Fair Exhibitors of the Year
Murphy's Menu
Regina Murphy
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Those of you who went through the Anderson building during the Lyon County free Fair got to see a whole bunch of great food and produce exhibits from local participants.
Most of them were from 4-H, but there are many open classes as well.
This year’s Open Class winners are our special topic today. Katie Laws won the youth division and Tracey Graham won the adult division. Their tables were covered with so many ribbons and certificates you could barely see the entries!
Katie’s mom Melissa Laws and her grandmom Bev Laws brought her down to the Gazette for an interview.
Katie won over 20 ribbons for her different projects. She’s already planning her choices for next year because then she’ll be old enough to join 4-H. Katie is currently a whopping 6 years old!
Katie said she had a lot of help from her grandmom and grandpa. In addition to several prepared food items, Katie did crafts, produce and even pigs. She said she helped her grandmother with garden by planting, mulching staking and harvesting. Katie also has a bunch of rabbits, ducks and chickens to look after as well as a nanny goat named “Hannah Montana.”
Bev asked Katie what she said when she saw the judges bring all her exhibits to the front of the hall. Katie said “I have my own table!” She was very proud, and has the pictures to prove it. Katie went to the State fair, but since she has to be at least 10 to compete, she just had fun this time around.
Katie says she wants to grow up to be a nurse. She’s a first grader at Neosho Rapids and she especially likes the mornings there because they get to do art. Of all her exhibits, she said she liked her “Halloween Chalk Board” the best. I liked her Trail mix in a pint jar, myself, and got the recipe for that! Katie also won a ribbon for her peanut butter cookies — she said her sisters Doris and Juli helped her make them.
Katie’s Trail Mix is very colorful, thanks especially to something called “Yogos Bits.” According to Bev, you can find these in the cereal bar aisle at Reebles or the snack pile at the registers at Wal-Mart. They look like brightly colored Kix and have a “creamy yogurt coating around a delicious fruit-chewy center.”
KATIE’S TRAIL MIX
4 cups Honey Nut Cheerios
1 cup dried banana chips
1 cup Mango Munch dried fruit
1 cup yogurt covered cranberries
2 cups honey roasted peanuts
1/2 cup Yogos Bits
Mix it all together and store in an airtight container. This snack is fairly healthy, since the sugars also come with a bunch of fiber, protein and vitamins. Katie made hers up in a pint jar and the lid was covered in a pretty round of fabric. That would be a great gift idea, too!
Tracey Graham has been working hard all summer for The Learning Connection and the Farmer’s Market, but she still found time to win over 70 different awards at the fair. Tracey is an exuberant and energetic woman, and loves to be creative. Many of her entries were the fruit of skills she learned in Learning Connection classes.
I asked Tracey what inspired her to enter so many categories at the fair. She said, “Last year I was told I came close to ‘Exhibitor of the Year’ and I wasn’t trying for it. I just entered a lot of fun stuff. This year I figured I’d see what happens when I really do shoot for it. As a consequence, I made a number of things I don’t normally do (like ketchup, chili sauce and taco sauce) and did pretty well on them, too.”
It certainly worked: Tracey entered 76 items and took home 72 ribbons, including the sweepstakes in yeast breads, the Wheat Commission, jams, knitting, biennials and perennials.
I asked Tracey which entry was her favorite. Her reply: “Which ONE?! That’s not fair!” But I did pin her down to the multigrain bread (which won sweepstakes). Tracey and her husband Steve eat this every day, so she call’s it “Graham’s Daily Bread”. Tracey has been selling it at the Farmer’s Market, among many other delightful things!
Tracey went on to the state fair, entered 23 items and won 10 ribbons, including her first state sweepstakes for her gingered golden tomato preserves. Congratulations!
GRAHAMS’ DAILY BREAD
1/4 cup honey
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup soy whey
2 Tbsp. butter
1 cup wheat mix (see below)
1 cup multigrain mix (see below)
2 cup bread flour
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 Tbsp. quick oats
Put ingredients in a bread machine, in order. Turn on the dough setting and let it run. When dough is ready, turn onto a board and roll out to a rectangle 8-x-12-inches. Roll tightly to form a 12-inch log. Use wet hands to moisten outside of log, roll it in a dusting of wheat bran/oat bran, then place in lightly greased loaf pan. Slash the top lengthwise up to a quarter-inch. Cover loosely with lightly oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place for thirty minutes or until doubled in size. Preheat oven with baking stone on bottom rack to 375 degrees. Bake in preheated oven 35 - 45 minutes until top is thoroughly browned and loaf is done. Remove pan from oven, let cool ten minutes, remove loaf from pan and cool on cooling rack.
Wheat Mix
Mix together in a large bowl:
2 cups stone ground whole wheat flour
2 cups whole hard white wheat flour
1 cup wheat bran
1 cup wheat germ
1 cup wheat flakes
1 cup vital wheat gluten
Multigrain Mix
Mix together in a large bowl 1 cup of each of the following: Oat, amaranth, barley, brown rice, soy & teff flours; blue corn meal, corn meal masa, flax seed meal, oat bran, old-fashioned oats.
It’s that special time of the year when we play with our food in an unnatural fashion. Cupcakes turn into spiders, cookies into rats nests, and chicken drummies into bat legs. Halloween! We’ve done the Penicillin Pizza, Deviled Eyeballs, and Gavin’s Gruesome Feet of Meat. What horrific (yet tasty) things do you do to your food for October 31?
Send that scary recipe — if you DARE — to murphysmenu@yahoo.com. And a picture! Or snail mail (mmmm...snails!) to P.O. Drawer C, Emporia. The deadline is 5pm Tuesday. Let’s get cooking!