If I ever become a hip-hop super-star, I will go by the name @ndre@.

Now, I just need to develop a sense of rhythm.

And get over my case of tone-deafness.

Yeah…I’m not giving up my day job.  But you can still call me @ndre@.

It’s starting to get cold here in Wisconsin.  Not horrible (yet), but enough to remind us that it is indeed winter.  I’m okay with the whole cold weather thing, because Christmas (my absolute favorite holiday) is coming in less than a month.  In my book, Christmas isn’t Christmas without snow and you can’t have snow without freezing temepratures.  Ergo, I am okay with cold weather.  (Did you see how I threw another smart person word in there?  Pretty spectacular, huh?)

But last night, I was sorting some pictures on my hard drive and I came across this one:

I took this picture during one of our walks.  It’s just an old fence on the back edge of our farm; nothing too special.  But I love it.  This picture just stirs up feelings of nostalgia and peace inside me.  It makes me think of Pa Ingalls building a fence in a Little House on the Prairie book.  It reminds me of something that would be on the edge of the Green Gables property.  It makes me want to lay on my back and stare up at the clouds for hours.  It makes me miss summer.

But I’ll deal with that after Christmas.  For now, I’ll just set this picture as my screen saver and go back to wrapping presents.  I have all of January and February to wallow in cabin fever!

I love Thanksgiving.

No, I don’t think you understand me.  I. LOVE. THANKSGIVING. 

In my book, it’s second only to Christmas (which I get just giddy over–but I’m sure I’ll get to that soon enough.)  Seriously though, what’s not to love about Thanksgiving?  You get to look back over all the things you have to be grateful for, you get to hang out with your family and you get some pretty awesome food on top of it all.  I couldn’t have come up with a better holiday myself!

And, I have to say, Thanksgiving brings all of my favorite dishes together into one meal.  Turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, scalloped corn (I think that’s a Scandinavian thing) and stuffing.  Oh, yeah, stuffing.  I could make a whole meal out of the stuffing that my dad makes.  And honestly, I usually do.  When we have our “leftovers meal”, I usually just eat stuffing.  One big ol’ plate of stuffing.  So, I’m going to share our family secret recipe with you today.  I can do this with good conscience because my parents don’t have the internet so they don’t know that I’m about to divulge Grandma’s famous stuffing recipe to the masses.  (And by “masses,” I mean the 7 people that read this blog.)  So, here, in my Grandma’s own words is the recipe for The Best Stuffing Ever.

The Best Stuffing Ever

• 1/2 lb. pork sausage
• 1/2 cup onion
• “lots of” celery (about half a bunch)
• 1 can chicken broth (divided)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1 bag croutons (Dad uses Brownberry seasoned croutons)
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 1 tsp. poultry seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. sage
• salt and pepper to taste

Okay, from here the recipe is kind of vague (since it was, you know, very specific up to this point.)  Brown the sausage.  Chop the celery and onion, put in a small pot and cover with water.  Simmer until tender.  (Yeah, Grandma was never very good with specifics…and I never really pay enough attention to timing.  I walk off, then come back and check on things…)  Mix everything together using only about half of the chicken broth.  Place in a baking dish and bake at 350 until done.  (I want to say its about 30 to 45 minutes, but its been a few years since I made this.)  Check the stuffing often and use the rest of the chicken broth if it starts to get dry.  And, something that my dad often uses that my Grandma probably never heard of was craisins.  Dad’ll throw a few handfulls in and it makes the stuffing over the top.  Seriously, amazing.

So, there’s a bit of Farm Girl Thanksgiving for you.  It’s another one of those “bit of this, bit of that” kind of recipes, but aren’t those usually the good ones?  And it’s a tradition that comes straight from my dad’s mom’s cookbook.  On a day like Thanksgiving, you’ve got to appreciate something like that, right?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

This is another one of my fall-back recipes.  It’s a perfect go-to meal to have in your repertoire–simple, cheap and oh-so-good.  If you have left-over chicken, you could have it whipped up in about ten minutes.  You can’t beat that on a weeknight!  I will admit that its a bit more of a summer-type meal, but I’ve never been one to adhere to those kind of rules.  I’ll eat soup for breakfast and scrambled eggs for supper.  I make chili in June and chicken salad in November.  What can I say?  I’m a wild and crazy guy!  (Remember that SNL skit with Steve Martin?  I hope so, because otherwise I look like one very confused farm girl…)

Southwestern Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 lb. uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• ½ cup fat-free mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
• ½ tsp. ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder
• 1 small sweet red pepper, chopped
• 1 small green pepper, chopped
• 2 medium scallions, sliced
• 15 1/4 oz. canned yellow corn, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained

 Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.  Place chicken in a glass baking dish and bake until juices run clear, about 25 minutes.  Chop into bite-size pieces; set aside.  Combine mayonnaise, sour cream, cumin and chili powder in a medium bowl.  Stir in chicken, peppers, scallions and corn; mix well.  Gently fold in beans.  Cover and chill at least two hours.

Serves: 4  WWP: 5

Serves: 5  WWP: 4

This past summer, Farm Boy and I spent many evenings walking around our farm and the adjoining farm that we rent to keep our dry cows and heifers.  (Don’t know what makes a cow a “dry cow” or what the difference is between a “cow” and a “heifer”?  Hmm…mental note: good idea for a future post…)  And while we were walking, I took pictures.  I mean, I took a lot of pictures.  Like, unhealthy amounts of pictures.  And I’m sure that as the winter stretches on in the next few months, I’ll post a few (translation: more than you probably want to see) on here. 

But for our first installment, I wanted to share this one:

As we were walking along the edge of one of the corn fields, I saw this interesting plant.  I thought it was so pretty…that green base with deep burgundy, almost purple leaves.  So I took a picture.  Then I changed my angle a little bit to include a bit of the sky:

Oooh…I love me some Wisconsin sky.  And then I adjusted my aperture a bit to make the corn in the background a little blurry:

I’m still learning all the technicalities of photography, but I have fun with aperture.  Plus it makes me feel smart when I say the word “aperture.”  It’s kind of like when you try to throw words such as “byzantine” or “dichotomy” into everyday conversations.  Only, sometimes that doesn’t work very well. 

As I was revelling in how pretty these photos were going  to turn out, Farm Boy wandered over.  He took his hat off, ran his hand through his hair and put his hat back on.  He adjusted the bill of the hat, paused, then said, “Why are you laying on the ground taking a picture of stinkweed?”

Stinkweed?  Really?  Huh.  Did I mention that I didn’t grow up on a farm?

So I got up, slapped the dirt off my jeans and headed off to find some cows to take pictures of.

You know how when you have a bad day, there are certain things that can make you smile no matter what?  Yeah sure, there’s always the obvious things like a laughing child or a hug from your husband or a purring cat curled up in your lap.  But I’m not talking about that kind of stuff.  No, I’m talking about something that, despite your crankiest, orneriest mood, despite the fact that you just want to sit there and stew in your grouchiness, despite your dedication to being a Krabby Patty, you just can’t help but laugh. 

This is one of those things for me.  No matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still laugh at it.  And, in case you have the same strange, warped sense of humor that I do, I’m going to share it with you.  Hopefully if you have a bad day sometime in the future, you will remember this link and it will help you rise above.  And now, I present, this total awesomeness:

Over-suprised guy!! Oh, that still gets me!

So, for about the fourth time this calendar year, I’ve decided to get my butt back in gear and lose these pesky ten pounds that have been following me around.  A few of my co-workers and I are doing an at-work program together, so I’ve got the encouragment during the day taken care of.  Farm Boy always has my back, so I’ve got my cheering section at home figured out.  I’ve dusted off my treadmill and weights, so that should guilt me into working out a few times a week.  And now…on to the food!

This weekend, Farm Boy and I were planning our menu for the week.  I was trying to reach way back in my memory of  Weight Watcher standbys and was coming up horribly short.  (I’ve never been a think-on-your-feet kinda person.)  And out of nowhere, Farm Boy said, “Hey!  How about that stuffing thing?  We haven’t had that in a while!”  Now, because we have a very abbreviated, kind of pathetic way of communicating, I knew that “that stuffing thing” was really “Chicken Bruschetta Bake.”  I also know that when he suggests something that is neither hamburgers or pizza, its something he really likes. 

So, here’s the recipe.  I think it originally came from the back of a Stovetop Stuffing box.  I’m not going to include a picture because, well frankly, it’s not a very pretty dish.  But it is pretty tasty in a down-home, middle-of-the-week, wintery-day sort of way.  Does that make sense?  Yes? No?  I lost you at hello?  Anyways, here it is:

Bruschetta Chicken Bake

Yields: 6 servings       6 pts per serving

Ingredients:

• 1 can (14 ½ oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 pkg. dry stuffing mix
• ½ cup water
• 1 ½ lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 tsp. dried basil leaves
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400F.  Place tomatoes with liquid in medium bowl.  Add garlic, stuffing mix and water; stir just until stuffing mix is moistened.  Set aside.  Place chicken in 9×13 inch baking dish; sprinkle with basil and cheese.  Top with stuffing mixture.  Bake 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. 

Serves: 6  WWP: 6

Happy Birthday, City Girl!!  Wish we weren’t half a country away from each other!

First off, let’s be clear here.  I am not by any way saying that this is a replacement for a real reuben.  The reuben is one of my all-time favorite sandwiches and I would never bastardize its good name by removing the corned beef.  And I am not claiming this is traditional Irish fare.  I will be the first to admit that I do not have a drop of Irish blood.  I am as Scandinavian as rosemaling.  Don’t know what rosemaling is?  That’s because its so Scandinavian. 

Anyways, I am posting this on St. Patrick’s Day because we happened to make these burgers yesterday and they were inspired by one of my favorite Irish dishes.  And they were suprisingly good!  Even Farm Boy enjoyed the combination of sauerkraut and cheese with the burger.  (On a side note, I am trying my hand at corned beef and cabbage later this week…if it turns out, I’ll let you know how it goes!) 

• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
• 3/4 cup soft bread crumbs
• 2/3 cup Thousand Island dressing, divided (I used fat-free because that’s what I had)
• salt and pepper
• 12 slices rye bread
• 1 can sauerkraut, drained
• 6 slices 2% cheese

Mix the bread crumbs and 1/3 cup of dressing together.  Crumble ground beef over the mixture, add salt and pepper and mix well to combine.  Form into 6 patties and grill until desired doneness.  Place each patty on a slice of rye bread, top with sauerkraut, cheese, remaining dressing and another slice of bread.  I then placed the sandwiches in our big toaster oven for about 8 minutes.  I’m sure you could get the same effect from broiling them or even cooking them in a buttered skillet. 

As a side note, when made the way described above, the patties were very fragile.  I had to be very careful flipping them because they wanted to fall apart.  In fact, one actually did crumble.  So, I wonder if adjusting the bread crumbs would help?  If there are any burger gurus out there, I would love to hear your opinions!