Cuteness and Tranquility at the Ranch

Okay, so things aren't always tranquil when you've got little ones around.

They're busy. They like to help make muffins.

And take selfies with Grammy's phone.

They like to create.

But here on the ranch there's always someplace to escape and unwind, surrounded by nature's beauty. You know I love all the little calves. And this time of year, there are so many of them dotting the landscape.

Perhaps water is more your style.

Things are lush and green around the ponds.

I could sit here and drink-in this sight for hours.

Even little dogs like hanging out there. 

But this is one of the sights that thrills me most.

 There's something about horses.

IMHO, they're one of the most beautiful creatures God made. And watching them is very soothing.

Sigh. Now that we're all nice and relaxed, how about dessert?

That's a recipe for another day. In the meantime, what are you doing to escape this crazy turn life seems to have taken?

Three time Carol Award finalist Mindy Obenhaus is passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. She lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, one sassy pup, countless cattle, deer and the occasional coyote, mountain lion or snake. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, cooking and watching copious amounts of the Hallmark Channel. Learn more at mindyobenhaus.com.

Comfort Food from the Pantry

Jan here, talking about comfort food.

Why is comfort food so important to us? Because it give us both physical nourishment and emotional satisfaction.

I don't know about you, but I'm craving some emotional satisfaction right about now!

One of the meals I made regularly when our children still lived at home was cheeseburger macaroni, "Hamburger Helper" style.

Forget that box! This recipe is full of healthy ingredients, but still gives that "in the box" convenience. The only things missing are the not-so-nice ingredients and the spendy price tag.

You can make a seasoning blend to have on hand - just add it to your fresh ingredients. (I'll give you the recipe later.) But I don't make this very often anymore, so I just make one batch at a time.

Oh, and you can use your Instant Pot, too! I'll include directions for both stove-top and Instant Pot cooking.

"Hamburger Assistant" Cheeseburger Macaroni

ingredients:

(serves 4-6)

1 teaspoon seasoning salt

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 Tablespoon dried parsley

1 Tablespoon dried onion flakes (or 1/4 cup fresh onion, minced)

1 cup beef stock (or 1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules and one cup water)

1/3 cup dry milk powder (or 1 cup milk, or 1/2 cup evaporated milk + 1/2 cup water)

(*note - you only need 1 cup of liquid total, so keep that in mind when adjusting your ingredients)

pepper to taste

1 pound hamburger, browned

1 cup uncooked macaroni

1 14-16 oz. can chopped tomatoes (not drained) 

1 cup shredded cheese

First of all, I've given you some alternate ingredients - we're cooking out of our pantry these days!

You can also substitute chicken for the ground beef - just be sure to also substitute chicken broth/bouillon for the beef.

On the stove top, use a large skillet to brown the ground beef, then add the rest of the ingredients, except the cheese. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the macaroni is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the cheese.

Using your Instant Pot, brown the ground beef using the saute function. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the cheese,) stir, and seal the lid. Change from the saute function to the pressure cook function, and cook on high for 5 minutes. Do a quick release, then add the cheese, stirring until everything is blended.

Since this is a family-sized meal, I froze half to serve at another time.

I mentioned making the seasoning blend ahead of time - This was a lifesaver when everyone was at home and I was short on time (and energy!):

Seasoning blend:

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

2 Tablespoons dried parsley

1/3 cup dried onion flakes

3 Tablespoons onion powder

1 Tablespoon seasoning salt

1 2/3 cup dried non-fat milk powder

3 1/2 Tablespoons beef bouillon granules

Mix together and store in an air-tight container.

When making your "hamburger assistant" meal, use 1/2 cup of the seasoning mix, 1 pound hamburger, 1 cup water, 1 cup uncooked macaroni, and 1 can chopped tomatoes. Stir in 1 cup shredded cheese for your last step.

Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

So that's our pantry meal for this week. How are you doing? Weathering the "shelter-in-place" orders? 

We used Facebook's video messenger capabilities to have a bit of a family reunion last week. Five couples, three states, two time zones. It worked great.

What creative ways have you used to keep in touch with your favorite people?

And before we go, I have to share a gratuitous puppy picture:

Sam at 13 weeks, Jack at nearly 10 months

Please excuse the state of my office floor - raising puppies is messy business, as I'm sure you all know!

And Sam is growing fast - just compare today's picture with this one from four weeks ago:

Sam at 9 weeks

Crazy, isn't it? Where does the time go???

Jan Drexler is an author by day who is addicted to counted cross stitch and sauntering through the Hills with her dear husband and their puppies - goofy corgi Jack and baby border collie Sam. You can find Jan's books and other fun things on her website: www.JanDrexler.com.

A Little Spring

Missy Tippens

Life has been crazy lately. Having beautiful weather here has helped a bit. So I wanted to share a little spring today to lift spirits, especially for those of you who are still in winter weather.

We've been enjoying sun and temps in the 70's here in Georgia. And many trees are in full bloom. Here's one we see out our front windows--our neighbors' cherry blossom tree.

I practically climbed the tree trying to get y'all some closeup shots of the gorgeous blooms. When I got home, my neighbor called to say he wanted to let us know he'd seen someone in his tree and had called the police. About the time my heart stopped, he died laughing! Just kidding me, of course. Yes, we're all a bit looney right now and trying to find fun where we can. :)

I also took a short video for you. It was so peaceful outside. I could hear birds chirping.

A different neighbor's tree...

For Easter, our church is planning to put large wooden butterflies on the front lawn. Individual members took a plain white butterfly to paint in any way they wanted. They'll all be different, and I think there will be about 20-30 of them. My daughter and I painted ours this week. Here it is drying...

Though our congregation probably won't be meeting in person (we've been having services online), we still plan to display the butteries on the church lawn. I think it'll be a powerful message to the community that we're all together in spirit, rejoicing that day. I'll be sure to get a photo to share after Easter!

I pray you're all staying well. Blessings on each of you as we face this pandemic as a nation and world.

www.missytippens.com

Cozying Up With Lasagna: Day 12 of Self Quarantine

First, I am not going crazy.

But I feel super sorry for anyone who is going crazy or being driven absolutely bonkers or frantic over this whole stay home/social distancing mandate because we like normal!!!

NORMAL ROCKS.

Sometimes.

And sometimes normal is watching someone we love struggle, or die, or have a baby, or face divorce or injury, or... okay, you get it. Normal isn't always "normal" because we tend to live in "our" normal. When we're suddenly faced with someone else's normal-- or a new normal-- or have a different normal foisted on us, we rebel.

At least until we get used to it.

Case in point. I figured okay, we're all stuck at home, the weather is not conducive to fun in any way, shape or form, let's paint the dining room.

From the top down.

Mind you when you're quarantined during a pandemic, you cannot SHOP FOR PAINT. Because you can't go into a store because you're (duh, right????) quarantined.

So your son and daughter meet at Lowe's and pick the colors for you.  Creamy yellow and rose or salmon.  Because you're using the same colors you already had.

And then your realize their idea of creamy yellow and yours aren't exactly the same, and so you cut in one wall and do the borders and then you walk away, sure you're going to hate it. But that's the thing about new normal. At first, it's startling. Almost repugnant. (Get that??? S.A.T. word!!!) And it's jarring.... But I've learned to not jump to conclusions, because our eyes, our visuals, our senses are accustomed to one thing and when we mess that up, those senses rebel.

So the dining room in this 165 year-old house is big. Like 24' x 16' big with a staircase down one wall...

Four big windows with lots of little panes....

One glass door.

Two doorways. Wait, three, the front door enters into this room.

And a painted floor, a real nod toward old-time country looks.

Ceiling (lots of cutting in there because they framed the ceiling with 8" borders, so you have to paint the crown molding, and cut in along the edge of the crown molding, then along both edges of the 8" border....)

Walls.

Floor to ceiling bookcases. (I haven't even started them yet, going to finish ceiling and walls first. The bookcases and shelves have another gazillion spots to cut in.... I am not exaggerating nor kidding. Mostly)

Baseboard hot water heat runs.

And then the floor, painted white to complete the vintage look.

But I know myself. And that's why I refused to panic over the pandemic, or the changes, or the sudden disruption not just of my life, but of 90% of the country and maybe the world's lives.

If I give myself time, i adjust. I get used to things. And sometimes I grow to love them. And I absolutely love this new shade of yellow now (it just took a day or two, and I'll show you pics when more is done... it's pretty messy right now!) And the rose-toned trim will be beautiful, I wanted it spring-like all year and that's exactly what it will be, but it also dresses up nice for a real county Christmas look. Perfect!!!

It's downright tough when change is thrust on us, and when it's to this degree that I have to figure out where I can park my car and wait while a friend has a procedure on Friday because you can't walk into our hospitals any more, you can't wait in the waiting room, you can't cross the threshold because there is security at every door...

And you can't even go sit in a coffee shop and work because everything here is on lock-down. I can order a coffee and sit in the car...

And that's what I'll do, except that since I was so sick two weeks ago, coffee tastes terrible. My daughter said it's a Covid 19 symptom, so I looked it up.  She was right.

SIGH.

But I'm also laughing, because honestly, you've got to laugh.... at least a little. Although I miss having coffee. I miss the taste of good coffee, because it doesn't taste like that anymore and doctors don't know if you will recover that taste and/or sense of smell... Which may be why when I'm working with the paint, I don't smell it. Isn't that weird?

But I can smell food, so that's good!

We'll get through this.

We always do. And I will not rip apart any government official because I cannot imagine being in their shoes and having to make decisions that either ruin people's mental and financial health and cause mental breakdowns or send a growing percentage of people to the ICU and only a small percentage of them get wheeled out in a chair.

I'm glad I'm better, no matter what I had. Flu or Covid 19. I survived. I'm here to tell about it.

I'm thrilled that my husband is now looking better, too. It's been 18 days since he came down sick, and for a man who liked to brag about never taking a day off work, 18 days of can't get off the couch illness was a real kick in the head.

BUT WE'RE BETTER!

And there's a world around us that needs us now that we're better, and when they come up with an antibody test we'll take it because if we've already had the virus, then our antibodies will help keep us from having it badly the next time Covid 19 comes to call... Like in October.

I made lasagna today.  My son cooked the ground round with onions while I cut in another wall of paint...

And then we walked two miles in the village...

And then we came home and I made sauce...


Cooke the noodles about 7 minutes, you don't want them mushy. You want them slightly firm. I used 16 lasagna noodles so I'd do 4 layers of 4 noodles.

CHEESE FILLING

 Mix in medium sized bowl:

1 1/2 cup Ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup (plus or minus) diced mozzarella cheese
1 egg
2 TBSP sugar
1 teaspoon basil

Ground beef layer:

1 lb. ground beef (hey, finding this up here is like finding GOLD!!!!)
1/4 cup chopped sweet onion
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp. granulated garlic

Sauce: You can use jarred sauce but the world has depleted the supply of spaghetti/pasta sauce, so I made a small pot of sauce, so easy. In fact when I realized that there was no prepared sauce on grocery shelves last week, I ordered three 12-packs of tomato paste... because it's easy to make great sauce like my boss at Basel's restaurant used to make. This makes a "smooth" sauce, so if you like a marinara texture, use crushed tomatoes as part of your tomato base.

SAUCE:

4 6 oz. cans tomato paste
2 quarts hot water
1 1/4 cup ketchup (not kidding)
Salt
Pepper
Basil
Granulated garlic
Parsley
2 bay leaves

Blend tomato paste, water and ketchup. Put over medium low heat. Sprinkle top with salt and pepper. Mix in. Then sprinkle basil lightly over top. Mix in. Do the same with garlic... mix in. Then repeat with the parsley. Mix in. Then toss in the bay leaves, heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.

DONE.

No measuring, just eyeballing the "sprinkle top with garlic, etc."

You just lightly cover the top of the sauce with each ingredient... and it works. Every time. :)

Put about 2 cups sauce in bottom of 13" x 9" pan.

4 Lasagna noodles

Half the cheese mixture spread or dotted on the noodles.

4 more noodles

Cooked meat layer

Cover with about 2 cups +/- sauce.

4 more noodles

Top with 2nd half of cheese mix

Top with last four noodles. Cover with sauce, sprinkle liberally with Parmesan cheese, bake in 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes.

PERFECTION.

And in this time of trouble, fear, worry, concern, it's nice to have something come out perfect, isn't it?  Because normal will return. It might be different by a lot or a little, but it will come back.

And in the meantime, we take care of one another the best we can.

USA Today Bestselling author Ruth Logan Herne is tucked in a secluded corner of her big old farmhouse and penning great stories while the world pushes the pause button on so many things. She loves to hear from folks and you can email her at loganherne@gmail.com, visit her website at ruthloganherne.com, friend her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter, although she finds a lot of Twitter to be unspeakably rude... and Ruthy doesn't like rudeness. She likes it when people are just plain nice to one another!

Greetings from New York and Maine

Hey everyone,

I'm waving from far away since no one wants anyone from New York to be anywhere near them these days.

I'm kinda wishing I wasn't here either, so, since I'm not doing any interesting cooking these days (and I'm on deadline), I figured I'd take you back to Maine. They had snow yesterday, but my heart is dreaming of summer and memories of happier times.

A Taste of Maine

Today's post is brought to you thanks to an extended vacation and an old family recipe.


Still haven't done much cooking. That may be the best part of vacation.

Not really. For me, the best part of this vacation was the long walks with Fenway on the beach every night. For most of the summer, dogs are barred from the beach, but every night from 6 - 8 they are allowed on leash. My silly dog who hates HATES getting his feet wet, and balks at walking in the rain, LOVES the beach. All he has to hear is me say, "Fenny, want to go to the beach?" and his tail starts wagging and his face breaks into a grin. From the moment we exit the car, he is yanking me toward the water. It's funny to watch him approach the water and then dance out of the way of the incoming waves.

Do we really have to leave?

I took this video of him charging ahead of me. He loves to sniff the seaweed.

SO on to food.  Since I'm talking Maine and seafood and beaches, I thought I would share a favorite recipe from a few years ago.

One of our favorite places to eat a casual meal while we're here is the Maine Diner.  I had a wonderful lobster roll for lunch there, but my favorite dish to get is their lobster pie.

The first time I ordered it, I was anticipating something along the lines of of chicken pot pie but with lobster. It turned out not to be nothing at all like that, but it was so much better.


After my first bite, I turned to my husband and said, "This tastes like Sam's fish."

Sam was an elderly man who cooked for my husband's even more elderly mother and aunt back when we were first married. They lived on a gorgeous estate on Cape Cod - 2 sisters and Sam and his wife.

My husband LOVED Sam's fish, so with my newlywed enthusiasm, I tried everything I could think of to replicate it. I bought every type of bread crumbs I could find, but the response was always, "Good, but not like Sam's."

Finally, in desperation, I told Sam my sad tale. He laughed and took me into the pantry where he shared his secret crust - Ritz crackers and butter. Yup. That was all. He'd smash the crackers, mix with melted butter, and layer onto the fish. So simple, but SO tasty. My marriage was safe!


So when I took that first bite of lobster pie this summer, and it tasted like lobster with Sam's crust, I was highly suspicious that I knew the special family recipe. In the name of research, I went into the gift shop and bought a cookbook of diner recipes which included the lobster pie. Sure enough - Ritz crackers and butter!

My Friday night dinner!

It was very good. Yum.

I haven't made Sam's fish in many years (in the name of low cholesterol and all that jazz), but after we returned home, I decided to give it a try for old times sake (and to post here). So without further ado - the 4 step fish recipe.

1. Smash the Ritz crackers. I do it in a baggie with an ice cream scoop.
2. Melt butter in microwave and mix in the cracker crumbs.
3. Spread on the fish (I used haddock. Sam always used sole.)
4. Bake. You can broil briefly at the end if you feel the need to brown the crumbs, but be careful!

Enjoy!

I'm curious. Have any of you ever made this?


As you can probably tell from the photo above, the lobster pie uses fresh lobster rather than haddock and they cook it in a mini casserole dish. So.much.goodness.

I'll leave you with some more photos of my favorite beach,

 And these from the Marginal Way.