"Pioneer Woman"...what a great blog!

Just in case you need another blog to read...I am really enjoying this one right now...www.thepioneerwoman.com. She is a great writer, a hilarious storyteller and her photos are to die for...and she is a homeschooler!

This is an excerpt:

"I’m a thirty-something ranch wife, mother of four, moderately-agoraphobic middle child who grew up on a golf course in the city. I attended college in Los Angeles and wore black pumps to work every day. I ate sushi and treated myself to pedicures on a semi-regular basis. I even kissed James Garner in an elevator once. Then, on a brief trip to my hometown, I met and fell in love with a rugged cattle rancher. Now I live in the middle of nowhere on a working cattle ranch. My days are spent wrangling children, chipping dried manure from boots, washing jeans, and frying calf nuts. I have no idea how I got here…but you know what? I love it. Don’t tell anyone. I hope you enjoy my website, ThePioneerWoman.com. Here, I write about my decade-long transition from spoiled city girl to domestic country wife. I post photos of cows, horses, and my four weird children, and frequently include shots of cowboys wearing chaps."

Giddy up!

And this post did make me giggle.

Great Cookbook

I bought this cookbook a few months ago, after I previewed it from the library, and I really, really love it! (Click on the image to get the full details) It is organized into seasons in the garden and gives great recipes for local food 'in season'. It also has lots of great tidbits and inspirational quotes sprinkled throughout. Most of the recipes are simple, with a few steps and a handful of ingredients.

So far we have made...marinated tofu with vegetables, apple lentil salad, sweet potato crescent rolls, sausage and apples, naan bread and today I made these whole wheat scones...with our delicious homemade raspberry jam...


Every recipe we've tried has turned out exactly as they said it would and has been delicious.

The book also includes calls to action to support local foods, how to start a dinner co-op, tips for helping children to make healthy choices and beautiful photos of fresh, mouth-watering fruits and vegetables. Did I mention, I love this cookbook?

Making Cheese

After reading about making cheese in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (which I cannot recommend highly enough...definitely a must read) we decided it was something we wanted to try. So after hunting around a bit in our local natural food stores for cheese making supplies and coming up empty...we decided to mail order a kit from Ricki Carroll a.k.a the Cheese Queen. I ordered the ricotta/mozzarella starter kit as well as the goat cheese starter kit. They arrived last week and I decided to get started today with a simple ricotta. It was so incredibly easy and turned out quite delicious! Basically, you take two litres of milk...we used organic homo milk...add 1/2 tsp of citric acid (food grade) and 1/2 tsp of cheese salt...put it in a pot on the stove...bring the temperature to 195 degrees...ladle the curds into a colander lined with cheese cloth..


then hang it for about 30 minutes in the cheese cloth and voila...fresh ricotta cheese!


I think to make it completely worthwhile, it really makes sense to have our own animals to produce the milk...but maybe someday!

So we mixed our lovely cheese with one of our hen's eggs and this...


and ended up with this delicious dinner...


which was completely inspired by my friend Heather's creation which you can see here. Thanks Heather!

A few more pics of the week-end

Just downloaded some more pics from my brother-in-law's camera, of the fun and revelry...



A winning team...

Getting instructions for the 'snipe' hunt...


A rare picture of me...


Kicking up our heels...

Visitors, Stampede, Zirnhelt Rodeo and Reunion

Phew...it has been a busy week! We just got back from the Zirnhelt Family Reunion, we're all a little dirty, a lot tired but what a blast!

Just over a week ago, our first visitors arrived...Erich's sister Natalie, hubby Marco and baby Vincent.




It was Stampede week-end in Williams Lake, so we went and checked it out.


This was our first rodeo and we were really quite impressed. We saw our cousins Sam and Robin competing in the wild cow milking and pony express events. Wild cow milking...guess that is self explanatory...


Pony Express is an event kind of like a relay, where the rider has to change horses twice and then race to the finish line. This is Sam and Robin doing just that...

What I found most amazing is that all of these events showcase real, practical skills that ranchers and cowboys use on a day-to-day basis in their work. And, it wasn't until I saw all of the regular folks trying to do the same things at the reunion that I realized the incredible skill involved!

The next week-end was the much anticipated family reunion. Almost 100 Zirnhelts gathered at the Zirnhelt Ranch in Beaver Valley, from as closeby as Horsefly and as far away as Strasbourg, France. We just had such a great time, getting reacquainted with cousins (I think the number was about 43...of just Erich's first cousins their spouses, children) and meeting lots of new ones.

It was a very well organized gathering, with rodeo events, canoe races, a raft building competition, a huge bonfire, live bluegrass music, a barn dance, fireworks, a snipe hunt and food, lots of food.

This is Mary-Lynn Zirnhelt...she trains cutting horses... these are saddled horses specially trained to separate individual animals from a cattle herd.Mooooo!
This was a cow medicating race...contestants had to try to catch a cow and stick a piece of duct tape on it's behind and it's shoulder. No cows or people were injured during this event. Erich's team was proud to win this one.


Can you find the city slickers in this picture?