National Pork Month

I’ve been pretty lax in publishing anything this summer.  I’m blaming it on the garden. 

The garden filled the spot in my life that journaling has always filled and was an experience that fed my soul and a few homes in our area.  I've got some great sauces and am looking forward to a final weekend of canning and preserving in my kitchen around a ton of other things.  I’ve got beets and more spaghetti sauce and a few odds and ends on my agenda.

One of my favorite fall dishes that is a perfect complement to National Pork Month meals at our house mixes three healthy ingredients with my favorite cooking fat…Butter.  Here is my recipe for Apples, Onions and Cabbage. It is a great side to the Pork Roast Recipe that I posted last year for National Pork Month.

The Groceries:

1 ½ pounds of tart apples (Granny Smith, Braeburn, Macintosh, Gala and Jonagold are my favorites), cored, peeled and sliced no thicker than ¼ inch thick.

1 pound yellow onions, quartered and sliced ¼-1/3 of an inch thick

1 ½  pounds fresh green cabbage sliced as you would for coleslaw

4 T unsalted butter

Salt & Pepper to taste

The Process:

Melt butter in a Dutch oven. 

Sauté onions in the butter until they are softened and just before they are caramelized.

Add apples to the Dutch oven and sauté with the onions until they begin to give off their juices.

Add cabbage to the mix and turn heat to medium low and cover.  Let simmer together, stirring occasionaly until everything has softened and is almost caramelized.  If you think things are getting too dry, you can add ¼-1/2 cup of water or apple cider.

Salt and pepper to taste and serve hot.

This can be done in the crockpot on low for 8 hours as well.  Add everything to the crockpot raw, tossed in the melted butter. You will need to add ½-3/4 cup of water and butter the crockpot well.  Stir several times.

Patty Melt Meatloaf from the Freezer

June is going to bring me to my knees. 

I don’t mean to my knees in a “Thank you Lord for all the things before me” way.  I will be driven to my knees in a “Lord, Please save me and my family from the insanity I've brought to our lives with the activities I've committed to.  Please keep us healthy and upright until county fair in July” kind of way.

There are 30 days in June.  We have at least one activity planned on 24 of the 30 days of this month.  What was I thinking!?!  I must have thought I had some kind of superwoman cape hanging out in my closet.  What I actually have is a Farmer Boy who has stayed up on Farmers Market Baking nights and done dishes with me.  Couldn't live this life without him.   

I am so thankful for a stint in the kitchen with a girlfriend before she headed off to her spring planting season in the field alongside of her husband.   We each ended up with a bevy of freezer meals and now (sob) I’m almost out of them.

Freezer meals are the salvation of our family.  Working, trying to balance the Farmer Boy’s seasons, the kids’ activities and now the Farmers Market has meant that housekeeping in rooms that don’t have running water in them has gotten a little lax and laundry is an everyday adventure.  I’m glad it is flip-flop season, so I don’t have to worry about finding matching socks. Meals have been far below my preferred standards and I’m seeing the effects.  Did I mention that I love freezer meals and hot-dishes?

I discovered this past year the Farmer Boy loves a good patty melt burger.  A good patty melt takes some serious effort and timing.  Meatloaf isn't nearly so time consuming. This is my interpretation of the burger into a meatloaf.  This freezes very well.  I like to put it into my oven right from the freezer in the morning before I go to the office and do a delayed cook in my oven, timed for when we get home from work or the evening’s activities.  I’ll throw sweet or regular potatoes in the oven so I just need a fresh veggie to go along with it for a full meal.

Enjoy your crazy June! I think this is one of the months summer memories are made.

Kate’s Patty Melt Meatloaf

The Groceries:

2 pounds lean ground beef

2 eggs, lightly beaten

½-3/4 cup warmed milk

3 slices of dark bread (I like marble rye), broken into small pieces, keep in mind the darker the bread the stronger the flavor.  We like strong.

½ t salt + ¼ t salt

¼ t pepper + 1/8 t pepper

1 Very Large onion sliced thin

4 T butter

3 C fresh shredded Swiss cheese

The Process: 

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter in a skillet.  Add onions to pan and season with 1/4t salt and 1/8t pepper.  Sauté until they have caramelized and have taken on a dark brown color. Set aside.

Soak bread in milk until it falls apart. Add to eggs, ground beef, ½ t salt and ¼ t pepper.  Mix very well.  Pat into a rectangle as wide as your meatloaf pan until ½ inch thick. Use a sheet of waxed paper or tin foil under to help roll it. Spread caramelized onions across the meatloaf sheet.  Top with cheese spread evenly across the onions.  Roll from one side.  Place in meatloaf pan with your seam side up to minimize cheese from melting out of your loaf.  Cover with foil and bake for 90 minutes if defrosted.  Please bake for a full 2 hours if set on delayed cook or 2.5 hours right from the freezer. Let sit for 5-10 minutes after removing from the oven before slicing and serving. Serve with French fries for a dinner style meal.

Note: I love my Perfect Meatloaf Pan.  This little wonder has an insert that allows the grease to drain off if you want to make meatloaf a leaner meal.  ;) Or if you are like me and will probably make gravy to go with the mashed potatoes that meatloaf begs for, you can use a little of the drippings to help make the gravy. And no, I was not paid to mention them. I just really like their pan.  Get one if your family likes meatloaf.

Oatmeal Bread from my Neighbor

Oatmeal Bread from my Neighbor

I have lived in the country most of my life.  I understand the phenomenon known as the “farmer wave.”  I even do it, when I am driving past someone I like. I understand that all my neighbors know what my vehicle looks like.  I can identify more than 75% of my neighbors by their cars or tractors.

I live in Iowa, so close neighbors are the ones who either live in the same section you live in or with you in that area between the next paved road…in all four directions. We have lots of neighbors, don’t be misled by my description… not all neighbors are close friends.  You have good neighbors and those are the ones you trust to do your chores, ask for help and go to help them without being asked.

We watch out for each other in the country.  We also share what we have available with each other.  We have passed along tomatoes, pepper and green beans when they were prolific producers with those who live close to us.

When the Farmer Boy and I were first dating, I was an import. I grew up 120 miles to the northwest of my husband. We met in Old RCA housing on the ISU campus.  I was however getting married to a neighbor and just because of that I was accepted into our community that crosses between the two local towns and has grown to a third where we go to church.  I knew I would be okay in my new neighborhood because so many of those folks we invited to our wedding two hours away actually came to see us be married and celebrate with us. 

As I settled in, to my husband’s horror, I gave an elderly neighbor with six apple trees a call to see if she would swap some of my garden produce for some of her windfall apples. She had sent a wedding card with a line or two saying she missed the Farmer Boy’s grandmother who had lived across the section. I thought maybe we could be friends a few generations apart. She didn’t need my produce because her son kept her supplied from his town garden.  I went with 2 buckets thinking I would get just enough for a few quarts of canned apples and a pie or two.  I came home with her bushel baskets and my buckets filled with apples fresh off the tree. I took the baskets back to her as soon as I could. 

I went every year I could make freezing or canning apples work in my schedule to see my neighbor who is a plain spoken and honest soul.  She would tell me stories of milking cows and when they built the house on the farm that she lived in. She told me about her husband (who my farmer boy thought a lot of from his childhood) and how they built their farm.  She would update me on the events and passings in her large family of siblings.  She would give advice when she had it for how I felt life was just too busy. I enjoyed sharing a cup of really hot tea with her before I would go pick apples.  I enjoyed visits with her and would try to stop in when I had time. I shared my attempt at making apple butter and gave her some single serving sized jars of canned beef that were a better thing to share than the apple butter.  I was sad when she decided to move to the nursing home in town.  I am ashamed to say my visits to see her have not been as often as they should be. 

I was thrilled when her grandson’s family moved out to her farm.  Two more kids on the bus is always a good thing when the average age in the section is over 50. We enjoy doing an occasional yard bonfire with them and watching their horses as they work with them and go for rides down our gravel road.  Neighboring changes with the neighbors you know.

My neighbor is still sharp and loves a hot cup of tea.  I love her Oatmeal bread recipe. It reminds me of our good visits, hearty laughs and shared enjoyments of simple things.  She wrote it almost from memory when she found out that I love to bake bread on one visit.  I’ve added an egg to the version she gave me, but it works pretty well without it, too. My family recommends this for cheese sandwiches for a fast breakfast or a quick picnic.  It is especially good with smoked ham or turkey for a school lunch box.  I bet it would even be good for a thick cut BLT or made into hamburger buns.

However you make it, consider that it makes two very large or three large loaves – just perfect for being a good neighbor and sharing.

Henrietta’s Oatmeal Bread

The Groceries:

1 Cup Oatmeal

2 Cups Boiling Water

3T Butter or Margarine or Shortening

2/3 C Brown Sugar

1 t Salt

1 Egg, lightly beaten

1 Cup warm water

1 T sugar

1 Package Rapid Rise Yeast

Flour to make a stiff dough

The Process:

Combine the oatmeal with the boiling water. 

Add butter, salt and brown sugar to the oatmeal mixture. Stir well and set to side until cool.

Add egg to the oatmeal mixture when cooled.

Add sugar and yeast to 1 C warm water and let yeast activate and begin to bubble.

Combine the two wet mixtures and begin stiring flour into the liquids until a stiff dough forms. 

Knead until smooth and divide dough into two loaf shape and place in well-buttered loaf pans.

Let rise until double in size.

Bake at 350 degrees Ferenheit 30-45 minutes. 

Top should be well browned and sound hollow when tapped.

Let sit for 5 minutes and then remove from the pans to completely cool on a wire cooling rack.

Don’t forget to eat warm with plenty of butter.

Unusual but Totally Farm Mom Approved Baby Gifts for the Diaper Bag

Unusual But Totally Mom Approved Diaper Bag Gifts & a Great Freezer Meal for New Parents

A friend was just honored with a baby shower.  That is reason enough to celebrate, but this gal is making most folks pregnancies look like a walk in a park.  Many of us can't relate to that kind of a pregnancy. Through it all she has not lost the best giggle our family has ever heard.  Her laugh makes all of us feel joy down to our toes! If this baby has any of her joyful spunk, it is going to be an awesome little person to watch grow up. 

Anyway I digress… back to the baby shower.

The invitation asked for guests to write one thing their mother did for them and asked guests to bring something that would be found in a diaper bag. I was instantly transported back to our diaper bag days and the things that made parenting pre-language, miniatures of my husband and myself easier. Those were some awesome days of parenthood!  Often laced with odd smells, lurches of insane physical leaps to protect kids from perceived random farm or home remodeling dangers, lack of sleep, board books that smelled like cheerios or the farm truck and moments of pure joy.  I got a little teary just writing that while I remembered those days.

In case you didn't know, my husband and I love raising our kids. We loved baby baths, open mouth kisses, bald heads, bed time board books, trimming little toe nails and finding their first toe jam. Even changing diapers wasn't a “you gonna get this?” part of parenting for us. We found ways to financially cope with me working part-time so I could have Friday’s off with our kids. I mourned more than a little the reality that two kids would be what we would have on our own (even though I was pretty okay with just two) because of health issues and my husband still wishes for more little people to join our family somehow. 

We love the stages our kiddos have grown into, too.  But surviving those early days gives you a perspective of how to plan ahead to make life easier and makes the need for some kind of order or schedule necessary. The diaper bag essentials in our life had a few different things from the recommendations in “What to Expect When You are Expecting.”

So if you are looking for some Diaper Bag standouts aside from extra diapers, wipes, and bottles these made the list through two great baby-hoods of our kiddos. From our farm house to yours…

(Please note - I have not been paid or compensated in any way for my inclusion of these items on my baby bag list.  They are products we just really liked using.)

Leatherman ® Micra 

http://www.leatherman.com/20.html

What a pocket knife in a diaper bag? That’s crazy!  Just so crazy it works.  This little gem saved the day more times than I can count with its pocketknife blade, bottle opener, screwdriver, nail file, tweezers and awesome little scissor clippers.  It has been used to: cut a too tight balloon off a wrist at the Iowa State Fair, tweeze a sliver from a county conservation park outing, tighten screws on several toys and glasses, cut industrial tape at a school carnival set-up, open vintage pop bottles at Living History Farms that we couldn't tell were twist off and the little clippers were our kids preferred way of getting toe and fingernails trimmed by my Farmer Boy who did not enjoy using the baby clippers in his farmer sized hands. 

It comes in fun colors, now too.  Stainless was the only option when we were setting up shop.

http://www.redcrossstore.org/item/RC600

Pocket First Aid Kit 

Every kid is going to have more than one epic wipe-out away from home.  It is amazing how an alcohol swab (for mom’s peace of mind) and a Band-Aid (for kiddo’s peace of mind) can really get you over the emotional fallout from that wipe-out. The Farmer Boy still carries 3-4 Band-Aids in his billfold and Hello Kitty, Spiderman and a few other designer Band-Aids have saved the day for adults as well as our kiddos once we retired our diaper bag.

Insect repellent wipes

If you don’t live where mosquitoes are a second state bird at certain times of the year, this doesn't apply to you.  If you go out in the great outdoors in peak tick and skeeter season, this is an inspired item to have.  You can find the good old fashioned Deet containing kind or the more organic and essential oil kind as well on line or at many camping stores. 

Disposable baby wash cloths

These little gems have the baby wash loaded and all you have to add is water.  This is great for overnight trips when you don’t want to haul a huge bottle from your bathroom or have to go out and buy a travel size of everything. These are also awesome for those times when baby has a complete blow out and needs a little freshening up. This can be handy before you hand junior over to Great Aunt Marge who will be the only one to wrinkle her nose and say “How refreshing that folks don’t bathe their children regularly these days. I’m sure you are doing what you can for global water issues.”

Gallon size Ziploc Freezer bag with a clean outfit – make sure it is a top to bottom outfit

The Ziploc bag will protect the new outfit from bottle spills and diaper bag mishaps until needed.  The Ziploc will then protect the diaper bag from the icky outfit and whatever may be on it. An extra bag is great to throw used bottles in so they don’t leak sour milk all over. That extra bag is also great for your older “toddlers” if they get sick in public or aren't feeling so hot on a car trip.  Zip up the bag and just chuck it in the trash – no smell, not much mess. 

Extra set of Car and House Keys

The stress of being a parent can be amazing.  Every parent will have at least one day where somehow we got the kid and diaper bag out, but we've locked the keys or our purse in the car. It happened to me more than once.  These are just another form of good insurance for bad days.

Flour sack towel, one of those old fashioned Birdseye fabric diapers or a 42x42 inch square of real flannel.

These unfold into a huge thinner piece of fabric.  It can be used to mop up a mess, dry a kid off, nurse under, a light blanket to swaddle baby in, tent over a car window to block the sun or A/C blowing right on them on a long drive or to cover those public restroom changing stations.  Folded tightly they don’t take up much room and are a lightweight and bleach-able kid accessory.

Large Bottles of Water that Have a Really Tight lid

It gives you enough water to mix a bottle if you aren't a nursing mom.  Can provide a measure of how much a nursing mom has consumed. Can be reusable for stops at safe water fountains and sinks. Can provide enough water to get that insta-wash cloth wet and a little rinse for a quick clean up when water isn't right at hand. You may wrinkle your nose at a bottle of water from a tap, but almost 50% of all bottled water you buy at the store comes from a faucet, too.

These things made our babyhood days easier.  Ultimately though, they weren't a replacement for the two most important tools parents can have. Faith in a heavenly father to provide a road map for parenting and an appreciation for how temporary babyhood is.  Knowing this time won’t last forever is an anchor to help you get through the rough spots and to even remember to cherish those times.  I have learned more about my insecurities, prejudices, and values from parenting than any other life event has been able to provide to me.

This is a recipe that I use often for a freezer meal for new families.  It works pretty well for nursing moms because it doesn't have any of those traditional gassy foods and for families with other kiddos, well who doesn't like a good tatter tot casserole?

My Farmer's Wife Favorite Cheesy Tatter Tot Casserole
The Groceries:
1 - 1 1/2 pounds of lean ground beef, browned and well rinsed (can add minced onion to this if the mom isn't nursing or baby doesn't mind onions)
1 can Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup (doesn't have MSG, which can bother babies)
1 C sour Cream
1/2 C milk
1 Package of premium frozen vegetables
2 C Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 package tatter tots

The Process:
Lightly spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray.  Place browned meat in the bottom of pan.
Pour frozen veggies over the top of meat.
Combine soup, sour cream and milk together and pour evenly over meat and vegetables.
Sprinkle cheese over the top.
Layer Tatter Tots over top of everything in an even, single layer.
Baking immediately - 375 for 45 minutes uncovered or until tots are well crisped and you see bubbling throughout.
From Frozen - 375 covered lightly with foil for 45 minutes to 1 hour and uncovered for an additional 45 minutes.