Homemade in the High Plains cookbook now available, category winners announced

Several months ago, High Plains Journal announced that it would be putting a cookbook together in honor of the American farm wife and to celebrate the 15th year of All Aboard Wheat Harvest.

Readers sent in recipes with personal stories attached to each submission and provided their favorite cooking tips and tricks along with advice for cooking for farmers.

The cookbook is a perfect companion for AAWH because meals are a crucial element of every harvest and keep the crew moving from field to field. Harvest cooks usually look for meals that are easy to cook, transport and eat in the field or while operating equipment, which is why we included a special category in this cookbook with ideal 30-minute field meals, entitled Harvest Meals in a Hurry.

It’s a staple item every farmwife should have in their kitchen. The cookbook is now complete, and it can be ordered online at www.hpjsubscribe.com. The cost of the book is $22, plus shipping if the buyer is not picking up at the HPJ headquarters, 11142 Kliesen St., in Dodge City, Kansas. Or you can purchase or renew a two-year subscription to HPJ and receive the cookbook for free.

The cookbook is comprised of over 200 recipes and includes categories such as appetizers, breads and rolls, desserts, harvest meals in a hurry, main dishes, miscellaneous, soups and salads and side dishes. The HPJ cookbook committee selected one recipe per category as a grand prize winner. Those category winners will receive a free cookbook and recognition through articles in the Home and Family page in a future issue of HPJ, online and on the All Aboard Wheat Harvest blog.

The winners include: Nina Flax of Osage City, Kansas, for her pimento cheese recipe in the appetizer category; Connie Richards of Tingley, Iowa, was selected for Rita’s raised donuts in the breads and rolls category; Vicki Krehbiel from Holcomb, Kansas, came out on top in the desserts section with her honeybun cinnamon cake; Karen Krehbiel Dodson and Brittany Krehbiel Hukill, a mother-daughter duo from Hinton, Oklahoma, won top honors in the harvest in a hurry category for their Krehbiel Spanish rice recipe; Karen Armbruster of Burlington, Oklahoma, was selected as the grand prize winner for the main dishes section with her three-ingredient brisket recipe; Darby Grier of Stewartsville, Missouri, had the winning miscellaneous entry with her family spaghetti sauce recipe; Lindsey Orgain of Cheyenne, Oklahoma, submitted a tortellini salad recipe that was picked as the grand champion for the soups and salads category and Linda Conti, of Castalian Springs, Tennessee, took top honors in the side dish section with her macaroni cheese corn bake recipe.

In addition to these winners, the HPJ cookbook committee also selected several blue-ribbon favorites in each category as honorable mentions because there were so many quality recipes submitted. Since this book was created in honor of the farm wife, recipes that are easy to serve in the field are denoted with a combine by their title.

Recipes will be featured with All Aboard Harvest content throughout the summer and fall harvest seasons, so watch for them in the publication, on allaboardharvest.com, hpj.com and on social media.

Questions about the book can be directed to Kylie Reiss at [email protected] or 785-346-4067 or Lacey Vilhauer at 620-227-1871 or [email protected].

Lacey Vilhauer can be reached at 620-227-1871 or [email protected].