KFRM Blog

Million Dollar Recipe?
Friday 3rd of September 2010 07:10 AM
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By Kim L. Fritzemeier

KFRM Central Kansas Reporter

Farm Wife along the Stafford/Reno County Line

Do you ever imagine yourself at Pillsbury's Bake-Off?

Me neither. I would be a nervous wreck with everyone watching my every move and a time limit and a different oven than I'm used to. Just thinking about it gives me a shiver down my spine.

Actually, watching a video about the history of the bake-off and seeing the winners accept their checks literally did give me shivers. (Yes, I know I'm a cooking nerd.)

Maybe I could get over my nerves if I knew I would win ONE MILLION DOLLARS?! Since 1949, more than 4,000 finalists have vied for the grand prize.

The recipe from today is from the 2000 Pillsbury Bake-Off. It wasn't the winner, but it's a winner around here.

I think I found the recipe among the coupons in a long-ago Sunday paper and I've used it ever since. I use it only occasionally because I like it too well.

While the recipe was originally classified as an appetizer (see photo above), I more often use it as a homemade (sort of) pizza pocket. I've taken it to the field as a warm alternative to a cold sandwich. I've also made it for supper at home.

I did use it as an appetizer for a New Year's Eve party once, though I prefer to have everything prepared before my guests get here, and this recipe needs to be baked right before serving.

It's easy and gets good reviews around here. I hope it's a winner for your recipe box, too.

And you may want to join me in visiting Pillsbury's website again. Things were looking pretty yummy over there. (And, no, unfortunately they are not paying me to say that!)

Enjoy! 

1 15-oz. package refrigerated pie crusts, softened as directed on the box
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 lb. very thinly sliced cooked ham
1/4 lb. thinly sliced pepperoni
4 oz. (1 cup) shredded Cheddar cheese

Note: The ingredients are for using both pie crusts in the package. You can also halve the ingredients and prepare just one.

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Remove crusts from pouches; unfold crusts. Press out fold lines. Sprinkle each crust with Parmesan cheese.

Top each crust with ham, pepperoni and Cheddar cheese to within 1 inch of edges. Loosely roll up each crust. Place rolls, seam side down, on ungreased cookie sheet. Fold ends under.

Bake at 450 degrees for 12 to 17 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cool 5 minutes. Cut each roll into 16 slices. Serve warm.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Ready in 35 minutes

Unroll your pie crust.

Put ham on top.

Put the pepperoni on top of the ham.

Sprinkle with the Parmesan and Cheddar cheeses. (I use a Cheddar/Monterey blend because that's what I usually have on hand.) I haven't looked at the recipe for quite some time; I just do it from memory. However, I now realize the recipe says to put the Parmesan cheese on the crust before you add the meats. It works either way.
 

 Loosely roll it up.

Tuck in the ends.

Bake until it's golden brown and delicious looking.

Cut into 16 slices if you're serving as an appetizer. Cut into halves or thirds or fourths (depending on who's eating) if you're serving as a sandwich.

***

For more recipes, check out my personal blog at www.kimcountyline.blogspot.com

Mysterious Disap'pear'ance
Thursday 2nd of September 2010 08:42 AM
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By Kim L. Fritzemeier

KFRM Central Kansas Reporter

Farm Wife along the Stafford/Reno County Line

It is the case of the disappearing pears. As I young reader, I loved solving mysteries with Encyclopedia Brown.

"Encyclopedia Brown Finds the Clues."

"Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down."

This County Line farm wife does not.

Earlier this month, it appeared we had a bumper crop of pears hanging in the trees south of our house.

Even back in April, I was anticipating pears when the trees were loaded with buds.

But I guess my skills as orchard attendant are not much better than my skills as a gardener.

When I would come back from my walks, I would often check on the pears' progress. I picked a couple, and they never ripened. So I deduced that they should hang there longer.

 

 

 (Photo taken August 5, 2010)

Then one cool morning last week, I decided it was the day for my bountiful harvest. If I got really industrious, I might even break out my Grandma Neelly's Pear Honey recipe. (I wasn't sure how I was going to can the jam since I don't have canning equipment, but a girl can dream, can't she?

The pears were gone. They weren't hanging on the trees. They weren't littering the ground. All but five lonely pears were gone.

I was perplexed.

Encyclopedia Brown was not available to lend a hand. Neither was his trusty friend Sally Kimball. So I asked my resident green thumb expert what happened to the pears.

He had seen some squirrels carrying pears away. Since we are conveniently located on the County Line, I guess they invited all their friends from both Stafford and Reno Counties. They either had a great summer picnic, or they have them stashed for the winter.

It's hard to believe squirrels could abscond with that many pears. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't polar bears or penguins.

Hello, Goodbye
Wednesday 1st of September 2010 09:51 AM
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By Kim L. Fritzemeier

KFRM Central Kansas Reporter

Farm Wife along the Stafford/Reno County Line

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. None can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.

Last evening, I took one last look at the August sun for this year. It was another beautiful sunset on the County Line.

How blessed am I to see the beauty of God's creation right outside my door!

Well, because of the trees, I do have to walk down the road a few hundred yards. But it's definitely worth the walk to see the colors of God's palette streak the summer sky.

August was beautiful, but I'll have to agree with the great philosopher (OK, baseball player) Willie Stargell:

• College football at Bill Snyder Family Stadium
• The chance to see my kids on college football weekends
  
• The hope for cooler temperatures
• The changing colors of fall
• A sweatshirt on a crisp September evening
• The milo transitioning from green to red
• The promise of a new crop ... planting the wheat kernels and anticipating the changes for the crop until it's harvested next summer
  
• Pumpkins and scarecrows
• Time for the Kansas State Fair
  
• And the list goes on and on ...

 I had to wait for the sunrise this morning. It was supposed to happen at 7 AM sharp. But clouds hid the sun's rays from full view, just teasing the blue sky with a little color.

It was worth the wait.

As I stood waiting on the sunrise, a song kept going through my head. I've been watching reruns of the Fox television, Glee, this summer. They sang their version of "Hello, Goodbye" on that series.

But here, I've given you the classic Beatles' version. Their vivid costumes reminded me of the colors of the Kansas sky.

Enjoy your first day of September!

 ***

For more about me and my family, check out my personal blog at www.kimscountyline.blogspot.com

Free Caps
Tuesday 31st of August 2010 06:10 AM
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By Kim L. Fritzemeier

KFRM Central Kansas Reporter

Farm Wife along the Stafford/Reno County Line

I have a lovely addition to my wardrobe. It is all the rage among fashionable farm wives. The classic cap is enhanced with pink and gray camouflage, perfect for the start of dove season this week.

And best of all: It was FREE!

Wait just a minute. Is that the sound of money draining out of my bank account? Yes, yes. That's the sound all right. Glug, glug, glug ... That free cap just cost me a tidy five-figure sum, even with a five-figure, trade-in credit.

But that's OK. We didn't get just one cap. We got several. One in classic Case red was claimed by Randy and a couple of others went to Jake and his little boy. There was also a lovely Case license tag tossed in the shopping bag.

It's a bargain, right?

A new tractor was added to our County Line line-up last Friday. Well, it is new to us. It's a 2005 Case Steiger STX375.

It replaces a tractor that truly was a lemon. You've heard of cars that are lemons once they roll off the assembly line. Our Case MX240 was the tractor version.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? The only people making lemonade out of that tractor was the dealership who was raking in the money on repairs.

So it was definitely time for a revamp, even though it is painful to the pocketbook.

Randy considered going green this time. In fact, by decision time, he was considering three tractors, two of which were green. But he's a RED-blooded farm boy who has been driving red tractors all his life.

He could obviously stomach a little green, since he added a John Deere planter to the mix earlier this year. But for the major hardware? Red, it is.

Actually, he says it was less about the color than it was the pricetag. The Case tractor was less money. It didn't have all the bells and whistles that the John Deere tractors had. But he just needed the basics.

Well, basics are a matter of opinion. I took a ride in the new tractor Saturday, and its computer told us how much fuel we were consuming and how many acres we were working per hour, among other fascinating details.

Jake had taken the tractor to Zenith to fill the 300-gallon capacity fuel tank. He told Randy he didn't want to know how much it cost.

Big men are really just little boys in different packages. Randy was pretty excited about the tractor. On Saturday, we were disking a field that still seemed plenty wet to me.

"Would we be working this field if you didn't have a new tractor?" I asked, not so innocently on Saturday.

Long silence and a grin ensued.

"Well, maybe not," he finally said.

Big boy: New toy.

Little boys like new tractors, too. Trevor, our hired man's little boy, couldn't quit grinning about the new tractor and went for a spin with his dad on Friday.

"This is the best tractor ever," the first grader declared to Randy.

 Let's hope it is, Trevor.

However, some caution flags are going up for this seasoned farm wife. Randy says that it's really more tractor than we need for the implements we have.

Uh oh. That sounds expensive to me.

***

For more information about me and my family, check out my personal blog at www.kimscountyline.blogspot.com

Combat Pay
Monday 30th of August 2010 06:10 AM
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By Kim L. Fritzemeier

KFRM Central Kansas reporter

Farm Wife along the Stafford/Reno County Line

Warning: If you are not a fan of TV shows featuring the ER, you may want to skip this post.

I'm fine with ER shows on TV. I like medical mysteries. I like the TV dramas featuring life at big city hospitals. I am even OK with shows like "Untold Stories of the ER."

But I'm just not a big fan of starring in any ER dramas.

That didn't much matter on Friday. I made my debut in a little series we like to call "Farm Wife Visits the Stafford ER." Let's hope it was the first and last episode. I'm OK with this being a one-hit wonder.

The moral of this episode: Sometimes, farm wives could use combat pay.

It all began innocently enough. Randy was mowing. (Yeah for Randy! I hate to mow!) Unfortunately, the mower got stuck.

He came in and asked for help to get it out. We were unable to dislodge said mower by huffing and puffing and using sheer brute strength. (Hard to believe my uncanny strength was of no consequence in this endeavor.)

I suggested we get a rope and pull it out with the pickup. So we got a nylon strap and attached one end to the mower and one end to the pickup. I got on the mower to help guide it out of the predicament. Randy got into the pickup and pulled.

And then the problem occurred: The hook popped out from the pickup and ricocheted into my shin, along with a glancing blow from said hook.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. Yes, there were tears involved.

I could walk, so I really didn't think it was broken. But Randy felt so bad about the whole thing that he insisted we go to the ER to get an x-ray.

For the record, it was not broken. It is rather swollen and is developing a lovely patina. (Doesn't that sound better than it's kinda bluish yellow? It sounds more like a treasure on the Antiques Roadshow.)

We have several friends who work at the Stafford Hospital. I had just been there the day before to deliver a community calendar to one of my friends who just happens to do x-rays there.

I told her on Friday that I guess I could have saved myself a trip and just delivered the calendar during my ER visit.

They told him that they had numbers to hand out to wives who came in with bumps and bruises. I told them not to be too hard on him because he truly did feel bad about the whole escapade.

It could have been so much worse. The strap and hook could have hit me in the face. It could have broken more than just a little skin.

So my weekend was a little different than I'd planned. We didn't go to the volleyball and football scrimmage Friday night at Stafford High. I didn't do my normal hour of walking on Saturday. I spent quite a bit of time in the recliner with my leg propped up.

I love to read, and I didn't feel a bit guilty about sitting there and reading my book.

However, I do not advise this method for having a lazy weekend. Just a word to the wise.

It's hard to get a 3D image with a 2D photo. Like I said, I was lucky. My shin is a lot tougher than my head (well, at least in some ways!)

***

For more about me and my family, check out my personal blog at www.kimscountyline.blogspot.com