Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

These are pretty good; hubby likes them, and a couple of people have requested the recipe, so without further ado (except to add a note or two) here is the recipe: (Note #1: You can make these with whatever ground meat you wish, I presume, just season it a bit more.) (Note #2: I didn't have seasoned bread crumbs, so I used plain and sprinkled on some oregano and savory...it was really good.) Parmesan Pork Zucchini Boats Ingredients 4 Medium zucchini 1 lb. Bulk pork sausage 1 Small onion, chopped 1 Garlic clove, minced 2/3 cup Seasoned bread crumbs 1/2 cup Plus 2 tbsp. shredded Parmesan cheese, divided 1 Egg, beaten 1/4 tsp. Salt 1/2 cup Water Preparation Cut each zucchini in half lengthwise. Scoop out seeds and pulp, leaving a 1/4 inch shell; set aside. Chop pulp; set aside. In a large skillet, cook sausage and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add garlic and zucchini pulp; saute for 3-5 minutes or until tender. Remove from the heat. Stir in the bread crum...

This is not what I was going to blog about today, but by popular demand here is this recipe. It's the kind of thing you can throw together fairly quickly using stuff you have in your pantry. Ellen, aged 2.75 years, loves to help measure and stir this, so it's a good one to make with kids as well. If you are new here to this blog, pardon how boring everything else is. I have been blogging every day for 2 months straight now and am having trouble being interesting. If you want something interesting or something to laugh at go to one of the posts from the past at the right. I need to add a couple of my bull stories over there someday, those are fun too! Ha. Without further ado: Can't Leave Alone Bars (From Vera's Family Favorites -an Amish cookbook) 1 yellow cake mix 2 eggs 1/3 cup oil 1/2 stick butter (or margarine) 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1-14 oz can sweetened condensed milk Combine cake mix, eggs and oil; reserve 1/2 cup. Press remaining mixture into 9x3" pa...

Peanut Butter ‘N’ Jelly Cake ½ cup butter, softened ¼ cup peanut butter 1-½ cups sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 3 teaspoons baking powder 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup milk Frosting ¼ cup butter, softened ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon peanut butter 1-¾ teaspoons vanilla extract 3 cups confectioners’ sugar 4-6 tablespoons milk ¾ cup grape jelly In large mixing bowl cream butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add sugar, mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well with each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; add to peanut butter mixture alternately with milk. Pour into 2 greased/floured 9-inch round baking pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pans to wire racks to cool completely. For frosting; in mixing bowl cream butter and peanut butter. Add vanilla, confectioners’ sugar and enough milk to achieve spreading consistency. Place one cake layer on servin...

Hubby says I ought to blog about what we had for supper last night. So I will. I baked some chicken breasts; just sprinkled a bit of onion soup mix over them and chucked them in the oven 'til done. It's a quick meat dish when you don't want to fuss. Then I tried something new; a wax bean soup. It's easy and turned out pretty good. I will attach the recipe at the bottom. I grew some wax beans this year, unbeknownst to hubby. He seemed to like the soup, but said the wax tasted funny. *sigh* He has a sense of humor that must be endured rather than enjoyed at times. He's been hauling hay off and on this past week, so yesterday he comes in with some tomatoes and green peppers the hay guy had given him. I sliced them up. We also had sliced cukes and onions (also homegrown) in salt/vinegar water, which is how hubby likes them served. Oh, and at the last minute hubby brought in some corn on the cob he'd just picked from his mom's garden. Hubby was pleas...

Here's a recipe to use up any extra zucchini that you may have on hand this time of year. Zucchini Brownies ¼ C margarine or butter 1 ½ C sugar 2 Tbs cocoa 2 eggs 2 C flour 1 tsp salt ½ tsp soda 2 C peeled, ground or shredded zucchini 1 C chocolate chips ½ C nuts-optional Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, cream; add zucchini and beat again. Add flour, salt, soda and cocoa. Place in a greased 9x13 inch pan. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until it tests done. Grass Seed There isn't too terribly much going on in the dairy department. Last week hubby happened across a fellow who was combining in a neighboring field to get the grass seed. Hubby told him to come and try the dry cow field if he wanted. The Seed Guy does this on shares; 50/50. So he came and tried it.. In a field of about 20 acres he got just a wee tad over 1,000 pounds of seed, 700 pounds of which were good grass seeds. That blew me away. How could grass seeds...

here's a great recipe I stumbled onto last year. When I get the time I visit Homesteading Today and pick up some great tips and recipes from their cooking and recipe forums. They are a nice bunch. Freezer Dills: 6 cups thinly sliced cucumbers (I sliced mine paper-thin last time...will make thicker this year) 1 large onion, sliced thinly 3 Tbs. pickling salt1 cup sugar 1 cup white vinegar 3 cloves of garlic, minced 3 Tbs. dill weed 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper (optional-I didn't use it because we don't like spicy stuff much.) Mix cukes & onion together and set aside. Combine sugar, salt, vinegar, garlic, dill, and red pepper. Stir until all sugar is dissolved. Add mixture to cukes. Mix well. Pack into freezer bags, squeeze out as much air as possible. Place in freezer. When ready to eat – thaw in refrigerator. Last year I packed them into pint sized bags, then when I took a bag out of the freezer, I let thaw and then emptied into a pint jar and kept it in the fridge. Hubb...

Since he didn't download in the previous post; here is Larry the cucumber, as jel dubbed him. But I don't think he's really any relation to the REAL Larry the Cuke from Veggie Tales. Well, maybe a very distant cousin. I did 7 more quarts of green beans yesterday, bringing my total up to 21 quarts. There is still more out there in the patch, I am thinking I will probably be able to get another canner full this coming week. Funnily enough I haven't much felt like having green beans for supper for the past few days, I can't imagine why.... The following is my favorite cookie recipe. I have only tried it once, but it won my approval from the first bite. Hubby loved them too. If I have one weakness in the cookie department it is for the good quality shortbread cookies you can sometimes find around the holidays. These, made at home with no preservatives, win my vote hands down; especially because they are so easy. Also, I intend on varying the toppings the next time I ...

By request here is the cake recipe.... For the cake, use one box dark chocolate cake mix (or, if you prefer, a from-scratch equivalent) and bake in 3 round cake pans. (I baked them for only about 20 minutes.) Let cool completely then level off the cakes. Filling: 8 oz cream cheese, softened. 1 packed cup brown sugar. Cream these together until smooth, then add 1 and 1 half cups thawed Cool Whip. Use this between each layer of the cake and smooth, smooth, smooth the edges. (This is what I did: I didn't know if this filling was just supposed to be used between the layers ONLY or to also FROST the outside of the cake so I put in extra whipped topping and frosted as well as filled the cake, because I am NOT good enough to make the filling really smooth on the edges.) Then you put the cake in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Chocolate Glaze: Melt 4 oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate (I used semisweet once, I don't think it matters too much) and mix well with 3 cups powder...

Sourdough Bread 7 cups bread flour or all purpose flour-divided (*see my note below on making dough) 2 cups warm water (105 degrees F-110 degrees F) 1 cup sourdough starter 1 ½ packages active dry yeast 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons sugar 2 tablespoons cornmeal (if you don’t have cornmeal, just regular flour will do OK in a pinch) Making the Dough In a large bowl, using an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook and set on medium speed, combine 2 cups flour, water, sourdough starter, yeast, salt and sugar; beat for 2 minutes. (I just use a wire whisk to start out with, then as the dough gets thicker, graduate to a wooden spoon, or whatever else “feels” right at the time. I tried using an electric mixer and dough hook and couldn’t keep the dough from crawling up the hook into the mixer. Maybe I need more practice) With the mixer on low, add 2 cups more flour, a little at a time, until combined. Increase speed to high; beat until smooth and sticky, about 3 minutes longer. With the mixer o...