Amish Food

Goot Essa Cheese Giveaway (Plus: A Closer Look at Cheese Caves)

Goot Essa Cheese Giveaway (Plus: A Closer Look at Cheese Caves)

We’re doing a cheese basket giveaway for Goot Essa. You can enter to win simply by leaving a comment on this post. I’ll post the winner here Friday. The assortment that owner John Esh and co. are giving away is called “Amish Tastes” (see below): From the description: This medium-bodied cheese trio features a palate-pleasing array of flavors. From our buttery Old German Weissa Kase…

A Visit To An Amish Cheese Maker (29 Photos)

A Visit To An Amish Cheese Maker (29 Photos)

This one was fun. Here are some photos from my trip to Amish cheese maker Goot Essa last year. Together with my friend Ben Riehl, we made the 2.5-hour drive up from Lancaster County last December. I’ve been saving these photos for a post. To get there, we traveled through several central PA valleys which have Amish populations. This is a shot taken on the…

Marlene Lehman Shares Her Favorite Amish Dishes

Marlene Lehman Shares Her Favorite Amish Dishes

In our latest conversation, I spoke with Marlene Lehman about her favorite Amish-style dishes. She named several that I’d never heard of before, including: 1. Salad Dressing Cake Salad Dressing Cake uses Miracle Whip. And that’s how it gets its odd name. I admit when I heard “salad dressing cake” I first thought of Ranch or Vinagrette or Thousand Island dressing…not exactly my idea of…

Enjoying Mennonite Mincemeat Pie (On The Second Try…)

Enjoying Mennonite Mincemeat Pie (On The Second Try…)

While in Pennsylvania last week, my friend Ben and I managed to return to the Mennonite bakery I loved last year. This is a bakery run by “Piker” Mennonites (basically the plainest horse-and-buggy Mennonite group), right off the main highway in Snyder County. I saw a lot of the same favorites from last year, like fruitcake and pecan pie squares (I’ll do another post with…

John Esh Podcast on Cheesemaking (Goot Essa Amish-Made Cheese)

John Esh Podcast on Cheesemaking (Goot Essa Amish-Made Cheese)

I was happy to see that Goot Essa owner John Esh appeared on the “Seen Through A Glass” podcast recently to discuss his cheese & food business. John has a nice casual discussion with podcast host Lew Bryson. He explains how he came to cheese-making, and specifically European-style cheeses. In case you were wondering about the Amish and cheese, John notes that there is a…

Five Amish Money-Saving Tips (Food & More)

Five Amish Money-Saving Tips (Food & More)

 With inflation and the cost of things like food having gone up a ton in the past year or two, I decided to put together a few money-saving tips practiced by the Amish. Three of these have to do with saving on food bills, and two of them are for general money-saving (tips & video below). Are these completely revolutionary, reinventing-the-wheel ideas? Drumroll…no, they’re…

3 Ways Amish Families Cook & Bake

3 Ways Amish Families Cook & Bake

 As a low-tech group, how do the Amish cook and bake? Below I share several ways Amish prepare food (specifically, how they generate the heat for cooking & baking – if you’re looking for things like Amish recipes and food prep techniques, this is not that topic 🙂 ). As with many things, there can be a lot of variety in cooking methods across the…

Amish-Owned Pizza Place? Why Not

Amish-Owned Pizza Place? Why Not

This is a neat article (Jamestown Post-Journal) on the opening of one Amish family’s new pizza place, the aptly-named “Family Night Pizza”. On first glance, the article title itself is eye-catching, for more reasons than one: “Amish Owned Pizza Business Has Opened In Panama”. That would be Panama, New York – not the Central American nation. But the pizza part is just what you would…

Goot Essa Gift Basket Winner

Goot Essa Gift Basket Winner

Yesterday we had a Q and A with John Esh of Goot Essa cheese (check it out here if you missed it).  And we’ve got the gift basket winner for you below. Thanks to everyone who entered! Goot Essa makes small batch cheeses and pairs them with items like apple butter spread, crackers, prosciutto, fudge and more in their wide array of gift baskets. In yesterday’s Q…

Goot Essa Cheese: Q & A and Gift Basket Giveaway

Goot Essa Cheese: Q & A and Gift Basket Giveaway

Goot Essa is an Amish cheese company based in central Pennsylvania, in business since 2001. They make a wide variety of cheeses (traditional cow dairy, goat, sheep) using milk from Amish farms. Founder John Esh shares more about Goot Essa and their cheeses in today’s Q & A. We first heard from John in a 2020 interview. I also did a little review of a…