Monday, February 14, 2011

Cream Puffs

This recipe is so easy and foolproof. You can put chicken or salad in them or use them as a dessert with pudding and chocolate topping, Chocolate Eclairs

Cream Puffs
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs

Heat oven to 400. Heat water and buttr to rolling boil. Stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or till mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Beat in eggs, all at one time; continue beating till smooth. Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet.
Bake 35-40 min. or until puffed and golden. Cool away from draft. Cut off tops with serrated knife. Pull out any filaments of soft dough. Carefully fill puffs with desired filling - pudding, salads, etc.
To make eclairs shape dough into "fingers" 4 1/2 inches long and 1 1/2 inch wide. When cool fill with Vanilla Cream Pudding and frost with Chocolate Icing: Melt one ounce unsweetened chocolate and i tsp.butter over low heat. Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup confectioners' sugar and about 2 Tbsp. hot water. Beat till smooth. Refrigerate eclairs till serving time.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

raising goats

Most often a buck(male) goat is mean, the girls, never. The buck will come at you with his head down and horns ready to run into you. Sometimes they'll come at you standing on their back legs and waving their front feet - out to get you. To prevent a lot of that we use a "hot stick", a long yellow stick that has batteries and delivers a powerful shock. The buck we had knew exactly what it was. If you came in the barn with it, he'd take off. When Perry goes down the driveway and stops, the goats think he's brought them something to eat and will come running. One day he was working with a shovel - with a yellow handle - to fill up a hole. The goats came running and when Perry picked up the shovel to put it back in the truck the buck ran the other way as fast as he could. He remembered that something that looked just like that shovel delivered a jolt he didn't want again. So goats have memories and they know their colors. The girls stuck around; they'd never been shocked and yellow meant nothing to them. We'll be having more babies in about 4 months; gestation is 5 months. Nothing is more fun than baby goats and their antics.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Chicken 'n Dumplings

2 Tbsp. butter
2 1/4 cups White Lily self-rising flour, divided
3 (14.5 oz.) cans chicken broth
1/4 cup Crisco, chilled
1/2 cup milk
2 cups cooked, diced chicken
black pepper

Note: Don't even think about using canned chicken broth. Buy chicken, pressure cooker it and you have fabulous broth and tender chicken. Now to the rest of the recipe.

Melt butter in Dutch oven. Whisk in 1/4 cup flour. Reserve 1/2 cup broth to make dumplings, then add rest of broth into Dutch oven. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat.
Place 2 cups flour in large bowl. Cut in Crisco using pastry blender until mixture is the size of peas. Blend in just enough broth till dough leaves sides of bowl. Pour any remaining broth in Dutch oven.
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead 2 or 3 times. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut dough into strips, about 2x1-inch. Return broth to boiling. Add dumpling strips to boiling broth.
Cover; reduce heat to low. Simmer 15 minutes or till dumplings are cooked through. Stir in milk, chicken and pepper. Cook till heated through.