The Amish Cook: Garden Chicken Bake

THE AMISH COOK

BY LOVINA EICHER

It sure feels good to finally sit down and prop up my feet in front of a fan after a shower.  It has been hot and humid this week. We have been trying to shade the windows from the sun. We have a wrap-around porch towards the east and south which provides some shade. It’s when the sun shines from the west that we feel the heat. In the house we pull the shades to block out the sun until the sun goes down. We use battery-powered fans but it seems on hot days like this they just blow the warm air around. Growing up at home we didn’t have any fans. In Dad’s later years he finally bought a small battery-powered square fan to help him get through hay fever season.

My husband Joe and sons Benjamin, 14, and Joseph, 10, with the help of the neighbors put 400 bales of hay in our barn this week that we bought from the neighbors. Plans are to get our hay cut this week yet.  Joe dosen’t think we will have enough as we put 1 field into beans this year. Putting up hay is a very hot job in this weather.

Susan, 17, Verena, 15, and Benjamin are detasseling corn which is also a very hot job.  The factories that Joe and Elizabeth, 19, work in do not have air conditioning so they get pretty warm on days like these.

The young children have been staying cool by filling tubs of water and then having a water battle.  Those are always fun and sometimes everyone joins in.

I canned Seranno peppers this week. Today I need to can pickles. Joe picked two five gallon size buckets of cucumbers. We are having tomatoes and lots of zucchini to add to our menus. I also canned black raspberry freezer jam with  berries Timothy has on his property.

CAPTION:  BENJAMIN'S CHOCOLATE CAKE

Benjamin had a nice 14^th birthday on Sunday. I made a chocolate cake and decorated it for him. We didn’t do anything special for our 20^th anniversary on the 15th. Where have these years gone?

It is only 8 a.m. and the sun feels warm already.  Joseph and I watered the gardens with the sprinkler.  The hose wouldn’t reach the one corner so we watered that with buckets.  It’s time consuming but it is dry and needs rain. The Good Lord will provide.  We have so much to be thankful for. Do we appreciate the many blessings we have?  Let us thank God daily for our blessings!

Laundry is also on our list to do today so I’ll sign off wishing all of you readers God’s many blessings.
Try this recipe with your fresh garden goodies.

CHICKEN GARDEN BAKE

1 cup chopped zucchini

1 cup chopped tomato

1 /2 cup chopped onions

1 /3 cup grated cheese

1 cup cut up cooked chicken

1 cup milk

1 /2 cup Bisquick

2 eggs

1 /2 teaspoon salt

1 /2 teaspoon pepper

Heat oven to 400. Lightly grease an 8 X 8 square baking dish or 9” pie plate.  Sprinkle zucchini evenly in baking pan.  Beat remaining ingredients for 1 minutes or until smooth. Pour evenly in dish.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.