Guest Blogger from Iowa

My guest blogger DG is originally from Iowa, a place where they honor hog and corn farming traditions, many Iowans in high school had the job of hand pollinating corn, and some even watch their corn grow. When she talks about her homeland food, I cannot help but listen intently. DG really loves her traditional Iowan food, and it is so fun to hear how she makes these specialties. By chance to day, I talked to my friend on the phone at lunch time. She mentioned she made two of her favorite Iowan traditional dishes, and I was so giddy listening, I made her stop working and take photos of her two dishes with her camera phone and email them to me to see what they look like. I was blown away at how good her lunch looked! The Iowan specialties looked so good, that I asked for my buddy to be my 1st guest blogger. Here are her camera phone photos of her fabulous Iowan lunch, and her story of her lunch. Thanks Buddy! Yummy!

DG's pork loin sandwich served with
a little mustard and pickle chips

DG's rhubarb strawberry pie
with a really great buttery crust

In May I made a trip back home to Iowa to visit my mom on Mother's day. My sister from Texas also made the trip and two other sisters live in Iowa still. One of my Iowa sisters cooked dinner for us all on Mother's Day. Her menu was not light, feminine food. My sister decided to cook all of the Iowa favorites - the things that we out-of-staters crave when we go back to Iowa. She made

• Tenderloins (commonly called tenderloin, but it is actually a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich)
• Sweet corn (always pronounced "SWEETcorn" - cut off the cob and frozen from last year's garden)
• Mushrooms (Mother's Day is usually at the peak of morel season - those highly sought-after wild morels or houby as the local Czechs say)
• Rhubarb pie (In mid May the rhubarb starts to go to seed, so we picked a huge mess of the younger stalks and got it all ready to freeze or make pies when we got home.)

Well, OK, she did have a salad too, so the whole meal was not fried or loaded with carbs!

Yesterday I made tenderloins and a strawberry rhubarb pie that reminded me of that substantial Iowa farm-hand style meal.

The tenderloins -- I cut 4" sections of pork tenderloin, butterflied them and then pounded them thin. They were dipped in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, then in egg wash and finally in a mixture cracker crumbs. I fried them to a golden brown and served on plain white buns with mustard and dill pickle slices. Like the local tradition, the tenderloin should be much bigger than the bun. Some restaurants serve a plate sized tenderloin with two small hamburger buns.

The pie -- My strawberries were from Tennessee - grown in Cookeville. The rhubarb was from various friend's and neighbor's rhubarb patches in Elkader, Iowa. The recipe is from FoodTV's website - Grandma's Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.