A Traditional Farm Life - Rhubarb Pie
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! The Kansas Sampler
Festival in Wamego dominated our thoughts this week as we made
preparations for our small contribution to the Enterprise table located
in the Dickinson County tent. Thousands of handouts were printed to
give folks from all over our great state a glimpse of a little Mom and
Pop restaurant in Enterprise, Kansas.
Saturday,
May 2 dawned cloudy and rainy as two of our older children and I
carpooled our way to Wamego with fellow Enterprise promoters, Kyle and
Marla Griffis. They had gone the previous night in order to set up the
Enterprise booth. This task included (slowly) towing a playhouse built
by the Enterprise Rec Commission as grand prize of a drawing raising
money for new playground equipment for the city park. K-Four Trailers
of Salina graciously donated the use of the trailer for the weekend.
Perhaps
the weather slowed down attendance a bit Saturday morning, but there
was a steady stream of festival goers filing through our tent from 10
a.m. to 5 p.m. Our booth happened to be placed next to the sheep
shearer, so we were never far away from the sights, smells, and sounds
of a traditional farm. At the top of every hour a lamb was sheared,
giving all present an opportunity to view up close and personal another
aspect of farm life in rural Kansas.
We ended
up telling folks from as close as Enterprise, Abilene, Chapman and Clay
Center to as far away as Garden City about our little restaurant. It
was an exhausting day, but certainly worth the effort to get the word
out about what our fair little Kansas town of Enterprise can offer.
Our
Sampler Festival plans were momentarily interrupted this week by garden
related necessities. A customer this week asked if we wanted any fresh
rhubarb. I certainly did, as I have been desiring to try out several
rhubarb pie recipes this spring. The customer turned out to be Mike
Voit, a local vegetable farmer from out Chapman way. As evidenced by
our brief conversation, he and his wife tend an extensive list of fruits
and vegetables, and--as all farmers--are always looking for new outlets
to sell their very perishable farm products.
When
Mike delivered us the rhubarb later that afternoon, he also brought a
sampling of herbs and berry plants for our own garden. Perennial
Egyptian walking onions, oregano, and chives now have a new home in my
small herb garden. I’m also hoping to get a horseradish plot started
with the roots he brought. The three berry plants Mike dug up for us
from unusual locations around his farm were a welcome first addition of
berry plants to our new garden. If you’re interested in locally grown
produce, watch Buy Sell Trade to see what fresh off the farm goodies he
has available.
The mineral tub of gorgeous
red rhubarb Mike brought us yielded 7 quarts of the chopped vegetable
after cutting off the leaves and chopping the stalks into half-inch
pieces. We froze them in 4-cup portions, as this is the most common
amount needed in recipes.
This evening we
enjoyed sampling two rhubarb pies. One was a standard two-crust recipe
and the other a single crust with an oatmeal topping. Our favorite was
the pie with the topping as it best displayed the lovely pink rhubarb
underneath.
Rhubarb Pie
1 pie shell (8”), unbaked
3 cups rhubarb, cut fine
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Topping
1/4 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In medium bowl, thoroughly mix rhubarb, sugar, egg and flour; pour into unbaked pie shell.
3. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients with a fork or clean fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over pie.
4.
Place pie on baking sheet and bake on the bottom oven shelf until
filling is bubbly and topping is light golden brown, approximately 45
minutes. Cover crust edges with foil if browning too quickly.
4.
Remove from oven, leaving pie on baking sheet. When filling has
stopped bubbling, remove pie pan from baking sheet and place on a wire
rack to cool completely.
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta
is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in Enterprise, Kansas.
She and her husband own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen
with their six home-schooled children. You can reach The Buggy Stop by
calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at
www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
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