Old School Recipes by My Sassy Amish Mother

First off, if you’re looking for my mom’s pear pie recipe, please, see the YouTube video at the end of this post. I’m completely biased, but I just love this video of my mom in the kitchen working her fast hands to make us all a sweet treat with freshly picked pears. It captures much of my mother’s essence (i.e. kind, adorable, feisty, quick-witted, efficient, curious, and a damn good cook, etc.). Such wonderful moments together in our tight kitchen where everyone seems to eventually congregate are near and dear to my heart. Oh! And to demonstrate this, there is a cameo at the end of the video by the Archman (my Pa) himself. Inevitably, everyone finds themselves lured to the kitchen by the wonderful smells that fill the house. The rest of this post is a compilation of some of my mother’s old school whole grain recipes she’s developed over the years using the grains we mill on the farm. 🙂

Some of you who know our family well (and for those who don’t), know my mother, Mattie Jennings, can throw it down in the kitchen. It only takes a quick glance at a family picture, and you can see the evidence for yourself of the joy we get from growing and eating food. We LOVE to eat. A big part of the reason is because my mom knows how to mix it up and dish it out. Blame it on her Amish roots (she was born and raised Amish) or her adventurous and curious spirit, she can turn seemingly simple ingredients into something of magic, mouthwatering splendor. Growing up on the farm, everything we ever ate came from the farm and her garden. Looking back, I can say we were some lucky kids to be awakened to such foodie pleasures.

Fifteen years ago, when my mom and dad first started milling whole grains, my mom would bake up and distribute her recipes so others could recreate the samples she shared at farmer’s markets. Some of these were her own inventions or had been passed down to her over many generations. After last weekend’s farmers market, Ben and I quickly realized we needed to get these recipes out to people as fast as possible. I kid you not, we were on the phone with my Mama Mattie while at the market with a customer, writing down the ingredients and process for the Sourdough Buckwheat Cakes (Pancakes) recipe. ‘How do I get the starter going? Do I just keep a little bit of it each time to stretch the starter along?’ So, when we got back to the farm, we dug out the recipe list and snapped a few pictures.

We’ve posted these wonderful recipes for you here. These are tried and true recipes that have used the whole grain flours that come directly from our stone burr mill. Ben and I hope to get to each of these recipes throughout the winter (maybe even do some Facebook Live cooking videos!) once the crops are out of the field and all the markets are done. I can tell you now, we made the corn bread with the sour cream right after we freshly ground the corn meal on the mill last week and it was the best Johnny Cake we ever tasted!

So, if you happen to purchase some flour from us and are new to baking with these fresh ingredients, here is a great place to start!

Thanks mama! As a good, old childhood friend and now chef once told me, some of the best memories are kitchen memories. Here’s to making some great ones of your own!

Do you have any old-school recipes you’d like to share with us that feature the ingredients we grow here on the farm? We’d love to hear about them. Email us at virginia@firefly-fields.com

Thank you for reading along! And here’s the Pear Pie Video! Getting my mom to be on camera is NOT easy. I suppose she has some making up to do after all those years of not being allowed to be photographed!

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