Chuckwagon Chow

Frybread

Often thought of as a traditional Native American food, it’s been made by the tribes of the Southwest only within the last hundred years. It contains few ingredients indigenous to the lands of the Old West. Most frybread ingredients came from the new settlers and were acquired by tribes through trading.

Development of this tasty bread most likely happened as a result of need by two cultures, which found that frying bread in a skillet could save time; the result traveled well and lasted longer than other breads.

You can vary this recipe by changing the size of the pieces or roll it out to ¾ inch thick, which takes longer to fry but gives the bread a chewier texture.

FRYING TIME: Approx. 15 seconds per side

FRYING TEMPERATURE: 375 degrees

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 tablespoons shortening or lard, melted

Blend all four dry ingredients. Add the milk and shortening, slowly stirring with a wooden spoon. It will appear very dry. Turn out on floured board or counter and knead dough until firm, but don’t overdo it. Pat out the dough to about ¼ inch thick. Cut into circles any size that will fit the frying pan. Heat about 2 cups of oil in your skillet to 375 degrees (a 1 inch cube of bread will brown in 1 minute at 375 degrees). Carefully slide your dough into the pan. The fry bread should puff up immediately. Turn once (very carefully) when golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Use frybread any way you can imagine. For example, fill with fruit and fold over like a taco shell. Top frybread with taco meat mixed with a can of diced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, avocados, olives, jalapenos, shredded cheese, and sour cream. When describing this family favorite to a friend he told us this was known as a Navajo Taco.

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Sourdough Starter

Prospectors who went to Alaska in the 1890’s to seek their fortune in gold took sourdough starters with them in their knapsacks. These miners ate so much of the bread that they come to be known as sourdoughs, a term now associated with backwoodsmen in general.

On the cattle drive the starter was prized by both cook and cowboy. The cherished starter found in wagon sourdough barrels was protected like a newborn baby. Starter was a necessity for a scrumptious variety of breads. To keep it fermenting, the batter had to be replenished and kept warm. It was not uncommon on cool nights for the trail cook to wrap the barrel in a blanket and tuck it into his bed using his body heat to keep the precious batter warm. At a ranch house, the task was relatively easy. The starter was kept warm by storing it behind a constantly stoked stove.

A good sourdough starter can last for years, even decades, with the proper loving care! Sourdoughs were originally produced by wild yeasts. The starter (or sometimes called a sponge) is a flour and water mixture that contains the yeast used to rise the bread.

There are many variations to making a sourdough starter. Easy sourdough starter recipe:

3 ½ cups flour

1 tbsp. sugar

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups warm water (105 ° - 115° F)

Combine the flour, sugar, and undissolved yeast in a large glass or ceramic bowl. Gradually add the warm water to the dry ingredients, beating until smooth. Cover with cheesecloth and let stand in a warm place for three days.

After the amount needed for the recipe is removed, replenish the starter by adding 1 ½ cups flour and 1 cup warm water to remaining starter. Beat until smooth and let stand in a warm place until mixture bubbles well, at least eight hours. Store loosely covered in the refrigerator and use and replenish at least once every two weeks.

Apple Facts

Old West residents had many functions for apples besides eating. A wedge placed in a cookie tin helped keep cookies soft in dry climates. Also, though pioneers may have not understood why, apples also helped ripen other fruits. When apples were stationed nearby, the ethylene gas they gave off accelerated the ripening process of pears and other fruits normally slow to ripen. Another celebrated Old West apple product was cider. Apple cider was inexpensive, long-keeping, and delicious. But, to the dismay of the temperance movement and delight of many cowpokes, cider also fermented exceptionally well. Fermenting hard cider could easily generate an alcohol content of five percent or more. It was rumored that the entire apple orchards were cut down by some temperance organizations to prevent the manufacture of hard cider. It must have been incredible stuff. Hard apple cider isn’t on the neighborhood shelves anymore, but if you’re so inclined, there are several books for do-it-yourselfers on how to go about fermenting the real thing.
On the other hand, applesauce was accepted as a pure alternative. The popular mash was simple to make over a campfire just by cooking apples down to mush, then adding a bit of sweetener and spices. Served hot or cold, it was a genuine treat after a dusty day on the trail.
One of our family favorites,
Mom’s Apple Cake Not your typical Apple Cake.

BAKING TIME: 1 HOUR

BAKING TEMPERATURE: 350 degrees

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(Mix Together)
Stir in:
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Spread 4 cups of thinly sliced apples at bottom of greased 9x12 pan or glass baking dish.

Pour batter over apples and bake. You can add walnuts to the batter before pouring over apples if so desired. Enjoy!

Sour Cream Cookies

Straight from Grandmas kitchen

First, how to make homemade sour cream:

2 cups light cream

2 Tablespoons buttermilk

Combine cream with buttermilk in hot, clean glass jar with a lid. (Canning jar that has been heating in boiling water, for instance.) Cover tightly and shake gently to thoroughly mix. Let stand in a warm place - like where you put bread to rise) till thickened (24-48 hours). Store, covered in refrigerator. Stir before serving. Use within three weeks. Makes two cups.

Now,the cookies:

1 ½ Cups Sugar

1 Cup Butter

2 Eggs Beaten

3 ½ Cups Sifted Flour

¾ Teaspoon Baking Soda

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

Pinch of Salt

1 Cup Thick Sour Cream

Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sour cream. Roll, cut and Bake at 350° 8-10 minutes

Rose Hip Jelly

All roses produce fruit. Rose flowers, like cherry flowers, mature into a sweet fleshy seed filled fruit after pollination. Even the modern carpet roses have fruit bred down to a scant pea size, but they are indeed still there. The reason that so few people recognize rose fruit is that we cut the flowers off before they have a chance to pollinate and form seed.

Rose fruits are called hips. Each kind of rose produces hips of a slightly different size and shape. Some, like rugosa roses, create hips shaped like pumpkins but the size of a shooter marble. Those of old-fashioned eglantine are more football shaped. Modern hybrid tea roses produce great big hips like rugosas but round like a basketball.

Rosa rugosa cultivars produce the fleshiest hips of all Hips start out green as the seed develops inside. With the short days and cold nights of autumn they ripen to bright red, orange or purple. The color tells you when it's ripe. A ripe hip will feel soft to the touch because it's composed of sugar-rich flesh that surrounds the seeds. Rose seeds are packed inside the flesh with a mass of hair like-fibers at the center. Nature's strategy is to lure wild animals to eat rose hips, then carry them far from the mother plant in their stomach. Eventually they are deposited elsewhere. Thus the species is distributed.

The flesh of the rose hip is one of the most vitamin rich foods in the world. Ounce for ounce, rose hip pulp contains more Vitamin C than citrus. Added to that is a medicine chest of beta carotene, bioflavinoids, calcium, citrates, citric acid, iron malates, malic acid, niacin, phosphorus and vitamins A, B1, B2, E, K. It's no wonder they've been adding rose hips to Vitamin C for years, and that virtually every culture in the northern hemisphere has used the fruit for medicine. Rose hip tea is a super cold-fighting drink.

Green rose hips are filled with developing seeds To lay in a store of rose hips at the end of your garden season, stop pruning the roses in late summer. This allows the last flush of bloom to pollinate and fruit with enough time to mature before the cold weather. It may not make your autumn roses look that great, but you'll get a much better harvest.

You can preserve your rose hips by freezing or by cooking up a good batch of rose hip jam. Rose hips contain a naturally high level of fruit pectin so you might not need store-bought pectin to make the rose hip jam. Rose hips can also be mixed into other fruit jams to enhance flavor and vitamin content.

It's important to wait until after the first good frost to harvest your rose hips. To make rose hip jam, first gather four cups of ripe hips in a basket and remove residual stems and the calix cleanly. Wash them thoroughly to remove any dust or bugs. Then boil them in four cups water with three tablespoons lemon juice for a half hour or until very soft. This breaks down the rose hip so you can separate out the seeds and fibers from the flesh.

Rose hips still on the dormant rose twig. Use a coarse sieve to press the boiled rose hips through to remove the seeds. Then use a finer sieve to separate the fibers. The result is pure rose hip flesh.

Return the juice and pulp to the boiling pan and stir in two cups of sugar. Bring to a boil, then simmer until it reaches 220 degrees. Turn off heat and ladle into sterilized canning jars.

Soon you can begin spot bright red wild rose hips in abandoned fields and hedgerows. Beware of gathering along roads where herbicides may have been used. If you are a gardener, why not taste that fruit you've so rigorously pruned away and discover the healthy rewards of letting your roses go to seed.

Fresh rose hips make an easy but delicious jelly. You should be able to find pectin wherever canning supplies are sold, usually available in most major grocery stores.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
4 quarts ripe rose hips
2 quarts water
1 package pectin crystals
5 cups sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
Preparation:
Simmer rose hips in water until soft. Crush to mash, and strain through a jelly bag. Should make about 4 cups of rose hip juice.

Add to juice, lemon juice and pectin crystals and stir until mixture comes to a hard boil. Stir sugar in at once. Bring to a full rolling boil and boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove jelly from heat and skim off foam with metal spoon.