Tour of Fifty States: Alabama's meal

Menu: Barbecued Chicken served with White Barbecue Sauce, Creamed Corn, Cheese Biscuits, Blackberry Cobbler
Outcome:  First, we didn't have the cobbler.  I forgot to buy the frozen blackberries!  It's a dessert that we will make in the future; I may just wait until the fresh ones are available.  The white BBQ sauce is surprisingly very good!  I doubt if I will give up my beloved SC mustard BBQ sauce, but this is quite tasty.  If you have a Jim 'N Nick's BBQ restaurant near you, you just have to try their cheese biscuits.  They are simply heavenly and the "copycat" recipe I found on the internet is perfect.  Very easy to whip up and very light and fluffy, like muffins.
Next up:  Bridget's turn!  She chose South Carolina!  Woohoo!

Alabama's meal

Tour of Fifty States: Georgia's meal

The meal for Georgia, sadly, was on 11/14 of 2015!  Just after that was Ben's, followed by the girls' birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas!  it seems we are busy all of the time and I just haven't been able to write up my blog posts!

Ah, well...here's the original Georgia writeup, which will VERY soon be followed by two more states!

This week’s meal was from Georgia…Southern food galore!  What could be more Southern than fried chicken, mashed taters,  and gravy???

Menu:  Southern Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes with Gravy, Corn on the cob, Peach Pound Cake

Outcome:  Well, I have to say this honestly -- there is a REASON that KFC, Popeyes, Bojangles, Church's, Bi-lo, Walmart, etc. sell fried chicken:  I don't do a very good job of it.  I love fried chicken, but I either mess with it too much while it's cooking, or it's not cooked correctly. Maybe it's their deep fryers or pressure cookers or whatever.   I have officially made my very last batch of fried chicken.  I will continue to buy it!  (Church's is the best in my opinion,)

As I was impatiently and repeatedly turning the chicken pieces (LOL) I heard this loud bleating coming from the pasture.  Knowing something was wrong, I turned off the burner, moved the skillet, and dashed outside to find Miss Gracie (the younger goat) with her head stuck in the fence.  She'd grown just a little too much and she could no longer get her horns through the fence wires to get to whatever she wanted on the other side.  After I freed her, I returned to the fried chicken to find it .... well, let's just call it "dark brown".  I did serve it, with profuse apologies.  Oh, and the mashed potatoes were boxed.  Sometimes you have to improvise!

The Peach Pound Cake was very, very good (I used frozen peaches.)  I can't wait until next summer when I can make it with fresh ones!

Next up:  Bill's turn! He chose Alabama!  Stay tuned til 2016...

Tour of Fifty States: Missouri's meal

This week’s meal was from Missouri.  The state that is just about in the center of the US certainly has some unique foods.   The rest of the county serves round pizza “pies” that are cut into triangles whether New York style or Chicago style.  The definitive characteristics of St. Louis-style pizza are a very thin crust made without yeast, the use of Provel cheese, and pizzas cut into squares or rectangles instead of wedges.

All of us are familiar with ravioli and we most often see it served with red sauce, Alfredo, or simply melted butter.  However, in Missouri, the ravioli are fried or “toasted.”  The first toasted ravioli seems to have been made in the 1950s at a restaurant called Angelo Oldani's on the Hill, the Italian neighborhood where both Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola grew up.  According history, it happened this way: ''Angelo was busy and told a new assistant, a German cook, to prepare the ravioli. He had a pan of boiling hot oil on the stove, and the cook thought it was supposed to be for the ravioli, so he dropped them into the oil.'' When Mr. Oldani saw what had happened, he tried to salvage the ravioli by brushing on some grated cheese. The result was local history.

The dessert famous in Missouri is the Gooey Butter Cake, which originated in the 1930s. According to legend, a German baker added the wrong proportions of ingredients in the coffee cake batter he was making. It turned into a gooey, pudding-like filling.

Menu:  St. Louis Style Pizza, St. Louis Toasted Ravioli, Gooey Butter Cake

Outcome:  Well….with the above descriptions of the food, we thought it would be an amazing meal.  We were less than thrilled, however.  The pizza crust recipe -- as written -- states that it will make two 12” pies.  Oh no, not for me!  I rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled and could barely get one 12” oddly shaped crust that was literally paper thin.  So I made a second batch of the dough and had the same results.  The recipe for the sauce says that it is enough for four 12” pies but it adequately covered the two that I made.  We really liked the (imitation) “Provel” cheese blend – the liquid smoke kicked it up a notch.  Real Provel isn’t sold outside of St. Louis, except by mail order and I didn’t want 5 pounds of it, so I went with the substitution.  When we ate the pizza that night, it was super crispy and it was  like eating pizza on a cracker – but the crust just didn’t have a bit of flavor and reminded us of cardboard.  (Next day’s reheating of the leftovers made the crust a soggy gooey mess.)  Sad to say it, but it was an overall thumbs down on the pizza. 

As for the toasted ravioli, I opted to “oven-fry” the breaded ravioli instead of deep-frying them.  NORMALLY when I put food like breaded chicken breasts on a cookie sheet and spray it with cooking spray, it will crisp up and get nice and golden brown.  Not the ravioli…it just couldn’t develop a good crust.  So it as well was just lackluster.

Moving on to the dessert… the Gooey Butter Cake is AWESOME.  Outstanding.  Fabulous.  Scrumptious. Super yummy!  Bill said that I don’t ever ever need to make another kind of cake again.  It was THAT good.  The edges were crisp and chewy, and the center had a creamy, gooey, cheesecake-like texture that was so very, very good.  A real winner! 

Next up:  Brandi’s turn! She chose Georgia!

Missouri's meal

Tour of Fifty States: Arizona's meal

This week’s meal was from Arizona.  A couple of weeks ago, we had our state meal from New Mexico, but as I’ve learned, the cuisines are pretty distinct.   New Mexican cuisine is known for its dedication to the chile (the official "state question" is "Red or green?" which refers to the preferred color of chiles) and plentiful corn tortillas.   Arizona's style of cuisine is often called Sonoran after the Mexican state of Sonora that Arizona borders to the south.   During the Mexican Revolution in 1910, thousands of Sonorans fled to Arizona. Because of this, a lot of “Mexican” cooking in Arizona reflects Sonoran cuisine. For instance, in Sonora wheat is a common grain, so wheat tortillas are eaten more frequently in Arizona than corn tortillas. The state’s cuisine also includes Native American customs, such as harvesting fruits from cacti like the saguaro and prickly pear.  These fruits are eaten raw or dried, as well as being turned into syrups, wines, and jams. 

Source:  http://arizona-guide.info/food/

Menu:  Beef Chimichangas, Arroz Rojo, Refried Black Beans, Flan

Outcome:  The Chimichangas were quite good.  I didn’t make them the way the recipe I had originally found – due to Bill and I both being sick for the majority of the week, neither of us were up to preparing a roast and shredding it.  Instead, I used some eye of round quick-sautéed in the skillet and to be a little healthier, I baked the Chimichangas instead of deep-frying as is traditional.  Directions are given for the version I made.  The Arroz Rojo (Red Rice) was Knorr “Spanish Rice.”  Again, we weren’t up to 100% yet and the 7-minute side dish worked out perfectly. (And the refried black beans were canned.) The next day we enjoyed the flan – as you can see in the photo, I cooked the sugar/caramel a little longer to get it nice and dark (although flan is usually much lighter in color.)

Next up:  Ben’s turn! He chose Missouri!

Arizona's meal

Tour of Fifty States: North Carolina's meal

This week’s meal was from North Carolina.  The state is known for two distinct types of barbecue – Lexington style and Eastern style; they differ in the cuts of pork used and the sauces they are served with.  Lexington style barbecue uses a red sauce made of ketchup, vinegar, and pepper.  It is most common in the Piedmont (central) and western areas of the state. This style uses only the pork shoulder section of the pig.  Eastern-style barbecue is a whole-hog style of barbecue, often said to use "every part of the hog except the squeal".  Eastern-style sauce is vinegar- and pepper-based, with no tomato. 

I chose to make the Lexington/Western NC style of pulled pork using a pork shoulder, with a red sauce.  Number one, I didn’t want to make a whole hog, and number two, I like it best!  Of course, a staple with pulled pork is creamy macaroni and cheese and some peach cobbler. 

Menu:  Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Macaroni and Cheese, Peach Cobbler

Outcome:  Well, to be honest, we all prefer other pulled pork that we’ve had – we live in South Carolina (home of the best barbecue you can EVER find) and the vinegar was a bit too much for us.   The sauce was very thin and soaked right through the buns, making us either eat our sandwiches very quickly or give up and use a fork.  I think that we shouldn’t give up entirely on the North Carolina style – when we travel through the state we’ll have to try some from a restaurant and see if it’s different.  The macaroni and cheese was very good, as was the peach cobbler.

Next up:  Bridget’s turn! She chose Arizona!

North Carolina's meal (I added pimento cheese and bread & butter pickles to mine!

Tour of Fifty States: Montana's meal

This week’s meal was from Montana. I’ve never been there, and Bill doesn’t remember much about it when he traveled through the state many years ago.  It’s definitely on our list of places to visit!  When I first thought of what to serve, I thought of cowboys on the frontier and their meal of choice, most likely meat and potatoes.  Instead of regular beef, I opted to get some ground bison (Costco sells it in a 2 pound package.)  For dessert, I went with something that I thought would be relatively easy to find on the prairie -- berries that could be made into a simple cobbler. 

Menu:  Bison Burgers, Home Fries, Berry Cobbler

Outcome:  The bison was extremely tender and juicy, even at 93% lean. I thought it wouldn’t be so juicy with such a low fat content.  It has a good, mild and somewhat “grassy” flavor.  We grilled the burger to a nice medium rare and served them on buns with cheese and the traditional condiments.  The home fries recipe is one I’ve made for years and years, and is one of my favorite ways to cook potatoes.  They are excellent with mayonnaise on the side!  The cobbler was served with some of our goat milk cinnamon ice cream, which complemented the tart berries perfectly.  By the way, leftover cobbler was wonderful on our French toast the next morning!

Next up:  Bill’s turn! He chose North Carolina!

Chicken update!

Here are some photos of the chicks -- they have all been named (see table below).
They were 4 weeks old on Tuesday the 16th of September.  Mama Henny Penny is beginning to distance herself from them.  I don' t know how she communicates to them to be independent, but they are venturing all over the yard, sometimes in groups of two or three, and they have been socializing and eating with all of the older girls.

From left:  Franklin, Minnie Penny, Spock, Roscoe Jr, Copper, Picard, Madea

Copper and Franklin

Aren't they the cutest???  

Name of chick	From whose egg?	Description	Who named it?	Why?
Minnie Penny	Betty's	small black/yellow	Andrew	After Henny Penny
General Tso	Betty's	missing from cage	Bill	It was someone’s dinner. L
Madea	Beulah's	black, yellow belly	Bridget	After the movie of the same name.
Franklin	Beulah's	striped with eyeliner	Kirstin	Benjamin Franklin (100 Pennies!)
Roscoe, Jr.	Thelma's	solid gray	Brandi	After Roscoe (daddy)
Picard	Thelma's	striped with black eyes	Ben	Star Trek
Copper	Opal's	yellow/tan/cream	Brandi	Color
Spock	Opal's	black, white/cream behind	Ben	Star Trek

Tour of Fifty States: New Mexico's meal

This week’s meal was from New Mexico.  It’s been a very busy 2 weeks at work and haven’t had much time to work on the writeup … finally! Back in 2012, Kirstin and I took a long car trip and I think that our favorite stops were in New Mexico.  Next summer Bill and I would like to take the kids on a cross-country adventure.  I can’t wait to share Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, the gorgeous White Sands National Monument, and the miles and miles of pistachio orchards!  Bill and the kids like spicy food – oh, I can’t wait for them to try REAL chiles! I had some that were so hot (“mild” they were called) that made my eyes and nose run like crazy! They have to try some enchiladas “Christmas” style, topped half with red and green salsas (salsa rojo and salsa verde.)

Menu:  Enchiladas, Refried Beans, Pistachio Cake and for breakfast, Huevos Rancheros

Outcome:  Yum!  I really love Mexican food – whether it’s called “Tex-Mex” or “Hispanic” or “Latino” or “Mexican” it doesn’t matter to me!   It’s all basically tortillas, beans, meat, and veggies in different combinations.  None of us had ever had huevos rancheros before, and they were really quite good.  (Especially with our own eggs!)  It’s just corn tortillas, topped with eggs and a quick warm salsa … simple but quite delicious. 

And of course, pistachio cake.  Rich and chocolatey goodness! 

Next up:  Brandi’s turn! She chose Montana!

New Mexico's meal!

Learning about chicken hugs

Last night, Bill was mowing the outer pasture that borders the coop.  When it was “bedtime”, I clapped and called the girls, “Time for bed!” and headed to the coop as usual.  They all decided that they were NOT going to bed since Dad was mowing … so I did some other chores and milked Gertie, and when he was mowing not so close to the coop, I managed to get most of them inside.  Miss Ruby, though, thought she was going to be a Big Girl and roost with the rest of the Big Girls.  (The chickens and rooster that came with the farm roost outside of the coop on an old large birdcage, and I can’t get them to stay in the coop at night … yet.  They fly to the top of the tall fence and then down to the ground.) 

Tour of fifty states: Wyoming's meal

Last week's state meal was from Wyoming.  We knew it had to be something with beef -- and what better "Western" style meal than Country Fried Steak? 

For dessert, I found a recipe that uses sugar beets, which is an important crop in the Wyoming/Colorado area.  Last year they were able to harvest 30 TONS per acre of beets, a record-setting high.  

So sorry about the quality of the pictures...I had left my good camera ON last time I used it and the battery was dead so these are cell phone pictures! 

Menu:  Country Fried Steak, Mashed Potatoes with Pepper Gravy, Chocolate Beet Cake
Outcome: I haven't had homemade country fried steak in years, and it sure was good with the pan gravy.  Cube steak is quite inexpensive, and I do believe we'll be having this again soon!  The cake was really rich and chocolatey, and didn't taste at all of beets!  We served it with homemade Peanut Butter/Chocolate goat's milk ice cream on the side.  Delicious! 
Next up:  Ben's turn!  He chose New Mexico!

Wyoming's meal

Life on the Farm ...

Well, we have been busy during the month of August!  We had Ben one weekend, Brandi the next and all 3 on the 3rd weekend -- with taking care of the animals before the afternoon thunderstorms kick in and working, we've been keeping busy doing odd jobs and repairs to various things around the house in the evenings.  I can't even believe that the month is almost over and I haven't put any updates in a long time...I'll work on not falling behind any more. 

We had noticed that Henny Penny was broody -- she wouldn't leave the nest box to allow the others to lay, and she was fiercely guarding the eggs that had already been laid.  She was bound and determined to hatch them.  So with some calculations of dates, figuring that eggs take 21 days to incubate, and that a couple of weeks away for the kids to be here, on July 30 I put 8 marked eggs under her:  2 of Beulah's, 2 of Thelma's, 2 of Opal's, and 2 of Betty's.  (Since she was broody, she hadn't laid eggs in about a week.)  To keep the other girls from trying to lay new eggs in the nest box and disturbing her, I moved her to what I called the "nursery", an elevated locked cage in the coop with her own water and food supply.  I candled the eggs at 7 and 10 days, then again at Day 17.  The last day, we could see the chick moving in the shell!  That was cool -- and all 8 of them were alive.  It was super great that Sally, Grady, Maggie, and Brandi could see the chicks pre-hatching, too! 

I had "scheduled" for the eggs to hatch at the 21 day mark -- but on Day 19, when I went to check on Henny Penny and her food/water, I saw little heads pop up from her wings!  She had her babies early.  :) 

Miss Henny Penny, mama to be

 

Here she is, 19 days later!  I don't know if it was the excessive summer heat or what, but they all hatched out early!  Yay!

surprise!

 

Here are a few pictures of the new chicks and the ones still emerging from their shells:

Bill holding the new born!

We have eight happy and healthy chicks!  100% hatch rate!  They are a little over a week old now, and here are some updated pictures with the beginning feathers starting to come in.  Henny Penny is still very protective of them! 

In just a few weeks, they will be joining the "teenagers" as I have been calling them, (the pre-layers.)  The hens that are laying I call the "big girls."  The teenagers that are the oldest at 18 weeks are Rhoda, Ruby, Ruth, and Myrtle. 

How'd you get up there?

Poor Myrtle.  She's the black one in the above picture.  The 3 Rhode Island Reds tend to stick together, and won't let her play or roost with them.  The big girls are meanies and won't let her play or roost with them either.  We're learning the term "pecking order" is true!

That's okay, she'll find her OWN roost:

In the rafters

Who needs them anyway?

Yes that is my van...

Silly girl, vans aren't roosts!

In the late evening, I call out to the girls, "Time for bed!" and they usually all start heading for the coop, if they aren't already inside.  But not Myrtle.  She is on whatever improvised roost she can find, and will evade me for a good ten minutes running around and around the vehicles, changing direction, running towards and then away from the coop, trying to tire me out and hoping I'll give up.  At some point, she lets me "catch" her and carry her into the coop. 

But I'm on to her!  Last night when I picked her up, she curled right up in my arms and nestled her neck up against mine, like a little hug.  Aww, how sweet.  Then I realized she was the one training ME!  Time to change my tactics!

Here are the younger teenagers, who are 15 and 12 weeks old, Wynonna, Wilma, and Elsa:

Wilma chilling on the sawhorse

Elsa showing off her fancy 'do

Wynonna rushing to make sure she doesn't miss out on anything

On patrol, making sure the kittens stay in line

That's it for now!  Stay tuned for an update to our state meals project! 

Who's got your goat, Gertie?

Every evening when we get home from work, we change clothes and then go outside to take care of the animals.  Yes, even when the thermometer is showing 100 degrees. If we're not quick enough, Gertie stands outside the kitchen window and bleats loudly so we'll get on out there!

Lord'a'mercy it's hot out here!

Oh, Gertie...she's so pitiful.  

Hey Mama!  Get out here and milk me!!

Tour of Fifty States: Mississippi's meal

This week’s meal was from Mississippi! Farm Raised catfish here we come!

Menu: Oven “Fried” Catfish, Creamy Coleslaw, Mississippi Mud Pie
Outcome: This was a really GOOD meal and I know I want to make fish like this again. It was crispy and I’m glad that it wasn’t fried – it’s a good change from our regular broiled fish fillets. Everyone liked the coleslaw too, but I think that if I make this again, I’ll add more vinegar to it. Or maybe sprinkle a little malt vinegar over the top. I used bagged shredded coleslaw mix, which was just the right amount for the dressing recipe.
I changed the Mississippi Mud Pie a little from the recipe – it says to top with whipped cream and then sprinkle with pecans; instead, I sprinkled pecans over the top of the pie as soon as I poured the warm pudding in the crust, then chilled it. It was served with a dollop of whipped cream!  And just maybe I used a pre-made chocolate crust as a time saver!  Ssh don't tell.  :-)
Next up: Paula’s turn! She chose Wyoming!

Mississippi's meal