Rye n Injun Bread
“Ma was busy all day long [..] she baked salt rising bread and rye’n’Injun bread”-pg 62 Little House in the Big Woods
If anyone is a returning reader they understand my love of carbs based off my salt rising bread post. I decided to celebrate my upcoming birthday with making Rye n Injun bread! Check out my Instagram feed for my results. As I’m writing this before I take the photos you could see me crying on the floor or stuffing my face. Birthday gamble if you will. The recipe below comes out of the Little House Cookbook. The word ‘injun’ I don’t approve of in any way in 2017 which caused me to do a little surface research. Apparently injun bread was originally made with equal parts rye flour, corn meal and wheat flours. The injun in the title refers to corn meal as Puritans would have needed to get out of their European sole dependency for wheat flours in the New World. Boston Brown Bread is said to have evolved from this earlier version. The Ingalls family origins in New England may have brought the recipe to the Big Woods. The long steaming time would have allowed Ma to bake this bread slowly on the Sabbath as she could do all the prep work the day before allowed to steam/bake during the day. Pair this with some salt pork beans and you have dinner!
1 1/2 c. corn meal
1 1/2 c. rye flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 stp salt
2 eggs
3/4 c. molasses
1 c. buttermilk
In a large bowl, mix flours, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix eggs, molasses and buttermilk. Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until well mixed. Do not beat. Grease a 9×13″ pan. Put mixture in pan. Fill another 9×13″ pan with water and put on bottom rack of oven. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Bake at 200 degrees for 3-4 hours. Cut into 16 pieces. Serve hot or cold. Great with butter and/or honey. Makes 16 servings.
Share-Day Post: United We Stand
When I first read Craft Nectar’s article my feathers ruffled at the paragraph “Hiring designers based on the number of Instagram followers instead of talent will not save our industry. Deciding which books to publish based on the age of the author will not save our industry.” Ahhh ok, so a big fuck you to the millennials? She’s simply circling around the style vs. substance debate at the beginning of her post. Retirees have the purchasing power in her experience versus the online millennial generation. My grandmother wasn’t on Instagram; she didn’t care what kind of social media following you had. Could you show her a stitch, a pattern, a new way to work her fabrics? Then you had her attention and her money.
It was her next sentence ” Belittling other genres of quilting will definitely not save our industry. If you REALLY want to save our industry, here are a few things you can do:” that reined me in and soothed those previously ruffled feathers. Regardless of what people feel are the current trends in publishing and design why would anyone belittle a genre, a designer, a pattern? Why strike at someone with Instagram fame? Maybe you don’t respect the vehicle but respect the work that went into building those posts and cultivating a following. Design and marketing power? Maybe there are lessons Instagram can teach us to spread quilting to the next generation. With so many industries losing young interest fabric arts seem to be one of the few crafts that are gathering new followers. I can’t walk into my local Starbucks without some high school basics (i.e. pumpkin spice loving, yoga mat, leggings and puffy vest) stitching away. Granted I grew up in Portland, Oregon.
Her 6 points can apply to all industries and should be shared. So let’s gather the momentum and create a gallery of inclusion. Let’s enjoy this surge in interest and reward the artists, shops and magazines that put in the leg work every day to create. Please check out her article attached below and comment with your views. Time for a crafting discussion.
The past few years have brought tremendous changes to the world of quilting. Shops have closed by scores. Magazines and book publishers have shuttered or merged with other publishers. American Quilter Society has ceased publishing books all together. City Quilter in New York is closing. Tension has arisen at times between genres of quilters who […]
Share-Day Post: Laura Land Tour: Mansfield, MO —
A wedding in May has given me the perfect opportunity to visit Rocky Ridge Farm!! My poor husband has been bombarded with facts, routes and side trips to visit. I’m sure he’s looking forward to June when my peppering of stories should die down.
I’ve been starting to research the trip and going through WordPress to see other people’s experiences. Kathleen Ernst at sites and stories blog had a great article. She addresses the elephant in the room when it comes to historic tours of authors. One can be so excited to visit the little house in the woods of Wisconsin or on the lush prairies of DeSmet but it can be the actual homes where these works were created that can be overlooked.
A year ago I biked for 10 days around Prince Edward Island (my family loves to bike and I also love Lucy Maud Montgomery so really I was bribed into a cross country bike trip). While the original trip was planned around Green Gables it was walking through the haunted woods across the street that I stumbled unto the real home of Mrs. Montgomery. It was here on land still owned in the family that I saw the excavation of her original home growing up and met her family that still use the land as a working farm. It’s these smaller stories and meetings that I treasure from that trip. I’m excited to see what the Ozarks have in store for me!
I will admit that when my sister and I began planning visits to all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder homesites, I was most excited to see the places I’d read about in Laura’s Little House books. That did not include Mansfield. After visiting? All I can say is that it is a very special place. […]
Homestead Papers from Archive.gov
Do you recognize a few of those names? Perry, Boast, Wilder? How small that world really was when DeSmet was founded.
https://www.archives.gov/research/land/ingalls
New Book from the South Dakota Historical Society Press
Just as you are snuggled up into the couch reading all your new Laura books you received for Christmas…a new book is about to haunt you. If you are like me, the possibility of new book regarding Laura makes your heart race as fast as watching Antique Roadshow.
With the success of Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography in 2014 (it’s on it’s 9th printing) the South Dakota Historical Society Press announced a new book!!!
“The new book, Pioneer Girl Perspectives: Exploring Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by Nancy Tystad Koupal, will bring together writers from across the continent to explore the impact that Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography made on our understanding of one of America’s most iconic authors.”
Get ready for spring 2017! Show your love by pre-ordering the book and tweet me your thoughts after you finish reading it for the first time!
Pioneer shelf — bend branches
Saw this beautiful shelf on Bend Branches and immediately thought of claim shanties on the prairies. It’s time to finally build that weekend cabin in the woods for all my Little House fantasies. Which will include a corner shelf.
What is chaos to some is orderliness to another. Weekly Photo Challenge – Chaos
Laura’s Gingerbread Recipe
It’s gingerbread time which means the countdown to Christmas is officially on! I treated myself to the book The World of Little House a few months back while going through another nostalgia Amazon spree and this ended up in my cart. More juvenile then I originally intended but my thoughts were a bit impaired with wine that night…anyways… I thought I would try to recreate Laura’s recipe tonight. The biggest debate being adding the chocolate frosting or not she so loved! “Chocolate frosting adds to the goodness.” -LIW Comment with your results or Tweet/Instagram photos of the gingerbread on your Christmas tables!
Ingredients
1 cup molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup boiling water
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon each: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
shortening to grease a 9×9 baking pan
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease the baking pan.
- Blend the sugar and shortening in the small bowl. Mix the molasses.
- Measure out a cup of boiling water in the 2-cup measuring cup and add the baking soda. Mix well.
- In the large bowl, sift together the flour and the spices. Add all other ingredients, mix well and pour into the greased pan.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until knife/cake tester comes out clean.
- Serve this warm or at room temperature.
Collins, Carolyn Strom., Christina Wyss. Eriksson, Deborah Maze, and Garth Williams. The World of Little House. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1996. Print.pg. 131
1796 Honey Gingerbread — Savoring the Past
I have a bone to pick with Jas Townsend of Savoring the Past. I need my time back. Because I have become OBSESSED with his blog and YouTube channel! My favorite portions of Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy were the food prep paragraphs. Probably explains my slow descent into the foodie label as an adult. Check out his 1796 Honey Gingerbread recipe. I’ll post Laura’s gingerbread recipe in a later post for us to compare the evolution of gingerbread. Take it away Jas!
This honey cake recipe is from Amelia Simmons’ 1796 cookbook, American Cookery. It is probably what we would think of as gingerbread today. 3 ½ cups Flour 1 tbsp. Ginger 1 tbsp. Cinnamon 3 tbsp. Diced Candied Orange Peel 1/3 cup White Sugar 1 Egg well beaten 2/3 cup Honey 1 ¼ cups Sour Milk […]
Interview with Robynne Elizabeth Miller: author of “From the Mouth of Ma” — The Cottonwood Tree
I’m am blog crushing on The Cottonwood Tree and their articles on the people surrounding Laura in the Little House Series. Which got me to thinking. Why would I keep their writing to myself? I should be shouting it from the rafters! So, inspired, I’m creating a new segment. Share-days, on Sundays, I share articles from my favorite blogs that share my love for all things Laura. And who better to participate first in sharing but Ma! Robynne Elizabeth Miller sat down with The Cottonwood Tree for an interview to talk about her book From the Mouth of Ma. I loved her approach to discovering Caroline Quiner Ingalls from the written page to the academic and separating out the TV show character from our understanding of Ma.
She has an upcoming book regarding the three people that composited Nellie Oleson which I’m eagerly waiting for! But for now snuggle into this cold December day and check out her interview below with The Cottonwood Tree
We welcome the opportunity to speak with Robynne Elizabeth Miller, who recently wrote a book entitled, From the Mouth of Ma that focuses on Caroline Quiner Ingalls who was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s mother. TCT: Thanks for joining us, Robynne. Your book is an interesting take on the Little House matriarch. Why did you decide to […]
via Interview with Robynne Elizabeth Miller: author of “From the Mouth of Ma” — The Cottonwood Tree
little history on the prairie 