Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 3
Week 3: January 14, 2023

What do a Germans-from-Russia fried bread and Mexican staple food have in common? Schlitz Kechla and corn tortillas are both homemade ethnic foods. In our quest to replace store-bought with homemade, these two foods have their place in my kitchen and in our meals.

We are all aware of rising grocery prices and that is often the reason given for getting back to homemade. It’s a good reason, but not the only. In addition to saving money, what are some other reasons you might choose to make something rather than buy it?

A few reasons that stand out are:

• to carry on a family tradition
• creative enjoyment
• superior flavor and quality

What store-bought foods can you replace with homemade?

Start with one. Make it several times with the healthiest ingredients you can afford. Whether it’s dinner rolls, chicken broth, tortillas, pie, pizza, or stir fry, devote some time to mastering the recipe so that you can comfortably produce that food without too much fuss. Repetition breeds comfort. If it’s a keeper, consider investing in tools to make it simpler, such as a heavy duty mixer, tortilla press, better pie pan, wok, etc. Once that food is firmly in your repertoire, move on to another.

I’d love to hear what recipe or dish you plan to master – please let me know in the comments!

Schlitz Kechla

Let’s start with Schlitz Kechla, which can be spelled in various ways: Schlitz këchla, Schlitz Keuchla, or këchla. It is also known as roll kuchen, greble, or grebble. There are probably more names floating around out there.

Pillowy, golden-brown kechla are a doughnut-like treat from my childhood. My maternal grandparents were first generation Americans more comfortable speaking German than English. I did not think this was unusual; didn’t everyone’s grandparents speak German? My mom did not teach my sister and I to speak German. In the old days, immigrants thought it so important to assimilate that they set aside their language, in public at least, and taught their children to love and appreciate the new homeland.

Food, however was another matter! Traditional cooking of German food continued and these Schlitz Kechla are an example of German-from-Russia thrift and ingenuity. Not having doughnut cutters, the dough was rolled in an oval and cut in sections, then slits were added for even frying. No scraps and no waste!

My sister and I loved kechla, as we shortened the name to, with jam and jelly. The soft bread were torn in fingers and dipped in strawberry jam, grape jelly, or orange marmalade. During my mom’s childhood it was chokecherry jelly.

Homemade corn tortillas

HOMEMADE CORN TORTILLAS are easier than you might think.

Just 3 ingredients: masa harina, salt, and water. I chose Bob’s Red Mill organic masa harina or “golden corn flour” because the flavor is as sunny as the color; so rich and delicious! Directions for making tortillas are right on the bag.

I learned to make tortillas from my daughter’s friend, Martha, when the girls were in high school. Martha lived right around the corner from us. She would occasionally lug a big bag of Maseca over and make tortillas in my kitchen to go with shredded beef or pulled pork and the most amazing salsa.

I’m not saying I won’t ever buy tortillas again – there is something to be said for convenience – but I wanted to, if not master them, at least be comfortable making them.

Tips:

• Let the dough rest 1 hour, covered with a damp towel, before pressing
• Get a tortilla press – or place the dough in a cut-open Ziploc bag and press with a glass pie pan
• Remove hot tortillas to a towel and cover to keep them soft and pliable

One pastured chicken

The McMaemic Farm recently delivered our order of pastured, organic chickens for the freezer. Let me tell you, you have never seen such plump birds at the store!

Think a high quality pastured chicken is out of your budget? It might not be!

Let’s say the chicken costs $25 and weighs 5 pounds. $5 a pound sounds expensive, doesn’t it?

When we had 5 kids at home, they could and did devour an entire roast chicken in one meal. I saved the bones and skin to make broth. I was very frugal and cooked the bones 4 times, yielding nearly 4 gallons of chicken broth to freeze for soups. That added up to 5 meals, or $5 per meal. Often we couldn’t afford an organic chicken and I bought whatever we could afford, without giving myself grief over it.

These days with just Sam and me a chicken can be stewarded to last for seven meals, counting soup made from broth. That’s only $3.57 per meal!

Homemade mayo

If it’s true that the sauce makes the dish, then homemade mayo is the crown among condiments. You can make a meal of mayo and odds and ends from the fridge. Dress it up, call it aioli, and you can make a literal feast.

Three veggies, a protein (tuna or hard-cooked eggs are easy), a green, a fruit, and a fermented vegetable make a feast fit for a king and for you!

Sundays

Driving to church on Sundays we cross a bridge and admire a waterfall.

Magic with whey

My friend Whitney Hunter is one of the most creative people I know and she hates waste, which led to the creation of these and many other sparkly whey sodas made from whey leftover from cheesemaking. I had the fun of tasting her elderberry-grape and Meyer lemon sodas this week – wow!

There is nothing as cozy as wood heat. A thrifted Turkish tea kettle presides, returning a bit of humidity to the air; while Italian DeSilva pots hover in readiness for cooking on the wood stove.

We brought in our own firewood and stored it in our “new” woodshed made entirely from repurposed materials last spring and summer in preparation for winter. Bookshelf

We are liking Sam’s new wheelbarrow from Lowe’s!

Garden

The austere beauty of a winter garden.

For you houseplant lovers!

The Unexpected Houseplant, 220 Extraordinary Choices for Every Spot in Your Home by Tovah Martin is a fun book!

Check your local library, you may be able to borrow it, or use my link for a used copy https://www.thriftbooks.com/share/…

The Unexpected Houseplant will have you looking around your house, garage, yard, shed, and garden for unusual vessels to serve as pots for all kinds of indoor plants.

A very practical book with generous photographs!

Have a good week, dear reader!

Blessings,
Michele and Samuel

Note: This post contains links to products and vendors I use and appreciate for their quality and usefulness. Some are affiliate, some are not. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases when you use the links I provide; this does not change your price. Thank you!

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 3
Week 1: January 7, 2023

Can we all agree soup and salad are a match made in heaven?

Hot and soothing soup + crunchy and piquant salad = first rate YUM. I grew up watching my Mom concoct all manner of delicious soups from whatever she had on hand, but if you didn’t have that example to follow you might appreciate a soup recipe framework to get you started. The recipe is printable and infinitely adaptable, so have fun with it and enjoy all the delicious soups you’re about to create!

Window garden

I rarely buy lettuce in winter because it is so easy and cheap to grow an abundance of salad shoots in cereal bowls.

The bowl I am holding is a “crop” of buckwheat lettuce ready to harvest. This week’s crops include pea shoots, sunflower shoots, radish sprouts, broccoli sprouts, amaranth sprouts, and kohlrabi sprouts.

I get two to three cuttings from the pea shoots, the others are one cutting. The soil and root wad goes to the chickens or bunnies for a special snack.

Another harvest we are thankful for – eggs. Raising a new batch of laying hens fro day-old chicks last spring and summer was real work. Daily feedings, cleaning the waterer, checking on them multiple times a day. Moving the cage from place to place. Not to mention Sam had to build a new cage for the juvenile birds. We are so glad we went to the effort. Our egg supply is

Best basic kitchen tools

If I were marooned on a desert island with only 4 kitchen tools, here’s what I’d want.

To my mind these are the true workhorses in the kitchen. When I taught hands-on cooking classes through my community’s food bank, these are the tools I recommended people start with.

Dutch oven ~ Choose an enameled cast iron, stainless steel, or cast iron Dutch oven with a heavy bottom in a size that makes sense for your family. Perfect for soups, stews, whole chicken, roasts, etc. (Mine came from Macy’s.)

Cast iron skillet ~ Choose a cast iron skillet in any size, but 10 and 12-inch are ideal for most families. Make stir fries, skillet-meals, and bake in them, too. Lodge is a good brand that is readily available. (I found a set of 2 at a yard sale)

Extra large cutting board ~ An extra large cutting board like this Epicurean 17×13-inch board gives you elbow room when chopping veggies, which encourages you to make stir fry and soups more often. (from Bed Bath & Beyond)

Chef’s knife (or santoku) ~ A quality 7-8-inch chef’s knife is your best friend. Look for full tang construction as with this Henckel’s knife – blade extends through the handle. Pick it up and see how it feels in your hand. Hone it often to maintain its edge. Other recommended brands: Wüsthof, Cutco, and Global. (Found mine at a thrift shop)

Thrift shop finds

If you’re a thrifter like me, you will appreciate this. I found a “new” (to me, anyway!) ravioli cutter and wooden spoon last week at a thrift shop, reasonably priced.

I use a ravioli cutter to cut dough for homemade crackers and pasta. My old ravioli cutter was aluminum. It got scrunched in a drawer and bent out of shape, so I was looking for a “new” one. Imagine how happy I was to find this beauty with a nice wood handle and brass cutting wheel from Italy!

Not on my list was a “new” wooden spoon, but I couldn’t leave this behind! A heart-shaped spoon! The wood was very, very dry and felt rough to the touch. (Perhaps someone put it through the dishwasher.)

I took both home and set to work restoring them for future service.

The heart-shaped spoon and the wooden handle on the ravioli cutter were both carefully sanded with fine grit sandpaper until they felt as smooth as velvet.

After cleaning the dust away, I rubbed in a generous coat of Spoon Butter. The wood soaked it right up and the grain glows! I tell you, I appreciate these two used utensils more than I would new ones. You know why? Because I, in effect, earned them. I had to do a little work to make them useful.

The Poppy Trail platter made by Metlox was a secondhand find on Facebook Marketplace in 2018.

Samuel’s projects

Sam has many ongoing projects. One of them is teaching me to shoot comfortably and with accuracy. My Dad felt it was important for his daughters to learn to handle firearms safely, so Sam is picking up where my Dad left off years ago. I have memories of many Saturday mornings as a girl spent aiming at pop cans, laundry detergent jugs, and other likely targets. What I’m shooting: a 9mm Wildcat. It has quite a bit of kick, so I have to brace myself!

Oh. My. Goodness. Have you ever seen a smoke tube?

This perforated stainless steel tube is a bit of wizardry. Fill it with wood chips or wood pellets and light them to create smoke in your BBQ grill. Sam keeps a cache of fruit wood prunings from our apple, pear, plum, and peach trees.

Tea at Mom’s

On the tea table: Sourdough Gingerbread waffles with Chai-Spiced Pear Butter, thick slices of bacon, and chamomile tea.

Bookshelf

Another wonderful book by Jane Watson Hopping, The Pioneer Lady’s Hearty Winter Cookbook.

One of the best antidotes to winter doldrums is cooking and this book is a treasury of timeless country recipes of the kind that sustained families in the early and mid 1900’s. Many of the recipes are family antiques. Don’t worry, they work in today’s kitchen!

A sampling of recipes:

Mother’s Homemade Tomato Soup

Great Aunt Mae’s New England Clam Chowder

Ida Louise’s Late Harvest Jeweled Slaw

Easy-to-Make Dinner Rolls

Deluxe Whole Wheat Bread

Old-Fashioned Butterscotch Refrigerator Cookies

But even if you never cook a single recipe from the book, you’ll enjoy reading the author’s stories and bits of comfort shared. Enjoy!

The Pioneer Lady’s Hearty Winter Cookbook is out of print, but you can find it at my favorite online used bookseller. If it happens to be out of stock, simply create a wish list and the company will email you when it comes back in.

Happy New Year to you

I am stepping into this new set of 365 days thoughtfully. I have not set goals nor made any big changes or decisions. 

Instead, I am avoiding distractions and tuning my ear to listen to the still, small voice in my heart. 

You know what? It doesn’t give me an annual plan. Nor a to-do list. No. Rather it beckons me to live in the moment. This moment. And find contentment here. 

I pray that you, dear friend, are able to quiet the noise and hear the voice in your heart. I pray your cup overflows with contentment and joy this year.

Blessings, Michele and Samuel

Note: This post contains links to products and vendors I use and appreciate for their quality and usefulness. Some are affiliate, some are not. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases when you use the links I provide; this does not change your price.

Whether you call it a Dutch Baby, oven pancake, puff pancake, German pancake or Dutch puff, this lofty pancake is easier than it looks! Just a few simple ingredients and 2 special tips and you will be able to impress your family with a lofty Dutch Baby for a simple yet special meal.

A Dutch baby with fruit and bacon is the quintessential date-night-at-home dinner. I will show you how to get the BEST results, the puffiest, most high-rising pancake possible.

Our favorite way to eat a Dutch baby is with powdered sugar or maple syrup and a squeeze of fresh lemon, but sometimes I like to serve it with a bowl of fresh berries and whipped cream.

Printable recipe available below. It is important to use the right size pan for the ingredients. Use a 10-inch (25 cm) cast iron skillet or 9-inch (25 cm) square baking pan or equivalent size casserole dish.

︎ For a 12-INCH (30 cm) CAST IRON SKILLET, increase the recipe by one-fourth: 5 tablespoons butter 5 eggs 1 ¼ cup milk (300 ml) 1 ¼ cup flour (150 g)

︎ For a 9-INCH X 13-INCH (24 x 35 cm) BAKING PAN, increase the recipe by one-half: 6 tablespoons butter 6 eggs 1 ½ cups (375 ml) milk 1 ½ cups (180 g) all-purpose flour (aka plain flour) ¼ – ½ teaspoon salt, if using unsalted butter

Dutch Baby Oven Pancake

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An impressive, towering “pancake” baked in the oven! Special and yet surprisingly simple, this just might become your favorite date-night-at-home dinner. Turn the oven on to preheat first, then start the recipe. If you don’t have time to bring the eggs and milk to room temperature naturally, simply place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes and warm the milk in a small saucepan on the stove to about 110F (43C).

• Author: Michele Pryse, FNTP
• Prep Time: 5
• Cook Time: 25
• Total Time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 6 servings
• Category: brunch
• Method: blender, oven
• Cuisine: German

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter

4 eggs

1 cup (250 ml) milk

1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour (aka plain flour)

1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon salt, if using unsalted butter

Choose your favorite toppings: Berries, warm applesauce, apple butter, jam, maple syrup, sliced fresh fruit, lemon wedges, powdered sugar, etc.

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425F / 215C for 30 minutes with a rack in the center. Set eggs and milk on the counter to bring to room temperature.

2. Once oven is fully preheated, place butter in skillet and place in the oven to melt and preheat the pan, 5 minutes.

3. While the butter melts and pan is preheating, crack the eggs into a blender. Whiz 1 minute at high speed (regular household blender) or 30 seconds (high speed blender like VitaMix). If you don’t have a blender, whisk the eggs in a large bowl vigorously for 2 minutes.

4. Gradually add milk through the opening in the blender lid, then add flour and process 1 minute. Or whisk vigorously if you do not have a blender. Add 1/8 – ¼ teaspoon salt, if desired. Batter should resemble heavy cream.

5. Remove heated skillet from the oven and tilt to swirl the butter so that it covers the bottom of the pan fully. Pour batter into the pan. Quickly and carefully return the pan to the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Dutch Baby should be a deep golden brown with a puffy crown; sometimes it comes out bowl-shaped. It’s perfectly okay and perfectly delicious!

6. Cut in wedges and serve immediately with choice of toppings. Enjoy!

Notes

PAN OPTIONS – OTHER SIZES

︎ For a 12-INCH (30 cm) CAST IRON SKILLET, increase the recipe by one-fourth: 5 tablespoons butter 5 eggs 1 ¼ cup milk (300 ml) 1 ¼ cup flour (150 g)

︎ For a 9-INCH X 13-INCH (24 x 35 cm) BAKING PAN, increase the recipe by one-half: 6 tablespoons butter 6 eggs 1 ½ cups (375 ml) milk 1 ½ cups (180 g) all-purpose flour (aka plain flour) ¼ – ½ teaspoon salt, if using unsalted butter