Cookbook Corner: Tasty homegrown recipes from the South Dakota prarie

Originally published in the November 13, 2009, print edition.

By Sarah Johnson The Land Correspondent

— In the Coteau Hills of South Dakota lives a woman named Verna Knapp who wrote and published a cookbook just for the sake of finally getting it all down.

She’d been cooking for so long and had so many ribbons from county and state fairs that she figured the time was right to organize all her hard-won knowledge. “My Recipe Roundup at the Knapp Ranch,” now in its second printing, is what followed: a thick, comprehensive cookbook liberally sprinkled with her sage wit and wisdom.

Knapp still lives on the 111-year-old ranch in One Road Township in Roberts County, S.D. I admire a woman who can make an honest-to-goodness cookbook out of a spattered recipe box and her own spunk. Knapp let me share with you some of her recipes.

You’ll have to order her cookbook to get her stories about life on the windswept, game-filled (and often comical) South Dakota prairies. “I kept it on the lighter side,” she said. “It makes my cookbook special.”

She credits her mother and sisters for fostering a semi-competitive love of cooking and for showing her how to dig for “that little extra effort or knowledge that makes something above the ordinary.”

Feast on the flavors of the season with cranberry-pumpkin muffins like the ones below. (Make sure to use plain canned pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling, which is pre-seasoned.) Warm, spicy, fragrant muffins take the chill off a frosty morning.

Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

2 1/4 cup presifted flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/3 cup oil

2 eggs

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

1 1/2 cup raw cranberries, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin cups or use paper liners. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and allspice together twice onto waxed paper. In mixing bowl, put oil, eggs and pumpkin; beat only until blended. Add all at one time the dry ingredients; stir until mixture is just blended. Fold in cranberries. Spoon batter into muffin cups, pushing dough down to eliminate open spaces. Fill cups two-thirds full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from pan; serve warm or cold. Makes 18 to 20 muffins.

Barley Broccoli Salad defies description: nutty, crunchy, chewy, crispy, salty and sweet all at once. Use your favorite bottled salad dressing to spice it up; your only obstacles are the limits of your imagination. (Knapp recommends Italian-style or raspberry vinaigrette.)

I prepared the Barley Broccoli Salad for a potluck party and received rave reviews. My family also enjoyed this tasty salad — four out of four yums.

Barley Broccoli Salad

3 cups water

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup quick pearled barley, or 1/2 cup regular type

1 large bunch fresh broccoli, cut into flowerets

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped red onion

10 strips bacon, fried crisp and crumbled

1 cup roasted, salted sunflower nuts

Dressing of choice

Cook barley in salted water for 10 to 12 minutes for quick type, 50 minutes for regular type. Drain and rinse in cold water. Combine broccoli, raisins, onion, bacon and sunflower nuts with the cooked barley. A dressing is then stirred in gently, such as Italian salad dressing or raspberry vinaigrette dressing. Refrigerate to blend flavors; lift and fold to coat with dressing while chilling. Serve with slotted spoon. Serves 8.

An old-fashioned, stick-to-your-ribs side dish that’s also a bright ray of sunshine on a dinner plate, Corn Stuffed Peppers are simple to create and impressive to present. Vegetarians can make a whole meal out of this old-fashioned and delicious dish.

Corn Stuffed Peppers

2 cups cooked sweet corn

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

4 medium green bell peppers

In saucepan, simmer corn, milk, salt and pepper for five minutes. Sauté in butter the parsley and the bread crumbs. Combine this mixture with corn mixture. Cut peppers in half lengthwise; remove centers. Parboil the pepper shells in salted water for eight minutes; drain. Fill pepper shells with hot corn mixture. Serves 8.

Knapp’s cookbook is stocked with recipes for wild game, from fish to fowl to venison. If it’s edible and can be found on the South Dakota prairie, I’m pretty sure she’s fixed it for supper at some time or another. Those who want to cook their goose a different way this year should try jerking it as follows.

Wild Goose Jerkey

Breast meat from 2 wild geese

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1/3 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons onion powder

1/3 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons seasoned salt

Chill breast meat to near frozen so it can be sliced 1/4-inch thick. Combine soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt and seasoned salt; marinate slices of goose breast in mixture for 24 hours in refrigerator. Take meat from marinade; lay out on baking sheet. Bake in 195 F oven for three to four hours. Turn occasionally for even drying.

You can order “My Recipe Roundup” by sending a check or money order for $15 plus $3 shipping to: Verna Knapp, 13168 450th Ave., Waubay, SD 57273. “Keep on cooking!” Knapp writes. “Someone will love you for it.”

If your community group or church organization has printed a cookbook and would like to have it reviewed in the “Cookbook Corner,” send us a copy to “Cookbook Corner,” The Land, P.O. Box 3169, Mankato, MN 56002.

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