We have some Amish in the News this week, first up:
EX-AMISH DISCOVERS CROSSFIT: I'll be honest, I'm not even 100 percent sure what Crossfit is...I guess I could Google it, but an Amish man who found himself weighing close to 400 pounds decided to leave the church, join a Crossfit gym and here he is years later having lost about 100 pounds. Pretty cool! (He is from the Flat Rock, Illinois Amish settlement where Gloria is from). Click here to read more.
MILLIE OTTO'S HOT CHEESE DIP: I've had my fill of dips now that New Year's is over but, hey, the Super Bowl is on the horizon. Check in with Illinois Amish columnist here
THE AMISH COME TO VERMONT: The Amish settlement in Vermont has been slowly growing since the first families arrived almost a decade ago now. Here's an excerpt:
Today, the Brownington Amish — Vermont’s sole Amish church district or settlement — have become a colorful fixture, their revived farms giving a boost to the region’s flagging agriculture even as their energies and skills give sharp competition to local building contractors. Amish excel at carpentry whether repairing your sagging front porch or making exquisite cabinetry.
“They’ve become integral to our rural community,” said Molly Vesley, executive director of the Old Stone House Museum, a granite 1830s former boarding school that leases some of its land to an Amish farmer.
Click here to read this interesting article.
PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH RECIPES: A new cookbook celebrates Pennsylvania Dutch in a delicious way. As an aside, the Allentown Morning Call in Pennsylvania is really a fine local paper. They do a decent job with the scant resources they have. A bit about this new book:
What was tucked away in an attic for years became a cookbook representing a century of family cooking with a story that’s as rich as many of the Pennsylvania Dutch recipes it contains.
“To Great Grandmother’s House We Go,” a new self-published cookbook by Tom Kelchner, is a collection of 140 recipes lovingly preserved, tested and tweaked by Kelchner’s late mother-in-law, Joan Knechel.'
You can read more about this new cookbook here.
Order the book from Amazon here.
One of the recipes is this amazing-looking chocolate chip cake. Here is one recipe:
Chocolate chip cake
3 cups and 3 tablespoons of flour
2 ¼ cups sugar
6 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoon salt
¾ cups shortening
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
6 egg whites
¾ cup mini chocolate chips
You’ll need: Two 8-inch layer pans
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a mixer. Add the shortening, milk and vanilla and beat. Add egg whites and beat again.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Divide the batter between the two layer pans that have been greased, floured and lined with wax paper covering the bottoms.
Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, then cool.
Place one layer on a platter and cover the top with frosting of your choice. Place the second layer on a top and cover with frosting on top and on the sides.
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