Category Archives: Side Dishes

A Midwestern Garden of the Gods…and Grandma’s Stewed Tomatoes

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in Food, Illinois, Photography, Side Dishes, Travel

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Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area

When people think about the Midwestern state of Illinois, the terms “flat”, and “corn fields” are likely to come to mind. Or perhaps one might think about its largest city, Chicago, or even its most famous native son, Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States.

But there is another Illinois, down in the southern tip of the state, where the terrain and its beauty will amaze you. The Shawnee National Forest encompasses the southeastern tip of Illinois, and it is in the national forest you will find the Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area. The wilderness is a place of ridges, bluffs, canyons, and some of the most interesting rock formations I have ever seen.

More than 300 million years ago, this part of the nation was covered by a huge inland sea. As rivers brought sand and mud into this sea, the sand and mud settled along the shorelines, and with increasing weight and pressure, created thousands of feet of sandstone. At some point in time there was an uplift, and this sandstone was exposed to the forces of wind and rain. Because each of the layers of sandstone that had formed had varying mineral content, ribbons of color were exposed as the sandstone weathered. When I saw them for the first time I actually thought they might be petrified wood, but they are solid rock and they are beautiful.

The rock formations are called “hoodoos”. A hoodoo is a rock formation that has been carved and formed by the influence of ice as well as normal weathering. When melted snow falls into the cracks and crevices of rock, it will refreeze as temperatures drop at night. Ice takes up 10 % more space than liquid water, so the crack widens and rocks crack in new places, creating new shapes. As I read in one reference, if you understand the science of a pot hole, you will understand the science of a hoodoo.

There are many hikes, of many lengths in the wilderness. The easiest one, the one that will give you a good overview of the area and its many interesting formations is the Observation Trail.

The Observation Trail is an accessible trail that is a one quarter mile loop laid with flagstone. It is an easy trail to walk, with no climbs or obstacles…well, the one obstacle is staying on the trail, because you want so badly to get off the trail and onto the rock outcroppings…don’t, many of the drops are 100 feet or more.

I took so many pictures as we walked the Observation Trail…a one quarter mile long trail that took us over an hour. It provides truly amazing views of a truly amazing place…

Many hoodoos have a “totem pole” appearance.

This rock formation is called the Devil’s Smokestack.

It took all my willpower…and a husband that was constantly at my elbow…to keep me off that ledge for a better look!

About twenty-five miles south of the Garden of the Gods, you will come to Cave In Rock State Park situated on the Ohio River. We stayed in one of their cabins as we explored the southern Illinois area. We had a great view of the river, and the river traffic. We had that awesome view of the river any time of the day, as seen in the photos below. It was a quiet, beautiful place for a week-end stay, and a terrific base for all our explorations.

I hope you have an opportunity, at some time, to visit southern Illinois…you will get a much different view of this state in the middle of our country.

Grandma’s Stewed Tomatoes

I spent a lot of time at my grandparent’s house when I was a little girl. After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother, who was raised in southern Illinois, moved into our house. One of the things she would always make, whenever my mom needed help in the kitchen, was a side dish of stewed and breaded tomatoes. I loved them, and I still do! Not only are they yummy, but they also bring back great memories.

I grew up within the Detroit city limits…it was, by the way, a terrific place to grow up. Every summer my dad would pack the four of us kids and my mom into the car, and drive out to one of the truck farms outside the city to pick tomatoes, or beans, or corn…or whatever was in season. We would also go out to the orchards to pick bushels and bushels of apples, peaches, and cherries…lots of those cherries never made it into a basket, and we never wanted supper after we were done picking.

Then it was back home, and mom and dad, with the help of my grandparents, would can all that produce….jars, and jars, and jars of good things to eat all the coming winter. All those jars of tomatoes became wonderful bowls full of stewed tomatoes, or went into soups and big pots of chili. I do not go out and pick tomatoes, but I do go out to the farm and buy a couple bushels of tomatoes each year to can and put into our soups and our tomato dishes. It feels like I am keeping all the good memories alive!

Grandma's Stewed Tomatoes

  • Servings: 4
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Ingredients

  • 4 Tbsp. butter, divided
  • 3/4 cup thinly sliced onion
  • 2 Tbs. flour
  • 2 pint jars of home canned tomatoes, or a 28 oz. can of tomatoes from the store, chopped
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar
  • 3 slices of toasted home-made wheat bread, or any bread you would like, torn or cut into 1 inch pieces
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in your grandmother’s old cast iron skillet…well, any skillet will do, I just happen to have my grandma’s frying pan.
  2. Saute the onion until translucent, then add the remaining butter.
  3. Add the torn toast and stir to mix.
  4. Stir in flour, and cook for 3  minutes, stirring constantly.
  5. Add the tomatoes and sugar and simmer for 15 minutes.
  6. Season to taste.

Enjoy!

Finding Your Park In Your Own Backyard #6…The National Frontier Trails Museum and Colcannon On the Trail

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by in Find Your Park, Missouri, Photography, Side Dishes, Travel

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  • Adventure 1-The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail
  • Destination 6- The National Frontier Trails Museum

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As we come to the end of our first adventure in our quest to visit all the National Park Service sites in our home state of Missouri, Jim and I find ourselves in Independence, a suburb of Kansas City. We have come to visit the National Frontier Trails Museum. The museum tells the story of the major overland trails that left Independence on long, hard, sometimes tragic, journeys to the West.

As you enter the museum, you will see displays dedicated to the journey west of Lewis and Clark, and how the Corps of Discovery sparked the imagination and industry of a new nation eager to spread its influence across a continent.

Artifacts of the Corps of Discovery displayed at the National Frontier Trails Museum.

Artifacts of the Corps of Discovery displayed at the National Frontier Trails Museum.

During the middle of the nineteenth century, thousands of people left their homes in the eastern half of the United States and, along with many newly arrived immigrants, undertook a long and hard journey to set up new homes and new ventures in the great American West. Never before, and perhaps never since, had so many people traveled such distances to start new lives in new places. And almost all of them went through Independence, Missouri, the “Queen City of the Trails”.

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The city of Independence, founded in 1827, was the farthest point west in the United States along the Missouri River. It was here that steamboats and fur traders could unload their goods in the United States, and pick up supplies for their next trip west. Independence was where fur trappers could unload their valuable beaver pelts, used to create beaver hats, so much in demand in the United States and Europe.

Eventually, Independence became the “jumping off” point, and a supply post for three major trails to the West.

The Santa Fe Trail began operation in 1821. It served as an overland route on which supplies could be transported to business establishments, trappers, and government forts in the West, and products could be shipped back to market in the eastern United States. It also carried migrants out to new homes where they would open businesses to serve the trappers, the soldiers, and other adventurers, and where they would set up their own ranches and farms. The Santa Fe Trail was important to the expansion of the United States until the development of the railroad, which was able to ship goods, and carry people, in far less time and in far more comfort.

The Oregon Trail began carrying large groups of migrants west in 1843. It was the trail that 43,000 Mormons used to migrate to Utah, and at a “fork in the road”, you could transfer to the California Trail that led 2000 miles out to its terminus in Sacramento. You can still stand at the spot where so many people left to start their lives all over again in a new, and they hoped, more prosperous place.

The Jackson County Courthouse in Independence was built in 1837, and would have been seen by the migrants as they started their journey on the Oregon trail from the city.
Looking south on Liberty St., you can use your imagination to see the hundreds of wagons that traveled along this road.
This is a monument on the courthouse grounds that commemorate the many people who left Independence, MO on their arduous trip west to Oregon and to California.
Across from the museum, you can see swales left by the wagon wheels as they moved out on their long journey.

But, as already mentioned, these trips were long and hard. When you tour the National Frontier Trails Museum, you will see exhibits set up to help you see the trails from the point of view of the migrants. All through the displays, you will find quotes from different travelers, some heart-warming, some heart-wrenching. It was from Independence that the Donner Party left on its fateful journey in 1836. It is estimated that one in ten migrants died along the way. But many made it: gold prospectors, trappers, farmers and ranchers, along with their families, who began to fill the wide open spaces of the American West.

A wagon set up to depict the long trip on the Oregon Trail. How important it must have been for a child to have that one doll to remind her that while life was changing, some things would never change.
Filling the wagon was hard…you could just not take everything you wanted, but you always had to be aware of all those things you needed.
And no matter how hard you tried to pack sparingly, sometimes you had to throw things out. This display shows items that littered the trails and were picked up by other travelers, or left for future generations to find scattered across the desert.

You can learn more about the National Frontier Trails Museum, and plan your own trip, by going to its website at http://www.ci.independence.mo.us/nftm.

While in Independence, you can also take a tour in a covered wagon to learn more about the history of Independence and its importance to the western frontier trails.

Combination tickets can be purchased at the museum that allow you to take a covered wagon ride through historic Independence, MO.

Combination tickets can be purchased at the museum that allow you to take a covered wagon ride through historic Independence, MO.

This is a “journey” worth taking, a chance to see and feel some of the spirit that built this country across a very wide continent. I hope you will take the opportunity to experience it with your own family.

Colcannon On the Trail

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Many of the migrants who traveled on the western frontier trails were immigrants from other countries. They brought with them the traditions of their homelands. Some of those traditions were the recipes with which they had grown up. My own children each have a cookbook I made for them with the foods they had as we grew up together in our big. and old house here in south central Missouri.

One of the foods brought to the trail was Colcannon, something I make every year for our family St. Patrick’s Day dinner. Colcannon is also the one and only way I can get my husband to eat cabbage! This recipe for the traditional Irish potato and cabbage dish is one I found in a wonderful cookbook I bought in the gift shop of the museum. It is entitled Frontier Fare: Recipes and Lore from the Old West. It is not only full of great recipes, but the author, Sherry Monahan, shares stories and information about the culture and history of the foods eaten in the Wild West, and along the trails.

Travelers on the western trails did not always have the exact ingredients called for in the recipes they brought with them from their native lands. They often had to make due with the provisions they brought with them, in addition to any ingredients they could find along the way. And so it is in my kitchen…so I made a few changes, tried a few things, and ended up with some of the best Colcannon we have ever eaten.

Colcannon

  • 3 Tbsp. butter
  • 1/2 lb. cabbage, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup leek, thinly sliced
  • 1 garlic clove, chopped fine
  • 1 pound potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
  • 1/4 tsp. salt
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1/4 milk

Melt the butter in a pan and cook the cabbage, leek, and garlic until golden, about 15 minutes. In another pan, cook the potatoes until tender.

Drain the potatoes and mash them with the 1/4 c. of heavy cream, and as much of the milk as is needed to make a rough puree.

Fold in the cabbage, and top with a nice, big pat of butter. Colcannon is absolutely the best side dish to have with your St. Patrick’s Day corned beef. Enjoy!