These days it seems everyone has something to complain about in our country. Do not get me wrong, there are many things that need to be set right but some days you just need to BE THANKFUL for what you have. Some days you just need to be thankful for the things that you do not have.

We have a strong, healthy family. We have a safe home place and a comfy house. We have loyal dogs, cranky cats, friendly farm animals, and a few really good friends. We also have good, healthy food. We do not have high crime rates, we do not have armed guards, we do not have suppressed speech, we do not have an all-powerful government telling us what we can and can not do or think. We do not live with the fear of armed soldiers coming for us, as some countries still do. Yes, there is political corruption but we do not have to live with it, we can vote it out. With all we have and all we do not have, we have a lot to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving is traditionally the start of “The Holiday” season. With Thanksgiving and then Christmas just weeks away, our family wants to share some of our holiday traditions with you.

Here on the farm, we work hard so we like to eat. We have some great cooks in our family. There are several different cultural flavors so we have a wide range of culinary options. Some of these recipes are generations old and some are younger. As always, we prefer quick and easy but some of these older recipes are more detailed. So let’s get to cooking. We will start with 2 deserts and a couple of actual meals.

Mimi’s best pound cake

Mimi was an English teacher and a Home Economics teacher, so she could really cook.

You will need:

2 cups shortening

2 2/3 cup sugar

8 eggs

flavoring: we use vanilla but some recipes call for sherry and vanilla.

3 1/2 cup flour

8 Tablespoons milk

preheat oven to 275

In a mixer:

Cream the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy

Add 2 eggs at a time to the creamed mix, beating well between adding the next 2 eggs.

Add the flavoring that you chose: we only use vanilla.

Add half the flour and continue to mix well.

Add the milk and mix well.

Add the other half of the flour and mix well.

Pour into bunt pan, loaf pan, tube pan, or cake pans, depending on what shape you want.  Be sure to spray or grease the pan, you do not want your cake to stick.

This cake will be a large cake so tube pans need to be 10 inches tall. We use an old pan, the same one our Grandmother used for years.

Put into oven at 300 for 1 1/2 hr or til brown.

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Once the cake is done, allow it to cool for a bit, you do not want to burn yourself, and messing with a hot cake can make it fall.

After a little cooling, turn the pan upside down on a plate then flip it over. This will help the cake come out of the pan without you having to handle it. If the cake is stuck in the pan, use a thin knife to run around the sides to loosen it. Then use the plate to flip again. Some of the older folks used to turn the cake upside down on a bottle to let it cool and then remove the cake from the pan but usually letting it cool and then flipping it works just fine.

This cake is one of the best all-around cakes you can make. It is a great stand-alone or base cake. You can eat it just as is or you can use it as a base and spruce it up as you like. You can add ice cream, fruit, whipped cream, flavored drizzle, chocolate, or anything you want to add a specific taste to it. As you can see in the finished pics, you can turn it right side up or upside down and have 2 different looking deserts. It is such a versatile cake that you can make it to fit any taste, theme, or season.

This is one of our family’s favorite cakes and it is easy to make. We start the younger one out cooking with this one. Of course, they must have supervision with the mixer. Try your hand at this one, it is pretty simple and oh so good. And don’t forget, you can fix it up any way you like to make a real Holiday splash.

Easy Peach Cobbler

This is one of our Grandmother’s receipts and a family favorite. It is a quick, easy dessert that will wow your family and guests. My grandmother used to call it the dump in cobbler as all you do is mix the ingredients and dump them into a dish and cook.

You will need:

a largish pyrex dish

2 cups of peaches

half a stick of butter, melted

1 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup of sugar

3/4 milk

pre-heat to oven to 350

Pour the peaches into the dish.

Put all the other ingredients, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, milk, and soft butter into a mixing bowl and mix. You can use an electric mixer but it is easy enough to use a spatula and do it by hand.

Pour the mix over the peaches in the dish. Do not mix or stir.

Put the dish into the oven and cook for 1 hour.

Take the dish out of the oven and let it cook for a while. The peach cobbler is hot molten lava and will burn your mouth if you do not let it cool a bit.

(did not get a chance to take a pic of the finished peach cobbler.  It disappeared too quickly.)

Now enjoy. You can add ice cream on top, as we always do or you can just eat it straight. This is a sweet dessert so ice cream and coffee will help cut the sweetness. This receipt will make about 6 servings, depending on how big you make your servings.

This is one of those, quick receipts that we use when someone forgot the church social or school bake sale. It is even great for Holiday eat-overs and pool parties. Yes, another quick, all-around great dessert and a tradition in our family.

Here are some of our family’s favorite meals

Beef Tips, Rice and Crispy Noodles

Here is another of our family’s favorite recipes, beef tips/rice/crispy noodles. This is one of those old, stand by meals that everyone likes. This is a fairly easy fix and only takes 20 min or so. This is a healthy meal that can be flavored to just about any taste you like.

You will need:

a bag of crispy noodles

rice either white or brown, whichever you like.

beef tips or meat that you cut into small pieces

broth

garlic salt

cilantro

small green onions

oil, we use olive oil

Because we use regular, long cook rice, we start by making the rice before the rest. We put the water, rice, and broth into a bowl or pan and cook it forever. If you have not used long cook rice, it takes a good while to get past the “al-dente” stage. But compared to quick rice, the long cook has more flavor, it is worth the wait. So get the rice started cooking, by the time you are ready for it, the rice should be ready for you.

In a large pan, put your olive oil and start it over medium heat.

Dice up your small, green onions and add them to the pan.

Dice up the cilantro and add to the pan.

Add the beef tips to the pan and give it all a good stir. Or cut up your meat if you need to then add it to the pan.

Add a good shaking of garlic salt to the pan and mix.

Cut and juice the lime. Add the juice to the pan.

On a side note, we save the lime peels to make DIY house cleaner.  You add the used peels to a bottle of white vinegar and let it sit for a couple of weeks.  You have a natural cleaner with a nice citrus scent.

Let the meat mixture cook until the meat is just about ready.

Add the rice to the pan, add a bit more water and let it simmer until the rice is nice and soft. Again, this time will depend on which kind of rice you use.

It is a good idea to stir now and then to make sure all the herbs get well spread.

Once the rice is soft and the meat is cooked through, dish up and add a sprinkling of the crispy noodles on top.

As I said, you can flavor this meal to many different tastes. If you add chili, lime, and avocado you have a Tex-Mex meal. If you add more garlic and parmesan cheese you have an Italian twist. If you add curry and turmeric you have a totally different flavor. For the veg lovers, add some green peas and diced carrots. If you nix the cilantro and add cedar cheese you have a new favorite for the kids. The possibilities are endless and only limited to your preferences. You can dress this meal up or down to the occasion or guest’s needs. This is really an all-around, basic meal to know who to make. Give it a try and see what wonderful flavors you can make with this dish.

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Other family favorites:

Here are some of our family’s other favorite receipts, though for time’s sake and to keep us from eating it all, we did not actually make all of these meals at this time.

Chop Suey

1 package stew meat or a mix of beef tips and pork tips

1 can chop suey mix or stir fry mix

1 can bamboo shoots

1 can water chestnuts (we add 2 or 3 can, as we love them)

1 can bean sprouts

1 bottle of soy sauce, add the amount to your taste

You can use low sodium Kikkoman sauce is you prefer

Add all ingredients into a large pot

Add a cup or 2 or water, just enough to cover the ingredients

Simmer 30 min or longer. If you need to wait to serve, turn down to low to simmer.

Remember the longer you simmer, the saltier it will get. You also may need to add another cup of water, depending on how long you cook it.

Make a large helping of rice

Serve your chop suey over the cooked rice

Add crispy noodles on top

Serve and enjoy. This is a very filling meal and great for Holiday eat overs.

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African Sambusa

This is one of our favorites but we do not make them often as this does take a bit longer to do.

Pastry: you will need

1 pound flour

2 teaspoons oil

salt to taste

cold water

juice of 1/2 a lemon

sift the flour into a large bowl and add the salt and lemon juice.

Add enough cold water to the flour mix to make a stiff dough.

Divide dough and roll out into 3- inch circles.

Filling: you will need

1 pound ground beef

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 chopped onions

1 teaspoon cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

the juice of the other half of the lemon

Mix the ingredients and cook

Once the filling is cooked, layout the dough circles. Put 1 tablespoon filling in the center of each dough circle. Pinch the circles closed and deep fry. Make sure to watch and turn the Sambusa until brown. Let them cool a bit then serve warm.

If you are vegetarian, omit the beef and substitute English peas, white potatoes in cubes, and carrots. Mix the veg, season, and cook. Then fill the dough circles as described above.

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Another family favorite is the traditional crockpot baked potatoes. It is as simple as it sounds. Wash as many large potatoes as you need to feed everyone. Cut a slice in each potato, put them into a large crockpot. Sprinkle with garlic salt, pepper, and chili, or just use chicken broth powder. Add a cup of water into the crockpot to keep the bottom of your spuds from burning. Set of high and leave it. Go about your day and in about 3 hours you have baked potatoes. This is a great meal for those days when you leave early and come back late and need something ready to feed the family. It is a simple meal but once you add your garnish, it looks great and tastes wonderful. We use plain yogurt in place of sour cream on our potatoes. We also like to add bacon bits and cheese. You can add whatever seasoning or garnishes you like to make each potato a different meal of flavors.

We hope you have enjoyed these old fashioned receipts. Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.