There are lots of great desserts in the Little House books, but I had my heart set on snow candy from the very beginning.
This is one of the fastest and most rewarding recipes I’ve ever made. Start to finish, it doesn’t take more than 5-7 minutes, and the resulting maple candy is delicious. The version I made (a recipe from Happy Hooligans) is truthfully nothing more than boiled maple syrup, but there’s something about the chill from the snow and the texture from the few remaining snowflakes still clinging to the candy as you lay it on your tongue that just make it so darn satisfying. ^.^
This is a fun, quick snowy day recipe to make with kids. I highly recommend eating the candy straight off the snow, as it tends to go soft a few minutes after being removed from the snow (the melting snowflakes start to dissolve it).
NOTE: You’ll want to be careful to use “food safe” snow—clean snow that hasn’t been walked or touched by animals. We had a big snow the weekend I made this, and I went out while it was still snowing and gathered some fresh snow off our back porch railing. If you’re sending out kiddos to gather the snow, make sure they know a safe place to get it.
In the Little House books, many of the foods are simple and hearty, but they’re also a little unusual. You don’t see many people eating smoked venison or salt pork these days, and Johnny cake is even more rare. So I thought it would be fun to take some time to make a pioneer food that’s a little more familiar to modern palates: roasted sweet potatoes.
Like most Midwesterners, I’ve eaten sweet potatoes all my life, so it was fun for me to read about a food I recognized in the Little House books. In Little House on the Prairie, a friend brings some sweet potatoes to Christmas dinner, and the Ingalls family bakes them whole in the ashes of the fire. I wanted to make something a bit more involved that still remained true to the simple, natural way the Ingalls cooked, so I diced my potatoes and roasted them (skins still on) with a little salt, pepper, garlic, and fresh thyme.
The end result was a hearty dish perfect for a pioneer kitchen! 🙂
There are lots of classic, All-American desserts mentioned in the Little House books, but when I decided to make a tea for the series, I couldn’t get Ma’s pies off the brain. Dried apple pies are a specialty of hers that stood out to me, so I chose it as the theme for my tea! I chose one of my favorite rooibos blends from Adagio (Rooibos Cinnamon Apple) as my base, adding cream, apples, and spice to make the flavor more unique. The result was a tea that conjures of the cozy scent and taste of a winter day bundled up at home. Enjoy!
Welcome to our very first menu of 2017! I’m proud to announce that our new Book of the Month will be Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.
I love all the hearty frontier food featured in the books—smoked venison, corn cakes, snow candy, and so much more! One food that stuck out to me in the Little House books was “johnny cake.” I’d never heard of it before, but the Ingalls family eats it while traveling to their new homestead, so it sounded like perfect pioneer food.
Howdy, folks! Our new Book of the Month (or rather, book series of the month) is the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’ll start posting recipes based on the books on Thursday, but today we’re starting the month off with a Little House reading kit!
I always have fun planning reading kits, but I had a particularly good time making this one. I LOVED playing pioneers as a kid, so when I decided to make a Little House kit, it totally sent me back to my childhood. I kept thinking of things I would’ve loved to have while reading the books as a kid!
Of course, that now gives me the unique problem of reeeeeeeally wanting to buy all this stuff for myself. But is that even really a problem? I mean, I can just tell everyone I’m being cultured, and they’ll accept that as a TOTALLY legit answer, right? Please say yes…
Full disclosure: this cake pan was the whole reason I got the idea to do a King Arthur menu to begin with. I saw it on ThinkGeek several months ago, and it immediately went on my Christmas list. I’m pretty sure it was designed to appeal to the Game of Thrones crowd, but I couldn’t help thinking it’d be just right for a King Arthur dessert. The cake recipe itself is a chocolate pound cake from BHG. It was perfect for getting the pan’s little details to stand out! I decorated mine with raspberries, mint, and whipped cream, but you can decorate yours however you want. You’re king (or queen) of your kitchen! 😉
Avalon, the Isle of Apples, is said to be King Arthur’s final resting place. It’s described as a beautiful, ethereal, magical place…so of course I wanted to include it in our King Arthur menu! This savory tribute to Avalon’s namesake fruit is filled with sweet gala apples, butternut squash, and pearl onions topped with blue cheese. The rustic style and hearty flavors combine to make a side dish reminiscent of Arthur’s grand medieval feasts.
In the King Arthur legends, there are countless accounts of feasts and merriment, but descriptions of the specific dishes they ate are rare. We know from medieval history that these feasts probably involved a lot of savory pies, boiled vegetables, fruit, and roasted meat. I’ll admit I fantasized about roasting a whole pig for this recipe just like they would have done in the olden days, but whole animals are a little difficult to source these days (and I’m not exactly sure how I’d cook one if I found it). Still, large beef roasts were equally common, so I decided to use my go-to pot roast recipe to make a dish very similar to the sort of entrée you’d expect to see at a medieval feast, yet prepared in a way that fits a modern kitchen. Inspired by the Questing Beast which Sir Pellinore so valiantly pursued, this delicious roasted beast is fit for any king’s table.
We kicking off the New Year with the granddaddy of all classic stories: the legend of King Arthur! I’m a big fan of ancient myth and folklore (you should see my Irish myth collection), and the Arthurian legends are some of my favorites. What’s not to love about epic tales of grand quests, noble knights, and a brave king? In fact, the reason I waited so long to make a King Arthur menu was because I wanted to wait until I had enough blogging experience to do it justice. So here we go! 🙂
The appetizer for our King Arthur menu is inspired by the beginning of Arthur’s story: his retrieval of the sword from the stone. These easy, delicious cheese bites are just the right snack to kick off a long afternoon of knightly adventuring…or at least reading about knightly adventures! The perfectly British combo of Camembert and English cheddar is balanced with toasted nuts and sweet-tart dried cranberries—a truly kingly dish! 🙂
Howdy, folks! Welcome to our very first 2016 book of the month: King Arthur! The theme is King-Arthur-in-general rather than a specific King Arthur book, since there are so many and I have no idea which one is my favorite. Since the bright and shiny New Year newness hasn’t quite worn off for me yet, I thought it would be fun to start things off with one of our new additions to the blog this year: a reading kit!
I posted a few homemade reading kits on Real Life at Home last year, but now my plan is to make reading kits here on the blog for every Book of the Month. What’s a reading kit, you ask? It’s basically a compilation of items mentioned in a book or related to the subject matter, often including a copy of the book itself (I first heard of the idea on Epic Reads). When I make a kit, I like to include a snack, three items related to the book, and the fanciest copy of the book I can find.
I’ve included links to each of the items below, making it easy to whip up a kit for yourself or an avid reader in your life. So grab your kits and read on, my valiant Knights of Wonderland! 🙂
What items would I include in a King Arthur reading kit? I’m so glad you asked…
This is actually the wine the Mister and I served at our wedding. We’re big honey wine fans, and this is our favorite brand. The Mister is actually working on brewing his own right now!
