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My wife is in the kitchen making turkey pasti’s as our holiday fare to munch on while the NFL football games are on today. I helped with the crust. Oh, yes, at our house there are also pumpkin and mince pies waiting to be feasted upon as well and a goodly portion of mashed potatoes. But our main course is turkey pasti and here is how it is prepared.
Ingredients
2 Frozen pastry-style pie shells
2 tablespoons Butter or margarine
½ cup Chopped onions
½ cup Chopped celery
½ cup Chopped pecans
3 cups Cooked turkey coarsely chopped
1½ teaspoon Caraway seeds
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
PREPARATION
Roll the pastry dough out and cut into 8 squares, each about 4 x 4 inches (10 x 10 cm) and transfer to a greased baking sheet. Melt the butter in a saucepan over moderate heat and saute the onion, celery, and pecans, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the remaining ingredients, stir to combine, and remove from heat. Divide the filling between the 8 pastry squares, and fold each square in half over the filling, forming triangles. Seal the edges with the tines of a fork.
Bake in a preheated 400F (200C) oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until browned. Then get ready to watch the NFL’s first game with heaping portions of mashed potatos and turkey pasti to be followed a few hours later with either pumpkin or mince pie with your second NFL football game. Isn’t Thanksgiving a great day. Happy Thanksgiving all!
I love to eat peaches. It’s one of my favorite fruits. Peach Pie on the other hand surpasses even my love of peaches per se and here is a recipe for all you peach lovers.
INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 ripe fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
CRUST
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup Crisco
1/2 cup cold water
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
Preheat oven to 425°
To prepare filling, mix white sugar, brown sugar and 1/4 cup flour in a large bowl. Add peaches, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg or mace and toss well. Set aside.
To prepare the dough, mix 2 cups flour and salt in large mixing bowl. Measure shortening and drop on top of flour mixture. Cut flour into shortening with fork or pastry blender until mixture becomes small bits of shortening coated with flour. Add water all at once by sprinkling on top of mixture. Stir with fork to incorporate water into mixture.
Generously flour work surface and hands. Scoop dough out of bowl, plop it onto work surface and pat into a rough ball. Divide into 2 equal portions. Roll out 1 portion into circle about 12 inches in diameter, lifting dough and sprinkling additional flour onto work surface as needed so that dough doesn’t stick.
To transfer to 9 or 10 inch pie pan, roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll, starting at far side of pie pan, so that dough drops into pan. Avoid stretching dough. Let about 1-1/2 inches of dough hang over outer edge of pan. Pile fruit onto dough. Scatter bits of butter over fruit.
Roll out remaining half of dough for top crust and drape over pie. Trim away excess dough around edges, but leave enough to tuck under top of pie pan edge. Crimp edges and cut several vents in top.
Bake at 425°F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350°F, and bake until juices bubble around edges on top of pie and crust is lightly browned, about 40 minutes more.
Then get set for some good eating. You might say that this is one “peachy” recipe.
Every so often, at dusk, the Union League Boys Club (ULBC) Camp in Salem, Wisconsin, would feature a hound and the hares activity that for the counselors was just pure joy. Of course, the goal was to not get found by any of the boys. Some counselors cheated by going off property until the event was over but I took pride in the fact that I had never gotten caught. Some counselors were not as fortunate. Maybe it was because I knew those woods so good since I took whatever cottage I had for a run around the lake each day before breakfast.
Twiggy was the camp director, affectionately so named, and on this particular day he chose to forego the five minute head start for the counselors as when we were less than a hundred yards away from the starting point, he blew the whistle for the hounds to set out. That day the lake was rather high due to recent rains and a couple of trees were about thirty yards into the water. At the time the kids had cut off every other escape route from me so I headed out into the water and literally froze once behind a tree. I didn’t move a muscle and as the kids headed down to the shore the water was very still at that moment. Not a ripple.
The mosquitoes were biting me but I didn’t flinch. I overheard some of the kids say, “Maybe he’s out there behind one of those trees?” None though wanted to get their tennis shoes wet to find out so they took off in various directions. By that time it was nearly full dark so I made my way back to shore and to my favorite hiding place where I stayed until the whistle and siren sounded thus ending the event. That was the closest I ever came to be caught by the hounds.
Just behind our wooded beachfront on our property was a quagmire swamp. It was quite close in proximity to our second campfire pit. It ran all along the backside of our camping area and was one of the primary reasons we each year had a fern smoke fire to rid that area of mosquitoes.
Some of the kids were real curious about that swamp. Quagmire takes a person down slowly. Unlike quicksand, which one can actually swim in, the same does not hold true for quagmire as the consistency is too thick. Keith, in particular, was real dubious about it. He once asked if he could wade in but I told him what if he got in and started to sink? He said throw me a rope and I said what if the rope broke? That was the end of that conversation.
Another time on a YMCA trip to our property, another supervisor was not watching the kids too closely on a hike as they were scattered about and one boy actually stepped nto a quagmire swamp. It was a small area and he was pulled out, but the suction took his shoes and socks, plus his pants. He was coated with thick black mud. By the way, the only thing that really works taking the aroma off is to wash with tomato juice.
We had several quagmire swamps on our property and the boys were warne about them. Our errie photograph above is the impression I wanted to leave on the boys about the dangers of those quagmire swamps.
Lake Pokegama at Camp Mishawaka in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, had some of the most magnificent sunrises that I have ever seen in my life. Pokegama, in size, was much, much larger than Big Bass Lake. In fact, when I was a counselor at this camp, there was still some snow on the ground a week before camp started when all counselors had to be there for training.
The camp was about 100 miles south of the Boundry Waters separating the United States and Canada. I will soon be presenting you a picture of that area as it was truly as spectacular as the one you find above.
Camp Mishawaka took in kids from all 50 states and even some foreign countries. It was a camp foir both boys and girls although at the time I was there in 1969 the camps were separated and rarely saw each other. Either this year or next the camp will be celebrating its 100th anniversary and ex counselors and kids are being invited back for a week of celebration in August.
The current camp director informed me only just recently that the area in which I worked, Super Belding, is now just a memory. That area was used for woodcraft skills. At any rate, this should be a great picture to wake up to this morning so enjoy.
The area outlined in green was the outdoor facility for the Hoffman Estates Boys Club which, in the fall, consisted of our tackle football program involving three teams of varying ages competing in an outside league. Our Torch Club provided the flag ceremony for home games and our broadcasting club announced the game over the club PA system which included the playing of the National Anthem.
Around half of the club was a blacktop area which staged bicycle races including the Hoffman 300, pit stops included. Around the back of the club was the area for Tire Endurance which consisted of stacking five tires straight up and the object was to move your feet inside and out five times in the quickest time possible. If the tires fell they had to be restacked as the clock ticked on.
On the eastern back side of the club, where the roof angled three different ways, Roof Ball was played with a sort of beach ball that floated in high winds. The object was to hit the ball in sequence back onto the roof until the ball hit the ground. That was a point for the oppositon. This game became quite popular with the kids.
In the summer our club held softball leagues for the boys on the lower diamond in the picture. The championship game was played on the upper diamond. Bubbleball was also played on either diamond using the same ball we used in roofball. On windy days it was hard to hit and catch. These games consisted of seven innings with two outs per inning and once hit the ball could be tossed under the neck at a player in order to get them out.
Springtime had our traveling track team hosting various boys club and even some junior high schools. The events were largely running and jumping. Also in the spring a frisbee golf course was set up using old tires as holes. This also became very popular even in the summer and fall.
The field behind our club was used for pick-up soccer games. The entire area was also used for sketching in our arts and crafts programs during the summer months. This was largely our outdoors schedule for the Hoffman Estates Boys Club.
Our old barn is no longer standing. The new owner wanted to convert it to his living quarters to preserve the history but the trouble was that there was too much history and the building wouldn’t support his plan. So instead he put up a red barn like structure in its place.
I used to climb the hay stacks which led right up to the rafters of the barn as a kid and it was great fun. The barn was great to explore although I remember only one summer when there were cows there and then only two of them.
Our barn once even served as a hanger for an ultra-light airplane complete with an FBI warning sign posted on the outside about trespassing that “hanger”.
The picture taken in winter is of the new structure that resembles a barn. Resembles, yes, but nothing will take the place of that original barn that my grandfather constructed ever so long ago.
The Union League Camp holds Indian ceremonies each summer at the great Teepee and also at the lodge. In the background behind the Teepee is the ULBC Dining Hall. Where that picture was taken was quite near the lodge which is winterized.
Even when I was a counselor there were Indian ceremonies as canoes floated down the lagoon only to be intercepted by Swamp Man coming up from the depths. Then the Indians understood the meaning of wethead quite fast.
Al Mackin has insituted a program called Woodcraft Rangers when he was the director of the camp and there were many fireside ceremonies with that program for my visiting Hoffman Estates Boys Club in the offseason.
I don’t remember the teepee being used when I was a counselor there even though I remember it set up. I think then it was used for some overnights for the cabin groups. Anyone know any more?
There was a concord grape vine not far from our old cabin on our property on Big Bass Lake and there grew the primary ingredient for Grape Pie. Here is how the rest of that recipe lays out.
INGREDIENTS
1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
5 cups Concord grapes
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
DIRECTIONS
Wash grapes, and remove the skins. Save the skins. Place grape pulp in a large saucepan; mash a few at the bottom to release their juice. Cook over medium low heat until grapes come to a full boil. Remove pulp from heat, and press through a food mill to remove seeds. Combine pulp and skins in a large bowl. Stir in lemon juice.
In a separate bowl, mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir into grape mixture. Pour filling into pastry crust, and dot with butter or margarine. Cover with second pastry shell. Flute edges, and cut little slits in the top crust for steam to escape.
Bake at 400 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in top crust. Cool.
Don’t forget to “grape out” as you dine with pleasure! After feasting you might want to consider putting some grapevines on your property as well for that home made touch.
On one of our trips to our property on Big Bass Lake the kids actually requested a daytime trip to the Haunted Island. Of course that was done in the early morning hours since lake traffic was less at that time. As events would have it there was a low fog that morning and the air was brisk so the kids put on wind breakers.
Big Bass Lake was a little choppy that morning and as we arrived at the rickety pier the fog got thicker. Talk about an errie atmosphere. As the boys climbed the short hill they could hardly see one another even though none were more than five feet apart. The fog had gotten almost to pea soup consistency.
When the boys entered the opening where they could make out the haunted house, they couldn’t. They could only make out its form. But as we approached it the house moved out of its errie form and appeared as it always has. The boys took their time exploring the full exterior of the home peering through the glassless windows and for the first time some noticed the stairwell that led to the second floor.
Even with the fog they could see far more than they could at night. Some of the boys glanced at the towering trees that surrounded the house. I asked them how they would like living out here all alone and most said it wouldn’t be bad- Until night fell that is.
Having satisfied their curiousity for the moment, they asked to return to our wooded beach and halfway back across the lake, the fog mysteriously lifted giving way to the sunshine above. As we docked at our beach, even the lake ceased its choppiness and became smooth as silk. All in all, not a bad daytime trip to the Haunted Island as even then it still had its mysterious effects on the boys.
Mike Reynolds
Darren Crane
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