Prairie Advocate News


Discover rewarding casino experiences.

best online casinos

The Amish Cook

By LOVINA EICHER

We have entered September and enjoyed a relaxing Labor Day. My husband Joe and the boys plan to go fishing but first they are cleaning out our tool shed. Things seem to get disorganized in there pretty fast. The boys can spend a lot of time in there. This summer they tried to build their own pony buggy. They had the right idea but it would not have been safe to use. They were puzzled when they got to the wheels as to how to make them workable. They came in and asked me if they could take the wheels off their bikes. That wasn’t an option because that would have made their bikes unusable! They have quite an imagination and if they keep trying they might figure one out a way yet to get the buggy moving. They are sure getting good practice at pounding in nails in the meantime.

amishlogo.tif

School starts tomorrow and the children have all their school bags and clothing ready to go. Verena will be in 7th grade, Benjamin in 6th and Loretta will enter middle school in grade 5. In the elementary building Joseph will be in third grade, Lovina in first, and Kevin in kindergarten. The house will seem empty when all six leave for school at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. We are hoping and praying that Verena will have a better year this term. Elizabeth, 17, is sewing Joseph some new pants hoping to have them in time for him to wear to school tomorrow. She has cut out quite a few pairs of pants for the boys, I think a total of 10. It seems like we will be able to have more time to sew after the children are in school.

Loretta, 11, Joseph, 9, has left for the neighbors to go get milk with the pony cart. It is hard to believe they can drive Tiger. Tiger is the miniature pony that Susan has trained. He seems to be really calming down. Kevin is 6 years old now and we want to make cupcakes and celebrate his birthday tonight. The weekend was so busy and we didn’t get around to it yet. We gave him some toys for his birthday. He hides them behind the couch and doesn’t realize we all know where they are hidden. He hid his birthday candy between our bed and our nightstand. It is funny to see all the hiding places he comes up with.

Our neighbor lady, Amy, brought us peaches from their tree. They are really good. I will freeze some and keep them just for fresh eating. We sure appreciated her giving them to us.

This coming Friday we are invited to a wedding about 4 miles from here. The bride is a girl from our church district. Hopefully this cool weather we are having today will warm up by then. Our thermometer showed 53 degrees this morning and the children all wanted jackets to wear outside. Friday and Saturday it was very hot and now today it is chilly.

On Saturday we all went to the place that Elizabeth’s friend, Timothy, recently bought. Joe helped Tim cut wood while our children loaded it up into wheelbarrows and hauled it inside. Daughter Susan, Verena, and I fixed lunch at home and took it over and stayed to help. For lunch we had campfire stew, crackers, sliced tomatoes, chocolate cake, peaches, chips, and salsa. After we were home we experienced a bad thunderstorm and also some hail. The children ran outside after the storm and gathered some hail and put in baggies and put into the freezer. They were really amazed at some of the golf-ball sized hail. We were thankful the storm didn’t do too much damage.

We had a lot of small twigs blown off our trees. Later that evening we had another thunderstorm and it sounded very windy outside. Makes a person think of all the people affected by Hurricane Irene recently. Let us pray for them. We have been keeping up with the hurricane in the newspapers. While we were in Florida we got some reading papers on the hurricanes which is very interesting. The children seem to understand a lot more what a hurricane is but we hope to never be close to one.

We have harvested our cabbage now. Try this vegetable relish, which is a great way to use up the cabbage.

Easy Vegetable Relish

4 cups onion
4 cups cabbage
4 cups green tomatoes
4 cups red or green peppers
1/2 cup salt
6 cups sugar
2 tablespoons mustard seed
1 tablespoon celery seed
1 tablespoon tumeric
2 cups water
2 cups vinegar

Grind vegetables and sprinkle with salt. Let stand in refrigerator overnight. Rinse salt from the vegetables and drain. Put vegetables in pan and pour vinegar , sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, tumeric, water, and vinegar over the top pf them. Heat over medium until boiling. Simmer 3 minutes and process. Makes around 8 pints. (Editor’s Note: this recipe is haring for culinary cultural insight. The Amish are avid home-canners. Proper USDA guidelines should be followed when home-canning, which can be found at USDA.gov or by contacting your local county extension agent)

Google