Ozark Treats... Breezy...warm

Ozark Treats
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup coffee
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 rounded Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup black walnuts

Cream together butter and sugar, add coffee and stir till mixed. beat in egg. add dry ingredients and beat till smooth, fold in raisins and nuts (if you don't have black walnuts, English walnuts or pecans can be used)
Pour into a greased 9x9 inch pan and bake at 350* for 30 minutes.
enjoy with coffee or tea on a cold day.

This is my adaptation of a recipe that  originally came from this book:http://www.amazon.com/Take-Hills-A-Chronicle-Ozarks/dp/1432610759
A pretty good read if your interested in the life and stories from the Ozarks. Check out your local library to see if they have it.

Old Fashioned Thumbprint Cookies.... Cooler

As with many old timey recipes, there are a lot of versions of how thumbprint cookies came about and just when they date back to. But regardless of all that, the fact remains that they are a well known cookie reminisint of 'the good old days' when Grandma still baked cookies with the grandkids while wearing her apron!
This recipe is quite simple, and the tender flaky cookies, show off the filling wonderfully. Traditionally thumbprints are filled with jam or jelly and though that will work beautifully in these, in springtime when we have so many eggs I love them filled with our Lemon curd

1 cup butter, very soft
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp's Almond extract
2 cups flour
1 cup homemade or prepared Lemon curd (cooled completely) OR your favorite Jam
 ** Find our Lemon Curd recipe HERE

 Mix butter and sugar together till very creamy, add extract.
Add flour and still well, it will be very crumbly at first, keep stirring, it will come together into a nice silk ball, cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for an hour (longer is fine too).
Lightly dust hands with flour and pinch off small balls of dough, roll into a ball about 1 inch in size place on ungreased cookie sheet and as you set down use your thumb to make an indentation in center of cookie. You can place them quite close together as they hardly spread at all.
When all your cookies are formed, take a teaspoon and place a dollop of lemon curd in indentation (don't overfill--about 1/2 a tsp. will do it) Bake at 350*15-18 minutes. Cookies will be slightly firm to the touch but will not brown. Remove from tray to a wire rack and cool completely.

Glaze: Mix together 1/2 cup powdered sugar and enough lemon juice (about a teaspoon)  to make a glaze that is thick but will easily drizzle off the end of a spoon, glaze cookies and serve!!!

Farm Life....Sunny... too hot for fall!

There comes a day, it's sad to say

When strength and stamina ebb away

When all the work you have to do

Seems overwhelming to you

So while there's time to make some plans

And take care of matters at hand

I've come to you my friends

To ask if any of my farm family

Could have a home with you

And become your friend
And I won't deny become your task for every day



5 month old mini lamancha buck

2 male ducks ~2 years old~ One friendly male goose 12 years old



Mama kitty about 1 year old spayed 14 week old female kitten ~Both very sweet

 

 

 

Sunday Quotes...sunny...too hot!

~In Theory~
"I'd like to live in Theory....Everything works there!"
....If I lived in THEORY my house would be cleaner in winter, because I can't work outside. It isn't!
....If I lived in THEORY I wouldn't be looking at seed & chick catalogs, because I would remember all the failures, from years gone by. I don't!
...If I lived in THEORY, my theory of staying strong and active by working hard would have kept me strong and active. It didn't!
....And in THEORY my ''get up a...nd go" would not
have 'got up and went'. IT DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone else want to live in Theory with me?

Sunday Quotes....Sunny...warm

Farming looks mighty easy when you plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield ! ~Dwight D. Eisenhower