Hoosier Recipes.

I now understand why Indiana is the second fattest state in the Union. It's the Hoosier specialties. (Yes, I'm still here. I go home on the 6th, after my sister gets here to take over. Grandpa cried when I said I was leaving, and I did, too.)

Let's start with the noodles. Okay, the Amish make some of the best egg noodles in the world, really and truly. They're a very good tagliatelle, thick and soft, with just the right bite to them. Okay, that's fine, unless you're low carbing. But here, they simmer a chuck or chicken in broth, then stew the noodles with meat until the noodles absorb most of the broth. This might be okay (and it really is a childhood comfort food for me) until... they serve this mess of carbs over mashed potatoes.

Then there's corn pudding, which may or may not be served with the above meal. Corn, add crushed crackers, eggs, butter, cream, sugar and bake.

Cornmeal mush... fried. Like fried grits, but not.

Then there's sugar-cream pie and peanut butter pie. They're both delicious, but they really should come with an insulin pen. And no, sugar cream pie is not at all like any other cream pie on the planet.

The produce can be scary (though Meijer's has been okay so far), and when people come to visit in this town, they bring perishables.

I will admit that I love the people here, but the food is some scary stuff. I'll post recipes (real ones) when I get back to Colorado and have a real internet connection again.

Pcat

Omigawd!

But I also remember absolutely FANTASTIC tomatoes -- so good, in fact, that I can hardly stand to eat any others, and certainly not the little hard orange ones they sell here in Texas. It's worth a trip to Indiana for the tomatoes and sweet corn alone, if I could only avoid the tenderloins (as big as a dinner plate!) while I'm there! :D

Take a piece of low fat, low carb pork tenderloin. Not a bad cut of meat.... until you butterfly it, pound it thin, bread it and deep-fry it!

And my great-grandfather LOVES them. In fact, he won't eat anything but pork and beef, so my chicken and fish cravings are getting out of control.

I do love the corn and tomatoes. Great-grandpa grew tomatoes for years, and I'm still picky about them. We grow corn now, and as far as I'm concerned, a summer meal is a grilled piece of meat and fresh corn, picked from our own fields, and tomatoes, sliced and salted.

I'm ready! I swear, it's worth the drive to Indiana for that meal! :P

That's a summer meal. Tonight, I think I'm going to take yesterday's left over pork roast, shred it, and simmer it in a brown sauce, then serve over bowties.

Unless Grandpa objects, and then it's whatever he wants. (As long as he's eating, he can have what he wants, even if it is ice cream and cream pie.)

Pcat

I didn't realize that you were still there. A big difference from Colorado. Btw, I forgot that you lived around the Boulder area. I'm in Lakewood. Boulder County is world's away from Hoosier cooking!

We might email Trader Joe's and beg them to open a store in Colorado. I'd even drive to Boulder like I did when it was the only place with a giant health food grocery. Not that I'm into health food - being Lithuanian with our own brand of "Hoosier" cooking.

ON new Year's Day she did that wonderful thing with the chicken and noodles. Sooo good. She had also been the baker for a restaurant, and her Parker House rolls were to die for. Boy could she cook.

restaurant, have a haute cuisine dish and one month later recreate it from memory and the tastes she experienced.

she is an amazing cook (needless to say) :)