?
Mom and two step great grandchildren on the Shafer Queen
Or this one?
Three of my great nephews on the Skycoaster (Photo courtesy of Katie Gross)
I know this little one won’t really remember it, but his parents will tell him about his first amusement park, his “first carousel ride.”
Jon, Sam and Tanya on the carousel
There were surprises, too: Mom’s favorite ride turned out not to be the rather sedate Ferris wheel (and not at all swingy) in gondola type buckets …
Stuart, Mom, me and Doreen in Ferris wheel gondola (Photo courtesy of Pert Shetler)
but the park-crossing Skyride where legs swung free and no belts chained us in (like a ski lift). It was a little scary even for me (maybe cause I was in charge of a 6-year-old step great-nephew at that point), but it was Mom’s pick of the day.
Daughter Doreen and Mom on Skyride (Photo courtesy of Pert Shetler)
Like the old melancholy Jim Croce song says, maybe all we have are “photographs and memories” of a July day spent at a pretty ordinary Indiana amusement park, but the bonding that happens through such efforts to get together and be together are less tangible. When I look back over the summers when our family was able to get together, I know that when families are separated by many miles, these summer holidays planned by my parents were the only times my children could get to know their cousins.
Second cousins meeting second cousins for the first time
First cousins getting together after not seeing each other since Mother’s Day. Great Aunt Pert in back.
Many of us would rather spend time together than find room in our overstuffed houses for another sweater, do-dad or necktie from a Christmas gift exchange.
And I so much enjoyed getting to know this great nephew, Brady, and his older sister, Kristin, who came along on the trip even though their parents could not: he was full of inquisitive questions that revealed his fears and longings (especially about the rides!) and not just full of mischief. That was a gift to me, and a reminder and takeaway that children, and the adults who love them, are always deeper than they look on the surface.
Not a bad bucket gift for me. Thanks, Mom (and thanks to the great tradition initiated by Dad). And thanks to all the in-laws and other loved ones who help make very special times happen.
Me and Mom (Photo courtesy of the boat attendant, his offer)
More vacation shots
Son-in-law Jon feeding his son Sam at our cabin.
This little trooper took on the park. (Grandson Sam)
This little sweetie opted for other activities. (James with his mommy, Michelle)
***
How do you get together as a family? I admit it isn’t easy and takes some master calendar finagling, communication, and just plain hard work to make it happen. But so worth it. Don’t you think?
Zucchini for breakfast? If you are still swimming in zucchini (even the kind left anonymously in your car at church) here’s yet another way to use them and add some vegetable nutrition to your favorite breakfast pastry.
If I had not been served a variation of these in the lovely Twin Turrets B & B in Boyertown, Pa., I likely never would have tried them. But with sour cream and butter in the mixture, in addition to zucchini and pecans, these are light, delicate and the recipe makes me wonder if zucchini and pecans wouldn’t be a great twist on crepes, too.
At the Twin Turrets, then-chef Dorothea used walnuts in her pancakes instead of pecans, but the recipe she sent me as a follow up (so sweet) said pecans; since those are what I more commonly keep on hand, I tried pecans at home my first go round and never looked back.
Zucchini and Pecan Pancakes
1 1/3 cup milk
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed dry
2 cups pancake mix
¼ cup chopped pecans
In large bowl, combine the milk, sour cream, eggs and melted butter. Mix thoroughly. Add the pancake mix and stir until just combined. The batter will be lumpy. Add the zucchini and pecans or walnuts.
Pour onto a hot, lightly greased griddle or frying pan. Serve with plenty of butter and warm maple syrup. Serves 6 to 8 with 16 smallish pancakes.
I made a half batch recently and had leftover batter which was still good up to four days later.
Enjoy!
(And if the kids ask what the green specks are, call these Twin Turret Green Giant Pancakes. Or something.)
***
What is your favorite way to use zucchini?
***
Carmen Wyse has a recipe for Greek Zucchini Cakes–served as a side with any summer meal that looks great in my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner.
Mom chatting with my sibs at our homeplace: first Mennonite, now Amish.
I was just 17 when we moved away from the farm where I grew up. Funny how things change with the perspective of a lifetime. I thought I was old, that I would always consider myself an Indiana farm girl.
Me when I was about four on our farm, about the same angle as the above photo.
I couldn’t imagine living in one place longer than I had already spent my first 17 years. The farm and Indiana were part of who I was. There were holy places on the farm—thin places I would call them now—where I felt incredibly close to God and where I would talk things out with my Creator in the days of my youth—yell at God when I was mad and cry when I was happy or sad.
With the “tiny” oak tree our family planted. We all remember Dad wondering how big it would get to be. It survived a strike by lightning, see slash on the left.
I’m glad we moved off the farm but there were years when I yearned to go back to the roots which formed me—not just to visit, but to live. I think that’s because for 17 years I had lived in one place. I loved it without question or imagining it would ever change. Our family was happy (yes we had problems, but worked through them) and the farm was just part of who I was.
Then I went through a period where I changed locations or residences every year for eight years: the late teen and young adult years. While I loved the adventures, something in me missed that beauty of belonging so intimately that the land, the buildings and the trees were almost part of my DNA.
Our farm was first sold to a bachelor who later married my first cousin so of course we had a tie where we could go back, visit, walk through the old house, remember.
My cousin’s husband then sold the farm to an Amish family. We have also come to know them a bit—initiated first by my father, who would occasionally stop to chat—he loved to roll out his rusty Pennsylvania Dutch (switching to English as needed), and I think both the farmer and my Dad enjoyed those visits.
Now we encroach on this Amish family on special occasions, asking if we can visit: when my father died in 2006 and after the graveside service, the farm was where we wanted to go. More recently, on the day before my mother’s 90th birthday (covered here), the farm was where my brother and his family especially wanted to go, a sort of pilgrimage for his son, wife and their two little girls who had never been there. The rest of us were only too happy to oblige. Indeed the farm and land is a holy place for all of us where roots were put down deep and wide.
Our old barn, now with Amish work horses plus those for pulling buggies.
This time I was stunned to realize this farmer had owned the land longer than Dad had ever owned it, about 28 years to Dad’s 23; he was clearly busy but he recognized us immediately and paused to chat and catch up a bit; his wife and several daughters were gone for the day working with other women making preparations for a September wedding. He had had to sell off more of the land—that was hard, he said—the home place now down to some 30 acres from the original 128 we owned, bordered on all sides by lovely modern suburban type homes on large lots. The farmer was mainly raising cows and corn from what we could see. He welcomed us to walk around as we wished, but we did not ask to go in the house. Happily we went to the barn, laced with the familiar smells but more profoundly, memories.
The bank hill at the back of our old barn.
Oh the barn. The silo now gone (the farmer said the extra yearly taxes were too much for something they were no longer using)—we walked up the barn hill which seemed so huge when we were little, now little more than a small rise. Inside it was mostly filled with hay and straw. The granary was still there, the sheep shed still attached, the bunker silo still in use, a square hole for throwing hay down to the floor beneath still gaping and dangerous for the little ones in our midst.
My sister Nancy, me, brother Terry, sister Pert.
Circa 1965: Terry, me, Mom, Dad, Nancy, Pert.
But the rungs of the hay mow ladders were what reached out to me this visit: the same rungs we climbed as kids, still sturdy as you could ever want.
I put my hand snug around those rungs and felt 17 again: young and strong and ready to find my own life and love.
On the farm with daughter Tanya & grandson Sam; daughter Michelle with grandson James; Doreen; son-in-law Jon, Tanya’s husband; Mom; son-in-law Brian.
Which I did. And they were all there with me now: husband, three daughters, two sons-in-law, two grandsons, visiting my roots. How rich, how connected, how overwhelmed with joy and gratefulness I felt. There is something about the land, something about the house where you grew up that calls you back, catches you, but lets you go—happily back to your current life and chosen path, at least if you are happy in it. I no longer pine to go back to age 17 or that Indiana soil. But touching the past, we somehow feel more whole. More content perhaps, to know and remember all that has gone before: the thin places, the rough places and the high points. It helps you trust that your Creator is still with you, no matter where you land.
A rich time. Thanks always to the farmer and family who stewards the land that none of us ever really own—we just take care of it for a season.
As many ancient native proverbs go: “Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Me with our little oak tree.
***
What have you learned about yourself or your family when visiting places you used to live?
***
My favorite book teaching me to think about land differently is Great Possessions, written by Amish farmer David Kline.
Making sweet midget pickles
Why would anyone collect 1-3 inch size cucumbers when the normal slicing cucumber size is more like 8-10 inches? Would I ever get enough to make a turn of sweet midgets?
I first made these two years ago pondering whether they would turn out. Would anyone like them? Were they worth the effort?
They are very sweet and oh so worth the effort. They soak up so much sugar that they become like little sweet candies with a pucker punch.
This is the perfect year for making them again: rain has been frequent and plentiful enough that yards, trees, and roadsides are to me, much greener than normal, especially for August here in the Shenandoah Valley.
My garden is just robust, and what started out to be six simple hills of cucumbers ended up being 10 when most of the starts that I bought had at least 2 plants per divider, and since some of my hills ALWAYS die off for unexplained reasons, I went ahead and plotted out a cucumber patch with 10 hills.
I am drowning in cucumbers, especially after being away for a week. So it is no great loss to rob the patch of every little cuke I can catch and save in the 1-3 inch stage. And they do save up well. I just put them in a closed plastic bag in the fridge for 5-6 days as the stash mounts up.
And what I discovered when I made them two years ago? They are so sweet they are like candy in a pickle, good enough to hoard, which is what I heard one recipient of one my jars did two years ago when I gave it as a hostess gift at a Christmas party we attended. “Richard hid the jar so no one else would eat them,” Janet told me.
Loving that story, for sure.
But you are either a fan, or you are not, so here’s the recipe and the method. This year I discovered I didn’t exactly have a container of “mixed pickling spice” in my cupboard like I thought so I also found a recipe (below, bottom) for making your own mixed pickle spice in a pinch.
In following the daily steps for the recipe below, it is helpful to write down what day of the week you start on so you can see at a glance where you are at. Unless you are really good with things like that. (The days all start to fuzz together for me.)
Sweet Midget Pickles
3.5 lbs. cukes, 1.5-2 inches long (I sneak in some 3 inchers too)
¼ cup pickling salt
4 cups sugar
3 cups vinegar
½ teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon mixed pickling spice
Cinnamon sticks
First Day. Place cukes in glass or stainless steel bowl or pan, cover with boiling water in morning. In afternoon, drain and re-cover with boiling water.
This is pretty much what they look like after a one day soak.
Second day. In morning, drain and cover with boiling water. In the afternoon, drain and cover with brine formed by adding salt to 3 qts. boiling water.
Third day. In the morning, drain, rinse and prick cukes.
I use an old fashioned 3 tined fork to prick the cucumbers with one tine. Toothpick works too.
Make syrup using 1.5 cups sugar, 1.5 cups vinegar, and all spices. Bring to boil and pour over cukes. In the afternoon, drain syrup into pan. Add 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup vinegar. Heat to boiling and pour over cukes.
Cukes with spices and sugary brine
Fourth day. In the morning, drain syrup into pan; add 1 cup sugar and ½ cup vinegar. Heat to boiling and pour over pickles. In the afternoon, drain into pan and add remaining sugar. Heat to boiling. Pour over pickles packed in jars. Leave ¼ inch headspace. Add ½ stick cinnamon to each jar. Process 10 minutes in boiling water. Makes 6-7 pints.
If you need a recipe for pickling spices, here’s one adapted from from Taste of Home:
Homemade Pickle Spice Mix
2 tablespoons whole mustard
1 Tablespoon whole allspice
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 bay leaves crumbled
2 cinnamon sticks broken in half
6 whole cloves
***
Do you have another recipe for sweet midget pickles? What’s a favorite pickle for your family?
***
There are two pickle recipes in my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner, one for cucumber relish, and one for super easy microwave pickle. (Can anyone tell what’s different on the cover below for this book from the original? It was revamped slightly for print on demand status?)
***
Or, if you’re up for a real hunt, can anyone find the photo bomb of someone stealing a quick pucker punch in a park in this post? And yes, I’m sowing my “P’s” heavily today.)
A little over a week ago my family celebrated my mother’s 90th birthday.
She’s joining an increasingly popular and not uncommon club. Walking the loop around the lovely pond at her retirement community later in the week, my mother and I ran into a tall and vigorous Mennonite leader, Simon.
At one time he was on the board of the organization I worked for as Mennonite Board of Missions. I greeted him enthusiastically and told him we had just feted my mother for her 90th birthday.
Simon said smiling, “You’ll have to run to keep up with me. I’m 91.”
Ninety is the new 80 is the new 70 and so on.
Two months earlier, I joined mom for her friend Cora’s 90th birthday party, where we kind of got some ideas about what we’d like to do or not do at Mom’s. They had a fantastic brunch which looked like a huge amount of work. We stuck with cake, ice cream, nuts and punch, and invited two very willing helpers to assist us from Mom’s church North Goshen Mennonite: Rachel and Ruth Ann.
Rachel and Ruth Ann, gracious helpers
If they sound Biblical, they are in terms of being gracious servants—in fact Rachel had made it a practice for a period of years to plan 90th birthday parties for a total of 14 people from her church or family. Ruth Ann is amazing because she had survived a brain aneurysm a few years ago, and was privileged to interview her about for a short-lived radio program (you can read or hear her program here).
With my sibs and Mom: me, Mom, Pert, Nancy and Terry.
However, tempering my joy in helping mom celebrate this big milestone birthday, I had to think of those so much younger whose lives were snuffed out before they could see their kids graduate from high school, before they could see their daughters married, before they could jiggle a grandson on the knee. Why do so many reach the age of 90, 100 and even 105 and up, while folks in their 50s and 60s are succumbing to cancer, heart attacks, brain tumors? Mom had just survived her own cancer scare with major surgery two months earlier. Why was she living at age 90 and my pastor’s husband did not live to see 60?
Cousin Miriam greets Mom at the party.
The whys are unanswerable and they give pause to all of us. When big birthdays roll around, the celebrations remind us to just be grateful for the present, pull our loved ones a little tighter, let loose of old arguments a little quicker, and reach out with all the love and compassion and attention we can muster for those going through the difficult times that do come to us all.
Those who gathered for Mom’s evening pizza party for family. Mom’s great granddaughter Asa, sitting on grass second from left with head on her sister Eve’s shoulder, also celebrated her 5th birthday that evening! Asa said the prayer for our pizza.
The day after Mom’s party, she wanted two things: a Ferris wheel ride and a boat ride. She had heard about Indiana Beach Amusement Park, a smallish, older style park close to Lafayette which had reasonable weekday rates. To her, the park was huge, overwhelming. She was thinking of the amusement park she and Dad went to in the 40s when they were dating. Would she be able to keep up with toddlers, teenagers and her kids, just two months out from surgery? With the help of a wheelchair, she could and did, and a grand time was had by all on a comfortable Indiana day.
My husband Stuart, Mom, yours truly, and our youngest daughter, Doreen, on Ferris wheel (more like a gondola) at Indiana Beach.
Mom said she was reading the last chapter in Ecclesiastes the day after her birthday, which she found fitting. It’s good to excerpt here:
“Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. ‘Vanity of vanities,’ says the Teacher; ‘all is vanity.'” (Ecclesiastes 12: 1, 6-8 NRSV)
Go Mom. We are grateful, for each and every day.
***
Who is the oldest person you know personally? How old would you like to live to be?
***
We gave our helpers each a copy of Mennonite Girls Can Cook Celebrations, (now with new dust jacket) which seemed like a fitting book for their efforts. If you’ve never checked it out or the blog it comes from, head over here for the blog and here for the book.
My mother holding me as an infant in 1951.
When did my daughters learn to be such good mothers?
We were planning to stay at a friend’s guest house on a trip to my home area for my mother’s 90th birthday celebration. (More on that later; also note I’ve been on a short blog vacation and totally offline for the duration.)
“Do they have a rocker?” one of my daughters asked.
Flash back 30 years when I would have asked the same question of a vacation spot, wondering how I would put my baby to bed or to nap without a rocker?
My daughter’s question made me flush with happiness. While this child enjoyed children and childlike play all her life, she had never been particularly baby-struck or begging to hold other people’s babies. But both my grandsons, born September and November of 2013, have their moms caught tightly in their little fists, the hearts of their mothers snagged forever.
Of course I wouldn’t have it any other way. But how did this happen? What course did they take? How did they—how does any mother—learn Baby Love 101?
Our daughters Doreen, Tanya and Michelle, in an earlier time.
It’s a crash course for all of us as new parents.
Perhaps even more remarkable is the transformation of their fathers, from two regular guys doing guy things while also taking on their share (and more) of household tasks along with full time jobs, gradually and suddenly immersed as pappas. Awesome pappas whose little ones reach out or smile with pure joy or crawl to them.
Son-in-law Brian with our grandson James.
It is partly instinct. The mother house finch currently feeding and ferociously guarding her four baby birds (with the help of a mate) in my fern on the front porch did not read any blog post or book or speak to any doctor or lactation consultant on how to feed and mother her babies.
James, Michelle and Brian on our front porch earlier this year.
It is partly friends and family, observing over many years how proud and protective moms and dads become once thrust into the role of Mom and Dad.
It is a lot of reading of books and of children, watching their own offspring for clues and sounds that hint of frustration and happiness, pain and contentment, sharp hunger and satiation.
And maybe oh maybe they learned a little bit from me. From us. Maybe we weren’t half bad as parents, for them to turn out to be so dedicated, so loving, so committed to doing the right thing for their little ones that it makes me think maybe we did something right too. Maybe that’s what it’s all about anyway: we all bumble through the early days, weeks and even years, learning as we go, but somehow that deep love that comes along with the child, tunes us in to have their best interests at heart. They in turn can take heart knowing their blundering will likely still serve their children well.
Son-in-law Jon with our grandson Sam, plus Aunt Doreen.
And this rich love is not born from the act of labor and delivery—it comes no matter how you get your children.
Me and daughter Tanya, circa 1984, mother of Sam, above.
As people of faith we believe that love comes from God and in fact God IS love. Right? Love, instinct, nurture, training/environment and generous heapings of patience to get you through the toughest nights or longest days which sometimes look fearsome, bleak and even at times boring—when you are waiting for them to grow up when you’re not so tied down.
The gift of love—with all its challenges—is rewound for a new generation.
***
What has surprised you about parenting? Or about being a grandparent?
***
Earlier post about becoming a grandma.
***
Also read my weekly Another Way Newspaper Column here or subscribe.
I wanted to make Mom’s very quick and easy oatmeal cake but had a small recipe emergency. Couldn’t find the index card in my box and was in a rush to throw the cake together before heading to work, to have for the annual Lion Club family summer potluck that evening. I had a nagging thought that maybe it was typed and on my computer, but I couldn’t walk 20 steps to go find it. Plus I couldn’t print it out, no printer. So I would have to commute between the back bedroom and the kitchen for the whole recipe. Not good.
So I grabbed one of my favorite recipe books where I thought I most logically would find a similar recipe, Mennonite Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley. Bingo.
As I worked, I realized it may have been practically the same recipe as my mother’s but instead of a one-bowl wonder, it dirtied 3 bowls in separate steps! Not my thing.
(I just realized my first three paragraphs ended with crisp one, two, or three word sentences. Grammar freaks be warned. The way mom writes her letters. Quick.)
I’ll first share the recipe from the above cookbook from Sandi Good (who also happens to be from Harrisonburg) and then the slightly easier one from my mom. You might find it interesting, as I did, the variation in steps resulting in much the same cake (Mom’s might be a little richer, using butter instead of oil) and calls for nutmeg in addition to cinnamon.
Oatmeal Nut Cake (from Sandi Good)
1 cup quick oats (dry)
1 ¼ cups boiling water
¾ cup white sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, packed*
½ cup oil
2 eggs
1 ½ cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Topping
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
4 Tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
3 Tablespoons cream or milk
1 cup coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
- Add boiling water to oats and let stand for 20 minutes. (First dirty bowl)
- Mix together sugars, oil, and eggs. (Second dirty bowl) Beat for 5 minutes. Add to oats when oats have softened.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add to creamed oats batter.
- Pour into greased 9 x 13 in pan. (Third dirty pan) Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
- While cake is baking, mix together topping ingredients.
- Spread over baked cake while cake is still hot. Return to oven for 10 minutes of until bubbly.
* I had another recipe emergency while throwing this together: not enough brown sugar on hand. I pulled out More with Less Cookbook to find the right ratios for making your own out of dark Karo syrup (or molasses) plus white sugar, which is 1 tablespoon syrup to 1 cup sugar. Emergency averted.
My Mother’s Oatmeal Cake
Note that all of the ingredients for this are mixed in one bowl. No mixer needed. You can even mix the topping in the used cake bowl (maybe rinse out) when the cake is in the oven. Both cakes are very moist. This one uses slightly more sugar.
Oatmeal Cake – from Bertha Miller
Cut 1 stick (1/2 cup) of margarine into pieces in bowl.
Add 1 ¼ cup boiling water
1 cup quick oatmeal
Let stand 20 minutes.
Add
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs, beaten lightly
Mix well by stirring.
Add
1 and 1/3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
Mix well. Pour into greased 9 x 12 pan.
Bake in moderate oven 35-40 minutes.
While baking, prepare icing:
1 ¼ cup packed brown sugar
6-7 Tablespoons melted margarine
4 Tablespoons milk or cream
1 ¼ cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped pecans or other nuts
Put icing on top of warm cake; put in oven for 10 minutes until bubbly or under broiler for 2 minutes till browned (but not burned).
Either of these cakes are great to take to a summer potluck, reunion, picnic, or cake walk. I like the fact they use a hearty cup of oatmeal and nuts to add more nutritional value than a standard cake. And almost as easy as a box cake, especially my mom’s version. Goes well with ice cream, but what doesn’t?
Do you have a recipe for oatmeal cake? How does it compare?
***
What are your favorite substitutions?
***
What makes these Mennonite recipes, besides the fact that I got them from two Mennonite women? I’m not sure, but it helps when people search for things like that. There are lots of duplications online.
Pillsbury calls their’s old fashioned. Another good search term.
Taste of Home likes old fashioned too.
findingharmonyblog 