I'm a Centerfold!

Well, sort of…

You can stop laughing now.

I am in a magazine, but I’m not exactly the centerfold. The actual centerfold pages are 42-43.

I’m on pages 72-73. Well, really I’m on page 72. The story is on page 73. And that’s on the left column of the page. (The other column is the recipe. And that’s only about one-third of that column. The rest of the column belongs to two other recipes.)

Really. You can stop laughing now.

Oh, and I have my clothes on. Trust me on this: I’m doing you a favor.

But seriously, stop laughing!

Last August, one of the food competitions I entered at the Iowa State Fair was sponsored by Our Iowa magazine, called Our Iowa Church Cookbook Favorites. Each year the magazine sponsors the division and they choose a different category. For the 2012 fair the category was coffee cake. And I won first place!

I prepared a rhubarb coffee cake recipe from a church cookbook whose recipes I grew up on. It was published way back in 1977 for the Wellsburg Reformed Church, comprised of tons of the best recipes from the ladies of the church. This recipe was submitted by Mrs. Carl L. (Ann) Nederhoff.

Part of winning the contest is the prize money, $400, given to the kitchen fund of the Iowa church from whose cookbook the recipe was taken. The other part of winning is a spot in the “Recipes They’re Proud to Share” feature in an issue of Our Iowa. Back in September, a photographer from Des Moines, Perry Struse, spent an entire afternoon at my house photographing me, the coffee cake, and me with the coffee cake (by the way, it wasn’t the winning coffee cake; I did make a fresh one for the shoot – two, actually). He made the long day a fun one, and even shot some photos of my daughter and me.

Yesterday, a package arrived in the mail with an Our Iowa apron, as well as an advance copy of the February/March 2013 issue. So, I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this or not, but...do you want a sneak peek?

 

That’s my daughter in the recipe card photo, pretending to chew on a piece of rhubarb. I think she’d rather just eat her rhubarb in the coffee cake.

 

If you’re interested in the story along with several other coffee cake recipes from the contest, you can subscribe to Our Iowa magazine on their website. Or, you can visit one of the retailers which carry the magazine. You can find a list by clicking here.

(Personally, I would get the subscription. I’ve been a subscriber myself since first spotting the June/July 2010 issue at The Machine Shed Restaurant. I even give gift subscriptions, and I’ve never done that for any magazine ever. I subscribe to several magazines, and this is by far the one I cannot wait to arrive. I read absolutely everything in it, which takes a long time because it’s not filled with a bunch of advertising the way most magazines are. It’s published by Roy Reiman, founder of Reiman Publications, which originally published magazines like Taste of Home, Birds & Blooms, Country…..so you know this is quality. And it’s written and photographed by fellow Iowans. Definitely a gem for touring the great state of Iowa!)

Another unanticipated perk for me of winning this contest is that I finally now have in my possession my very own copy of the church cookbook! Every summer I “borrow” my mom’s copy in search of a great recipe to fit the magazine’s contest category for the upcoming state fair. So I asked the church if they knew where I could find a copy. 35 years after it was printed meant my chances were not good. But they came through and located a copy and sent it to me. I’m so grateful! Now I can browse and bake some of the recipes from my childhood whenever I want!

 
Before I share the recipe for the coffee cake, I want to take a moment to thank not only the Wellsburg Reformed Church for the cookbook, but also Our Iowa magazine for a fun experience: at the fair, during the photo shoot, and through phone conversations with Paula Wiebel (editorial assistant and wife to editor Jerry Wiebel). I am grateful for the generous prize money; I know the church will put it to good use. And thank you especially for including me in my favorite magazine...even if I’m not the centerfold.

Yours in pie (uh, I mean coffee cake),

Mindy

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

from the Wellsburg Reformed Church cookbook, “Happiness is Good Cooking,” page 116*

For cake:

 

2 ½ c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

½ c. butter, softened

1 ½ c. sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. buttermilk

3 c. chopped rhubarb

1 c. packed brown sugar

½ c. chopped walnuts

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl and set aside. In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk, and mix until combined. Fold in rhubarb.

Spread batter in greased 9x13-inch baking pan. Combine brown sugar and walnuts in a bowl; sprinkle on top of batter. Bake at 350° for about 45 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

For topping:

½ c. butter

1 c. sugar

¾ c. evaporated milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine butter, sugar, and evaporated milk in saucepan and heat until boiling. Boil for 3 ½ minutes; remove from heat and add vanilla. Beat well. Pour over warm cake just after it’s removed from oven. Poke holes in cake to let topping soak in. Cool on wire rack.

*If you have a copy of this cookbook, you may notice that flour is not listed in the original recipe. In my mom’s copy, she hand wrote “2 ½ c. flour” – a great perk about living in a small town: when something’s missing from a recipe, you can ask the contributor yourself.

Pink Ribbon Pie

Breast cancer reaches so many lives. Estimates show that by the end of 2012 in the U.S. alone, close to a quarter of a million new cases of invasive breast cancer (there are other types) in women will have been diagnosed.

 

That number means almost nothing, until it reaches you or someone you know.

 

I know too many women who have received the diagnosis – a fellow teacher, a neighbor, a friend, an aunt, my husband’s grandmother, my mother-in-law. And my mom. She’s a fourteen-year (this month), two-time breast cancer survivor.

I’ll never forget the day my mom first told my sister and me that her mammogram indicated a lump and doctors confirmed it was breast cancer. It felt like the world came to a screeching halt when those two words slipped off my mom’s tongue and into the air. My sister and I were so afraid of the possible outcome. I can only imagine how scared my mom must have been. And then she had to experience it all over again last year, when she heard the diagnosis for a second time.

Fortunately, my mom regularly had routine mammograms performed, so doctors found the lumps early on both occasions. Because of that, my mom underwent lumpectomies and radiation treatment and was able to avoid chemotherapy.

Thirteen years ago, my mom, my sister, and I walked in our first Race for the Cure, to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. We know, first hand, the importance of early detection. Without mammograms, my mom might not be here today.

 

 

Aside from a few years with conflicting schedules, we’ve walked in the race each year since 1999. This year’s Des Moines, Iowa, Race for the Cure took place yesterday. My sister couldn’t join us, but this year my children did for the first time. They walked with my mom and me on the one-mile loop. Along the way they were entertained by a very talented corps of drummers. They also took part in the kids' fun run. But the highlight of their first Race for the Cure was having their photo taken with a Star Wars Stormtrooper.

I know my young children don’t understand the real reason we walked in the race. To them it was an experience in walking too closely to a bunch of jubilously crazy people dressed in pink boas and pink wigs, down the center of a crowded city street they don’t otherwise get to walk down, in the cold autumn air. Oh, and to meet a character from one of their favorite movies, who they might possibly deem a hero simply because he’s in one of their favorite movies.

As some of the “bad guys”, Stormtroopers aren’t exactly my idea of heroes. But if they could forever wipe out an enemy like breast cancer from the face of Planet Earth, they just might be.

Someday, my kids will understand why we race. I only hope they don’t have to understand it first-hand.

After all, isn’t that really why we race?

 

Yours in pie (and in the race),

Mindy

 

Since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and the pink ribbon is the international symbol, I wanted to incorporate a pink ribbon into my pie-baking this week. I decided on Rhubarb Cream Pie from Two Chicks from the Sticks: Back Home Baking since the rhubarb would show up pink. When I rolled out the top crust, I used a knife to carefully carve out a ribbon shape and then carefully adjusted the top crust onto the filling. I’m not very artsy, but I think it turned out looking like a pink ribbon, and the pie tasted great!

Rhubarb Cream Pie

Pastry dough for a two-crust 9-inch pie

1 ¾ c. sugar

3 eggs, slightly beaten

¼ c. all-purpose flour

¾ tsp. ground nutmeg

4 c. rhubarb, diced (if using frozen, defrost and lightly drain off excess liquid)

1 T. butter

Line pie plate with bottom crust.

To prepare filling, combine sugar, eggs, flour, nutmeg, and rhubarb in a bowl. Pour mixture into prepared pie plate. Dot filling with small pieces of the butter.

Adjust top crust, seal and crimp edges. Cut slits to allow steam to escape. Cover edges with foil to prevent overbrowning. Bake pie at 400° for 15 minutes, then lower oven temp. to 350° and bake for another 45 to 55 minutes or until filling is bubbly in center. Cool completely on wire rack before slicing.

Farmers Feed Us Pie: Apple-Barb Berry Pie

Farmers helped me make this pie.

A lot of farmers.

They help me make all my pies.

Well, sort of…

(Can’t you just imagine about eight or nine farmers in their iconic seed corn caps, standing in my kitchen, pastry blenders and rolling pins in hand?)

No, farmers didn’t exactly assist in the making of the pie, but they did perform all the initial steps. And I’m glad they did, because if I had to do all they did on top of making dough and rolling it out, combining (no pun intended) fruits and thickeners for the filling, and baking the pie, I think I wouldn’t make any pie at all. Ever.

The flour for my pie crust was ground from wheat that some farmer grew, probably in the Dakotas or Montana. Maybe even Kansas. (Maybe even by the Peterson brothers while they sang “I’m Farming and I Grow It…”) Another farmer, likely here in Iowa, raised the hogs, parts of which were eventually rendered into the lard I used for the fat in my pie crust. More farmers grew the fruit, including berries, apples, and even rhubarb, that make up the basis of my pie filling. Even the corn starch I used to thicken the filling is an end-stage product of some farmer who grew, you guessed it…corn. And the tapioca? It came from the cassava plant, likely harvested by some farmer in South America. (I think. I don’t know much about tapioca and cassava plants, so if someone cares to enlighten me, I’d much rather claim that my tapioca arrived via a farmer here in the U.S.)

I’m bringing this up because this week’s pie on Sunday was originally inspired by a recipe in Iowa Farmer Today. How do I know? Because I read Iowa Farmer Today. I even have a paid subscription. I’m not a farmer myself, but I know how important farmers are to us all. All farmers. Whether they grow corn that becomes ethanol or soybeans that become, well, anything soy, like soy milk, vegetable oil, or renamed as edamame. Farmers who grow crops conventionally or those who follow organic methods. Farmers who raise cattle for beef or sheep for wool. Dairy farmers who sell their milk to processors, or those who use their milk to craft specialty cheeses. Large-scale farmers with thousands of acres of farm land, or small-scale niche farmers who raise things like aronia berries or operate CSA’s or u-pick farms. Farmers whose land has been in their families for generations, or rookie farmers who are getting their start with the guidance of some good-hearted veteran farmers. And I’m leaving out more descriptions of farmers and farm products than I’m including in this list.

The point is, there are a lot of farmers, and we need them all. Our sources for food, fiber, and fuel really do depend on them.

So I pay attention. I read Iowa Farmer Today. (Along with the Farm Cooks feature, I especially enjoy reading the advice column "Farm and Ranch Life", now written by Dr. Mike Rosmann, which was previously the "Family Life" column by Dr. Val Farmer. Coincidence?) On occasion, I browse through Successful Farming Magazine at the library. (Mostly, I like the family feature with recipes and news for the home. The rest is usually a little too technical for me.) When visiting my dad, I like to thumb through his copies of the Iowa Farm Bureau Spokesman as well as Farm and Ranch Living Magazine. Over lunch on weekdays, I tune in to "The Big Show" on WHO Radio. (My favorite segment is on Fridays at about 12:45 with Lee Kline. I've been listening to his stories since I was a kid.) I also follow the stories of bloggers whose families farm, like Emily Webel of Confessions of a Farm Wife, and Sara Ross of Sara’s House HD. And I gain a greater appreciation for where my food, fiber, and fuel begin their journey.

But I’m not a complete stranger to farming and the world of agriculture. Are any of us really? I bet there are fewer degrees of separation with farmers, for most of us, than there are with Kevin Bacon.

My roots, as well as those of my husband, begin in farming. My grandparents on both sides farmed; they grew crops and ran a dairy. Several members of my extended family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins, all farm. The same can be said for my husband’s family. I did not grow up on a farm myself, my own parents were not farmers, though my dad did some custom farming when I was young. He also worked at a grain elevator much of his adult life. A few years ago, my mom retired from John Deere. During part of her time there, she worked for their cotton division. That division manufactured cotton pickers and strippers. Here in Iowa. Where we grow corn and beans.

A little ironic.

For five summers of our teenage lives, my sister and I detasseled seed corn. By hand. Every year, we worked with a handful of others (our mom and aunt included) on a small crew. We contracted acres from a local seed corn company, which was owned by my mom’s cousin and started by my great uncle. When you grow up in a small rural Iowa town, in a place where you look out over a bean field from the front yard and a corn field from the back and can still say you are living in town, detasseling corn is what you do every summer. Back then, it was a teenager’s rite of passage.

And for my husband? The guy who laughs and jokingly asks me what price cotton is up to every Friday night while I watch “Market to Market” on our local PBS station? He grew up on a farm himself, and his parents and brother are still farming today. My husband also now works for one of the largest, leading seed and crop protection companies in the world.

And yet, he laughs.
 

Again, a little ironic, don’t you think?

(By the way, cotton was at $75.72 last week after a loss of $1.54 per hundredweight.)

While I’m no expert on agriculture and farming, I pay attention. Because it’s important. Just as the sign above the Machine Shed Restaurant at Living History Farms reads, “Farming is everyone’s bread and butter.” Whether it gives you money in your bank account, food on your table, fuel in your car, or clothes on your back, farming affects so many facets of life.

And that includes pie.

Farmers help me make my pies. And I’m so grateful they do. I couldn’t do it all by myself.

 

Yours in pie,

Mindy

The recipe for this pie was inspired by a recipe for Four-Fruit Pie, orignially printed in the Farm Cooks feature of Iowa Farmer Today on April 21, 2012. The recipe was shared by Alice Buman of Harlan, IA, though I made a few changes. I like to use corn starch and tapioca for berry pies. The first time I made this pie, I used 2 T. corn starch and 1 T. tapioca, and also increased the amount of sugar to 1 1/4 c. The pie was very sweet and a little more thick than I like. So this time, I decreased the sugar a little, and also decreased the cornstarch. I think it came out just right -- not too sweet, with perfect "ooze", and I could taste each fruit. A perfect marriage of Spring (rhubarb), Summer (berries), and Fall (apples)...in a pie.


Apple-Barb Berry Pie

Pastry for a two-crust 9" pie

1 c. diced rhubarb

1 c. apple, peeled, sliced and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

1 c. blackberries

1 c. red raspberries
 

1 c. + 2 T. sugar

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. quick-cooking tapioca

Dash of cinnamon

2 T. butter

Combine sugar, cornstarch, tapioca, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Pour over fruit in a bowl and combine gently. Set aside while you roll out the pie crust and place in pie plate. Spoon filling onto bottom crust and dot the top of the filling with small pieces of the butter. Roll out and lay the top crust on the filling. Trim and crimp edges. Cut slits in top of pie to allow steam to escape. Cover the edge of the crust with foil. Bake on the middle rack in the oven at 350° for 60-75 minutes, removing foil the last 15-20 minutes of baking. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing into pie.

A few notes: If using store-bought frozen rhubarb, be sure to defrost it most of the way, and then cut it into smaller pieces (about 1/2-inch). If using frozen berries, only partially thaw them first. Also, I typically brush the top crust with milk and sprinkle it with sparkling sugar, but I was out of milk. Maybe if I had my own cow that wouldn't be a problem...