Amish Granola

6 C. Old Fashion Oatmeal
1/2 C. honey
1/4 C. Canola oil
1/4 C. Brown sugar
2/3 C. sliced almonds
1/2 C. sunflower seeds, not the salted ones
1/2 C. chopped walnuts
1/2 C. wheat germ
1/2 C flake coconut
Combine in a large mixing bowl and blend well.
Preheat your oven to 350F.

On a large baking sheet with sides, evenly spread the granola mix. Bake for 30 minutes stirring at 10 minute intervals to provide even toasting. Store in an air tight container.
This is great eaten the way the Europeans do, with yogurt. You can use milk if you like as well or eat it out of hand.

This one was in an Amish cookbook that my mom has. I have made it many times over the years and plan to make a double batch and take it for our canoe and camping Memorial Day Group Camp out.
God Bless,
Linda

Blueberry Bread Pudding

While I was at my mom's last week we had dinner one night at my brother, Dave and his wife, Gwen's place. The finish was a Blueberry Bread Pudding that is really worth the effort. Not to sure whose recipe she was working but here goes:

3 eggs
4 C. heavy cream
1 1/2 C. sugar
3 tsp. vanilla extract, don't scrimp, use the good stuff, it make all the difference
2 C. fresh or frozen blueberries
1 pkg. (10-12oz) white baking chips
1 loaf (1#) french bread cut into 1 inch cubes

Sauce:
1 pkg. (10-12 oz) white baking chips
1 C. heavy cream

In a large bowl, combine the eggs, cream, sugar and vanilla. Stir in blueberries and baking chips. Stir in the bread cubes and let stand for 15 minutes or until the bread is softened.

Transfer to a greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake uncovered at 350F for 50-60 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center come out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

For the sauce, place the chips in a small bowl. In a small sauce pan, bring the cream just to a boil. Pour over the baking chips, whisk until smooth. Serve over the bread pudding.

I love bread pudding warm. Yummmmmmmm

Cherry Berry Cobbler

The other day when I was at the local Hy-Vee with Mom, I noticed in the freezer case something with the Hy-Vee brand on it and it was called Cherry Berry Mix. The bag contained a fruit mixture of strawberries, cherries, blueberries, black berries, and red raspberries. This gave me an idea and I tried it today.

Combine in a large bowl;
2 16 oz packages of Hy-Vee's Cherry Berry Mix, partially thawed
3/4 C. white sugar
1/4 C. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 C. corn starch
1 tsp. cinnamon (I like Penzey's Vietnamese cinnamon)
1/2 tsp. nutmeg (I like to grate my own and use slightly less if grating your own)
1 tsp. vanilla (always use the good stuff, the best you can buy, make it real)
Mix this very well coating all of the pieces of fruit well.
Pour into a 10x10 baking dish treated with PAM
Heat the oven to 425F.

In the bowl of the food processor pulse to combine:
1 1/4 C. flour
1/3 C. sugar
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Add:
7 tbsp. cold unsalted butter (I cut it up on the tablespoon marks on the stick of butter)
Pulse until the butter in worked in and the mixture resembles a course meal.

In a small bowl combine and mix well
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp. cold water
1 tsp. vanilla (again,use the good stuff)
Add the liquid to the flour mixture all at once and pulse until the dough comes together. If it seems to dry add additional water 1 tsp. at a time. Remember, don't over work the dough, it will make it tough.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface or pastry cloth. Pat to the shape of the baking dish and work to about 1/4 inch thick.
Place the dough over the fruit.
Brush egg white over the top of the dough and sprinkle with "sparkle sugar"
Bake at 425F for 10 minutes
Reduce the heat to 350F and continue baking for 50-60 minutes.
Cool about 30 minutes before serving with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Yields 4-6 serving

Couscous Lemon Chicken Soup

I was recently in the Chicago area visiting friends and Cindy and I went shopping, of course. "Would I like to go into the William Sonoma store?" Silly question, how quickly can we get there. If you have never been to one, you are in for a treat. The price points are kind of high on most of the products but then you are looking at top of the line, in most cases. Still it is a great place for ideas. This day they were making a soup that had us asking for one more bite, please. As usually happens I take their recipe and tweak it to what we can eat or sounds good to me. So, I will leave it to you. Sandi, I know that you are gluten intolerant so you will have to work around if you try this one. Couscous is an African pasta of sorts, originally made from millet but lately from wheat flour. This soup used a Lebanese Couscous which just means that it a bit larger around than an orzo pasta or pearl pasta. Den thinks Barley would work but he is in love with barley. I got out my handy crock pot and set a carton of Chicken stock to heating. I set 2 quarts of water to boil to cook the 1 cup of dry couscous, remember it is a type of paste and takes about 5 minutes to boil to cooked enough for this soup. Drain it off and add it to the stock. In a heavy skillet combine and cook to soft but not brown 2 tbsp. EVOO 1/2 small onion, chopped 2 cloves of garlic, chopped, crushed or minced This is where I start to deviate, OK. I trimmed an entire skinless/boneless chicken breast and cut it into cubes. I added this to the onion and garlic in the skillet to get it started cooking. Back to the crock pot: 1 tbsp butter 3 tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped 3 tbsp. fresh cilantro (not in the package recipe but I added it) 3 tbsp. fresh coriander (I couldn't find this one so I didn't put it in) 1 tbsp. fresh mint, chopped (not available so not in there) rind of 1 lemon finely grated (just the rind here, don't get that white stuff undernieth, it doesn't taste nice at all, this is where a micro plane comes in handy, but watch the finger, it is very sharp) Juice from the same lemon. Salt and Pepper to taste. Add in the mixture in the skittet to the crock pot and I cooked it for about 1.5 hours on high. The couscous will finish cooking and swell to about twice the size. I came down with a cold while we were away and this feels great to a "stuffy sicky". God Bless and hugs, Linda

Roasted Root Veggies

While at a friends home this weekend, I was inspired by something that she did for dinner one night. I just tweaked it to suit our table. On a large sheet of heavy broiler foil, gather the following: 1 med. sweet potato, pared and cut into 1" cubes 1 med. white potato, scrubbed and julienned like for French fries 1 med. parsnip, pared and thinly sliced 2 med. carrots, pared and cut into 1" chunks 1/2 med. onion roughly chopped 2 tsp. Penzey's Herbs de Provence 2 - 4 Tbls. infused EVOO, I like Tuscan Herb from The Olive Pit (garlic and basil) HyVee offers a garlic infused olive oil as well as a basil infused olive oil. I purchased both, while at my mom's this past weekend and used some of each one. It was quite good actually and I used Mural of Flavor as I hadn't brought the Herbs de Province along this time. Prepare the veggies and mix together on the foil. Drizzle with the olive oil and the add the herbs. Mix well. Gather the foil up with the veggies in the middle and place on a heavy baking sheet or I used my 12 inch iron skillet and it worked great. Roast uncovered at 350F for 1 hour, stirring about once every 15-20 minutes. I made catfish fillets and this was the side. Great lunch. Thanks, Cindy!!!!!!!

German Sauerkraut Salad (The Colony Inn in Amana, Iowa

We had a wonderful day yesterday despite the icky stuff that threatened and then made good on it with light snow and then kind of a wintery mix of snow and misty rain. The temps hovered around 20F, so it wasn't bitterly cold just icky. Den needed some tax document to complete our income tax stuff and picked that up at the Cedar Rapids Public Library at the Westdale Mall and then the headed to the Amana Colonies.

I have a quilt in process that I am calling "The Daydreamer Quilt". There is a picture of it above, I am still working on it. It will be for the bed that it is on, in our guest room down stairs. The large flowers are the product of an Iowa artist named Stephanie Brandenburg. She and her mother have a shop in South Amana called Fern Hill Gifts and Quilts. We stopped there and I purchased a couple more yards of the color wash fabric that you see in the drops on the sides. I need it to complete the shams as well as "piano key" border on the drops of the sides and foot. Anyway, Fern Hill is absolutely amazing. Three levels of antiques (some are structural and some just what you would expect in a antique store) and fabric for quilting. What this stuff was beautiful stuff.

We have in the past always gone to the Ronnenburg for meal when in the Amanas but this time Den wanted to try something different. So, we went to the Colony Inn. Meals are served family style. You order your entree' and they bring you what goes with it in small bowls that you can choose what you want and have pretty much as much as you want. When they bring you the salad portion, there were several bowls, lettuce salad with homemade buttermilk dressing (not ranch), cottage cheese (this has buttermilk and chive in it, yummy), and sauerkraut salad. We both loved, loved the sauerkraut salad.

My mother's mother was a Dunkered from Pennsylvania which is, as I understand it, a sect of Amish. She married and Englisher, my granddad. I called Mom from the restaurant to see if she knew how to make this salad. Yes, well sort of. But she thought it was in a Amish cookbook that my sister had given her but I should talk to my cousin Martha as she has borrowed the book. As it turns out the Colony shares this recipe and the young lady brought me a copy of it.

I am headed back to Mt. Pleasant for our sewing day on March 5th and Mom wants some of this, so I guess I should get it on the make.

Sauerkraut Salad (Colony Inn in Amana, Iowa)

Combine in a large air tight container (tupperware or Gladware or the like)

1 quart sauerkraut (don't wash this at all leave the juice on it)

1 C. diced celery

1/2 C. onion, chopped (medium)

1 C. sugar

1/2 C. salad oil (they use Wesson Oil, I will be using canola oil)

1/4 C. red and green bell peppers chopped (for taste as well as color)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Cover and refrigerate for 72 hours, so the flavors can meld well.

The young lady told us that after sitting at room temperature for over 3 hours the oil will form bits of solids in the salad so keep it refrigerated.

I hope that you try this and that you like it as well as both Den and I do.

God Bless,

Linda

Ranch Chicken and Rice

I was gone this weekend leaving Denny to take care of himself. He was working at the radio station. I always have to feed him no matter what so I made him some Chicken and Rice something that I fixed him while we were dating. This was my own recipe, long before Campbell's Soups came up with theirs. This time I gave a bit of Ranch twist and then repeated the process at Mom's and my brother and his wife joined Mom and I for lunch and they liked it as well.

For 4 servings:

Prepare 2 cups of Minute Rice per directions on the box except use chicken broth instead of the water. Set this aside.

1 complete skinless/boneless chicken breast, flattened and trimmed of fat and connective tissue and then cut in to 4 fairly equal portions
Dredge:
3/4 C. all purpose flour
2 Tbsp. yellow corn meal
1 Tbsp. Penzey's Spice's Ranch Dressing Seasoning Base, rounded
1 tsp. baking powder
Dredge the chicken portions in the flour mixture and brown in melted butter in a large skillet until golden on both sides. Remove to a plate.
Add to the meat dripping
a 1-2 TBSP. butter
2/3 cup of chopped celery
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 tsp. minced garlic
saute until tender
Add to the vegetables
1 C. sour cream
1 reg. can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, undiluted
1 Tbsp. Penzey's Ranch Dressing Seasoning Base
1 small can of mushroom stems and pieces, drained
Bring to a simmer and add in the rice that you have waiting.

Place this in a buttered 10" baking dish. Smooth the top and place the chicken portions on top. Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 30 minutes.