Cowboy Cookies

Howdy ya'll! This here is a cookie that will satisfy them hardworkin' cowboys in your life. Why shoot, even the little buckaroos and buckarettes down to the Farmers' Market have told me, "Miss Candy, them are some mighty tasty cookies!" Just so's ya' know, these ain't no chicken-livered girly cookies. Nope, they're chock full of oats, raisins, chocolate chips and walnuts. They'll make ya' sit up and say "Yee-Haw!" Why, you could even grab one or two on the way out the door to see you through them early mornin' chores. I know my cowboy can go through several before the sun has even come up! ;-)

Okay, let's git down to bakin'!

Cowboy Cookies               **Click here to print this recipe**

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups Baking Mix
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups uncooked quick or old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup golden raisins or regular
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs; mix well. Add Baking Mix, cocoa and oats; mix well. Stir in chocolate chips, raisins and walnuts.
Drop dough by tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. I flatten the dough a bit as it doesn't spread very much.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly golden brown. Cool on pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

I haven't done an "ingredient" picture in awhile but I wanted to show off the new mixing bowl that I picked up at a thrift store in Willcox a couple of weeks ago. It is marked Robinson Ransbottom and probably isn't particulary old, the company was in business until 2005, but I have always wanted a heavy crockery mixing bowl and the price was pretty good! :)

Linking up with The Country Homemaker Hop, Rural Thursday, Farm Fresh Friday and Farmgirl Friday.

When Life Gives You Pumpkins...

...make Pumpkin Scones!! I sure hope ya'll aren't sick of scone recipes yet because here is another one! :)

I have been gifted several pie pumpkins in the past week or so and after cooking and pureeing the pumpkin, I decided to see how it would do in some scones. The pumpkin puree, an egg and some molasses were the only wet ingredients I used and I added some dried cranberries and vanilla chips. I also used my homemade pumpkin pie spice, you can find the recipe at the end of this post. (That reminds me, I need to make that Applesauce Molasses cake sometime soon!)

Pumpkin Scones

2 1/3 cups Baking Mix
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
6 tablespoons cold butter
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup vanilla chips
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
1 tablespoon molasses
Turbinado sugar for the tops

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, stir together Baking Mix, sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Cut in butter until it resembles small peas; stir in dried cranberries and vanilla chips. Make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, combine pumpkin puree, egg and molasses; mix well. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix lightly until incorporated. Do not overmix.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 4 or 5 turns. Roll or pat dough into a circle 7 inches in diameter. Cut into 6 or 8 wedges and place on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave enough room between the scones as they will rise a bit and spread out. Brush the top of each scone with a little heavy cream or milk and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes until golden brown.

I had some of these for sale at last week's Farmers' Market and they went fast, guess it's getting to be pumpkin season, my favorite time of year!

Linking up with The Country Homemaker Hop, Rural Thursday, Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday. Thanks ladies for hosting these wonderfully fun blog parties! :)

Extreme Makeover - PB&J Edition

I know what ya'll are thinking...how in the world can you possibly have an extreme makeover of something as ubiquitous as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Why, make all the components from scratch, of course! :)
I started with a lovely piece of lightly toasted 100% Whole Wheat bread, then I added a layer of homemade Peanut Butter, crunchy for me please, finally, I topped it all off with some of our favorite Carrot Cake jam/conserve (thanks, Michelle, for the recipe). To complete this lovely breakfast, just add a glass of icy cold, fresh, raw goat milk! YUM!!

Toasting the bread is optional but doing so makes the peanut butter all melty good. :) Talk about comfort food!
Linking up with Rural Thursday, Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday.

Ginger Cream Scones

The scones have become very popular at the Farmers' Market! :) I make six or seven different types each week and always sell out. These are my favorites. They are spicy with ground ginger and chunks of crystallized ginger and the turbinado sugar on the top gives them a nice finish. This recipe uses my Baking Mix.

Ginger Cream Scones               **Click here to print this recipe**

2 1/3 cups Baking Mix
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Zest from one lemon
6 tablespoons cold butter
1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 large egg
Turbinado sugar for the tops

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, stir together Baking Mix, sugar, ground ginger and lemon zest. Cut in butter until it resembles small peas; stir in crystallized ginger. Make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, combine heavy cream and egg; mix well. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix lightly until incorporated. Do not overmix.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 4 or 5 turns. Roll or pat dough into a circle 7 inches in diameter. Cut into 6 wedges and place on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave enough room between the scones as they will rise a bit and spread out. Brush the top of each scone with a little heavy cream and sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes until golden brown.

I buy my crystallized ginger (along with a lot of other herbs and spices) at Penzeys Spices. There is a store in Tucson and I just love going in there! Luckily for Jerry, there is a bench for the husbands to sit and wait while the wives are shopping. ;-) If you haven't ever been to one of their stores or looked at one of their catalogs, I recommend you do. Their products are wonderful and their prices seem reasonable too. Sorry for carrying on but I just wanted to share! LOL!!

Linking up with Rural Thursday, Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday. Updated to share with Food On Friday at Carole's Chatter.

Cornmeal Cheddar Scones

Not all scones have to be sweet you know. ;-)

Cornmeal Cheddar Scones

1 1/2 cups Baking Mix
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into chunks
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
Cayenne pepper for dusting the tops

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, stir together Baking Mix, cornmeal and sugar. Cut in butter until it resembles small peas. Stir in shredded cheese. Make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, combine egg and buttermilk; mix well. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix lightly until incorporated. Do not overmix.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 4 or 5 turns. Roll or pat dough into a circle 7 inches in diameter. Cut into 6 wedges and place on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave enough room between the scones as they will rise a bit and spread out. Brush the top of each scone with a little milk and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes until golden brown.

These sold really well today at the Farmer's Market. Actually, everything did, which is always a good thing when dealing with perishable products! I only ended up with five muffins leftover. Can you say Sunday morning breakfast?!? LOL!!  
Sharing with Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday on Saturday!

GoAt Milk?

One of the things I dearly love about living here on our little "farm" is that I can have my dairy goats! :) I love my goat girls and it is so nice to always have fresh, raw milk available. Since we don't have a big family, a goat is just the right size to meet our needs and then some!

In addition to drinking the milk and using it for cooking and baking, I also use it to make yogurt, buttermilk, ice cream, and cheese. Madeline kidded in March of 2011 and I didn't breed her back in the fall but continued to milk her through the winter. She is still producing well over 3 quarts a day, enough to feed BW the bottle baby, meet all of our needs and supply two of my friends who buy milk from me every week. Here in about a week, when BW goes to his new home, I will have an additional 2-1/2 gallons of milk every week for cheese making.

If you are thinking of adding a dairy animal to your farm, consider a goat. They don't eat as much as a cow, produce less "waste" and don't give as much milk, which is often a good thing. I don't know what I would do with an average of 6 GALLONS of milk a day! Yikes!! Just remember though, you'll have to have at least two goats as they are very social animals.

This week marks my one year Blogiversary! :) One of the first posts I did was Milking Time, check it out if you would like. Linking up with Lisa and Nancy for Rural Thursday, Deb and Heidi for Farmgirl Friday, Lisa for Farm Fresh Friday and Tayet for Forever Farmgirls Friday.

Breakfast Parfait

My favorite breakfast...homemade goat milk yogurt, strawberries fresh from the garden and homemade Maple Granola. It looks even prettier when served up in my Redneck Wine Glass that I bought from one of the vendors at the La Fiesta De Los Vaqueros Rodeo a few months ago! :)

Isn't that just about the cutest thing you've ever seen? It's a canning jar affixed to a stem, I'm not sure of the method used. The lid and ring were included to "keep the bugs out of your wine!" She had half pint and pint glasses, I figured I better go for the smaller one if I was going to be drinking wine out of it! LOL!!
Linking up with Heidi and Deb for Farmgirl Friday, Lisa for Farm Fresh Friday and Tayet for Forever Farmgirls Friday.

Strawberries

This is the third year for my strawberry plants and I'm finally getting some decent yields! It's funny, I was standing in the grocery store yesterday looking at the strawberries on sale when it dawned on me that I could pick my own from the garden! Duh!! I picked a nice bowl full this morning and there are a lot more to go. The trick is to get them before the lizards do. Anyway, I assume it's the lizards as I have the bed completely covered with bird netting and I haven't had to rescue any of the Thrashers in about a week.
I'm a day late (but not a dollar short!) in linking up with Lisa for Farm Fresh Friday, Tayet for Forever Farmgirls Friday and Heidi and Deb for Farmgirl Friday! :)

Cowboy Quiche

Jerry is not a big fan of quiche. In fact, he disdainfully calls it "egg pie!" Me, I love quiche and could eat it twice a week! :) I made this recipe for Cowboy Quiche on Easter Sunday when we had company. It is from Ree Drummond's new cookbook "The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Food From My Frontier." I have never been one to make my own piecrust because most people swear that you have to use vegetable shortening to make the best piecrust and I don't use vegetable shortening. I tried the suggested piecrust recipe from this same cookbook and it was wonderful! I will now be making all my piecrusts from scratch! The recipe makes enough for two piecrusts so I have an extra in the freezer now! :)

Pam's Piecrust

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup cold butter, cut into chunks
1/4 cup cold water

Lightly mix 2 cups of the flour, the salt and the sugar in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into the flour using a pastry cutter. The mixture should look like large crumbs and begin to cling together in clumps. Add the remaining 1/2 cup flour and mix lightly. Do not overmix this flour, it should coat the clumps. Sprinkle the cold water over the dough and with your hands, mix it in until the dough holds together, then shape the dough into two discs. At this point, you may wrap the dough in plastic wrap for storage; it will keep up to a week in the fridge or up to six months in the freezer.
Roll out one disc of the dough between two pieces of parchment or waxed paper until large enough for your pie pan.

Cowboy Quiche

1 recipe Pam's Piecrust
8 slices bacon, fried until chewy
2 yellow onions, thinly sliced (I used one large onion)
2 tablespoons butter
8 eggs
1-1/2 cups heavy cream (I used half milk and half heavy cream)
Salt and black pepper to taste
2 cups grated Cheddar cheese (I used half Cheddar and half goat cheese Queso Blanco)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a 9-inch deep-dish pie pan with the crust, set aside.
Chop up the bacon into bite-sized pieces. In a heavy skillet, over medium-low heat, fry the onions in the butter until deep golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. (I cooked the bacon in the skillet and then cooked the onions in a little of the bacon grease.) Mix the eggs, cream and salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the bacon, onions and cheese, stir to combine. Pour the filling into the pie shell, cover lightly with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the quiche is set and the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 10 minutes. Serve warm or cold, either way is scrumptious!

Jerry actually ate some of this quiche on Easter AND had a piece for breakfast a couple of days later! He grudgingly admitted that it was "pretty good!" ;~) After all, how can you go wrong with bacon, onions and cheese!

Linking up with Heidi and Deb for Farmgirl Friday and Sall's Country Life for the premier of Farm Fresh Friday. This quiche was made with my Farm Fresh eggs, goat milk and goat cheese. :) I hope you get a chance to check out both of these great blog hops!