Posts Tagged ‘cooking’

Oatmeal Pancakes

June 19th, 2014 by Susan Odom

We serve lots of delicious food for breakfast at Hillside Homestead. Here is the recipe for Oatmeal Cakes , which are pancakes made with leftover cooked oatmeal. The recipe originally comes from the 1904 edition of “The Buckeye Cook Book”. Just about my favorite cook book of all time! I love to make these pancakes for my guests. Sometimes my guests even like to help! Learning to make a new recipe is fun and learning to cook on a wood stove is even better! I hope you enjoy this recipe. Drop me a line if you try it out!

The New Buckeye Cook Book published in 1904. My all time favorite cook book!

Oatmeal Pancakes the original recipe from the Buckeye Cook Book.

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup of water or more
1 cup leftover cooked oatmeal (sometimes I add a little apple sauce If I don’t have quite a cup of oatmeal)

Mix together the dry ingredients in small bowl. Mix together the wet ingredients in a big bowl. Add the dry to the wet and mix well. If it seems too thick add a bit more water to thin it out. This recipe doubles and triples quite nicely. Bake (or fry or cook in modern terminology) on a hot griddle. Flip only once. Serve hot with butter and maple syurp or warmed apple sauce or fruit,etc. Use your imagination add banana or squash or pumpkin to the oatmeal. You could use milk instead of water. Experiment with the amount of liquid to suit your taste. This recipe is a guideline, not a mandate. Enjoy!

Written out by Susan Odom at Hillside Homestead in Suttons Bay, Mich. June 19, 2014

Tags: breakfast, cooking, farmstay, homesteading, Pure Michigan
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The Apple Bee – a free, living history event at Hillside Homestead

October 6th, 2013 by Susan Odom

This is your invitation to visit Hillside Homestead on Sunday October 27 from noon to 5pm for our annual fall event, “The Apple Bee.” This is free and open to the public and very family friendly! The last public event we had in June was very popular! I hope to see many of you again later this month!

Making apple butter circa 1910

The center piece of the event is the apple butter boil! We will be making apple butter, following the traditional 19^th century method. The recipe is really quite simple. Take apple cider and boil it down to half. Add in the prepared apples and boil it hard till the apples break apart. Then cook it down till it is thick and smooth and so that it spreads like butter. This is a real hands on experience. Come give it a try and you can even have a taste! Just for fun here are some of the numbers…

30 gallon copper kettle for the boil
8 foot long paddle for stirring
15 gallons of fresh, sweet cider will sweeten it
3 bushels of apples, peeled, cored and quartered
9 hours of cooking
6 gallons of apple butter, that is what I hope we make!

There will also be historic cooking demos happening in the farm house and samples to taste! You can take a tour of the farm house and the grounds. The pigs have grown quite large and the chicks you saw in June are nearly mature!

There will be some games to play or just sit back on the porch and enjoy the rolling hills and orchards. Lots of good old fashioned doings. Please come and join us, we would love to see you! Come visit Hillside Homestead and experience early 20^th century life at the farmhouse!

Getting ready to make apple butter

Peeling apples, its a big job, but we can do it!

The apples have just been added and now for the big boil!

Tags: apple, cooking, farmstay, farmstead, food, meat preservation
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Nice chunk of chicken fat.

April 13th, 2013 by Susan Odom

Last Sunday a pair of hawks was stalking my chickens and alas they killed one. But a friend was here and he saw it as it was happening and he was able to retrieve the chicken for me. The hawks took the head and broke the crop, but all the meat was still there.

Another friend plucked and cleaned the bird as I was busy making a dinner for 10. Today I’m stewing that bird. I hope to make Miss Parloa’s creamed chicken and a nice pot of chicken stock.

But the surprise was the fat inside the body cavity near the vent. This chunk of fat is about a cup in volume! Nice and yellow not white like store bought chicken. And this hen was almost 2 years old.

Chicken fat from the body cavity of a 2 year old Light Brahma hen

I’m pondering this fat and I’m going to render it in the eastern Europe/Jewish tradition of making schmaltz. I’ve never don this before! So to the internet I went and found the typical methods which includes onions. Sounds great. I will report back. Already smells great in here with the bird on the stove.

Light Brahma Hen at Hillside Homestead, busy laying eggs!

Tags: butchering, chicken, cooking, farm, fat, food, homesteading, lard, light brahma, meat preservation, rendering
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Direct Descendants are coming for Dinner

April 7th, 2013 by Susan Odom

Something really exciting is happening! A very special group of people is coming for dinner tonight. They are the sons and family of a woman who grew up in this house. Their grandfather, Joe Reicha, built this house. They are a direct connection to things that happened here, things that were farmed here, things that were eaten here! I can’t wait to hear some good stories and share some good food with them.

These fine folks also helped me with hog butchering, well they did all the hard work of butchering! They are old school farmers, growing cherries and apples and other tree fruits, but they also do a little of everything, including a little butchering in season. They give me gifts of pork fat, apples and venison! I’m able to buy straw and honey from them. I feel lucky to know them. I hope to learn all kinds of amazing things!

The dinner I am serving them features some of all the meat preservation experiments that I did. We will be finishing the pork chops stored in lard. I also opened up the pork barrel for them and extracted a ham, that is soaking overnight to be baked tomorrow. We will have some of the bacon I salt cured and some of the fat back will be used in the pork and beans. I’m so excited!

The menu for my very special guest, direct descendants of Joe Reicha, the man who built my house

Tags: butchering, cooking, food, History, meat preservation
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