"And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen"

CHURCH was very important to Mom.   

                 
 Mom also loved to share

stories, food, and recipes. 

“Mother, you taught me . . .”

HARVEST . . . Stadnyk family . . . and a huge loaf of UKRAINIAN RYE

John Stadnyk (my grandfather)

had six sons and one daughter:

Paul, Alec, Sam, Nick (my father), Fred, Steve, and Anastasia

Paul and Mary's children were

Teenie,  Bill, Mike, Verna, Elsie, and Sylvia

Teenie on the left with my mom, Mary Stadnyk

                                                 Teenie had 6 children:                                                               
Paul, Mike, Harry, Elsie, Andrew, and Pat

From left: Marion and my cousin Mike Showdra,                                                      my cousin Harry Showdra and his wife Audrey,                              

cousin Elsie (Showdra) Pulock and cousin Pat (Showdra) McLaughlin

This was a celebration in 2016 of Elsie's birthday.

 Teenie was my First Cousin and Pat is my first cousin, once removed.  

Mom and Teenie were close friends.

Thanks, Pat, for sharing the pictures of your family and the harvest.

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Olga Drozd has posted a number of Ukrainian bread recipes on the internet.  Thanks, Olga!

Bryan just made her Selianyn Khlib (Ukrainian Rustic Village Bread)

For Olga's recipe: 

http://www.ukrainianclassickitchen.ca/index.php?PHPSESSID=u30g2luohthehbeq7qq8vmi670&topic=7795.0

Discovery . . . and Buckwheat Pancakes

A discovery!

On my frog’s smooth, green belly

there sits no button.

(Haiku translated by Sylvia Cassedy and Kunehiro Suetaki)

*********

BUCKWHEAT & BLUEBERRY PANCAKES : 

            Adapted from REBAR MODERN FOOD COOKBOOK

½ cup buckwheat flour

¾  cup unbleached flour

¼ cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 eggs

1 ½ cups buttermilk

2 tbsp molasses

1 cup blueberries

*In a medium bowl, stir together dry ingredients.

*Whisk eggs in a large bowl.  Stir in buttermilk and molasses.

*Add dry ingredients to large bowl and stir lightly.

*Heat griddle.

*Add butter generously.

*Pour in pancakes and dot with blueberries.

*Cook on both sides and serve with maple syrup and extra butter.  YUM!

Tsyotsye talked about cattle . . . and Ukrainian Minced Beef Cutlets

                             Dad's sister, Anastasia, and her husband, Tom Bewza

Mom wrote:  We were at a family reunion.  It was a distant relative.  It’s nice but only I didn’t get to know more than I knew as I sat with Dad’s sister because she only talks about cattle and no women talk about cattle.  They talk about craft work.  So she talked more to Dad.  

*********

We didn’t eat a lot of beef at home, but I do remember Mom frying ground beef cutlets once because George had taken us for our very first hamburgers in Hamiota and we all loved them.   

I found this recipe in Bohdan Zahny’s book: very simple but really good.

POLTAVA STYLE MINCED BEEF CUTLETS (Yalovichnyi Sicheniki Poltavskie)

1 ½ lbs beef

1/3 cup minced salt pork (rinse if it is covered with salt)

1 large clove garlic minced

2 T. water

2 T. bread crumbs

4 T. butter

Mix salt pork, water, and garlic into the beef. 

Make 4 oval cutlets. 

Roll in crumbs.

Fry in butter.

I served these with mashed potatoes & parsnips and 2 salads;  (a) Cucumbers in Dilled Sour Cream (b) Beets & Leafy Lettuce.

Yum! 

Ready. . . Sept. . . . Relax! . . . with a good Video . . . and Mocktail # 8

Vesper loves Movie Time!

My Top Movie  

                                                       True story about the Holocaust denier

                                                  I LOVE 19th century lit turned into costume dramas.

                  True story of the progressive Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary who committed suicide.

Czechoslovak Resistance kill one of  Hitler's top men 

Charles Dickens had a secret love!

Adaptation of novel by Philip Roth

A Conscientious Objector saving lives amidst horrific battle scenes

Trying to find a balance between being a soldier and a mother

Series about a U.S. marshal

********

Ambrosia à la Bryan:  1 serving

½ ounce fresh lime juice

4 ounces apple juice

Pour into chilled old-fashioned or highball glass.

Add 2 ice cubes and top up with Club Soda.  

Back to School Excitement . . . and Austrian Cabbage with Poppy Seeds

           

                              Madison is starting grade 5!

                                Sophia is starting grade 1!

                             Andrew is starting Kindergarten!

Don't you LOVE the outfits?

And I know that teachers as just as thrilled as the students, but. . . 

PARENTS ALERT!

1.  CBC News last night reported that Canadian kids are not doing well in Math and lots of money is being spent on trying to find out why.     
Parents, you may want to ask your kid's teacher if math facts are actually being taught. 
     Round about 2005 teachers in Saskatoon, for example, were told that they should NOT have kids memorize math facts.  Kids were supposed to "discover" the facts through activities using manipulatives.  
     Personally, I think memorizing math facts is essential and my students continued to learn them.
     Here is an easy guideline to follow:
*By the end of grade one, students should know all the addition facts.
*By the end of grade two, students also should know all the subtraction facts.
*By the end of grade three, students also should know all the multiplication facts.
*By the end of grade four, students also should know all the division facts.

PARENTS, IF YOUR CHILD IS NOT LEARNING THESE FACTS AT SCHOOL BECAUSE THE TEACHER IS NOT ALLOWED TO TEACH THEM, GO AHEAD AND TEACH THEM AT HOME.  
   
2.  Also, you might ask the teacher whether your child will be learning handwriting as well as printing.  If cursive writing is no longer taught in school, how will a kid who wants to research family history, or become a scholar of history, be able to read old handwritten documents?

************

My students learned cursive writing:  here's one of my old worksheets for teaching vocabulary (grades 4, 5, and 6).  

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  Healthy foods, Healthy bodies, healthy minds!

*****

MENU

Pork Chops

Sautéed Yam Slices

Austrian Steamed Cabbage

*******

AUSTRIAN CABBAGE with SOUR CREAM & POPPY SEEDS

            From:  THE NEW DOUBLEDAY COOKBOOK by Jean Anderson & Elaine Hanna

Half a cabbage

½ cup sour cream

½ tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1 tsp poppy seeds

*Cut the cabbage into wedges about one inch wide at outer edge.

*Steam cabbage 20 minutes.

*Cut out the core and chop cabbage coarsely.

*Stir together sour cream, pepper, and poppy seeds in a large bowl.

*Stir in cabbage.

*Butter a casserole dish.

*Turn cabbage into the casserole dish.  Cover.

*About 25 minutes before serving time, start preheating oven to 350.

*Bake covered casserole 20 minutes.

YUM!

"I am the sunlight on ripened grain" . . . and HELEN'S PIZZA

Marta and Helen

Eleanor and Helen

                                                                      Feb. 16, 1935 - July 12, 2017

Helen was a tall woman with a gruff voice and a huge heart.

Suddenly, my cousin is gone.  I talked to Helen only a week or two before she died and she was as uncomplaining as ever.  The only thing she said was that she thought she might have to go into a care facility soon because she was having trouble walking.  

I never knew Helen until about fifteen years ago when she started visiting Mom in Saskatoon. 

Helen was my Uncle Fred’s daughter.  There were 6 children:  Steve, Frank, Lily, Helen, Martha, and Dennis. 

I saw Helen only once when I was little.  She needed help and had come to see Mom and Dad.  She never forgot a kindness and that’s why she started bringing Mom roses.

Soon, we got to know Helen’s sister, Lily, too.  

After Mom passed away, Bryan and I used to see Helen in Estevan.  We always went to the Tower Café and she always ordered the All-dressed Pizza.  “It’s the best,” she said. 

Then we would talk about the old days.  

Helen was married twice and has left behind 5 children, 18 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren, and 2 great-great-grandchildren.   

Lily said Helen was a farmer and never liked to cook.   Her lungs were damaged by smoking and by dust from grain and working the fields.

I remarked to Lily, “Helen had an interesting life.”

“I would say she did,” responded Lily, emphatically.

 

***********

Helen said she went out B.C. once and picked cherries for ten cents a pound and then bought sealers and canned them on site: 75 quarts.   

I do love cherries, but when we have pizza, Helen, that is when I will most often think of you. 

*******

When you have something growing in your garden, you want-to/have-to use it! 

So here is another of my culinary inventions:

Collards on a Pizza

which I am naming. . . 

HELEN'S PIZZA

FIRST PREPARE the FIRST TOPPING which is COLLARDS

2 pounds collards (you can also mix in beet leaves and spinach)

8 ounces fresh tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion

1 ½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 tsp fresh oregano (or ¼ tsp dried)

*Cut out the collard stems.  (You can boil these up and feed them to your dog – they are safe {I checked} and full of fiber and nutrients.)

*Cut the collards in short strips half an inch wide.  Set aside.

*Finely dice the tomatoes.  Set aside.

*Finely chop the onion.  Set aside.

*Wash the oregano and strip those small leaves away from the stems.  Chop the leaves if they seem large. 

*Heat oil and cook onions for 3 minutes over medium heat. 

*Add tomatoes and cook 2 more minutes.

*Add collards, salt, pepper, and oregano.  Reduce heat and cook slowly for 20 minutes.

*Let cool.  This is the first layer for your pizza.

I added Ukrainian garlic sausage, mushrooms, zucchini, Kalamata olives, fresh basil, cheddar, and mozzarella.

                                                          HELEN'S PIZZA