Mexican Chicken Soup

Alright here is the second recipe for the Have a Holly Jolly Christmas Recipe Swap at http://farmchickskitchen.blogspot.com/, make sure you stop by an visit as there are some great recipes posted by other ladies and friends.  This recipe is a great soup to throw together with little or no fuss, which this time of year is my favorite. Between breaking ice, plowing snow, the holidays and home schooling our days are full and dinner can get forgotten until the last minute. So fix you a bowl, enjoy with some cornbread, a fire in the fireplace and a holiday movie on TV.

Mexican Chicken Soup

4 chicken leg quarters boiled until cooked and cooled then shredded (This can be done ahead of time and kept in the fridge or freezer to pull out at the last minute)
3 cups water or chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can black bean, undrained
1 can mexi-style corn, undrained
Salt, pepper, cayenne, chili powder and paprika to taste

Mix all the ingredients in a large stock pot and heat through. Fix some cornbread or serve with your favorite bread. It is that easy, nothing else to do other than enjoy!

Don't have a picture to add, as the soup is all gone, so thought I would put in a picture of the snow that we have been looking at for the past few days!

Cranberry Jam

Here is my recipe for Cranberry Jam that I made just a week ago, finally getting around to putting the recipe up on here and on fellow blogger Fresh from the Farm for her recipe swap.  Make sure you stop by her great blog also to catch all the other great recipes, crafts and holiday ideas being shared http://farmchickskitchen.blogspot.com/

Cranberry Jam

12 oz fresh or frozen cranberries
12 oz fruit juice (Cranberry, Pomegranate, Raspberry, Cherry or what ever is your favorite and the flavor you want to add to the cranberries
1 cup sugar

Mix the cranberries, juice and sugar in a large sauce pan. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to medium-low and cook until the berries have burst and the sauce is thickened. You can let it cool down and then store in the refrigerator or multiple the recipe and can. One batch makes 3-4 half pints of jam. Just can it in a hot water bath for 15 minutes.

Enjoy on toast, bagel or English muffin for breakfast or with rolls and biscuits for dinner.

Hope you enjoy this recipe. One of my favorite for the holidays, ever since my husband's grandmother made it and gave it out for Christmas gifts.  Now I make a triple batch each year to have enough to last the year through.

Speechless

Just the other day a conversation left me quite frankly speechless. Now those of you who know me well, would say that was impossible. Yes I know most of the time I have something to add or a comment to make, well that changed during a conversation with an acquaintance about ranch life, kids and home schooling.

I am always more than happy to answer questions about our ranch, the cattle industry, beef and kids. Such was the case with this conversation with "John Doe" who shall remain un-named so as to not offend anyone. The usual questions came about, how did you get into ranching, what type of cows do you have, do the kids like living that far from town, etc.  Then came the question "Why doesn't your oldest daughter have a job?" At first I thought they were joking, she just turned 13 after all, a little young for a job. When I realized they were not joking I told them all that she does to "work" around the ranch; feeding calves and horses, moving the herd, helping to brand, sort, vaccinate, ship, doctor sick calves, cut wood, break horses and all the other things a ranch kid helps out with around the ranch. John Doe then looked at me and said "No I mean a real job."

Here is where I reached the speechless part!  A "real job"? Really, all that stuff I just told him she worked at and helped out with was not a "real job"?  Boy would all of the cowboys, ranchers, wives, girlfriends, kids and countless others would find themselves speechless and in shock to find out that they were not working at a "real job"! Once I recovered from my speechless shock, I asked just what does a real job require?  How did they define a "real job"?  There response was of course something that you got paid to do and had to leave home to go to work.

It just kept getting better! I was by this time not speechless as a fire had been lit and the words where pouring forth. I then asked John Doe so if you work at home now that is not a "real job"?  What about the people who volunteer their time to help others? Do stay at home mom's not work?  At this point the man was unsure as what direction to take and was looking for a way out of the mess he had made for himself. After he left I was still shocked at someone thinking that ranch or farm kids don't work at real jobs.

I don't know about anyone else but our girls do just as much to help out on the ranch, age allowing, as the adults. Sometimes I think they do more, what with school, music, clubs and the like on top of everything else.
Am I worried that the girls will never get "real jobs"? No if they never go any farther than this ranch to work and raise a family they will have made a wonderful life for themselves and the next generation. The work ethic that kids learn on farms and ranches I think is second to none and maybe if more kids learned it this world would be a better place.

See I told you I am normally not left speechless with nothing to say!

Planning Thanksgiving

Well it is that time of year in which I start planning my Thanksgiving dinner. This year will be a little different as we are going to the hubby's Grandma's for actual Thanksgiving dinner. I'm waiting until the weekend to cook so that everyone can be here for the meal.

That being said we are having goose this year instead of the traditional turkey since I raised two in the backyard this spring and summer. They have been plucked and cleaned and are awaiting the day wrapped in butcher paper in the freezer.

Next on the planning schedule is making Cranberry Sauce, not the kind that looks like jello out of a can, but the kind that you can use as jam on the bread. Love this ever since the hubby's Gran Noe gave us a few jars for Christmas. Now it has to make an appearance on our table every holiday season.

Also a must for us is cornbread stuffing, no bread stuffing for us, we are too Southern for that ;). One thing I cherish the most is pulling out the recipe card for gravy. Why is that so special? Well you see it is my Grandma Bonnie's recipe for Giblet Gravy and if there is one thing that just speaks Thanksgiving to me it is that gravy. You see gravy is not my thing, most of the time it comes out lumpy and not very good and it is therefor made from a mix for most dinners. Not Thanksgiving though, for what ever reason Grandma's recipe always comes out just right, she must watch over me as I make it.

Of course for after dinner there is always pie, Pumpkin for the girls and Pecan for the hubby and this year my Dad. Will have to see who gets more of the Pecan pie, my Dad or hubby as they always fight over the whole thing. Maybe one of these years I will surprise them and make each their own!

No matter where you are planning to spend Thanksgiving or with whom I hope that it is filled with special memories, people and food. And in our house lots of football, in between taking care of all the cows, because they never take a holiday.

Stuck between a rooster and a steer

Just when I thought I had enough going on in my life, what with homeschooling our girls, my own college classes, helping to run the ranch, all the book work, and as my friend Kacee says "skirtwork" the girls have started 4-H!
The meeting part is not so bad, one Wednesday a month in town, okay I think I can manage to swing that schedule. It might even mean time for me to get a real cup of coffee from Starbucks in the Safeway while the girls do their thing!

What is at issue in our house right now is the fact that our youngest, Reyanna, wants to show a steer just like big sis. Yeah I can just see little 6 year old Reyanna getting a 1200 lb steer to go where she wants in the show ring. We have been trying to explain all of this to her, but she is hard headed and thinks she is 10 feet tall and bullet proof!  Asked her the other day what about showing the rooster we have for our chickens, for a boy I have to say that he is pretty with his gold and bronze feathers. Well that suggestion promptly got a look that said "he is not a steer".
It has taken much work and talking on the part of the hubby and I, but finally we have gotten Reyanna to agree to show Reggy, the rooster, for 4-H next fall. The final straw was telling her that Reggy would be her's, oh and her sister's steer almost shoving her into the water trough one afternoon! She turned around and told the steer that "sister can have you, at least a chicken won't try and dunk me".  I guess it just goes to show that there really is no reasoning with a 6 year old that is stuck between a rooster and a steer.

A Years Worth of Hard Work

As I take a few minutes to sit down at the computer this evening I think back to the past year and all the hard work that the hubby, the girls, the young man who works for us and myself have put in. For many farm and ranch families a years worth of work boils down to one day, sale day. For us that is tomorrow. The money is not why we do what we do, this not a job that you get rich doing. So why do it then? What follows is a list of some of the reasons I have come up with over the last three years.

1) I can let my girls run free in the yard and around the house and I don't have to worry about them being safe.

2) My hubby is fourth generation working this ranch and we want to be able to see the 5th and 6th generations working that same land.

3) Where else can a husband, wife and the kids all work the same job at the same time and spend as much time as they want together.

4) There is something about the only rush hour traffic jam is cows laying on the road when you are trying to get the kids to the bus stop in the morning.

Lastly, there is just something satisfying and comforting looking out from your porch and seeing the land where generations before you have come and gone, worked, loved and grew and know that you are part of that continuing story that even after you are gone the land will still be there providing for the next generation.

What are some of the reasons why you or your family are involved with agriculture or somethings that you have realized over time.  I look forward to reading others thoughts.

Why We Do What We Do

Days like today and weeks like this past week give me the satisfaction and knowledge that the way of life, the industry and the heritage that we, as a family have chosen is right. I know I have been some what MIA this week from not only this blog but from those of you who are my friends on Facebook. Part of that is due to home schooling the girls and my own schooling for my teaching degree, but a large part of that is due to daily life on a family ranch.

For us on a daily routine, it is the hubby and one young hired hand that do the "heavy lifting" of the job, with the girls and I filling in when needed and we are able. During this time of year, that of fall gathering, sorting and shipping, it calls for all hands on deck. This week was just that. In years past, either the girls were in school or I was working in town and therefor unable to help the hubby unless the work fell on a weekend. 2010 marked a change for us as I was at home and the girls were home schooled, thus allowing us our own time table and schedule. The end result of this large change in our lives created a chance for our oldest daughter to help drive the herd 8 miles from the south end of the ranch to the holding pasture on the north end of the ranch with her dad and our help, Weston. Not only that, our youngest was able to ride by herself outside of the arena for the first time, helping dad to check the cows one morning during the week.

I am not sure that as a mom I am ready for my girls to grow up so fast, but if this week has taught me nothing else it is this: The next generation of ranching is in good hands, be they girls or boys, those of us who are sticking it out and making a go on family ranches this country over are offering to our children a way of life that is beyond compare.

I am proud to be not only a ranching wife, but even more so a ranching mom.  The ability to pass on our knowledge, our love and our passion to the next generation is just part of why we do what we do.