Phry Bread, a Philleo Phamily Phavorite

To give proper credit, this recipe was stolen from my best friend Fawn during her visit with us a couple of years ago.  I had been following recipes of Indian friends of mine back home for years and had always ended up with what could best be described as fried pucks.  Not that their recipes are lacking, but apparently my native cooking skills leave something to be desired.  Anyway, I have had many summer dinners with Fawn at her Grandma Swanee's cabin on the back of Lake Roosevelt and her Indian tacos are a staple there.  I knew she could rescue our family from a life of pasty pucks.

Fawn's Fry Bread

4 Tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups hot water

1 Tablespoon fast acting yeast

1 teaspoon baking powder

4-6 cups flour

Place the honey and salt in a bowl.  Pour the hot water over them and mix until dissolved.  Next, sprinkle the yeast over the top of the water/honey/salt mixture and let stand, covered, for about ten minutes, until the yeast become bubbly.  Then add 2 cups flour and the baking powder and mix them well with the wet ingredients.  Add 2-4 more cups of flour (my mom used to always say, "till right", whatever that means.  If I knew what "right" was, I wouldn't need a stinking recipe.) until a, not too sticky, dough forms. Spray the top and bottom of the dough with cooking spray so it doesn't stick to the bowl and become dry.

Let the dough rise for 1 1/2 -2 hours, then punch, then let it rise for another 15 minutes or so.

Tear off small balls of dough and stretch until thin but careful not to have any holes in the bread.  Fry them in a pan of deep canola or vegetable oil.  Make sure there is enough oil for the bread to float and not touch the bottom.  Carefully turn the bread in the pan using tongs until both sides are a light golden brown.

We use this recipe to make Indian tacos which are wonderful at almost any time of the year.  They are really easy to feed a large group and kids like them too.  Last night though, I made the bread to go along with a hearty beef stew.  Slathered in butter, it is great for dipping into soups, stews and sauces.  A dab (or gob) of honey butter makes fried bread a delicious breakfast treat.  Can you tell I like butter?  Its a staple around here.  I think margarine should be outlawed. And Miracle Whip, while I'm on the subject of outlawing pathetic substitutes.  The only Miracle there, is that I survived childhood having to use this on my sandwiches.  Sorry mom.  I'm a big girl now and I also got to switch to 1% milk.  Haa!  Living on the edge!

The Boy and His Heavy Equipment

Last night we took a drive in "the green pickup", one of five at our house.  I have no idea how this happened since we only have two legal drivers.  I think JD has an odd addiction to used Chevy pickups, because this is getting ridiculous.  Anyway, we spent some time discussing our to-do lists for Monday.  JD-work, Abby-school, Sammi-clean house and Wiley-"load the skid steer on the tilt trailer and take it to town on the green truck so they can work on it".  Huh?

Snow removal

The boy is fascinated with equipment...and hauling stuff... and pulling trailers.  I could more easily understand this if we owned an excavation business.  I'll chalk it up to...he's all boy.

Just before preschool started, we had to bring him down to the school for a placement interview.  On that morning, JD was doing dirt work with the skid steer and we also had a backhoe (or something?, I should ask Wiley he'd remember) that we were digging water line (or something?) with.  Obviously, I'm not...all boy.  Anyway, he was livid with me for pulling him away from the excavation site to...do what?...go to school?... 

As part of the interview, he was asked to recite the alphabet.  "But wait, I have to tell you something, we have a skid steer."  No alphabet.  Let's count.  "And a backhoe and we pulled it here on the gooseneck with the silver truck."  And the teacher becomes wise.  "How many pickups do you have?"  Green-one, silver-two, welding-three, dumpbed-four, the '72-five."  Well at least he can count to five.

Krazee Beautiful

Today I went to get my hair cut.  I have been going to Miss Tammy Green, who owns Krazee Beautiful,  for about five years.  I love, love, love her! 

First, no one has ever done a better job of cutting my hair.  My hair is strangely important to me.  I think its because on most days, I can be found wearing insulated overalls and bogs, but I always try to do something cute with my hair.  You have to wear it everyday, its not like the bad jean choice you make at Maurices, that you can give away later.  Its pretty much stuck there, framing your face, hanging on your every word and it'd better be cute dammit!

Tammy, I stole your picture!  You're the best!

Second, and probably more important than the great cut I always get is how wonderful, I mean cute, worthy and happy I always feel when I leave.  There is no one in this world more fun, beautiful and positive than Tammy.  And Wiley adores her so that's it for our family.

I hope she continues to cut hair for another hundred years.  Besides, I never want to find out what my real hair color is anyway.

I'm Sure Oprah Has Been Lonely

Up until last week, I was an avid Oprah watcher.  I still am, but don't tell her because we're not talking.  She may not publicly address her loneliness from my silence, but she's feeling it, I'm sure.

Oprah and some members of her staff recently took on a radical challenge: to go vegan for one week. That  meant no meat, no fish, no milk, no eggs—nothing that comes from an animal—for seven full days. The charge was led by New York Times best-selling author Kathy Freston, who has sworn by a vegan lifestyle for seven years now.

Ok, so whatever you want to do Oprah, but what they later promoted in the show is what has me irritated with her. I notice she has no mention of this part of the show on her website.  I'm sure she got hit with a firestorm of crap from ranchers and farmers across the nation.

Oprah said that she is not a vegan but wants to be more mindful of what she eats.  She later stated that she does not support large scale feedlots for beef or chicken and that she prefers her eggs to come from free range, happy, chickens.  I'm not sure how she measures the happiness of chickens but I do know that these food choices are not an option for the majority of Americans.  Happy chickens are apparently expensive.

Abby taking our happy steers for a walk.

More exercise for those happy critters.

Our family is blessed enough to have the pasture and resources to raise our own beef.  There is no way we are convincing JD that chickens should be free-ranging our deck though.  With that said, not every high riser in the city has the deck space for their own cow so that leaves ranchers and feedlots with the job of providing beef, chicken and pork for them.  It is simply not cost effective to play them music and teach them all to skip.

"Slow down, I'm trying to sing you a song!"

So...since Oprah is obviously concerned with us all being more conscious of where our food come from...I propose that she provide a cost share for the types of foods she is promoting.  You pay that price that regular, feedlot beef, unhappy chicken, food costs and she chips in the difference so you can upgrade to happy meat.  If she's not willing to step up and support her movement, I ask her to close her big mouth.

Happy Birthday! Really.

I love my birthday.  I could care less about all of the age stuff, but a day about me, now we're talking.

Abby's card.  The animals are all pop-up, 3d.

Abby always makes her birthday cards.  They are amazing and sweet and I keep every one of course.  I found mine posted on the fridge when I grabbed the half n half for coffee.  She and Wiley had also left me tinker toy dinosaurs they had made the night before, with a note roaring, "Happy Birthday!".

JD cooked me breakfast and then I spent the morning...doing pretty much nothing...exactly what I wanted.  It was -23 degrees that morning when I woke up.

Wiley and JD took me to lunch at this great little BBQ place.  You can order combo plates with different meats and sides.  I chose brisket, short ribs and spare ribs and they were served with tangy coleslaw.  A perfect summery lunch on a super cold day.

I heard that the groundhog did not see his shadow that day and spring should be on the way.  Tell that to Wyoming, I think the little rodent froze to death here.

A ride on Bo on a more reasonable day.

JD wanted to ride that afternoon???? Umm, let me step in here and be the voice of reason.  JD is training a futurity colt for reined cowhorse.  You have to do a ton of training in a short time period in order to be ready for the futurity shows in their three year old year.  Anyway, I said no, he would surely freeze his nostrils, ears, toes, lungs and also those of his cutey little colt.  NO!  Those boys from Arizona, California, and Texas have you beat today, but wait until July.

Instead of riding outside, JD and Wiley brought Clementine into the shop for a trimming.

Clementine is the tiny ass JD got for me last Mother's Day.  I wanted a tiny ass and he delivered.  Anyway, since then, Wiley has pretty much stolen her.  The kids have a habit of stealing horses around here, damn horse thieves anyway.

And when they got done trimming...and since they were in a nice warm shop...Wiley might as well start his futurity colt. 

Bareback first.  The cement floor is a good deterrent from falling off.

Good girl.

JD and I made tacos for dinner together.  Pulled beef tacos, we all love them.

We usually make pico and guacamole to go with them but this time of year in Wyoming the avocados are less than perfect.  They were hard as rock and not good for mashing.  I threw them into the pico and they were wonderful.

Pico

6 roma tomatoes
1 medium onion
cilantro
4 jalapenos
2 avocados
lime juice
sea salt

Dice up the tomatoes, onion, avocados and jalapenos into really small pieces.  Add a few sprigs of finely minced cilantro.  Stir.  Add about 2 tablespoons of lime juice and about a teaspoon of the sea salt.  Yes, sea salt is better here.  Stir again.

This tastes better if you can make it a couple of hours ahead of time so the salt and lime juice can really soak in to everything.  Its really good directly on the tacos and later for snacking with chips or on top of scrambled eggs the next morning.  I love the stuff!

And after dinner...I've been waiting all day for this...CAKE!  CHOCOLATE CAKE!  Its the only kind there is, or should be.   A perfect ending to a fun day.

My birthday present from JD was this way cool, cowgirly hat!

So productive!

It's 9:52 a.m. and I already feel like I have accomplished a good day's worth of business.  For breakfast I made breakfast burritos.  They were inspired by a stop at the Fast Lane gas station on our way to my horse show this past Saturday.  I VERY simply mixed pork chorizo with scrambled eggs. 

In case I ever become famous for my thrown together recipe ideas, I'll tell you how I made the burritos below.  I rarely follow written recipes because we live in Kinnear and I don't always have all of the ingredients and I'm NOT going back to Wal-Mart. And because I'm not very good at following directions, recipes or otherwise, just ask JD.

Oh yeah, back to the burritos...I had enough for breakfast for JD and I and then had six left to bag up and throw in the freezer.

Now that it was daylight, JD's horse, Petrie, was politely (or not so much) asking for his breakfast by pawing the gate.  I doubted that he would enjoy chorizo so I set out to deliver hay and grain to him and his buddies.  But first I had to dress in all of the appropriate gear (see "Isn't it Cold There?" post).  I should have thrown on the face mask too but it fogs up my glasses, making chore-time, well, a chore.  It was 18 below and I know I said you had better run so your nostrils don't freeze together but, without a mask, this isn't a good idea either.  The slight breeze I get when running, now I mean SLIGHT (you know this if you've ever seen me run), makes my cheeks colder than just walking and toughing out the cold.

Chores done!

JD and I made a pact this weekend about doing an hours worth of work for each other each week.  He requested that I spend my time cleaning something that I don't usually clean, like cupboards, closets, garden shed, windows, etc. I am a pretty decent housekeeper but have also been pretty good at ignoring the behind closed doors stuff in order to ride, shop, play, anything but clean.  In exchange for my weekly hour of work, he will "work for me" for one hour on Sundays doing honey dos.  WooHoo!  Deal.  I'll be glad to make our home, yard, pickup a little cleaner and nicer to have him help me do the same.

So...my hour of cleaning this week was done this morning.  I cleaned my appliance cupboards.  They needed to be wiped out but in the process, I got rid of a dish drainer, coffee grinder, blender, coffee maker and beaters.  I have room for so much more crap now!  I mean treasures.

After finishing up this post, I'll balance the checkbooks and pay bills. 

Lunch will be a breeze.  We have leftover lasagna from dinner.  It turned out really good.  To the regular meat and spaghetti method, I added some frozen zucchini from last summer's garden, and also some sausage for some kick.

I'm going to spend some time with Wiley this afternoon on his schoolwork.  JD has been working on counting and the alphabet and I'll be working on writing the letter M today.  He eats up all of the attention on these weeks when JD is home.

While Wiley naps, I'm going to take some time to watch an instructional video by Les Vogt on training horses.

Whew!  After all that, Abby should be getting home from school and we can start in to our nightly chores, homework, dinner routine!  Pork chops...and whatever else I can dream up before then.



Breakfast Burritos

1 package pork chorizo
8 eggs
2 T half n half
8 burrito tortillas
2 cups cheese of your choice

Cook the chorizo over medium low heat until done.  Crack the eggs in a bowl and add the half n half and beat together.  Add the eggs to the chorizo and stir until done.  Warm up the tortillas in the microwave so they are soft and pliable but not overheated to become hard, probably 30-45 seconds.  Drop the meat mixture into the center of the tortillas and top with some cheese and then roll up into burritos.  The meat and egg will melt the cheese.  The extra burritos can be frozen in plastic bags.  Jalapenos would have been wonderful in this too because the chorizo I had wasn't too hot.