Fancy Heifers For Sale and other Pics

This is BTAP ZZ Tom, Vera B's little brother born this last March 15. He is out of BTAP Violet and sired by the late Logan's Tommy Boy. Vera B is a moderate framed female, but Tom is not six months old yet and easily more than 500 pounds! He's going to be a big boy and is a super herd bull prospect. He and BTAP Thor have the same father. Thor's mother is Tom's grandmother.

It's a nice overcast afternoon so I took advantage of the light to take some pictures of my "fancy" heifers I have for sale.

This is BTAP Vera B.  She is a Wulfs Sirloin daughter our of my great Limi cow, BTAP Violet. She is bred to CLLL Burbank for a March 23 calf.


 

This is BTAP Zooey born July 8, 2012. She is BTAP Juliette's little sister out of GMEG Jealousy. Her sire is the great FWLY Big Time and it shows.

This is BTAP Juliette. Her mother is GMEG Jealousy, her sire is Mags the General. She is bred to CLLL Burbank for a March 23 calf - should be a black calf and polled.

Mint & Lemon Syrup for Iced Tea

The weatherman keeps talking about how its hot but the air is dry so its wonderful.  Truth is its hot and if I do any kind of work outside or in (like cleaning house or digging in the garden), I'm going to get hot and sweaty.  I try to keep a big pitcher of iced tea in  the refrigerator (I know, you shouldn't keep it in the frig but I like it that way).  There is still a lot of mint in the garden, peppermint that is, and even though I generally like my tea unsweetened, still a teaspoon or two of my homemade peppermint/lemon sugar syrup is perfect in my iced tea right now. 

Saucepan of sugar, water, mint & lemon zest.

This is so easy to make. In a medium saucepan put 2 cups white granulated sugar, 2 cups water, a cup of loosely packed, washed, fresh mint leaves and the zest of 1/2 a large or all of a small lemon (don't forget to wash the lemon). You want just the oily outer peel of the lemon. Use a sharp knife or a vegetable peeler to skin the lemon.

Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat and let it simmer five minutes. Take it off the heat and let it sit to cool.

Strain mixture into measuring cup

When its cool, strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a measuring cup that is more than two cups capacity. Then, using a funnel, pour the syrup into a storage container of your choice. I like these plastic squeeze bottles for convenience and because a only use a couple of squirts.

Pour mixture into plastic squeeze bottle using a funnel 

You can also use those fancy decorative bottles you've been keeping for gift giving. This makes a great hostess gift or just a nice anytime little gift for a friend who loves sweet tea.

A fancy bottle of mint and lemon sugar syrup ready for gift giving. Iced tea ready for me!

So many tomatoes!

Tomatoes Everywhere

 I’m sure anyone who put out a couple of tomato plants this year is over run with the things. Tomatoes like hot and dry and we’ve had that in spades.  Despite a six day schedule at work, I managed to get about half a bushel of tomatoes turned into various good things for the coming year.  I “put up” four pints of Aunt Ruby’s Chile Sauce and four pints of my own version of Aunt Ruby’s which I call Brown Sugar Chile Sauce.  I also managed over the course of a couple of evening to make two pints and three little jelly jars of my grandmother’s recipe for tomato butter. 



Ruby red tomato butter on cutting board, then Brown Sugar Chile Sauce and finally Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce. Kettle, funnel, ladle, and large mixing bowl complete the scenario of dealing with an August tomato harvest.

 I was afraid I had over cooked the tomato butter. By 10:00 pm last night it was completely translucent and a beautiful dark jewel red.  I ladled the butter into the jars and covered them while still  hot with a sheet of waxed paper so they could cool overnight.  This morning, before work, I melted some paraffin and poured a layer over each jar to seal the butter. 

Thursday is farmer’s market day and after work I beat it down to the market to get some of Cathy Crisenbery’s bread.  She has so many great varieties to choose from but today I bought her white country French, brought it home, sliced off a piece and slathered it with a little butter and a lot of tomato butter.  It was wonderful, a little bit of heaven.  The tomato butter was perfect with just a hint of ginger and a big piece of lemon.  I could have eaten an entire jar – but controlled myself. I have more to look forward to tomorrow!

Oh and here's the tomato butter recipe if you missed it last summer:

Irene's Tomato Butter

 

Six cups of peeled, seeded, chopped red ripe tomatoes

Six cups of white granulated sugar

A lemon sliced very thin and the seed removed

A one inch piece of fresh ginger minced

 

Put the tomatoes in a large bowl and cover them with the sugar. Cover the bowl and sit it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.  My last batch was in the frig 24 hours and was fine. 

Drain the juice off the tomato mixture including any sugar that has settled to the bottom of the bowl. Boil the sugar and tomato juice syrup in a large stainless steel kettle until it starts to form a thread when you let it drip from a large spoon, about 30 to 40 minutes.  Add the tomato mixture and cook on  medium low heat until it thickens and the tomatoes become translucent and ruby red.  Ladle into hot clean jars and allow to cool completely. Seal with melted paraffin wax, the kind you buy at the grocery for this purpose. Find it in the canning supplies isle.



 

Brown Sugar Chile Sauce

Brown Sugar Chile Sauce

We have a good smoked pork barbecue place just a block away from work called Porky Capones. They have a great big wood fired smoker behind the restaurant where they smoke the pork and beef brisket and the place smells just wonderful! Since I had about a cup of the Brown Sugar Chile Sauce left over from canning the four pints, I decided to take that to work, get Porky Capone's pulled pork for lunch and do a taste test.

It was super!  The vinegar base is great with the smokey rich pork and the extra sweet from the brown sugar was good as well.  The only thing I missed was some spice - this sauce is not spicy.  The little bit of red pepper flakes in the recipe adds to the flavor with out producing any real heat.  Today, I'm taking a jar of Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce to work. It's is definately spicy.   It's pulled pork for lunch again! Can't wait.

On another note, I went back to Lowes and purchased some more broccoli plants and some Flat Dutch cabbage plants. I popped them in the ground last night and watered well. Then we had a little bit of rain over night, so I'm hoping they get a good start.  The weather is perfect for cole crops right now, but I understand its going to get hot again soon.  Will just have to wait and see how it goes. Hopefully I'll have broccoli and cabbage by Thanksgiving or a little before.

A picture of a full grown Flat Dutch Cabbage. I am hoping the fall season,will mean the cabbage worms will not be active.

Another Version of Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce

So I started thinking about the recipe for Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce and wondering what it would taste like with dark brown sugar instead of white and with apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar, and since I had way more tomatoes than I wanted for tomato butter, I cooked up a batch!

I only made 4 pints again. I also put in less vinegar (3 cups) and less sugar (3/4 pound) and less onion (2 large yellow onions). I left things in pretty big chunks and when it had cooked down and started getting thicker I took my immersion blender to it and made it more sauce like.  Then I put it in a slow oven, with the lid on, at 200 degrees over night. I like it a lot.

I also used only one teaspoon of red pepper flakes.

The end product will be very good on pulled pork or other smokey meats. Sort of a low country barbecue sauce with the vinegar base.  Its not as thick as commercial chili sauce but I love the flavor.

Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce

Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce

I hadn't made Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce in 15 years.  I don't know why, I guess I'm usually just frantic to get my plain tomato sauce completed and haven't had time for too many other things. And too, this year I didn't grow any cucumbers so I've not been making pickles.

So I dug out the old recipe and realized that what I had made in the past and what my mother made in the past used sweet red peppers instead of hot red peppers.  Mom probably did this because as children we were not inclined to eat anything spicy.

I made only four pints - which is half the recipe, but I figure that will be enough for me and maybe a jar or two to give away.  This time I added the hot red peppers in the form of dried red pepper flakes and I think it worked pretty well. This is a  a piece of Havarti cheese on a water cracker and I thought it was excellent.  It would also be good poured over cream cheese.  But its is meant to be served with beef or pork as an accompaniment.  Here's the full recipe.

Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce

24 meaty good sized tomatoes, skinned, cored and rough chopped.  I let the tomatoes sit in a big bowl in the refrigerator over night to drain some of the water off.

8  yellow onion, peeled and rough chopped

1/2 a gallon (two quarts) white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon celery seed

1 tablespoon ground mustard (I used Coleman's)

2 hot red pepper pods or two teaspoons of dried red pepper flakes

2 pints of sugar (I weighed the sugar, 2 pints equal 32 oz or 2 pounds)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon or a cinnamon stick three of four inches long

Put all the ingredients together in a large stainless steel stock pot. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer until thick.  This could take three or four hours.  The house will smell wonderful the whole time.  When the sauce is as thick as you'd like it pour into clean hot canning jars fitted with hot clean lids and rings and water bath process at a boil for 10 minutes. Cool. Make sure all the jars seal. If one doesn't "pop", store it in the refrigerator and eat it first. 



The Best Key Lime Pie

This pie isn't really pink, its lime/yellow green, but for some reason this picture comes out pink.

It's August and even though its chilly and raining tonight, I think you might still find time this month or even into September to make a Key Lime Pie.  Here's my favorite recipe.  I have put the word key in parentheses because I use regular limes, not Key limes. Trust me, you won't know the difference except in your pocket book. This is a quick and easy pie and very, very good.

(Key) Lime Pie



Start with the crumb crust.  Traditionally it is made of graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter.  Since this is a traditional Caribbean  pie I like to use crushed ginger snaps. You can use graham crackers if you prefer.

1 1/4 cups crushed ginger snaps
2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons butter.

Melt the butter. Pour it into a nine inch pie plate. Add the ginger snap crumbs and sugar and mix with a fork until the crumbs are well coated with butter and sugar.  Press the crumbs into the bottom and sides of the pie plate.  I like to use a flat sided 1/2 cup measuring cup to do this.  Bake the pie in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool.

Now for the filling:

1  14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup lime juice - three to four regular limes
reserve a little lime zest for topping

Whisk together the condensed milk and eggs until very well combined. Add lime juice and whisk until the mixture is well combined and slightly thickened.  Pour filling into cooled crust and bake in the middle of a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Remove pie from oven, cool completely on a rack, then refrigerate.  Top with whipped cream and a little lime zest.

This pie doesn't keep well past 24 hours, so just enjoy it while its cold and refreshing.

Bulls and Heifers for Sale

BTAP Thor, looking good after a summer of breeding cows. He has a price tag of $2500, but is really more interested in finding some "open" cows!

I"m getting ready to give you recipes and pictures of some of my favorite August foods - Aunt Ruby's Chile Sauce and Gourmet's Key Lime Pie, but until I get some pictures of each, here's some pictures of some of the cattle I have for sale.

BTAP Thor is a very sweet guy. He may look a little fierce but he's really a sweetheart. Right now he's pretty bored. He has "settled" the five cows he's been summering with and is on the hunt for a few more.

This is BTAP French Silk Pie.  She is the mother of BTAP Bridgette and they are very close. Frenchy as I call her is a daughter of Blaque Rulon, one of the greatest bulls in the Limousin breed. Her full brother, FWLY Big Time was the highest selling bull ever at the Kentucky Beef Expo, going to Tubb Mill Creek farm in Pennsylvania at a price tag of $32,000.

Here's BTAP Bridgette one of BTAP Thor's girl friends this summer. She is due to calve to him next March. Bridgette is the daughter of BTAP French Silk Pie and the late FWLY Rumor's Fawley.  She and Thor should make great calves!

Fall Garden on a Misty August Morning

It's high summer and the herb bed is at its best. Mint is blooming in the background, Thai basil in the foreground. The tall grayish green plant on the right is sage and a bit of fall lettuce is coming along as well.

A box of sweet potatoes at the end of this row.  The other two boxes will be filled with compost this week and planted with beets, kale and Swiss chard.  As you can see my weed whipper isn't doing well.  It is a huge disappointment.

It's high summer and luckily we've had enough rain to keep things green and growing. My fall garden is doing well with green beans getting ready to bloom, peas breaking ground and lettuce about half way to harvest.  I'm overrun with tomatoes of course and the mint is blooming and full of various wasps and bees - though I've not noticed any honey bees in the fray. The cantaloupe plants are full of small green melons starting to ripen. Can't wait for those. I planted Burpees Ambrosia variety which everyone in the family thinks is the very best melon anywhere.

The mystery plant. This guy grew as a volunteer from one of the compost piles. The leaves are huge - about 20 inches across and its growing mostly in light shade into heavy shade - in other words, its growing toward shade. It has buds but hasn't bloomed yet. We are anxious to see what it is, but don't hold out much hope for it ripening any fruit this late!



Peach Crisp

It was my turn to make Monday night dessert for the family get together and I was thinking chocolate cake - the Texas sheet cake that's easy and very very good, especially made with Hershey's Special Dark cocoa. But then I was reading through my latest Whole Living magazine (one of the Martha Stewart mags) and there was a blurb that said "In August you should eat peaches whenever you can". I knew Irons Fruit Farm next door to me had peaches, so I thought, OK, something with peaches. First I thought peach cobbler, but as I checked through my various cookbooks, I came across a Peach Crisp recipe in The Pioneer Woman cookbook and it looked so good, I decided to try it. It was very good, and I only changed it a little! I added some ground almonds and ice cream. Here is my version of the recipe:

Peach Crisp

About 2 hours before you want to serve the crisp, begin by preheating the oven to 350 degrees.

1 cup flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup slivered almonds, ground fine in a mini food processor

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

a little grated nutmeg

1 stick (1/4 cup) cold butter, cut in small pieces.

five or six large ripe peaches or more if they are small

2 tablespoons maple syrup - use the real thing or leave it out

1 tablespoon lemon juice

A squeeze bottle with a 1/4 cup of real maple syrup.

Mix the dry ingredients together and cut in the cold butter with a fork or pastry cutter until its looks like fine meal.

Peel and slice the peaches. Mix them with the lemon juice, then the maple syrup. Spray a baking dish (8" by 12") with cooking spray. Pour the peaches into the dish and spread them out evenly. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the top evenly. Cover the dish tightly with foil and bake 15 minutes.  Uncover and bake at least 30 minutes longer up to 45 minutes until the crumb mixture browns nicely. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little. This should be about an hour before you want to serve the crisp.  Put a scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream in a dish.  Add a generous scoop of the peach crisp. Drizzle a little real maple syrup over all. Yum!

I just had to share this picture. An orphaned zoo chimp baby was adopted by a mother dog who had just had pups.



A friend sent me a whole bunch of these pcitures. I'm sharing just a few. Here the pups and the chimp are having their dinner. I'm amazed!

Wild Blackberries and ZZ Tom Update

BTAP ZZ Tom at 4 months

I snapped this picture of BTAP ZZ Tom about 8:30 last night, hence the glowing eyes. He's with his mother, BTAP Violet,  getting some salt and water before going out to graze in the moonlight. He's a super nice big bull calf, probably weighs 500 pounds already and will make a very good herd bull someday. His father was Logan's Tommy Boy.It's getting time to wean him.  He will spend the fall and winter with his half brother, BTAP Thor in the bull pen - or at least until Thor finds a new home.

Wild Blackberries.

The wild blackberry crop was very disappointing this year. The very hot, dry weather from early June until the end of July insured that most of the fruit that was produced was small, dry and seedy. No good at all. The exception is the patch at the end (or beginning) of my driveway.  The patch has been there for years and usually produces berries.  For the last two weeks I've been picking at least a cup of berries - and eating them as I pick - on my way to work each morning.  I have to stop and pick up the newspaper, and there is always a nice amount of berries ripened each day. They are starting to slow down now and I predict I'll have this week to continue my morning picking and then they will be gone. But its been great while it lasted!