Cucumber and Onion Salad

Here is another recipe that my m-i-l gave me about 20 years ago. It's that sweet 'n sour cucumber salad that used to be at all family dinners & pitch ins.

Cucumber and Onion Salad

1/2 C. olive oil

1/2 C. vinegar

2 T. sugar

salt (to taste)

pepper (to taste)

1-2 thinly sliced cucumbers

1 large onion, thinly sliced

Combine oil, vinegar, sugar, salt, & pepper. Add the cucumbers & onions. Cover & chill a few hours before serving.

Adventures in Green Beans

We had our first pickin' of green beans last weekend.
Our dogs, Louie & Otto, wanted to help us. Actually they wanted to sneak green beans & eat them. Here's Louie, pretending he's just relaxing & keeping watch while we're picking. He would get up & sneak a bean out of our boxes, & then go hide behind the onions (right behind him in this picture) to eat his bean. He thought we couldn't see him behind those onions! LOL

After 3 hours, here's what we picked.

My husband lit up our burn pile ( just various limbs & stuff that we burn every once in a great while) & we sat around a campfire for many hours, just breakin' beans & eating s'mores.
In this picture, you can see that Louie is gaurding the boxes of beans. He's pretending that he's just relaxing with his ball, but everytime I looked over at him, he had moved just a little closer to the beans. He was just waiting for us to not look at him so he could sneak another bean. LOL
And here are both of our gaurd dogs (bean gaurd dogs! LOL) on duty. Otto's snout looks funny in this picture...that's because he's eating a green bean!

I started canning late, WAY too late in the day for this big mess 'o beans. I put the first load in the canner about 3:00pm.
This is the first canning load of the season!

This was a beautiful sight... but by the early morning hours, quite frankly, I was getting a bit tired of it! LOL
We had so many beans, that for the first time in my life, I didn't finish canning them. I couldn't go on. At 5:50AM I took my last load off the burner. I drained the sink full that I still had in the sink, put them in big pans, put them in the frig, hoped for the best & went to bed. I had canned 70 quarts of beans.
Bless my dear husband's heart, I woke up at 10:30am (hey, I got 4 1/2 hours of sleep!) & he was finishing up canning the last of the beans! He canned 20 quarts, so our grand total for this pickin' was 90 quarts!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Here they are, all ready to be stored for the winter.

I had to find storage place for them quickly...to make room for my zucchini. LOL
You can see just some of those hiding behind the beans.
To be honest, we should have picked the weekend before, but we were just so busy with things that we couldn't do it. Then we weren't able to do it through the week, so it fell to last weekend. The unseasonably cool weather saved us on this one, because if it were as hot as it usually is here in Indiana in August, those beans would have been spongy if they'd been left on the vine too long. Normally, we would have had our first pickin' over a week ago & canned 40-50 quarts. Then picked again last weekend & got another 40-50 quarts. So really, this 90 quarts was 2 pickins' done at one time. LOL

Whew. It's a lot of work.
But it is very worth it.
I have been thanking God all week for this green bean harvest.

Now, I was hoping the corn would be ready this weekend, but it may be a few more days. And the tomatoes are coming on slowly, we get a few a day, but as soon as we have a few 90 degree days, we're going to have LOTS of them.

Buttered Zucchini

I would have thought that I would have tried this method of cooking zucchini by now, but believe it or not, I haven't. I was looking for a quick way to cook up a zucchini the other day for lunch. I didn't feel like the mess of regular fried zucchini (dipped in egg then flour then fried...YUM)
so I just decided I'd saute them.

Zucchini sauted in Butter

2-3 T Butter (NOT margarine)
1-2 zucchini (depending on size) peeled (or not), & sliced
salt & pepper
garlic salt (opt.)

Melt butter in large skillet. Add zucchini, salt, pepper, & garlic salt. Cook until tender.
I like mine to get a little browned. The browning from real butter gives it such a nice flavor.
Mmmmmmm....it's so good! We'll be having some with supper again tonight.

I'm thinking zucchini needs a catagory all to its own on my side bar. Maybe I'll do that...yes, I will!

Coffee Chocolate Bundt Cake from Amish Friendship Bread Starter

Coffee-Chocolate Bundt Cake (made from Amish Friendship Bread starter)

On day 10, after you have "fed your starter" & seperated new starters into different bags, there should be about 1 cup of starter left in your bowl.
To this add:
1 cup of oil (or 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup oil)
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Mix this well with your wooden (or plastic) spoon.

In a separate bowl, mix:
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 large box chocolate instant pudding
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 t. instant coffee
1/2 C. chocolate chips

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture & mix thoroughly. Pour into a well greased & lightly floured bundt pan. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Cool for 10 minutes then remove from pan.

When cake has cooled (it could still be warm if you'd like...YUM) drizzle it with a powdered sugar glaze. We still had coffee in the coffee maker, so I put a teaspoon (or so) of brewed coffee into a half a cup or so of powdered sugar. Oh....it was so good!

I just made one of these again yesterday & put it in our freezer for a rainy day.
I also put my starter in the freezer...I need a break from it for a while. I've been making Amish Friendship Bread every 10 days since May 3rd! Besides, I have zucchini coming out of my ears again, so it's time to start baking zucchini bread & zucchini oatmeal muffins & put them in the freezer too. I still have a few pictures of the different variations of this Amish Friendship Bread, so I'll still post them when I get around to it, even though I'm DONE baking it for a while. :)

Lemon Poppyseed Amish Friendship Bread

To my very few readers, I am so sorry that I haven't posted in so long! I haven't put anything on here since July 4th. That may be the longest I've ever "been away". I've just been really busy, that's all. I have continued to take pictures of food & even tried quite a bit of new foods this month, so I have a lot of material to post!
Since I posted about Amish Friendship Bread, I wanted to post some of the variations of this delicious bread. One of my husband's favorite is Lemon Poppyseed. One recipe of Amish Friendship Bread makes 2 loaf pans, or you could use just one bundt pan (& that sure helps if you're making more than one batch).

Lemon Poppyseed Amish Friendship Bread

On day 10, after you have "fed your starter" & seperated new starters into different bags, there should be about 1 cup of starter left in your bowl.
To this add:
1 cup of oil (or 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup oil)
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. lemon extract
Mix this well with your wooden (or plastic) spoon.

In a separate bowl, mix:
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 small boxes lemon instant pudding
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2-3 T. poppy seeds

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture & mix thoroughly. Pour into 2 large, well -greased loaf pans (OR 1 BUNDT PAN) that have been coated with with a thin coating of flour.
Bake at 325 for 1 hour

You don't need any icing on this, just slice & eat!
If you do want some icing, just add a little water & a little lemon juice to some powdered sugar to make a nice glaze to drizzle over the top.
I used to make this Lemon Poppyseed recipe a few years ago & I put it in mini muffin pans. It makes wonderful mini muffins. I made so many that I had our freezer stocked with them for a long time!

I sure hope to be better about getting on here & posting some recipes!

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

I found this old poem written by Helen Steiner Rice. It was in a book of her poems that was published in 1981 after her death.

God Bless America

America the beautiful
May it always stay that way-
But to keep "Old Glory" flying
There's a price that we must pay...
For everything worth having
Demands work and sacrifice,
And freedom is a gift from God
That commands the highest price...
For all our wealth and progress
Are as worthless as can be
Without the faith that made us great
And kept our country free...
Nor can our nation hope to live
Unto itself alone,
For the problems of our neighbors
Must today become our own...
So in these times of crisis
Let us offer no resistance
In giving help to those who need
Our strength and our assistance-
And the stars and stripes forever
Will remain a symbol of
A rich and mighty nation
Built on faith an truth and love.

By Helen Steiner Rice

Amish Friendship Bread- Cinnamon Bread

This is made from the starter called Amish Friendship Bread. You usually get this starter in a gallon sized ziplock bag. Today I'm typing up the "origional" directions for the first 10 days, & then the recipe for the cinnamon bread.

Amish Friendship Bread
DO NOT USE METAL SPOONS! DO NOT REFRIGERATE!
Day 1- do nothing
Days 2,3,4, & 5-"mush" the bag.
Day 6- add 1 cup flour, 1 cup of sugar, & 1 cup of milk to bag & mush the bag.
Days 7,8,9- "mush" the bag & let the air out of the bag.
Day 10-add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup milk to the bag & mush it really well (get all the lumps out that you can).
Pour this mixture into a large bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon & pour four 1 cup starters into gallon zip lock bags. You can give all four away, or give away 3 & keep one as a starter four your next batch. All of these starters are now at day 1.
There should be about 1 cup of starter left in your bowl.
To this add:
1 cup of oil (or 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup oil)
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix this well with your wooden (or plastic) spoon.
In a separate bowl, mix:
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 large box vanilla instant pudding
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 t. cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture & mix thoroughly. Pour into 2 large, well -greased loaf pans that have been coated with the cinnamon & sugar mixture (see below).
Sprinkle extra cinnamon sugar on top.
Bake at 325 for 1 hour.
Cinnamon & sugar mixture=1 tsp. cinnamon & 3 tsp. sugar

I *think* you can make your own starter by putting 1 cup each of milk, flour, & sugar into a ziplock bag. This would be day 1. I have read this online, but I've never done this myself though. **edited to add: Here is a link at recipezaar that tells how to make the starter. **

And, you can start giving your starter "half feedings" if you get too overwhelmed with too many starters every 10 days. Instead of feeding your bread 1 cup each of the milk, sugar, & flour, give it only 1/2 cup of each. Do this on day 6 & day 10. Then on day 10, baking day, you'll only have a total of 3 starters. I usually make 2 batches of bread & then only have 1 starter to keep it going.

I posted about half feedings here.