Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Jessie Gussman

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Hey, Everyone!

 

I’m so excited to get to do this with you all! I spent a lot of years of my life cooking big meals. Every day of the week, anyone on our farm and trucking company property was expected to stop what they were doing at noon time and come on up to the house to have dinner, and yeah, that’s what we called it – dinner.

 

To those of us on the farm, dinner is the big, noon meal, and supper is a lighter, smaller meal you eat, often leftovers from dinner, after the chores are done for the day and you’re inside for the night.

 

At any rate, our big meal was at noon, and I was often responsible for cooking for anywhere from seven to twenty people. We have a big table that stretches out and we can put boards in, and, if we grab our picnic table benches from outside and use my piano bench as well, we can seat twenty people around it comfortably. It makes for a fun time.

 

Honestly, there have been times where I didn’t even know the names of all the people who were sitting at the table with us. We just grab them, sit them down and feed them!

 

Once, my friend who was going through a hard time, was there with us along with her five kids – a daughter and four little blond-haired boys. Real cuties. We also had two men from Chiapas, Mexico eating with us as well, one who had just arrived in the US for the first time.

As we ate, the new fellow spoke to the man sitting next to him in Tojolab’al, the language the native people speak in that Mexican providence. While we understand a little Spanish, we didn’t understand Tojolab’al and we asked the fellow he’d spoken to what was going on, since the man had pointed at the children and had seemed amazed at something.

 

The man we’d asked grinned a little and said in halting English, “He no has seen such white skin. He no can believe they are very much pale!”

 

We laughed at the fun of it – a Mexican sitting at a table in Pennsylvania talking about the little Italian boys who happened to be sharing a table with him. Kind of funny when I think about the culture that has sat at our table.

 

Hospitality is a trait that the Bible commands, and, while I love for my home to be clean and everything in its place, hospitality is less about having a perfect house and all about making the people who grace your home and table feel comfortable and welcomed and loved.

 

Food is a big part of that. I always tried to make hearty meals that would “stick to the ribs” and keep my growing, working boys and the men fulfilled and satisfied the rest of the day.

 

I also tried to make things easy on the girls and myself and keep things simple. We had some favorites that were a little complicated – lasagna and chicken pot pie – but a hearty chili or simple roast beef sandwiches and gravy were often on the menu.

 

I’d like to share two simple 5-ingredient recipes with you today that I often used during those times of feeding a bunch of people simply, on a budget, but still wanting to give them hearty meals that kept them feeling full for an afternoon of working outside.

 

Jessie’s Pizza Casserole

  • 1 16 oz box of pasta
  • 1 20 oz jar of spaghetti sauce
  • 6 oz pepperoni (or more ; ) sliced and cut into quarters
  • 2 cups mozzarella cheese
  • 2 pounds of hamburger, crumbled and browned

 

Directions:

  1. Cook the pasta and drain.
  2. Cook the hamburger and drain the fat.
  3. Mix everything together and serve.

 

*Notes from the farm: I typically served it with garlic bread and peas or broccoli, depending on what I had in the garden. You can also add mushrooms and onions and peppers – anything you’d put on pizza. I often threw it together and left it in the crock pot on low for several hours so the guys could feed themselves if I had to be gone over lunch.

 

Jessie’s Favorite – Creamed Dried Beef Over Toast

  • 2 1 oz containers dried beef, chopped into small pieces
  • 2 sticks of butter
  • 3/4 c flour
  • 8 c milk
  • 2 c sour cream

 

  1. Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet.
  2. Chop the dried beef and add it to the butter.
  3. Put the flour in and mix it up.
  4. Pour the milk in and stir continuously until it bubbles.
  5. Add the sour cream.

Serve over a loaf of French bread, cut long-ways and toasted in the oven.

*Notes from the farm:  You can chop up leftover ham and use that in place of the dried beef. If I use ham, I don’t usually use as much sour cream. You can also use sausage in place of the dried beef. French bread was what we aimed for, but sometimes I used toasted hamburger or hot dog rolls – whatever bread we had is what we used. : )

 

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USA Today best-selling author Jessie Gussman writes sweet and inspirational romance from her farm in central Virginia. Having attended, but never graduating from the school of hard knocks, Jessie uses real life on the farm to inspire her cowboy, rural and blue-collar fiction.

When she’s not chasing kids, cows and the occasional roll-away haybale, Jessie enjoys wading in Naked Creek and not cleaning her house. Most of the time her main goal is to keep from catching herself on fire…again.

If you enjoy fun stories with vivid characters showcasing strong families with a ribbon of faith tying everything together, you might enjoy Jessie’s books.

39 thoughts on “Cowgirls in the Kitchen – Jessie Gussman”

  1. My niece along with two great-nieces and two great-nephews will be spending a week with us soon. I may have to try out that pizza casserole.

    • Oh, fun! Maybe they’ll get to see some kids born? I hope you have a wonderful time, and if you try the pizza casserole, I’d love to know how it turns out!

      • Hi, the pizza casserole sounds great. I am going to have to try it. I am always looking for new things to try. Hopefully my youngest son will like it. He always says he doesn’t like casseroles. Lol.

  2. I always look forward to your posts–would it be wrong to have one of these for breakfast? (That second item is known as SOS in the military, and my large family would use ground beef in the white sauce.)

    • Haha! Thank you – and NOT wrong at all! We have breakfast for dinner, right? lol And we actually do have a ground beef gravy we use – I put cream of mushroom soup in it, along with some milk, and we have it over mashed potatoes. We actually just had a Mennonite building crew here last week and that was one of the meals I made for them. : )

    • @Elissa…My dad was a minister and my mother was a very quiet and refined woman and when they were first married he asked her to make beef and gravy like he ate in the Army. I don’t think my mom ever knew it was called anything but ‘Army Beef’ which is what we call it to this day haha…she used ground beef too.

  4. Oh, I would love to come sit at your table sometime, Jessie! With just my husband and me, it’s often hard to cook for just two people, and I truly miss the days when all my girls were home. I never make my favorite 13 x 9 casserole recipes anymore because it’s just too much for us – although, I have split them into two 8 x 8 pans before and freeze one.

    I agree – the pizza casserole would be a winner. The crockpot, eh? Great idea!

    • I think cooking for two is harder than cooking for a whole bunch of people. I grew up with three siblings, so the only time I really had to cook small meals was right after my husband and I got married – before the kids came along. I really struggled to adjust to the smaller quantities! Plus, it’s fun to have laughter and a lot of different conversations at the table. You probably miss that as much as anything! Hugs!

  5. I have made you pizza casserole several times and it makes a lot. I have a couple of pieces in the freezer right now from the last one I made. I always called it pizza in the pot. Husband want eat it because it has noodles in it he’s picky like that but my son and I love it. I have also made your dried beef recipe but back to picky husband again says there in not enough meat in the dish, because he just wants to eat meat and potatoes all the time. I always but sausage, hamburger and pepperoni in my pizza casserole.

  6. Thanks for the recipes, they sound delicious!
    Your cooking for a crowd of farm workers reminds me of my mother-in-law when I first got to know her after getting married. She had 14 children, so she had a crowd to cook for everyday. But they were also farmers here in eastern N. C. raising tobacco, and would often have more people than her family with neighbors helping them put in tobacco. I still hear people comment how good “Miss Mary’s” dinners were on those hot July summer days.

  7. welcome Jesse, good to hear from you again. you are so right about what Jesus commands. thanks for sharing and for sharing your recipes. the shredded beef with gravy used to be one of my moms favorites when when she just wanted to make something on the fly so to speak. there was seven of us and than whomever would join us (friends) many friends. I was a cow girl at one time, I guess still am at heart. And I love simple recipes. quilting dash lady at comcast dot net

    • It’s good to be here – thanks for stopping in! Yes, it’s so easy and a great meal when you’re pressed for time! I think once a farmer, always a farmer, even if it’s in your heart. : )

  8. I cook spaghetti for our firefighter fundraiser in mid-February every year on 2/11 we served 212 people and before we only served 130-150 so stretching it is something I am used to – I also cook for 3 days in late June for our church camp! Thanks for the recipes!

  9. I’m going to have to try the pizza casserole. That sounds great! My mom used to make chipped beef on toast when we were kids. She always bought the beef in a small jar, not sure if it came in packs back then.

    • We actually get chipped dried beef when we have a steer butchered. We take it home and freeze it. I think it comes in jars in the store. But maybe things are different in different parts of the country. : )

  10. The pizza casserole sounds good! I do a cream beef gravy and have it over toast for breakfast. It’s just browned hamburger, flour, and milk!! One of my favorites that Mom used to make.

  11. I like reading recipes that are simple that I know will taste good and I totally agree about using whatever bread ya have on hand! Yes!

  13. When I was on my farm,my kitchen had an old stove that had a sunken burner in the back. I could put a big soup pot on that burner, and it would sink right down, into the stove, so the pot lid would be pretty even with the stove top. I had that pot full of soup, every day, for most of the winter months. We had some parts of the pastures and buildings rented out to small horse and cattle owners. They would stop in the kitchen, to warm up, many times during the day, and grab a cup, from the collection I kept nearby, and have a steaming helping of “the soup of the day”. For full meals though, they were on their own. Great memories!

    • Oh, that sounds so sweet and considerate! Especially in winter, when it’s so nice to be able to stop in and warm up! What a blessing that soup was, I’m sure! Those are cherished memories all around, I bet. : )

  14. We have made the pizza casserole and served garlic toast with it as I use to cook for my big family They loved it Have a Blessed Day!

  16. I had to smile when I read the recipes. These are both staples at our house, with slight variations. I do not used sour cream in my chipped beef. It is usually a breakfast item for us. With just two of us at home now, I don’t make it very often. I know I have a jar or two of the beef in my pantry, so we will likely have it sometime soon. The casserole works even for just two of us since leftovers are good. I use it as my dish of choice when I have to bring something to a pot luck supper. Easy to increase the amount I am fixing if I need more servings.

  18. Thank you so much for sharing your life on the farm with us. I look forward to you sharing. God bless you.

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