Amish Cook, Week of April 22: Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie & Tiny Prancer

THE AMISH COOK

BY LOVINA EICHER

It is windy and looks like rain.  This whole week seems to have been rainy and stormy.  Yesterday we managed to get half of our laundry dried before the rain came.  This morning I went to a few local Amish garage sales.  I was able to find a few shirts for son Benjamin.  He outgrew most of his shirts and needs some new ones very badly.  I figure these shirts will help until I get a few more sewn for him.  It saved me a few hours of sewing to go to the sales.  Also found a few dresses for the girls that the girls should be able to wear.  Usually one of the four older girls can wear one of the dresses when I guess on the size.  Susan is the tallest of the four girls and Verena is the shortest so they are almost stair-steps in the length but not in the order of their ages.

Susan has finished her job with babysitting.  She babysat for a tax accountant and now that tax rush is over she won’t need her as often.  I am so glad for her help here at home.

Spring work is coming along and also gardening.  We still only have the potatoes planted that Joe put out two weeks ago.  Joe is off work today and tomorrow. He plans to smoke 100 pounds of summer sausage for Jacob and Emma.  We want to go there tonight to help them package the sausage and bring it home.  We had our first meal of dandelion greens this week.  That was a treat again for me.

Most of our children don’t care for dandelions.  Joseph seems to like them.  I made a sour cream with Miracle Whip salad dressing, vinegar, and milk and pour over the dandelion greens with diced cooked eggs.  We like to eat this on top of steamed potatoes.  Along with that we usually lie bacon, side pork or fresh ham from our hogs.  Joe grilled some of the side pork from our hogs and we really like it.  How thankful we are to have such a wide variety of meat in the freezer.  God has been good to us in so many ways.  Do we thank him enough for our blessings?

Minnie’s little foal is doing well and it is as lively as ever.  In my last letter I said it was a filly, but it is not, it is a colt.  The children called him Prancer.  He prances around a lot which is why they decided on that name.  Some of the children wanted to call him Bambi or Curious George.  Curious George because he is curious and sticks his nose in the chicken fence until one of the chickens pecks at his nose.  Our horses Ginger and itty Bit will both have foals this spring, too.  It is always exciting to have newborn foals on the farm.  The horses foals will be a lot bigger than Prancer.  Prancer is very small and the boys can pick him up and carry him.  He looks so cute and tries to run away from the children when they try to put him back in the field.

We have a battery-operated fence charger to keep the horses in.  If we wouldn’t he could get out very easily.  We have added another solar-panel to keep our 12 volt batteries charged.

Try this recipe with it almost being rhubarb and strawberry season.

STRAWBERRY-RHUBARB PIE

1 1 /2 cups sugar

1 /3 cup cornstarch

2 cups whole strawberries

2 cups cut up rhubarb

1 1 /2 tablespoons butter

Heat oven to 425.  Mix sugar and cornstarch.  Mix lightly through strawberries and rhubarb.  Pour into pie crust and dot with butter.  Cover with a top crust and cut slits in crust.  Sprinkle with additional sugar.  Seal and flute edges and bake at 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is nicely browned and juice begins to bubble through slits and best if served slightly warm.