Thursday, January 29, 2026
Home Blog Page 216

Spinach Artichoke Dip

By
Debbie Dance Uhrig
-
0

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve made this dish twice. Originally, I found the recipe on line, but over the years I felt I’ve made substantial enough changes to run it for you in the column. The flavor is good, it’s makes an ample amount of dip, and your guests will appreciate your efforts!

I usually serve mine with tortilla chips, but there are other options like corn chips and dried pita shells. This week my nephew called and said he made a new grilled cheese sandwich that had spinach artichoke dip in it. He said it was worth doing again. Oh yes, speaking of my nephew, Brandon, he won a soup competition at his school last week and the recipe was creamy ‘dill’ soup. He stated everyone loved it. The answer is yes, yes, I’m going to try it, sounds like so much fun! Not to mention he took top honors.

Our Valentine dinner went great this past weekend, the conversation was great, and everyone was in misery when they left! OK, this chef was a bit tickled and amused!

I took Sunday off and settled for coffee and a warm robe for most of the day. I did make time to stir up a batch of this dip for the family to take to the big NASCAR Party on Sunday. They even brought a bit back home with them. A few years ago a good friend of mine gifted me a traveling cooker for the car. I cannot begin to tell you how handy it is for ‘foodie’ events. On Christmas it carried a casserole, often it totes soups, and today an appetizer.

Originally this recipe did not contain any garlic, and I’m not sure about the cayenne pepper. I have changed around the cheeses a multitude of times, usually because I simply forgot one or the other! Let’s talk about the spinach first. I have a very hard time stirring 10 ounces of spinach into this recipe, seems like it’s all I can do just to stir it together. It takes a very strong hand. So, take note on how I now do the spinach portion. I’m setting you a single batch which is ample for 10 persons.

 

Spinach Artichoke Dip

10 ounces of spinach, 5 oz .wilted, 5 ounces chopped into strips.

1 red pepper, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 cans of artichokes, drained and chopped

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon black pepper

12 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 cup sour cream

1-2 teaspoons garlic

1 cup shredded pepper jack

1 cup shredded Parmesan

1 cup shredded Swiss

Extra Parmesan for the top

Prepare all vegetables, and set to the side while you soften the cream cheese, mix it to the sour cream along with all the cheeses, garlic and spices. The cream cheese needs to be very soft or you will struggle bringing the dip together. Notice that I soften half of the spinach to make it easier to coat with the cheeses. Bring all ingredients together and bake until the dish is nice and bubbly. I bake mine at 350. You don’t want the top to be over browned and hard. This should serve up to 10 persons. Look at around 45-50 minutes bake time. Spray the pan first!

Country Roads and Country Livin’

By
Dylan Yoder
-
0

Kansas is a fickle mistress, giving us 2 days of plus 50-degree weather and then back to the freezing cold with all of us. But during this time, I can’t help but reflect on the tenacity of the people of Kansas. We all come from different places and each of us has our own unique background. Some of us may have grown up rather locally and in the old rural communities of the Midwest, and some of us may have come of age in the city. Regardless of where you come from, and how many people are there, it’s unlikely that you don’t appreciate the great outdoors to some extent. This past couple of weeks ago I visited a friend’s property in the countryside, and I was reminded of how I miss those country dirt roads and barns out in the pastures. Out on those roads are great memories that we have made from years past. For those of you who are as sentimental as I am, let’s take a look at a couple of great memories you make living out on those dirt roads.

Starting off with the rain. Now for those of you in the city, you may not quite grasp the concept of predicting the weather. But every farmer knows that the weatherman’s reports are merely suggestions to the never-ending chaos that is Kansas weather patterns. Even more, than that, I remember my own grandfather and the way he used to “smell the rain comin’”. He’d predict it from many hours out, and sure enough, it came. Living out on the country roads does that to some people. You notice the nature around you more, you notice the coming and going of bird species, and the way the sky tinges green when tornadoes are near. It wasn’t just predicting the weather though. Being out in the rain, and in the storms is something else entirely, and going swimming in the ditches and rivers once the rain has come through are just a few of the memories one makes out there.

Tending to the various chores of growing up in the country may not be everyone’s favorite topic, but now that I’m older, I appreciate the memories I had of doing such things. That could just be me though, after all, not many people would think of chores when talking of nostalgia. Be that as it may, the incredible community of helping hands that are developed as a result is something to appreciate in its entirety. On those country roads, if a neighbor has their property damaged in some way shape or form, you go out to help them. Through that help, friendship and good relationships are forged. It’s easy to take the community aspect of country roads for granted, but take it from someone who’s lived in the city for a while, you start to miss it. Country hospitality is a blessing to all who may experience it.

Growing up in the countryside is a great gift to all who get to experience it. Unfortunately, with the continuing mass growth of inflation, it’s becoming scarcer and scarcer. Not only that but the recent loss of jobs at the federal level has put a great stress and financial burden on many people who desire this kind of homestead living. The ongoing dismantling of the Department of Education takes away federal funding for our local schools and threatens many school programs that allow students and parents alike to benefit.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these changes directly affect country living, but they do affect the families who live here, and the people who want to believe in the American Dream. There are so many wonderful aspects of country life. Memories, good-cooking, and home-making that everyone should have a chance to have for themselves.

In Memory of Ole’ Stumpy

By
Steve Gilliland
-
0

I have a love-hate relationship with squirrels, also known as limb chickens or tree bacon in our neck of the woods. Pesky as they are, I know of no other wild critter in the USA more pampered than the squirrel. I have to admit squirrels are fun to watch as they roll around inside those glass jar feeders. I’ve always wanted to catch a squirrel inside one and run out and screw the lid on before it could flee. We buy corn to feed them, and then buy feeders to hold the corn. We teach them to take peanuts from our hands, and I even heard of someone who had taught the little beggars to tap on the front door when they wanted a handout. Last year at the fair we bought a rig that suspends two ears of corn side-by-side above the ground, forcing them to jump up and hang onto the corn while they get a mouthful.

A couple years back, a squirrel with only half a tail became a regular at our new feeder; we named it “Ole’ Stumpy.” We thought at first that Stumpy was a male, but when they hang spread-eagled from the corn with both right feet on one ear and both left feet on the other and spin around in the process looking like a centerfold for PlaySquirrel, it becomes fairly simple to examine them anatomically. There were no bulging body parts on Stumpy’s underside so we deemed her a girl. We could only guess at how Stumpy lost the end of her tail. Perhaps at Stumpy’s last home, some yappy little mongrel did get a piece of her, proudly wagging its tail as it showed its master nothing but the back half of Ole’ Stumpy’s tail. Or maybe Stumpy was one of those squirrels that someone taught to knock on the front door for a treat. We have lots of seniors in our little town, and I could see it all; old Mrs. Dinglemire up the street who’s partly deaf and mostly blind hears a tapping sound at her front door and when she opens it, there stands Ole’ (Not Yet) Stumpy. Now Ole’ (Not Yet) Stumpy looks like a rat to her, so she grabs her broom and swings it at the innocent squirrel, entangling its thick tail in the broom, so when she lifts the broom, the squirrel comes with it and……well you get the picture; somehow in the melee the little panhandler’s tail got snapped off in the door and Ole’ (not yet) Stumpy became Ole’ Stumpy.

I did a little research on Ole’ Stumpy’s tail dilemma on a website named “The Squirrel Board” (I can’t make this stuff up!) It seems Ole’ Stumpy’ was not alone and squirrel tails are made so they will “deglove” or snap off if a predator has hold of it. The jury seemed to still be out as to whether it would ever grow back and Stumpy would be whole again. The squirrel lovers on that site were out of my league. One guy said “If you’re feeding peanuts to your squirrels make sure they are roasted…I feed mine chopped almonds because they are healthier than peanuts.” (Really; sounds like his squirrels eat better than I do.) He went on to say “Thanksgiving week we fed them almonds, cashews, pistachios, walnuts, chestnuts and hazelnuts for a variety.” I have to admit that would make for some tasty squirrel if you roasted em’ while they were still full of nuts.

Now even though Cousin Eddy from the National Lampoon movie “Christmas Vacation” says squirrels are high in cholesterol, they are not. Bentonville Arkansas, headquarters of Walmart, has an annual World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off that draws TV crews, executive chefs and visitors from around the globe. Their theme is “Squirrel – it’s for Supper,” and they offer “organic tree-to-table squirrel” in dishes like squirrel pizza and squirrel flavored ice cream. And are you aware there is actually an organization

called “Squirrels Unlimited?” (SQU for short) Its mission statement reads: SQU is dedicated to the recognition and promotion of the squirrel as one of mankind’s greatest gifts.”

There is also a market for squirrel tails. Fishing lure manufacturer Mepps in Wisconsin actually pays for squirrel tails because they seem to work better as skirts on their fishing lures than any other product they’ve tried. For fully useable grey, fox and black squirrel tails, they pay twenty-five cents, for fully useable red squirrel tails, they pay twelve cents, or you can get double that value by simply swapping them for new Mepps fishing lures. On their website they caution “Mepps is only interested in “Recycling” tails from squirrels harvested for the table. We do not advocate taking squirrels strictly for their tails.” Mepps says that when they receive the tails, members of their experienced team will grade the tails as premium, average or unusable. Sorry Stumpy, I guess you’re out of luck there too. Maybe she purposely “degloved” her own tail to keep me from being tempted!

You know, now that I’ve written all this about Stumpy, I feel kinda’ bad for her, busted snapped-off tail and all. I mean, she had to have been self-conscious enough already without me dissn’ her like this. We haven’t seen her for a couple years now, so maybe she got run off by the rest of the local nut munchers, or maybe she just couldn’t take the shame anymore and decided to end it all by throwing herself in front of a school bus. I knew I should have gotten her counseling, and given everything people do for squirrels these days, I probably could’ve found that too…continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.

Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected]

We Did It Her Way (Best Of)

By
tammiehoeme
-
0

The cowboy mind is a marvelous thing to watch work if you ever get the opportunity. Or so my wife tells me.

Around this poor outfit one year out of the last eight was a good year and that year was so good we had enough grass to run some steers along with the cows. This presented a problem the first time we tried to corral the mixed bunch of bovines. You see, on this el rancho there is only one level spot and that is where we built the corrals. Standing in the cattle’s glide path to the corrals is a normally dry creek bed, crossed by a land bridge. Our cows have been across the land bridge hundreds of times but mix in a few male minds, in the form of some steers, and the whole bunch was quitting on us. Every last one of those worthless critters balked at crossing the bridge.

At first we tried to coax them across but they squirted out the sides of our cowboy vise. Next, we tried herding the steers to the back of the bunch but the cows in front still refused to cross. Then we tried “the bigger hammer” theory, as in, “don’t force it just get a bigger hammer.” All seven of my neighbors took a rush at the herd and with sheer manpower tried to force the stubborn cattle across the creek. The cattle fought the creek bed like my horse was fighting his bit.

One of my neighbors who is studying to be a half-wit suggested, “why don’t we get some hay and try to bribe them across.”

I wondered aloud, “What cow in her right mind is going to chase after some moldy hay when she is standing in two foot of succulent green grass?”

A funny feeling was sneaking up my spine that we’d never get the cattle across. We decided to pow wow on the predicament for a spell and while we were standing around trying to scratch our ears with our elbows, my wife approached apprehensively. Realizing that we were engaged in man talk she interrupted meekly. “I have an idea.”

Of course, all the men broke out laughing. “How can a woman understand anything as macho as cattle fording a stream bed.” (As if this were the Red River) But we were so desperate for ideas we’d even listen to a woman.

“I know from personal experience,” said my wife, “that big yellow cow there is very protective of her calf. Remember that time Lee when you tried to corral that cow because she retained her placenta and you couldn’t get her corralled?”

I looked down to the ground sheepishly and the other men gazed upon me in pure disgust.

“Remember when I caught her calf, tied it up, put it in the back of the truck and the cow followed me right into the corral?” continued my wife. “If one of you manly cowboys could manage to get a rope around her calf, tie it up and put it in the back of my truck I’m sure the cow and the rest of the critters would follow that bellering calf across your little obstacle.”

“Ha, ha,” laughed the cowboys collectively. “There are steers in that bunch, they aren’t curious cows. Steers are like men, they have minds of their own.”

My wife knew better than to argue with a mule, a cook or a cowboy. So we tried a couple more times to force the cattle across, just long enough for my wife’s idea to now become our own. Of course, we had to tweak my wife’s idea a great deal So instead of catching the calf and putting it in the back of the truck one of us would just rope the calf and drag it across the bridge.

How original!

One of the weekend cowboys got a rope on the bellerin’ calf and drug it across the land bridge with its bug-eyed momma in close pursuit. Before we knew what was happening all the cattle, steers included, were running across the bridge to see what all the fuss was about.

As we surveyed all the cattle, now safely settled in the corral one of the cowboys remarked, “It’s a good thing we did it our way. It never would have worked her way.”

Just a Little Light: Joy Time

By
tammiehoeme
-
0

Dawn Phelps
Columnist

“Joy Time” is about 4:15 every day for me. That’s my agreed-on time to call my oldest sister Joy in Kentucky to check on her, and I call her almost daily. In fact, when is it close to 4:00 each day, either my husband Tom or I will usually say, “It’s almost Joy Time!”
When I call her, we chat a bit and catch up on how each of us are doing. Joy lives alone and home caregivers come to her house a few hours each day to help keep her independent, and they prepare her evening meal five days a week.
I know her caregivers by name and have met one of them—Sumay who moved from Jordan to the U.S. She is knowledgeable about teas, spices, herbs, and soups, and she sometimes introduces Joy to a new dish. If Joy has an upset stomach, Sumay knows just the right tea to make for her.
Delicia is from Central America. She makes delicious tamales and yummy potato soup. And Tasha makes chicken salad for Joy’s sandwiches for the weekend and helps Joy in many ways. I appreciate each worker and love how they care for Joy.
But back to Joy Time, that special time that I connect with Joy almost every day. Our conversations usually begin with “How was your day?” “How are you doing?” “What are you having for supper?”
During most of our phone calls, we talk about present-day things, but sometimes we talk about our past years in Tennessee when we were kids—both of us enjoy remembering and reminiscing. Like the old song “Remember When,” it is fun to talk about and relive our past childhood experiences.
We remember how little money there was when we were young, how we had to pitch in and help with the chores. Counting our grandmother who lived with us, there were ten mouths to feed for each meal, and just peeling enough potatoes for that many was quite a task for a young kid!
We had to draw a lot of water from the well for drinking water and laundry. It took 10 buckets for the washer and 8 buckets to rinse. We washed our clothes in a washing machine, rinsed them by hand in a large tub of rinse water, and wrung them out with the wringer on the washing machine.
We hung them outside to dry, sorting them as we hung them. And oh, they smelled so good when we brought them into the house after they were dry!
Joy and I talk about how we had to learn to cook, sew, and clean at early ages and how we loved living in the country. We agree that the years we spent on the farm were our very best years of all, and we talk about our fun experiences and adventures.
We canned vegetables from the garden and picked wild blackberries from the fields. We were always watchful, listening for rattlesnakes as we picked! Other than the danger of snakes and possibly our black horse that we were afraid of, we felt safe.
My siblings and I explored our farm acreage, swam in the creek, and checked out the paw-paw patch on the backside of the farm for paw-paws. And there was nature—our daddy taught us to love nature.
He taught us how to “whistle up” a male bobwhite by whistling the female call while we sat high in a tree. I remember one day that a male bobwhite responded to my whistle and flew to a tree near where I was hiding from him. It scared me—I wondered if the bird would be angry if he figured out that I was not a female bird—I quit whistling.
Our daddy taught us how to identify the trees by their barks. He would quiz us as we walked along, not letting us look at the leaves on the trees to help us identify them.
Despite the hard work and our frugal income, life was good and peaceful! As I get older, even though we have so many more conveniences, some days I long for the simpler lifestyle and the peaceful life of my childhood; when the pace was slower, people were kinder, the world was safer, and our personal connections felt stronger.
As for my wish for a peaceful place, I realize that I usually find peace outside. In a lawn chair. Under a tree. A gentle breeze. Listening to the birds and the sounds of nature. That has been impossible in recent weeks due to the frigid weather. But I keep telling myself that spring does always follow winter, and I can hardly wait.
For now, I will keep on talking to my sister Joy each day I can. And until spring, Tom and I have decided to look for simple, small Joy Time experiences—like a cup of hot tea, music, reading, or occasional popcorn and a shared Coke in the evening.
And probably more importantly, I will try to keep in touch with someone else who may need someone to call and ask, “How are you doing? How’s your day going?”
Joy Time need not be expensive—keep it simple—as you intentionally plan ways to put a little extra Joy Time into your lives, especially on the days when the temperatures don’t rise above freezing. Wishing you special Joy Times to help warm your heart!

1...215216217...4,785Page 216 of 4,785

Kansas News, Auctions & Classifieds

Trending

Categories

© Rural Messenger