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Farm Girl Cook'n

Nothing Fancy

State Fair Blue Ribbon Bread and Butter Pickles

August 7, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

State Fair Blue Ribbon Bread and Butter Pickles Several years ago I had a bumper crop of cucumbers.  I decided I needed to find a pickle recipe I liked since Mom’s didn’t really bring back images of pickle love.    I started Googling recipes that had won at a state fair.   If I am going to spend the time, money, and effort to make something, I want to make sure I have the best… Read More

Filed Under: Eat Local, Foodies, Garden, Health, Home, homesteading, Pickles, Recipe Tagged With: Bread and Butter Pickles, cucumbers, Home cooking, Making Pickles, Pickles, recipes

America’s Test Kitchen Rustic Almost No-Knead Bread

April 17, 2020 By Mary 6 Comments

I’ve been making a lot of bread lately, stress baking, but also learning how to make different kinds of bread.  As a teacher in a past life, one of my goals with trying a variety of recipes is so that I can help others trying to stay at home not to need to make extra trips to the store for a loaf of bread.  I have been looking for recipes that work well for beginners,… Read More

Filed Under: Breads, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: America's Test Kitchens, Bread, easy, FOODIES, homesteading, No-Knead Bread, Recipe, The Great British Bake Off

Social Distancing Recipe: Just In Time 10 Minute Jam

March 30, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

For the last few days — especially after I made biscuits, I’ve been wanting some jam.  I had used up all of the jam I made last summer from my raspberries.  After making my own lower-sugar jams even if I wanted to order it from the store — I’m spoiled and really don’t care for them anymore. One of the things about growing up in a family of 12 children is that you learn to… Read More

Filed Under: Church Cookbook, farm, Fruit, Garden, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: Bread, butter, easy, family, farm, FOODIES, Fruit, fruit jam, garden, healthy, Healthy recipes, homesteading, jam, low-sugar jams, Recipe, The Great British Bake Off

Social Distancing Recipe: Quick and Easy Corn Chowder

March 28, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

Originally I posted this Corn Chowder recipe as a way to use fresh corn which is so plentiful here in Iowa at the end of the summer.  However, the other day as I was thinking about recipes that would be easy to make from pantry and freezer items I realized this would be an easy and delicious choice. This recipe has been adapted from several church cookbooks in my vintage cookbook collection.  Because I like… Read More

Filed Under: Main Dish, Recipe, Social Distancing, Soup, Vegtables Tagged With: bacon, chowder, corn, garden, side-dish

Social Distancing Recipes: I Just Need a Cracker….

March 23, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

I am fortunate, I have plenty of good food in my fridge, pantry, and freezer.  Living on the farm and just coming out of winter, you are used to stocking up in case you get stranded for days.  However, I have run low on one of my favorite snacks — CRACKERS.  I love all kinds of crackers, straight up, with cheese, peanut butter, bacon jam — whatever!  So the search was on to find some… Read More

Filed Under: family, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: cheese, crackers, easy, FOODIES, goldfish crackers, healthy, herb crackers, herbs, homesteading, money-saving recipe, Recipe, Rosemary, Rosemary cracker, saltine crackers

Social Distancing Recipe : Got 4 apples? You Can Make Apple Hand Pies…

March 21, 2020 By Mary 2 Comments

Do you know those 4 apples that have been rolling around in your fruit drawer in the fridge?  Yes, I’m sure you do.  They have been there for a while and no one seems to be interested in eating them fresh — they are still good, but maybe not as pretty as they were the day you brought them home.  Here is a great way to use them for a delicious treat while you are… Read More

Filed Under: Dessert, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: apple hand pie, apple pie, Apples, budget, easy recipe, farm, FOODIES, Fruit, garden, hand pie, home, money-saving recipe, pastry, Pie, pie crust, social distancing

Social Distancing Recipes – Breads You Can Make Without Yeast or Kneading

March 17, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

Many areas are finding grocery store shelves bare of bread and other items and many are homebound right now.  If you have a few common ingredients in your pantry you can easily make your own bread without yeast or kneading. If you have self-rising flour great, but if you don’t King Arthur has this simple recipe to make your own using All-Purpose flour, baking soda, and salt.  Homemade Self-Rising Flour. These breads are not only… Read More

Filed Under: Breads, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: Beer bread, Bread, Irish Soda bread, Money-Saving Recipes, self-rising flour, social distancing

Social Distancing Recipe # 1 Veggie Soup

March 15, 2020 By Mary Leave a Comment

Are you and your family trying to stay healthy by doing some social distancing?  Maybe even struggling to find foods in your local grocery store.  You can make the most of what you have in your fridge, freezer, and pantry by making as much as possible from scratch.  New to some of you and old school to lots of others. It’s hard to know where to start, but my suggestion is to start with the… Read More

Filed Under: Foodies, Garden, Health, Herbs, Recipe, Social Distancing, Soup, Vegtables, Wellness Tagged With: cabbage, carrots, covid-19, diabetes, Exercise, Health, healthy, iowa, Iowa Food and Family Project, light, low-cal, skinny, social distancing, weight-loss, Wellness

No-Knead Rosemary Focaccia Bread from America’s Test Kitchen

January 12, 2020 By Mary 11 Comments

This is my all-time favorite recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. This Italian bread is so delicious you will have to hide it from your brother who will eat an entire loaf before your guests arrive! It is crunchy, salty, herby, and soft in the middle.  You can just eat it plain or it is really wonderful with goat cheese and bacon jam.  (recipe for another time). I make it up in advance and freeze in… Read More

Filed Under: Breads, Recipe Tagged With: Appetizer, baking, Bread, Italian Bread, No-Knead Bread, Tuscany

America’s Test Kitchen in Tuscany with Farm Girl

December 30, 2019 By Mary 2 Comments

 I am so excited to be the tour coordinator for this amazing Food tour of Tuscany with Americas Test Kitchens and I hope you can join us on this fabulous foodie trip. This is only the 4th tour that America’s Test Kitchen has scheduled — the first 3 filled in 2 days each so signup today! Find more information and book your trip on my trip site: https://grouptoursite.com/tours/atkmarylovstad Booking is open now. You will need to… Read More

Filed Under: Recipe Tagged With: cheese, Cooking Lessons, FOODIES, Italy, Olive oil, Travel, Tuscany, Wine

Rhubarb Crunch

Later, I Shall Eat Pie!

April 25, 2019 By Mary Leave a Comment

I am so excited to be talking about all things Pie, –yes, I said Pie in this episode with my guest will Cristen Clark, an Iowa farmer, an Iowa Food and Family Project, contributor, a skillful baker whose Harvest Pear Pie brought $3,000 for the Blue Ribbon Foundation at the Iowa State Fair and a Cooking and Baking Contest Judge, just to name a few of her talents.   Listen to my interview and learn how… Read More

Filed Under: Humor, Pastry, Recipe Tagged With: Blue Ribbon Pie, Farmher, Iowa State Fair, Pie, Pigs, Recipe

quiche

Fresh Eggs and a Five Hundred Dollar Quiche

February 12, 2019 By Mary 5 Comments

A few springs ago, my husband, Eric, after much thought and planning, decided we were ready to start our chicken adventure.  Our local farm/hardware store has live chicks in the spring.  You just reach into the cow tank and try to grab the ones you like the best — a little like carnival night in grade school, and put them in the cardboard box you have to put together yourself.  Ironically, the same shape as… Read More

Filed Under: Chicken, Church Cookbook, homesteading, Iowa, mom, Recipe, Vintage Recipe, Vintage Recipes Tagged With: Breakfast, breakfast bake, chicken, chickens, eggs, family dinner, fresh eggs, vintage recipes

cupcakes with glaze

The Great British Bake Off Inspired Me to Bake a Cake…

February 12, 2019 By Mary 11 Comments

I have been binge watching The Great British Baking Show this winter — all seasons and the Christmas shows and it made me think I wanted to be a better baker.  It has inspired me to start a cake project and to begin with recipes in my grandmother’s handwritten cookbook.   One of the cakes they talk about all the time on The Great British Bake Off is a sponge.  While digging through those old family recipes… Read More

Filed Under: Cake, Church Cookbook, Foodies, homesteading, Recipe, The Great British Baking Show Tagged With: baking, British, Dessert, family, farm, FOODIES, Mary Berry, Orange Cake, Recipe, sponge cake, The Great British Bake Off, Vintage Cakes

I Was Shocked to Find This Hidden Art Treasure in North Iowa…

January 17, 2019 By Mary 6 Comments

This winter I when was doing a cooking class for a travel blogger group in Charles City, Iowa. The first night we were staying at the lovely Red Cedar Lodge, getting to know each other, eating treats that would make any foodie jealous, laughing A LOT and having a little too much wine when one of the bloggers,  Theresa Goodrich, author of of “Two Lane Gems, Vols 1 & 2” asked if I was interested… Read More

Filed Under: Art, Iowa, Local Travel, Travel Tagged With: Chagall, Famous Art, FOODIES, friends, Iowa Finds, Matisse, Picasso, Wine

Beef Stew

Winter Glamping, Cooking with friends & Beef Stew guest blog.

January 7, 2019 By Mary 6 Comments

Recently I did a cooking class at a Winter Glamping blogger event at the beautiful Red Cedar Lodge in Charles City, Iowa. Winter Camping for me was a new adventure and it was lovely. Winter walks, cozy cabins, Christmas shopping in town, baking bread and sharing this beef stew with new and old friends. Perfection. One of my blogger friends enjoyed this stew enough to share it on her blog. I hope you enjoy as… Read More

Filed Under: Beef, Eat Local, Foodies, French Cusine, Recipe Tagged With: beef, crockpot, dutch oven, easy, french cuisine, instapot, oven stew, slow cooker, stew, VEGTABLES

Woot, Woot – I Made French Baguettes..Thanks, King Arthur Flour!

August 22, 2017 By Mary 8 Comments

I have always wanted to make French Baguettes.  For me nothing is as delicious as a slice of a baguette, crusty on the outside, soft and flavorful on the inside, slathered with butter or a sumptuous French cheese. Baking bread was not something we did in our household.  With nine brothers and two sisters, you couldn’t make enough bread in a day to feed or keep them happy!  So taking on a baguette was kind… Read More

Filed Under: Breads, family, farm, French Cusine, Recipe Tagged With: baguette, bakealong, baking, Bread, bread flour, classic baguettes, farm life, flour, french, french baguette, french bread, homemade, homesteading, King Arthur Flour, Paul Hollywood, The Great British Bake Off, yeast

25 Tips and Tricks to Travel Smarter in Paris…from an Iowa Farm Girl

August 10, 2017 By Mary 27 Comments

Ooo La La — Paris in the spring!  I have been back a little over a week from my first trip out of the country, other than Canada, which I don’t think really counts.  Paris has always been the one place  in the world I have wanted to go and my handsome husband did not want to go with me.  Apparently I nearly killed him on our trip to Chicago last summer – he calls… Read More

Filed Under: Eiffel Tower, Paris, Travel

Stories of My Mother…Episode #623: The Great Escape

August 6, 2017 By Mary 10 Comments

A few weeks ago my sisters and I flew out to Washington for a visit with two of my older brothers and hang out at the lake with them.  We spent a lot of time laughing at family stories over delicious meals with lots glasses of wine and beer.   We grew up in a crazy, big farm family in Iowa — our parents had twelve kids (9 boys and 3 girls) over seventeen years.  A… Read More

Filed Under: family, farm, Home, Humor, Midlife Tagged With: brothers, crazy family stories, family stories, father, Humor, mom, mom stories, mother, sisters

Finding Julia Child in Paris….and crepes on every street corner!

July 5, 2017 By Mary 8 Comments

Julia Child is my food heroine.  We have so much in common — we are both a little awkward, late bloomers in life, have an obsession with butter and things fly when we are in the kitchen.   I loved Julia’s show “The French Chef” which PBS ran in reruns for years.  Her charm was that she just kept on going when things went wrong — she flubbed her flips, burned things, murdered lobsters and… Read More

Filed Under: Paris, Recipe, Travel Tagged With: bucket list, Chefs, Cookbooks, copper pots, Crepes, Farmers Markets, Fleamarkets, Food Markets, FOODIES, France, Julia Child, Kitchenware, Paris, Paul Hollywood, Recipe, seafood, street food, The Great British Bake Off

Church Cookbook Classics: Ice Pick Lemon Cake

March 10, 2017 By Mary 6 Comments

Do you have recipes from your youth that conjure up mouth-watering memories?  This cake is one of those for me.  Mom would make this one in the summer and I just couldn’t keep my hands off of it.  I just took teeny, tiny pieces every time I walked by it — they don’t count right? Cake Mixes with Jello and/or Jello Pudding became very popular in the 60’s, although cake mixes were invented in the… Read More

Filed Under: Church Cookbook, Dessert, Recipe, The Great British Baking Show Tagged With: cake, cake mix, church ladies, fresh, lemon, Mary Berry, party, Paul Hollywood, potluck, sponge, sponge cake, Sweets, tea party, The Great British Bake Off

What Scarlett O’Hara and I Have in Common….

March 4, 2017 By Mary 6 Comments

…and it is NOT an 18 inch waist! Part 1:   The Land From this picture you may think that Katie Scarlett and I had the burning of Atlanta in common, close, but it’s really the love of the land. In the movie, Gone With The Wind, Gerald O’Hara said to Scarlett, ” It will come to you, this love of the land. There’s no gettin’ away from it if you’re Irish. ”    Followed… Read More

Filed Under: DIY, family, farm, homesteading Tagged With: barn, bathroom remodel, bedroom remodel, Christmas Decorating, family, fire, historic rennovation, home, house, iowa, remodel, renovate

Happy Baking Accidents…Blueberry Coffee Cake Kind of Thing…

February 28, 2017 By Mary 8 Comments

Or Things That Turned Out Better Than Expected… It was 16 below this morning and after reading a Facebook post of a friend who was making coffee cake, I WANTED some, but I was not willing to drag my sorry self out for any missing ingredients.  People die in this weather! So the hunt began — digging through the cupboard, freezer and fridge!  I found a can of Pillsbury Blueberry biscuits  ​not yet out date (although that… Read More

Filed Under: Breads, Breakfast, Humor, Recipe Tagged With: Blueberries, Breakfast, butter, coffee cake, Dessert, FOODIES, Sweets

Cheats Puff Pastry Recipe from The Great British Baking Show

January 16, 2017 By Mary 11 Comments

The Farm Girl Attempts Cheats Rough Puff Pastry Recipe from The Great British Baking Show and It Works! I don’t know about you, but I adore The Great British Baking Show.  It is my favorite baking show of all time — the tent is gorgeous, the decor is totally charming, the contestants real and diverse, and the food looks to die for!  Everyone is nice to each other and helpful, unlike some of the other… Read More

Filed Under: Appetizer, Breads, Breakfast, Pastry, Recipe, The Great British Baking Show Tagged With: Cheater Puff Pastry, easy, Puff Pastry, Rough Puff

Deviled Eggs

In an emergency, boil eggs

July 20, 2016 By Mary 2 Comments

In any emergency, my mother boiled eggs.  She boiled eggs anytime she thought there might be visitors — for any reason, weddings, funerals, someone is in the hospital, or someone having a baby.  In fact, that was the 1st thing she did, even before calling people.  Put the eggs on to boil. My mom was used to feeding a crowd with very little notice.  I grew up in a family of 12 children, 8 older… Read More

Filed Under: Appetizer, Eggs, Foodies, Recipe, Social Distancing Tagged With: deviled eggs, easy, eggs, farm, iowa, Rosemary, salads, skinny

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Welcome to my blog!
I am an Iowa Farm girl who aspires to write a cookbook featuring vintage and favorite recipes from my family and friends. I'd like to bring you the art of cooking like your mother, grandmother, or whoever is your cooking inspiration.
Keep it simple and enjoy!
--Mary
Food Blogger, Travel Writer, Photographer, Computer Geek, & Gardener
Read More »

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