Tag Archives: filling

Casseroles, Meats

A pony, A wedding, and a children’s cornfield hideaway

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A lovely Tuesday evening! It was a chilly 41 degrees this morning but warmed up into the 70s.

Right now it is pretty quiet in this house. Six of our children decided to go the four miles to sister Emma and Jacob’s house. Some rode the ponies and some biked. They wanted to go see Jacob’s new pony.

Joseph volunteered to stay home and do the evening chores. Elizabeth stayed to help me with supper. On our menu tonight will be fish, French fries and onion rings. That is always a favorite meal around here.

The wedding for niece Elizabeth and Samuel is now over. We wish them God’s blessings as they join hands for life. They had a beautiful wedding day. On the menu for dinner were barbecued chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, chicken and noodles, dressing, mixed vegetables, lettuce salad, carrot salad, homemade bread, butter, strawberry jam, celery sticks and Nothings. Nothings are a sweet, thin pastry that has been deep-fried. Dessert was cake, cinnamon pudding, zucchini bars, a variety of cookies, mixed fruit and pies—cherry, Dutch apple, pecan and vanilla crumb. In the evening smoked sausage was added to the menu. My job was to help with the dressing. One hundred eggs were put into the dressing. I will share the recipe with you readers, but I had to reduce the recipe of 20 eggs down to 5 eggs so it will be easier for smaller batches.

There was plenty of food left over. It’s always easier to have too much than not enough. It is probably a big relief for sister Liz and Levi to have this over with. A lot of work is involved in preparing for a wedding.

The day before the wedding, daughter Verena and I traveled the two hours to Berne, Indiana, to help prepare food for the wedding. The group of us who helped made the Nothings, baked 80 pies, peeled potatoes, and chopped a lot of vegetables such as celery, carrots, onions, cauliflower, broccoli and radishes. This makes it easier to prepare salads, dressing, etc. On the day of the wedding, carrot salad was also prepared in serving bowls.

My husband, Joe, and sons Benjamin, Joseph and Kevin cleared out one of our gardens and hauled manure on it. It is now ready to till, and we will plant a cover crop. In the other garden we still have tomatoes, but otherwise I think everything is done for the season. We had a nice crop of cabbage this year, but our potatoes didn’t do so well.

Lovina’s cabbages did well this year. These heads were recently harvested from her garden.
Lovina’s cabbages did well this year. These heads were recently harvested from her garden.

The boys and daughter Lovina built a campout area by the big tree in the middle of our cornfield earlier this summer when the corn was short. They had a path through the corn to their camp. If I called for them, they could hear me. Sometimes they would go back there to read. Since it won’t be too long before the corn is harvested, they decided to take down their “camp” for the winter.

 

Lovina’s children made this campout area in their cornfield this summer.
Lovina’s children made this campout area in their cornfield this summer.

God’s blessings to all!

 

Wedding Dressing

  •  5 eggs
  • ¾ cup powdered chicken soup base
  • 1½ cups hot water
  • 18 slices bread, cubed
  • 1 cup chicken, cut up
  • 1½ cups onions, chopped
  • 1½ cups celery, chopped
  • 1 cup carrots, shredded
  • ½ cup peas
  • 3¾ cups water
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper
  • ½ cup chicken fat or butter

Beat eggs. Dissolve chicken soup base in hot water. (I buy powdered chicken soup base in bulk, but you can substitute 3 or 4 chicken bouillon cubes.) Add this mixture, along with remaining ingredients, to eggs and mix well. Pour into a greased 9×13-inch pan. Bake at 375° for one hour or until well set.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply) or at LovinasAmishKitchen@MennoMedia.org.

Desserts, Pies

Pie filling to store up summer sweetness

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Strawberry pie filling
Lovina’s strawberry pie filling, ready for the freezer.

It is a quiet morning at 5:30 a.m. Our two oldest daughters, Elizabeth, 20, and Susan, 18, just left for the factory a few minutes ago. All is quiet with the six other children still asleep. My husband, Joe, left for work before 4:00 a.m. and is probably hard at work already. They start working by 5:00 a.m. at the RV factory where he has worked for the last 9½ years.

My dad was always an early riser and loved the early morning hours. He never liked going to bed late. There is so much beauty and peace in the morning hours.

“There is so much beauty and peace in the morning hours.”

Yesterday we made 12 quarts of strawberry pie filling. We put it in the freezer instead of cold-packing it in jars. The strawberries came from my sister Emma’s strawberry patch. So many people are having a good supply of strawberries this year. The rains seem to be frequent enough.

Our garden is doing so well already. But when everything grows, so do the weeds. It is so hard to keep up with them. Son Benjamin took the tiller through the rows of sweet corn, and that looks so much better. He also used the weed-eater to trim the weeds around the buildings that we can’t get with the lawn mower. That looks better too.

It is just hard to believe Benjamin has grown so tall and can handle all these jobs. I think he is taller than I am. Benjamin’s school days are in the past now. He finished with eighth grade, which is usually the last grade the Amish children take.

Benjamin was four years old when we moved to Michigan from Indiana. He was always full of energy and gave us quite a few scares during his younger years. Daughter Loretta was born 11½ months after Benjamin, and those two were quite the team when they were toddlers. Before Loretta could walk, I would put her in the playpen if I had to leave the room for a little bit. One time when I came back, I was surprised to see Loretta crawling around on the floor. Benjamin had managed to find my scissors and cut a hole in the playpen so Loretta could get out to play with him! I am so thankful neither of them was hurt. Needless to say, we needed a new playpen.

Joe and the boys are fishing every chance they get. For Father’s Day the children gave Joe a tripod that has a chain to hang a kettle on. They also gave him a cast-iron outdoor kettle. Joe deep-fried fish in it one evening. It worked really well. Joe enjoys cooking outdoors and I have no objections when he offers to cook.

The tripod and kettle that the children gave to Joe for Fathers Day.
The tripod and kettle that the children gave to Joe for Father’s Day.

On warm evenings it is so nice to eat outside. The children made s’mores after they were done eating fish. We had bluegill, perch and bass. I prefer the bass and Joe would rather have the bluegill. Son Kevin, 8, wanted me to know that he caught the perch. At first he couldn’t remember the name of the fish. He said, “It starts with a P!”

I’ll share my strawberry pie filling recipe with you readers. God bless you all!

Strawberry Pie Filling

  • 6 quarts water
  • 4½ cups Perma Flo
  • 4 cups cold water
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 4½ cups strawberry gelatin
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 5 quarts strawberries, mashed

Put 6 quarts water in a 12-quart kettle and bring to a boil. In bowl, mix Perma Flo and 4 cups cold water. (Perma Flo is available at some Amish-run stores and online, but Clearjel can be substituted. Perma Flo works better for freezing.) Stir into boiling water, stirring constantly. After it thickens, remove from heat and add sugar, gelatin and salt. Add strawberries and stir until mixed well. Freeze in containers.

This also works well as an ice-cream topping and in puddings or cobblers.

Blueberry variation: Replace strawberries with same amount of blueberries; add 1 teaspoon lemon juice; replace strawberry gelatin with raspberry and blueberry gelatin (in equal amounts); and use 3½ cups Perma Flo.

Peach variation: Replace strawberries with 7–8 quarts sliced peaches and replace strawberry gelatin with peach and orange gelatin (in equal amounts).

Cherry variation: Replace strawberries with 10 pounds cherries; use 3½ cups Perma Flo; and add 1 teaspoon almond flavoring.

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 or at Editor@LovinasAmishKitchen.com.