Lehman’s Country Life

October is Work and Family month, and as a working mom some days are easier than others to get a nutritious meal on the table that works with everyone’s schedules. This is the time of year I love to pull out the crockpot and get a main dish going in the morning so  when I get home at night all I need to do is add a salad or side dish and we are ready to eat.

Soups and stews are a great way to lower fat in your diet, extend the protein and save money! Recipes can easily be altered to include more vegetables and less meat and not lose flavor. In addition, high fiber items like barley, couscous and dried lentils can be included to increase the nutritive value. Remember, to make your dish as healthy as possible, refrigerate the finished soup overnight in a shallow container (no more that 3 inches deep) which will cause the fat to rise to the surface and solidify, making it easy to remove the unwanted fat.
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It is a perfect late summer morning - a Saturday, to be exact, and my favorite day of the week. The front and back doors are both propped wide open and a fresh, cool breeze flows through the full depth of the house. Once I’ve disposed of the day’s obligatory small rodent that the cats have dutifully left on the back porch, Barney is free to wander in and out and pick a vantage point to keep an eye on me as I set up for the first round of canning I’ve done in years. The Ball canning book and a copy of Stocking Up III were among the first of the cookbooks I unpacked, and they will remain out in a prominent place now until late Fall.

As the 20 qt stainless stockpot full of water approaches the boil, I slip the first dozen or so perfect, ripe Roma tomatoes in to blanch, and reflect on the cases of commercially canned goods I have collected over the past few months in a room set aside upstairs for storage. When I lived in hurricane-prone North Carolina, I made a practice of keeping at least a few weeks’ worth of basics, including food, paper goods, and some 40 gallons of well water in labeled glass jugs. When Hurricane Fran swept through the Piedmont, downing trees across roadways and knocking out power for days on end, I had everything I and my animals needed and the only real compromise was bathing with water dipped out of the spa tub (yeah, that was really hard….)
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I remember as a kid taking a stroll through the local neighborhood in search of a tiny mushroom no larger than a dime. No, I was not intent on picking and eating these mushrooms, for I knew nothing about them. My goal was to find and then step on them, because upon being stepped on the tiny little mushroom would release a neat plume of “smoke.” There would be a time or two when nothing would happen, at which time that mushroom be declared a dud. I showed all my buddies who then began their own assaults on the fungi.

It would be years later that I would realize there was more to this “smoke ball” mushroom. The mushroom was called a puffball, and under the right conditions they grew much larger, sometimes to the size of basketballs! Once I found out they were indeed edible, my curiosity turned into a full-blown love affair.
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If you’re looking for the true Taste Of The West, look no further than a freshly picked, mesquite-roasted “Chili Pepper,” better known to the botanical world as Capsicum.  This enchanting fruit had been domesticated in Ecuador for nearly 7,000 years before it was discovered by Europeans in 1492.  Captain Columbus encountered it in powdered form while in the Caribbean, and eager as he was to promote his new route to “India,” brought back the pungent spice (as well as a few unhappy natives) as proof of his success: he’d been to “India,” so they were “Indians,” so the spice must be “pepper,” the most popular and widely traded seasoning of his day.  Of course he was wrong on all three counts, but curiously we are afflicted with his errors even today; we still call the original Americans “Indians,” and Capsicums are still commonly known as “peppers.”
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It’s 5pm on a cold, windy winter’s day, and you’re just now thinking of dinner. The kids are already hungry and your spouse will be home in half an hour. Do you take a frozen lump of something out of the freezer and hurriedly try to thaw it in the microwave? Or perhaps just order Chinese takeout or pizza? Well…you could do those things. OR, you could simply walk to the canning shelf and select a jar of convenient, fully cooked, nutritious, delicious canned meat to serve as the base for the family meal. You open the jar - and dinner is on the table in a matter of minutes!
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The combination of the heat from late August’s “Dog Days of Summer” and the busyness of Back to School can cause the humble sandwich to find its way to a starring role on the supper table. The addition of some delicious and healthy ingredients (some straight from the garden, if you have them!) can turn the ordinary mixture of bread, condiment, and protein into a quick and healthy balanced meal. Give these tasty recipes a try on your supper table:
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When I moved to town from the country a few years ago, this backyard was one of those pristine, closely clipped lawns with a lovely flower garden in the midst of it. Not anymore. The flower garden this year grew corn and beans and squash, and wild sunflowers graced the back of the garage. Smaller oil type sunflowers grew on the south side of the patio, mixed in with millet and whatever else was in that cup of birdseed I scattered there.

Lambsquarter grew to amazing heights in the well prepared soil of a raised bed. It’s loaded with seed right now and bent over from some serious rains. It still looks lacey and delicate from a distance - never mind that the stem is as thick as small fencepost. How I’ll get it out of the garden, I don’t know yet. I might have to hire a tractor to pull it out.

And under the lambsquarter? Purslane! Lots of it. I had to pull some away from the peppers to give them some sun. Dandelions are scattered here and there over the whole place, but mostly under the plum tree, where I’ve instructed my groundskeeper (nephew!) to never mow. He’s learned to not pull “weeds” unless I have told him to and he knows to never put poison of any kind on the grass. Or what remains of the grass.

This year I was pleased to find a patch of panic grass sending its pale yellow flower and seed heads in an orderly scramble upwards. Less pleasant was an invasion of bindweed or wild morning glory. I love the little flower, so let it grow for awhile when it appeared… oops. It hasn’t quit spreading yet and I know that once it gets started, it’s very hard to get rid of.

Mallow, with its whitish to purple blossoms and little green “cheeses,” grow in almost every corner there is - and in my backyard, there are lots of corners! Along the back fence grows a weed that I have never found the name of. It’s rather pretty with tiny yellow flowers early, then three clusters of seeds that explode when they’re ripe, sending them across the lawn to settle in for next year. I’ve been very stern with them, keeping them in that one area, but it takes a lot of weed pulling to convince them.

So now you’re thinking I must be some kind of nut, else why would I purposely let my backyard go to weeds?
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Dear Readers,
It’s almost time for back to school! Whether you are relaxing together or working together, time spent with your children talking and listening, is essential when they are young so that as they grow up, they feel they can still come and talk to you about the everyday things (plus the really important decisions they must make). Make sure you take time to hear about their day, any challenges they’ve had and support to get their homework done. Work on building a good routine these first couple of weeks and the rest of the year will go much smoother.

One of the things I look forward to this time of year is working together in food preservation. Breaking beans, husking corn and picking tomatoes have been a regular task done by my mother, my aunt and myself. It’s a lot of work and I appreciate more each year the time and effort that many of you spend to enjoy your results when the snow is flying. I’ve received several calls on tomatoes, specifically on salsa recipes, and thought you might enjoy the following information I found from a co-worker in Huron County, Ohio, Deb Angell.

Tomatoes have long been recognized as a fairly good source of vitamin C and they contain a smidgen of beta carotene. But until recently, we didn’t realize the antioxidants that make them a favored commodity for fighting many diseases. Experts urge people to eat more tomatoes and tomato products, at least 5 servings per week. The key is lycopene and you get the best results from this anitioxidant when it is heated or cooked to release its best form.
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It’s been said that a great cookbook is more than just a book - it’s a lifetime investment. As cheesy as that may sound, isn’t it true?

Think about your favorite cookbook. Maybe you even got it from your mother or grandmother. The pages start to curl at the edges, you get fingerprints on the cover, you spill all kinds of stuff  - vanilla, Worcestershire sauce, various cake batters - on it as you lovingly cook for your family.

If you’re like me, you make extremely vital notes all over the pages. (In fact, my cookbooks are getting to be more like family history books, as my scribbles tell me that I made this dish for Christmas morning brunch in 2000, tried this new recipe in May and hubby liked it, and experimented with adding extra ingredients to this or that recipe).

And many times, those well-used cookbooks get handed down to the next young cook.

I am lucky enough to have my great-grandmother’s recipe binder, filled with her handwritten recipes (and even one in her mother’s handwriting - my great-great-grandmother!) plus those she clipped out of various publications over the years. Even though it basically contains dessert recipes (she had a real sweet tooth) and about 128 different variations of meatloaf (which my great-grandfather apparently loved), I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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