Pecan Pie Bars… My Recipe Mashup

My two favorite sources of recipes are the backs of packages and my family.  I’ve got some great cooks hanging out in the branches of my family tree and no company wants to put out a bad recipe that could curb sales of their products.

My grandmothers were both known for their ability to turn out fabulous food.  My grandma Ruth (dad’s mom) was known for her Swedish rye bread, angel food cakes and pies.  My grandma Fern (mom’s mom) could feed a crowd with a pound of ground beef and whatever was in the cupboard. Ruth’s family was small and settled in the community where she spent her life. Fern’s family was expansive and just a bit chaotic from living with aunts after her mother died while she was an infant and as her dad remarried. I can’t help but wonder how their growing up, education and marriages influenced them in the kitchens they called home.

Fern’s children are all pretty proficient in the kitchen and food has always been a centerpiece to any family gathering among her clan.  There have been so many good recipes from the Johnson crew over the years that my mom sat down one year and hand lettered a collection of submitted recipes from her generation and one back.  That collection is one I turn to time and again, but I’m beginning to realize that my generation is totally ready to take the wheel on the food legacy of our clan.  I’m not the only one sharing my recipes – my cousin Deb’s daughter has a fabulous food and entertaining blog and I’ve asked several of my cousins for their recipe for whatever they’ve brought to our less frequent but still well populated gatherings.

I would love to say it goes back to our agricultural heritage.  When you raise what you eat and drink, food is not a luxury that must be accounted for and doesn’t allow for mistakes.  It is an adventure and privilege of abundance influenced by the weather, time and productivity. It is far too easy to take that abundance for granted when you have more than enough.

The pages of that cookbook from the Johnson clan are well marked by mixing splatter, grubby fingers and misplaced samples.  It is also heavily populated with cookies (my arch enemy of cooking), treats and desserts.  One of my favorite recipes in that cookbook is for peach kuchen, from my aunt Joyce.  I’ll share that one on this page someday.

I was looking for a pecan pie recipe that could be turned into bars for a work event, but just wasn't seeing what I thought could work very well.  So I looked in my recipe box and thought it was time to pull parts of two really good recipes together. 

After a trial, the crust of Joyce’s recipe plus our family's favorite pecan pie filling was a great way to make a dessert go further and helped finish off a come and go meal for donors, friends and staff at the community college I work for. The filling recipe was off the obscure back of a pecan wrapper that I got at Sam’s one year.  It is fabulously rich and not too many nuts so they sit nicely in the filling. 

I wish I could give credit to the pecan grower cooperative that presented it, but the package name was replaced by “Emma’s favorite Pecan Pie” in the recipe index.  Lesson learned.  I do know that the pecan tree is the state tree of Texas and there are over 1,000 varieties of pecans, many named for Native American Tribes. It is one of my favorite nuts in breads, ice creams, candy and to munch. I'm amazed at how some pecan's can add a taste almost like coconut or faintly of pineapple in certain recipes, but add a warm nuttiness to other recipes. 

Enough rambling… Let’s get to cooking!  This recipe is a great replacement for a dessert, but it could be cut into 1 inch squares, set on parchment and drizzled with melted semi sweet chips for a holiday treat swap – one pan, not a lot of fuss and you are done! That’s my kind of treat.

Pecan Pie Bars

Groceries:
Crust:

2 C Flour

1 C Sugar

¼ t Baking Powder

½ t Salt

1 Cup Margarine or shortening (don’t use butter in this one, unless you want a very firm crust which could be better for the cookie style)

Filling:

3 Eggs Beaten

1 C dark Karo Syrup

½ C Sugar

2 T melted Butter

2 t Vanilla Extract

¼ t Salt

1 ½ - 2 Cups Finely chopped, Pecans

The Process:
Crust:

Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the margarine. Pat into a 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Set to the side.

Filling:

Blend all ingredients and pour over the crust.  Bake for 30-45 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Let cool completely before cutting and serving.  Can be served with whipped cream.

Bacon Wrapped Maple Spiced Squash Bites

Pork-tober Food Challenge

Bacon is considered meat candy in our home.  My almost 9 year old son will try anything that has bacon in it. Most grownups will try about anything that has bacon in it too. The Farmland Bacon Club and Altec animal feed in their National Pork Month shout outs say the average American will eat about 18 pounds of bacon annually… That’s a lot of pork belly – which ironically comes from the lower sides of the market hog.

When I grew up in the 80’s, bacon was a breakfast food and a swanky restaurant might wrap it around a London broil on the grill. Today bacon is found about everywhere… in potato side dishes, wrapped around cream cheese stuffed jalapeno peppers, around a smoked loin, on about any kind of burger you can imagine and fast food and high end dinning have embraced bacon as a way to embellish their offerings… Bacon has finally earned a place of respect on our plates and has turned what was once a hard to move cut into a prime source of retail income in the local and national chain restaurants and at the meat counter.

Bacon isn’t just for breakfast anymore.

When I was a senior in high school, I was our county pork queen and my favorite part of the duties were the annual visits into elementary classrooms to talk about pork production with kids who thought meat came from the grocery store, not realizing it began on farms like the one I had grown up on. It was almost like food came from a fairy or a bit of magic over night when the store’s lights were dimmed. It was an amazing moment when the kids would realize that my family helped to feed them. It was an experience that helped shape my love for agriculture communications and consumer education. 

I didn’t really think about who I would be married to 25 years later and that I would still be supporting the pork industry as the wife of and mom to the next generation of Iowa pork producers. I spent a year working out of state while the Farmer and I were dating and many weekend dates were spent helping to run electrical wire or pex tubing for water and heating systems in the farrowing barn we still use. I made a crock of chili for the night a few neighbors joined us before we filled it with sows ready to give birth. 

I’m really proud of what my family raises and I’m even more proud of the improvements that we have made in our production techniques from the days I was a county pork queen and eventually the Iowa Pork Princess.  Sorting hogs in our confinement finishing barn is a much different experience for our hogs as well as for us as producers.  When I grew up our hog buildings were open front finishers that provided shelter from the elements, but not the temperatures. Those buildings were an improvement from pasture a frames and free-running sows.  Feeder fills were at the mercy of the producer’s management and time, water access was easily contaminated as lids either stuck flipped open or animals wrangled for position to drink.  Animals sorted from different pens to be loaded for transport or market the night before many times fought to figure out new pecking orders.  That’s not what our hogs experience today.

Hogs on our farm have stable temperature buildings and well bedded and managed hoop structures that allow them to eat to grow, not eat to stave off hypothermia.  Our pens have watering systems that provide clean water that many hogs can drink from at the same time.  Pens are built with sorting and holding fences and gates that can sort off sick or injured pigs for treatment and recovery or can be used to hold hogs for market sales alongside their penmates who have already established a pecking order and will eliminate or at least reduce fighting between animals.

I’m really proud that our farm has introduced our children to the ideas of responsible use of medications, how to care for animals at all stages of the production cycle and how to share the story of our livelihood with others.  I can’t tell you how many friends have gone through our farrowing barn to see piglets and nursery pigs on up to our market weight hogs.  Each time they leave saying they had no idea how much thought or work goes into raising pork.

I love to share good recipes that feature the pork our family proudly raises and when my friend Shannon Latham asked if I would like to make a recipe and give samples at her pumpkin farm’s last weekend – I knew I had to come up with something that showed how pork pairs with flavors we might not think about every day. My offering for Shannon’s customers and the three other accomplished food bloggers also sharing their kitchen know-how this weekend was a bacon wrapped, maple spiced squash bite that could be served as an appetizer or as a specialty side for the upcoming holidays.  It passed the kid test and was a fun way to feature two great foods that are abundantly produced in Iowa. 

Get out and find a local pumpkin or squash patch and buy up some of their amazing produce to store for the winter holidays. And if you have some locally produced pork from a locker or regular bacon from your local grocery store, know that families like ours worked hard to provide that food for your family.

Maple Spiced Bacon Squash Bites

The Groceries:

¾ C Real Maple Syrup

½ t Pumpkin Pie Spice (my favorite from scratch recipe follows in the end notes)

2 T brown sugar, packed

1/4 C Orange Juice

1 T Canola or Vegetable Oil

1/8 t Cayenne Pepper

1/8 t Smoked Paprika

1 1/2 pounds bacon

1 Cinderella or Pie type Pumpkin, sweet squash or sweet potato will work, too

The Process:

Combine the syrup, pumpkin pie spice, brown sugar, orange juice, oil, pepper and paprika in a small sauce pan and bring just to a simmer to bloom the spices.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Cut the squash into 1/3 inch thick slices and then into bacon width pieces. (about 60-65 pieces of squash will fill your cookie sheet and use the 1.5 pounds of bacon) Toss the squash with 1/3 cup of the sauce.

Cut bacon slices into thirds.  Wrap around the seasoned squash bites and lay seam side down on a parchment paper lined rimmed cookie sheet. (The parchment paper will make clean up a snap! Don’t use waxed paper, the bacon grease will melt it and it will be a mess.) Leave ¼ inch between each row and column on your cookie sheet.

Bake the bites at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until the bacon is rendered and looks to be getting done.  Take the rest of the syrup mixture and baste the bites with it.  Return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes watching that the glaze doesn’t overbrown.

Serve immediately or put in a crockpot on low with any remaining glaze drizzled across the top.

Notes:

You can make the pieces of squash larger, just allow for more baking time and be ready to throw a piece of tinfoil across it if the bacon is cooking faster than the squash.

If you don't like the heat of Cayenne and Paprika, feel free to omit or just use a dash which is about a 1/16 of a teaspoon.

My favorite pumpkin pie spice recipe is:  

2 t Ground Cinnamon

1 t Ground Ginger

1/4 t Ground Cloves

1/8 t Ground Nutmeg

Tuna & Noodles Hillcrest Farm Style

Can Tuna Noodle Casserole Be Comfort Food?

I say yes.  If a dish has noodles, cream of something, shredded cheese and some kind of crumb topping… it most certainly is comfort food.  Or at the very least it is something you can shove in your freezer for an easy, eat-it-later kind of meal.

This week is the first time that I have wondered how we will get through spring in our home.  My seventh grader is on an FFA speaking team, shooting on the trap team and is trying to sell pizzas for her church youth group trip in July.  This week we have had one night of no activities… tonight. The rest of the nights we have had multiple activities and events that we needed to be at. It has been a week of divide and conquer and frozen pizzas and cereal in our home.  My husband going one way and me another.

Last night I had had it. I could not make myself go to another activity as a good mom.  There was a drift of dishes, no silverware left and I knew my people would come in the door starved and cold from being outside for a damp, chilly Iowa afternoon and evening of walking the bucket calf, standing (if you are the dad) and playing (if you are the younger sibling) at trap practice. I was not going to do gourmet – I needed something that could cook away while I attacked that mess on the counter.  It was two dishwashers full!  I think we may need to come to some expectation about dishes while we are so busy or we may just need to buy stock in the Hefty paper plate and Solo cup companies.

The temperature and the activity level made it a night that screamed for comfort food.  Warm, filling and fast..ish.  I decided to bring out my simple Tuna Noodle Casserole recipe since I didn’t have elbow noodles for mac and cheese or goulash or Grandma Hattie’s Spagetta.  Tuna and noodles aren’t my family’s favorite meal… but all the ingredients were there and a few things I thought I could try to throw in to make it more to our family’s taste.  The end result was good enough the Farmer took thirds… I think it passed. The 7^th grader even said I should write it down because it was better than regular Tuna and Noodles… Even if it did have peas in it.  Peas are an evil food to my kids…I don’t know what I have done wrong with those two. Peas are fabulous and taste like spring.

The Groceries:

1 pkg wide Egg Noodles, boiled and set aside

2 C Frozen Peas

1 large can tuna, packed in water, drained

2 cans Diced Water Chestnuts, drained

1 C diced Onion

½-3/4 C diced Celery

2 T Butter

1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup

¾ C Miracle Whip salad dressing

¾ C Milk

1 ½ Cup hand shredded, Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese, divided into ¾ C portions (not packed into the measuring cup, just filled)

1 – 1 ½ C lightly crushed French’s Onions

The Process:

Boil Egg noodles and add peas to the boiling water just before draining.  Set aside. 

In the sauce pan, melt the butter and sauté the onions and celery until just softened.

Add the soup, Miracle Whip, Milk, water chestnuts and ¾ C cheese. 

Stir sauce into the noodles with peas and the tuna.

Pour into a well-greased 9x13 glass baking dish.

Sprinkle the remaining ¾ C sharp cheddar across the top and then top with the crushed French’s Onions.

Bake uncovered in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30-45 minutes or until heated through. (note: this freezes well, but don’t thaw before cooking and leave the last layer of cheddar and onions off until the last 10 minutes of baking.  Bake it uncovered.)

Serve with a tossed salad to make yourself feel better about eating a large serving of comfort food. 

Tomato Basil Bisque & A Special Kind of Soup Supper

I love cooking but not many people know that I really enjoy music, too.  I’m not particularly talented and I don’t have much time to practice.  But music is a bit like standing at my stove.  It starts out a little stiff, but as I let the stress that drove me to my piano go – the music starts to come along and peace starts to develop like a good loaf of bread or great soup in my stock pot does.

Since I don’t have time or amazing musical talent, I love the music of others and the opening songs of services are what help to open my heart to worship.  A well selected hymn with reasonable harmonies fills my soul and reminds me of my childhood worshipping with my family.  A good modern chorus helps me to open my heart to the message and time in God’s house.  I have to admit that sometimes when my heart isn’t in the right place for the message from the sermon, the music often feeds my heart.

I’ve been blessed to be in churches that have amazing people who have talent that surpasses mine and our church home is especially blessed right now with musical gifts that are freely shared.  This weekend some of the crew from the worship team and other worship teams from churches around our community shared their talents and provided a concert of praise while community folks ate soup and some desserts for a free-will donation that supports a local home.

This is a special home…It is a refuge for women who have been recovered from the sex trade and human trafficking and want to leave that life behind.  These women are provided the basics of shelter, food and maybe for the first time they are also given safety and support and exposure to God’s love.  It’s a faith based shelter and not everyone who has come through the home has been able to leave the industry when they leave the home, but so many have risen above what has been done to them and their past experiences to be survivors moving forward in a life that can only be seen as redeemed.

I went to the event with my teenaged daughter.  We didn’t get to stay as long as I would have liked.  There was really good music happening, but there were responsibilities to deal with at home.  I shared some soup from my kitchen along with over 20 other kitchens in my community. That is the stage I’m comfortable on and this cause is one that touches my heart deeply. I look at my beautiful daughter and her friends and classmates and I wonder how anyone could hurt them like that… Those women are someone’s daughter… We are called to stand in the gap for them and their chance at freedom.

If you don’t know much about human trafficking and how it fuels the sex trade, low paid labor and the fashion industry internationally, please take some time and visit these websites…

https://polarisproject.org/human-trafficking

https://love146.org/

http://wingsofrefuge.net/  

Actor, Ashton Kutcher recently testified to a congressional committee about his organization Thorn and the work that needs to be done in human trafficking.  His testimony broke my heart and will teach you a few things about the victims and the systems that are trying to save them. You can view his testimony here : https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4656862/ashton-kutcher-human-trafficking

Now think about hosting your own soup and music event to make donation and a difference. There are several places that can make a difference in human trafficking from Foster Care support to recovery homes or organizations like Kutcher's Thorn. 

My point is do what you can.  Sing, make a pot of soup, sell Tupperware, make cookies or holiday cards, have a garage sale...It doesn't have to be amazing, it just needs to get done.

If you do have a soup and praise supper I'm sharing my recipe for an easy one for you to make as the host.  It will give you plenty of freedom to do what you need to.  It is the smaller version of what I brought to share at this weekend’s event.

Tomato Basil Bisque or Freedom Soup

The Groceries:

3 T Olive Oil

Garlic Paste equal to 4 cloves of garlic

1 packed cup of Yellow Onion, chopped

½-1 rib of celery chopped fine

2 mini Sweet Peppers chopped fine

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 28 oz can Italian chopped tomatoes (I like Dei Fratelli brand for both)

1 C chicken stock/broth (can substitute vegetable stock for vegetarian and if your stock is gluten free this soup will also be gluten free)

2 T sugar

1/3 C 1/2&1/2

1-2 t basil puree (to taste) 7 leaves if using fresh

¼ t dried oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

The Process:

Sauté veggies in olive oil until softened.
Puree veggies with tomatoes and return to soup pot.
Add stock and seasonings.
Let simmer 12-15 minutes stirring until thickens a bit. 
Pour 1/2n1/2 in very slowly while whisking vigorously so it doesn’t curdle in the soup.
Taste for seasoning and add additional basil or oregano to taste.  (I use garlic salt at this point as well if needed.)

I serve with toasted garlic chips or seasoned croutons or grilled three (provolone, Gouda and farmers) cheese sandwich.

Makes 4 servings

Credit where credit is due... I've adjusted a few things in this recipe from this original recipe: http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/2013/09/creamy-tomato-soup-panera-copycat-recipe/