A Kansas Country Garden: First and Second Week of February

After a bleak and brown winter, a touch of color in the landscape brings hope to the soul. Winter will not last forever. Spring will come.

Sourdough Banana Bread

There are lots of good recipes for banana bread and they all taste pretty good. Why then Sourdough Banana Bread? Because it is indeed superb.

The simple ingredients.

What is it about sourdough that makes it taste so good? I am truly not sure. Sourdough is a fermented mixture of flour and water. What it does for bread is almost magical. Yes, its worth it to keep a jar with this bubbly concoction in the refrigerator should you happen to have a few overripe bananas sitting on your counter.

I always refresh the sourdough a few hours before using. Ideally sourdough should be used often, but I've found that even though I might not use it every week, if I take it from the refrigerator and add equal amounts warm water and flour, it is soon bubbling away and ready to work its magic. This is the good stuff. The sourdough setting in the refrigerator for several weeks is not. Oh, it would probably still work, but the recently fed sourdough is the best.

And an egg. Gotta have an egg.

This recipe, along with many of my sourdough recipes, was adapted from Rita Davenport's Sourdough Cookery which was published in 1977.  I love this book and it has taught me well. Most of the recipes are very good and some are outstanding. Sourdough Banana Bread qualifies as outstanding.

The recipe is simple, but goes together in a rather unusual way.

 Sourdough Banana Bread
(for a printable recipe, click here)

Begin by mixing together:
1 cup fresh sourdough starter

Sourdough starter is added to sugar and the fun begins.

1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

This creates a lovely foamy mixture.

Add:
1/3 cup canola oil (or any vegetable oil)
1 egg

Mix well.

Add:
1 cup flour
1 cup mashed banana (usually two)

Mix well.

Pour mixture into oiled loaf pans. It makes one large loaf, but I usually prefer to make it into two or three smaller loafs. Allow to sit in a warm place for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with about 1/3 cup chocolate chips.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50-55 minutes (single large loaf) or 30-35 minutes (two smaller loafs) or until done.

Pour a cup of tea and cut a slice of banana bread. Yes, I think you'll agree. This is a very good banana bread.

How to get your own sourdough starter:

1. Ask me! I really am glad to share. I think I have an excellent sourdough. I have been using and feeding my sourdough for at least ten years. If you know me and live close, I am a great option.

2.. Make your own. There are a several recipes posted on Tasty Kitchen (click here or here or here). I have not tried any of these recipes, but they seem fairly simple and I'm sure would work well. Rita Davenport offers several recipes for starter in her book, Rita Davenport's Sourdough Cookery. 

3. When someone offers you Amish Friendship Bread starter, accept. Occasionally Amish Friendship Bread starter makes the rounds in our community. According to the directions you have to make a loaf of bread and give away several bags of starter every week. It doesn't take very many weeks before there is a glut of baggies of starter. Then in another week everyone gets tired of the "have to"  in making the friendship bread and they throw everything out.  If someone offers you a bag, go ahead and accept, but don't follow the instructions. Feed it only equal amounts of warm water and flour. You'll have a great sourdough starter. It is possible that this is how I got my original sourdough.

Interested in sourdough? Here are some more recipes you may want to try (Click on the label for a link to the recipe):

Sourdough Blueberry Pancakes

Sourdough Apple-Oatmeal Bread

Sourdough Waffles

Vereneke: Take a Bite of History

Is it possible to "take a bite of history"? That's what we like to think we're doing when we serve Vereneke and Ham Gravy. This Low German dish enjoys a long history with our Mennonite ancestors. Pasta dough pockets filled with a dry cottage cheese mixture are boiled and fried, then topped with a rich ham gravy. They are somewhat similar to pierogi and may have a common origin.  

This is not fast food. Making it is a labor of love with an emphasis on the word "labor".  The steps are not difficult or overly complicated, but there are a lot of them and there is a definite investment of time.  It seems to work best as a group activity. Although I have made vereneke many times, I have never made it by myself. Perhaps that is part of its appeal. Mixed with the delicious aromas are memories of working beside my mother, my sister and the dear ladies at Central Christian School. We try to make it once a year when the extended family gathers at Christmastime. And the taste? Well, we think it tastes a little bit like history.

There are three parts to making vereneke--the dough, the filling and the gravy.  This year my sister, my sister-in-law and I spent a few hours in the kitchen one morning and prepared over 70 vereneke. We made the recipe shown below twice. That was enough to serve 18 that evening with some leftovers to enjoy later. Credit has to go to my sister, Nancy Belknap, who is the leader of the pack and the maker of the recipe. We worked in her beautiful kitchen. My job, and my sister-in-law's was in the construction of the vereneke.


Vereneke and Ham Gravy
For a printable recipe, click here.
For the dough:
Mix together:
2 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 cup evaporated milk
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
Add:
7 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
Mix together well and knead briefly until it forms a soft dough.

For the filling:

Locally, dry curd cottage cheese is available at Buhler's Hometown Foods.

2 pounds dry cottage cheese (dry is important)
4 egg yolks
salt and pepper to taste

Mix well.

The gravy is prepared just before serving.


Take approximately 1/6 of the dough and roll out thinly, 1/8 inch or less. You want it thin, but not so thin that the filling breaks through. We are fortunate to use a pasta machine for this and it works great. Long, narrow pieces of dough are perfect for making the half circle pockets. A rolling pin is what I'm sure our ancestors used and it would work well, too. 


Using a cookie scoop or spoon place about 2 tablespoons of filling on the dough. We try to assemble several at once as shown in the photo. The dough is pulled over the filling, then each venerenke is cut into a semi-circle using a tuna can. Who knows what our ancestors used before the advent of the tuna can! But that is what we've always used. Make sure the seams are sealed. If necessary use your fingers to crimp around the edges. With a toothpick poke a few holes in the vereneke.


The vereneke can be refrigerated until needed. Often we work ahead and freeze the vereneke. 

The bright sun shown on the kitchen island where we worked making the verenenke look very pale.

Cooking the vereneke and making the gravy should be done simultaneously, another reason for plenty of cooks. I'll give directions for cooking the vereneke first.

Into a pot of boiling water, carefully place several vereneke. If they are frozen, it is not necessary to thaw. Don't crowd the pot and allow to boil for several minutes until the vereneke rise to the top.  Using a slotted spoon, remove carefully and allow to drain. Then, fry in butter until golden brown.

Even college students on Christmas break get recruited to help cook vereneke.

For Ham Gravy
5 cups cubed ham
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
1 quart half and half
1 cup sour cream
2-3 cups milk
(Sometimes buttermilk is used as well.)

In a large frying pan melt butter. Add ham and fry slightly. Add flour and mix well to make a roux. Slowly add half and half, sour cream and milk and mix well. Heat until gravy thickens.

Serve vereneke and ham gravy separately.

How many vereneke can you eat? There was plenty for everyone to have as much as they wanted.

Recipe adapted from the Central Christian Cookbook, possibly published in the 1970's, contributed by Helen Adrian (mother of Lowell and Marlin).

Sources of Vereneke Meals (should you prefer not to make your own):

Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale
Held each year in April 
Kansas State Fair Grounds
Hutchinson, KS 
They serve a "Feeding the Multitudes" meal which includes vereneke and many other Low German dishes.

Peppernuts: Tiny Bites of Christmas

Peppernuts are a Christmas tradition in our family. These tiny, little cookies came to our area with the Mennonite immigration in the 1870's. Imagine generations of people grabbing a handful or two of peppernuts and munching away and you have a tradition worth continuing.  

The Old Buffet

The buffet is now missing a pull on the top drawer. 

Nobody picked it out or purchased it especially for our family. It was simply there in the first house my parents purchased in 1963. The previous owners had not wanted to take the dining room table and buffet to their new home and had offered to leave it. My parents were happy to accept. With four children and a new mortgage, they wouldn't be buying a new dining room table any time soon.  Thousands of happy meals were eaten around that table along with a few not-so-happy moments with someone who didn't want to eat his green beans. The buffet never held dishes, but seemed to be a catch-all for papers and table games. When we left the bungalow to move to the simple farmhouse on my dad's family farm, the table and buffet came along. The table was finally replaced years after we all grew up and left home, but the buffet remained, sitting stately in the living room.

The buffet stood in a corner in my parents' farmhouse for many years. Here it serves as background to a Christmas gift distribution by their grandchildren.

Several years after my mother lost her battle with cancer, my elderly dad remarried and brought a brave lady to the farm. She came with a piano. The only place it fit was where the old buffet still stood. The buffet needed a new home. And so I took it home with me.  

It is still a catch-all, although I have filled the buffet with dishes and china as was its original purpose. No, what it catches and displays are memories. Over the years I have accumulated far too many sentimental keepsakes. Rather than leaving them tucked away, I bring out different things according to the season and arrange them on the buffet. Is this a good thing? Or a little too mushy? Maybe kind of silly?  

Christmas brings memories of our sons' childhood with their old blocks, a Disney music box and casual photographs from Christmas through the years. The clock was purchased to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversa

After the excitement of Christmas, I love to get out my white and clear glass things. It seems peaceful and calm. The photograph is of both sets of my grandparents and the faux marble clock comes from my paternal grandparents.   

In the spring, I get out the pink and green dishes. Many of the pink dishes come from my grandmother. I'm not sure that I ever saw them as a child. Grandma liked to keep her nice things nice and as a result these these things were seldom (never?) used. I try go ahead and use them while they are easily available. 

My parents were married in 1954. Some of their wedding gifts were the red that was so popular in that era. Some aluminum coffee pots, an old fan and canning jars round out the red, white and blue colors for summer.

When you only see it for a few months each year, it becomes even more precious. The   wall hanging was embroidered by my mother for me. It is a treasure.