"Ice Tea Day"

What could be more refreshing in the heat of the day than a big glass of Ice Tea?  (No, don't give us your answer if it differs!)  :)  This being "Ice Tea Day", I'm offering this recipe:

Farmer Boy Sweet Tea

Ingredients:

• Tea bags or loose tea
• water, preferably clean, filtered (not bottled or distilled!)
• Sugar syrup

Directions: Brew up some tea, * by boiling water and adding it to the tea.  (I like to use tea bags - less of a mess!) You are going to want to brew it to be very strong - so use more tea than you normally would.  Let it steep up to 5 minutes, but don't over steep or it will get bitter.   Then cool it to room temperature.

While it is cooling, you can make your sugar syrup.  Take one cup of sugar and dissolve it in one cup of water, over medium heat.  Bring it to a boil and simmer 2 minutes.  Cool this to room temperature or refrigerate. (This can be stored in the refrigerator in a sealed bottle.) 

To make the ice tea, simply fill a glass with ice cubes.  Pour the cooled tea into the glass, followed by the sugar syrup (to taste).  You may wish to add a sprig of fresh mint or a slice of lemon also.

*Note: you could also use Sun Tea, (tea that is brewed by leaving the tea ball or bags in a jar of water, out in the hot sun for a few hours. This makes a really nice, smooth and mellow tasting tea!) And, for goodness sake, don't use instant tea!  :)

If you are a "Yankee", from the north, you may not be familiar with "Sweet Tea" or how to order it in a southern restaurant.  Here is the process: Simply say, "I'd like a Sweet Tea, please."  Or you don't have to be so formal, just say, "I'd like a Tea, please."  They'll know what you mean, because it is a "Southern" thing!  In fact, I don't think you could order it any other way!  :)

I hope you'll try this recipe and then leave a comment here. Thanks.  The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

National Doughnut Day

Every time I read "Farmer Boy", by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I get hungry for some old-fashioned home cooking recipes!  Why do you suppose that is the case"  :)

This time, as I read about how Almanzo's mother made those doughnuts, and I noticed that "National Doughnut Day" was on the horizon, I did something about it!  I went through my heirloom recipes and found the one that I remembered my Great Aunt making when I was but a young boy myself!  This is the recipe I'm sharing with you today.

Farmer Boy Cinnamon Donuts

Ingredients: (should make about 1 1/2 dozen, depending on thickness)

• 2 Cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg
• 1 Cup of sweet milk (although my Aunt probably used Goat Milk)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• Lard for frying (or vegetable oil - I used Peanut Oil)
• sugar and cinnamon for coating

Directions: Place about 1/2 cup of sugar and cinnamon mixture into a paper lunch bag and set aside.

Place the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl.  In another bowl, cream the egg and sugar.  Add the milk, and vanilla to the egg mixture.  Add all the wet mixture to the flour and stir.  Add more flour as needed, to make a thick batter.

Dump the batter onto a floured surface to roll out.  Roll out to about 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into 1/2 by 8 inch strips.  Using your floured hands, roll each into ropes.  Finding the center of each rope, twist or braid them, sealing the ends.

In a kettle, heat the lard or oil to 375 degrees F.  Gently lower each twisted rope into the kettle to fry them. (Don't crowd them!) Fry each till they are golden brown.

Remove them to paper toweling.  Then, one at a time, shake gently in the paper bag of sugar/cinnamon to coat them.

I don't know if this is anything like the recipe that Mrs. Wilder used, but it is certainly what gave me my happy childhood memories of doughnuts!

I once saw this sign in the window of a bakery, "Seven days without doughnuts, makes one weak! (week)" :)

I hope you'll try this recipe and then come back here to leave a comment. Thanks. The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

"So many recipes, so little time!"

When you have literally hundreds of heirloom recipes, and there are only a few minutes in a day in which to look through the pile, you might miss something!  Well, this is the case here, with this recipe.  At some point I'd like to be able to organized all these recipes.  I don't see that happening any time soon, but it is one of those things you put on a "To Do" list.

As a result of not having them organized or categorized, I'm not always sure what the recipe makes! So many times I've come across something that was written a century or more ago, and it has a list of ingredients but no directions.  Others, like this one, have no name!  So where do I go from there? Well, in most cases, with recipes like that, they get put aside for further investigation at some time in the future.  If I'm on a quest to find a certain recipe or type of dish, I end up sorting through half of them each time!

I've been looking for a recipe which was mentioned in Laura's book, "Farmer Boy".  In the book it is called, "Rye 'n' Injun Bread".  Well, I figured it should be in my heirloom recipes somewhere.  But I haven't come across it yet.  Then, the other day, I happened to look at one of those, which was probably written down by my great grandmother, over a century ago.  It didn't have a recipe name, but as I looked at the list of ingredients, most of them are those associated with "Rye 'n' Injun Bread".  I say, "most" because there are some extra ingredients, like all-purpose flour, raisins, currents and chopped nuts.  So, I scratched my head in wonder.  But then it dawned on me - this was probably an altered "Rye 'n' Injun Bread" recipe.  Barbara M. Walker, in her "Little House Cookbook" talks about how the recipe changed over the years. And it probably changed from one locale to another as well.  My great grandmother had her roots in the Germanic settlements of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The only way I'd know for sure what I had in my hand was to make it.  Then, as I looked more at this old, handwritten recipe, I noticed that some of the directions didn't quite make sense. (Some of these recipes are written in "Broken English" - a cross between German and English.) So I had to spend some time, using my culinary knowledge, to figure out how I could make this recipe.
This is what I came up with:

Farmer Boy Rye 'n' Injun Brown Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup of all-purpose flour
• 1 Cup of Rye flour
• 1 Cup of yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 Cup of buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 Cup of molasses
• 3/4 Cup of raisins
• 1/2 Cup of currents (optional)
• 1/2 Cup of Pecans, roughly chopped

Directions: In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flours, salt and baking soda.  Stir into this, the buttermilk, eggs and molasses.  When this is thoroughly mixed, stir in the raisins and pecans.  Pour this mixture into a greased loaf pan.  Bake in a pre-heated oven, at 300 degrees F. for about 1 1/2 hours. (Test with a probe.)  My recipe called for the use of a water bath in the oven, but I think you'd do best to avoid too much moisture when baking it.   I took the bath out after an hour, and it seemed just right!  It won't rise like most sweet breads, and might seem dry to you if you aren't familiar with "Brown Breads".

This is not the "definitive" Brown Bread recipe, but it is one that my family passed down for over a century.  I can only vaguely remember having it as a child; but I do remember having a store-bought "Brown Bread" that came in a can.  If my memory is working good, this recipe tastes better than the canned one!  My recipe called for "a slow oven", which might have been about 200 degrees and baking time was hours long!  But I don't think it would be completely safe to do it that long at such a low temperature, because of the eggs. (But maybe I'm wrong!)  I hope you'll try this recipe, if for no other reason, to have something like Almanzo ate as a boy!  If you make it, please come back here and leave a comment.  Thanks.  The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Carrie Ingalls Swanzey

The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Freda's thoughts of peace

Thanks for reading.  If you like this thought for the day, please leave a comment to encourage Freda. Thanks. The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Freda's Friday

Thanks for looking!  If you like reading these thoughts from Freda, please leave a comment to encourage her. Thanks.  The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Chilly for the end of May!

Oops!  I meant, "Chili"!   Well, actually, it should be "Chili Sandwich" for the end of May!  :)

This is what I like to do with that small amount of left-over chili (with beans) - simply make a sandwich with it!

You may rather make this sandwich with a soft tortilla, but I like it with a couple slices of toasted bread.  Anyway, it's just that simple - just place the cold chili in there and off you go!

Now, you may want to be a little more creative and add some shredded cheese in there and maybe some sour cream.  So, just consider this the start!

As for the weather at the end of May: it seems to have gotten over being cold here!  And now we are experiencing some summer-like weather.  (I welcome that!)  :)  The Old man in the Bib Overalls

Something from Almanzo's cousin -

Thanks for looking - if you like "Freda's Thoughts" please leave a message that I can pass on to her. The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

The Birth of Grace Pearl Ingalls

Grace Pearl Ingalls was born on May 23,1877, in Burr Oak, Iowa.  It was a small town, just over the border from Minnesota.

The Ingalls family had been living in Burr Oak, Iowa following the death of "Little Freddie", the only boy born to Charles and Caroline.  Charles Frederick (Freddie) Ingalls had only lived a little over nine months.

Charles had made a deal to manage the Masters Hotel in exchange for room and board for his family.  But, being next to the town saloon, the accommodations didn't suit the family.  Also, the deal went sour, when Charles didn't receive the money he was promised for his work.

So, the family found better living quarters over the grocery store. But, even that was too near the saloon to make for quiet and peaceful living.  The owners of the grocery lived on the first floor.  One night Charles was awakened with the owner yelling and arguing below, in his quarters with his wife.  He was drunk and was threatening to burn the building down!  Charles was able to calm him down, but it lead to the Ingalls family seeking new living arrangements.

While staying at the hotel, they had met Mr. Bisbee, a border.   He taught Laura to sing with musical scales.  This connection with Mr. Bisbee proved providential.  The family was finally able to find a more suitable home, when Mr. Bisbee offered them rent in a red brick house at the edge of town.  It was there that Grace was born.

It was a wonder that Grace and her mother came through the pregnancy without ill effects!  Just months after Grace had been conceived, there was an outbreak of measles in the town!  Mary, Laura and Carrie were exposed to it by playing with children in their home.  But, it seems that there was no trouble for either Caroline or Grace.  Perhaps this was a contributing factor to the naming of Grace.

Charles had started a feed-mill.  He used his team horses to operate the mill stone.  But there wasn't much money to be made in the small town.  As as result, he longed to move again.

In Charles and Caroline's minds, Burr Oak had turned out to be a "Less than desirable" place to raise a family.  For them, Grace's birth was about the only good thing that they took away from their time in Burr Oak.  Shortly after Grace's birth they moved again; this time they returned to Walnut Grove, Minnesota.

The family owed money to the doctor and were finding it difficult to pay the rent to Bisbee.  Charles tried reasoning with his creditors, but they were callus and demanding. He told Bisbee that he would relocate and then send him the money for the owed rent.  But Bisbee refused the offer.  When Bisbee threatened to have the law take Charles' horses, that was all it took for him to make a quick decision. So, he packed up the family in the middle of the night and left town in the morning.  Charles, being a man of his word, knew that he would send the money owed to Bisbee.  I'm sure he was relieved to put the whole experience behind him!

In Laura's "Little House" books, she didn't give much detail of the time her family spent in Burr Oak.  She did, however, hold some sweet memories of those days, despite what trouble her parents had there.  In correspondence, she later spoke fondly of her school days there.  She would always remember the loud, lawlessness of the town saloon and the time it caught fire.  She simply remembered that time as part of her growing up and the birth of her sister Grace.

The Old Man in the Bib Overalls

Farmer Boy, "Chickens in the Orchard"

If you have ever raised chickens, then you'll understand the importance of keeping them from getting into the vegetable garden or even the orchard!  They have a tendancy to peck and eat those things that they shouldn't!  Even "Free Range" chickens need to be fenced in, away from crops!

Evidently Laura knew how to keep her chickens in line!  When she and husband, Almanzo, came to live on their farm in Mansfield, she was so successful at raising chickens that she was known here as "The Chicken Lady"!  In just a short time, she supplied almost all eggs for the town!

From the title of this posting, you might wonder where this is going.  This is not a story about how the chickens got out of their yard and into the orchard, nor is it a "How To" on raising chickens.  But it is actually a recipe that I've called, "Chickens in the Orchard"

Ingredients: (for each sandwich filling)

• 2 Tablespoons fo cooked chicken, diced
• 2 Tablespoons of chopped Pecans
• 2 Tablespoons of chopped, peeled and diced Apple
• 2 Tablespoons each of: sour cream and mararine or softened butter
• 2 slices of bread

Directions: Simply combine the chicken, pecans and apple.  Mix together the sour cream and butter.  Mix all these together.  Spread onto the slices of bread.  *You could also use a Pita Bread, opened up.  (I used some homemade Sour Dough Bread here.  I have a recipe in the blog archives for the Sour Dough Bread.)

Some people, (like Laura) get inspiration to write poetry or stories.  I get inspiration to write recipes. (Well, actually I do get inspired to write other things too!  Watch for those on my blog from time to time also.)
If you make this sandwich, please leave a comment here about it. Thanks.  The Old Man in the Bib Overalls