Fix-It and Forget-It

It’s February. We’re tired of cold days and long nights. We’re craving comfort food, and the sooner the better. Continue Reading...

Here in Lancaster County, tradition dictates a pork-and-sauerkraut meal on New Year’s Day. We’ve been told it will make us prosperous in the new year. It hasn’t worked yet, but we keep trying! Continue Reading...

As the name suggests, this hearty soup is quick, easy, and very, very good. Our recipe tester’s comment: “I’m definitely making this at home.” Now that’s a compliment worth having, because she’s prepared a lot of recipes in her time.

The recipe also makes plenty. Plan to serve this to a crowd of hungry leaf-rakers, if you’re lucky enough to be hosting such a crowd in your back yard. Or lure a bunch of energetic friends with an offer of dinner, and pass out the rakes when they arrive. Just be sure to have steaming bowls of soup and mugs of cider on hand when the work is done.

With any luck, this may become an annual tradition!

Quick and Easy Italian Vegetable Beef Soup
Fix-It and Forget-It, Revised & Updated, page 36
Makes 8-10 servings
Prep. Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 6-8 hours
Ideal slow-cooker size: 6-qt.

1 lb. ground beef, or turkey, browned and drained
3 carrots, sliced
4 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small onion, diced
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
¾ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
15-oz. can diced Italian tomatoes, or 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
6-oz. can Italian-flavored tomato paste
4 ½ cups water
1 quart beef broth

1. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.
2. Cover. Cook on High 6-8 hours, or until potatoes and carrots are tender.

Rebecca is my daughter. She’s a very good cook. While I couldn’t get her to chop an onion when she was growing up, she’s become a cook who tries everything now—successfully. She also is the Manager of The Good Cooking Store in our little Lancaster County town of Intercourse, PA. She taught Language Arts to middle-schoolers for 7 years. Now we benefit from all of her energy and good ideas. Don’t miss what she has to say! Continue Reading...

This one-pot meal has it all—meat, potatoes, and vegetable (if you use the optional peas). Continue Reading...

September is National Potato Month, and here in Lancaster County we love our potatoes (and our noodles, corn, bread, rolls, and potpie)! Continue Reading...

Remember the Staub Dutch oven that we talked about on Tuesday? Well, all that talk about slow-cooked stews made us hungry for one!

Here is a stew that you can make in either a Dutch oven or your slow cooker. Choose whichever method fits your life. Either way, the meat comes out wonderfully tender and juicy. And look at all the vegetables you’ll be offering the people at your table.

The smell of this great dish cooking will surely make you happy that the weather is cooler and that stew season has come.
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Summer is turning into fall here in Lancaster County. The kids are back in school and the summer’s produce is slowing down for the year. The evenings come earlier and cooler, moving us towards fall. And fall means soup.

This is one of our staff’s favorite recipes. The barley has a great presence. And this is the type of soup that responds very well to being cooked slowly. A perfect comfort for those cooler fall days.
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Do you have leftover ham from the holiday weekend? New England Boiled Dinner may be just what you’re looking for to use it up in a tasty way (though, we agree, the recipe could use a more tantalizing name). We like the taste of juicy ham combined with the mild flavor of cabbage and potatoes. Serve it as a complete meal or with Apple Gingerbread just for fun.
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We’ve got stuff cooking today in The Good Cooking Store. That would be literally and figuratively.

We’re publishing a new cookbook in September, called Lizzie’s Cookbook: A Treasury of Favorite Amish Recipes—and today we’re photographing its cover.
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