Lehman’s Country Life

Mother’s Day – that special day in May set aside to remember our Moms. For some of us it is gathering for a large reunion of many generations, all enjoying their meal together. For other families it may be a specially cooked breakfast served to Mother in bed.

In my household the celebration centers around a Mid-Day meal. Why do we pick a late lunch or early supper? Mother’s Day is on a Sunday and because it is a school night, an early gathering gives time for baths, quiet downtime from the day’s excitement and maybe a chance at a reasonable bedtime.

Here are two menus for you to try depending on your plans; both are designed to be easy for the grown-up in charge (not Mother – remember, she is off today!).
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Springtime cooking can be challenging. We as meal planners are so ready for a change from cold-weather rustic to springtime fresh.

More outdoor activities of cleaning up the yard and working in the garden can demand meals that are hearty and feed the body and soul.

Here are some springtime recipes for your families that aim to both satisfy tummies and incorporate fresh spring vegetables.
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Stinging Nettle

Spring finally has the sun splitting the sky here in Ireland. The winter aconite was very much later this year, as were the wild primroses and my planted daffodils. Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day the weather turned discernibly softer during the days, although the nights can still leave a ground frost.

What really alerted me to how late spring was this year was the non-appearance of the stinging nettles. The upside of stinging nettles is that they are a harbinger of good soil fertility. The downside is that they are rampant and will choke the life out of any vegetables you plant.
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Since my last post featured one of my dad’s signature recipes, I thought I would share one of my mom’s this time. There’s almost nothing that sticks with you better for breakfast than a bowl of  granola. This is an easy recipe and makes a crunchy, hearty, not-too-sweet breakfast treat. It’s delicious with milk or yogurt, by itself or with other cereal.  I like to sprinkle it liberally on my bowl of Cheerios. Try it – I bet you’ll love it!
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He used to make it only when the snow was flying, usually on his days off from his job as a registered nurse.

My sister Becca and I knew Dad had baked bread as soon as we hit the door, just off the schoolbus. Our little house would be filled with a welcoming, unmistakable aroma, and big, crusty loaves of his signature whole-wheat bread (”Daddy Bread” to us) would be cooling on dishtowels on the counter.  We’d eat some hot right then (if he’d let us), and multiple pieces of “Daddy toast” were often breakfast each morning before school. It was best with just a bit of butter – no jelly to overtake the nice, yeasty flavor.
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Cold winds are blowing, temperatures are freezing and below, snow is falling, and the ice on the steps refuses to melt. Sounds like the basics of weather this time of year. These conditions make it hard to be outdoors, but it’s a wonderful time for some rib-sticking comfort foods.

While researching this article I started by looking at what my family has been having on the supper menu the last couple of weeks. Although we are located in North Carolina, the temperatures here have been unusually cold, with nights in the single digits and days barely getting out of the teens. Our family meal choices have reflected the foods I grew up with in the Northeast.
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Quite often over the years people have asked me , “What do you eat? Or does it get boring eating from the garden all the time ?” So I thought I would share some of our favorite recipes with you from time to time. Let me say right here not everything we eat comes from the farm. About 90% of what we eat we produce. Some things I do buy at the grocery store but you don’t need a farm or garden to use these recipes as the ingredients are available at the grocery store.

Let me begin with breakfast because for us it is essential  to give us energy to begin the day’s work. Almost every day begins with oatmeal with other things added that are both nutritious and tasty. We do eat other things too sometimes.
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Did you know that pumpkins are really a fruit? They are members of the Cucurbitaceae Family (how’d you like that for a last name?), the same family to which cucumbers, gourds and melons belong. Indigenous pumpkins have probably been growing in the United States for at least 5,000 years. Not the same pumpkins of course. Unless you count the one grown by Dave Stelts of Leetonia, Ohio that weighed in at 1,140 pounds.

So, the question of the day is, if you were Mr. Stelts, and you had over 1,000 pounds of pumpkin sitting on your front porch, what in the world would you do with it? We asked our employees, friends and family here at Lehman’s for some of their best pumpkin stories. We will include some recipes, but we are talking unusual pumpkins stories.

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Plum Cake

Every country has it’s own special foods for celebrating Christmas. In the States from my childhood I associate cookie making as the special baking session of the season. Germany has stollen. But I have lived more than a quarter of a century now in either England or Ireland and the comestible essentials seem to be Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies.

Christmas pudding translates easily to what Americans know as plum pudding. The making of the pudding is highly ritualised with a special ‘Stir Up Sunday’ at the beginning of advent when the pudding is mixed up and each member of the household asked to stir in a wish. The prizes – silver boots, pennies, etc. are carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper and put in the pudding after the mix has been put in a muslin lined pudding basin. Then the first steaming session commences.
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We’ve passed the autumnal equinox and now the light in the evening is dimming at an ever-quicker pace. Even though there may be more golden days, these past couple of mornings there has been a light shimmering of frost and a crispness in the air that is just a tad on the sharp side.

Artisan Wood-Burning Cookstove

This is when the cast iron casseroles and earthenware bean pots come into their own season. With our log burner glowing my appetite is ready for putting some ‘flannel’ around my own ‘lites.’

In Italy they have reinvented the antidote to fast food with the Slow Food Movement. This season is perfect for doubling up on using your heat sources. So if you have a wood cookstove like an Aga or Stanley, then the low oven is perfect for casserole preparation. You can leave, go out to work and come home to the yummiest, most soul-satisfying dinner. (A slow cooker suffices, too, but it won’t heat your house as nicely.)

Bearing in mind that cattle add to our CO2 emissions, it’s worth considering reducing the amount of meat from cattle we eat. This does not mean that you need to go vegetarian! But to lower your carbon footprint you need to consider supporting your local beef, pork and lamb producers. You can have your meat and eat it too if you reduce food mileage. It’s also important to support local food production from an economic point of view. The more we support local producers and spend money in our local communities we expend less in terms of CO2 emissions from our journeys to market globally. So look for local labels or patronise farmer’s markets where you can be confident of your food’s providence.
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