April 2012
1 post
February 2012
1 post
January 2012
3 posts
New Year
I feel no different, my finances are no different, my job is no different!
November 2011
4 posts
LIBBY'S FAMOUS PUMPKIN PIE
My mother used this recipe way back in the 50’s when I was a child. It is by far the best recipe I have found. Oh, I have tried many “new” fancier recipes, but this traditional pumpkin pie with lots of fresh whipped cream is the perfect end to Thanksgiving Day!
1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2...
EASY EASY CRANBERRY SAUCE
1 12 ounce bag fresh cranberries
1 cup fresh orange juice
1 cup sugar
In a medium saucepan over medium heat melt the sugar into the orange juice. Pour the fresh cranberries into the sugar and juice mixture and let simmer until all the cranberries have popped open, about ten minutes. Pour the cranberry sauce into a nice glass bowl and let cool for about an hour. Refrigerate. This sauce...
October 2011
11 posts
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO REVIEW MY BOOK
I am happy to send a softcover book to serious food bloggers or newspaper food editors for a review. Send an email to wyominggirl@hotmail.com to let me know your address. Thanks in advance - trying to get my book out to all of you!
BOSTON GLOBE INTERVIEW →
i am reposting some book reviews and interviews of my little accidental book. What a wonderful time I have been having meeting people and listening to their own unique stories and recipes. Thank you all for helping me with my great adventure!
CHRISTMAS IS FOR GIVING BOOKS
It will be Christmas in the twinkling of an eye and you can give my story cookbook to all your friends and favorite relatives.
If you would like an autographed copy, just send me an email and tell me who you want the book signed to, your address, and I will send you as many books as you need. If you would rather, you may obtain books on amazon or barnes&noble.com. If you would like signed...
BOOKSESSED BOOK REVIEW! →
2 tags
CHRISTMAS GIFT BASKETS CONTINUED
Here are the rest of the homemade spirits you can make in your own kitchen for Christmas gift giving!
ORANGE FLAVORED LIQUEUR
4 medium oranges
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups rum
Remove thin slices of orange peel with a vegetable peeler. Squeeze juice from the oranges; add water to juice to make 2 cups. In a saucepan combine orange juice, orange peel, and sugar. Bring the mixture...
Christmas Gift Baskets
Over the past few posts I have been giving you easy and different goodies that you will be able to put in gift baskets for gift giving during the holidays. Everything will be made from scratch out of your own kitchen!
THREE FRUIT CHUTNEY
2 cups cranberries
1 tart apple, peeled, cored, and chopped
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
1/4 cup snipped dried apricots
1/4 teaspoon salt
...
3 tags
Homemade Spirits
I am giving you my homemade liqueur recipes now because several of them take 4 to six weeks to age. If you start this project now, the spirits will be ready to bottle and put in gift baskets along with the holiday spice bread, cappuchino flats, and orange chutney. I have done this for my special friends for years and it does make Christmas extra festive -even my mother likes a sip or two of my...
3 tags
HOLIDAY SPICE BREAD
This is a recipe I had never given out until I wrote my cookbook. It was my grandmother’s recipe from Russia. My mother gave it to me and she made it all winter long. I make it for a Christmas treat and put it in small loaf pans.
1 1/2 cups applesauce
1/2 cup shortening melted
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmed, cloves, and allspice
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon soda
...
I forgot to mention that the link I posted is to a wonderful review of my book! I have been very blessed with good reviews. I hope you all enjoy reading this one.
http://completelybooksessed.blogspot.com/search?upd...
This is a picture of my Grandma Susanna Kinsfather Nab and my Uncle Robert Nab. I love this picture because my grandma looks so happy. She loved Uncle Bob with all her heart.
3 tags
Made In America
My great uncles who were forced into the Russian Army against their will. They fled to America in 1913
September 2011
6 posts
A Pumpkin Pot for All
My Aunts Mary, Esther, Katherine, and Doris
PUMPKIN POT
1 7-pound pumpkin
1 1/2 pounds garlic sausage
1 cup sliced sweet pepper
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
2 apples, cored and cubed
2/3 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup raisins
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cut the top off the pumpkin...
2 tags
Boston Globe Interview with Glenn Yoder →
3 tags
Book Review
I don’t know why the text didn’t come thru last time, so I will try again. I am having a book review by The Boston Globe! An editor is calling me Saturday to interview me. I am so hoping he gives me a good review because the Globe could take me to the big time. I feel more humble everyday by all the good things that have happened to me since There Is Always Room For One More has been...
5 tags
4 tags
Every Day Is Labor Day On A Farm
August 2011
16 posts
3 tags
It's My Birthday
Today is good right? It’s my birthday and I have had a very exciting year so far. I did not set out to write a book, but I did write one, and I did not expect this book to be a big hit, but it is doing quite well.
My husband, David, thought that this book was just another one of my “projects”. But, the other day he went to the Cave Creek library, which is a private library...
4 tags
You Can Still Go Home Again
I did not abandon all of you. I was just in Wyoming celebrating my darling mother’s 89th birthday. I was with her for 10 wonderful days and really hated to leave her. She is a wonderful companion and my best friend.
The house in the picture is the first house that my mom and dad lived in after they were married in Dec. 1940. This house was on the farm that my Grandpa Nab was renting and...
5 tags
I Miss being Volga German
I thought it was normal to speak German in our house and to our relatives and to our friends and relatives when shopping in Torrington or Scottsbluff.
As a child I just presumed everyone was Volga German like me. Most of the children in school were and so were the people in church.
When we went visiting, it was to family or friends who were just like us. I realize now that we were a people...
6 tags
If You're German, You Eat Sausage
If you are German, you eat sausage. I am German, and I do like sausage.
I am always on the lookout for a good recipe with sausage as the main ingredient. I found Colosimo’s: The Sausage People, and they have an index of intriguing recipes.
I decided to try one of their recipes – bacon wrapped sausage coins with apricot dipping sauce. I was unable to find their brand of sausage in the stores...
7 tags
The Unused Whipping Belt
Don’t get me started!
When I was a child in the 50’s, we were respectful and fearful of our parents. If they gave us a look or said to be home at a certain time, we made sure we did the right thing.
My father had a leather belt that was kept in the bottom of the towel drawer in the kitchen. If my father said he was going to get the belt out, we all sat down and kept quiet. He got that belt out...
2 tags
Where is the Schnitz Soup?
I have been asked several times by people in my Volga German community – Where is the recipe for schnitz soup?
I did not put it in my cookbook for one reason: My father, Harold, did not like this dish and my mother would not make a dish my father disliked, especially when he was working such long hours out in the fields. Good food was a real reward for him at the end of the day.
But for all my...
8 tags
Canning Tips
I could talk all day about the essentials of good canning. I adore preserving and canning.
There is no better feeling than to see all those beautiful jars lined up in the pantry. And, you know that you accomplished it by yourself and for your family.
One summer my mother and I put up 500 jars of canned goods!
Here are some tips:
Always use the freshest available products. Overripe or...
8 tags
A Taste of Family: My Favorite Traditions
Have you ever attended a wedding that lasted three days? It’s called a Dutch Hop Wedding, and after the church ceremony the guests are invited to a big dance hall where the fun begins.
The food is abundant, from garlic sausage to homemade breads and cabbage buns, to soups to grebbles and cakes for dessert. Of course, there is endless whiskey and beer.
The father of the bride is set back for a long...
6 tags
Butterballs, Butterballs, Butterballs
I know that most of you reading the title of this blog think I am talking turkey, but you are sooo wrong.
The first German recipe my mom let me make by myself was butterballs. These are walnut sized balls of breadcrumbs, allspice and butter.
Mother knew that if she gave me this recipe to put together, I would not burn, scald, cut, or scrape myself. I was only nine-years-old so Mom had to keep it...
3 tags
Book Review at Whatcom Locavore →
The First of a 3-Part Interview about my Book with... →
15 tags
The Unheard Story of the Volga Germans
As I was growing up on the farm in Wyoming, none of my family questions were answered. No one talked about Russia, or relatives left behind, or the villages and farms that were abandoned.
I knew the names of the four villages that my grandparents were born in and their birth and death dates.
Decades later when communism fell, Russia opened up and people were able to travel into Russia and get some...
6 tags
Hey, Dad
If I could speak with my father, Harold, one more time, I would definitely thank him for working so hard on those farms for all those years so that my brothers and I could have braces, a car to drive to school, some nice clothes and a $5 allowance that had to last all week.
When I was ready to go to college, I had two scholastic scholarships, but they weren’t enough. Thanks, Dad, for going with me...
Washington Post →
Great food ideas. What can you do with cabbage? Something really simple is just to saute it with fennel seeds, leaving just a bit of crispness.
8 tags
1 Key Ingredient 5 Ways: Red Potatoes
You can make eggs 46 different ways, but if you are a Volga German, the one key ingredient to cooking is the red potato.
Red potatoes are the best because they are not dry. You do not have to drown them in butter to be able to swallow them.
When I was a little girl in the fifties, my parents were farmers. One of the crops
they raised was red potatoes. When they were harvesting them, people would...
4 tags
Should I Cook From Scratch Or Just Buy It?
This, my friends, is a difficult question to answer. The convenience foods in the stores today are really very good and are usually inexpensive.
However, is there anything better than bread pudding, or sweet and sour lamb chops when you have made them yourself?
(Above: Who makes their own sausage these days?)
I believe the answer lies in a compromise. I always use fresh asparagus, but I will buy...
July 2011
10 posts
6 tags
A Historical Timeline of the Volga Germans and My...
My ancestor, Wilhelm Nab, traveled to Russia from Germany in 1764. German people kept migrating to Russia even into the late 1800’s because there was free land.
By the time my grandfather, Johannes Nab, immigrated to Colorado in 1912 there were 160 German villages up and down the mighty Volga River in Russia. These villages were entirely German with German mores and religion. They did not mingle...
5 tags
My Top 10 Summer Picnic Dishes
My Grandma Susanna Nab loved picnics.
When I was a little girl, we had a lot of picnics because Grandma loved seeing all her children and grandchildren. She enjoyed sitting in a lawn chair and having each one of us come up and hug her. She loved watching us play volleyball, or horseshoes for the men, or tag for the little ones. Once in a while, we even got a softball game going with five-year-olds...
3 tags
Turning a Little Flour into a Meal: Homemade Egg...
Did you know that with a cup of flour and an egg you can make the best ever noodles?
And after you have made the noodles, there are endless possibilities: How about spaghetti, or chicken and noodles, or tuna casserole, or butter sautéed noodles with a bit of garlic?
My mother made homemade egg noodles quite often when I was growing up in the fifties. We lived on a farm that was about 10 miles from...
14 tags
My Grandparents: From the Volga to America
Imagine that you emigrated from Germany to Russia in 1764 because Catherine the Great gave many incentives such as free land, no taxes, no military service, and freedom of religion.
You traveled over a year to get to your land along the Volga River about 100 miles south of Saratov. You suffered the most extreme hardships trying to get established. The winters on the Steppes of Russia were brutal...
1 tag
5 tags
A Guarded Family Recipe from Me to You: My...
When the snow was howling over the steppes of Russia and piling up against the windows of my great-grandmother’s house, and the chickens had stopped giving eggs because of the cold and food was becoming scarce, my Grandma Eckhardt would bake a spice fruitcake that would satisfy a sweet tooth, fill tummies and raise spirits.
Grandma Eckhardt brought this cake recipe with her from Russia. She passed...
4 tags
