By Lovina Eicher
6:30 a.m. It is Saturday so we slept a little later. I made coffee for my husband Joe and I. Joe tends to the stove, refueling it with coal, while I wake myself up. Our last few days have been nice with temperatures in the 40s. Sure gives a person spring fever. I tease Joe and ask him if we want to plant peas this forenoon.
7:45 a.m. Breakfast is ready and everyone has gathered to eat. Our menu consists of eggs, fried potatoes, side pork from the hogs we recently butchered, cheese, toast, butter, rhubarb jam, apples and grape juice, milk, and homemade cinnamon rolls.
8:30 a.m. Joe and the three boys are outside rendering the lard in the big black kettle over the open fire. He hadn't gotten around to making the lard yet. We have been butchering a 505-pound and 475-pound hog. Several of the girls do the dishes and the others start the weekly cleaning. With the snow melting from the warmer temperatures the floors are tracked up more than usual. I get the dry laundry up from the basement lines and fold it. Elizabeth and I washed clothes yesterday and hung a lot of it outside. The bedsheets smelled so fresh again to be dried outside.
Noon. The lard is done and it looks nice and white. They made almost 5 gallons. I will use it to make pie crusts, frosting or to pop popcorn. I also use it to deep fry. The dishes and cleaning also are done and clothes are put away. We start with lunch.
12:40 p.m. Lunch is ready. We are having lettuce salad and steak sandwiches. The steak is from the 1,420-pound steer we butchered recently. It is so nice to have all this meat in jars and in the freezer. Our gas-powered freezer is filled and we processed almost 100 quarts of meat. How thankful we are that we could do that. With a family of 10 to feed it will come in handy throughout the next year. It is a lot of work but well worth our time.
2:30 p.m. Everyone took a break after lunch. A few friends invited Joe to go ice fishing with them this afternoon, so they get ready to leave. With the warmer weather they better take advantage of the ice before it won't be safe anymore. While he is gone, the girls and I catch up on some small jobs around the house. They also work on scrapbook sheets for a cousin who has had quite a few health problems. Another cousin gave them the sheets and is putting the book together. It is past the date that she wanted the sheets back now.
6:30 p.m. Joe and the boys are back home. They caught quite a few bluegill but didn't have as much luck as sometimes. They get the outside chores done while the older ones help the younger ones get cleaned up.
7:45 p.m. We have a late supper of pizza. As a treat for everyone Joe told me to order some pizza out. It sure was a treat after a day's work to not have to cook.
8:30 p.m. Everyone is almost cleaned up so we decided to play a board game that was a gift from sister Emma and Jacob for Christmas. Jacob made it for us. On one side four people can play and on the other side six people can play.
10:30 p.m. It is past our bedtime. We played a little longer than we planned. But we won't have to get up too early as it is not our church Sunday this week. Good night and God's blessings to all.
Try this quick easy soup. This tastes extra good using the home-butchered beef!
One-Kettle Soup
1 quart canned, cooked beef
1 quart homemade noodles
4 medium potatoes, diced and peeled
salt and pepper to taste
1 medium onion, chopped
Fill 6 quart kettle with 3 quarts of water and bring to a hard boil. Add potatoes, noodles, and onion together in the kettle on top of the stove and return to a hard boil (about 8 minutes). Then add cooked beef and hard boil for 12 more minutes. Do not overcook or too much liquid will be lost. Beef soup base can be used in place of the beef. If using soup base, no salt should be added until serving, as soup bases already are high in sodium. Add two more quarts of water. Change heat from high to low and cook for about 15 minutes.
Lovina Eicher is Old Order Amish. She hand-writes this column from her home in southern Michigan. Anyone with cultural or cooking questions can send them to: Lovina Eicher, The Amish Cook, P.O. Box 2144, Middletown, OH 45042. Read all of her columns online at www.record-eagle.com/amishcook.
