Caramelized Chicken Over Rice

Missy Tippens

Well, it's been a crazy week. I've had a family member in the hospital due to a fall, and even though I haven't been able to visit because of Covid regulations, it's made for a chaotic week anyway.

So I'm very thankful for the Dinnerly meals! I wanted to share a little about one that I made that we loved.

I'm not sharing the whole recipe because it's a paid service, and I don't feel like I'd be allowed to share. But I thought I'd tell you about the sauce, which was very unusual.

First, I cooked the snow peas. Then the chicken. I set those aside and used the skillet to make the caramel sauce. Yes, caramel!

Side note:  How do you pronounce that? I say car'-mul (two syllables). :) I was born in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and raised in the southwestern part of the state.

Okay, back to the recipe. You just make a basic caramel using sugar and water (swirling, not stirring). Once it starts to turn amber, add tamari soy sauce and 1 tbs. white wine vinegar. Be prepared: it will foam like crazy just like when you add cream to caramel.

Once it has thickened, add back in the chicken and snow peas. We served it over rice. It was delicious!! A little sweet. A little salty. Such a perfect combination. :)

Have y'all ever used caramel in a savory dish like this? And please tell me how you pronounce caramel and where you're from. I love to hear the differences!

www.missytippens.com

Italian Sausage-Stuffed Zucchini

Zucchini prevails.

In gardens nationwide, the ubiquitous squash is happily growing, blossoming, and then growing some more, spawning squashes that run the spectrum of deliciousness from simple, stewed squash to chocolate chip zucchini bread or chocolate zucchini cake.... or the lemon bread we've made with zucchini, so good!

But today's post is a meal in a dish. 

All y'all (in Yankee speak that would the 'the lot o' youse') know how much we love a meal in a dish and this one can be prepared early in the day and then baked later OR microwave it..... and spare the heat in the kitchen.

This was easy, delicious and low-carb, so we added a Sister Shubert's roll! (laughing, because I do love my bread!!!!)

Now on the farm, we sell zucchinis and summer squash and all kinds of delicious veggies, and growing them on that scale can be a pain.... they attract disease. Like intentionally.... We had nearly 6 inches of rain in 8 days, two separate storm systems and besides the fact that an overly generous amount of water blocks roots from sending essential nutrients to the plant, making the plant Very Angry, it also leaves the plant open to invasive fungi, bacteria, blights, etc, etc, etc, .....

Farmer Dave has a term he uses. "In a normal year..."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! There is no such thing in general terms because there are always things that pop up to create some sort of havoc. Veggies by their very nature are an invitation to rabbits, woodchucks, deer to join in a buffet of tender delights. Farmer Dave is not happy with these uninvited guests. As you can imagine..... 

But let's get back to this delicious meal. The squash bottom is a perfect accompaniment to the one-dish stuffing.... And makes a great presentation.

Stuffed Zucchini

3 8" or so Zucchini

3 Italian sausage links (cooked)

1 Cup cooked rice

1-2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

1/2 Green pepper, chopped

1 Tablespoon minced or chopped onion

1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese

Pepper (to taste)

Shredded mozzarella

Wash and slice zucchini in half the long way..... then scoop out seed area with a spoon. Discard the seeds.

Chop sausage, green pepper and tomatoes.  I used dried onion but fresh onion is fine... chop and toss in!

Add to rice, cheese and pepper. 

Microwave zucchini "boats", on a plate and wrapped with plastic wrap. I found about 4 minutes softened the zucchini enough to minimize the finishing time.

Fill the zucchini hollows with the stuffing. Top with shredded mozzarella cheese. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Or microwave for two minutes, rest thirty seconds, then two minutes more. 

I like the baked version best, but when the temps are north of ninety, I'm not opposed to the microwave quick option!

We all loved this.... and the farmer isn't a great zucchini lover, but he really liked this combo.

And Mandy jumped in on rebuilding our roadside veggie stand and finished it yesterday... and there was some whooping and hollering when that happened, believe me! Joy in the kingdom!!!!

Years ago I bought a 5th wheel base, so turning that somewhat uninspired base into a roadside stand wasn't easy and I messed up and had Mandy and Paul "tilt" the table.   But then we realized that when it's near the road, the incline made the back of the table pretty inaccessible for people my size... OOPS!!!! So we broke it down, repurposed the same old lumber we've used for 30 years, and with elbow grease, ingenuity, power tools, new carriage bolts, fresh paint, old fencing and one (1) new 4 x 4, WE DID IT!!!!!!!! 

I can't wait to hang some wind chimes from the top, add some touches of whimsy and Americana, and do veggie displays! Yay!!!!!!

So that's what kept us busy this week.... what's your week been like? 

Multi-published bestselling author Ruth Logan Herne puts on her farm hat in May and keeps it in place for months while she works side-by-side with a great bunch of family and friends to create a fun, family-friendly farm that makes people smile. With nearly sixty published novels and novellas, Ruthy loves both sides of her life and often combines the two in story. Visit her website ruthloganherne.com and/or email her at loganherne@gmail.com. She'd love to hear from you!  

The Daughter Bakes Bread

Remember back at the beginning of this pandemic, everyone seemed to be talking about baking banana bread. I wonder what happened with that?

My daughter decided to try her hand at bread making. Remember her success with the bagels?

She used this recipe from the NYTimes.  Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

The recipe called for dry sherry, but you could substitute apple cider vinegar. Both of those ingredients surprised me. I used to make cinnamon bread all the time and I never used sherry or vinegar. Have you?

Here are some photos.

I was pretty impressed - and wished I got to sample it!

Easy Summertime Lunch

It's summer. It's hot. It's sticky. Life is rather mundane. Just ask Marvel.

Of course, things usually perk up when the deer come around. I know Marvel certainly does. Some of the does are finally bringing their fawns out into the open.

I spend most days hunkered down in my office. I mean, if I'm going to escape the heat, I may as well be productive, right? But, occasionally, I have to venture to the other end of the house for sustenance and here's a quick lunch that is super easy, healthy and full of flavor.

There are only four simple ingredients. Lettuce, low-fat cottage cheese (3/4 cup), black beans (1/3 cup, rinsed) and your favorite salsa (1/3 cup). You could also add some shredded chicken or leftover taco meat for a heartier meal. One that's every bit as good as those so-called power bowls. 

Now that's lunch in a hurry. And you didn't even need a microwave.

What's your favorite go-to quick lunch?

Award-winning author 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

Authors of Days Gone By: Laura Ingalls Wilder On the Banks of Plum Creek

by Jan Drexler

Last week, I took you along on a virtual visit to Mankato, Minnesota, aka "Deep Valley" from Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy books. 

Be prepared for another fan-girl post, because just an hour or so west of Mankato on US Highway 14 is Walnut Grove, the location of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "On the Banks of Plum Creek."

Yes, that's a picture of Plum Creek. THE Plum Creek!

Wild plum thicket along Plum Creek

If you've read "On the Banks of Plum Creek," you'll remember Laura's description of the dugout they lived in for the first year:

"It was one room, all white. The earth walls had been smoothed and whitewashed. The earth floor was smooth and hard...
Ma was pleased. She said, "It's small, but it's clean and pleasant." Then she looked up at the ceiling and said, "Look, girls!"
The ceiling was made of hay. Willow boughs had been laid across and their branches woven together, but here and there the hay that had been spread on them showed through.
"Well," said Ma.
They all went up the path and stood on the roof of that house. No one could have guessed it was a roof. Grass grew on it and waved in the wind just like all the grasses along the creek bank."

That roped off area is the roof that caved in many years ago.

In 1947, Garth Williams traveled to all the sites of Laura's books in preparation for his illustrations of the new edition of the series, "newly illustrated and uniform," published in 1955. His illustrations are the ones that I grew up with, and his research and attention to detail are wonderful.

In the years since the Ingalls family had left Walnut Grove, no one remembered that the Ingalls family had homesteaded here. The farm had been purchased by the Gordon family earlier in 1947, and Garth Williams is the one who told them of the historical significance.

The Gordon family still owns the property and have maintained access to the dugout site for visitors through the years.

The current generation of Gordons works with the Department of Natural Resources' Prairie Conservation Plan to restore and preserve many acres of native prairie.

They have also established walking trails, allowing visitors to experience the prairie as Laura did when she was a child.

The "Tablelands:"

"Then it was almost chore time and they had to go home. They went dripping along the path through the tall grass, and when they came to the tableland Laura wanted to climb it.
Pa climbed part way up, and Laura and Mary climbed, holding to his hands. The dry dirt slipped and slid. Tangled grass roots hung down from the bulging edge over head. Then Pa lifted Laura up and set her on the tableland.
It really was like a table. That ground rose up high above the tall grasses, and it was round, and flat on top. The grass there was short and soft." 

The creek:

"The flat creek bank was warm, soft mud. Little pale-yellow and pale-blue butterflies hovered there, and alighted and sipped. Bright dragonflies flew on blurry wings. The mud squeezed up between Laura's toes. Where she stepped, and where Mary stepped, and where the oxen had walked, there were tiny pools of water in their footprints."

The birds:

"All along Plum Creek the birds were talking. Sometimes a bird sang, but mostly they talked. Tweet, tweet, oh twitter twee twit! one said. The another said, Chee, Chee, Chee, and another laughed, Ha ha ha, tiraloo!" 

 This bird is a Lark Sparrow, a new addition to our life-list of bird sightings! I would describe their song the way Laura did: Tweet, tweet, oh twitter twee twit!

And all around is the prairie:

"Laura and Mary stayed near the wagon, where Jack was. They looked at the prairie grasses swaying and bending, and yellow flowers nodding. Birds rose and flew and sank into the grasses. The sky curved very high and its rim came nearly down to the faraway edge of the round earth."

We could have lingered on the banks of Plum Creek for hours - it was that lovely. But while we were there, I remembered how the Ingalls family's three years here were full of sorrow. Between the crop failures, the unrelenting locusts, hard winters, the loss of their baby son, the year living in Burr Oak, Iowa, and finally Mary's illness and loss of her vision, the Walnut Grove years were sad ones.

But Laura skimmed over those hardships in her stories. As she was writing them, she told her daughter Rose (who was also her primary editor) that she didn't want "a recital of discouragement and calamities." My feeling is that Laura saw her stories as memoirs, but not looking back at her life through an adult's eyes with an adult's understanding of the events.

Instead, Laura gave us a heartwarming and charming glimpse of a child's life - one filled with light and love - from a child's perspective.

No wonder her books are beloved by readers even more than sixty years after her death.

I've fan-girled enough for one day. Next week, we'll follow the Ingalls family west to De Smet, South Dakota, where the last five books of her series take place.

Did you read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, or do you know Walnut Grove from the television show? Either way, a visit to Plum Creek was a delightful side trip if you ever get to Minnesota!

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.

Trying New Things

Missy Tippens

I hope you're all staying well. I have to say that over the last two weeks, I've been doing much better with my eating habits. I think the secret to this change is that I've stocked up on frozen vegetables. So now I always have something healthy to go with leftovers or sandwiches or even...

A simple baked potato!

I microwaved a russet potato (it took about 7 or 8 minutes, I think), then sliced it in half. I had leftover mixed veggies from the night before. I've found a mix that I absolutely love. It's Birdseye Steamfresh Gold and White Corn, Carrots and Asparagus. Some of my favorites!

I also added light cheddar cheese and fat-free plain Greek yogurt. That's a big pile of yogurt! But I'm trying to eat more calcium. And the plain Greek yogurt tastes just like sour cream to me. My favorite brand is Fage.

[Side note: one way I'm eating more plain Greek yogurt is by mixing it with almond butter and sometimes a bit of Truvia.]

One last thing to share. It's not as healthy, but certainly VERY delicious!!

My daughter and I saw this special limited time pizza offer at Your Pie the other night and ordered it for curbside pickup. I can't begin to tell you how good this was!!

Peach and prosciutto with basil and a honey balsamic glaze drizzle. Came also with mozzarella, ricotta and parmesan.

If you're making pizza home sometime, I can vouch for how well these ingredients go together. (Or look for a Your Pie near you.) :)

Happy cooking to all of you!

Missy
www.missytippens.com

Sugared Nuts in the Slow Cooker

I think I'm actually sharing something new!!!!

New to me, anyway!

AND A GIVEAWAY TODAY!!!!!

Beth (younger daughter, four kids) brought me this recipe because we both had monster-sized bags of raw almonds.... Usually I use roasted almonds for Almond bark and recipes and salads, so when I realized we had raw ones, we decided to have some fun. Now I know there are savory recipes out there...

THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM!!!

This recipe is sugary-sweetness with a taste of Manhattan (Nuts for Nuts, my favorite Manhattan street cart!) and the downhome taste of cinnamon sugar, a favorite of so many.

And this is so stinkin' easy that I hate to reveal that because I would seem so cool if I could just pull off tough recipes time after time, but who needs tough when easy is so much better? If it works, of course... and this does!

We got the recipe from The Recipe Critic website and the reason I like her website is that she doesn't feed you page after page of useless information to allow time for ads to load. I really appreciate that!  So here it is from Alyssa's site:

Slow Cooker Cinnamon Sugar Almonds

I found the same recipe with tiny variations on multiple websites so I'm going to share the amounts here. I did 1.5 recipe (which I found on a few sites) and one site does 10 cups of almonds.... now I love that woman, she's in for a penny, in for a pound!

The 4.5 cups of almonds (used by doing 1.5 of the recipe) were a nice fit for my Slow Cooker. It gave me room to stir and gave the almonds plenty of time at the top and bottom of the cooking time. You stir these every 20-30 minutes or so, other than that you do nothing. :) #happyauthor!!!!!

Here's the version I made (twice so far this week!)  I cut the brown sugar down from 1 1/2 cups for the second version, and worked great, so I'm going with that.

1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 Tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites, beaten until frothy in large bowl
3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) vanilla
4 1/2 cups almonds
3 tablespoons water (used in last hour of cooking)


Beat egg whites and vanilla until frothy. (I used the egg beater grandson Xavier found for me at a garage sale and it was awesome!)

Add nuts to egg whites and toss lightly.

Spray inside crock of slow cooker with cooking spray.

In separate bowl mix together:

Brown sugar, sugar, cinnamon and salt.

Add frothy nuts to slow cooker. Add blend of sugars.

Stir thoroughly. Cook on low for about 3-4 hours, stirring every twenty minutes or so. During last hour of cooking, add the water. (3-4 tablespoons for this size batch)

Cook for another 30-60 minutes, then spread on parchment or foil lined cookie sheets to cool. Spread out as much as you can, but you can break nuts apart once cool.

DELICIOUS!

I have sent several to friends and eaten way  too many and gosh.... I just love them! We are spreading the love!

It's weeding and spraying time here on the pumpkin farm.... Downy and Powdery mildew love to kill plants in August so we're pre-thwarting the diseases (we hope!) with a bit of TLC now..... and that will continue for the next five-seven weeks.....

And today I'm spending the whole time at Yankee Belle talking about the joys of life and love and the fun of great food....

And kicking controversy to the curb, where it belongs.

Wishing you all the very best day with a look at my newest Guideposts mystery "A Fallen Petal" available HERE at Guideposts.com, part of the Savannah Secrets mystery series!  And leave a comment here or on Ruthy's Facebook page to be entered into a drawing for a signed copy of "A Fallen Petal"!

USA Today Bestselling author Ruth Logan Herne loves life on the farm, but she also loves God, her family, her country and making folks smile with great stories of faith, fun, fiction and romance... and some with mystery! Friend her on Facebook, visit her website ruthloganherne.com and follow her on Amazon... she loves hearing from readers and writers at loganherne@gmail.com.... And she wishes you the very best day/week/month the sweet Lord can give. God bless you!

Last Summer in Maine

This pandemic has caused so much trouble for so many people, so it's just a small thing that I had to forego my normal summer vacation in Maine. Missing seeing my daughter is harder.

Anyway, it's been a crazy two days with a surprise book-related task that had to be finished quickly, so I thought I'd just indulge and revisit last year's vacation which would have been ending just about now.


I'm a coastal girl at heart. I can't be too many miles inland before the yearning for the ocean takes over.

My youngest daughter lives in Portland, ME, so the older daughter and I decided to go visit her for a week. We rented a cottage about a block from the beach. This is my idea of heaven.


Crossing the Piscataqua Bridge is a magical moment. Halfway across you leave New Hampshire behind and enter Maine.

A little bit down the road, you see this sign. Well, this is what you see now. For decades, the sign read Maine the Way Life Should Be. That sign was replaced with this Welcome Home sign. There was so much outrage over the loss of the original sign, that the bottom part was added last February.

The trip up on Friday was long, and as we arrived in Maine, fog shrouded everything. We were tired and hungry so we settled into our Air BnB and headed down to the waterfront in Portland for a late dinner.

Both my daughter and I chose the seafood scampi - shrimp, scallops, and lobster in a lemon garlic sauce over pasta.

The next morning, the fog had lifted, so this was my view when I took Fenway out walking.

The view off the Eastern Promenade in Portland. That's Casco Bay.

We picked up the younger daughter and took her cat to the vet for his checkup before heading down to York Beach.

Part of the reason I chose York was because we're allowed to take Fenway walking on Long Sands Beach before 8AM and after 6 PM. That was definitely my favorite part of the trip, so here are some photos.

Long Sands Beach

Sunset looking away from the beach.

We had dinner a couple of times at this delicious restaurant called Stone's Throw which was literally a stone's throw from the beach. These two photos are the view from our table.

We also stayed close by the Nubble Lighthouse so it was a lovely spot to just hang out with Fen and soak in the beauty.

Fenway likes the lighthouse.

Another restaurant. More lobster.

And finally, here are a few videos to help bring the beach to you.

We also brought two cats and Fenway. It had the potential for disaster, but everyone got along well.

 Sadly, one of the pre-pandemic changes from the past year is that BartyCat is no longer with us. my daughter was devastated when we had to put him to sleep at Christmas. But a pandemic rescue gave her Teddy. I shared this photo on FB and Twitter this week of Teddy doing Yoga with Adriene along with my daughter.