My Homemade Iowa Life (2024)

My husband is always outdoing me in the kitchen. I spend a day baking my favorite Christmas cookies, and then he humbles me with his first-ever attempt at making homemade caramels. And they were fantastic, of course, just like he is.

He made these caramels because he's a little stir-crazy now that fishing season is over. We were out grocery shopping, and he decided to buy a $5 candy thermometer from the houseware aisle. He stocked up on butter and cream, then spent a Sunday night watching NFL football in the kitchen while the sugar-syrup boiled, browned and bubbled into caramel.

His caramels turned out perfectly soft, with a nice rich browned butter flavor. What was his secret? He kept the burner on low and just let the sugar syrup slowly reach the hard-ball stage, about 245 degrees. He actually kept one batch of caramel on the burner for more than 3 hours before he turned it up and let it reach the ideal temperature. The slow boil freed him up to do some other things around the house. (Yes, he has a short-attention span.)

I still can't believe he made the perfect caramels on the first try. I'm never that fearless in the kitchen, but he's not afraid to fail. I've still got a lot to learn from him (but don't tell him that).

Here's the church cookbook recipe for homemade caramels, if you want to try these yourself. Remember, a $5 candy thermometer will work just fine.

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Cream Caramels
(A great Christmas gift!)
From Elk Creek Lutheran Church cookbook, Kensett, Iowa

• 2C.sugar
• 3/4 C. light corn syrup
• 1/2 C. butter
• 2 C. light cream
• 1/2 C. finely chopped nuts (opt.)

Butter square pan, 8x8x2-inches. Spread nuts in pan. Combine sugar, corn syrup, butter and half the cream in large saucepan. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring occassionally. Stir in remaining cream. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, to 245 degrees on candy thermometer (or until small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water forms a firm ball). Immediately spread mixture evenly over nuts in pan. Cut into 1-inch squares. Wrap in squares of plastic wrap.

Hello, everyone! I'm in the middle of another super busy week, but it's a good kind of busy. I feel wonderfully productive, until I come home, crash in front of the TV or computer and struggle to keep my eyes openthe rest of the night. These dark, cold nights are terrible for my energy levels, but great for my sleep.

Anyhow, getting back on subject, I wanted to share one of my new favorite recipes. I've been trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet, so each weekend, I've been trying a new side dish. I found a recipe for fall fruit coleslaw on the Hy-Vee website (a local grocery store chain) and decided to give it a try. I'm always a little fearful of rejection whenever I introduce a new, out-of-the-ordinary recipe to my husband. But he ended up liking this salad so much, he requested it for Thanksgiving instead of cranberry sauce. (Why am I the only family member who love cranberries?)

I modified this recipe from the Hy-Vee version, which called for a bottled cole slaw dressing. I mix up my own dressing using a recipe from one of my favorite church cookbooks. But instead of using sugar, I add honey to the dressing.

I'm pretty proud of this salad, because I hardly ever stray from an original recipe. I don't trust my kitchen instincts, I guess. Please try this salad at home and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

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Fall fruit coleslaw

- 1 bag of shredded cabbage coleslaw
- 1 cup red grapes, halved
- 1 cup apples, diced
- 1/2 C. honey
- 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
- 1/2 C. white or cider vinegar
- 1 C. salad oil
- 1 tsp. salt

Mix all ingrediets together and refrigerate until serving. I prefer to let it sit in the refrigerator overnight before serving.

One of my favorite local orchards, Center Grove Orchard near Cambridge, sends out and weekly e-newsletter, which recently announced that the orchard store was going to stay open this year until Christmas. I love snacking on the dried apple chips we've made thanks to our handy-dandy food dehydrator. So I decided to drive over to the orchard to see what apples they still have for sale.

I told the orchard staff that I wanted apples for drying, and they offered to find some apple "seconds" in their back room for me. I only recently learned that "seconds" are bruised or otherwise unattractive apples, which I discovered from a recent post on one of my favorite blogs, Home Joys.

So I agreed to buy a few bags of seconds, although right now, I can't quite remember what variety of apple they were. I think it was a Mutsu apple, which looks a bit like a Golden Delicious.

To my surprise, the clerk returned from the backroom with four 10-pound bags of apples for me to take home. She offered to give me two bags for free. So the next thing I knew, I was navigating a wheelbarrow-full of apples out to my truck.

My husband, who was happy to have an indoor project now that fishing season is over, immediately got to work sorting through the bags, looking for any, ahem, "bad apples."

Yes, we use our microwave as a TV stand. Leaves us with more counterspace :)

All the apples were in pretty good shape, except for a few soft and sunburned spots.

He cut them up, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and stacked them in our food dehydrator. (Note: This is an old picture from last year, just to give you an idea of how we use the dehydrator.)

I fed a few dried apples to my sister last time she stopped for a visit. She replied, "I want these for Christmas!" So I've saved a gallon-size bag of dried apples just for her Christmas stocking. But I had to hide the bag, because I've been eating the apple chips faster than we can make them!

My grandpa passed away last week after a brief struggle with cancer. He was 90. My grandpa was a true-blue farmer. He loved farming. Up until the end, he still wanted my mom and uncle to take him on Sunday drives just so he could see the corn harvest. We placed a model of his first tractor - a Farmall H -- in the flower arrangement at his funeral.

To be honest, I agonized over whether I should write about my grandfather. Even though he is no longer in any pain and now he can join my grandmother up in Heaven, I miss him. And it's hard for me to think that I won't be able to visit with him again soon.

But I also feel the need to write down a few of things that I loved about my grandpa, just so I can look back on the good times we had together.

So here's a list of what I'll always remember about my grandpa:

• He lived in the same small Iowa town his whole life. He graduated from the same school as I did. He even played basketball in the same gymnasium that I did.
• He liked to brag that he bought every car he ever owned, including his first car in high school, with cash -- never credit. He earned all his money by working hard in the fields and taking care of livestock.
• He was always a good provider. Whatever my grandmother wanted, he gave her. They would take trips to Florida and Arizona every winter with the money he earned selling a few hogs in the fall.
• He was a super competitive card player. He and my grandmother got together with friends to play card games several times a week. And my grandpa had the amazing ability to win almost every game. But when he lost, even to his grandkids, boy, would he pout :)
• He was an extremely smart businessman. He grew his farm to 600 acres over the course of several decades. He never used a calculator when balancing the farm books; he did all the math in his head. He was very good at math.
• He gave me the opportunity to grow up on the farm. When I was a baby, he invited my dad and mom to come back home and join my uncle in the farming operation. My grandparents were my next door neighbors, and my cousins lived just down the road. It was a very peaceful place to grow up.
• He traveled to all 50 states and to several places overseas, including Europe and Australia.
• He loved watching Minnesota Twins games, reading history books and watching Fox News. He especially enjoyed watching Bill O'Reily.
• In one of the last conversations I had with my grandpa, he asked me why I wear my hair so short. He noted that the women on Fox News wear their hair so long thatthey can tie it in a ponytail under their chins. He said he like that my grandma wore her hair short.
• He told the Hospice nurse that my grandmother was the most beautiful woman in the world, even up until the day she died from cancer four years ago.
• He used to take me on golf-cart rides around the trailer park he lived at in Arizona.
• He used to get bored in the middle of the church service and ask me to play Tic Tac To with him on the back of the offering envelope.
• He loved pancakes, pickled herring, liver & onions, 100,000 Grand candy bars and KFC chicken.
• He used to call me Cucumber. To this day, I don't know why he gave me that nickname.
• He planted a little evergreen tree that I brought home from school on Arbor Day. Now that evergreen stands well over 8 feet tall. He used to give me updates on the tree when Icame home to visit from college.

As you can see, there was a lot to love about my grandfather. I'll always be your Cucumber, Grandpa. I miss you and hope to see you again someday.