From the Promise Lodge Kitchen
Rosetta Bender and the Kuhn sisters love to cook, and as they settle into their lives at Promise Lodge, they’ll be sharing favorite recipes the way you and I do! In this recipe section, you’ll find down-home foods Amish women feed their families, along with some dishes that I’ve concocted in my own kitchen— because you know what? Amish cooking isn’t elaborate. Plain cooks make an astounding number of suppers from whatever’s in their pantry and their freezers. They also use convenience foods like Velveeta, cake mixes, and canned soups to feed their large families for less money and investment of their time.
These recipes are also posted on my website, www.CharlotteHubbard.com. If you don’t find a recipe you want, please email me via my website to request it—and to let me know how you liked it!
–Charlotte
Beulah’s “Marriage Meat Loaf”
Amish cooks tend to use fewer spices than I prefer, so I tweaked this recipe by adding the soup and salad dressing mixes. This feeds 10–12 guests, and they repeatedly ask for the recipe.
1 lb. each lean hamburger, pork sausage, turkey breakfast sausage
1 cup rolled oats, uncooked
3 eggs
¾ cup tomato juice
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1 envelope dry Good Seasons Italian salad dressing mix
Sauce
3 T. ketchup
3 T. mustard
3 T. brown sugar
In a large bowl, combine all meat loaf ingredients thoroughly. Pack firmly into 2 loaf pans sprayed with non-stick spray OR shape into 2 loaves and place in a large slow cooker, adding ¼ cup water in the bottom of the cooker.
Mix the sauce ingredients and spread over the meat loaves. Bake the pans at 350° F. for an hour. Bake slow cooker loaves for about 6 hours on low. Remove from pan/cooker and allow to sit on platter for about 5 minutes before slicing.
“Hubbard writes Amish stories with style and grace.” —RT Book Reviews
As the year draws to a close, the brand-new colony of Promise Lodge is thriving, a welcoming community that offers three Amish sisters a fresh start. And as Christmas approaches, gifts big and small are given with love . . .
As Promise Lodge’s first wedding arrives, the evidence of a community building a foundation for the future is a cause for celebration. But the bishop’s narrow-minded wedding sermon doesn’t sit well with the Bender sisters, the town’s courageous founders, especially widowed Mattie Schwartz. She believes marriage and family aren’t the most important of God’s gifts—even if she suspects her tender feelings for Preacher Amos Troyer run deeper than simple friendship.
Amos hasn’t given up hope that stubborn, spirited Mattie will change her mind about taking another husband, but when an accident threatens to change the course of his life forever, he wonders if the Lord has sent him a message. He’ll need faith, hope, and charity to find the right path—and a Christmas blessing to convince Mattie to walk it with him.
Praise for Charlotte Hubbard’s Seasons of the Heart series
“Another great book centered around the Sweet Seasons Café.” —RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
“These very special books will sit proudly on my keeper shelf!” —Romance Reviews Today
Uncover the Truth With These New Mystery Series