KAREN and EASY CREAMED CHICKEN

You can grow up on a farm but learn next to nothing about farming.  Or you can marry a farmer and get right into it.

            Here’s what I just learned by talking with my sister-in-law, Karen:  She said there hasn’t been great weather this summer.  It’s been wet and cool so David hasn’t finished baling hay because it’s green underneath.  “There’s alfalfa mixed in so it can’t be green or it won’t keep,” she explained.   “I hope it’s not going to be an early winter after a summer like this, but the leaves are changing already even though it’s too soon.  And the salamanders are moving and burrowing down – they don’t usually do that until September.”

            Karen wasn’t raised on a farm, even though her parents did farm for a while. When Karen was 7 years old, her parents left Moosomin and moved into town.   

    There were 3 children, widely spaced apart.  The first was Margaret.  After 6 years there was Ken.  Then 13 years went by before Karen arrived.    

“How did you meet Donald?” I asked Karen.

Karen, her dad, me, and Aline in the 1960s

“I think George was dating Aline and I was friends with Aline.  One time when Donald saw me out walking, he said to Nestor, ‘Go get her,’ so Nestor picked me up and carried me over his shoulder to the car.”   The memory made Karen laugh.     “I guess Donald was being Mr. Shy,” she said.  “I had a dress on and I was saying, ‘Put me down!’  It was a good thing none of Mom’s friends saw this.”

Karen and her mom (1980?)

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Sorry, there's no picture of today’s recipe because I hadn’t planned on blogging it.

Instead, I was going to blog Bohdan Zahny’s  Green Peppers stuffed with carrots and cabbage, and they turned out okay . . . but nothing special.

Fortunately, I teamed the peppers up with a chicken recipe that everyone wanted seconds of!

EASY CREAMED CHICKEN  and delicious!

Originally published as Sour Cream 'n' Dill Chicken in Country Woman May/June 1993, p33

10 chicken pieces

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 envelope dry onion soup mix

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp dried dill weed (or 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill)

7 sliced fresh mushrooms (or 1 can sliced mushrooms)

·        Preheat oven to 350.

·        Put chicken in 13x9 pan.

·        Combine all the other ingredients and spread over the chicken.

·        Bake one hour.

·        Serve with plain boiled potatoes as there’s lots of sauce.