A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
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| Image from MDH Kitchen |
Greetings from Enterprise, dear
friends! It was the best of times; it
was the worst of times. Sadly, this
week’s “Great Bean Revolt” threatened to overcome the joy of a newly remodeled
front room . . .
Well, not really.
We took the week of Thanksgiving
off from our regular restaurant duties.
The time away allowed us to finish a home remodeling task long
anticipated: putting trim in our front room.
As you may recall, our front room
was completely gutted when we bought our ramshackle old farmhouse just over a
year ago. The previous owners removed
the old lath and plaster before moving on.
While we were very blessed to not
have to go through the dirty job of removing all that debris, but we still had
to go to the trouble of transforming the dark shell of cave-like room into a
livable space.
Last winter the boys insulated, and
put up and painted the wall board, but at the time putting on the trim was not
accomplished. We’ve been so busy with
the never-ending cycle of restaurant duties that we just happily lived with
things as they were, until the day finally came the boys had the time for a
construction project here on the farm.
By Saturday night we were sitting
pretty in a trimmed and finished front room, but, read on--there’s more to the
story.
A week off from the restaurant also
meant a welcome week off from restaurant leftovers for the family. My latest Test Kitchen obsession has been
creating dried bean-based soup mixes in a pint jar. In theory, these edible works of art—picture
sand-art-style spices and brightly colored beans layered in a pint-sized mason
jar—will be a perfect gift and an natural accompaniment to my cornbread and
biscuit mixes.
In theory, it shouldn’t be that
hard to whip up an impressive array of edible art, should it? After all, my husband absolutely loves all
manner of bean soups—we’ve been eating them for our entire married life with
our favorite cornbread.
There’s just one problem. Who wants to buy a jar of pinto or great
northern beans? A variety of different
colored beans and lentils makes a beautiful presentation in the jar, but more
importantly, how will the combo taste?
In reality, the recipes I’ve been
trying on our family were OK, but even with repeated tweaking have not measured
up to my expectations. I guess I
shouldn’t have been surprised that those different beans also had different
flavor profiles. It just didn’t taste
like good ol’ ham and beans anymore.
The grim reality was that my poor
family of guinea pigs were eating at least one “bean meal” per day for a week
(with the refreshing exception of Thanksgiving day. Boy, were they thankful for that!)
Enter, “The Great Bean
Revolt.”
Friends, we all know there are consequences
for every choice we make in this life.
Unfortunately, due to my unwavering desire to figure these recipes out
NOW, I have subjected my family for a week now to the natural digestive
consequences of a regular diet of beans.
Even I have to admit that these
consequences can be, well, revolting--to say the least.
While there haven’t exactly been
any hunger strikes, it has been obvious that the regular appearance of beans at
the Hamilton table has dampened the family’s desire for the varied and sundry
members of the legume family.
A welcome change came earlier this
week when we tried a new recipe recently given to me from our friend Juanita
Muse. Because we have a steady supply of
coleslaw at the restaurant, I was waiting for an opportunity to try a new
recipe at home.
Juanita’s recipe calls for shredded
cabbage, but since I had a couple of bags of coleslaw mix in the fridge that
needed to be used, we made the substitution.
It made this old-fashioned side dish incredibly simple to put together.
So, take it from me friends, next
time you’re stuck in a rut in the kitchen, be sure to give the family a needed
break and try something new—like Juanita’s Coleslaw. (Unless, of course, the family’s hungry for
beans. In that case, I’ve got a few
recipes you could try.)
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| Image from MDH Kitchen |
Juanita’s Coleslaw
1-1/2 lbs. shredded cabbage
or 2 bags (14
oz. each) coleslaw mix
1 cup whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1. In a large bowl,
combine whipping cream, sugar, vinegar and salt. Add cabbage or coleslaw mix and mix until
cabbage is evenly coated.
2. Refrigerate 30
minutes before serving.
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in
Enterprise, Kansas. She and her husband
own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six home-schooled
children. You can reach The Buggy Stop
by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
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