Paska, Easter Bread, Kulich

Paska brought the Mennonite Girls Can Cook together and it continues to play a big role in our cooking story. This past Tuesday we taught a cooking class at Lepp Farm Market in Abbotsford, British Columbia (Canada) on Paska and a traditional Mennonite Easter meal. My daughter Katie had a ticket for the class and she was able to be our photographer as she watched.

So much was going on this evening at Lepp’s and I’ve created some collages of the different parts of the class.

Paska, it’s what’s for Easter!

Paska is a slightly sweet Easter yeast bread that is traditional in the Ukraine and Russia. My Russian relatives call this bread Kulich. My mother and relatives always made dozens of loaves in the cylindrical shape using coffee cans or large juice cans.

Lots of work goes on behind the scenes right up until Lovella introduces us to the guests and gets the evening going. Judy and Kathy helped coordinate this class and had all the timing and shopping lists ready ahead of time along with recipes to hand out to our guests.

Lovella showed us her process in getting the dough ready to rise for her Paska.

Julie talked about the products that make gluten free baking easier these days. She prepared her gluten free Paska and brought it to the class to share. She also demonstrated a delicious mustard sauce for the Easter Ham we would be serving.

Kathy demonstrated her Cheesy Scalloped Potato recipe and also showed the ingredients she uses for a gourmet scalloped potato recipe.

Judy demonstrated her delicious coleslaw dressing and mixed up a large batch of fresh coleslaw for the class. My daughter Katie is not fond of store bought coleslaw. She really enjoyed Judy’s homemade variety!

Bev demonstrated how to make Pluma Moos or Plumi Moos. This is a traditional fruit dish served in Mennonite homes at Easter and other holidays, too. It can be served cold or warm. People use different varieties of fruit for the dish.

Bev also demonstrated how to carve a ham with the bone in. She really did a great job.

While we started plating the food for our guests Lovella started working on her dough that had been rising during these demos.

She showed us a variety of pans that you can use and how to pinch off small portions for sweet little petite paska buns made in muffin tins. She also showed a loaf variety and a twisted loaf.

I had brought a completed Seernaya Paska (Сырная пасха), sweet cheese spread from home since it has to sit in the refrigerator having all the liquid pressed out for at least 24 hours. I plated it and showed one of the flower pots I use to mold the cheese and the heavy stone wrapped in plastic wrap to weight the cheese and force the liquid out. We used fresh viola blossoms to decorate it. I made an error in the pronunciation of this dish in our first cookbook. It is called seernaya paska not seerney paska . I’ve always had a hard time with Russian grammar. Growing up we always had this spread to serve with our Easter bread.

Lovella finished off the demonstrations showing us how she makes the Paska Icing.

While our guests ate their main course of ham with mustard sauce, cheesy scalloped potatoes, and coleslaw. We started plating the paska, sweet cheese spread and a dollop of frosting to serve. We also served up a small bowl of pluma moos.

These classes are always so much fun to participate in. The wonderful thing is knowing that the profit generated from our classes goes to Matthew’s House in Abbotsford. Lepp Farm Market partners with us in donating the profits from our classes to this worthy non-profit that is a respite home for children with complex health care needs. You can see and read about Matthew’s house here.

Because the class was all about Easter I have to explain what the X and B on my Russian Sweet Cheese Spread is all about. On Easter the greeting that we always express to one another is

Christos Voskress! Voistinu Voskress!

Христос Воскрес!

Воистину воскрес!

Christ is Risen!

Truly He is Risen!

So the X (the first letter of Christ in Russian) stands for Christ and the B (the first letter of risen in Russian) stands for Risen, Christ is Risen. This is what Easter is all about.

I stole this next photo off of Kathy’s blog. Hope it’s ok, Kathy. If you click here you can see Kathy’s post about our time. Here’s Katie getting ready to take photos of the class.

Katie and I wrapped things up and hit the road back to the U.S.A. at about 9:30 P.M. We were happy to make it home at 11:40. I’ll admit that I was a zombie on Wednesday and I might or might not have spent the whole day in my robe.

All the recipes for these dishes are in our cookbooks or on our blog.

Saturday Snapshot!

A quick Saturday post and snapshot of how our day started. We were able to meet up with Judy (My Front Porch) one of the Mennonite Girls along with her hubby at the start of their road-trip to California. We had breakfast together in Shoreline, Washington and by the time we headed out to our cars the snow had started to fall. Thankfully this is a wet snow event with no sticking. It’s always great to get together and extra fun when our husbands can join us, too. Have a good safe trip and enjoy your sunny destination!

I just noticed who’s birthday it is today…

Happy Birthday George Washington!

I can not tell a lie, I’m lazing away this Saturday. What are you doing?

Forgetful

On Wednesday things were so busy around here I forgot to let you know about a recipe I posted on the Mennonite Girls Can Cook.

Click here on Bruschetta Ricotta Cheese Spread

With the ricotta spread or not Bruschetta is one of our favorite appetizers.

Matthew’s House

Inspired by the life of a young boy named Matthew, Matthew’s House is a respite care home for children living with complex healthcare needs. Up to five children at a time are cared for in a state-of-the-art residence staffed by experienced caregivers. Medical necessities like overhead track systems for transferring and full wheelchair accessibility will be complimented by a beautiful aesthetic, a multi-sensory playroom and an outdoor playground. Overnight guest suites allow family to remain close while taking a restful step back to refuel themselves.

The playground area was very impressive with a soft cushy surface and lifts and designs that allow easy access for wheelchair bound children. The slides are equipped with rollers so the kids can slide down without physical effort. Swings that you can lay down on and a merry go round flush with the surface to be able to wheel a wheelchair onto and spin the child while in their chair.

Providing families with the support they need, Matthew’s House is about caring for kids, a community encouraging one another, hospitality, compassion and joy. One-hundred percent of the funds for Matthew’s House come from the generous support of individuals and community partners. The Mennonite Girls Can Cook have partnered with Lepp Farm Market in donating all the proceeds from our cooking classes at Lepp to Matthew’s House. Each of these leaves on the wall forming a large tree represent the many contributors to Matthew’s House.

“Rob and Charlotte Lepp, owners Lepp Farm Market and the women of the Mennonite Girls Can Cook (MGCC) blog/cookbooks have raised nearly $25,000 to stock the kitchen at Matthew’s House and keep it cooking. It is a unique relationship that marries a love for good food and a
generous spirit.”

Here are 7 of the girls along with Rob and Charlotte Lepp in the kitchen that we have helped to build and equip.

What a privilege to be able to contribute to the needs of these families dealing with children with complex healthcare needs.

Our private tour of the facilities renewed our vision and encouraged us to continue our partnership with Lepp Farm Market with our cooking class donations going to Matthew’s House. Our next cooking class will be on March 26th, Paska, Pluma Moos and Easter Dinner. Click on the link to see how to register for the class.

It’s Thursday and we have sunshine and beautiful skies while many of you are suffering winter storm conditions yet again. Hope you are safe. What are your plans for Valentine’s Day? We are going to have our meal in. Dear volunteered to barbecue some steaks and I’ll add some baked potatoes and a salad for our meal. Maybe we’ll watch some Olympics or another episode of Midsomer Murders on Netflix. Hope whatever you do that your home is filled with love.

Cookies!

We Gathered.

We huddled, prepared, and watched.

All hands in!

These hands made Lovella’s Nanaimo Bars, Marg’s Tee Gebaeck-Linzer Cookies, Anneliese’s Peppermint Cookies, Judy’s Peppernuts/Pfeffernuesse, Julie’s Chocolate Chocolate Gluten Free Cookies, Bev’s Honey Cookies. We also served appetizers (Red Pepper Jelly tarts, Judy’s Christmas Tree cheese board, Lepp’s prepared platters of cured meats, and Marg’s Apple Spiced Cider that was posted on the blog yesterday)

Each baker had her time in the spotlight!

Work continued out of the spotlight.

Judy had her own personal sous chef.

Even though I didn’t bake any of the cookies I got to stir!

I watched and smiled because for a change I brought along my own personal photographer. Note to sassy looking self standing behind Lovella: When you are behind the scenes and someone is taking photos you should always remember your weird expressions will get caught on film.

Favorite moment of the night…laughing about Anneliese’s good old pans!

When everything was said and done each guest at the cooking class got to take home one of these beautiful baskets of cookies the the girls had prepared ahead of time! All profits from last nights cooking class will be going to Matthew’s House in Abbotsford a non-profit help to families of children with disabilities.

Lovella took this next photo of Katie, my personal photographer for the evening. It was wonderful to have a traveling companion for the 200 mile round trip to the cooking class.

I managed to get one photo of my personal photographer before the class when we stopped for tea at Clayburn Village Candy shop where we had a lovely meal and we shared sticky toffee pudding for sweets before the sweets!

Dear and I are headed North again today. I’ll share more tomorrow on our adventure. I’m real happy someone else will be doing the driving the next couple of days.

Hope you all are enjoying some sweet moments in the bustle of this joyful time of year! Blessings…

In the Kitchen…

…at the West Coast Women’s Show in Abbotsford, B.C.

After the Kitchen Demonstration on Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, Grilled Lattice Topped Apples, and French bread (all from our new cookbook, Celebrations) We headed back to the Winks Booth at the show.

I was happy that our daughter Katie was able to make the drive with me this time to Canada. It really makes the time go by faster when you have a traveling companion.

Before we headed to the show we stopped in at Lovella’s and she had a lovely table set for us and served us Roasted Butternut soup with homemade buns. Delicious. Then we even got a cranberry scone to top it off. Thank you Lovella. We appreciated your hospitality!

Today (Saturday) the girls will be demonstrating 5 different things to make from biscuit dough at noon in the Kitchen theater at the show. Make sure you stop by if you are in Abbotsford!

We are getting things ready at this old house for a little reunion of some of our daughter’s friends from high school. Dear and I will escape upstairs to our loft after the small reunion gets started later tonight. What’s on your Saturday agenda?

Helping Hands…

…and open hearts that I am so thankful for.

On Sunday we were invited to a get together with dinner on Hatzic Lake in British Columbia. Anneliese and her dear husband put the invitation out for an end of summer celebration with any of us “girls” and our husbands that were available. So thankful for their open home and hearts for hospitality!

Dear and I were the last ones to arrive after a long wait at the border crossing. Thankfully we realized just a mile from home that we had left our passports at home and turned around to retrieve them. Sheesh…that would not have been a sad discovery if we were farther up the road.

Anneliese and her H had made preparations for us and also made sure we had everything we needed while we were there.

Such a beautiful peaceful setting to enjoy time together.

Thankful hands received all that was prepared for us to enjoy starting with appetizers.

Bev prepared the marinade for the salmon that her husband Harv caught and then prepared on his smoker grill for us. So thankful for these generous and helpful hands that are always ready to serve us.

Judy and her dear husband Elmer just home from a trip East brought the famous and fresh Chilliwack corn for us all to enjoy. So thankful for these hands that are always open to blessing me with a place to stay when I come to B.C.

Anneliese prepared several side dishes for us to enjoy with the salmon. Thankful for her generous hands.

I am so thankful for friends that speak my love language of enjoying food together and their hands that don’t tire in preparing dishes for us to enjoy.

We enjoyed the meal together after we sang “Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow”

Our canopy at the dinner table was a beautiful very old Walnut Tree.

We enjoyed several different trees during our time together…

This is an interesting tree that has fallen over but is still producing fruit. Julie wrote a great post about it and if you click here you can read it.

Who knew this swing would be a temptation to our group?

Anneliese and Judy got us going enjoying the tire swing that one of the large trees supported. You can see more fun on the tire swing at Lovella’s blog post.

The fire was lit just before we sat down to enjoy dessert that Lovella’s and Julie’s hands prepared for us.

Lovella made a delicious Coconut Cream Pie.

Julie made her Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake from the cookbook (gluten free, of course!) Rich and Yummy!

Just before we left to cross the line back to the U.S. Dear and I took a short turn on the tire swing, too.

On the road back to the border we were able to enjoy a double rainbow reminding us again of God’s goodness to us.

We had 2 long border crossing wait times this time around but it was worth the time to enjoy these cherished moments with our “Canadian Cousins”.

A Surprise…

I had no idea of the scope of the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach. When we pulled up in front I still didn’t realize what was waiting to explore within and beyond the museum building. For this post I’ll just share the Center and the Museum with our signing photos and in another post I’ll share the Village and the Barn Restaurant where we enjoyed some heritage food.

The Village Centre contains the main exhibit telling the Mennonite story from the 1500s to the present.

The whole time we were in the center signing books there was a steady stream of elementary students arriving in school buses to have a tour of the center and village.

The Museum gift shop had a great collection of Mennonite books and they had our cover aprons from our first cookbook for sale in different fabric patterns.

A walk through the museum took you on a time line of the migration of the Mennonite People over the years. There were many great photos and items from Russia in the museum.

Even though I am not Mennonite these photos could have been a photo of my relatives from Russia. They look so similar to the few photos we have from our ancestors in Russia.

Kathy’s cousins came to the center and it was fun to take this photo with Kathy holding her cousin’s Draft Horse Calendar that is sold in the Heritage gift shop.

It was fun to meet Jeanine from The Baking Beauties who is actually only one baking beauty right now. She has a great Gluten Free Baking sight and you can click over to check it out. She’s in the middle in the back row.

When we were done with our signing slot we headed out the back doors of the center and I was pleasantly surprised with the sites I saw. I will share more in my next post.

We are busy now working on options for easily storing some of our larger pieces of furniture while we have all of our floors replaced. We are having it done in two stages and will be moving things in and out for the hardwood floors first and then following up with the carpeting. We are still trying to choose the color and pile we want on the carpeting. Everything you do opens up the door to more things that need to be done. Any big projects at your house?

At the Villages

During our short time in Winnipeg and Steinbach we had book signings in 3 different Ten Thousand Villages. Each one of the stores served food that the staff prepared from our cookbook. If you aren’t familiar with Ten Thousand Villages here is a short description of who they are.

TEN THOUSAND VILLAGES

A Fair Trade Retailer We create opportunities for artisans in developing countries to earn income by bringing their products and stories to our markets through long-term, fair trading relationships.

You might want to have something to eat before you scroll through this post. Just thought I’d give you fair warning..

At two of the stores we ended up right next to the jewelry. I ended up coming home with 4 pieces of jewelry. That was good marketing for sure.

Have you shopped in a Ten Thousand Villages store? This was the store in Steinbach. Our last 2 signings of our days in Manitoba were at 2 different Ten Thousand Villages in Winnipeg.

This time we were right across from the jewelery instead of sitting in front of the jewelery. At this store we met many people who had connections to some of our own girls. This was TTV Henderson.

A little guy was my favorite fan for sure. He was so interested in getting one of our books and being able to enjoy some of the recipes. He never left our table even when his sister next to him found toys to play with in the store. He was more interested in making sure he got a book from us.

He watched each of us intently to make sure we signed the book just right. It was so much fun to talk to him.

Our next signing would be at the larger Ten Thousand Villages in Winnipeg but before we headed there we were invited to lunch at Margaret’s home who is Charlotte’s cousin. She was working at the store the whole time we were signing and left just minutes before we did but still had a wonderful table and food ready for us at her home nearby

We had a wonderful time at Margaret’s table, thank you so much! This was the first time that I had Obst Moos (a cold fruit soup) and it was delicious. Margaret said she followed Charlotte’s recipe in our first cookbook. From here we went to our last signing in Winnipeg (TTV Plaza Dr.) where more dishes from our cookbook were served.

Genevieve made my Dear’s Tomato Rice Soup and it was delicious. I wish I would have thought to take a photo of sweet Genevieve next to the soup. By this time my head was spinning from all the fun! I still have a couple more adventures to document from the Mennonite Girls trip to Manitoba.

In the meantime my Dear is back from France and we spent a nice Father’s Day at church and brunch and then enjoying some relaxation as each of our kids called to wish him a Happy Father’s Day. We’ll celebrate next weekend with our kids who are near. On Saturday to help the hours go by before Dear came home my sister Lana and I went on a Secret Garden Tour in a neighboring city. We had a great time and I’ll be sharing about that soon, too. Hope you had a nice weekend. Spring is coming to an end. What are your plans for the last week of Spring?

Welcome Here!

Everywhere we went in Canada I was struck with this greeting “Welcome Here”. It’s not a greeting used across the board in the U.S.A. but I’d love to start using it at my house. This post is about the places were were “welcomed here” apart from our book signing locations. I’ve already shared about Charlotte’s home and our wonderful lunch there.

We were also treated to a wonderful meal at the home of Betty’s sister, Norma. What fun we had as Norma’s dear husband served us the meal she planned and prepared. (The Photo above is from our Women Refreshed at the Well Lodgings)

Jack and Norma

A lovely table set for all of us with appetizers before our main meal began.

Not only did Jack serve us but he also washed up all the dishes while we had dessert in the Sun Porch. A great example of a servant that we are all called to be…

All Eight of us tried to trick Norma into giving us the recipe for this delicious pasta dish she made but she held her ground and kept her secret…so far. Time will tell if we can replicate it!

We were going to take these great little pudding/yogurt pies home with us to have at our retreat center but it turned out that we had time enough to eat them in the Sun Porch. Delicious! Aren’t they packaged nicely? That little pouch on the side is granola.

We were so glad to be able to spend time with Betty’s sister and Jack. Thank you so much for welcoming us here! Aren’t these sisters beautiful!?

Dear called from France today and it was so good to hear his relaxed voice. Things are a little quiet at his conference since so many travelers were delayed because of air traffic strikes in France. He’s eaten some Octopus and a Risotto dish that he sent me photos of. He sees me take so many photos of food that it has rubbed off on him. Here’s a photo that he took just outside the conference center.

Marseille, France

Tuesday night I was able to do something that qualifies for my bucket list and I’ll be sharing the experience really soon with lots of photos.

I’m watching and praying for many of our blogging friends in areas of extreme weather and in areas where wildfires are raging. May lives be spared and damage minimal. Blessings and remember you are “Welcome Here” anytime…

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: Mennonite Girls Can Cook