A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! We’ve been blessed in this neck of the woods
with more than an inch of rain over the weekend. Even the weeds are looking their brilliant
green best after a scrubbing from a spring shower!
Speaking of weeds, there has been much activity in the
garden patch this week. Our two oldest
boys have spent many hours digging dock roots.
The spring tilling of our new garden plot chopped up the roots of this
troublesome weed and they have re-rooted all over the garden.
As all gardeners know, the battle with weeds is an
ongoing one throughout the growing season.
While the dock seems to have the upper hand on the farm right now, the
boys had a hard won victory this week over the weeds and trees growing up in
the fence around the garden.
Our property sat vacant for more than a year, and as a
result we have many years of hard work ahead of us in order to get the farm
back into shape. The boys pulled out
last year’s brown, dead weeds and cut down the small trees that were growing up
in the fence around the garden. The weed
eater certainly earned its keep after a long winter season loafing in the shed!
In the girl’s garden, the garlic is coming along very
well. They have been very diligent in
weeding and watering their small spread in an untamed land out back. The largest plant is now about 12” tall with
a nice thick neck. I’ve personally never
had much success growing garlic, especially spring-planted garlic. Their thumbs are definitely greener than
mine!
Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, we are pleased to
announce the launching of our new website,
www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
Built by our dear friend Dr. Michael
Hernandez of HBT Productions, its professional presentation far exceeds our
expectations.
You can see colorful
pictures of various Buggy Stop menu items, download our lunch or Wednesday and
Friday supper menus, and even read “A Traditional Farm Life” online!
As we celebrate the first anniversary of this humble
column this April, it is interesting to reflect on how much readership has
grown in a year. I now have the pleasure
daily of visiting with “Friends of the Farm” at the restaurant. Our customers have in many cases become our
friends, and we look forward to making many more as the years go by.
In the year to come, I’d like to focus on “Traditional
Farm Pies” when possible in our weekly recipe section. Pies have been “rounding out” meals since
Colonial times, when women used round pans to literally cut corners and stretch
hard to come by ingredients. Pantry
staples like flour, lard, salt and water made crisp, golden crusts holding
fillings of farm-fresh ingredients. As
orchards and berry patches grew, so did the variety of pies through the
seasons. Truly an American tradition,
pies are still an enduring favorite at dinner tables today—although probably
not as often as they used to be.
Let’s keep an American tradition alive and learn to bake
pies again. While a perfect, tender and
flaky pie crust made from scratch at home takes more work than purchasing one
from the refrigerated section of the grocery store, there is no comparison in
taste. A beginner can gain confidence
with recipes like last week’s “oil pastry” pie shell before moving on to more
complicated recipes.
Fillings need not be complicated either. Last weekend we practiced the pie shell
recipe and filled it with Butterscotch Crème filling. Replacing white sugar with brown and adding
extra butter gives a homemade vanilla crème pie a subtle butterscotch
flavor. So, pull that handy
flat-bottomed whisk out of the drawer and let’s get cooking!
Butterscotch
Crème Pie
1 (9”) pie shell,
baked
1 cup brown sugar,
lightly packed
5 tablespoons
cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
2-3/4 cups whole
milk
4 egg yolks,
beaten
2 tablespoons
butter
1 tablespoon
vanilla
Cool Whip,
optional
1. In a medium saucepan, whisk together brown
sugar, cornstarch, and salt.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the milk and egg
yolks (with a regular whisk) until smooth.
Slowly add milk mixture to dry ingredients in saucepan, whisking (now
with the flat whisk) to prevent lumps.
3. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly
until the mixture thickens and boils, then cook 1 minute more.
4. Remove from heat and add the butter and
vanilla, whisking until butter melts and is fully incorporated.
5. Pour hot filling into baked pie shell; place
plastic wrap directly on top of filling and refrigerate until chilled. Remove wrap and serve with Cool Whip if
desired.
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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