Tag Archives: summer
Wordless Wednesday: Wall Fire
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Filed under Ag, agriculture, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday
Wordless Wednesday: A Cow Named Floppy Ear
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Filed under Ag, agriculture, animals, Beef, photos, Ranch life, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday
Individual No-Bake Ginger Nutella Cheesecake
A couple summers ago, I was obsessed with these. I made them every week, all the neighbors were gifted them, it was slightly ridiculous. Then I burned out on them, I stopped making them, and honestly, I kinda forgot about them. Until a few days ago, when THE CRAVING came back. I’m posting them here because hopefully I can practice some moderation, not burn myself out on them and remember to make them more often.
Get in my belly!
Individual No-Bake Ginger Nutella Cheesecakes
Crust
Gingersnap Cookies (about half of an 10 ounce package)
1.5 tablespoons melted butter
Filling
1 package room temperature cream cheese
1 cup nutella
½ teaspoon running over vanilla extract
1 cup fresh whipped cream (I guess you could use that frozen stuff, but man, really?)
Ginger snaps are better as a crust anyway.
Use your cuisinart to pulverize the ginger snaps. Mix with butter (you might have to use more or less butter) until you get some cohesiveness with your crust. Add about 2 teaspoons of crust into the jar and use the back of a spoon or the mortar from your pestle to tamp it down firmly.
Tamping the crust, this is important! No one likes a loose crust.
Meanwhile place the cream cheese, the Nutella and vanilla extract in your stand mixture and mix until blended. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Place the mixture in your jars and garnish with more whipped cream.
I could eat the cream cheese – nutella mixture with a spoon, as is, with no shame.
Serve immediately or put a lid on it, hide it under some vegetables in your refrigerator and eat it when no one else is home and won’t judge you.
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Filed under food, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life, Recipe, Uncategorized
Wordless Wednesday: The Secret Lair
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Wordless Wednesday: Sweet Relief
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Filed under Ag, Humor, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life
Apricot Jalapeno Jam
My friend Aaron and I, this year! (We’ve been friends for, like, over a decade now!)
Everyone needs a friend like Aaron. Aaron is my friend from college that everyone liked and everyone knew. For some reason, he stayed friends with me and pretty much fulfills my happy place when it comes to food. He works in production agriculture so he hooks this girl up with wonderful things like walnuts, oils, and apricots! I try and keep him elbow deep in jam and jelly – everyone seems happy so far.
Aaron apricots! I spent a good two weeks processing these, it was dreamy!
Aaron got me something like 40 pounds of apricots this year. I love apricots, they are sweet little golden nuggets of warm delicious goodness. They made a fabulous jam. And jam I did! I made plain apricot, ginger, vanilla, but the best was apricot jalapeno! Something about sweet and spicy brings me joy.
Apricot-Jalapeno Jam
- 3 cups finely chopped apricots (about 25 medium)
- ½ cup minced jalapeno
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 1 3-oz pouch liquid pectin
- 1/2 tsp butter (optional, it keeps the foam down)
- 5-3/4 cups sugar
Instead of chopping the jalapenos and apricots, I just toss them in my trusty cuisinart.
Mix apricots, jalapeno, lemon juice and sugar in large saucepan. Add butter. Bring to a rolling boil, one that cannot be stirred down. Add pectin and boil hard for one minute. Remove from heat and skim any foam. Place in jars, adjust lids and bands. Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.
The best jam I made all summer, hands down. It tastes like summer! This makes about 7 half pints.
Serve this jam on cream cheese with wheat thins, or as a marinade on chicken or pork. It’s so good!
Adapted from here.
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Filed under Ag, agriculture, arts & crafts, food, Humor, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life, Recipe, Uncategorized
Cold Blue Mountain: The Strongest Will
Chico is one of those little towns with a pretty awesome art’s scene. We have music, theater, galleries, famous people – there is a thriving little culture here. Unfortunately, despite my fondest wishes and feeble tries, it is not a culture I am apart of. My talents are more agricultural based. However, I think this has worked to most of our advantages. I often supply various food items for various shows. In fact, I got to cook for this video!
Seriously, you wish you were here.
My goals for this summer was to swim and fish – regularly. I’ve swam twice and I guess you can say I fished when I used a bucket to scoop out a fish when I was irrigating (I released it back into the creek). It was a busy summer on the Ranch. But when I heard Cold Blue Mountain was filming a video, I demanded a day off from the cows so I could cook for this video! Plus I knew I could swim. In chlorine. Perfect.
Pay no attention to my rancher’s tan. Pay attention to the BEEF!
In addition to Brown Ranch Beef, I made potato salad and tomato, onion and cucumber salad from our garden veggies! I also got to bust out some pickles and peppers I canned, and some jam and jelly. I simply love to cook for a crowd. It’s a good challenge. It ended up being a really awesome day! I got to hang out with fun, artistic people, I got to cook and swim!
My favorite picture from the day.
Cold Blue Mountain is yet another band Daniel Taylor is a member of, (as you recall he’s posted here before). This band is a whisper more, um…..heavy….than I am used to, which is funny to me because these are some of the nicest, most sensitive dudes I know! Please enjoy this video and thank you, CBM, for letting me be apart of it!
Seriously nicest metal band I know, they sent handmade thank you cards.
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Filed under arts & crafts, Field Trip, food, Humor, Media, photos, Ranch life, Video
Wordless Wednesday: Cows in the Mist
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Filed under Ag, agriculture, animals, Beef, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life, Uncategorized, Wordless Wednesday
Zucchini Pickles
In honor of “sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor’s porch” night, I thought this would be a good time to share with you my latest new favorite thing: zucchini pickles. I know, I know, at this point in the summer you are tired of squash. I was too, until I tried these!
Neighbor Pete told me his Mom used to make pickles out of zucchini and they were delicious. I was hesitant to say the least. But since he gave me several pounds of zucchini and a couple of onions from his garden, I decided to at least try!
Pete’s garden zucchini
Guess what? They were amazing. I couldn’t even tell they were zucchini pickles, they tasted and had the texture of normal cucumber pickles! If you have a bunch of extra zucchini (who doesn’t, amirite?) I highly recommend you give these a go!
Lucas Family Bread and Butter Pickle Recipe
- 1 gallon sliced zucchini
- 2 big onions, sliced
- 1/3 cup pickling salt
- 1 quart vinegar
- 3 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 tablespoon celery seed
- 1 teaspoon peppercorns
- 3-4 cinnamon sticks
Soaking in salt ice is an important step, don’t skip it.
Soak the zucchini, onions, and salt in an ice water bath for two and half hours. Rinse in cold water.
Invest in a cheap mandoline, it is worth it for the beautiful, uniform slices and not stitches!
Bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil. I let it boil about 5 minutes. Put about half of the rinsed zucchini and onions in the pickling mixture to scald. Then place in sterilized, hot jars. Do the same with the rest of the zucchini and onions, making sure to pack them tightly and to remove air bubbles.
Your pickling liquid.
Adjust your lids and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
Glorious, glorious bread and butter pickles!
Let them “pickle” for about two weeks to really get the full effect. Also if you are a fan of spice, add some peppers in there! I’ve been adding jalapenos into some jars and it makes the pickles even better!
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Filed under Ag, agriculture, arts & crafts, family, food, Garden, Know a California Farmer, photos, Ranch life, Recipe, Uncategorized
