Yeast is not the easiest thing to work with when you’re a natural procrastinator (like me). When I make yeast dough, like pizza crust, I never give it enough time to rise properly, but with this recipe there is very little time needed for rising, so if I decide 30 minutes before supper to have a homemade pizza, I can with this quick and easy Parmesan pizza crust.
“The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power…the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”Nahum 1:3
This was the first time I made this peach cobbler. It was a combination of 3 or 4 other recipes that I had found. It turned out beautifully! I had 2 lbs. of peaches so I wish I had put this is in a larger pan and doubled the crust ingredients.
Ingredients:
1 stick of butter ¾ cup sugar
¾ cup flour ¾ cup milk
1 tsp. baking powder 5 medium peaches
¼ tsp. salt ¼ tsp. nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the stick of butter into a 2 qt. baking dish and place in oven until butter is melted.
Place the peaches into a small pot. Add 1 cup water and ¾ cup sugar. Cook on medium heat until syrupy. Remove from heat.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add sugar and milk to flour mixture until smooth.
Add this mixture to the 2 qt. baking dish when butter is melted.
Slowly add the peaches and syrup into the baking dish. Do not stir them after they are in the baking dish, because you will want the crust to rise to the top and cover the peaches.
Cook for 60 -75 minutes, checking often at the end.
At our church’s annual chili cook off, this chili came at the top. I know because I helped with the judging. The blue ribbon went to the wife of one of the judges (just sayin’).
2 lbs. ground beef
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. garlic salt
4 Tbs. chili seasoning
2 1/2 cups tomato sauce
1 (8 oz.) jar salsa
3 or 4 cups of leftover pinto beans
(or 2-15 oz. cans of light or dark red kidney beans, or chili beans)
Brown hamburger and drain off grease. Add pepper, garlic salt, and chili seasoning. Mix in the tomato sauce and the salsa. Bring to a low boil over medium heat. Cover and reduce heat. Simmer on low for at least 1 hour. Always better the next day.
For information on buying our beef, click >>HERE<<, or go to the Buying Beef tab at the top of this page.
Anyone ready for summer? I certainly am. I’m not only tired of the cold weather, but I’m also ready to refill my freezer.
I always get a little testy this time of year, because all I have left in my freezer is one-pound packages of ground beef.
Our steaks are usually eaten up before winter comes along, because we use them through the BBQ season, along with a lot of our hamburger patties (which we I gladly pay extra for). Then we go through the roasts and stew meats. And now we only have ground beef. I’ve often joked about writing a cookbook on 1,001 ways to cook ground beef, since we use it so often.
I really should be more thankful, since there have been times (when all the kids were home) when the freezer was completely bare before the next harvest. Fortunately, it won’t be long until I’m giving away all the extra liver, heart, and tongue we have left over from last year to make room for the beef for this year.
In fact, we are taking orders now for an expected delivery in June.
If you are interested in ordering any beef, please click >>>Here<<<, or the “Buying Beef“ tab at the top of the page.
Or request a beef by filling out our Contact Form.
March is the start of our spring calving season, and we have had six baby girls so far. Last year we had all bull calves, but this year looks like it’s going to be a heifer haven!
The Farmer has been wanting to get some new heifers to replace some of our old cows (we have a couple that are almost 14 years old). The problem of replacing old cows with new cows is that the ones we are wanting are twice as much as the ones we are selling.
But since it looks like we are going to have a bumper crop of heifers this year, we have decided to keep several heifer calves and replace one bull. Otis (our bull) has been a great addition to the farm. He throws some mighty nice calves, and he’s so gentle that the kids can walk up to him and pet him.
Sounds like a plan…we’ll see.
“I need a camera,” I informed The Farmer last November.
“I thought you had a good camera on your phone,” he reminded me.
“I do, but it doesn’t zoom far enough. I need a camera that zooms so I don’t have to get out in the cold and take pictures. Remember last year when the cow had her baby in the snow? I couldn’t get close enough to get a really good picture.”
I’m not sure he was truly convinced, but since it was right before Christmas, I had a really good chance of getting one. And I did. Doing the research, I got a great deal during the Black Friday sales (online, by the way).
And I’ve taken some great pics. I can sit in my sitting room and zoom in on the McD’s cup that is sitting on the counter and see the advertisement on the cup.
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| Can you see the cattle? |
Unfortunately, after I got the camera, I lost my muse for a time, because The Farmer hadn’t been doing much around the farm. Well, he has fed hay, and scraped the feed lot, and fixed waterers, and shoveled snow, and chopped ice on the pond, but it was too cold for me to get outside, and too far away from the porch for me to take pictures. Until the other day when he went out to spread red clover on the pastures.
We re-seed our red clover in our pastures every couple of years, because it’s the natural way to put nitrate back into the ground (nitrate helps the grasses grow). A good time to spread seed is while the snow is on the ground, and right before spring thaw. Since the weather seemed to be cooperating, you can imagine how excited I was to find out The Farmer was going to go do something I could take pictures of and write about. I was also silently hoping to take a video.
Hurrying to get my coat and boots on, I rushed out the door just in time to take a picture of The Farmer pulling away. “Click” (always take two) “Click.”
Walking along trying to adjust the zoom, I all of sudden found myself lying flat on my back, with a cracked elbow, rattled teeth, and a throbbing backside! The only thing that I was aware of was the fact that I threw my camera as I went down. As I lay there getting my bearings, my rendezvous with The Farmer was forgotten. Completely unnoticed by him, I hobbled into the house to access the damage, and was thankful to realize that nothing was broken. Later, retelling the story to The Farmer, I was amazed to find how much concern he had for my camera. I assured him that I too had come away unscathed.
Later, as I was again walking outside (being more watchful this time), I thought about how quickly my world was “turned up-side down.” How I was going through the motions of my day, thinking, planning, doing, and then in a split-second my feet were gone from out from under me and I was lying helpless on the ground. All my thoughts, plans, and motions had been changed to something completely different with that one small slip on the ice.
Jonathan Edwards (a 18th century preacher during America’s Great Awakening) spoke of this very thing in his well-known sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He used Deuteronomy 32:35 as his text, “…their foot shall slide in due time.”
His sermon can be read here >>Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God , or you can listen to a reenacted version >>HERE<<. It’s a long read, but it is so worth the time it takes.
I was reminded of his key statement, “…their foot shall slide in due time.” When I slid on the ice, there was no warning, no flashing lights, no sounding alarms, and no stopping once I began to fall. My feet slipped and gravity took me down.
Edwards compares this with life on this earth and eternity. We all are walking around thinking about our plans and what we’ll be doing tomorrow and the next day, but none of us are promised tomorrow. No one is ever guaranteed more than the second in which we are living in right now.
All of us are one split-second away from eternity. And once that journey begins, all of our thoughts, plans, and motions will cease on this side of eternity. In a lot of cases, it comes without warning; a health issue, an accident, etc., and then we are on the other side of eternity.
Several years ago I made a very conscious decision to place Christ on the throne of my life. In God’s word He told me that I had offended Him; that I was an enemy of His, because I had been born into sin (we all have). And God cannot, and will not, associate with sin.
I read that God desired for me to be adopted into His family for eternity. He said that He had already paid for my sins that I had committed, and the sins that I wasn’t even aware of, because Christ took the punishment on the cross that was meant for me. And although Christ had taken on the sins of the whole world, there was still something I had to do to make this gift of salvation mine. I had to accept it. The work was done, the gift was given, the relationship between a holy God and an unrighteous people had been reconciled, but until I personally accepted His Gift of forgiveness, I could not be reconciled with God. We could never have a relationship unless I acted on His gift. And I did when I was 21 years old.
However, if God would not have sustained me, if He would not have had mercy to keep my feet on solid ground, if I would have slipped into eternity before I had accepted this Gift, my eternity would have been full of darkness, agony, and total separation from God.
Being a Christian is more than a religion to me, it’s the fulfillment of my purpose in life. It’s the reason I was created, and it’s the reason I wanted to share this with you. I’m not being trite when I ask, but have you been reconciled to God? Have you made a choice to follow God’s law and trust in His gift of eternal life made available to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I truly hope you have.
When I had questions about eternity, I found my answers in God’s Word. Reading the books of John, Romans, and Psalms answered a lot of my questions. I hope it helps you, too.
“…God commendeth (demonstrates) his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life…”
“We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”
Romans 5:8-11
What’s for supper?” or lunch or dinner or breakfast or snack?!
I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard those words?
Although the question is viable, it gets so tiring hearing it.
By the time my husband or my kids ask me for the nth time, I’ve already been asking myself over and over.
You would think coming up with meal ideas would get easier as the years go by, but sometimes it seems to get harder and harder.
I’ve often thought about writing down about 30 meal ideas and just going back over them every month. Actually, isn’t that what most of us do? We probably don’t have 30 meal idea, but maybe 10 or so favorite meals we stick to all the time.
Here’s my list:
1. hamburgers and fries
2. roast beef and mashed potatoes
3. chicken quesadillas
4. tacos
5. spaghetti and garlic bread
6. beans and cornbread
7. meatloaf and green beans
8. vegetable beef soup
9. chili and dogs
…Nope, I can only think of 9.
Oh!
10. Pizza!! Our family’s favorite.
Ok. So 10 meals, mostly beef related (we raise cattle), and most of them I can fix on the fly.
Wait…
11. Chicken and dumplings
12. Cube steaks and mashed potatoes
13. Cowboy Ranch Beans
14. Chicken Fettuccini
15. and something I just recently started fixing– BBQ Ribs from amazingribs.com (and they are amazing!)
At any rate, coming up with ideas, and remembering meal plans is always a struggle. But with this section on Life With A Farmer, I plan to load all my recipes and ideas.
I would love to hear from others, and share your recipes, meal ideas, cooking techniques, and family traditions concerning food, here on Life With A Farmer.
If you would like to contribute a recipe or idea, first you’ll need to sign up to become a member of this blog (completely free) >> HERE << . Then, shoot me an email, and we will get you on here.
If you have a blog started already, you can promote your little heart out. Just make sure your advice helps someone else who may be hearing…
“Hey Ma, what’s for supper?”
Recently, my mother-in-law passed away after a short bout with cancer. Up to that point in her life, she had always been healthy. At age 86, she didn’t take any medications, and she would walk 2 miles a day—Monday through Friday (on Saturday if the weather was really pleasant).
Often her daughters would come over and walk with her, and she would always encourage me to walk with her, also. Being her next-door neighbor was a good enough reason to do it, but I always had an excuse: I was too busy, too tired, too grumpy, too lazy (probably the real reason). At one point I justified not walking with her because I didn’t want to get too attached to her.
Judge me if you must, but this reasoning came after her sister had passed away. For years, every morning between 7:00 and 7:30, she and her sister would call each other just to talk and check up on one another. After her sister passed, I saw the pain and loneliness that my mother-in-law had felt for her sibling, and I made a conscience decision that I didn’t want to suffer that.
Knowing that she was a bit older than I, I assumed she would go before me and I was preparing myself emotionally (some psychologist out there can work on that if they need to). But when I began to reason within myself, I saw this for what it was…just another excuse (a twisted one perhaps).
Eventually, I began to walk daily with her. She encouraged me, prodded me on, and took it easy on me those first few days while I adjusted to her walking pace. Actually, she was just recovering from a cold that she had harbored for several weeks, so she was only walking one mile a day in the beginning, and I was able to keep up with her (wow, that’s pretty sad, since I’m 43 years younger)
After several months of walking, talking, griping, and laughing together, she found out that she had a very aggressive form of cancer and was given 4 to 6 months to live. But like everything else she faced in life, she stayed strong, faithful, and level-headed. She got her house in order and began telling her kids how she wanted everything done. She planned out her own funeral, took care of all of her financial business, pretty much decided who was going to get what, and assured us all that she would be okay, because she had accepted Christ as her Savior and she knew her final destination (although we already knew this, because it showed in her everyday life).
My mother-in-law was many things; loving, giving, faithful, energetic, stubborn and proud. When she became too weak to walk with me, she still encouraged (and threatened) me to keep on walking for my health. And I did, mainly because there was a need for someone to stop in each day and help her with some meds (it kept me accountable).
She was a strong woman and wasn’t used to being helped out. But eventually, the cancer made it impossible for her to be by herself. We kids began taking turns staying with her, and my fear of becoming too close became my reality. We spent weeks doing ordinary stuff for her; talking with her, reminiscing with her, eating with her, watching TV with her, and just being with her.
And now I find myself missing her in the ordinary—when I walk past her house, Sunday afternoons, eating candy bars and drinking sodas, watching Matlock, and a hundred other things that became daily routines. So many things, that I couldn’t begin to list, and no one else would understand, because they are just my memories.
