the homesteaders daughter: Coming nearly to the end of this endeavor

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Coming nearly to the end of this endeavor

Yes, we are almost to the end of Tarzan and Jane's strange, but unusual eating habits; and we will end with the absolute best of the bunch. UBANGI, I BANGI, WE ALL BANGI ON THE TREEHOUSE WALL STEW

21/2 diced peeled potatoes
2 tsp salt
1 Tbls oil
2 tsps chili powder
1 recipe corn dumplings (given below)
2 cu pinto beans
1 lag. chopped onion
2 beef boullion cubes
3 lg fresh tomatoes

Mix potatoes, beans and salt and 3 cu water in good sized kettle. Sauate onions in oil. Add 2 boullion cubes. Add chilii powder and tomatoes. Stir well and add to first mixture. Bring to boil and simmer for 30 min. Drop dumplings by heating tablespoons on top of stew. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Causes aggressive behavior in some.

CORN DUMPLINGS

1 cu canned corn
1 cu flour
1 tsp soda
3 Tbls cornmeal
salt to taste
buttermilk to moisten

Mix ingredients until blended . Keep dough fairly stiff.

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Maybe there is a large critter in your life, sniffing the air for some sweet sustenance as he comes in from swinging from tree to tree.
And, one evening very soon, after he has showered and changed his loin cloth you may present him with one of the best meals he has ever bounded through. We sincerely hope your Tarzan is a bit more talkative at dinner.

Believe it or not, we are about to end this thing, but must add just a couple more paragraphs to explain ourselves in regards to Janes's kitchen utensils. Perhaps you think we have been particularly nasty in witholding information about Jane's preparation tools. That's because they ARE particularly nasty. A blackened pot, a filthy stick and a few crummy hot rocks. UGH we simply cannot discuss it. But we have nearly forgotten Jane's all-time, top-of-the-list, very favortite: YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE HORS d' OEUVRES. DEFINETELY YUMMY SHE INSISTS. And it is only a matter of walking the banks of the river--any-river will do--and grabbing everything that moves. Our kitchen testers refer to this, "dish" as CANAPES WITH CRUNCH

Hope you've had fun, I sure have

3 comments:

GailNovember 24, 2009 at 5:05 PM
Yum...now you have made me hungry!
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DeannaNovember 24, 2009 at 7:36 PM
May you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Looks like you've got some recipes to celebrate with.

God bless ya,
d from homehaven
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KathyB.November 24, 2009 at 11:48 PM
If I let Jane cook for us I will insist she does her cooking here in my kitchen!
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A Little bit about the grandparents

I consider myself blessed to have known my paternal great-grandparents. Allie and Knapp were a couple straight out of "Little House on the Prairie. They lost a child while still in Kansas and soon after traveled to Washington state where they homesteaded a goodly piece of land and proceeded to build a beautiful farm where the flowers bloomed with abundance to match the fruit of the orchard and the fields of grain.

Their second son, Glenn married Pearl, had a son by her but she gave her life to bring him forth. She died when her baby son, Lloyd, was born. The grandparents raised the boy while Glennn married a young woman named Beulah. They had two boys, but grandson, Lloyd stayed on with them . when he was 8 years-old his father, Glenn was killed by a truck load of logs that rolled off a train and crushed him to pieces.

Their lives seemed one long tragedy, yet love was more alive there than most any other place I have ever been. My father, Lloyd married Maudie Clark and I was their first child, born in our own little house on the Moore property. How could anything so right go so terribly wrong??

By the time I came along the grandparents were in their 80's and life happened. My parents divorced and though I stauyd mainly with my mother I spent a great deal of time with my dad and Grandpa and Grandma on the farm...or what was left of it by this time.

There never was running water in the, "big" house or an inside toilet and only limited electricity.

On most days Grandma sat in the parlor in her rocker in front of a standing radio and two windows where the honeysuckle smiled- in during the summer months; the Bible at her side.

The kitchen floor sank in a little and the oil-cloth on the big square table
was worn from the meals that had been served there. A kerosene lamp stood there also and somehow it always smelled like apple pie.

My grandma was just under 5 feet tall, with grey hair pulled back in a bun and little tiny feet. She could not see well and wore thick glasses, maybe not a pretty picture to anyone else but a matchless queen to me, and whenever she asked me to go to her closet and bring a certain box to her side I knew I was about to see wonderous things or to hear grand stories

My family's history was in those boxes and over the few years that I had my dear great-grandparents I learned who I was. Grandpa had his tales to tell also. One such story was the one about a horse kicking him in the chest and he DID seems to have a hoof print in that spot.

Grandpa chewed...tobacco that is... and watching him bite off a chunk of the rich chocolate colored stuff was very tempting. My mother told me that when she was expecting me she was so overcome with temptation that she snuck a piece of the tobacco when Grandpa wasn't looking and had her chew...and spent some time with her head hanging over the dandelion field behind the house.

Grandpa Knapp was an unusual fella. Once a year the grandparents house was scrubbed inside with calsomine, a white paint-like substance. He had to walk to the paint store which was a good 5 miles one way. His walks were going to become a problem later on after Grandma was gone but that will have to come later.