Priescha & Verenika - Check

Before my birthday I wanted to try to make two Mennonite specialties. Apple Priescha and Verenika. Unfortunately I will not be posting pictures with step-by-step directions for these recipes because the apple priescha did not turn out the best and the verenika was made by my grandma and she just gave me a quick tutorial on how to make verenika.

One of my close college friends, Tina, stopped by for the evening and we attempted to make apple priescha. I later learned from several women in the community that the white church cookbook does not have the best recipe for priescha, which is why the dough was hard as a rock. I am planning to try this recipe again and hopefully my second attempt will go better.

For thanksgiving my grandma made verenika. I was going to help her with the assembly process, but our schedules were too busy, so she left me a little dough and filling, so we could have a verenika lesson at Thanksgiving.

Form her instruction, I think am ready to try to make verenika on my own. However, I would like to find a verenika cutter before I try. It looked like a cookie cutter, but it was a half circle. My grandma though Midwest gave these cutters away in the 80s. Maybe I will find one at a household auction someday.

Make Something Old into Something Cool - Check

One of the items on my list of things to do, was to make something old into something cool. I had two projects in mind that would make something old into something cool, but I was only able to accomplish one by my Birthday. I found an old shutter at an antique store in Kansas and wanted to turn it into a message board. Unfortunately I do not have a before picture, but all I used was some red spray paint and some cute clips.
Now I'm ready to receive Christmas Cards.

Halfway to 50

On Tuesday I turned 25, which means two things, I am half way to 5o years old and I need to have my list of 24 things to do before I turn 25 completed. I did not accomplish everything on my list of things to do, but I completed a surprising number of items. Over the next few days I will highlight a few of the items I completed.

During the second weekend of deer season, I was part of the Deer Widows Crop at the Scrapbook Page in Aurora. I started scrapbooking at 11:30 on Friday morning and left the store at 11:30 that night. On Saturday I started again at 11:00 a.m. and headed home around 7 p.m.

My time spent scrapbooking was well worth it because I was able to finish our Honeymoon complete with journaling, which anyone who scrapbooks knows that journaling is not very fun. So here are some of my favorite pages from the book.

Mennonite Monday - Apple Pastry

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.

~

My father-in-law asked for apple bars all harvest and I finally made them during the last week of harvest. The recipe is on page 53 of the yellow cookbook. This is a recipe that my grandma has made for years, but I am not exactly at her standard yet. I was very pleased with the way my apple bars turned out, but we had my grandma's apple bars at Thanksgiving and I was reminded that they are some improvements I can make to recipe for next time.

Apple Pastry

Dough:
3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cup shortening
3 Tbl. water

Filling:
6-8 medium apples
2 Tbl. flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbl. butter
1 tsp. vanilla

Cut Shortening into flour and salt

It looks like this when it is all mixed together

Add water and eggs and mix

chill the dough

Roll out half of the dough into a 15 X 10" pan.

Mix together filling ingredients and put over dough. I decided to slice my apples and leave the peeling on to save time. While the bars tasted good, I noticed that my grandma peeled and chopped her apples, which were much better.

Roll out the rest of the dough for top dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until lightly browned.

Drizzle with powdered sugar frosting while hot.

Mennonite Monday - Green Beans Casserole

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.

~

Okay the recipe for today is not an earth shattering main dish or dessert, but I thought that it would be good to feature a good Thanksgiving side dish since some of you may be needing a casserole to contribute to your family Thanksgiving.

I made this Green Bean Casserole, which is on page 220 in the white church cookbook, during harvest and Mike loved it. I'm sure the Velveeta cheese had something to do with it.

Green Bean Casserole
3 Tbl oleo
2 Tbl flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp onion, chopped or flakes
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
1/2-3/4 cup Velveeta Cheese
1 quart green beans

Melt oleo, add onions, cook until limp. (I used minced onions, so I didn't have to cook them) Stir in flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder and sour cream.

Melt Cheese.

Fold the drained beans and cheese into other ingredients. I just melted the Velveeta in my other ingredients and then added the beans to that and it came out fine.
Put in a casserole and heat in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Watch the Sunrise - Check

This fall has been crazy. I feel like I have been running from one thing to the next. In anticipation of this busy time of year, I wanted one of my "things to do" to include slowing down long enough to watch the sunrise. I quickly came to the realization that my idea of watching the sunrise from my living room with a cup of coffee was not going to happen. The morning before daylight savings time, I was driving to my parents at 8:15 am, so we could head to Kansas for one of my brothers football games. While I was driving and watching the sunrise I was thinking, I really need to stop and watch the sunrise because my time is running out before my birthday. So I did what any would do. I stopped the car. Ran to the front. Took a picture and thought "ah, now I can check that off my list." Well, so much for leisurely watching the sunrise. At least I did stop the care to take this picture and took advantage of the latest sunrise of the fall.
Maybe I will have better luck with taking it slow when I watch the sunset.

Mennonite Monday - Raw Apple Cake

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.

~

With Thanksgiving just around the corner I decided to share a great fall recipe that would be great with a Thanksgiving meal or any other meal this time of year. This recipe is called Raw Apple Cake, on page 42 of the white church cookbook, but if you want to be a little more impressive you can call it an Apple Cake with Warm Caramel Sauce.

Raw Apple Cake
2 cups sugar
1 tsp soda
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup oil
1 tsp salt
3 cups chopped, raw apples
1 cup nuts (optional)
2 cups flour

I had some apples from earlier this fall in the freezer, so I used those.

Instead of chopping up the apples I used the grater, which worked great and didn't take much time.

Mix all the ingredients. (I didn't use the nuts)

Pour into a 9 X 13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Caramel Sauce
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light cream or canned milk (I used evaporated milk in a can)
2 tsp flour
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oleo (shortening)

Combine in sauce pan.

Cook till smooth and creamy.

Serve with caramel sauce over cake.

Fun Project

I found this project on Joy's Hope Blog.


I happened to stop by a fabric store on Thursday and thought I would jump in on the project if I could find fabric I liked. I found too much fabric I liked, but finally settled on this combination.

In three weeks these pieces of fabric will turn into 3 fun scarves. Now I realize the fabric is very Christmasish. This means the scarf is very unpractical and can only be wore for a short amount of time during the year, but for a person who always wants to be practical, this was a great inexpensive way to be impractical for once. Stay tuned for pictures of the finished product.

Harvest

Harvest has been a little different this year.

I read somewhere that this is the latest harvest has gone since the 1960's and we are not done yet. Last year we finished harvesting on November 2. It is already November 11 and while the end is insight, it will be the middle of next week before the corn is all in the bin or in town.

Okay it sounds like I'm complaining, but I actually like harvest. Sure I miss seeing my husband for more than 20 minutes a day. Yes I get a little stressed out about getting hot meals out to the field in a timely manner after work. But, I like to see how a year of hard work turns into thousands of bushels.

I am luckily enough to live 6 miles from the farm I grew up on, which means I get to see my family once in a while. One particular night they were harvesting at a field near my house so Mike and I stopped by.

For those that don't know much about harvesting or can't see it in this picture, my dad is in the tractor dumping the corn that was just picked into the parker wagon. From there the corn is augured to the bin where it waits to go to the elevator in town.

It wasn't snowing that night. That is just the corn dust.

My mom, grandma and grandpa watch the augur, so they can turn it off when the corn runs out.

Mike rode with dad in the tractor first. While it looks like dad is giving the peace sign, he is actually doing some highly secretive family sign language.

When I hopped in the tractor dad became number three and I became number two. Can you guess you number one is?

(Sorry the picture is sideways. I would change it, but I can't remember where I saved it on my computer.)

BC Football

Two weeks ago I headed south with my parents to Winfield, Kansas for my brother's football game. It was a long drive, but we had fun (it's okay to say you had fun with your parents when your almost 25), saw some interesting crops and watched a close game.

Kellen is a sophomore at Bethel College and plays defense. I'm pretty sure he is a DB and/or Safety. I know I will hear it if I'm wrong.

This was the second game he started and I was very glad I could make the trip to watch him.

Did I mention this game took place on Halloween.