Lovina’s Amish Kitchen
Lovina Eitcher,
Old Order Amish
Cook, Wife &
Mother of Eight
It is Monday evening, just after 7 p.m. here at the Eicher homestead. Supper is over with and dishes are washed. It is time to call it a day. On the menu was turkey, scalloped potatoes, cheese and homemade vanilla ice cream. We are taking advantage of all the snow we have to make ice cream in the ice cream freezer. I have made other kinds, but my favorite is just plain old vanilla. I can’t remember my mother making any other flavor either. We didn’t have freezers when I grew up so homemade ice cream was always a treat. I remember going into the cold porch the next morning and getting a dish of that leftover ice cream in the freezer canister still sitting in the ice water to keep it cold. Now I can empty the leftovers into ice cream buckets and put it in the freezer.
This is now Tuesday morning December 9th. We received a few more inches of snow overnight. The wind is strong and causing the snow to drift. I need to go turn the horses outside for a while so they can get some exercise. Joanna (son Benjamin’s special friend) will come help me. We still don’t have our barnyard fenced in by the new barn, so it takes two people to turn the horses out to the field. Most of the horses run straight for the gate leading to the field except our 25-year-old pony Stormy. He is the troublemaker. He sees every opening he can to make a dash for the free open spaces and run the opposite direction. Haha!
Joanna has moved from her home in Holmes County, Ohio and made Michigan her home now. We are grateful to daughter Loretta and Dustin for opening up their home for her to stay. No one sleeps in their upstairs bedrooms so this was nice for them to give Joanna a bedroom up there. The little boys and Kylie absolutely love her! She has been a great help to all of us as well.
My mind keeps drifting back to five years ago today…a day that changed our lives. Dan picked up son-in-law Mose that morning like usual to go work another day at the RV factory. There wasn’t any snow or ice on the roads at that time. On the highway about ten minutes after leaving Mose and Susan’s house a car crossed the center line hitting them head on. Dan was killed instantly and Mose was taken to the hospital then transferred to a bigger hospital where he lived for 5 days. He never responded after the crash so we will never know if he heard our last goodbyes. Daughter Susan was only 24 and left to mourn with their daughter Jennifer, 2, and son Ryan, 1. Our hearts were broken but we needed to stay strong for Susan and the children. Susan couldn’t even begin to look towards the future. All we could do was be there for her and pray that God would comfort this young widow’s heart as she mourned the death of her first love.
Time does not stand still for anyone. How comforting to have faith in our Heavenly Father to help us through our difficult trials in life. How could we go on without “Him”? Fast forward five years and Susan once again is married and a busy mother to seven children ages 9 and under. She will never forget her first love and husband Mose. We all have precious memories of him.
On December 30th Susan and Ervin will celebrate their third anniversary. Ervin lost his first wife Sarah to breast cancer three months before Mose’s accident. Ervin and Sarah’s three children Kaitlyn, Isaiah, and Curtis have won our hearts and I never think of them as step grandchildren. They are as dear to me as my own. God does perform miracles. We don’t always understand. His ways are not our ways, so we put our full trust in Him.
Happy Birthday to daughter Verena tomorrow December 10th. We wish her many more happy healthy years! I’m so glad her and Daniel Ray have made their home just across the sidewalks from us for now. It’s nice having them close by. We appreciate their help!
God’s blessings to all! Stay safe and healthy!
PEANUT BLOSSOMS
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
48 milk chocolate candy kisses
Combine all ingredients except candy in a large mixing bowl until thoroughly mixed. Shape dough into balls and roll in sugar. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Top each cookie immediately with a candy kiss, pressing down firmly so the cookie cracks around the edge of the kiss. Makes 48 cookies.
Lovina’s Amish Kitchen is written by Lovina Eicher, Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Her three cookbooks, The Cherished Table, The Essential Amish Cookbook, and Amish Family Recipes, are available wherever books are sold. Readers can write to Eicher at Lovina’s Amish Kitchen, PO Box 234, Sturgis, MI 49091 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply); or email Questionsforlovina@gmail.com and your message will be passed on to her to read. She does not personally respond to emails.
