Food O' the Irish

(Jerri here) Nancy, my brother's wife, drove up from Springfield to spend the day with us. We finished a baby quilt for her great-niece-to-be and had a wonderful time. For lunch, we had corned beef and cabbage.

Like most people, we think of corned beef and cabbage as traditional Irish food. My sister, who spent two weeks in Ireland recently, reports there was hardly any to be found.  No matter. Irish or not, it's delicious. Grab your shillelaghs and give the Blarney stone a smooch. Let's get cooking!

Start by washing the corned beef with cool water.

Put it in a Dutch oven and cover it with water. Slice one onion and add it to the pot, along with 2 T of Penzey's Corned Beef Seasoning. Bring the water to a boil and let it cook for 10 minutes. Turn down the burner and let the meat simmer for an hour per pound of meat.

When the meat is almost ready, it's time to prepare your vegetables.

Today we used small red potatoes, so we didn't peel them. All you have to do with those is wash them well and cut off any spots that look suspicious. Then cut them into medium-sized chunks. Scrape the carrots and cut them into good-sized chunks. Wash the cabbage and cut it into quarters. Cut out the cores.


Finally, cut each wedge in half.


When the meat is ready, remove it from the pan and put in the potatoes and carrots. Simmer for about 10 minutes, and then add the cabbage. Check after 10 minutes. You want the potatoes and carrots to be tender when you poke them with a fork, but not mushy. Do be careful. If you cook the cabbage too long, it makes your house smell and your stomach hurt.

While your veggies are cooking, put the finishing touches on the corned beef. First, scrape away as much fat as you can from the surface of the meat.

Next, spread a goodly amount of yellow mustard on top.


Combine 1/2 c brown sugar with 1/2 t of ground cloves and sprinkle it over the mustard.


Put the corned beef into the oven at 350° and let it cook until the sugar is melted and bubbly.


Meanwhile, your veggies should be done. Remove them from the pan, using a slotted spoon. They should look something like this:
Now all you need to do is slice the corned beef--across the grain--and serve it immediately. Oh--you'll also need to sit back and enjoy the compliments coming your way!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone. 

Bavarian Apple Torte

We made this torte for Quilt Night on Tuesday. Everyone really liked it, so we thought we'd share.


Here's how it's made.

Beat one stick of butter and 1/3 cup sugar in a small bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer, until fluffy. Gradually add 1 1/3 c flour. Beat just until the mixture is blended.



Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla. (Be sure to use good vanilla. Nothing ruins baked goods like poor-quality vanilla.) The mixture will be slightly crumbly.


Press the dough into the bottom and 1 1/2 inches up the sides of a slightly greased 9 inch spring form pan.


Now you're ready to make the filling. Beat the cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar at medium speed until the mixture is smooth.


Add an egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Beat well.


Spread this filling evenly over the pastry you put into the springform pan.


Peel and slice the apples.


Combine 1/3 cup sugar and 1/2 t cinnamon. Add to the apples and toss lightly.


Arrange apple slices over cream cheese mixture.


Sprinkle with almonds. (The recipe says 1/4 cup, but we used more. They're so pretty!)

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes. Cool on wire rack; remove sides of pan.


Mama says: If you're going to do all this baking, you need to keep your oven clean. I'm fortunate enough to have a self-cleaning oven, but even with it, you have to keep the racks clean.

Here's my tip for the day.

To clean your oven racks, put them in a container big enough to cover them with water. (I use the bathtub!) Add the hottest water you have available and a goodly measure of Tide laundry detergent. When the water is cool enough to comfortably put your hands in, you should be able to just wash everything off the racks. You might need an SOS pad on some stubborn spots, but there's no need to use oven cleaner or any of the rest of that messy, smelly stuff.

Here's the full recipe for the torte:

Bavarian Apple Torte

½ c butter
1/3 c sugar
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
¼ t vanilla
1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
¼ c sugar
1 large egg
½ t vanilla
1/3 c sugar
½ t cinnamon
3 large Granny Smith apple ( 4 cups)
¼ c sliced almonds

Beat butter and 1/3 cup sugar in a small bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer, until fluffy. Gradually add flour, beating until mixture is blended. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla. Mixture will be slightly crumbly. Press pastry into bottom and 1 1/2 inches up sides of slightly greased 9 inch spring form pan.

Beat cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar at medium speed until smooth; add egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, beating well. Spread filling evenly over pastry.

Combine 1/3 cup sugar, cinnamon, and apples, tossing lightly. Arrange apple lices over cream cheese mixture; sprinkle with almonds. Serve warm or chilled. Top with creme fraiche, sour cream or ice cream.

Ta Da!!!

(Jerri here)

We finished Katie's quilt over the weekend. When the quilting was done, it took 9 more hours to sew the binding on by hand, but it's done! And washed. And ready to wrap up. Well....almost. A few flowers need buttons.

Just to make them extra special, we're using buttons that once belonged to one or the other of my grandmothers, Katie's great-grandmothers. We have their button boxes, which are storehouses of treasure, if you ask me.

These little chickies are among my favorite blocks.


We stipled around some designs.


And outlined others.


Added some stars here and there.


And filled every block with love.

Keep Your Parsley and Green Onions Fresh

(Mama here)

Today's tip is how to store fresh parsley and green onions. (You are using fresh parsley in your cooking, aren't you? Oh, I knew you were. It's so much nicer than dried, don't you think?)

As soon as you get home from the store, wash the parsley and green onions and dry them with a paper towel. Trim the tops of the green onions, but leave their roots.

Set them upright in Mason jars and put on the lids.


We put this parsley into the frig about two weeks ago. Still fresh and pretty!

Sneak Peak

WoooHoooo!!! We got Katie's quilt on the long-arm last night.


For those of you who aren't quilters, that means we finished piecing the top (sewing the individual blocks together). Each block you see is a separate piece of fabric. I hand sewed each heart, each star, each X and O to its background. (I machine stitched the layers of the flowers because I want the edges to fray.) Then Mom helped me sew the blocks together.

We attached the quilt top, backing fabric, and batting to the machine's rollers. Now we're ready to quilt it (sew those layers together).


It's a little hard to tell in these photos, but this machine is about twelve feet long. Katie's quilt is roughly 85 inches wide and 105 inches long, but the machine has no problem handling it with space to spare.


Stay tuned. If I really focus (yeah, right!), I should be able to finish quilting in two or three days.

Tea Party

Here's another page from Katie's cookbook/scrapbook.



Christmas, 1988. Mom and Katie are having a tea party at the table and chairs Santa just brought. Don't you just love Katie's hair? And about those marks on her forehead: she fell on the fireplace hearth the night before, just minutes after we arrived from Minnesota. Stitches and everything. That child led with her forehead for the first 5 years of her life. It's a wonder she survived with her brain intact.

Oh My God

Doesn't she know how to make banana bread?

Seasoning Cast Iron Pans

(Mama here) We missed you all yesterday. It's Jerri's fault. She's got us running in circles with Katie's quilt and her cookbook and all that stuff.

Plus, we spent Sunday afternoon buying area rugs for my living room and dining room. My grandson put in hardwood floors for us last winter when we were traveling. We love the hardwood, but our little doggie misses the carpet. We compromised by adding area rugs. Now everyone's happy.

Last week Prema asked how to season a cast iron skillet. Lots of people will tell you lots of things about how to season cast iron, but this is the way I do it. My skillets stay nice, so I guess it works fine.

First, wash the pan (and the lid, if it has one) in hot soapy water. This is one of the things I do that some people warn against. The soap, I mean. Lots of people say you should never use soap in cast iron. I say you should never eat out of dirty pans. So...I use soap.


Rinse the pan thoroughly with hot water. Make sure you get all the soap out of the inside and off the outside.


Next, you need to dry the pan. It needs to be very dry, so I put it on the stove and turn on the burner and watch. You can see when the pan gets dry because the color gets kind of dull. Let it cool slightly, but only enough to handle. It's best if the pan is still warm. Use a paper towel to oil it with a dab of Crisco. First the inside.


Then the outside.


Set the pan upside down on a broiler pan


and put the whole thing in the oven at 350° for about an hour. When the hour is up, turn off the oven and let it sit until cool.


One of the most important things you can do to keep your cast iron from rusting is to make sure it's dry after you use it. I wash my pans, again with the soapy water, and put a light coat of Crisco on them when they're dry. I also store them with one crumpled paper towel inside and another beneath the lid, just to let some air in.

And don't forget that if you do get some rust, you can clean it up with vinegar and water. (Check out my vinegar tips here.) If you go to garage sales or flea markets, keep an eye out for great deals on cast iron. Rusty old pans sell for next to nothing sometimes. You can clean them easily with vinegar and save yourself a whole bunch of money.

There you go. That's how I do it. If any of you have other ideas or suggestions, we'd all like to hear about it. Leave us a comment. As a matter of fact, leave us a comment even if you don't have ideas. We love to hear from you.