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!

ahh freakin mazing!

This is a raw cheesecake, vegan and perfectly delish! This was dessert tonight and was a huge hit with everybody!

soapbox

A friend of mine posted a video on facebook today that was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, but it made articulate some things in defense of why I'm a vegetarian. I was asked my opinion if the video she posted and I thought about posting here so you'd better understand my comment (which I'm going to post below) but it is insane so I'll spare you. I do not want that rubbish on my blog. I was so honored that she'd ask my opinion and started a topic if conversation that should prove to be interesting to say the least, let's see what we can generate here!

Now let me say that I admire this woman very much, she is a good example to many and makes me think about things all the time in her blog and life. Again, I'm glad and honored she asked my opinion. Thank you L.B. Keep making me think!

This was my response to the video:


 oh where to start..... well first thank you for thinking of me with this - I think ;-) I watched with the thought that it was a piece on organic food vs. non which is something I'm very passionate about and what I heard was nothing of the sort. I've read other things by Wilson and have liked some of it, this was not the case for this morsel. (pun intended ;-) lol) My first thought was, 'Is this guy for real or is he insane?! Seriously a steak from petroleum?! as an argument against people who don't like eating chemicals?! WHAT?!!!!????'  You have got to be kidding! The chemicals that 'they' (and I for that matter) are referring to not wanting to eat are toxic petroleum based, or at least in my experience that has been the case. H2O is a chemical I realize that, but it is not cooked up in a lab somewhere and in most cases essential to life and NOT going to kill you! DDT, RoundUp, Agent Orange, petroleum based anything, etc. are not meant to be ingested by the human body and therefore do not have a place in our food system. period! 

I also take offense to his anti-vegetarian sentiment as being a food "fusser" I choose to be a vegetarian for lots of reason, one being based on the info I have I feel that is the best way for ME to care for MY body, eating a whole food, raw and plant based diet works for me, I do not force this on anybody and saying that not eating meat is anti biblical?! we are all given free choice are we not? I choose this as a way of honoring the one body I was given to honor God in the best way I can. Our bodies were created by God and in His image and are completely aware of real food and fake. Meaning our bodies know what to do with kale but react differently to a twinkie. I say this as someone who thinks obesity is caused by starvation. As crazy as that sounds think about it for a minute. Most of the people I now who are obese are not what I'd consider a model of health, what they eat primarily is over processed, cheap, highly sugared, highly salted, irradiated, highly caloried, lacking any nutrition, genetically modified, "food" that is as far from what it started out as as you can possible get and they eat LOADS of it because their bodies tell them they are hungry. What they bodies are rally telling them is that they are starving to death if it could shout it's would say, "GIVE MY SOMETHING NUTRITIOUS!!!! I'M DYING HERE!!!!" Oh right their bodies are shouting with things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and....... the list goes on. One is pretty hard pressed to find a fat healthy person.... 

Only an idiot would think childhood leukemia, childhood diabetes, cancer etc are "old age disease" they are cause by a poor diet and a poor diet for generations! I'll concede that genetic play a part in it as well as environmental factors. Lots come from big Ag and big Pharma..... And yet that is exactly what he claims. How long can genes be good genes if your constantly damaging them with toxicity? You want to tell that to a mother who just lost her child from a terminal form of childhood cancer?! 

As far as feeding the masses, I think he is sadly mistaken and seems to have taken a page from the monsanto play book, I feel it is possible to feed the masses if people took more ownership and responsibility of fending for themselves instead of depending on everything being done for them or readily available for them. As far as what my thoughts are well, there they are, you may wish you hadn't asked, but there you go, have at it! What a great conversation starter! 


So there you go, what are your thoughts? Where do you stand on the subject?




And just so we're clear the comments made on the video were not of her wordage or opinion on the video, it was of an interview of a theologist, I'm anxious to hear her thoughts! :-)

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. :-)

ingredients vs. ingredients

The kids and I were grocery shopping the other day and we were in the isle with all the coffees, teas, and milk additives when Andrew picked up a container of the product below and asked if I could buy this to have on hand for an occasional treat. After just having seen Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution episode with the cookie dough ice cream containing human hair, duck feathers and beetle secretions (which incidentally you need to see! And yes, that's really what was in there!) we were totally grossed out but came away with a valuable lesson which left a huge impact on the kids. The lesson being if you don't know what the ingredients are do not put them in your body! One I've been trying to teach and with success, but this made a lasting impression! I smiled and said "Sure! Why don't you flip over the container and see what the ingredients are." He did and promptly put it back on the shelf. I said, "Let's look and see what they are, sugar - shocking, artificial flavors -yum, (likely from corn) citric acid, (again likely from corn) red #40 (coal tar) more yumminess! salt and blue #1. Then they list the added vitamins and minerals. ::sigh:: Where are these 'vitamins and minerals manufactured and/or from what?! I'll be honest, he was disappointed, grossed out but disappointed. So I seized the moment to reinforce good and healthy eating habits albeit with flavored milk. In the 2 1/2 years we've been milking our goat and drinking it (gasp) raw, we've had strawberry milk once (the other day) and chocolate maybe 3 times? Other than that it's milk, whole and raw, the way it was intended to be consumed. So anyway, I told him I was proud of his choice and that we could still have strawberry milk but with actual strawberries. I took them to the frozen food isle and grabbed a package of strawberries; the ones I had frozen last year were gone, had him check the ingredients: strawberries, placed them in the cart and went on about the rest of the shopping.
Here are our ingredients: whole, raw, cold, goat's milk, frozen strawberries, (slightly frosty, it was humid that day and I had to blog about this so I needed a picture... ;-) ) and organic agave, and oh a blender it whip it together.
I placed the milk in the blender, tossed in the berries and sweetened slightly with the agave and blended for 30 seconds maybe? The kids loved it and said it was better than the other "junk," Ron really enjoyed it as well, tasted great and took about the same amount if time (or less) it would have taken to make the 'other' stuff. So I say this as a challenge to you, think outside the box, take baby steps, make it from scratch with ingredients you know and can pronounce and and maybe we can create national health care reform! If it to be it is up to us! Will you join me?

So inspired...

..by Jamie Oliver. Crack on breva!

Last night I decided to open the cabinets and fridge and see what I could come up with that would be different and fresh instead of....well the usual. I came up with these crazy delicious wraps. I used a whole wheat wrap and spread some tangy goat cheese down the middle then laid on some sweet red onions on that. Good start, right? In the cabinet I had a jar of smoked and marinated roasted red peppers, hmm, ok let's julienne some of those and throw them in there. Beside the peppers was a jar of artichoke heart, I opened them and diced up a few and put them in too. And combined all of this with some fresh crisp mixed baby lettuce and for a little wet drizzled a bit of green goddess dressing down the center then rolled it up and popped it into my mouth. Delish! I made some for the kids and they were both in agreement that it tasted really good and that I'd certainly have to make them again.

"You'll never believe this, but your vegetarian dish was actually really good!"

The kids had a 4-H meeting the other night and it was s potluck type thing with guest speakers, being vegetarians I knew what we brought would likely be the only think we could eat - I was right! Ron once told me "you gotta know your audience" after making a salad for dinner at a friends house that went over like a lead balloon... I was asked to bring a "green salad" so I made a green salad - but when I looked at it in the bowl it looked so sad, so boring, just plain green... so I 'twisted' it up! I added fresh spinach, dried sweetened cranberries, mandarin oranges, slivered almonds, and red onion I believe. Then to co-ordinate with the white bowl it was in I topped it with some goat cheese and brought a green goddess dressing. It tasted awesome and looked so beautiful! My mistake was that I was preparing this for a meat 'n taters family and stretched them way out of their comfort zone, but it was good and we had lots of left overs... So I knew whatever I made for this would likely be eaten mostly by the kids and I because I was headed into that area of meat 'n taters kind of community but I knew my audience, my children and I love this dish so I made it for us - mostly... And I made it again just the other night as we love it so much... but this time I did make some meatballs for Ron to add to his plate. What you ask is this wonderful dish!? Well, I confess, it's not exactly my recipe, I saw a similar dish on the food network a while ago and tweaked it because I didn't exactly have all the ingredients but wanted to make it anyway. Huh, did you hear that my husband and sisters heads just exploded! Eh oh well, it's my kitchen... right?!

Well, it's a slightly Asian-ish dish, tastes like Chinese food, but without the MSG. First I made the meatballs which consisted of some of our fresh (but frozen then thawed ground pork) it was supposed to be hot sausage but that was gone.... so I had to punt! I added some cayenne pepper and paprika - Ron likes it hot and spicy, I think that's why he likes me! ;-)
I added some scallions, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, bread crumbs, ginger (maybe?), and some sesame seeds - I think that's all... mashed it all together and rolled it into a small meatball.

Heated up some oil in a pan, plopped them in rolled them around until they were done and set them aside to drain and wait for the other dish was ready.
In another large pot I cooked some spaghetti, just before it was done I dumped a half a bag of frozen sweet peas in the bottom of the colander I was going drain the spaghetti in so that the heat from the pasta would thaw and slightly cook the peas but still give them a bit of crunch to them. A great tip I learned from my mother-in-law. While that was draining I added to the pot I used to cook the spaghetti in a large scoop of creamy peanut butter, garlic (pressed) a couple cloves - we like keeping vampires away, nah, we just really like garlic! Some soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, vinegar, raw honey, sesame seeds, an orange bell pepper and some scallions. You do not cook this, just mix it together then add the spaghetti and peas.
Mixed all that together. Took out enough sauce to put on Ron's plate, added his spaghetti, without peas - he detests peas, mixed it all together and set aside for a minute. Then mixed the rest of it together and it looks something like this... This is what I took to the 4-H dinner and was told, "You're not going to believe this, but your vegetarian dish was actually really good!" I smiled and said thank you, and was told that she had to actually pick out all the vegetables, as she doesn't eat vegetables so really it was just the noodles and sauce that she liked, but that that was good. Then I had several other people tell me that they really liked it as well. I'm not really sure what they were expecting, I'm fairly certain that if vegetarian food were not delicious there wouldn't be any vegetarians.... but I'm glad they enjoyed it.

This is Ron's version, with the pork meatballs, he liked it too, but he also eats it with out the meat....

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.

Who knew food could make me this happy?

Ok, I'll admit it. Dunkin' Donuts is not officially on the Dave Ramsey plan, but sometimes a girl just needs a little nosh. Originally I went through the drive-through for a muffin, a (thankfully) limited time triple chocolate muffin, but was informed that they no longer carried them. So I opted for a bagel, the multi-grain one, they were out of that as well. Ugh! At this point one would have thought it was not in the cards for me but on no, stubborn me had to eat, so the guy listed all the kinds they had and the garlic bagel stuck out and sounded scrumptious, so I ordered it. They toasted it and put cream cheese on it for me too, YUM!

OH. MY. WORD.

This is the most delicious thing I've had in a long time! Now normally I'm one of those people who has a kitchen because it came with the house, not so much a fan of the cooking, just think how much more you could do or do without if you didn't have to cook.....

....ah, I imagine a day like that...

now back to reality, I have a family that enjoys eating, though I cannot figure out what it is about my cooking they like.

Other than having someone else prepare this for me I think my favorite thing about this is the crunchy garlic chopped up and spread all over the top. It's a very aromatic delight for the nose and my mouth which is watering for one right now! Combine the taste, crunch and warmth of this delicious bagel with a tall glass of Tazo organic iced tea and you've got a little piece of Heaven right here on Earth! Who knew a little slice of Heaven could be found right here on Earth or make me this happy?!

"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!!!

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!

thought for the day...

Kinda makes me think, 'Why are they spraying it on my food then?'

*This was a cover to a container of organic yogurt I bought.

**total brain misfire before the edit, oops!

good quote

"At some point you've got to stop being worried about what might, and be part of what is."

Jamie Oliver
Jamie Olivers Food Revolution

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.

A MUST see film!!!

Inspirational! Motivational! Informational! AMAZING!!! A must see movie! You cannot see this movie and do nothing.

A Turkish Proverb

"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love."

I agree.

Say Cheese!

What do you do with all that milk? It's a frequently asked question when the doe you're milking is producing a gallon a day and you have to decline an invitation to the movie because you have to be home to milk, again. Well, here at the farm we try to be good stewards of what we've been blessed with and that includes every drop of milk. To start off we skimmed the cream off the top of the milk to make butter. Since goats milk is naturally homogenized it takes a while before you get enough to make butter, but if you're patient and collect the cream daily it will happen. After that I think the obvious natural progression is cheese. I've made mozzarella, cherve and marinated mozzarella balls. I'm working on ice cream this weekend and will let you know how it turns out. Before I had a fresh source of milk I'd dabbled in soap making, now that I've got fresh milk daily I can (and do) make soap more frequently. Let me tell you there is nothing better on the market than homemade goat's milk soap. Try it you won't be sorry.

marinated mozzarella balls - our milk, dehydrated tomato, basil, thyme, chive and garlic. That's right folks all of that was grown or produced on our farm!

garlic & chive cherve - again, our milk, garlic and chives all produced here! (Crackers were from the store, I haven't made them, yet, it's on my list of things to try...)

fresh mozzarella - the milk was inside our goats udder this afternoon, does it get any fresher than that?