Shutterbug: Mootherly Love!

Here comes the sun, what a beautiful day! Our adult miniature Zebu Beauregard, using ZZ Topinha,  one of our baby bottle fed Brahmas as a pillow.

A Love Letter To My Cowboy (13 is our lucky number)

Two years ago today (November 13th, 2007) a small kiss changed my life forever. Funny how two people can know each other for years, live parallel lives, run in the same circles, share many of the same friends and not realize that they should have been together all along. But then came a kiss and the deal was sealed or as he would like to say...we pitched some woo and the deal was done.

I had no idea that pitchin' woo could be so wonderful, considering I thought he was referencing a barn activity (and looking back now, I guess it actually could be..hee...hee..hheeeee).

I never thought that two years later, we would be living on the farm and settling down into a life of love, laughter and finding the little things in life are what is most important.  He is the best thing that ever happened in my life and I thank my lonestars every day.

 Four nights away from the farm and my cowboy have made me realize how much I have grown to love my new rural life. The city life is no longer an option, I cannot wait to go home. I miss the clucking of the chickens, the mooing of the cows and the sweet nuzzles and waffling that the little donkeys like to greet me with whenever they see me.

Most of all, I missed my cowboy. I missed drinking coffee in the morning and contemplating the day based upon the weather outside. I missed having lunch together, we make it a habit to drop what we are doing and meet for a bite to eat at the old kitchen table or in town at the museum I curate. Most of all, I missed our evenings together tucked away snugly in our little farmhouse, just us and the four dogs and two cats who share the same little four square at night. 

It's funny where life takes you and who it throws in your path. Like I said, we had known each other for years - before we REALLY knew each other. I think I knew somewhere deep inside that we loved each other right there and then on that fateful night of November, 13th.

So 13 to us is a very lucky number indeed, so lucky, that we made it permanent - in ink, on Friday the 13th no less.

So, the question is now - what are we doing next year?

Stay tuned!

Shutterbug: Have you kissed a chicken today?

The old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" really resonates with me. I am old school and prefer a real camera over my telephone one, so I actually carry my camera wherever I go. This makes for a sore purse shoulder but the additional weight in my little black bag (or whatever else I am carrying that day) is well worth the muscle pain. I have decided to share glimpses of our life through our photography (mine and my artist cowboy) whenever the shutterbug bites us. Sometimes they might make you laugh, other times they might make you smile and some may transport you to the farm, if only for a minute.

Edible Folk Art (or Cookie Decorating 101, Sugar Skulls)

What is better than looking at Folk Art? The answer is Folk Art that you can look at and then eat! Up to this point in my life, I always considered cooking as my artistic expression. Now I have found a way to combine my love of cooking with my love of folk art.

By definition, Folk Art is a result of ordinary people expressing themselves through their creation and construction of utilitarian objects that convey meaning and value to themselves and to others within their culture. A Folk Art object's final form often carries a certain beauty that elevates ordinary objects into the extraordinary.

This year for Halloween, we decided to go as Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls. To complete the look, we decided to make edible sugar skull cookies to pass out to party guests. My artist cowboy is well known for his zany, whimsical visionary art and I'm known for creativity in the kitchen, so this seemed like a perfect match.

I have said this before and will say it again, I am not a baker by choice. I love to cook and create savory dishes and cakes, cookies and desserts have never been my strength. But it's time to push the envelope, think out of the box, get the old KitchenAid mixer off the shelf and just go for it.

I went in search of the perfect cookie recipe and found a beautiful website called Sweetopia.net, I only hope to be as half as creative as Marian (the Sweetopia blogger). Her blog has great tips, artsy themes and I consider her a true cookie folk artist! So I tip my cookie decorating squeeze bottle to her.

My Go To Every Time Shortbread Recipe (For Decorated Cookies):

6 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp kosher or sea salt
( Optional: For a more Mexican flavor I added in fresh grated orange zest and about 1/2 teaspoon of Chipotle powder )

Directions:

Cream butter & sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time and continue to beat. Slowly add each extract flavor and cream till blended.
Put dry ingredients through a flour sifter and blend well. Mix dry ingredients with creamed ingredients a little at a time until the dough comes together.

**Culinary Tip** Roll out your sheets of dough between parchment paper and stack in refrigerator on a cookie sheet. This eliminates the step of adding more flour and rolling after chilling. The cookie dough will be ready for the cookie cutters in 1 hour, once chilled in the fridge. This recipe made about 5 rolled sheets (about 50 cookies).

Heat the oven to 350 and allow to heat for one hour before placing the cut cookies in to bake. Bake the cookies on parchment paper till light brown around the edges, about 8 -10 minutes. Cool on racks.

Perfect White Royal Icing:

3/4 cup warm water
5 tbs meringue powder (egg white powder)
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 bag (2 lbs.) powdered sugar
1 tsp clear vanilla or almond extract

Hand mix the warm water with the meringue powder till blended and frothy . Add cream of tartar and hand mix another 30 seconds. Pour in all the sugar and mix gently by hand. Using an electric mixer, blend with a paddle attachment on lowest speed for 10 minutes (yes, 10 minutes - the frosting will become silky smooth and shiny).

**Culinary Tip** Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and take out small amounts as you go to blend with your food colorings. In this case for the skull cookies, I used a lot of white icing and made black icing using red, blue and green food coloring. The other color accents (red, yellow, green & blue) on the cookies were very easy to do with culinary decorating pens (purchased in the baking aisle at the local grocery). They are really easy to use, just do not press down too hard or they crack the icing and ruin the tip.

Decorating:

Pick out your base color for your royal icing frosting. Make sure your cookies are completely cool before icing them. Place your base color in a squeeze container with a thin tip ( I buy them at a restaurant supply store). Outline your cookie, the outline will act as a dam. Allow outline to dry. Add a little warm water to your frosting bottle to thin the royal icing. Flood the surface of the cookie and evenly spread within the dam. I use the bottle tip to do the spread the inner icing. Once the cookie has a nice even layer of icing, allow to dry and harden before adding other color.

For the skulls, we took our black icing and made the eye sockets, noses and jaw/teeth outline. Once the black had dried, we then began decorating the skulls with unique patterns, using the culinary pens. The final touch was to outline the entire cookie with black icing for a more dramatic effect. Be creative, do not be afraid to experiment. Just like true Folk Art, there are NO rules!!

**Culinary Tip** Allow to harden overnight before packaging. Have fun, your cookies will be the hit of the party. We may do some turkey ones for Thanksgiving, Krumpus for Christmas etc...

It's the Most BOO-tiful Time of the Year....

No, I am not talking Christmas, I am talking my all time favorite holiday..dun..dun..dun (insert spooky music here)...Halloween. The leaves are turning, the fires are burning, there is a chill in the air and our very first pumpkin patch has delivered The Great Pumpkin (over 50 pounds)! I must say, Linus & Snoopy (in this case Gunther my Fila Brasileiro hound) would be proud. The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown cartoon was always a tradition in my household and Halloween holds my fondest memories. My dad was the master of macabre, he would spend days decorating the walkway and would carve the largest pumpkin he could find. No cutesy themes, mind you, he would use dry ice, fake blood, voice recordings etc..on the other hand, my mom always made our house the most popular one on the block (mostly because she gave out her famous spiked apple cider to the grown-ups). Hey it was the late 60's and early 70's and my parents had a weekly martini party too. Ahh..life growing up in crazy California. When we moved to Brazil my American school still carried on the tradition of Halloween so I did not miss out on too much, even living in a foreign country. We carved "aborboras" and ate "cocada" to celebrate.

We have been so busy here at Feed Me Farms, have not had much time for the ol' blog, but soon there will be a new and improved version, just hang in a few more times with the old format.

The rain has dominated our lives since the beginning of September but there are blue skies and brisk nights on the horizon. Our planned Fall garden did not get in the ground on September 1st as planned. It is now a "Winter" garden as we took a window of opportunity a few weeks ago to get some more heirloom seeds in the ground. We may have drowned the little guys but we hope to see some sprouting action within a few days.

Real love is your cowboy artist planting the entire garden for you while you are gone on a culinary producer business trip (yes, I have been freelancing for a new web based multi media cooking show). His Ms. Texas mom even came out to the farm to help.
Now that's love all the way around. He also built an outdoor temporary holding coop for my new 13 Ameraucana chicks that we got for our birthdays. Can't wait for Easter, just because we won't have to die any eggs - they will naturally be green and blue.

We are crossing our muddy little fingers that our radicchio, kale, Asian greens, baby bokchoy, broccoli, spinach, beets, carrots, cabbage, turnips, mustard greens, collard greens and a few more live to see another feast!

Well, no rest for the weary or the Halloween obsessed! Enjoy some pictures of our pumpkins (New Jersey Giant, Red Warty, Italian Green Sea Pumpkin and a few others)and the Fall foliage at the Antioch camp. We are working on our costumes and a recipe to go with them that I will post in a few days (can't spoil the surprise).

Have a BOO-tiful Halloween weekend!

Marcel's Maple Egg Custard

I named this recipe in honor of Marcel, my sweet beloved rooster who had a brief but happy life here at the farm. By now, you probably know I grew up in Brazil. Many Brazilian desserts have eggs as their primary ingredient. Portugal's influence is evident as they are known for their beautiful and tantalizing egg custard desserts.

I grew up eating pasteis de nata (little custard pies). According to Portuguese legend, two nuns invented these lovely little custard tarts and the recipe only became known to the public around 1837 when some entrepreneurial monks decided to open up a bakery shop to help fund the building of a new monastery.

I love those tarts but enjoy just as much the plain variety of just pure custard.I remember my very Texan mother & grandmother making wonderful little cups of egg custard desserts when I was just a toddler. Whenever I see a ramekin, it triggers a strong memory of savoring a little cup of creamy, yellow sweetness while sitting at the kitchen table with my mom or grandmother cooking nearby.

Here is my interpretation of a classic recipe:

Marcel's Maple Egg Custard

5 organic free range eggs
1/3 cup of real maple syrup
1 teaspoon real vanilla
1 tablespoon of organic sugar
dash of sea salt
2 1/2 cups of organic whole milk
dash of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
*Can be added:
(fresh blueberries, peaches, blackberries or any fruit of your choice)
*Can also be used as a filling for pastry tarts

Beat eggs slowly with mixer one at a time until creamy golden. Add syrup, vanilla, sugar and continue to beat. Slowly begin adding milk and blend gently until completely mixed.
Pour egg mixture into oven proof ramekins or small decorative baking dishes. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Place them in a deep baking pan that can accommodate all the ramekins. Fill the deep pan with enough water to keep the custard from burning (about halfway up the ramekin).
Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 to 50 minutes
* If adding fruit, check custard 25 minutes into the cooking cycle and if soft set, add the fruit artfully on top sprinkle with sugar and then continue to bake for remaining time.
Cool before serving

Nesting On the Farm, Not Just For Hens...

August was a busy month on and off the farm. I took the month off from the blog but here is a quick update to bring all of you up to speed. We have more calves, less roosters (coyote trouble), lost our heirloom garden to a hail storm, learned to make soft and hard cheese at Homestead Heritage, wrote an article for Grit Magazine, stayed at the haunted Faust hotel, graduated from the Mid America Arts Alliance year long program, tubed down the Guadalupe, attended a Town Hall meeting & entered a baking contest.

But there was one event that was more exciting than all the others - we found an EGG in the chicken coop, then one on the ground, then several more in the art studio and now everyday is like an Easter egg hunt.

The first egg finding was touched with happiness and sadness at the same time. I was grieving the disappearance of my absolute favorite rooster, Marcel. I had refrained from naming Marcel for almost 6 months (from the day, the chicks were a day old). I was told not to name the chickens because "chickens are always looking for a way to die" and to not get attached.

Marcel made that very hard. He was different than the rest. From the time he was just a chick, he acted more like a dog than a chicken. He loved to be picked up and petted and would run across the barnyard as soon as he saw me walking up or parking the car at the gate.

Marcel made my morning and afternoon rounds around the farm with me. He watched as we fed the calves, worked in the garden or played with the donkeys. He crowed with happiness when sitting on the swinging bench. He was always at my heels and he made me laugh every day. His freedom was part of his happiness.

I named Marcel after another rooster who became close to my heart. This Marcel happened to reside near downtown Austin. He sort of belonged to my best friend. She adopted him when he showed up in her yard. He had a happy life till a predator ended his too. We think the predator was a UT law student who grew tired of hearing Marcel's beautiful wake up call.

My Marcel and another of our roosters did not show up at the coop for sundown lockdown. I knew something had happened, he was always at the coop first, calling the other chickens and Guineas to settle down for the night. I was distraught, we looked for him in all of his favorite places but to no avail. I held out hope that he and the other rooster might have wondered a bit too far but would find their way back.

The next morning to my surprise, our missing black & white Polish rooster who was MIA with Marcel, was sitting atop the coop. He must have been in hiding after his buddy Marcel got attacked. Marcel never returned, but the coyote who we suspect killed him did. The coyote showed up for two nights straight. My cowboy sat in wait for him with his hunting rifle. He didn't kill him (could not get a decent shot), but scared him enough that he has not come back.

The day after Marcel's life ended, a new surprise was there to greet us in the coop. A perfect white egg still warm from being laid was deposited on the ground. Our chicken adventure had come full circle.

For my birthday, my cowboy took me over to Canton First Monday Trade Days. We thought it would be an adventure to experience this market place that has been setting up under the old oak trees for over 100 years. It started out as a place where people traded their animals and hunting dogs and has grown into 10 miles of open air and covered pavilions selling everything from Mexican folk art to antique doorknobs, candles to cheesy rhinestone flip flops, alpacas to pot bellied pigs. My cowboy had been coming here since he was a little boy, his grandfather spent most of his life raising fox and raccoon hunting dogs and taking them there on occasion to sell or trade them.

We walked through Dog Town where all the animals are sold in Canton and I grew sad as I saw the conditions of how some chickens, Guineas and roosters were raised. It looked like many of them had never experienced one day of freedom. I began to think about my chickens back home, happily running around in the pastures and barn, chasing bugs and each other. I began to realize that Marcel had a wonderful life for a rooster, even if it was brief compared to some of these poor birds.

So it was no surprise then, that for my birthday, I picked out my own present. I am now the proud new owner of a refurbished chicken nesting box. Out of all 10 square miles of everything under the sun, all I really wanted was that nesting box. My cowboy laughed about it but gladly picked it up and stuffed it in the SUV. We even celebrated by ordering some Ameraucana chicks that lay beautiful blue and green eggs naturally. Now everyday next Spring there really will be an Easter egg hunt.

I finally realized that it wasn't just my chickens who had nested on this piece of Texas landscape but also myself...I look forward to every sunrise and sunset here on the farm with all the joys and sometimes sorrows of each and every day. I never want to leave this nest.

And who knows, maybe there is another rooster like Marcel just waiting to be hatched someday, right here at Feed Me Farms.