Monkey Muffins

It's probably "monkey business" to make people be "guinea pigs." But, during last week's ski trip to Colorado, nobody was complaining about me trying a new recipe for Monkey Muffins. With today's snow in Central Kansas, it might be just the treat to make in your kitchen, especially if you're like me and always seem to have ripe bananas on the counter.

Our two ski "monkeys" liked them just fine - as did the adults. (At least, the reasonable adults who like peanut butter. Randy is not as big a fan of PB, but he'll eat it.)

Of course, monkeys would like them because of the bananas and the peanut butter. And what creature doesn't like a little chocolate with their bananas and peanut butter?

I brought the muffins to supplement the breakfast casserole that was on the menu for the breakfast for which I was responsible. We had enough left over that they provided breakfast and snack treats on other days, too.

Just before we left for Colorado, Jill and Eric had parent-teacher conferences for both of the girls. They sent a photo of a poster that Kinley had made as part of an enrichment activity. It was something she worked on independently when she finished other classroom work. 

She found two different muffin recipes. She then did the math to find out how many ingredients she'd have to buy, how much they cost and her profits on those ingredients. Pretty impressive for a 4th grader, right? 

After seeing all of Kinley's computations for making muffins and making money, maybe I have found a business partner, if I ever want to break into the baking-for-profit business.

Hmmm ... that looks like a lot of math. She would need to be my math consultant, too.

On second thought, maybe I'll just stick with home baking. If you give them a try, let me know what you think!

 

 

 Monkey Muffins

From Taste of Home

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup plus 1 tbsp. sugar, divided

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 cup mashed ripe bananas

2/3 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy, but feel free to use smooth, if you prefer)

1 tbsp. milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 cup miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the bananas, peanut butter, milk and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture, just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chips.

Fill paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Sprinkle with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 15-20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. Serve warm.

 

Rising to the Occasion: National Festival of Breads

Ronna Farley and her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf.

Ronna Farley had a big smile on her face when I visited her kitchen at the Festival of Breads competition last Saturday. Her first attempt at baking her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf had come out of the pan cleanly. If you've ever made anything in a Bundt pan, you know there's no guarantee: Part could end up on the cooling rack while some is stuck in the pan.

But after carefully inching her way around each crook and crevice with an ice pick, the bubble loaf was out in one piece, looking evenly browned and with that unmistakable fragrance of freshly-baked yeast bread combined with an undertone of onion.

She had more reasons to smile that evening. Her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf won the grand prize at the 5th biennial National Festival of Breads.

She and seven other finalists spent the time from 7 AM Saturday morning until 2:45 or so that afternoon making their recipes three different times. By 3, each had delivered her best effort to a judge's room for evaluation.

Farley traveled to Kansas from her home in Rockville, Maryland, where she works as a cashier in a grocery store. She gets inspiration for developing original recipes based on the ingredients she rings up for customers as they empty their carts onto the supermarket conveyor belt.

I especially love seeing what people from other countries are buying and the different ideas of ingredients I should try in recipes. Sometimes I'll even ask them, 'What are you doing with that?' or 'What is that?' because there are different things we sell that I don't even know what they are.

Ronna Farley as quoted in the Festival of Breads recipe book

As the 2017 National Festival of Breads champion, Farley received $2,000 cash, plus a trip to attend a baking class of her choice at the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. She will receive 120 envelopes of Red Star Yeast. 

This was Farley's second time as a top eight finalist in the Festival of Breads. Like several of the competitors, she is no stranger to cooking contests.  Patrice Hurd has been chosen as a finalist in a dozen national contests. Three times, she's been a contestant in the "grandmother" of them all - the Pillsbury Bakeoff. Once you've competed a trio of times, you're no longer eligible at Pillsbury. She's also been a finalist in the national beef cookoff, Build A Better Burger and Midwest Living events, among others.

Patrice Hurd and her Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown.

But Patrice was glad to be back at the National Festival of Breads in Kansas. She was also a finalist in the 2015 contest. This time, her recipe was Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown. 

"It's a fun hobby to compete in these contests," Patrice said. "You meet people who are just as crazed about doing this as I am. We get to know one another, and it's kind of like family when we get together."

There's a family feel to the National Festival of Breads competition itself, she said. 

"At the Pillsburg Bakeoff, there are 100 finalists, so you're basically a number," Patrice said Saturday as she worked on her bread recipe. "This contest (Festival of Breads) has so much heart and a real down-home feeling. I was thrilled to get back here. The organizers take care of every single detail. They do everything to make you feel welcome and make it an experience to remember." 

One of those experiences was her first-ever ride on a combine. Though it was on the schedule in 2015, a drizzly day kept the contestants from truly experiencing a Kansas wheat harvest. This year, Patrice and other contestants traveled on Friday to the Brookville farm of Joe and Geena Kejr where they took turns riding the John Deere combine. They also toured the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center in Manhattan and the Farmer Direct Foods Inc. flour mill in New Cambria. It gave them a glimpse at how wheat grown and harvested in Kansas ultimately becomes flour that can be used in their kitchens scattered across the U.S.

Michele Kusma with her Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread.

Contestant Michele Kusma from Columbus, Ohio, loved the combine ride, too. This was the first time she was a National Festival of Breads finalist and her first visit to Kansas.

"It was just awesome," Michele bubbled. "It was interesting and beautiful to see the wheat being harvested." 

Michele, too, is a contest veteran. As she developed her recipe for Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread, she was thinking about flavors that consumers tend to enjoy.

Though she's a contest pro now, she didn't grow up baking. Michele turned to creating recipes and baking as an outlet after her second bout with breast cancer.

"My mother didn't bake bread. My grandmother didn't bake bread. It was me and YouTube," Michele said with a laugh. "I love baking, and you might as well love what you do. None of us know how long we have on this earth, so we need to pursue the things that give us joy."

Jane Fry (on the right) and her kitchen assistant look over her Southwest Focaccia.

It definitely wasn't finalist Jane Fry's first time on a combine or in a Kansas wheat field. Jane didn't have to hop on an airplane to get to Manhattan. She was down the road in Elk Falls, Kansas.

Like many Kansas cooks, her love of baking dates back to her days in 4-H. This was her second time as one of the Top 8 in the National Festival of Breads. This time, her recipe was Southwest Focaccia.

Jane isn't just an expert in shaping bread. She and her husband, Steve, also shape stoneware, much with a wheat theme. Each piece is individually made on a potter’s wheel or by other hand methods, glazed, decorated and fired. The business has grown, but remains a small family enterprise to provide the kind of “home-grown” lifestyle. In 1987, Jane incorporated her love for quilts by developing a line of porcelain pins and earrings using traditional quilt patterns as well as original and custom designs, which are sold under the name Elk Falls Piecemakers.

Fellow contestant Kellie White grew up on a farm near Westmoreland, Kansas, though she now resides in Valley Park, Missouri. Her entry, Orange Spice Anadama Wreath with Walnuts and Dates, won the People's Choice award voting the day of the festival. Her Kansas fan club cheered loudly when those results were announced Saturday afternoon. Festival goers could vote for their favorites by depositing $1 in voting jars. Those efforts raised more than $600 for the Flint Hills Bread Basket, a local food pantry.

She credits her love of baking to her mom and also to a neighbor lady named Ethel who shared a day of baking with Kellie as a young girl and also gave their family gifts of homemade bread at Christmas.

One of Shauna Havey's Butternut Romesco Braid's was shaped and rising, while she had another dough rising.

On the other hand, contestant Shauna Havey didn't grow up baking. The Roy, Utah, finalist began experimenting in the kitchen after marrying her husband. The mother of two prefers savory recipes, so she developed Butternut Romesco Braid. 

Pam Correll shapes her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents.

Pam Correll was hoping for a "sweet" victory with her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents. The smells of orange zest and fresh orange juice permeated the work station for the Brockport, Pennsylvania, baker. The FACS teacher enjoys teaching her students to bake from scratch.

"It's becoming a lost art," Correll said. This was the Pennsylvania baker's second time to enter the Festival of Breads, and two of her recipes were awarded honorable mention in 2015. The 2017 contest was her first as one of the eight top finalists.

Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes

Somehow I missed talking to Tiffany Aaron, whose recipe was Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes. Aaron is from Quitman, Arkansas, but she grew up in Montana. In her interview included in the festival brochure, she says her father-in-law supplied all the sweet potatoes she used for her experimentation and recipe development. In 2015, she had won an honorable mention. This year, she only entered the one recipe, but it still got her included in the Top 8. The mother of five brought her middle daughter with her to Kansas to experience all the festival happenings.

The National Festival of Breads, the nation’s only amateur bread-baking competition, is sponsored by King Arthur Flour, Red Star Yeast and the Kansas Wheat Commission. Many more recipes from previous years' contests, as well as bread baking tips, are available at the National Festival of Breads website. Check it out.

***

I volunteered at the festival. Watch for my next blog post about why I took time during our own wheat harvest to travel to Manhattan and help out!
 

Flour Power

Randy was gone several days last week. And when he came home, he brought flour.

Yep, flour - not flowers! That's what happens when you're married to a farmer.

Randy completed a three-day flour milling short course for state wheat commissioners at the International Grains Program at Kansas State University. He even got a diploma.

Randy is 3rd from the left on the back row.

And he brought home 50 pounds of flour.

If you know me, you know I like to bake. But 50 pounds of flour is a lot - even for me.

I may buy Stafford County Flour Mill's Hudson Cream Flour in a 10-pound bag if I'm going to be doing a lot of baking for the church bazaar or for the holidays. But I sure don't buy five of them at a time - or lug home a 50-pound bag. It's a storage dilemma.

Besides the flour, he also brought home a small bag of cookies they baked in Shellenberger Hall on K-State's campus. K-State is the only school in the U.S. that offers a four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Bakery Science and Management.

The recipe they followed looked a little different than the ones I use. Though I sometimes will triple a basic cookie recipe and then divide it to make five or six different cookie varieties, the bulk recipe makes my home attempts look paltry. The huge Hobart mixers in the K-State bakery make my KitchenAide look like a mini-Me wanna-be.

While I am a Hudson Cream Flour "snob" and use it for all my baking, the flour Randy brought home was made from K-State's new wheat variety, 1863. (It was named 1863 as a nod to K-State's 150th birthday last year.) We planted 50 acres of 1863 this past fall and will harvest it for the first time on the County Line this summer.

Randy and the other short-course students milled the wheat at the Hal Ross Flour Mill on K-State's campus. For more than a hundred years, Kansas State University has provided the world with expertise in flour milling. In 1905, J.T. Willard set up a small mill in the corner of a chemistry laboratory, and from that small beginning, K-State has developed a program that offers the only four-year Bachelor of Science degree in Milling Science and Management.

Now that Randy's K-State cookies are gone, I guess I need to get that bag open and start baking.

Mark Fowler, who taught the class, told them there is no such thing as "bad flour." There's just flour for different purposes.

That's music to a Kansas wheat farmer's ears after a few days with his nose to the grindstone (so to speak).

**

And now for my postscript: I teased Randy about bringing me "flour" instead of "flowers." I hummed a few bars of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" ala Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. When he went to Hutchinson to watch our niece, Amanda, cheer at the Hutchinson Community College basketball game, he came home with a bouquet of flowers. 

Now I feel really badly. (And, in my defense, I've told him repeatedly in our nearly 33 years of marriage that flowers aren't necessary and that I don't "need" them to know he loves me.)

But he brought them anyway. And I must admit, they are beautiful. But so is that 50-pound bag of flour because it represents how much he cares about learning and giving back by helping to promote a crop that's so important to us and our livelihood.

He's a keeper, for sure!

Telling the Story ... The Whole Story

If you're telling the story,

 you have to tell the whole story. 

It may sound like something Paul Harvey would say. But, instead, it's wisdom from my favorite farmer philosopher (aka, my husband).

Last spring, when a "controlled" CRP burn ended up being far from controlled, my first inclination was to keep it to myself. However, it's not like people in Stafford weren't going to find out about it. After all, we had volunteer fire crews from Sterling, Alden, Raymond and the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge arrive to help us. News like that gets around faster in a small community than ... well, faster than a controlled burn can become uncontrolled.

But, Randy wanted me to share the story on Kim's County Line. His theory:

If you're telling the story,

 you have to tell the whole story.

This week, I had my own fire. My first inclination is to hide it. I hate making mistakes. I probably hate revealing my mistakes even more. (It's really silly, since most of my shortcomings are front and center anyway.)

This is about more than kitchen disasters. As a life-long perfectionist and overachiever, I like giving the impression that I have my life together, even if I sometimes feel like it's an illusion that rivals any of my husband's collection of magic tricks.  I want to smother "bad news" as assuredly as that box of baking soda smothered the flames dancing in the bottom of my oven Monday night. But Randy's matter-of-fact admission of less-than-stellar outcomes kept burning in my mind as high as those orange-yellow flames. So, here it is ... the whole story.

I was co-hostess this week for PEO, which means I was responsible for providing the dessert. (If you know women's meetings, you know that's an important job.) I have a reputation for being a good cook. (My birth family knows that my true misadventures in the kitchen date all the way back to Meatloaf Mush when I was 13 or so, but that's a story for another time. Or ask my brother about it.)

Anyway, in order to uphold that reputation for baking delicious and beautiful treats, I was making cheesecake in springform pans instead of regular 13- by 9-inch pans. I had two springform pans filled with butter-laden graham cracker crusts and topped with cheesecake made from five whole packages of cream cheese, fresh lemon zest, sugar and other goodies. 

Wanting to "look good" got me into trouble when the butter started dripping into the bottom of the oven. I added a layer of foil so that it wouldn't make such a mess. But, when the timer rang for the first check, I discovered flames. Yes, real flames, not just an acrid smell and burned-on residue. (Thank you, Lord, for that compulsion to check and double-check things and for the timing of that oven buzzer.)

I also discovered that I didn't have the fire extinguisher I thought I had above the stove. (If I used it for another cooking mishap, I have successfully developed amnesia about it.)

Thankfully, the half-full box of baking soda I had was enough to put out all but a little remnant of the flames.

I stay fairly level-headed in a crisis. I calmly pulled my cheesecakes from the oven. After the fire was out, I salvaged the ingredients. I ended up separating the cheesecake filling from the crust and baking the cheesecake in a sheetcake pan (along with a little extra that Randy got to taste test to make sure it didn't taste more like scorched earth than cheesecake.) To serve it Tuesday night, I fancied it up with fresh fruit and a dollop of whipped cream on top. It got rave reviews.

I could have not told anyone (and I didn't at PEO). And believe me, that's my first inclination. I want to believe I'm not telling the story now because Randy already told the tale to our friend at the local cafe and to the lumberyard proprietor when he ordered fire extinguishers for the house.

I hope it's because I truly want to be real. This space shouldn't be just about posting fun trips to the zoo with our granddaughter or farming tales or yummy treats accomplished without an oven fire.

This is the same CRP field as at the top photo a couple of months after the fire.

Making mistakes is not a crime. (Repeat that to myself 10 times.) Experiencing unexpected consequences is part of life. A lesson in humility helps refine me. If I hadn't wanted to impress with a lovely springform pan dessert, I wouldn't be stuck revealing my failure.

I should be just as quick to share the fire (or any other shortcoming) because it's how people can truly know me - not just the image of me I'd like to portray.

I need to be more like a wildflower after a prairie fire.  We all have "fires" in our lives. We have times where the landscape feels as desolate as that blackened earth or the scorch in the bottom of my oven. We are lonely. We face health problems. We're concerned about our kids or our jobs or our community or a drought. The fires are different for all of us. But we all have them. We can get hot under the collar. We can feel like we're walking through flames.We can feel that all-consuming heat and wind surround us in a way where it's even hard to breathe.

But if we don't admit it to anyone else, it just might consume us:

If you're telling the story,

 you have to tell the whole story.

Sweet As Pie

I probably learned as much as a 4-H parent as I did as a 4-Her. Until Jill started experimenting with pies for fair baking, I was more likely to use a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust than make my own.

It's not as if I didn't have some pie baking in my background. Both my grandmothers were good pie bakers. My Grandma Neelly's green apple pie was my favorite summer time pie. My Grandma Leonard's pumpkin pie was my fall pastry of choice.

When Jill started baking pies for the county fair, I learned right along with her. First step was finding a good pie crust recipe. After several false starts, I called my sister, Lisa, who was already proficient at pie baking.

Her Never Fail Pie Crust recipe lives up to the name.

Purchasing a pastry cloth was another step in making pie baking easier. I don't usually use the "stockinet" that came with it on my rolling pin. But rolling out the pie dough on a lightly-floured pastry cloth instead of on a counter or between sheets of waxed paper has definitely streamlined the process for me. It was worth the investment of a few dollars for a pastry cloth.

Still, I don't make pie as often as my husband would like. With the lower price of blueberries in the grocery store, it was time to fulfill my promise to my husband that he would get his favorite pie.

A blueberry pie is super easy, compared to making an apple pie and having to peel, core and slice all the fruit. It's also easier than a peach pie, when you have to blanch the fruit to remove the peels and then slice.

So, here's my version of Blueberry Pie:

Blueberry Pie

Pastry for 9-inch two-crust pie (See Never Fail Pie Crust below)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
4 cups fresh blueberries
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. margarine or butter

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare pastry. Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon. Combine blueberries and lemon juice. Add dry mixture to blueberries and toss lightly. Pour blueberry mixture into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with margarine or butter. Cover with top crust that has slits cut into it (or use a small cookie cutter to make a design.) Seal and flute the crust.

Cover edge with foil shields. Bake until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust, 35 to 45 minutes, depending on your oven.

Since fresh blueberries are not always available, you may substitute unsweetened frozen blueberries, partially thawed, for the fresh blueberries. (One 12-ounce package yields 2 1/2 cups.)

Never Fail Pie Crust

3 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups shortening
5 tbsp. water
1 tbsp. vinegar
1 egg, beaten

Stir together flour and salt. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until well blended. Stir together water, vinegar and beaten egg. Add to flour mixture. Stir with a fork until a dough starts to form and pulls away from the side of the bowl. You may need to use your hands to help form it into a ball. Divide into thirds, as this recipe makes 3 crusts (enough for a 2-crusted pie and one single crust. I usually just put the extra crust in the freezer to use later for a one-crust pie.)

STEP BY STEP - A Photo Essay for Homemade Pie

Combine the dry ingredients for the pie dough (flour and salt). Note: I use Hudson Cream flour in all my baking. It has been milled at the Stafford County Flour Mills in Hudson for the past 106 years.

Combine the wet ingredients for the pie dough (beaten egg, water and vinegar).

Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender ...


... until shortening is well distributed.


Add the wet ingredients and stir with a fork. As the two combine, the dough will start to pull away from the sides of the bowl.


Use your hands to form dough into a ball. Cut into thirds. Form each part into a ball.

Put a one-third ball of the dough on a flour-dusted pastry cloth and press down to form a circle.


Using a floured rolling pin, keep rolling in different directions to retain the round shape.

Roll out the pie crust dough until it is about 2 inches larger than the inverted pie pan.


Fold the pie crust into quarters.


Put the dough into the pie plate and unfold to cover the pie tin.


Put the blueberry mixture into the bottom crust.


Dot with butter.


Roll out the top crust, using the same procedure as before. Put on top of blueberries.


Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1 inches from rim of plate. Fold and roll top edge under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal. The judge at the Hudson Cream Flour Bakeoff suggested putting ice cold water on the bottom crust to make a seal between the top and bottom crust - kind of like glue.

Flute the edges. I place my index finger on the inside of the pastry rim, thumb and index finger on the outside, and pinch the pastry into a v-shape. (I missed that step in the photos - sorry!)


Using a mini cookie cutter, remove a portion of the top crust so the pie is vented. (Some people just cut slits in the top crust. That is fine, too. I've seen people make slits that look like a wheat stalk. I'm just not that artistic!)

Use foil pie shields to cover your pie crust. This prevents overbrowning.


I have tried a circular, metal pie shield, but they never seem to fit the pan correctly.

Bake as directed, until crust is golden brown and filling starts to bubble, about 35 to 45 minutes, depending upon your oven. Remove from oven and put on wire rack to cool.

Once the pie is fairly cool, it's ready to serve. (You can serve it hot, but the filling won't hold together as well). Top with ice cream, if desired. Enjoy!

****

Because you've trimmed the extra pie dough from the edges of your pan, you can use the excess for a cinnamon-sugar topped treat.


Just roll out the leftover dough and put on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

This is one of my favorite memories of baking with my Grandma Neelly. We even had a miniature rolling pin that we could use to roll out the extra dough.

Just bake until the crust is golden brown.

Break into pieces and enjoy (if you can do it without thinking about the calories)!