Lovina has been struck with the flu

By Lov­ina Eicher

I hope every­one had a blessed and healthy Christ­mas Day. I’ve been struck with the same flu that has been going around this house­hold. Hope­fully I’ll be on the mend soon. With Joe off this week and the kids home from school, the house has been full.

We’ve had snow and cold the past few days, per­fect weather for some soups or stews.

Thought I’d share recipes for a cou­ple of our favorites this week.

WINTER’S

DAY SOUP

1 table­spoon veg­etable oil

2 medium yel­low onions (chopped)

3 cloves garlic

5 cups home­made chicken broth

2 tea­spoons Worces­ter­shire sauce

4 table­spoons flour

1 medium head cau­li­flower (chopped)

1 medium bunch broc­coli (chopped)

3 medium pota­toes (diced)

2 cups heavy cream

2 cups grated extra sharp cheese

Salt and pep­per to taste

In a large pot, heat the oil and add the onions and cook for five min­utes. Add the gar­lic and cook for one minute. Add the chicken stock, Worces­ter­shire sauce and veg­eta­bles and sim­mer gen­tly for approx­i­mately 20 min­utes or until veg­eta­bles are ten­der. Stir flour with a lit­tle soup broth and add mix­ture along with the cream to the broth, stir­ring through. Add cheese a lit­tle at a time, stir­ring until com­pletely melted. Enjoy with thick sliced bread.

AMISH BEEF STEW

3 cups cubed beef

1 onion

8 large cut potatoes

2 cups cut carrots

2 cups cut celery

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup margarine

Salt to taste

Brown beef and onion in flour. Put into pot. Heat on low for two hours. Add veg­eta­bles and 1 cup tomato juice. Con­tinue cook­ing for one or two more hours.

• After a few cloudy days we wel­come the sun even more. When our bat­ter­ies on our solar-powered freezer starts blink­ing low we are even more happy to see the sun. It seems like one sunny day always recharges it for awhile. We are still glad we invested in the solar-powered freezer. Since hav­ing it installed we haven’t had to pay a cent to keep it going. With the propane prices high it is good to not be buy­ing for the freezer yet.

Our refrig­er­a­tor, stove, lights, and water heater run off of propane. Also our water is pow­ered by a propane motor. Last week we had a prob­lem with the motor not kick­ing in when the water sup­ply in the house was low. Susan and I wanted to do the laun­dry and there wasn’t any water. We decided to see if we could start it man­u­ally and it worked until the next time.

My hus­band Joe checked it out and called the man who installed it and asked if it could be the starter bat­ter­ies. We bought a new bat­tery and it fixed the prob­lem. It has been almost six years so that bat­tery lasted its money’s worth. I told Joe I guess we are spoiled now think­ing we always have hot and cold water in the house. Before our move to Michi­gan almost nine years ago we always had to pump and carry our water. If we wanted hot water we had to heat it.

Our motor for the water is in an out­side build­ing and the water runs to the house under­ground. We had two stor­age tanks and when the pres­sure got low the motor auto­mat­i­cally kicked in.

Joe also installed a new gas light in the boys bed­room on Sat­ur­day. They haven’t had a light in their bed­room since the fire in May so they were happy. At this time of the year it works as a heater as well. I think now except for a few doors we have to paint we have every­thing nor­mal from the fire we had.

Although since get­ting more coats out for the cold weather we are start­ing to see how many of our extra coats were burned. It was our extra coat stor­age closet too. We are thank­ful that it was all replace­able things we lost.

I am try­ing to sew new out­fits to give to the chil­dren. Daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth helps me sew when she gets home from the factory.

Daugh­ter Susan is doing most of the house­work and laun­dry the past few days so I can keep sewing. Today Susan is bak­ing two batches of out­ra­geous choco­late chip cook­ies to take along to church ser­vices on Sunday.

If you have heard of shoofly pie try this recipe for shoofly cake.

SHOOFLY CAKE

2 cups flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup but­ter, softened

1 cup boil­ing water

1/2 cup molasses

1 tea­spoon bak­ing soda

Com­bine flour, sugar, and but­ter by hand to make fine crumbs. Reserve 3/4 cup crumbs to put on top of the cake. Mix together water, molasses, and bak­ing soda. Add to the crumb mix­ture and com­bine. Put in a 9 by 13 greased pan and sprin­kle with reserved crumbs. Bake at 350 for 30 to 40 min­utes or until done.

Read­ers with culi­nary or cul­tural ques­tions or to share recipes write Lov­ina at: Lov­ina Eicher, c/o Oasis News­fea­tures, P.O. Box 157, Mid­dle­town, OH 45042. To learn more about Amish cul­ture and the Amish Cook col­umn and to sign up for the twice weekly newslet­ter, visit www.amishcookonline.com or “The Amish Cook Fan Page” on Facebook.

Posted by Lovina Eicher on Jan 2 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.