Old Fashioned Food: Update

I am an old-timey kind of gal.

I’m married to one of the most gadgety men on earth, but we have been talking lately about how much simpler it would have been to live during the pioneer days. Notice, I said simpler, not easier.

Anywho, I’ve been really into this wonderful series by Lauraine Snelling about life in North Dakota in the late 1800′s – early 1900′s.  I LOVE IT! Everything about it! The life style, the culture, and the sense of community just fascinates me.

So, my step-mama gave me some books a few years back by Barbara Swell all about old-time cooking. I’ve been delving into them the past few days and am so excited to try some of the new, old recipes I’ve found. I’ve already made an amazing pie crust from this book, and Hubby can’t stop raving about it. Tonight or tomorrow I will be using the same crust to make chicken pot pie. I’m thinking of serving some sweet potato roles along with it.

What I love about the recipes is that they were designed to feed a family with good, fresh, seasonal ingredients. They are intended to be flexible to use whatever produce or meat is available. There is some prep time involved, but most of it is walk away type stuff, like letting dough rise.

Anywho, I will let you know as I try some of these goodies, so you might be  tempted to cook old-timey too!

Update:

I made chicken pot pie from scratch last night. My pie crust fell apart, but it was still delicious. I called it “patchwork pot pie.” I also made sweet potato buns. I LOVE sweet potatoes, but the recipe was vague in the timing, and I don’t think I let them cook long enough. They were a little doughy, but I can tell they would have been really good. A really good way to use up sweet potatoes.

Today I made oatmeal no-knead bread. I was looking through ANOTHER one of the cookbooks and found this recipe and realized I had everything I needed on hand, so I decided “Why not?” Plus, making bread from scratch gives a really good opportunity for a science lesson. Jeremiah finds yeast absolutely fascinating. Okay, so I kind of used the phrase “yeast farts” to describe the gas bubbles, but he was really into the whole process. The bread contained molasses, which I found really strong in the crust, but otherwise it was absolutley delightful. It will be really good toasted with tea tomorrow morning.

Blessings!

Hannah

BTW, these are just books I’ve really enjoyed. I’m not receiving any compensation for my reviews.

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