Something to consider.
Shabbat Shalom!
tauna
Monthly Archives: January 2015
Pancakes at Refuge!
Tia’s Terrific Tummy Satisfying Pancakes and Organic Oat bran pancakes for supper (tea) tonight at Refuge Ministries in Mexico, Missouri.
Probably everyone already uses this little trick, but i just today thought of it: use the boiled egg slicer to slice the strawberries. Wow, fast and easy!
Toppings for the pancakes
Maple syrup
coconut flakes
dairy whipped cream
pecans
blueberries
strawberries
powdered sugar
Harvest jam
Pumpkin butter
butter
corn syrup
Cheers!
tauna
PS
Yes, there will still be cucumbers
Tia’s Terrific Tummy Satisfying Pancakes
4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons baking powder
4 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla
3-4 cups milk (it’s up to you for desired thickness)
Combine dry ingredients, then add liquid ingredients stirring just until moistened. Pour onto hot griddle turning when bubbles form on top and bottom is light brown. Cook just until done. Don’t overcook. I like them somewhat raw. Top with butter and syrup, jam, applesauce, or fruit. This recipe makes about 30 six-inch pancakes. Yum!
Easy Hamburger Buns
The chooks (laying hens) practically stopped laying eggs this winter, so bread making had to be adjusted. This super easy and relatively quick recipe is officially to make burger buns, but creativity can turn them into hot dog buns, loaf bread, or slice thin and broil with cheese and/or garlic butter or make mini-pizzas. Cut smaller rounds for cocktail buns. Recipe modified from the original found in the very helpful “Dining On A Dime” cookbook.
Try to use homegrown, local, or organic ingredients whenever possible. There are several search sites online to help you find sources near your home.
Easy Hamburger Buns
5-6 cups flour (preferably unbleached white and/or stone ground – using 100% stone-ground can affect how high the buns rise)
2 pkgs or 2 Tablespoons yeast
1 cup milk (organic or local, real (raw) from cows grazing on pasture)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup oil ( i use olive oil if i use oil, but mostly i use home made applesauce)
1/4 cup sugar (organically grown cane to avoid GMO)
1 Tablespoon salt (Real salt)
butter, melted (same as milk)
Stir together 2 cups flour and yeast. In a saucepan over medium, heat milk, water, oil, sugar, and salt to very warm (120ºF-130ºF/50ºC-55ºC). Add liquid all at once to flour mixture Beat until smooth (about 2 minutes) on medium speed with electric mixer or 300 strokes by hand. Add enough additional flour to make a soft dough; mix well. Let rest 10 minutes. Roll out on a well-floured surface to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with 3-inch round cutter (or rim of glass). Place rounds on greased baking sheets. Let rise in warm place (80ºF/27ºC) for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 425ºF (230ºC) and bake 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Brush melted butter on the tops whilst still warm. Make 12-20 buns. (depending on how thick you cut them). For burger buns, I like at least 15, otherwise it’s just more bread than one needs to make a nice sandwich.
Substitutions and ideas:
I use 1/2 cup of prepared applesauce instead of olive oil.
Add 1/2 cup of ground seeds (i’ve used chia, but flax, sesame, or hemp would likely work as well)
Try 1/2 and 1/2 with unbleached white flour and stone-ground whole wheat.
I warm the oven for about 10 minutes, then turn it off and place the buns inside to rise. However, this slows down the process, because they need to be taken out before preheating the oven for baking.
Enjoy!
tauna
Brush and Trash
Just two days before my sons and I left for Scotland on 12 September, our area received over 10 inches of rain in about 12 hours! What a nightmare! ALL of our watergaps were washed out and in some low lying areas, fences were laying almost flat to the ground. My husband and Christian got to stay home and do all the cleanup.
With that in mind, it is time I try to keep some of the big dead logs and rotted stuff from being washed down into a massive water gap that is on the eastern edge of my farm. This ditch catches all the water from my place plus a good deal of the runoff from the row crop farmers to the north as well as runoff from Cotton Road. My southern neighbour’s property also has a good deal of runoff in this ditch, so it doesn’t take much of a rain to really get things rolling, but 10 inches in 12 hours is a mess!
Dallas and I have been working at clearing this week and since there are very few days in north Missouri that the wind lays enough to start brush fires, we coveyed up and set three today. Although it was a bit nippy and no sun, working in the shelter of the timber with no wind the temperature was about perfect.
Biscuit Topped Italian Casserole
Time to clean out the frig! There were some leftover green beans, but i added another 10 oz bag, had some organic carrots that were starting to get soft, so sliced them thinly to steam. Browned 1 1/2 lbs of home-grown grass finished ground beef, added about a cup of organic chopped onions and let simmer. Earlier, I had thawed out an ice cream bucketful of cooked tomatoes I had cooked up from tomatoes friends and neighbours had given us last summer, so that needed using. All the players fell into place to make this dish and it is one of our favourites.
Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 lbs grass-fed ground beef
1/2 cup organic chopped onion
15 ounces or so of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce or juice – whatever you have
20 ounces total of green beans or carrots, or okra, peas, whatever – although we don’t particularly like broccoli in this dish
Stir in about 1 cup of shredded mozzarella
Salt and pepper to taste
Heat together and simmer until thickened consistency, then pour into an 8×13 inch baking dish. After arranging biscuits and cheese on top, bake at 350ºF for 27 minutes.
Adjust ingredients to match your crews’ hunger level!
Biscuits
1 3/4 cup of flour
1/3 cup organic butter
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon Real salt
Mix these together, then add about 3/4 cup of milk from grass fed cows to make a soft dough. Roll out thinner than usual, then cut and arrange on top of casserole as pictured (or just however you want to – make a smiley face!). Then scatter another cup or so of your favourite cheese and sprinkle with oregano.
Scotland and Steak
“Scotland is a pretty country. The roads are so winding that they seem designed to ensure a maximally scenic experience, and the fields are greener than in most other places by orders of magnitude. They are also pleasantly irregular, having been parceled off in an age before right angles, and are separated by fences hewed out of rock or long and commendably trim hedges. A knight in armor on horseback would look less out of place on a Scottish road than a car does. But what would look most natural of all is a golf cart. The entire country is a vision of the golfing afterlife, with epic stretches of fairway and rough, and the odd clump of forest for texture. Fields stretch out to the horizon, covering the rises in the land the way a taut blanket covers an uprise of toes. Looking skyward, you have the feeling that the hand of God might plunge through the cloud cover to stroke all that dewy pasture like an old woman patting a cat.”
an apt description by author Mark Schatzker in his book, STEAK.
Potato Abortion
The potatoes are getting soft and eyes are sprouting – I cut out the eyes and throw them in the bin for the chooks. They could have had life!!! The potatoes are quartered and thrown into a pot of boiling water, along with their skins…..
Milk leftover this week, so it is potato soup with cheese and broccoli for lunch today.
Never let food go to waste. Get creative.
