Beauty Farming Life

What you say?  Chile?  Chocolate?  Yuck?   AU CONTRAIRE! This came from one of our grocery store chains in town, "Central Market" which is owned by HEB.  They go Hatch Chile crazy every season and this year they came out with this chocolate bar.  It's wonderful! Hatch Chile Chocolate Bar This one is dark chocolate.  It's smooth and creamy.  When you eat it, the first taste is sweet and rich and then as it melts in your mouth, the heat comes.  Kind of a spicy, smokey heat that lingers for a bit and then fades away.  Utterly delicious!  Great way to start the weekend!

 Bacon Pig  OK, you are either going to be horrified by this, or think it's the funniest thing.  A coworker sent me the link to the article about it, and I figured since it's food and a pig, it fit the criteria for being on our farm blog, ha. The link is below.  It would certainly be a conversation piece at our first dinner party at the farm! CLICK HERE TO LEARN ALL ABOUT IT   And be sure to click on each picture once you get there to see how it's done. (don't worry it's not a real pig). After you've visited, come back and share your thoughts in the comments!

OK, after yesterday's creepy snake posting, let's get back to something fun, like food!  LOL!  It's  that time of year again, bargain turkeys! We got some more great turkeys on sale since it was after the holidays and they were  fresh, about 14 lbs a piece, and best of all, only $5.00 each! So we bought three. First we get out our handy dandy trusty beer can turkey roaster. Yes, there IS such a thing , but apparently not for long, as they've been discontinued by the manufacturer.  We don't use any beer or other liquid for them though.  For these turkeys, we just rub them down with olive oil and then some of our house blend (or is that farm blend?) of seasonings all over that.  We then put it and the giblets and neck on a foil lined baking sheet. We remove all but one rack from the oven and then roast them on that bottom rack, standing up just like this, for about 50 minutes to one hour, or until done. ...

I've noticed on a lot of my favorite blogs, there are postings of delicious looking meals, so I thought I'd share ours this time. This is what 2nd Man made last night.  Roasted chicken, peas made with butter and herbs, and then one of my favorites, homemade fettuccine Alfredo.  Yes, he makes the pasta by hand and then makes an Alfredo sauce using butter, parmesan and a little pasta water.  It's heavenly...and  one of my favorite meals. What's on YOUR plate for a favorite dinner?

I don't know WHAT is up with blogger.  Ugh.  Here is this week's food holidays, better late than never! MONDAY: National Chopstix Day TUESDAY: National Fettuccine Alfredo Day WEDNESDAY: National Molasses Bar Day AND National Potato Lover's Day THURSDAY: National Bagels and Lox Day FRIDAY: National Cream Cheese Brownie Day AND National "Have a Brownie" Day SATURDAY: OOOPS!  I think they meant this one... National Peppermint Patty Day SUNDAY: National Plum Pudding Day AND National PB&J Day ENJOY YOUR WEEK OF EATING!!!

Homemade chunky chicken soup After we lost our sweet Sydney Cat a couple of weeks ago, 2nd Man made a huge pot of homemade chicken soup so we didn't have to think about cooking for a few days.  It worked, because we ate on it all weekend. He just makes it up as he goes along so there isn't much of an actual recipe, but here's what I know.  First, he uses a pressure cooker, a package of wings and some seasonings to make some amazing chicken broth.  Then he roasts some breasts in the oven.  Next, he just dices up and then cooks the veggies, in this case carrots, red, white and blue (purple) potatoes, onions, celery, garlic and white beets, in the broth with added water.  We like it chunky as it seems more rustic.  After that, he just adds some herbs and seasonings and finally the roasted breast meat, torn into chunks with some fresh parsley sprinkled into each bowl when it's dished out for serving. It's chunky and flavorful and oh...

A few weeks ago, I had numerous posts about the fields of dewberries we had growing wild.  Then I discovered (through the help of you all) the passion fruit/maypop vine that will produce fruit and there are quite a few of those around.  And of course we have lots of Mesquite trees whose pods can supposedly be dried and ground into mesquite flour.  I'm not sure about that just yet, but might just try that next Fall.  We've also seen in the past, a small wild hot pepper plant that springs up randomly. So all this got me to wondering something; Is it possible to create naturalized food plants on a piece of property? Wild Dewberries on our farm I'm not talking about fruit trees of course, I'm planting lots of those.  Or building gardens, yes we'll have those too.  I was thinking about the things that just grow wild in other places without intervention of watering, or fertilizing, and just do their thing.  For exampl...

Pasta drying on rack 2nd Man took some flour, olive oil and some farm fresh eggs from 2nd Family and worked his magic with them to come up with a rack full of pasta, like the one sold here:  Marcato Atlas Pasta Drying Rack . Then he used his mixer pasta attachment and turned it into fettuccine. We had some basil in a large pot by the back door, and he pureed that up with some olive oil, nuts, garlic and Parmesan cheese and made pesto sauce. It was very simple after that.  We just boiled the pasta, drained it, tossed in some pesto and put it into a couple of bowls. Then we poured some extra pesto sauce on top, added some fresh grated Parmesan and cracked black pepper and we were good to go.   Mmm, it was a yummy dinner!

With our recent abundance of Asian/Japanese Eggplant, I put out a call for suggestions.  I haven't done them all yet, but we did do this one and BOY is it delicious!!!  Thank you MARCIA !  The ingredients are about as simple as you can get. Eggplant. Mayonnaise. Parmesan.  That's all! Slice your eggplant into about 1/4"-1/2" thick slices, it's really just whatever thickness is your personal preference. Pour some of the parmesan onto a plate.  Then, get your mayo ready, open the jar and get out a knife. Spread the mayo in a layer on each slice, just on one side.  I found a quick way was to spread it on one, then put another on top like a sandwich, rub them together and pull apart.  You can do them 'twice' as fast this way. Then take each coated slice and press it, mayo side down, into the grated parmesan cheese. They should look like this.  At this point, you could sprinkle with pepper if you desire, or maybe even red peppe...

Who doesn't love a good roasted pork shoulder?  We do ours very simply and it comes out wonderfully every time.  First, we put a couple of sliced up onions and a few garlic cloves in the bottom of a large covered pot along with about 1/2 cup water.  Score the fat cap on top. Then, just simply put it in the oven, covered of course, and cook it at 350 degrees for about 3 hours. This is what it looks like after you take it out of the oven and open it (and the house smells wonderful). Just use some tongs to pull out the bone  It should wiggle and slip out easily, but if it doesn't, put it back in for another 30 minutes.  Peel off the fat cap and pull off any other pieces of fat that you don't want. Then just start pulling it apart, first in chunks and then into shreds.  You can use the tongs or a couple of forks to make it easier.  You shouldn't have to drain anything, it all just adds moistness to the meat. ...

A few months ago, I got home from work and was blog hopping when I hopped on over to the  Tomato Thymes blog . She had posted a recipe  LINK  from Saveur magazine for something called Pasta alla Norma .  I had never heard of it but seeing that it used eggplant, and at the time we had a glut of them, I figured why not try it? Oh my gosh...it was SO good.  This is a very fresh sauce, not one of those tomato sauces that needs to simmer all day.  I didn't do step by step photos because the evening was late and dinner needed to get on the table, ha, but here is how it came out. The recipe is as follows with my edits on our changes: PASTA ALLA NORMA 3 medium eggplants, cut into 3/4″ cubes (no need to peel) 8 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste 1 medium yellow onion, chopped 1/2 tsp. crushed red chili flakes (or less to taste) 10 cloves garlic, minced 1 28-oz. can whole peeled San Marzano to...

We can't take credit for this recipe, though we did tweak it a bit for our purposes.  It's ONE PAN PASTA courtesy of Martha Stewart Living. First you put the ingredients in a pan.  Make sure you have a pan that will fit the pasta.  Yes, you put the pasta in dry along with the tomatoes and onions and sliced garlic. Then you add the water, and some fresh basil leaves, oil, salt and pepper to the pan.  Oh, and some pepper flakes for a bit of heat (optional of course). Bring to a boil over high heat and then just start stirring.  It might look like too much water at first but don't worry, it will cook down in time. Just keep it boiling while stirring, gently moving the pasta around in the water.  We found that a pair of tongs worked wonders for this.  As you stir, the water will start to evaporate... ...and in about 10 minutes, what's left will thicken and become a sauce.  The onions  and garlic ...