Published: May 22, 2009 10:27 am      

Coffee With Lil

As I write this it’s absolutely pouring outside. The Pella Christian Grade School band is on its’ way to the Orange City Tulip Time. Hope by the time they get there that the rain is “rained out”. Carson is playing drums and Delaney is a flag girl and Amber is going along as a chaperon. She went last year too and I think she and her friends had as much fun as the kids. I don’t know if chaperons are really allowed to have that much fun.

This week as promised I have a school friend from high school to interview- she is the one with the wonderful easy cinnamon rolls that I featured last week. Eunice will be remembered as Eunice Vershuure and is now Eunice Keuning. She and her husband Bob live north and west of Monroe on a farm.

Bob and Eunice have two boys, Brian and Peggy who live on an acreage near Greenfield. Brian works for the USDA and commutes to Des Moines and his wife Peggy teaches at Nodeway Valley schools. They have two children, Kelli, 20 and she attends S.W. Iowa Community College and Lucas , soon be to 18 and a junior at Nodeway Valley.

Their other son Mike is married to Kathy and they have two children also. Colton is a junior at PCM high school and Chase 12, is in 6th grade, also at PCM. Mike farms with Bob and Eunice and is a cattle buyer. Kathy teaches at PCM schools.

Bob and Eunice are in the stage of life when they are still on call, especially Bob for his son during field work time and they also spend lots of time watching the grandkids in their various activities. They also like to travel and manage to squeeze in many interesting trips. Last winter they went to visit Bob’s brother in Hawaii of all places. Everyone should have a relative in Hawaii especially when it’s winter in good old Iowa.

Eunice owned and operated a flower store right on the square in Monroe, A Flair for Flowers for 15 years. She has since sold it but works there one day a week. She also is involved in church activities and Kiwannas.

She stays busy—earlier in the week, she helped the PCM students on a service day by helping them clean up the city parks and plant their flower beds. I suppose a grandkid got her involved in that.

Eunice has extended family in the Pella area, her brother is Dave Vershuure and her sister is Ruth Vermeer. Her mother Cornelia Vershuure also lives in Pella, so she finds herself here quite a lot. In fact the day we visited for this column, we had such a good time visiting that after 2 hours, we still had to rush to get all the pertinent information down, as she had to pick up her mother and they were going to Ruth’s for lunch. I don’t know where the time went!

Eunice’s first recipe is for Broccoli Waldorf Salad. I like this for a busy summer meal because it takes a purchased salad dressing.



6 cups of broccoli florets

1 large red apple, chopped

1/2 half cup raisins

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cups prepared coleslaw dressing



In a large serving bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients. Drizzle with dressing, toss to coat.

Refrigerate leftovers

Yields 10 servings.



The next recipe comes from Texas. The Keunings visited friends there and Eunice came home with this handy recipe for Pizza Burgers It can be frozen ahead and taken out for when needed. We are having a new vinyl floor put in the kitchen and don’t have a stove for a couple of days. It’s so handy to have all that soup I froze last winter to pop in the microwave. These sandwiches would come in handy right now. Of course, you would have to take them out of the tinfoil first.



Pizza Burgers

2 lbs. ground beef, brown and salt and pepper to taste.

Drain and cool.

Mix in the following ingredients

1 can tomato soup

1/2 bottle chili sauce- your choice

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1 pkg. (4 oz.) mozzarella cheese, shredded

Mix well with cooled meat.

Spoon on buns.



Wrap singly in foil (may be frozen)

Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour

Makes 14 buns



The last recipe is for Layered Rhubarb-Strawberry Dessert. This is a timely one as the rhubarb is in its prime right now and everyone is always looking for new ways to use it. This sounds really delicious with the strawberry flavor also.



Layered Rhubarb-Strawberry Dessert

4 cups rhubarb, in 1” pieces

1 cup sugar

1 (3 ounce) box of strawberry Jello

1/2 pkg. or 2 cups of white or yellow cake mix

1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted



Alternate layers of first 4 ingredients and 1 cup water in a 9 x 13 baking pan. Drizzle butter over top. Bake 350 degrees about 1 hour. Serve warm with cream, if desired. Makes about 8 servings.



Eunice is a lovely person and we had good time visiting. We have actually been seeing each other a lot more often lately as another school friend. Marge Van Haaften has taken the time to set up lunches for our classmates every 6 months in a different restaurant. We euphemistically call ourselves the “Girls of ‘59.” We do still see each other as girls and have a good time yakking and catching up. Actually we do have a class reunion coming up in June - the big 50. I really can’t believe its’ been that long that we all went to good old PCHS together. We will have tours of the new high school in the afternoon for the ones who don’t live here and haven’t had the chance to see the new school. It’s a far cry from the one we went to but of course, it won’t have the memories for us either.

This will be my last column for awhile - it’s getting busy again. I have 3 graduations, showers for Auburn and Colin and then of course, the most important day, their wedding. Then it’s off camping and etc. so I’ll probably take a leave until at least next fall. Thanks to everyone for the kind words that you take time to tell me about my column. I appreciate you all.