Pasties are popular in Calument where Daddy spent a lot of time growing up. He said that Petila’s taxi in Calumet would often take his family to McLain park and then come back at a prearranged time to take them home. His grandmother made them also. There are many recipes for pasties, but all are similar.
Feel free to experiment with the basic recipe. We often make the pasties with cubed meat instead of ground. Be careful not to over stuff the crust, it is much better to have leftover filling! If you can find it, replace part–or all– of the carrots with rutabaga for a more traditional taste.
When serving, I like them best with a little extra butter. Some people serve them with gravy. My mom eats them with ketchup.
My girl friend Heather and I would often make these at her house. We almost always doubled the crust and would eat one batch of it as the second batch baked.
Now Adrian loves lemon desserts and this is one of his favorites.
I discovered some date sugar at a discount store and really wanted to try it. I had read that you could interchange it with brown sugar, but it did not mix in as well as regular sugar did.
We decided to start with our favorite cookies and experiment. The cookies are soft and cake like, but very good! I thought they were a little to sweet, so next time I will reduce the sugars. But everyone else thought they were perfect.
These cookies work well with regular flour if you do not want them gluten free.
I asked Mark what he wanted for dinner when he was home for Spring break. He really wanted a good stew. He gets it at school, but it is often salty and served with noodles.
Stew is a very flexible meal. Add more or less vegetables or add other favorites. Serve with a lettuce salad and maybe some bread, and you have an easy meal.
If you have frozen stew meat, you can still cook it in the crock pot. Skip browning the meat. Start cooking the stew on high in the morning and cook for 8 hours. We prefer to cook the frozen meat for 3 or 4 hours with pepper, garlic and onions, then add the remaining vegetables and spices for the last few hours of cooking.
A simple dish we learned in Swaziland. It is a little tricky to master the perfect cooking time, but once made a few times, you can tell if it is done by how it smells. Great served with vegetable stew.
If you have leftovers, reheat the next day for breakfast. We enjoy it with butter and maple syrup.
My Great Grandma Zetsell shared the “recipe” for these dumplings, though my father thinks the recipe was brought from England with my great great Grandma Heighes. He said that they were a very inexpensive way to fill up hungry tummies when times were tight.
Dumplings are wonderful in chicken broth, with veggies, or with sausage, fried onions, mushrooms, garlic and butter. My favorite way though, is warm with some good butter and salt and garlic.
They do not reheat very well, so only make enough for one night.
(What fun, I learned that they are also called Kluski Kładzione and they are a polish drop noodle. Some recipes use milk in place of the water!)
Jan 19th is national popcorn day. What better way to celebrate than with a fresh bowl of caramel corn?
When Andrea was nine years old, she discovered cream puffs. She wanted to learn to bake them and would keep asking for me to teach her. Finally, I gave her a recipe for French Profiteroles and let her make a batch. Was she surprised to learn they were cream puffs.
While we usually eat these with whipped cream and homemade nutella or chocolate sauce, they are also very good with vanilla ice cream.
We enjoy curry in many ways. Allan came up with this simple recipe.
Curry with bones, the way Allan prefers, thickens the sauce better and has more pronounced flavor. I prefer not to have to dig out bones while eating, so make it how ever you prefer.
To stretch the curry more, use more onions and tomatoes and adjust spices. You can also add diced potatoes and peas if desired.
