Midwest

Ask a passerby what states make up the Midwestern United States, and you will get a different answer every time. Some will even say that the Midwest includes everything between New York and California except for the deep South. Growing up in Wisconsin, I never really considered North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri to be part of the Midwest, but I believe they technically are along with Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

I only mention the Midwest, because I want to recommend three cookbooks from the Heartland that I own and appreciate. Each contains recipes from a broad range of Midwestern states and would make a wonderful gift singly or as a trio. Practical, beautiful, and interesting reads, you may want to add them to your own collection to turn to repeatedly in the kitchen for inspiration and guidance. New or tried and true, these cookbooks are certainly worth a peek:

Celebrating the Midwestern Table by Abby Mandel

 The New Midwestern Table by Amy Thielen

Prairie Home Cooking by Judith M. Fertig

I found a favorite new and easy pea salad in Prairie Home Cooking that I wanted to share. In late spring, our local farm stand carries two cup bags of fresh shelled peas. Exceptionally flavorful and perfect for this salad, these peas are worth buying in bulk and freezing for future use in any number of recipes like this throughout the year.

Use turkey or uncured bacon, whole grain pasta, and well-aged cheddar for nutrients and full flavor.

Iowa Pea Salad

3 strips bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

1/2 cup chopped green onions with some green

2 cups cooked peas, fresh or frozen and thawed

1 cup cooked macaroni

1 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients. Chill for at least 2 hours. 

Index

I am an organizer. I love to bring order to a project and believe this was one of my strengths as an administrator. At home, I straighten a closet, label containers, and schedule our calendar. I need a certain amount of order and organization to function well, to get my head around my workload, and to enjoy a task at hand. This is my nature at its very core.

So, I am pleased to share that I have started two indices on my blog: a poetry index and a recipe index. You can find the tabs at the top of the left hand column. I hope this will make it easier for my readers to find a recipe of interest or to return to words of insight and inspiration. Let me know how it goes.

Today, I hope to add three recipes to the recipe index. As I worked my way through each quart of strawberries in the flat I bought the previous week, I knew there were a few more related recipes to share. One of my favorite simple salads for early summer is made of fresh greens, cut strawberries, roasted nuts (if desired), and Poppy Seed Dressing.

This milk-based Poppy Seed Dressing is quite simple and rather delicious, if I may say so myself.

Poppy Seed Dressing

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Combine ingredients with a whisk. Serve with a fresh greens, fruit (such as strawberries), and nut (such as slivered almonds) salad or toss just prior to serving.

One of my favorite pies is a fresh strawberry pie from Fresh Market Wisconsin by Terese Allen. This cookbook is an old favorite which contains numerous recipes that I return to repeatedly and remains true to the farmers markets of my youth. It tops a layer of fresh, hulled strawberries with a creamy strawberry sauce.

Not too sweet, Bea's Fresh Strawberry Pie is refreshing and suitable for the first hot spell of summer.

Bea’s Fresh Strawberry Pie

1 quart fresh strawberries

1 9-inch deep dish pie shell, baked and cooled

½ cup granulated sugar

⅓ cup honey

⅛ teaspoon table salt

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon unsalted butter

1. Rinse, pat dry, and stem strawberries (but leave 6-8 berries unstemmed, for garnish). Arrange 2 cups stemmed berries, hulled side down, in pie shell.
2. To make filling, mash the remaining stemmed berries in a saucepan. Stir in sugar, honey, and salt. Heat slowly, stirring often, until mixture comes in to a boil. Mix cornstarch with ¼ cup water, and then stir slowly into the boiling strawberries. When thickened, remove from heat and stir in butter. Cool filling, then spread in pie shell. 
3. Chill thoroughly prior to serving.

Finally, no recipe index would be complete without Grandma's Pie Crust Mix. Prepared in advance and at the ready for Bea's Fresh Strawberry Pie as well as any pie baking that should come along, I have to share the recipe the way I see it as I bake in my own kitchen. It is written in my mother's beautiful script, shared from generation to generation in written form on a note card.