YUM!!!

See that caramel-like sauce? only better! Yes, I made that! I made it yesterday with fresh creamy goat milk, it's called Cajeta, or Dulce de Leche and WOW I see a bit more of this in my future and on some French toast.....

Now that I've made your mouth water, have a great day y'all!

Happy Valentines Day!

Is there anything more sexy than a man in the kitchen cooking? YES! A man in the kitchen making chocolate covered strawberries for the love of his life. Ron's hands are severely atrophied and cause him extreme and constant pain so for him to think of and do this knocked my socks off. His sweet thoughtful gesture melted my heart, then melted in my mouth, they were delicious! Want more sexy?

A man who steps aside and shows his son to do the same thing for his mom. Andrew was just as proud as a peacock to be able to do this for me and grinned from ear to ear as he said to me "Open wide!" and plopped the biggest berry he'd dipped in my mouth. I love being surrounded by my men. :-)

sometimes...

...a girl just needs a little chocolate! Not the most flattering picture of me, but at least it's an honest one. No, I didn't eat the entire thing, I shared. This is simply the worlds best whoopie pie. Ever.

made fresh!

Chive and garlic chevre, all made here fresh on the farm! Making more today! Yum!

"Thank you Mommy for spoiling me!"

It's a statement I'm sure you're familiar with; "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," never have I found it to be more true than with Andrew. This past summer he mentioned to me that he thought his best friend (his cousin) was spoiled because his mother (my sister) made him waffles and doughnuts for breakfast. Not both on the same day mind you, but more frequently than Andrew eats them. It's no secret that I'm not a morning person, and in all honesty it would be dangerous for me to be dealing with nearly 400 degree oil that early in the morning! Andrew has had homemade waffles before and occasionally make them himself, but on a recent overnight visit to my sister's house she set a precident - waffles and doughnuts for breakfast two days in a row, and sent some home with him. Little did I know that her doing that would mean more work for me. I knew he'd be thrilled if I attempted that so I tried this morning, keeping it a secret in case it failed. I used the recipe from Pioneer Woman but added a bit if fresh nutmeg like my grandmother used to. In between making homemade pizza for dinner and family movie night last night I secretly made the dough for the doughnuts and made the waffle batter after he went to bed. This morning I woke up early, made myself a tall glass if iced chai tea and set about making the doughnuts. This is not something I'd attempt without caffeine or on a school day and we home school! After rolling out the dough and cutting the doughnuts you need to let them rise for over an hour, which allowed time for barn chores and waffle making. It's a very long process. I'd hoped to have some of this special breakfast done before he woke up, but it was not to be. He walked into the kitchen, saw what I was doing and a mile wide grin spread across his face and his eyes lit up. He ran and gave me a big hug and said "I'm going to be a spoiled boy today!"

A huge stack of waffles! Andrew finished up making the last one for me.

before...

during...

after...

YUM!!!

fresh out of the oven!

Yummy! These are SO good they make your tongue want to smack your brains out!

from the garden

Fresh from the garden tonight, green zebra, (grown by Andrew in his own garden) lemon boy (yellow tomato) and mortgage lifter (pink tomato) and basil, combined with a few other ingredients makes for the most delectable bruschetta ever, and colorful too I might add! My mouth waters every time I look at these pictures. It was that good!

Yum!

What a weekend! Have I mentioned that I cook when I'm stressed? I'm not really sure why that is, cooking is not my favorite thing to do and yet it's my go to thing for stress. Weird huh? Well this weekend was eventful and I'll spare you the details, but Sunday we all stayed home the kids and I didn't venture too far from the kitchen. None of us were stress eating, but I think the shared comforting was something we all needed. Well it started off simple enough, two lone ripe bananas sitting on the counter over ripe and begging to be made into a banana bread, I asked Faith if she wanted to have a go at that and you have thought I'd just given her a pony! Nodding excitedly she started flitting about the kitchen with such confidence and pride, soon bowls were clanging and measuring spoons were covered with a myriad of ingredients. It's a fairly easy recipe, one that was given to my by a unique lady I met in New Mexico, so I knew she'd have no problem, you can see for your self that she did not have any problems at all. It came out great and was devoured, I don't know what it is about banana bread in this house but it never lasts very long!

.....................Faith's Banana Bread

While Faith was working on that Andrew and I made teryaki meatballs for Ron, I didn't get a picture of that. It took a while though as we made a double batch to put some in the freezer for a later meal. Meanwhile Faith thought she'd like to make dinner. My sister had come down for our annual Christmas jammie sewing/margaritas/girl-bonding fun and had made us a quiche. (Now that's the kind of company I like, she was our guest and she made dinner!) Faith and Andrew loved the quiche and were impressed that she made it from her memory so they asked if she'd write it down so they could have it again. Well, we've had it many times since and I've not made it once, either Faith or Andrew or a collaboration of the two of them have worked together and made quiche, here is the latest version.

..................Spinach, Onion and Cheese Quiche

Last year in her garden Faith chose to plant parsnip, well, after it was replanted twice, once due to wandering chickens and two due to record rainfall it finally came up. All three of them. Not being deterred she faithfully tended those parsnip all summer, after all that work she decided to let them overwinter and has patiently waited for the ground to be warm enough to harvest them. Well her patience paid off those crazy parsnips were over a foot long! All three of them.(I'll try to remember to post pictures later.) My grandmother had given us a recipe for parsnip cakes that will knock your socks off, so that is what she made.

..............Faith preparing parsnip cakes

During that time Andrew and I made homemade hamburger buns, I didn't think I needed a picture of that as I'd already post about them here. Once you've made your own burger buns you'll have a hard time going back to store-bought, this much I do know. After they were in the oven I asked Andrew if he wanted to make a recipe he's been after me to make, for breakfast no doubt. Let me reiterate I am not a morning person and I'm not a huge fan of cooking, needless to say we've not done this for breakfast.

Warning: rabbit trail just ahead! While out running errands one day Andrew and I spotted a cookbook that was all about cooking for cowboys, I showed it to him while in line not thinking too much of it, after all Andrew is a cowboy, just ask him. He thumbed through it and saw a couple recipes, showed them to me and I looked them over, was I reading this correctly?! It was a cookbook about cooking for vegetarian kid cowboys!! They were sharing recipes for organic food and vegetarian and cowboy kids?! PERFECT!! I proceeded to put it in the cart and Andrew could not have been happier, after all he is a cowboy who is all about food. Ping, back to the story.

......................Andrew and his Blintz's

.................He's a huge fan of Emeril, has been since he was 2, can you tell?

.....I had to have mine before dinner, it was too good not to. Mouth watering yet?

So finally the parsnip cakes were ready to be cooked and enjoyed. Fresh. Local. Delicious. Organic. Simple to make. And did I mention delicious? Great job guys, everything was tasty, oh so tasty and you did a wonderful job.

Fresh, Local, Delicious

Homemade Hamburger Buns......

Fresh Local Grass-fed Beef, Onions that I grew, Homemade relish and Homemade Buns...

Homemade Bread, and oh so delicious!

Fresh Bread, Farm Produced Milk, Eggs and Maple Syrup. (I'll admit that the butter is store bought, I have made it from the goat's milk, but not this time...)

Perfect ingredients for French Toast! *

*After all, these vegetarians don't eat beef.