My favorite recipes

Betty Jo Fitzgerald has lived in the Colfax area for a long time, just not full-time. She and husband Jim purchased property near Bill and Lynn Nelson, living there part-time in a travel trailer and building a home six or seven years ago.

Born at Colusa in the Sacramento Valley of California, Betty Jo lived in a farming town the size of Colfax. Her father was a banker and her mother was a medical librarian at the local hospital. She loved creating art, but when it came time for college, her parents encouraged science.

While earning a bachelor’s degree in botany, Betty Jo had the opportunity to use her artistic skills. After graduating from University of Northern California at Chico, she moved to the University of Washington to earn a master’s degree in botany. There she met her husband, Jim Fitzgerald, who was in dental school.

While at the University of Washington, they met long-time friends Hal and Sandy Westberg. The Westbergs came to Pullman where Hal taught at Washington State University, and the Fitzgeralds became frequent visitors. Their children were close in age, and they always enjoyed coming to the Palouse.

Buying property near the Nelsons gave them more friends in the area and a wonderful place to hunt pheasant. Her husband, now practicing dentistry, enjoyed the outdoor life.

Betty Jo taught botany at the University of Washington and Seattle University until they had children. While she was at home with her children, she had the opportunity to pursue art again. She took workshops and seminars and really got involved. Once she was involved in art, she had one brief foray teaching botany at Evergreen State College, but she learned that art was truly her calling.

When she first began painting, she employed a Monet-like style, painting tulips, other flowers, and then moving on to other subjects. She works in paint and mixed media.

She and Jim flew a small plane to the Palouse from their home in Olympia, and she was struck by the patterns she observed from overhead. Inspired by the patterns and color, she began painting her Palouse series.

Betty Jo calls herself a colorist because she loves bright colors; she refers to them as Disney colors. An adventuresome artist, she likes to play with ideas. She uses icons, symbols that keep appearing in her work.

Since embarking on her career in art, Betty Jo has done a great deal of teaching. She noted that it is sometimes hard to get students to loosen up and try new things. Children are lots of fun to teach, she notes, but she has really enjoyed teaching adults. She prefers classes of adults with varying degrees of skill and experience. Seasoned artists and newcomers can learn so much from each other. For artists who need to loosen up or who fear making a mistake, she has had students throw their paper onto the floor and walk on it, demonstrating that paper is not so precious nor that their first efforts must be perfect.

Betty Jo has words of encouragement for the artist in all of us—go for it! You have to let the creative spirit out—letting go is important. Everyone has a creative side, and we all have the need to express it, whether it be painting or drawing, quilting, needlework, cooking, decorating a house or planting a garden.

These days, Betty Jo is primarily painting on small canvases. Large paintings require the assistance of her husband, which he does willingly. She noted that several famous artists required help managing large works when they were older or their health wasn’t as good. With his help, she just finished a large abstract piece, “My Last Hurrah,” which is very different than her Palouse series.

Betty Jo has enjoyed a number of trips to Europe. Once she went with an art group and painted all over Europe. She has traveled with Jim and seen all of the great galleries, including the Hermitage in Russia.

For many years, Betty Jo had a favorite gallery in New York which sold her work. Now her pieces can be seen and purchased at Childhood’s End, a gallery in Olympia, which has been open 40 years. It is the oldest continuously open gallery in the state of Washington. She also has work at Bank Left Gallery in Palouse and Angel’s Gallery and Antiques in Coeur d’Alene.

Betty Jo has her art displayed in a wide range of places and has won a number of awards at juried shows, from the Pacific Northwest, across the country, and in Germany. Her work may be seen locally at Pullman Regional Hospital, the Gritman Dialysis Center, and the City of Moscow Art Collection. In Colfax, many of her works are displayed by Curtis Scholz in his Edward Jones office. To look at her work online: bettyjoart.com.

Their daughter Molly lives in Olympia. She is a licensed massage therapist who is completing her degree to become a physical therapy assistant. Son Brent is a video game designer, also living in Olympia. Molly has two sons and Brent a son and daughter. The grandchildren range from 10 to 20 years old.

Jim does most of the cooking these days, with Betty Jo helping with the planning. Here are some favorites.

Recipes:

Spinach Corn Bread

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

1 box Jiffy corn bread mix

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup chopped, frozen spinach, thawed and drained

6 ounces cottage cheese

1 stick butter

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup milk

Mix all ingredients; place in a greased 9 x 9-inch baking dish. Bake at 400 degrees F for approximately 30 minutes.

24 Hour Wine and Cheese Omelet

1 large loaf of day-old French bread broken into small pieces

6 Tablespoons melted, unsalted butter

3/4 pound shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese

9 thin slices of Genoa salami, chopped

16 eggs

3 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 Tablespoon German mustard

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

1 1/2 cups sour cream

2/3 to 1 cup shredded Parmesan or Asiago cheese

Butter 2 shallow 3-quart (9 x 13 inch) baking dishes. Spread bread over the bottom of dishes and drizzle with butter. Sprinkle with Swiss and Jack cheeses and Salami. Beat together eggs, milk, wine, mustard, red and black pepper until foamy. Pour over cheese. Cover dishes with foil. Refrigerate overnight or a maximum of 24 hours.

Remove from refrigerator about 30 minutes prior to cooking. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Bake covered until set, about 1 hour. Uncover, spread with sour cream and remaining cheese. Continue to bake uncovered until crusty and lightly browned (about 10 minutes). Makes 12 servings.

Beef Rouladen

6 slices of bacon cut in pieces

1 1/2 pounds beef round steak cut to 1/4-inch thick

2 Tablespoons regular mustard

3 medium dill pickles cut in quarters lengthwise

6 medium carrots cut like the pickles

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 can beefy mushroom soup

2 Tablespoons tomato sauce

1 cup water

1 cup red wine

In a skillet, barely cook the bacon with the onions. Cut the round steak into 6 pieces and pound out to about 4 x 6 inches. Spread each with 2 teaspoons mustard, place 2 pieces of pickle and 4 pieces of carrot on the meat. Starting at the narrow end, roll the meat up and fasten with toothpicks. Flour the rollups and brown in bacon fat.

Mix 2 Tablespoons of flour into the fat. Stir the soup, water, tomato sauce, and wine into the skillet with the rollups and cook over low heat for 1 hour 15 minutes; stir occasionally. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Chicken Novas

3 cans of canned tamales (We like Nalley beef tamales in chili sauce.) Save every bit of the sauce from the can and paper that wraps the tamales.

1/2 pound fresh mushrooms

2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce

1 chicken, cooked so meat can be easily removed from bones

1 cup of rice, cooked

2-3 can of cream of chicken soup

1/2 pound grated sharp Cheddar cheese

bread crumbs

butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread bottom of 4-quart casserole with sliced tamales. Layer in this order: tamales, mushrooms, 1 can tomato sauce, thick layer of chicken, cooked rice, and 1 can tomato sauce.

Pour undiluted soup over the top and spread grated Cheddar cheese. Add bread crumbs and butter. Bake uncovered 45 minutes in a 350 degrees F oven.

Serves 8-12. This can be divided into two casseroles and frozen.