Mennonite Monday - Cherry Cola Sald

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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I know that Cherry Cola Salad did not win the vote this week, but I didn't have a reason to make Enchiladas, so that will be the recipe for next week.  I made Cherry Cola Salad (pg 190W) for a Sunday School potluck meal and was very impressed with it.  It was a quick recipe that went together in 15 minutes or so, and tasted very good.  I didn't think it tasted like cola at all, but others may have felt differently.  I will also say that I'm not a huge fan of cherries from pie filling because they are kind of mushing, but these plumped up with the other ingredients. 

Cherry Cola Salad

3/4 cup water

1 can cherry pie filling

1 6 oz box cherry gelatin

1 #2 can crushed pineapple with juice

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tbl lemon juice

1 cup Pepsi

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I did not use the chopped nuts)

Combine water and sugar and bring to a boil.  Add pie filling and return to a boil.  Pour boiling mixture over gelatin, stirring to dissolve.  Add the pineapple and juice, lemon juice, Pepsi and nuts.  Pour into a 9x13"pan and chill.  

 Sugar and water boiling 

 Adding the pie filling. 

 I took the pan off the burner and mixed the jello into the same pan to save on dishes.

 Adding pineapple (with juice) and lemon juice.  I don't know what a #2 can of pineapple is, so I just picked one and it worked out fine. 

 My pan got too full, so I moved everything to the 9 x 13" pan and then mixed in the cola.  Since I didn't have any Pepsi, so I just used some off brand cola. 

 

Mennonite Monday - Easy Runza Squares

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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This week I have a large amount of garden produce especially cabbage, so I decided to make Easy Runza Squares (pg 145W).

Easy Runza Squares

 Dough: 

1 cup warm water

1 pkg dry yeast

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 Tbl margarine

3 1/4 cup flour

Dissolve yeast in water and add sugar and salt.  Mix.  Add egg, margarine and stir in flour.  Refrigerate 4 hours.  Divide dough in half and press half into greased 9 x 13" pan. 

Filling: 

1 1/2 lbs hamburger

1/2 cup chopped onion

3 cups shredded cabbage

1 1/2 tsp salt 

1/2 tsp pepper

Dash of Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup water

Brown hamburger and onion.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer covered 15-20 minutes.  Cool before putting on dough.  Pat remaining half of dough on lightly floured surface into a 9x13" rectangle and place on filling.  Bake 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees on low oven rack.  Remove and brush with melted butter. 

 My camera battery was almost dead, so my pictures are a lacking, but I browned my hamburger with minced onion and natures seasoning instead of salt and pepper. 

 The dough mixed together in my kitchen aid mixer pretty easily, and the dough did rise slightly in the refrigerator.

 The hamburger cabbage mixture.  I cooked the hamburger and cabbage at the same time as I mixed up my dough, so the meat had a few hours to cool, while the dough set in the refrigerator. 

 I tried to roll out the top half of the dough, but it was easier to pat it into the right size.

 I'm still not the best with working with dough, but it is getting better. 

 My top layer of dough was no the perfect size, but I made it fit. 

 Butter on the top. 

I skimped a little bit on the meat, only using 1 lb instead of 1.5 lbs of meat.  I wish I would have used the full amount of meat, because the dough was a little overpowering.  The red glob is ketchup, which is always good with runzas.

Be sure to vote for next weeks recipe. 

MIA

 I know I have been missing in action this week.  Sorry. I would argue that I have a pretty good reason for taking a little break.  My summer officially started on Sunday, so I wanted to take a little break to relax.  Unfortunately the blog suffered a bit, but it felt so good to rest. I should have planned ahead to do my Mennonite Monday post before everything got crazy, but I hardly cooked last week, except for the bake beans for 600 people, but I will post more about that later.

Here are a few pictures from Community Days.   

I'm always good about taking pictures at the parade and then after that my picture taking drops off.

 This year we had the Minute to Win it Game, which went over pretty well even though very few adults were willing to step out of their comfort zone and participate. 

 Everyone was concentrating to hard. 

 Even the young kids tried the games, but we didn't time them. 

 No one was able to balance three golf balls on top of each other, but most people were able to balance two. 

 The Home Run Derby went over very well on Friday night.  My dad even won his division, which I don't have a picture of and didn't see because I went home to rest up for the next day. 

We had a record number of people participating in the 5K and 10K races.  Someday I want to participate in the run, but not when I'm running the entire weekend.  

 My niece Ave even came to join in the fun. 

On Saturday evening No Better Cause performed an acapella concert. 

All in all it was a good weekend, but I'm glad it is over.  Bring on summer.

Hauling Hay

 It has been a few years since I have helped my parents haul hay, but with my brother in crutches, I thought it would be good to help.  

Apparently one person on crutches means a large number of people are needed to help. 

 The whole pivot corner started out as rows of cut hay. 

 Then the tractor drives up and down the rows to make bales. 

 This part of the machine picks up the cut hay. 

 Then it comes out of the other end as a square bail. 

 You are left with a field full of square bails.  I think there were around 400 of these bails that were hauled in 3 hours that day

 Grandpa backed the truck up. 

 Mom helped to throw bails in the truck, along with myself and 4 high school/college boys. 

 Mike and Dad stacked the bails in the truck. 

 After the truck was full, we started filling the trailer behind the tractor. 

 This was easier because you don't have to throw the bails as high onto the trailer. 

 After all that stacking, Mike decided to take a ride. 

 Then you have to unload all of the bails and stack them in the barn.  Notice several people are wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts, which may seem weird on a hot summer day, but this is normal hay hauling attire. So you don't scratch your arms and legs while lifting the bails. 

 Kellen was on tractor driving duty due to his cast.

 It was so great to have these guys helping us, it made it so much easier and quicker to load and unload. 

 As you stack the bails, you have to sprinkle salt over the bails to keep them from catching on fire or molding if they are still a little wet. 

 We had so much extra help that a few people got to sit and relax while the others were working. 

 Then it was snack time.

 Everyone was hungry. Unfortunately we still had 100 bails left at the field that we had to load and unload after lunch.

All in all it was a good little walk down memory lane.

Mulberries

 I am really really behind on this post, but when Mike and I recently (okay, not so recently) took a trip to Newton to visit our friends, Brian and Jodi, I learned how to harvest mulberries. 

You can shake the tree limbs by hand,

 or use a really long stick to shake the top branches,

 or hit the branches to make the mulberries fall on your sheet below. 

 We collected 42 cups of red and white mulberries. 

Then we had to rinse all of the mulberries before bagging them for the freezer. 

It was really fun to learn how to do something new and mark on thing off of my bucket list. Hopefully I will be able to harvest mulberries when they are ripe in Nebraska this summer.