Whiteley Creek Homestead

hotdish competition

Maybe it was the flashbacks of the Plymouth Playhouse "Church Basement Ladies A Second Helping Musical" we attended last Wednesday...

  

Maybe it was because it is so small town... so Minnesotan that, when I saw an ad announcing a hotdish competition at Prairie Bay Restaurant in Brainerd, I knew I wanted to participate. Win or not, it was such a novel idea that I wanted to support and be part of the fun.  

 

Last night I browned ground buffalo from A & J's Up North Buffalo Ranch in Pequot Lakes (Minnesota), cooked Canoe White 'n Wild Rice from Mille lacs Wild Rice Corp. in Aitkin (Minnesota), boiled eggs from my free-roaming organically-fed laying hens Olga, Pearl, Flossie, Opal, Henny Penny, Cora, and Phoebe, and shredded, chopped, diced, and simmered the remaining ingredients so that this morning I could assemble my hotdish to pop into the oven after serving breakfast to my B&B guests.  Here I am with hotdish in hand excitedly on my way to Prairie Bay. I thought the 1956 fridge on my backporch, that we use for guests' evening desserts and beverages, enhanced the nostalgia of the hotdish theme so I chose to have my photo taken there.

  

No... my Beef & Cabbage with Rice Hotdish wasn't chosen by the panel of five judges consisting of 4 chefs and the father of another chef, but the waitresses were rooting for me because of my overall presentation... apron and vintage casserole dish. They thought I looked authentic... that I looked the part. The winning entry was a chicken wild rice  hotdish. If I had been judging, it would have been my 1st choice, too. It was colorful with julienned carrots and the chunks of chicken breast created a striking contrast to the darkness of the wild rice. It had a nice crunch from slivered almonds and it was very tasty. (After the judging was completed, all participants were invited to sample the hotdishes.) The restaurant's owners stated that they are planning monthly competitions with salads and desserts coming up next. I had better start planning. Note: Since today is the 31st and my hotdish event took center stage, I will share my recipe for May's Cake-of-the-Month (Almond Rhubarb Coffee Cake) in June. 

  

Beef & Cabbage with Rice Makes two casseroles or one 9x13 baking dish..

1 lb ground beef or ground buffalo

2 med. onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced

1 ½ cups cooked white ‘n wild rice (Bring ¾ c rice + 1 ½ cups water or broth/stock to boil. Simmer for 20 min. until water is absorbed and rice is tender. Remove from heat, fluff with fork, then let sit for 5 min.)

4-6 hard cooked eggs, chopped 

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp flour

1-14 ½ oz can stewed tomatoes with Italian herbs

2 tbsp catsup

1 ¼ cups water

½ tsp garlic salt

1 small head cabbage, shredded

1 tsp salt

coarsely ground pepper

Brown ground beef with onions and garlic. Cook rice. Prepare hard boiled eggs. Melt butter in saucepan and add flour. Stir to mix. Add canned tomatoes, catsup, water, and garlic salt. Heat to a simmer. Shred cabbage. Butter casserole. (You need two casserole dishes or a 9x13 baking dish.) Add rice and chopped eggs to browned ground beef. Spread half shredded cabbage in (each) casserole then top with half meat mixture. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt and some pepper. Spread another layer of cabbage then remaining meat mixture. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt and some pepper. Pour tomato mixture over the top. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Season at table with Johnny's Seasoning Salt or your own favorite. 

spring's asparagus

My first asparagus of the season... not from my garden, but freshly cut from a local garden and sold at Brainerd's food co-op. It's pretty just to look at, but it's destined for the soup pot.

twin cities outing

Yesterday morning, after I served my guests breakfast and cleaned up afterwards, Dick and I grabbed a few overnight essentials and headed for Minneapolis/St. Paul to attend a 7:30 p.m. performance of "Church Basement Ladies A Second Helping" last evening at the Plymouth Playhouse. It was equally as entertaining as the original "Church Basement Ladies" we attended a year ago. The setting is 1969... three years later. It closes Nov. 1, 2009, so don't delay making plans to see it.

This morning, we headed to the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul near the Minnesota State Capitol to see "Minnesota's Greatest Generation" which is an exhibit that opened May 23, 2009 featuring stories of people during the Depression, World War II, and the post-war boom. Although all of the exhibits were so creatively, artistically, and professionally arranged and bursting with interesting information, I was especially drawn to ones that evoked childhood memories such as this store selling black and white TVs and offering "tubes tested free".

 

Wouldn't you love to recreate this colorful living room in your own house? The exhibit's floor is built to spin in a lazy susan turntable fashion to show the 1950s era kitchen on the other side of the wall, but it apparently wasn't working so I was only able to peek behind to see the the room that is just as sweet as the living room.

 

Besides "Minnesota's Greatest Generation", there are nine other exhibits at the Minnesota History Center that are equally as interesting so plan to spend the day there. The house in the photo below is part of the "Open House: If These Walls Could Talk" Exhibit. It follows 5o different families that lived in a St. Paul house over the span of 118 years. It seems like a huge number of families to have lived there but, after the original family moved across the street, they transformed the house into three rental apartments so three families resided there at the same time. As you walk through the home, the decor and furnishings change to reflect the passing decades and recordings of actual residents tell the story of the families who lived there. It was easy to imagine the birthday parties, the family dinners, the everyday bustle of activity that made it home for so many people.   

 

This "basement", where we sat through a simulation of one of two F4 tornadoes that hit Fridley, Minnesota on May 6, 1965 just over an hour apart, is one part of  the "Weather Permitting" Exhibit. It was a devastating storm that destroyed or damaged one out of every four homes in this Minneapolis suburb. The sounds of the howling roaring wind, breaking glass, and debris flying about outside were so realistic that it took every ounce of self-control to not claw at Dick sitting beside me and to supress a blood-curdling scream. The color of the "sky" outside the basement window turned a green color typical of severe storms and a tornado siren wailed. The walls shook and the radio sitting on the workbench came on with an announcer urging residents to take immediate cover. The oldtime television turned on after the storm had passed with actual footage of the tornado and residents retelling stories of the harrowing experience. It was the closest to experiencing the real thing as I care to ever relive.   

 

Adult admission is only $10.00 for access to all of the 10 exhibits. If you have a "Blue Sky Guide" Community Coupons Book, which offers grocery, dining, entertainment, health and style, travel and recreation, yard and garden, and home coupons for destinations in the Twin Cities Area, there is a coupon for 2 for 1 admission to the Minnesota History Center. (I received a Blue Sky Guide free at the Living Green Expo earlier this month since they are given out to the first 100 or so in line for the event. They normally sell for $20.00.) Pack a lunch, as there are tables to eat outside. The entire experience was such a fun way to spend an inexpensive day!

Memorial Day 2009

Each Memorial Day, Dick and I attend an outdoor ceremony honoring men and women presently serving in a branch of the armed forces and those who have been injured or killed protecting our country and freedom. A speaker at this year's event reminded us that "freedom is not free". It comes at a cost. He shared Eleanor Roosevelt's Wartime Prayer. "Lest I keep my complacent way, I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?" This quote has resonated so clearly in my mind since the words echoed from the podium to where we stood under a mature stand of oaks and pines at the edge of a crowd of people gathered at the cemetery. It has caused me to consider how I choose to spend each day... to make my life matter. 

field trip

Today Dick and I went on a field trip to Seven Pines Farm in Verndale (Minnesota) 45 miles from Brainerd accompanied by about 20 other members of our local food co-op. The tour was hosted by owners Kent and Linda Solberg whose focus is grass-based agriculture and pastured egg production. They use New Zealand-style swing parlors to secure their cows for milking in their immaculately sanitary dairy operation. To provide fresh grazing, animals are rotated to different grassy acreage to provide maximum nutrition. To facilitate the moves, the two chicken coops are built on top of boat trailers to provide portabilty and a large fenced protective enclosure is transported and set up again in the new locations. This is an exterior photo of the portable chicken coops.

 

This is an interior view of one of the portable chicken coops. Eggs are collected by lifting the hinged lid on the box attached to the side of each coop.

 

This is a photo of the chickens winter living quarters. It is a greenhouse so no artificial heat source is needed. You can see one set of nesting boxes near the door at the far end. There is another set near the door where I was standing to shoot the photo. Think about it... In the spring, when the chickens return to their portable coop, the structure could be used as a greenhouse to start garden plants. Does this make perfect sense or what?! 

my father's birthday

Today I planted presprouted fava beans. My research indicates that they are similar to lima beans and they add a large amount of beneficial of nitrogen to the soil. Look at the sturdy tap root the seed sends out! These are Windsor Fava Beans, which are an heirloom variety from England that grow 48" tall. I also transplanted several varieties of heirloom tomatoes... some that I started from seed and others started from seed saved by the owners of Brambling Rows, a farm south of Brainerd where I pick raspberries July through September. They sell the tomato plants at Ace Hardware, which is one of my two favorite small town stores yet remaining from my childhood. (Little Farm Market, where I purchase seed potatoes, onion sets and transplants, and a few filler seeds to round out ones I've mail-ordered, is my other fav store.)  

 

Today's planting was in honor of my father's May 20th birthday. When I was growing up on a 160-acre farm 10 miles southeast of Brainerd, it was tradition to plant on his birthday since we could generally assume that it was the beginning of frost-free nights and soil that had warmed sufficiently for seeds to germinate. My father died at the end of January 2004 at age 94, so each year on this day I spend time with him... just the two of us digging in the soil... tenderly remembering his walk on this earth and his "graceful exit". Journalist Ellen Goodman says, "There's a trick to the Graceful Exit. It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, a relationship is over - and to let go. It means leaving what's over without denying its value." As my father let go of this world, I too have let go of him. I have released him, but he is still close... especially when I garden.   

chocolate layer cake

Each evening, our B&B guests enjoy a snack or dessert set out on our inn's porch. Today I decided to bake a cake using a Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcake Recipe with Light Cream Cheese Icing Recipe from Martha Stewart which yields 24 light, moist cupcakes. By doubling the recipe, I had enough batter to make a two-layer 6" round cake. The icing recipe, without doubling it, makes enough to frost between the two layers as well as the cake's outside.  

  

A clipping titled "little helper" from an April 2003 issue of Country Home Magazine came in handy. It  is a chart showing mold (cake pan) volume, batter amount needed to fill the cake pan, and baking time. To find the volume of my pan, I filled it with water and determined that the pan held 3 1/2 cups. Of course, you wouldn't put 3 1/2 cups batter in the pan because there needs to be room for rising. Referring to the chart, a 3 1/2 cup baking pan requires 1 3/4 cups batter. However, the chocolate buttermilk cupcake recipe (before doubling) makes 2 cups batter. I had a really tough decision to make. Do I eat the extra 1/4 cup of batter or pour it in the pan and hope it didn't overflow? The batter is seriously so good that I was tempted to sit down and gorge myself, but I didn't. I poured it into the pan after first lining the bottom of each pan with a circle cut from natural unbleached parchment paper. (Spreading a little oil in the bottom of the pan before laying the paper down helps it stay in place. I also spread a little oil onto the top of the paper, too, to ensure that it can be easily removed from the baked cake.) At the conclusion of the baking time, it had risen level with the top of the pan. Perfect... (I did need to add an additional 5 minutes to the baking time because of the added depth.) The chart is so useful, so I've included it in this post for you to print off and place in your cake recipe file for that moment in time when you'll be glad you had it too.

  

greenhouse plants

My greenhouse plants are begging to be set free in the garden. Even the ones that I have transplanted into milk cartons are outgrowing their quarters. Frost is predicted for both Saturday and Sunday morning, so the plants aren't leaving the protection of the greenhouse just yet.

 

At the end of April, I transplanted the wildflowers that grew from March's seed-embedded calendar page and planted April's page in their place. Look how big January and February's wildflowers have grown! This plant in this photo is an example of the size of all of the varieties from the two calendar pages after 70 days growth.

 

Here are my cukes and pumpkin that I started from seed...

gnome habitat

This afternoon I transplanted cauliflower and beets into my covered raised bed. They are plants that I started from seed and have been hanging out in my greenhouse. Beets supposedly fare best when direct-seeded in the garden because they don't transplant well. However, I decided to see if starting them from seed in newspaper pots would make the transition into the garden less traumatic. The roots are undisturbed because the newspaper pot is set intact into the soil. 

I also went to the local nursery today to buy some flat leaf parsley. Fat chance that I can get in and out with just parsley. One of the things I added to my cart was some Irish Moss for my gnome habitat that I am creating. Click on the photo to enlarge it so you don't miss the perfect little gently rolling hill that is naturally formed in the moss. To get started, I set a round enamel tray on top of an old... very old tree trunk to catch the water drips when my plantings are in place in the rustyenamel bowl/pan that has rusted through to form perfect drainage holes. Next I will go on a scavenger hunt in search of miniature plants in the woods and in among my stepping stone walkways to use to transform my gnome's world.

pear blossoms

A  pear blossom bouquet from Momma Nature... blooming beside the "out my kitchen window cabin".  

 

May 10, 2009

Today's mileage: 0

Total mileage for May: 11 miles (same as yesterday) 

Bible reading? Yes.