Mabel and the Mennonites

One of my favorite presents this year did not come from a store; instead, it came from my ever-classy Great Aunt Carmon, who makes the most beautiful cakes I've seen in person.

After reading my blog for a few months, Aunt Carmon decided that I might like a cookbook that her aunt gave her years ago. She wrapped it elegantly and gave it to me for Christmas.

I've never met my great (great?) Aunt Mabel, but my mother and grandmother tell me she was neither a domestic diva nor a reverent lady.

"She just lived in a town with a large Mennonite population," mom dished when I unwrapped the book Christmas afternoon. "Mabel did what she wanted. And she was not a church kind of lady." (This comment was followed by affirming nods all over the room, as if Aunt Mabel had been a burlesque dancer or a tattoo artist.) Whatever Mabel was (or wasn't), she left behind a great book, full of Kansas history, anecdotes, and, oh yeah, recipes. Behold! The Melting Pot of Mennonite!

Published by the Bethel College Women's Association
Newton, Kansas, 1974

Melting Pot of Mennonite Cookery features stories, recipes, and the history of Kansas Mennonites from each place mentioned on the cover - from Poland to Russia. I could read that book with as much zeal as the latest Gregory Maguire novel.

It includes folk treatments for common ailments (tobacco juice for ringworm, peppermint oil for upset stomach, onion juice for bee stings), recipes for granulated soap and wall paper paste, and advice on how to preserve a husband:

1. Be careful in your selection.
2. Do not choose too young.
3. When once selected, give your entire thought to preparation for domestic use.....
4. Wrap them in a mantle of charity, keep warm with a steady fire of domestic devotion, and serve with peaches and cream. Thus prepared, they will keep for years!

Of course, the recipes are the main attraction. Each group of Mennonites in Kansas had their own recipes for lebkuchen, rye bread, noodles, and applesauce. And each recipe variation comes with little asides. For example, next to the recipe for currant applesauce, which is essentially currants cooked with applesauce, is written, "simple, but different!" This book is a treasure trove of comfort cooking: bread pudding, sausages, potato pancakes, pies, cheeses of all kinds, and sauerkraut. Mmm. I'm ready to tuck in.

Next week, I want to tackle some of the more unique recipes, like vanilla sauce and corn cob syrup, but today, I started simple. With potatoes.

Fried Potatoes, verbatim from Melting Pot of Mennonite

Begin with raw potatoes.

Select 2 or 3 potatoes per person to be served. Peel. Drop into water to prevent discoloring. Slice very thin into a skillet that has 2 or 3 tbsp. of shortening heating. Season with salt and pepper.

Cover and fry over moderate fire, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are done. Some may be browned, but by keeping the cover on the skillet, the potatoes will become soft with a super flavor. Serve with spring onions and fried eggs.

Fried potatoes, the two-step process.

My notes:

I didn't have a skillet big enough for the whole job at once, so I kept the potato sliced in a pot of hot water and cooked in batches. When I finished one batch of potatoes, I slipped them onto an aluminum pie plate that I kept in the oven on warm.

For the "shortening," I used a good quality unsalted butter -- about 3 tbsp. for two gigantic baking potatoes. The butter, when kept on a medium-low heat, gives the potatoes such a rich, delicious flavor! Just don't burn the butter, please.

Also, I didn't season the potatoes until the very end of cooking, with a little pepper, some sea salt, and a few caraway seeds -- just a pinch or two of each spice.

My husband and I couldn't finish the potatoes between us, and we each only had one fried egg and some applesauce (and I had a smidge of cranberry sauce.) I have no idea how a person could consume "two or three potatoes per person" with fried eggs and onions. Mercy.

D'r Schaffmann is sei lu waert.

The laborer is worthy of his hire.

Christmas cheer and macaroons

Put some holiday records on, because today did not start well and I may have lost the holiday spirit. Nobody died, and it's nothing a little Dean Martin and spiked coffee won't fix, but unwinding from a panicked morning takes me a while.

Thank Goodness I took a shower before I went to bed last night, because today, instead of waking up at 6 a.m. to hit the gym, I woke up at 8:40. With five minutes to rise, dress, and run out the door for work. In five minutes, indeed, I did leave, looking more-or-less composed and feeling proud of my accomplishment.

Then, as I stepped on my front porch, I discovered a glinting, gleaming world of ice and frost before me. And my darling car, parked in front of the empty garage, was coated in ice. Once I sat in my car and turned on its defroster, I remembered that we'd lost the last ice scraper. There wasn't one in the car anywhere. Also, my driver door refuses to shut again when it's icy and cold. You just have to lock the door and hope for the best until the entire vehicle is warmed.

My husband rescued me from my icy windshield with a plastic spatula. What a hero! Then, slipping and sliding, I skated to work and medicated myself with coffee.

Perhaps, with enough coffee, I will soon forget the Christmas gifts that need finishing and all of the travels my husband and I need to make today on the devilish roads. Family members this year are receiving home-made, practical gifts from us: scarves, books, chocolate, puppy chow, and macaroons in vintage tins. Oh, you don't think macaroons are practical?


Macaroons are practical, especially if you have little time and family members who watch their blood sugar but still love sweets.

For these macaroons, which take about 40 minutes (total!) to make, I combined the best aspects of a few recipes I love. For their dainty shape and for the recipe size, I used a simple recipe from Martha Stewart's website. Then, on a riff from Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini, I used mostly unsweetened coconut of a fine grind. And finally, I made my own tweak to intensify the sweetness in a healthier way by using mostly honey to sweeten the macaroons, a la Jennie's macaroons. If I wasn't so committed to making macaroons this year, I'd just buy a ton of Jennie's macaroons and eat them before I had a chance to give them away. They are that good.

But, making your own macaroons makes your whole home smell like honey and coconut. Who could skip out on that?

Coconut Macaroons
which save the day

• 3 large egg whites
• 1/2 cup honey plus 2 Tb.
  
• 2 Tb. sugar (for dusting)
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 14 oz. sweetened or unsweetened coconut flakes, fine grind

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk together the whites, honey, and sea salt until the mixture is frothy and good. Stir in the coconut and mix with a fork until everything is moistened. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes while you find your measuring spoons again (I always misplace mine.)

Sprinkle a tiny pinch of sugar in your tablespoon, coating the inside of the spoon lightly, before you load the spoon tight with the coconut mixture. (The sugar will cook and harden a little more than the honey will, trapping more moisture inside the macaroon.) Pack that spoon tight before turning the macaroon out onto the baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the batch. You should have about 30 macaroons. Bake until macaroons are a light golden brown, about 25 - 30 minutes. Let the macaroons cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

The macaroons will store nicely for a few days in an air-tight container. A tasty Christmas gift!

If you, like me, are still scrambling to complete a few more gifts, consider these other last-minute recipes:

• Kate's favorite puppy chow recipe. I like to use dark chocolate pieces instead of milk.
  

• Martha's rosemary butter cookies. For your more savory friends.

• Double duty chocolate cookies. Double the recipe so you don't eat all the cookies.

• Hokey pokey. I like to use Lyle's Golden Syrup. Who has the time to make peanut brittle?

• Quick cranberry sauce. I like to add chopped peach slices and candied ginger to mine.
  

Merry Christmas and safe travels!

A syrup for all occasions

Wichita is being powdered with snow and whipped by wind as I type, cozily, from my home. I feel like I'm in a gingerbread house that's being coated with confectioner's sugar. We're getting about three inches of ski-perfect snow today, and the temperature shouldn't climb above 20 degrees.

Christmas lurks around the corner, and I'm enjoying some staples of the season: our tree is up and decorated, we're stocked with cocoa mix, most of my presents are finished, and I'm fighting the arrival of my annual Christmas cold.

Right now, it's a small invader, a small, irritated place in the back of my throat. If left unchecked, though, I'll no longer be the only healthy staff member at work. I will fight fire with syrup, then. Bring on the ginger and lemon.

I find fresh, cheap ginger at Thai Binh market year-round

I love this syrup because each and every ingredient soothes a sore throat and boosts my immune system at the same time. This syrup works as a cough syrup, as a tea, and as a sweetener for other herbal teas (like echinacea, chamomile, peppermint, etc.)

Lovely lemon-ginger syrup

• one large piece of ginger, cut into thin slices
• one lemon, sliced very thin
• 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups of water
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1 clean glass jam jar with lid
  

Prepare fruit and ginger, then set aside. Place the jam jar on the stove, ready to receive the liquid when it's finished.

Bring water to a boil in a small saucepan, then add ginger slices. Let the ginger simmer for 10-20 minutes, or until the ginger has made the water cloudy, fragrant, and brown. Remove the ginger with a slotted spoon and add lemon slices. Simmer the lemon for another 10-15 minutes, until the fruit is wilted and its juice imparted to the solution.

Remove the lemon with a slotted spoon, then add the honey. Bring the solution to a medium boil and allow much of the water to evaporate. Reduce to about a little more than a cup of liquid, or until you reach the consistency of syrup you desire. If you need to add water to reach this consistency, that is fine. (Every stove/lemon/saucepan is a little different.)

Pour the syrup into the waiting jam jar, let it cool to about room temperature, then seal. The syrup will keep in the fridge for about two months. Take it straight or diluted in a tea. It also tastes great over vanilla ice cream...

Worth waiting for

This week, Wichita had its first significant snow of the season. A whole two inches of fluff fluttered to the ground, causing school children to rejoice and creating over 100 fender-benders across the city. The storm is what police officers call "wake-up call weather." Sales of driveway salt and wiper blades must have soared.

Snow's arrival each year means many things to me. It means my husband, who drives a 35-foot vehicle for a living, will arrive home late, after avoiding careless drivers all day. It means my radio station may get a flood of school cancellation calls. It means that instead of taking a brisk walk in the White Wonderland, I have the desire to curl up in my window seat eating truffles and cheese. And it means ice cream. Snow ice cream.

From the copious snowfall in 2007

My mother must have learned how to make snow ice cream from her mother, and who knows where the recipe came before that. I remember being a little girl and waiting for the right amount of snow to fall each winter, because if we had enough, there would be ice cream.

The first few inches are no good to use, mom told my sister and me, because it's full of dirt and impurities from the atmosphere. The drifts that fall four, five, six inches in are better and cleaner. Once enough snow had fallen, we placed a large mixing bowl in the planter by the front porch

and waited.

When the bowl was full, we'd take it inside, where mom would help us mix in milk, sugar, and vanilla until we had ice cream that rivaled (and beat) that ice cream machine stuff. It only takes minutes to make and minutes to eat.

Put on your down-lines boots, grab your favorite mixing bowl, and follow me outside. This stuff doesn't keep.

The McClure's Classic Snow Ice Cream

• one large mixing bowl full of fresh, clean snow
• about 1 cup of milk (full fat is best)
  
• 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar
• 1-2 tsp. vanilla

Once you've gathered the snow, bring it inside quickly and get to work. Using a large spoon, pour in milk, a third at a time, until you've reached the consistency of ice cream you would like. Some people like their ice cream hard, like custard, some the consistency of soup.

After the milk, stir in sugar to taste. Add vanilla and mix everything together well. The snow will melt a little while you work, but if you go quickly, it won't affect the finished product much. Serve immediately. I've found that about three cups of fallen snow will yield a one-cup serving of finished ice cream.



Kate's Honey-Buttershots variation

• one large bowl of fresh, clean snow
• 1 large shot of Buttershots liqueur (I used a one-serving bottle from the liquor store)
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup honey
• about 1 cup milk
  

Prepare ice cream as above, except for one step. You need to prepare the honey/milk mixture before bringing the snow into your home.

So, before adding the snow, heat honey in the microwave for about seven seconds, or just until it melts into a runny liquid, then mix it in with the milk. Refrigerate the milk/honey mixture for a few minutes before retrieving the snow. Then, combine the snow, liqueur, and milk mixture until you reach your perfect consistency. Since this version is heavier on liquids, you may need to dash outside for more snow. Serve immediately.

Canned pumpkin put to good use

The real deal: check out those sugared pumpkin seeds.

I graduated from a prestigious liberal arts college in May, 2005, with a real degree in writing and a minor in journalism, and, after a brief stint in Seattle, I moved to Wichita to get a grown-up job with my college skills.

However, I ended up using another talent I learned in college: the ability to sling lattes. I worked as a shift supervisor at one of the top ten busiest drive-thru Starbucks stores in the country after college. What an... eventful time in my life. I learned to rock the green apron and a headset, to make tasty beverages fast, and to draw personalized Sharpie pictures and messages (Have a great day!) on cups in under 15 seconds. My fellow partners and I literally bonded over coffee, and some of those friendships are going strong today.

I learned to see the seasons through the lens of a Starbucks drink menu. Spring was iced teas, smoothies, and dainty cookies. Summers floated by in frappuccinos and clouds of fresh whipped cream. I kept cozy in the winter with peppermint mochas (topped with the special red sprinkles) ginger loaf, and the occasional chai eggnog. But in the fall, my favorite beverage arrived: the pumpkin spice latte, and it's prom date, the pumpkin cream cheese muffin. Starbucks would bring these warming treats into customer's lives on November 1st and take them away as soon the holidays ended. Harsh move, Starbucks.

As the November leaves fell, we sold boxes and boxes (and boxes) of pumpkin cream cheese muffins. I remember the amount because my supervisor duties included keeping the pastry case stocked and gorgeous. I considered it a calming, zen task. I could forget when drive thru window looked like a battlefield strewn with dead cups or the arrival of that peculiar man who wanted his dry, dry soy cappuccino while I piled scones and muffins high.

We kept our freezer stuffed with these muffins at all times. I enjoyed their subtle goodness and variety. Crunchy-sweet pumpkin seeds on top, spiced cake beneath, filled with sugared cream cheese. And, after handling literally hundreds of them, I know a real Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin when I see one.

I searched the Internet tonight for a recipe that could capture these qualities. There was no one, definitive recipe out there. So, I threw a few strong contenders together and made tweaks to match my memories, and I think we have a winner.

Pumpkin cream cheese muffins
makes 12 normal muffins or 6 Starbucks-sized muffins

For the muffins

• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup ground flax (optional)
  
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar (I used turbinado sugar)
• 1 cup pumpkin pie filling (the higher quality, the richer the taste)
• 1/2 cup + 1 Tb full fat yogurt or salad oil

For the filling

• 4 oz. softened cream cheese
• 3 Tb. maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla (optional)
  

Topping

• 1/4 cup raw or toasted pumpkin seeds
• 1 Tb. maple syrup
• 1 tsp. sugar
• ground cinnamon for sprinkling
  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin pan with 12 cupcake papers. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, and flax, then set aside. In a larger bowl, beat eggs for a minute, then whisk in pumpkin, sugar, and yogurt. Stir dry ingredients into the wet mixture, mixing just enough to blend everything together. Spoon batter into the pan, filling each well 2/3 full. Set aside.

In another bowl, cut cream cheese into small chunks and whip together with maple syrup and vanilla until smooth and consistent in texture. Spoon this mixture into a pastry bag with a shaped tip or use the corner of a plastic bag to pipe cream cheese into the center of each muffin. I made sure to get the cream cheese mixture at least halfway down into the batter, so there was cream cheese in each bite.

Using your now-empty flour bowl, quickly toss the remaining maple syrup, sugar, and pumpkin seeds together until the seeds are well coated. Sprinkle the seeds on the top of the muffins for a tasty garnish. Lightly dust the tops of the muffins with cinnamon and bake them for 20-25 minutes. They're done when a toothpick inserted into the largest muffin (not the cream cheese filling) comes out clean. These muffins are even better the next day. Store in an air-tight container in the fridge for a week. Not that they'll last that long.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:
In Memory of Aunt Rheba
Miss Rita's Banana Bread
Chai-spiced pumpkin bread