Lehman's Country Life

We asked – and you answered. We received over 50 great recipes for our Cast Iron Skillet Recipe Contest. I tell you, it was a tough job, but someone had to do it. Narrowing down the stack of mouthwatering recipes was one of the most difficult projects we’ve tackled in months. After an inner-staff taste-test and vote, three recipes emerged as the clear winners.  However, even if these three don’t sound delicious (and we’re not sure how that could be…), we plan to publish the other 50 recipes in a future post, so watch for it! For now, read on…we promise you’ll be getting hungry very soon!

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And the FIRST-PRIZE WINNER is…

Mexican Casserole – Harriet Engle
Harriet will receive a $100 Lehman’s gift card. Congratulations, Harriet!

Here’s my recipe, passed down from my mom (who still does it better than I do!!)

2 pkgs Jiffy cornbread mix	2 eggs
²⁄3 cup milk	1 can cream style corn
1½ lbs hamburger	1 pkg taco seasoning
Water as needed for taco seasoning	8 oz shredded cheese

In a bowl, mix the cornbread as directed with the milk and eggs; add the cream corn, set aside. In a 12″ skillet, brown the hamburger. Drain the grease, then add the taco seasoning and water, simmer for 10 minutes. Remove the meat from the skillet. Pour half of the cornbread into the skillet, spread the meat and cheese on top. Finish with the other half of the cornbread mix. Bake at 350°F for 50 minutes, serve with taco sauce. If you have your own cornbread recipe or taco seasoning recipe, go right ahead and use them. This is a quick tasty dinner that also freezes well. If your skillet isn’t big enough, you can do this in a dutch oven or 13″ x 9″ cake pan, too.

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The Runner-up!
Iron Skillet Fiesta Chicken – Jannine Fisk
Jannine will receive a $25 Lehman’s gift card. Congratulations, Jannine!

4 Tbsp. olive oil, divided	2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
1 tsp. salt	½ tsp. black pepper
1 large green pepper, cut into strips	1 large red pepper, cut into strips
1 large yellow pepper, cut into strips	1 large yellow onion, cut into strips
1 packet (1.25 oz.) taco seasoning (such as Old El Paso brand)	2 boxes (8.5 oz. each) corn muffin mix (such as Jiffy brand)
2 large eggs, slightly beaten	½ cup milk
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for garnish	1 small jalepeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Preheat the oven to 375° F. In a large cast-iron skillet, heat 2 Tbsp. of the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken breast and season with the salt and pepper. Cook until golden brown on all sides, 6 – 8 minutes. Remove chicken from pan and set aside. Add remaining 2 Tbsp. of olive oil to the cast-iron skillet and set back over medium heat. Add the green, red and yellow bell pepper strips and the onion strips and cook for 5 – 7 minutes or until softened. Add the reserved browned chicken back into the skillet and stir in the taco seasoning. Mix well and turn off the heat. In a large bowl, combine the corn muffin mix, eggs, milk, fresh cilantro, jalepeno pepper and 1 cup of the shredded cheddar cheese. Mix until just combined, then spread the mixture evenly over the chicken, peppers and onions in the skillet. Sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of cheddar cheese over the top of the batter. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the cornbread is golden brown. Garnish with additional fresh cilantro, if desired. Serve warm and enjoy!

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And finally … A Very Honorable Mention:
Apple Gingerbread Skillet Cake – Mary Marlowe Leverette
Mary receives the deep admiration of our taste buds and bellies from tasting this rich, spongy, sweet gem of a cake. Thank you, Mary!

Topping
4 tablespoons butter	¼ cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons molasses	½ cup chopped pecans
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and sliced very thinly
Gingerbread
½ cup sugar	½ cup butter
1 egg	1 cup molasses
1½ teaspoon baking soda	1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon cloves	½ teaspoon salt
2½ cups plain flour	1 cup hot water

Heat oven to 350° F. In a 12-inch cast iron skillet, melt 4 tablespoons butter to begin the topping mixture. Stir in brown sugar, molasses and pecans. Evenly layer apples over the sugar mixture. To make gingerbread, cream butter and sugar and add egg. Add molasses. Stir together dry ingredients and slowly add to molasses mixture. Add hot water and mix well. Pour batter on top of apples. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until gingerbread springs back lightly when pressed with a finger. Remove skillet from oven and invert onto a heatproof serving plate. Serve warm or cold. Very good with sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Serves 8.

Note: Aladdin is temporarily out of replacement mantles. Here are details on how to make your mantle last and other lighting options.

Aladdin lamps are almost magical. Using a 100-year-old principle of lighting, they run on less oil but provide more light than any other oil lamp. They use a mantle that glows with brilliant white light (like a Coleman lantern), but (unlike Coleman) they don’t use pressurized fuel, which makes them a LOT safer.

They’re also completely silent and very reliable. We’ve carried them for decades. I use them. So do many of our customers, whether they live in Africa or Alabama.

Why? Our customers in the African bush NEVER have electricity. They know that an Aladdin lamp will work night after night and barely use any of their expensive kerosene.

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Early this spring, my cousin posted on my Facebook page about making maple syrup, “The first hour goes great, the second is more tiring, the third I’m very sore, and after that it’s all a blur of pain and staggering through the woods trying not to fall down on the rocky ground.”

But, there’s something special about all this work. He ends his post by saying, “But it’s unique and fun, not to mention the family history connection.”

Sixty-five years ago, my grandfather bought several hundred acres of maple trees deep in the Adirondacks at the far northern corner of New York state. Grandpa used to say, if you go much farther north you fall off the edge of the world. What he meant
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The farm I live on, World Hunger Relief, Inc. in Waco, Texas, uses composting toilets rather than flushing toilets.  I had heard about them before I came and thought it was just a quirky thing that they did, having a toilet that didn’t require plumbing, but I quickly realized upon my arrival that every toilet in common use on the property uses sawdust instead of water.

I remember my first tour of the place—I arrived at night and was given a quick tour of the dorm by Melody.  We walked into the bathroom, with two sinks and a small shower and a teal-colored door in the back.  Melody worked up a bit of theatrics for us:  “And this,” she said as she opened the door, revealing a teal staircase with teal walls leading up to a bench with a toilet lid on it, “is the throne.”
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See Musings From Mom School’s blog – she recently tested (well, her two boys tested) and reviewed our new recycled plastic dump truck and tool set. One of her readers has a  chance to win one of these great toys. Will it be you? Hurry – the contest ends Nov. 5th.

Article by Tim Matson, author of The Book of Non-Electric Lighting,

Earth Ponds A to Z and the Earth Ponds Sourcebook

Here it comes: heavy fall rain, the lights are flickering, and there’s a tree on the power line a mile up the road  the utility company hasn’t fixed in over a month. Put ‘em together and what have you got? Firelight time. Check the lamp fuel supply, trim the wicks, clean the chimneys, restock the candles.

But aside from the practical value of having a reliable stash of emergency lamps and candles at hand, I like firelight whether the power works or not. Evenings, it’s a pleasant way to dial down the go-go pace of the workday and relax. Turning out the electric lights and lighting a few candles is like meditation. Or maybe it’s nostalgia. Walking into a room lit by lanterns or candles is a way to step into the past, perhaps a distant century you can use your imagination to conjur up, or a past you may have lived, in a cabin or a house off the grid.
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Autumn is a busy season of squirreling away the garden’s bounty for winter nourishment. These days it seems that every waking moment is consumed by picking, preparing or preserving food. However, to be honest, standing over a hot stove is not my favorite place to be when the weather is gorgeous outdoors. So although we do have plenty of beans in the freezer and tomatoes on the canning shelves, I am also contributing to our winter food storage by doing more planting in the garden.

A number of years back I purchased Eliot Coleman’s book “Four Season Harvest” from Lehman’s, and it has transformed our winter food plan. Eliot is an innovative organic gardener from Maine who runs his gourmet salad business during the winter months using various cold frames and high tunnels. I decided that if he can do it in Maine, I can surely do it in Ohio and the past seven years our family has eaten fresh salad greens all winter long out of my cold frames.
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Following are Prevention Tips to minimize getting H1N1 (Swine Flu)…

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB  (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist) having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital, Bombay Hospital,  Saifee Hospital, Tata Memorial etc. Presently, he is heading the Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W). The following is a message given by him:
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At Lehman’s, we believe that old fashioned, proven solutions often work better than the latest fad. Just because something is new doesn’t make it better.

This means that we get to give ourselves a special pat on the back every time we save something from being lost to forgotten memories and lost skills. Some of our proudest moments have crystallized around such events. For example, we saved the 1878 Reading Apple Peeler from extinction. Here it is 130 years later and we are still making it the same way…mostly by hand using the same patterns. (If you have an antique one that’s not working, let us know. We can fix it.)

In another success story, we imitated the design of the old Dazey butter churn
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Monday, Sept. 7, 2009
United Feature Syndicate

MARYJANE’S EVERYDAY ORGANIC

There’s something about gazing up into a starry night sky that is deeply soul stirring. The sight of all that infinite diamond-studded darkness has the power to erase the trappings of modern life, bringing us back to a more primal part of ourselves, a part that is still exuberantly wild.

Not so long ago, you could simply drive a few miles out of town after dark and find nighttime as nature intended it — silent shadows draping the landscape, a black canopy of limitless stars arching overhead.
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