October—such a beautiful autumn month! Our leaves on the trees are very pretty and colorful! We had a frost this weekend, which put an end to our garden for 2015. I really was ready for the garden to be done this year. It was such a busy summer, and it’s nice to have that extra job over. (Although it still has to be finished with cleaning it out, fertilizing and tilling.)

October also marks another year of penning this column. It is 13 years since I took this over after my mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, so suddenly passed away. She will always be remembered dearly! I enjoy hearing from readers who read her column from the beginning. I was only 19 years old and living at home when she began writing the column.

I remember her sitting at the table sometimes to write, after some of us girls were married and had come home to spend the day. Now I can imagine how hard it probably was for her to concentrate, with all of us girls and our young children there talking. She was always so glad to see us come home, and she was always so willing to cook a meal for everyone.

I now know the feeling of joy when a married child comes home to visit or to spend the day. Daughter Elizabeth works at the RV factory, so she doesn’t come home as often as I would like her to. She and Susan will have this coming Friday and next week off. I am excited, as it will mean getting more time to spend with Elizabeth. She plans to come home for the day Friday. Our other children are always glad to see Elizabeth and also to see the dogs, Izzy and Crystal, again. I hope that a day next week we can go help her at her house with catching up on whatever she needs to get done. It will be so nice to spend time together.

We had communion services in our church district on Sunday. It makes for a long day but always such a refreshing feeling to serve our great Heavenly Father.

After the services we stopped in at sister Emma and Jacob’s house to see the progress of the new addition they are building onto their house. It is looking very nice already! Jacob and Emma have lived in a three-bedroom ranch house since they moved to Michigan 11 1/2 years ago. So you can imagine they are excited to be expanding to more space. They are adding a second story with three bedrooms, so that will make room for a bigger kitchen and living room area. They will have five bedrooms after everything is done.

My husband, Joe, wanted to start the coal stove on Saturday when the temperature dropped to 30 degrees. Brrr! When he went to check out the stove pipes, he saw that a piece of it had rusted. He went after a piece at a store nearby, but they were out of stock on that size. It was ordered and should be in this week. Now the weather has turned warmer, with the temperature reaching over 70 degrees yesterday.

I have had several requests to reprint my dressing recipe. I always use it to stuff my turkey on Thanksgiving.

Until next week—God bless!

Homemade Dressing

2 tablespoons chicken soup base
2 cups hot water
4 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup carrot, diced
1/4 cup celery, diced
1/4 cup yellow onion, chopped
2 cups hot water (use potato water for better flavor), or enough water to make the dressing moist but not soggy*
10 slices bread, crumbled
1 teaspoon seasoned salt

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease an 8-cup casserole dish or cake pan. In a large bowl, dissolve the soup base in 2 cups hot water. Add all the remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour into the prepared dish and bake for 40–45 minutes, or stuff inside a turkey before roasting.

Special recipe footnote from Lovina–appearing on website only: 

*A newspaper editor asked, “Does this really call for 4 cups of water?”

Lovina: “It depends a lot on the bread. If it’s homemade or the slices are big, it takes more water. I think last time we had this recipe I tried it with 4 cups and it worked ok. Yesterday I used it to stuff a chicken and I wanted it drier so I used only 2 cups but my bread was smaller slices. I think I would leave the 4 cups total because it could get too dry when baking; my eggs are farm eggs and bigger so that makes more liquid as well. If I remember right this question came up before and I tried it with 4 that time and it worked well.”

 

Lovina Eicher is an Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife and mother of eight. Formerly writing as The Amish Cook, Eicher inherited that column from her mother, Elizabeth Coblentz, who wrote from 1991 to 2002. Readers can contact Eicher at PO Box 1689, South Holland, IL 60473 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply) or at LovinasAmishKitchen@MennoMedia.org.