Backyard Farmgals

Confession: I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet.  Which is a good thing and a bad thing.  It is hard!  Not just because you crave sugar, but because everything  has sugar hidden in it.  So almost everything has to be homemade.  I cook a lot anyway and have been off sugar before, but I miss a few things (uhem... chocolate...).  I feel better, I have a lot more energy and I sleep so much better which is great! With all this no sugar stuff, I am constantly looking for creative and healthy things to make in the kitchen.  A recipe that I ran across this week was for crispy sweet potatoes from Smitten Kitchen .  I love sweet potatoes anyway, so I thought I would give this a try.  It was wonderful!  The hubby loved it and the kids even gobbled it up.  I love that the tops of the slices get crispy, it gives so much texture to a normally mushy veggie.  I thought with Thanksgiving here this week, it might be a healthy ...

I made the cutest little sets of hand warmers for our neighbors this year, I had to share.  These are super easy to make, I can bust out about 60 in a day of sewing, and I am NOT fast! I went to the fabric store and got pre-cut fabric squares that were 5-inches by 5-inches.  I sewed them, wrong sides together with a 1-inch seam, leaving a small opening on one end.   I then used a small funnel to fill the bags nearly full of rice, pinned the opening and then went back to the sewing machine and sewed the opening shut.  Easy-peesy! I took a pair of pinking shears and trimmed 1/2-inch off the edges all the way around, so the finished bag was 4-inches square (there should be 1/2-inch between the fabric edge and the seam).  Then, stacked them in piles of four warmers and tied them with twine.  I attached a little note on the top with heating instructions: To warm: heat in microwave for 30 seconds, drop in mittens to stay toasty-warm ...

We have a local chocolate shop near us that makes the most delicious caramel popcorn.  Gooey and sweet, it's hard to stop once you start into the pile of caramel goodness.  I set out to somewhat mimic their recipe, not exact, but it is still marvelously addictive.  The secret is not letting the caramel get too hot, just below soft-ball stage is where you want to be.  I admit, it took me a few trial runs to discover this, and a garbage can full of popcorn.  Some things have to be done right. This is so far from my normal Christmas cookie madness.  I have found I have to be in the right mood to make them well.  A very dear friend of mine tragically died on Thanksgiving afternoon and it has thrown me for a loop.  I have had a hard time making my way back to my crazed cookie-baking self.  It will come back with time.  For now, it's caramel popcorn finding it's way out my door (thank heaven it is going out... too tempting) with a sm...

Christmas cookie season is here!  Oh, the butter laden joy!!!  I love baking for the holidays, and every year we make an assortment of cookies to give to our favorite people.  We start a few weeks before Christmas baking and freezing until the freezer is stuffed and our hearts are full.  We bake some old favorites and some new finds.  My little farmhands get into it.  They love sampling and are the first to offer their opinion of what should stay on the list of recipes for next year.  They love delivering the cookies to friends and family, spreading Christmas cheer. This is a recipe right out of the new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.  I love Smitten Kitchen.  I have followed this blog for years, and now I get to thumb through the delicious pages in the first cookbook.  These are called Brownie Roll-out Cookies in the book, and they really do taste like little slices of brownie.  Instead of cutting them into rounds, we went for st...

I am gonna let y'all in on a little secret, just for Thanksgiving.  I have this great and easy way of making green beans that will melt your pants off!  Did I say that out loud?  Wow!  These couldn't be more simple.  The recipe is more about taste than exact measurements (which is how I really cook all the time - recipes are just suggestions).  You've just gotta taste 'em and feel it out, see if it's just right.  I'll give you some guidelines and you go from there, deal? These have garlic, butter, dill and almonds.  Great flavors combined with really fresh and crunchy green beans equals delicious.  I made these in mass quantity for a teacher appreciation dinner for my son's school and they were a hit!  I snuck a scoop of them for my lunch, don't tell, they will take it off my required volunteer time.  But, they go great with turkey, or lasagna, or almost anything.  Just pile me up some on a plate... who needs a main c...

It's raining, my house is clean, kids are napping, laundry is folded, bread is baking in the oven.  I love days like this.  The only thing missing is chocolate!!!  Sooo... I made this lovely little chocolate pie to fill the void and make the perfect Saturday. This pie recipe came from a farm magazine that I love: Hobby Farm .  The magazine has great information for small farmer's like me.  Over the course of it's publication, I have learned a lot about farm animals, composting, crops, and it has some delicious recipes.  You can find it at larger farm stores and large booksellers should have it in the periodical section. This is fairly simple to make.  The filling isn't baked, but the eggs have to be tempered.  Go slowly and stir like mad when tempering to avoid scrambled eggs in your filling.  Don't rush the process, add a little milk at a time.  The crust is what I think makes the pie.  I love the almonds.  I am a n...

I spent the day weeding.  Spurge has crept into the corn rows and exploded into a mass green carpet of weedyness (is that a word?) overnight.  The heat helps the spurge to grow, and it's hot, dang hot!  This is our 34th day without precipitation, and you can feel the dryness creeping in.  The entire Mountain West is on fire and the news headlines are all about smoke and flames.  You can hardly find anything else to talk about, think about, dream about.  I have taken to praying, dancing, chanting, and meditating for rain.  So far, my efforts have been overlooked by that higher power that decides if I have made enough of a fool of myself to send the relief of rain.  I must be amusing to watch, that's why no rain... I am the entertainment!!! With the heat and the smoke, I decided to whip up a cool and refreshing little tart tonight.  This is honestly as easy as it gets.  Five ingredients, a quick (and I mean quick) bake in the ov...

I had leftover Ginger Grapefruit Curd...perish the thought!  What to do with it?  Too divine to let it go to waste, and an irritating reminder of my lack of motivation every time I opened the refrigerator (if only there were 36 hours in a day, right?).  I had a wonderful idea to use it in a braided bread that I have made a few times before, and it turned out beautifully... This would be a great Easter brunch bread.  It is light and the citrus and ginger are very refreshing and bright.  I borrowed the idea of this bread from Smitten Kitchen , a fabulous site based in New York.  Mrs. Smitten Kitchen has a much more exciting life than I do... but then, she doesn't have a mini horse, so I guess we are even!  Really, she is a very sophisticated cook and her site is beautiful, check it out, you will probably fall head over heels for it, just like I did a few years ago. This is a simple recipe, don't let yourself get intimidated by the braiding and ...

I had to share these, they are so cute!!!  I made them for our bonfire tonight.  Frosty the snowman sugar cookies, bundled up in a blue scarf, ready for the celebration.  I had so much fun making these.  Give me a tube of butter and sugar with an array of colors to play with, and I can be happily occupied for hours!  Really these only took about an hour of my time last night.  These would be so cute for a New Year's party! His body is piped with a large round tip, his hat used a slightly smaller round tip.  Eyes and mouth are done with the same tip as the hat.  Buttons are done with a small star tip.  His warm blue scarf is piped with a flat 1/2-inch tip and his nose is squiggled on with a very small round tip.  Really easy and the design is so uncomplicated, even I can do it!!!  That should tell you how easy it is!!! Hope you all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!  Be sure to tell those around you how much you l...

Every Christmas Eve, we make a big bonfire and sit around it telling Christmas stories, reading the scriptural account of Jesus' birth, roasting homemade marshmallows, eating sugar cookies, and sipping hot chocolate.  We stay up as late as the kids want, then it's tub time and off to bed so that Santa can come.  We started this little tradition a few years ago.  Everyone in our extended family either has to work or has some kind of Christmas party on the 24th.  We were always alone on Christmas Eve, so we created something that we could do to have fun and be together as a family.  I love having a unique family tradition, and I hope that my kids grow up to remember Christmas Eve as something that was always fun and really special. Since we are talking traditions, have you ever had a homemade marshmallow?  These are a tradition at our house every Christmas.   Ohhhhhhhhhh.......baby!!!  They are incredible!  These are soft and liter...