Amish Cooking for Kids: For 6 To 12-Year-Old Cooks - Softcover

Good, Phyllis

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9781561482498: Amish Cooking for Kids: For 6 To 12-Year-Old Cooks

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1561482498 ISBN 13: 9781561482498

Publisher: Good Books, 2002

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What better way to enjoy time with one's children than through cooking--a time-honored Amish way of celebrating family and food. This delightful cookbook offers easy-to-follow recipes for delicious foods--each tied to a particular event or occasion in Amish life. Color illustrations.

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About the Author:

Phyllis Pellman Good, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has been involved in educating and writing about the Amish for more than 20 years. She is the author of numerous cookbooks, among them, The Best of Amish Cooking Her most recent book is A Mennonite Woman’s Life. She and her husband, Merle, are co-directors of The People’s Place, in the village of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, an educational heritage center interpreting the Amish and Mennonites.

Excerpt
Introduction
Who Are the Amish and What do They Eat?
The Amish are some of the best cooks in North America!
The Amish are a group of people who believe it is important to take good care of their families and good care of the land. They work hard-many of them are farmers-and so they like to eat good food and enjoy it! Their religious faith holds them together and helps them live differently from the rest of the world.
Living Without Cars and Electricity
The Amish choose to live simply. They know how easy it is to get so busy that you are away from home a lot and don't have time to be together. And so they drive horses and buggies instead of cars, because then it's harder to run around as much. They live without electricity, which means everyone has to help work together-and there's no arguing about who will watch TV when and how much, because there is no TV. Or radio.
Wearing Home-Sewn Clothes
Amish mothers make most of their family's clothes. All the women and girls in the church community wear similar clothing. All men and boys dress alike. The clothing is simple and easy to live in, and it is much like their grandparents and great-grandparents wore.
This all means that their clothing doesn't go out of style. And Amish people aren't as likely to be jealous of their friends' clothes, because they all have almost the same dresses and aprons or shirts and broadfalls (the kind of pants the men and boys wear).
A Few Things You Should Know About Cooking (especially before you begin!)
1. Always read the recipe the whole way through to the end before you begin to cook.
2. Do you have all the ingredients you need?
3. Do you have enough time to make the recipe?
4. Always check with your grown-up helper about the recipe you want to make. Does she or he agree with your idea?
Breakfast
It is early morning and the gas lights still hiss in the kitchen when the family comes in from doing the chores in the barn. Mamm got up early to cook a breakfast of eggs, scrapple, and cornmeal mush. Homemade bread and jelly, applesauce, and shoofly cake are already on the table.
The family gathers around the table with Datt at the head. They all bow their heads and pray silently. Datt's loud sigh signals that the prayers if over. Everyone picks up a serving dish.
The family begins to eat.
Breakfast Menu
Eggs, Sunny-Side Up
Scrapple or Cornmeal Mush
Applesauce or Home-Canned Fruit
Stewed Crackers or Pancakes
Shoofly Cake
Shoofly Cake
Makes 9-12 servings
Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 Tbsp.) margarine, softened
1 cup water
1 cup molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
shortening for greasing the baking pan
flour for dusting the baking pan
Equipment
Table knife
Measuring cups
Large mixing bowl
Mixing spoon
Pastry cutter
Small bowl
2 medium-sized bowls
Measuring spoons
Paper towel
Dipper
9" x 9" cake pan
Toothpicks
1. Get the margarine out of the refrigerator about an hour before you're ready to begin baking. Set it on the counter so it can reach room temperature. Then it is easier to work with when you need it. (If you forget to do this, or don't have time, cut the margarine into 1/2-inch thick chunks and put them in a microwave-safe small bowl. Microwave on high for 20 seconds, or just until the margarine softens, but doesn't melt.) Set it aside until you need it.
2. Mix together the whole wheat flour, white flour, and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl with a mixing spoon.
3. Put the margarine in with the dry ingredients. Using either your fingers or a pastry cutter, work the margarine into the dry ingredients until the mixture becomes fine crumbs, like little peas.
4. Spoon out 1 1/2 cups of these crumbs into a small bowl and set them aside.
5. Pour 1 cup of water into a microwave-safe bowl that holds 2 cups or more. Cover. Microwave on high for 3 minutes or until the water boils.
6. In a medium-sized mixing bowl combine the boiling water, molasses, and baking soda.
7. Pour the liquid into the large bowl of crumbs. Stir it all together until the batter is thin, but still lumpy.
8. Set the oven to 350 degrees.
9. Using a paper towel dipped in shortening, lightly grease the bottom and side of the cake pan. (You may spray the inside of the pan with nonstick cooking spray instead.)
10. Put a heaping Tbsp. of flour into the greased pan. Hold the pan, tilting it slightly, with one hand. Bump the pan with your other hand so the flour lightly dusts the pan's whole bottom and sides. Keep turning the pan so the flour falls onto each part of the inside surface. Do all this over the sink so you don't have a cloud of flour on the floor! Dump any extra flour that didn't stick onto the sink or a waste can.
11. Using a dipper, spoon the batter into the cake pan. Sprinkle over top the crumbs you set aside earlier.
12. Place the pan on a rack in the middle of the oven. Bake 25 minutes.
13. Test the cake to see if it is done by sticking a toothpick in the middle of the cake. If the pick comes out clean, the cake is finished baking. If the batter or crumbs stick to the pick, put the cake back in the oven and bake it for another 3 minutes. Continue doing this until the pick comes out clean.
14.Cut the cake into squares and serve warm or cooled to room temperature.

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