Faithful Friend

16 Years ago our neighbor in Hawaii found a stray dog running the neighborhood.  She brought her over to ask if we may know the owner.  Of course we didn't, but Sadie and I fell instantly in love with her!  We offered to take her to the animal shelter later that day since our neighbor had plans.  As the day progressed she embedded herself into our hearts even more.  When we dropped her off we asked if we could adopt her if no one claimed her.  We had to wait 2 weeks and during that 2 weeks we went nearly everyday to visit her.  The call came from the shelter and she was unclaimed ~ do we still want to adopt her.  YES!!!!  We felt Lucky to have found her, so we gave her the name LUCKY!
We could never have found a better dog and she blessed us with with pure joy for 16 years.
She is a well traveled dog - found in Hawaii, moved to Italy, then to Oklahoma, and onto Kentucky. 

Sadly, exactly 1 week ago today she took her final breath of life.  My heart has a huge empty space where only she could fill it.  We found a beautiful place in the sun to bury her.  Perfect for her since she loved to sunbathe.  Her final days were so hard to watch as she gave up food and eventually water.  We watched her become bones and just spent every opportunity to hold her and love her.  She gave me and my family some amazing memories.  I will cherish those always!

I love you Lucky Girl!



Best Friends ALWAYS!



Goodies Galore

Ok, hold on to your seat because I am going to be true to my blog title and actually talk about some baking!  Tomorrow we head out for Pennsylvania to attend a Gun Raffle and camping is on the schedule.  So of course, you can't camp without some goodies to munch on, so bright and early this morning I cranked on the oven while the temps outside were still bearable.
First item up:  The ever faithful ~ RICE KRISPY TREAT~ Not to much explaining needed here, just be sure to purchase the gluten free rice krispy cereal (thank you Kellogs).  Also be sure to check those fluffy balls of deliciousness because some brands to contain gluten.  Other than that, it is as easy as one, two, three.
Second item up:  Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I normally don't share the actually recipe, but I am spoiling you all today with the recipe :)
You will need to first have a gluten free flour mix.  A couple of options here depending on the level of your adventure side.  You can buy King Arthur's Gluten Free All purpose flour.  Quick easy and done ~ but I find you get a little flour and it has a nice price tag.  So here is my GF flour mix I use for all recipes that call for flour:
2 cups brown rice flour (I buy Bob Mills and a small bag can range from $2.99 - $3.99 depending if
                                       on sale - one small bag can triple the flour mix recipe)
2/3 cup potato starch (NOT potato flour! ~ Bob Mills again on this one and it is about $2.99 a bag)
1/3 cup tapioca startch (Good ole Bob Mills)

I mix these ingredients in a nice snap lock lid container.  When I make it, I triple the recipe so it is always on hand.  Store in the fridge!  Now the serious trick is the ZANTHUM GUM!!  This is a little pricey, but lasts forever.  I am still on my original bag I bought 2 years ago (store in fridge or freezer).  When I make a recipe, for instance the chocolate chip cookies.  I add 1/2 tsp. of zanthum gum for a single recipe.  You could add 1 tsp too.  This is what keeps the cookie, cake, bread together.  Without it ~ you would have a crumbled up pile of messiness.

GF Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cup unsifted GF flour blend
1/2 tsp zanthum gum
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup coconut oil (this is the most amazing oil and pretty much all I use)
      **If you don't want to buy coconut oil - you can use 1 cup butter (2 sticks), but I promise you
          the taste of the cookie with the coconut oil is AMAZING!
3/4 cup sugar (again I use rapunzel brand)
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp gf vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips (splurge here and get the good stuff ~ I like organic, but use what you like)

Preheat the over to 375 F.  Stir flour, zanthum gum, baking soda, and salt; set aside.  Beat the coconut oil with the sugars at medium speed for 3-5 minutes.  Add vanilla and eggs (one egg at a time), mix on low speed until blended well.
Slowly add in the flour mixture.  Once it is well blended, stir in chocolate chips.  **I put in freezer for 10 minutes**.  Remove from freezer and drop by tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.
Pour yourself a nice tall glass of organic milk or goat milk and enjoy!

Third on the cooking list today is to prepare the hamburgers and then freeze them for our ride to PA.  I use venison meat (thanks to my hunting hunk of a husband).  So here is what I like to do:
Dice one small onion - mix into venison meat.  Add 1-2 tsp. of garlic powder.  Then add 1/4 - 1/2 cup of crumbled blue cheese.  Get those hands in there and mix all together.  Form into patties and cook em up.  Or well in my case today, freeze in patties and pack in cooler for a delicious meal on Saturday :)  If you don't like blue cheese, I don't see why you couldn't add a cheese you enjoyed, but they are delicious!

Ok, also this week I picked the beets from my garden.  I LOVE pickled beets, but didn't really know how to do it.  So what is a girl to do???? ~~ Call her Momma of course!  I found out I had already messed up.  When I boiled the beets, I drained the beet water. Mom said I needed the beet water.  So here was  mom's recipe:  equal amounts of beet water, vinegar, sugar.  Her equal amounts were 1 cup each.   I refuse to be defeated by beet water or really lack of beet water, so I just added water.  I cooked the water, vinegar, and sugar over low heat until the sugar had dissolved.  (I only used 1/4 each because I didn't make a lot of beets)  I sliced up my beets and poured the mixture over and stored in the fridge over night.  Well my dear folks who are gracious enough to spend your precious time reading my craziness here - It turned out PERFECT!   I only made 3 beets cut up for our dinner tonight, but I am going to pickle the rest of those beets today and take them camping with us.  I would can them, but I didn't plant enough this year to can.  But next year - look out garden you will get a long row of beets!

I am also including a picture of my wonderful sweet precious Sadie Girl and her grandma.  It was an amazing 4th of July surprise when she walked into the house!  I wish the visit could have been longer, but I am so glad we were able to drive up and surprise her grandma before heading on to the airport.  I must say ~ I LOVE being a mom!

Enjoy your cooking adventures!  Happy baking!

"Can" it be that easy?

I know you heard from me already today, but seriously I just had to make a quick post.  Today I had my first canning adventure all by myself and it was AMAZING!  I made butter pickles with the mounds of zucchini and squash my garden continues to produce.  Then I took a stab at rhubarb/strawberry jam.  Why did I convince myself all these years I could never can????  It is amazingly easy and I just love looking over at my canning corner I put together yesterday and seeing all the jars, empty and full!  If you want to can, but are unsure ~ buy the Ball Canning Book.  I have had mine a month now and I think I need to buy a backup because it is already looking well worn (Not a bad thing).  Well unless you have the most amazing sister-in-law like I do, you will just need to read read read that book (magazine look actually).  Get all your canning supplies ~ a HUGE THANK YOU here to my beautiful Grandma who gave me all her jars and water boiler.  I know she does not blog, but those of you reading this that know my grandma -- pass my comment along and tell her pickles and jam are coming her way!
Enjoy my canning pictures and thanks for allowing me to take up a precious 2 - 3 minutes of your day.  I will just sit here and enjoy the "popping" sound of the jars as they make their seal ~ it is a symphony of wonderful.

                                          My canning corner

                                         Look at those amazing canning pots ~ Grandma's are the BEST!

                                        The Zucchini/Squash Butter Pickles heating up!

                                         Beautiful jars full of pickles!

                                         Rhubarb/Strawberry Jam

July already?

Why does the summer seem to fly by so quickly?  It has been one month on the farm and I am still amazed at myself.  I swore I would never survive a country life and here I am living it and LOVING IT!  Last week I drove up to spend a night with my mom, which ended up being two nights because there was no way I was going to miss going to here last radiation treatment with her.  I figured I went to her surgery to remove the tumor ~ here first chemo ~ her first radiation ~ so I should just see the end of it all.  It was awesome!  We had a good laugh driving home reflecting on her first treatment.  So I told my mom I would share the story in my next blog, so here it goes.  Since her treatment was high on her neck, she had to have this CRAZY mask made to go over her face and then it clamped down to the table so she couldn't move.  The only cutouts were her eyes.  So panic set in when they first tried to get this thing on her for the "trial run" the week before the actual start of radiation.  A prescription of meds were needed.  Well they told her people react different so she will want someone to drive her the first time.  We leave her treatment and I am asking her how she feels, does she think she could drive after the medicine (we were in trouble if the answer would be no since she had to go everyday for 4 weeks).  She was telling me she felt fine etc.  In the process of this conversation I am stopped at a red light and the conversation proceeds as follows:
Mom:  "Is it red?"
Me: "Yes mom, it is red"
Mom:  "Really?"  (with a very surprised voice)
Me:  "Mom are you sure you would be ok to drive?  If you can't even tell the light is red, I don't think you need to be driving yourself"
Mom:  "Not the light....Is my neck red from the radiation."
Me:  A HUGE sigh of relief because I seriously thought she didn't think the light was red

                                          Mom's radiation Mask ~ She got to take it home with her

After we got back to her house, she packed up and came to the farm for the weekend with me.  What a joy to have her here!  So we decided to walk the first night.  We went over to see the horses and cows.  We walked the road front going, but coming back I wanted to take her the back way through a path in the woods.  Well, Duke ran along with us and he suddenly went on alert and darted into the woods just as I caught a glimpse of his prey ~ AHHHH  A SKUNK!  I told mom to get to moving up the hill because he was going to chase that skunk right out in the path in front of us.  Well months of chemo and radiation = little exercise time, so trying to get my mom to move it up that hill was not happening.  Luckily, Duke showed up with no skunk back on the path.  Whew - disaster adverted!  I need to start carrying a gun through the woods!!!

We also went to the Blueberry Festival in Augusta, Kentucky.  Ok...so it was about 5 tents of really nothing ~ only one had anything Blueberry.  But we did go down to the Ohio River and enjoyed the view, then we ate a wonderful lunch.  But later this month Augusta is hosting the Ohio River Regatta Festival and it is a weekend long event, so I figure this will be better than the Blueberry Festival.  But I did get an amazing picture of Jim and Me ~ one of my all time favorites.

Let me see, I am trying to think of a gluten free goodie to add here and well nothing is coming to me.  I am still up to my ears in zucchini and squash.  Today, I cut up 30 combined to make buttered pickles.  I am going to also make some zucchini bread tomorrow (gluten free of course).  Tomorrow I am also going to can my first batch of jam:  Strawberry/Rhubarb Jam.  I am so excited!  The cucumbers are coming in now too as are the beans.  I just love the garden!

I did want to share my amazing fly remedy for the cows and horses.  I didn't want to share to much till I knew if it would work.  We made a huge pump spray of it.  We used water, vegetable oil, vinegar, and eucalyptus essential oil.  We sprayed that right on the cows and the flies departed quickly.  I had to do a touch up spray today, but it had been a week, so that is pretty good!  We even sprayed the horses and the flies are much better.  I am hoping the sweet lick blocks will start doing there thing and killing the larve and we will be much better in the fly department.

                                          The much happier cows ~ fly free :)

Well my dear readers, I will end with a few pictures of my gluten free zucchini cookies I made last week, but couldn't get the picture to download.  I will get some pictures of my canning tomorrow and the gluten free bread I make.  Enjoy your 4th of July and happy baking!