by jphilo | Dec 11, 2009 | Recipes
A little over a week ago, when the temperature was almost 60 degrees and it was hard to imagine Christmas was less than a month away, I spoke at a women’s brunch in northeast Iowa. Having learned the hard way that it’s best to eat lightly before speaking, I bypassed the cranberry salad the other diners raved about, wrapped the yummy looking orange roll in a napkin to eat on the way home, and satisfied my stomach rumbles with a small slice of ham.
After the event, when I was packing my things, the caterer introduced herself. “I’m Colleen Downing, and I just figured out who you are. I’ve read your book,” she said. She explained that Earl Taylor, a member of my church and the director of Hidden Acres – the Evangelical Free Church Central District Church Camp – had given her a copy of Different Dream.
“Our sixteen-year-old daughter Chloe has been receiving treatment for leukemia for two years,” she said. “Your book is right on. It even made my husband cry, and the only other time he’s cried was when Chloe was first diagnosed.” Then she bought two more copies of A Different Dream to give to the families of Chloe’s cancer buddies, and we exchanged emails.
I thought about Colleen and Chloe on the drive home, wondering what life had been like for them during the past two years. And with one bite of the orange roll, I knew Colleen’s recip was a must have. The roll, not just the frosting, was dotted with orange zest and fresh citrus flavor permeated the dough. How did she get the flavors to do that? I would email her and ask, I decided, wondering if she would let me share her secret recipe on this blog.
Well, Colleen is more than willing to share her recipe. In fact, she said the request made her laugh because the “secret recipe” is Rhodes Orange Rolls, available in the freezer case of most grocery stores. And this Sunday’s newspaper even had a coupon for them.
Score!
The rolls are a Christmas morning tradition at Colleen’s house. They may become a tradition at my house, too. So will something else – checking Chloe’s Caring Bridge site athttp://www.caringbridge.org/visit/chloedowney now and then. She’s a lovely young woman from a lovely family, and I want to know how to pray as she fights cancer.
My plan is to pray for her every time I crave Rhodes orange rolls.
God’s gonna be busy listening to me.
by jphilo | Nov 25, 2009 | Recipes
Yesterday I mentioned that my extended family considers the words “I love you” and “Taste this” to be synonyms. What I didn’t tell you was that yesterday, two of the matriarchs of our extended Hess family’s kitchens, my mother and my Aunt Lois, spent the day baking together.
Now that’s not all we did. Aunt Lois also graciously consented to being interviewed about her memories of life on her parents’ Iowa and Minnesota farms in the 1920s and 30s. And when we needed a break from the baking, we went to our town’s Dutch Oven Bakery for lunch.
But for the most part, I cracked the whip on these two ladies. Back in their baking days, which lasted from the 1930s until the 2000s, they were extraordinary pie bakers. So yesterday, I eeked every possible pie baking secret out of them. If only their other two living sisters could have been here, I could have learned the secrets of Aunt Letha’s sour cream raisin pie and Aunt Donna’s butterscotch, too.
Aunt Lois said the secret to good pie crust is mixing a little baking powder into the flour and using rendered lard – hard to find these days – cutting it into the flour until the mixture crumbles are pea-sized. I wanted to get her pie crust recipe, but she said she never used one, just added ingredients until it looked and felt right.
As a tribute to my aunts, who made pie crust as flaky and tender as any I’ve ever tasted, here is my fail safe recipe. It came from Aunt Letha’s mother-in-law who was also a wonderful cook.
Grandma Conrad’s Never Fail Pie Crust
6 cups flour 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder 1 – 1 1/2 cups lard
1 egg 2 tablespoons vinegar
In a 1 cup measuring cup, beat egg with a fork. Add vinegar and enough water to make one cup. Set aside. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Cut in lard until mixture is crumbly but not clumpy. Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture and stir with a fork until it forms a large ball.
This recipe makes 5 – 6 pie crusts. Let the dough sit for 10 minutes and roll out all the crusts. When they’re rolled out, place a piece of waxed paper on the crust and carefully roll the paper and crust into a tube. Put the crusts in a 2 gallon zipper bag and freeze. Then, thaw the rolls and use them when you’re ready to bake.
by jphilo | Nov 24, 2009 | Recipes
I’m from a baking family – since they mean the same thing, it’s easier to say, “Taste this” than “I love you” – so Thanksgiving week is one of our family’s favorites.
Actually, I got some early practice saying “I love you” with food after we entertained the younger generation in our home a couple Saturdays ago. Since sending the young adults off with homemade pumpkin bread and applesauce, we’ve received one snail mail and two email thank yous. Doesn’t that give you hope in the future?
Because of their enthusiastic response, I decided to share my pumpkin bread recipe today. You will be amazed by how easy it is! For those of you who want a bigger challenge, I’ve also included the directions about how to make your own filling when you replace the pumpkin on the front step with Christmas decorations.
Pumpkin Bread
3 1/2 cups flour 3 cups sugar
2 tsp. baking soda 1 cup oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt 4 eggs
1 tsp. cinnamon 2/3 cup water
1 tsp. nutmeg 2 cups canned pumpkin
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients together, then mix in wet ingredients. Pour into 3 greased loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown. Let cool for at least thirty minutes before taking them out of the pans. (I sometimes make the bread in large tin cans so the slices will be round. If you do that, cut down the baking time.)
How to Make Pumpkin Filling:
- With a large, sharp knife cut pie pumpkin in half.
- Remove the stem and throw away.
- Use an ice cream scoop to scrape the seeds and stringy matter from the cavity of the pumpkin.
- Slice each half into 3 or 4 wedges.
- To steam the pumpkin, cover either the bottom of roasting pan or dutch oven with water. Place pumpkin wedges in the pan. Put the covered roasting pan in the oven for about an hour at 350 degrees. Or put the dutch oven on the stove and let simmer for about an hour or until the pumpkin is fork tender. Remove from heat.
- When the pumpkin is cool, remove the outer skin. Cut the pumpkin into chunks and place the chunks in the blender to puree.
- Pour into in zippered freezer bags in desired amount and freeze.
by jphilo | Nov 18, 2009 | Recipes
In Monday’s post, I briefly mentioned the Saturday night supper Hiram and I hosted for Anne, her boyfriend, and five of her cousins. On the family tree, they’re second cousins, but those particular branches grew up side-by-side, and they’re closer than sardines in a can.
The menu was simple because Hiram and I wanted to spend our time with our guests, not cooking in the kitchen, though these young adults were so helpful they would have pitched in and made it more of a family affair.
But, I digress.
The hit of the meal wasn’t the Turkey Tetrazinni, which I consider the mother of all comfort foods. It wasn’t the homemade caramel dip served with sliced apples for dessert. No, the big hit was the gigantic spinach salad I made because it is Anne’s favorite. Apparently, it was everybody’s favorite since there were no leftovers, even though I had filled the biggest Tupperware bowl they make with the stuff.
Because it was such a hit, I’m sharing the recipe with you. First, you’ll see the recipe I found in a Taste of Home magazine years ago. Below is the version served on Saturday night since strawberries are out of season.
Strawberry Spinach Salad
5 cups spinach leaves, torn in bite-sized pieces
1 pint strawberries, hulled and sliced
1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Dressing:
1/4 cup salad oil
2 – 3 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 – 3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Put first four ingredients into a large bowl. Combine dressing ingredients and mix well. Pour over salad and toss well. Serve immediately.
Saturday Night’s Spinach Salad
2 bags baby spinach
2 small cans mandarin oranges, drained
1/2 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1/4 cup crumbled bacon or real bacon bits
Dressing:
1/2 cup salad oil
4 tablespoons vinegar
2 tablespoon lemon juice
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
Put first four ingredients into a large bowl. Combine dressing ingredients and mix well. Pour over salad and toss well. Serve immediately.
by jphilo | Aug 13, 2009 | Recipes
I’m pleased to announce that last night’s eggplant experiment was a big hit. In fact, Hiram could hardly wait to pack leftovers for lunch at work today. Since the dish is meatless, that’s saying a lot. He’s quite dubious when his favorite food group doesn’t make it to the dinner table.
So if your refrigerator is packed to the gills with eggplant, give this recipe a try. Allen gave it to me over the phone, from an Italian cookbook, but I don’t know its name and can’t credit the authors. But the recipe got the Hiram Seal of Approval. What more could you want?
Eggplant Pasta Bake
2 eggplants, cut in 1/4 inch cubes
1 1/2 tablespoons of salt
1 pound pasta (penne, bow ties or corkscrews), cooked
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 cups tomato sauce
handful of fresh, chopped basil
1 pound mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Topping:
1 cup fluffy bread crumbs
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sprinkle eggplant cubes with salt. Let drain in a colander for a half hour. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a pan and fry eggplant until brown. In a large casserole dish, combine, eggplant, pasta, cheese, tomato sauce, basil and 1/4 cup parmesan cheese. Mix topping ingredients together and sprinkle over all. Bake covered at 400 degrees for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake 10 more minutes. Serve hot.
by jphilo | Jul 31, 2009 | Recipes
Peach season has come to Iowa. It waited until we returned from vacation, much to my relief, or we would have missed out on summer’s best dessert – fresh peach pie. This week, thanks to the impeccable timing of Mother Nature and the fruit farmers in South Carolina, Missouri, and Colorado, the Philo house is serving up fresh peach pie as often as possible.
Last night we had supper with my brother and his family, including Mom, and I brought a pie for dessert. Everyone eyed the last piece, which I saved back for my sister-in-law who was gone for the evening. “If she doesn’t want it,” my brother announced, “I know several people who do.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s the taste of summer on a plate, isn’t it?”
That’s kinda what I was thinking,” he agreed.
If you want to taste summer on a plate, give this recipe a try. It is easy, and pretty low-cal for a dessert. But the peaches, not the cook, make or break the dish so select fruit with plenty of yellow and a healthy blush (not too red) and let them ripen until you smell them when you walk into the kitchen.
Fresh Peach Pie
Slice three large peaches into a nine inch baked pie shell. In a sauce pan, crush two large peaches. Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and three tablespoons of cornstarch and add to crushed peaches along with 1/2 cup water. Cook and stir constantly until mixture boils, thickens and turns clear. Add 2 tablespoons butter and 1/2 teaspoon almond flavoring and stir. Pour hot mixture over sliced peaches in the pie shell. Chill, serve, and savor summer on a plate.
