Pass the Cheese Please Part Douche

I recieved some feed back on my cheese I sold...it wasn't very good. Evidently my cheese wasn't how the customer had imagined it would be and "didn't taste like his grandma had made it when he was a child". I made him two 1 pound batches, one pound of garlic farmers cheese (tasty but plain) and a pound of (complete pain in the booty to make) creamy goat cheese with fresh herbs from my garden. At first I was a little disappointed when I heard my new customer hadn't liked my cheese, I had worked very hard on it. Then I realized what the crap!! He didn't like my cheese because it didn't live up to a childhood memory that he had never mentioned?!?! Ain't that some shit! Now if he had told me that his grandma made some special cheese when he was a kid back in the stone age, I would have done my very best to replicate it (Pterodactyl turds and all). But given that I had no prior knowledge that my cheese would be judged against the taste of a sweet memory and he didn't specify what kind of cheese he wanted: you get what you get, now shut it! Since I sold myself short and spent hours making cheese then sold it for less than the cost of the milk to make it I won't be doing this again anytime soon and won't be selling to that guy again period! He didn't even bother to return the brand new container I sent the creamy goat cheese home in. I do plan to continue making cheese and selling it but this first experience has soured me for the moment. The icing on the cake was when my sweet hubby suggested that I ask the 20 year old turd working the cheese department at Nugget for advice "because he had been to a cheese factory probably". I know he's just trying to help but when my ego is bruised he should be saying "pass the cheese please" and "this is great babe, that guy wouldn't know good cheese if we hit him with it" which I would then suggest is an excellent idea! The next cheese I make should be eaten with my girlfriends and washed down with wine, they I'm sure will appreciate all my hard work!

Quick No Mess Mexican Pizza

One of my favorite fast and easy lunches! It only takes a couple minutes to prep and is done in the oven in about 10 minutes.

Ingredients:
Cooking spray
Tortillas
Pesto
1 can refried beans
Veggie toppings
Shredded Cheese

Directions: Cover a cookie sheet in foil. Line tortillas up on the foil and spray with cooking spray (I like to use the olive oil only kind), flip the tortillas.

Spread pesto and beans evenly on the tortillas



Top with veggies. Red onions and tomatoes are my favorite for this.



And LOTS of cheese!



Put "lids" on the quesadillas and spray with cooking spray again.



Bake in a 400 degree oven about 10 minutes until tortillas are crispy and cheese is melty. Enjoy!

Crazed over Cake

I love to make birthday cakes! I only get to make them for my kids birthdays or parties we have because they can get pretty complicated and time consuming. My daughter has her second birthday coming up soon and I am trying to decide what kind of cake to make her. I have a new butterfly cake pan and I might even be able to do a standing butterfly! I love making stand up cakes like this sunflower I made for her birthday last year, but you have to use pound cake and they are very difficult to frost. Thankfully my bff was on hand to help me with this one!





Here's a Dinosaur pull apart cake that I made for Ashers birthday last year, fun and easy since we had just moved.



This is my favorite part! It doesn't get any better than when the are covered in frosting and giggling like crazy!



A skull cake I made for last years Halloween BBQ. This one was surprisingly hard to frost considering it's such a simple design.



I only have a few weeks left before I get to make another cake and the choices are endless! Butterflies, flowers, a fish bowl, a teddy bear island?? Just wait and see!!

Pass the Cheese Please!

I am the kind of person that hates to say "No" so last week when someone asked if I would sell them some of my homemade cheese I agreed. Now in the process of agreeing to this I made three mistakes: 1) I said yes 2) I agreed to have it ready too soon, and 3) I agreed to not nearly enough money (at my own suggestion) for way to much work! So now I had to make two pounds of cheese in two days plus six big cassaroles for my freezer club meeting, uh oh! I busted my cassaroles out and comenced making the cheese. The first batch I tried using a different method that said to heat the milk to a lower temperature than usual which was a disaster! The curds were so small that they went through the cheese cloth. Finally after about 2 hours of me trying to save the cheese and making a HUGE mess, I strained it through a tightly woven hand kerchief and managed to get it into a very soft consistency perfect for goat cheese. After adding some fresh herbs the cheese was so tasty that the thought of selling it nearly brought tears to my eyes! Since a fair amount of cheese was lost down the drain I needed more to complete the order. For the second batch I stuck to a better recipe. I wanted a simple cheese that anyone would like so went with a more solid form and just a little garlic for flavor. It was tasty but I was still obsessing over the creamy herb one and trying not to freak out about having to share. The second batch filled the order but only left me with less than 8 oz of cheese for our family, not nearly enough! The only way I was going to be able to hand over all my hard work was if I made some that I could keep so I put another pot of milk on. This batch was the hardest to decide how to flavor. There was a lone jalapeno on the stove that kept mocking me "you're too scared to make me into cheese" it taunted, so I diced it up and added it to the milk! I put it in th pot to steep in the milk hoping that it would temper the spiciness. I was a little worried that it would be spicy hot and bitter from the jalapeno so I added a touch of smoke chili powder just before straining the cheese to give it a smokey hot flavor. With my fingers crossed I tasted a few of the piping hot curds, spicy but delicious! My first order went out and I kept the whole third batch for myself, though I did share with friends that came over for a play date. I learned that making cheese is hard work and I am going to have to charge more to make it worth my time, I felt like I was giving away something precious.

My Sweet Mango

Yesterday was worming day for the horses. Mango, our rescue horse, has been steadily gaining weight after being nearly starved to death when we got her. To worm her I needed to know how much she weighs, so I grabbed a weight tape and measured her. The initial reading said that she still weighed 807 pounds, this was what she weighed when I brought her home but I knew she had gained, I can see the difference! I then realized that even though she's gained weight the height of her withers and depth of her barrel would still be the same so I moved the tape down her barrel and averaged what I found: a little over 1000 pounds! Whoo hoo, my girl's not starving any more! Here are some before and after pictures, she still has a ways to go but 200 pounds isn't a bad start!

FREE Starbucks Via Sample

Another great free sample from Walmart.com! I try my best not to shop there but I won't say no to free!

http://instoresnow.walmart.com/enhancedrendercontent_ektid88056.aspx

FREE Photo Collage From Walgreens

I just had to share this deal I snagged! Walgreens is offering a free Fathers Day Photo Collage + when I signed up for a new Walgreens Photo account I got 25 FREE prints, and if you pick it up in the store for FREE! Act fast here's a link: http://photo2.walgreens.com/walgreens/storepage/storePageId=SpecialOffer

The best part? This cute picture of my hubby and daughter!

I ♥ Tupperware

Well Ladies (and Gents), two things I discovered recently: 1) Gain (the laundry detergent) is more addictive that crack; and 2) I LOVE Tupperware!! My friend recently started selling the stuff and I went to her first ever party a couple weeks ago. It was fun and I saw a few things I wanted so decided to host my own party to save a few bucks. Today was my big day and we had a blast! Some of my mommy friends couldn't make it but my awesome MIL drove almost 200 hundred miles just to come to my lil party, so sweet of her. I found even more stuff that I'm sure I need (despite that my kitchen is already vomitting kitchen gadgets from nearly every cupboard). I tried to stick to only the things I am sure I will use for my order (food savers that keep produce fresh) but had to get this awesome food chopper thingy for my kitchen and camping. Now I can't wait for it to get here and will be calling my friend every other day until it's in my Tupperware obsessed little hands. Hey no one ever said I was patient (as far as I'm concerned babies should only take 9 weeks, just long enough to shop!) If anyone needs some Tupperware or wants to host a party please let me know, soon you might be as obsessed as I am!

Tale of the Squash Blossoms

While perusing a small farmers market with a friend I ran across squash blossoms. I have tons of squash blossoms in my garden but what exactly do you do with them? I asked the seller and was told they could be stuffed, used in salad, or battered and fried, hmmm this gave me ideas! First I sliced some up and put them in salad, they were nice not strongly flavored at all. I had my five year old guessing what I put in the salad and the blossoms really stumped him! Then I got creative, stuffing them with some ground beef and my homemade goat cheese. I sauteed some tomatoes, zucchini, red and yellow bell pepper, red onion, and garlic until nearly tender and threw the blossoms on top to steam. They came out fantastic and there was nothing left over, a miracle with my kids.

Chickens are like chips you can't have just one...

After moving in I realized that the spiders and bugs were every where and I needed hep to control them but pesticides are a no go for me. What to do? Chickens!! There was an old beat up chick brooder on the property that I could re-purpose into a coop for the time being. So I check craigslist and head down tho the feed store to find some chicks. Of course you can't find any chicks in October, but we find some half grown chicks, a meat chick, and a mostly grown hen at the feed store. The guy at the feed store tries to sell me a bunch of crap that I don't need, but me being stingy I leave with my chick(en)s, feeders, and a bag of food. I get home, set the new chickens up in there home, and wait. And wait, and wait. Finally in December we get our first egg! Yay!! What do you do with one farm fresh egg? A whole lotta nothin' that's what! With in a few days we had more eggs and our first lemons too. This led to a delicious from scratch Lemon Merengue Pie that I refused to enter in the Christmas Cook Off and ended up losing (again!). Next year will be different and I vow to "bring the heat" to this cook off! And really? I got beat by an apple crisp, what kind of BS is that? Next year I am NOT responding when Eric's boss (one of the judges) asks what I brought, I think I got set up. Anyways, before long the chickens start getting picked off by the hawk (buh bye Monster Jack O' Lantern and Meatbird) so we get some more chicks. Enter Catchatorie, Terriyaki, and Whitey. The neighbors dog promptly comes over and kills Catchatorie and Whitey, leaving us with three chickens again. Finally after weeks of searching I find a FREE flock on CL that I drive very far to pick up, netting (haha) me 7 more hens, some of which are older. Spring rolls around and I start buying chicks like crazy (Orloffs, Austrlorps, Americaunas, Andalusian Blues, whatever I can find that's exciting), figuring that I can always grow and sell them to feed the horses. Then my friend and I decide that we should grow our own Thanks Giving turkeys. After a very wet spring there were ticks everywhere so I grabbed some Guinea Keets to clear those up. The icing on the cake? Last week I purchased a flock of nine laying hens! Anyhow, it's now June and we have 27 chickens, 3 Guinea Fowl, 2 ducks, and 6 Turkeys, and lots of eggs.