Category Archives: Foodie

Old Fashioned Strawberry Jam

by

I just ran out of last years jam about a week ago.  I had raspberry jam, tomato marmalade, and apple butter.  My kids are PB and J eaters at lunch time.  As soon as we ran out, my son asked me to call grandma to see if she had anymore jams or jellies.  When she didn’t, we started to go into panic mode, and by we, I mean he.  I tried to sell him peanut butter and honey, but that was a no go.  He told me I could just go to the store and get some tomorrow.  I assured him if we just wait a few more days the strawberries will be ready.  When I showed him this bunch of strawberries, “Good job, mom” was his response.  Thanks, I appreciate a sincere “Good job, mom”.

Old Fashioned Strawberry Jam

4 cups crushed strawberries.  6 or 7 cups of whole strawberries cut into halves and pulsed a few times in the food processor will do the trick.

4 cups sugar

Sterilize 4 half pint canning jars by boiling water and pouring into clean jars.  Let sit for a little bit (15 min.).  Also throw the rings and ring bands into scalding water and let those sit until ready to use.

Pour the  crushed strawberries into a 5 quart pot.  Stir in the sugar until well blended.  Bring mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.  Continue boiling, uncovered and stir frequently, for 10 to 15 minutes or until it starts to thicken.  The big bubbles are a good indication that the mixture is thickening.  Also, if you stick a spoon in the pot, take it out, blow on it a little to cool it down,  the jam will start to stick to the spoon.

Pour into the hot jars leaving 1/8  inch of head space at the top.  Wipe rim with a damp cloth.  Place lids on jars and screw on ring bands firmly.  Set jars on a towel out of a draft.  Now my favorite part, listen for the pings of the lids when they seal.  Test to make sure all lids are sealed.  Just push the top of the lid and it should not push down.

The base recipe for this jam is from a book I found at a farm auction in a big box of cookbooks and other recipes called Canning Freezing and Drying published by Lane publishing in 1981.  I think I paid $5.00 for the whole box of cookbooks.

The Farm Wife

The Morel Mushroom

by

In Wisconsin, we take our Morel mushroom season very seriously.  We also call ourselves the best Morel mushroom state.  I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ve heard it more than once so it must be true.  I know that I didn’t understand the art of hunting Morels until I moved to this state.  By the way, if you are looking down more than you are looking up – you are not doing it right.  The hunt is more for the tree than the mushroom.

I have a great neighbor, Lynn, who held my hand (not literally) through the morel mushroom hunting learning process.  We started out by going out together and he would find them and me and the kids would ohh and ahh.  Then I graduated to finding trees that he tagged for me with red tape.  It was like an Easter egg hunt.  Now I’m on my own, but there has been more than one occasion when Lynn has pulled up beside me with his 4 wheeler and handed me a bag of mushrooms before.  I completely count that as a victory.  It doesn’t matter how you find them, as long as you have them in your hand you’re a winner.

A tree that I found about 10 mushrooms under. Bark is just starting to fall off. This is an Elm.

Like I said, the hunt is for the tree.  You are looking for a dead tree, but not too dead.  Too dead is all the bark falling off and bats living inside.  That tree is too far gone to grow Morels.  You are looking for a tree where the bark is just starting to fall off near the top.  Now you see why you are looking up more than looking down.  When you find the perfect tree, that’s when you start looking down.  Also, you can find the perfect tree and not find Morels.  Elms are probably the most popular trees for Morel hunters, but mushrooms have been found under oaks or even apple trees.  Lynn says any dead tree can grow a Morel.  It is true that Elms are more likely to have them.  The Elm trees that are most common around here are tall with a few large (5 or so) branches  at the top growing up.  As opposed to an Oak that has many large branches growing gracefully all over and some sloping down.  Oaks are my favorite trees!

Moving on to the best part, which is the eating part.  Morels are awesome sautéed in butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and consumed right away.  I wanted the kids to enjoy and understand the point of the mushroom hunt so we ate our mushrooms right after getting home.  Since Morels are very strong flavored, as far as mushrooms are concerned, they can pretty much stand alone.  A cracker and a sliver of swiss makes it all the better.  Good luck with your Morel mushroom hunting endeavors.

The Farm Wife

My Cast Iron Cast offs

by

I love cooking on an open fire.  My specialties include breakfast and Paella.  Cast Iron skillets are awesome for this sort of cooking.  When the farmer drives us down to Florida in the late winter, right around Chattanooga there are signs for a Lodge cookware factory store off the interstate.  I have for years made mention of this when we pass the billboard and the farmer, for years, has ignored my mention.  This year I was ready, I even had a chart, actually it was a list, and I was using my fingers instead of a chart, none the less, I had my reasons why we absolutely had to stop.  If worse came to worse, I had it narrowed down to the one thing I needed if I was only allowed one thing.  The one thing was the larger-than-life-too-heavy-to-pick-up skillet.  You know, in case you need to make breakfast for 40, I already went through this with the farmer.

In the back of the Lodge store, there is the scratch and dent stuff.  This is all the cast iron cast offs at about half price.  My theory is you can’t hurt cast iron so how bad can it be?  I got 3 new pieces I added to my cast iron collection and I am still looking for the defects.  They aren’t boxed up all nice and they sort of just throw ‘em at ya  when you check out but me and the farmer don’t mind, we’re tough.  The 3 new pieces I acquired are the loaf pan, skillet, and dutch oven.  The loaf pan is fantastic it makes a perfect looking loaf of bread.  I wish I would have gotten another.

Loaf pan

The dutch oven is very large.  Great for a big roast.

Dutch Oven or Casserole as my Irish cookbook calls it.

The skillet is, like I said, too heavy.  I have not had 40 people over for breakfast yet so I haven’t gotten a chance to really test it out.  If weight indicates anything though it should work just fine.

The Farm Wife

The Coffee Shop

by

I’m a foodie, and I think that every good foodie enjoys a good cup of coffee.  Along with enjoying a good cup of coffee, you have to have a good coffee hang out.  Sacred Grounds Coffee Shop is my coffee hang out. .  Our Church has a regular, running,come-in-sit-down-and-hang-out, coffee shop ministry.  It is really quite unique.  I don’t know of any other church that has something like this, although maybe I’m not a good one to ask because I don’t do a lot of research on what other churches are doing.  But, even those huge 3-services-on-Sunday type churches, I don’t think have a coffee shop.  We are a small church in a small town, and we have the coolest not-for-profit coffee shop ever!

I volunteer at Sacred Grounds whenever I can.  People ask me why I volunteer and I say “I’m doing Gods work.”  Although, it helps that Gods work comes with a free latte!  The coffee shop has been in existance for 6 years.  My good friend Katie started the coffee shop and still runs it today.  She has dedicated so much of herself to this place.  Amazing!  I just drink coffee.  If you want to come in and talk while I’m drinking my coffee that’s fine too.  That’s what we are here for, and that is exactly why God put this little coffee shop where it is.

The Farm wife

Garden Expo

by

Over the weekend, I went to the garden expo at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison Wisconsin.  It was all I hoped for in a garden expo,  there were booths of all kinds, landscaping, patio, garden art, and those are all fun to just walk around and see what everyone has to offer for all your garden and landscaping needs, but the nice part of the garden expo are the seminars and demonstrations.  Every class I went to was very full, grape growing was especially full with standing room only.  There were demonstrations about brewing coffee,  pruning evergreens,  starting seeds you name it there was a demonstration or seminar about it.  I took in three seminars, native plants, grape growing, and top five tips for a productive garden.  Then I sat in on a couple quick demonstrations, Coffee brewing and a pruning demo.  All were  well worth my time very educational.

There were a couple reasons I decided to go to the garden expo #1 and most obviously I enjoy all things gardening.  #2. I wanted to pick up some good blogging material and ideas, and #3. I wanted to meet Kyle Cherek, the host of Wisconsin Foodie which is my new favorite show.  I believe Wisconsin Foodie is in it’s fourth season and is just a fantastic show about Wisconsin farmers, farm to table restaurants, cheese makers, produce growers and the list goes on.  Please check out their website www.Wisconsinfoodie.com.  I did get a chance to meet Kyle and armed my mom with the camera and also got a picture with him.  All my reasons for going to garden expo were checked off.

I will have more indepth posts about the specific seminars I went to in the near future.  Just to give you a teaser there are now 80-90 wine grape varieties now in Wisconsin.  I know, I know, now you can’t hardly wait for more on that subject.  Don’t worry it’s coming soon!

The farm wife