Free Taste of Home Magazine!!

I was just at the grocery store this past weekend and saw the current edition of Taste of home in the checkout lane. I nearly put it on the belt with the milk and such, but decided I had better things to spend $3.99 on. Besides I had enough recipes waiting at home begging me to make them. (If you've been in my kitchen you've seen the bookcase of cookbooks).

It must have been divine intervention that night because today I came across a link for a FREE digital copy of that same current edition I had seen at the store. I've already read through most of it and I'm starving now. :)

It's in PDF form and about 14MB so if you have dial-up it may take awhile, but it's FREE. Love that word!

Here's the link: http://www.tasteofhomedigital.com/tasteofhome/20100203#pg1

Enjoy and happy cooking!

Recipe of the week -- Bratwurst Stew

I love easy dinners. Especially ones that take only a few minutes to put together and then you can forget about them. Slow cookers are great for that. Mine really gets a workout around here and on busy days it's a life saver.

This week I made a family favorite. I don't make it often, but when I do, there is rarely any left over.

Bratwurst Stew

4 medium potatoes, cubed
2 medium carrots, coarsely chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 lb. fresh bratwurst links, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 cups half and half cream
3 tbls. cornstarch
2 tbls. cold water

In a 5 quart slow cooker, combine the potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and garlic. Top with bratwurst slices. In a small bowl, combine the broth, salt, basil and pepper; pour over bratwurst and veggies. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours. Stir in cream. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into stew. Cover and cook on high for 30 minutes.


The beauty of this stew is you can chop the veggies into large chunks. Everything comes out so tender at the end that you can use your spoon to cut them in half in your bowl if they are too large too eat. It's a really nice "rustic" looking stew when complete.

Fiber Fun Wednesday -- Washing fiber

Friday has magically become Wednesday this week...because I said so. :o)

In preparation of much spinning and dyeing, I am trying to get at least half of the bags of fiber washed. These are poor abandoned bags of alpaca fiber from our shearing last June. They sat in my unfinished bathtub (long story) just waiting to feel the love up until a few days ago when I moved them to my office.

The overstuffed office. Scary, huh?

I had skirted quite a few of these bags of fiber before Christmas so it's not a lot of work. Just water, water, and more water everywhere with fiber soaking in an attempt to get clean. Probably more than just an attempt since the fiber is coming out much cleaner than it went in.

I have made it through most of the whites and will go on to the darker colors next.

I've got to keep workin' hard because we have officially launched our Fiber CSA this week. Now you can have your own little part of Tomorrow Farm Alpacas. All the details can be found on our website and can currently be purchased in our etsy shop.

An Epiphany

Have you ever had one of those moments? You know the ones I'm talking about. The moment where you have a brilliant idea and wonder why in the world you never thought of it before.

It all started with the bread I was baking yesterday. As I was making it, I was imagining what kind of sandwich I could make when it was done. (I was hungry at the time).

I decided I must have an egg salad sandwich. I boiled up the eggs and stuck them in the fridge to cool a bit.

While they were cooling I realized we had no pickle relish to go in the egg salad. I thought of going to the store, seeing if my mom next door had some or even just waiting a day to make it.

Then it hit me. Why not make my own pickle relish with the pickles I had canned over the summer. I figured, what's the worst that could happen? I get pickle soup instead of relish?

I grabbed a jar of sweet pickles off the shelf and dumped it's contents in the blender. I pushed the button for about 1/2 a second and ended up with near perfect relish. Woohoo!

Now why didn't I ever think of that before? Oh, and the sandwich was amazing. :o)

Recipe of the week -- Breakfast Burritos

Did you ever have one of those recipes that turned out really, really good, you made it a few times and then forgot about it? This is one of those for me.

The first time I made these was about 6 or 7 years ago. I made them quite a few times. They worked really well for a breakfast on the go in the morning. They were also really easy.

Somehow though, they got forgotten and I didn't think of them again until this past Christmas.

You make 10 at a time and then freeze them. They keep for about a month or so in the freezer and warm up great in the microwave.

Breakfast Burritos

12 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
12 eggs, scrambled
Salt and pepper to taste
10 flour tortillas
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

Cook and scramble the eggs any way you'd like.

Spoon about 1/4 cup of the eggs down the center of each tortilla. Divide the cheese, onions and bacon over the eggs. Fold bottom and sides of tortilla over filling. Wrap each in waxed paper. Place in freezer.

To use frozen burritos: Place wax paper wrapped burritos on a microwave safe plate. Microwave at 60% power for 1 1/2-2 minutes or until heated through.

These are also good with ham instead of bacon or use different cheese to suit your tastes.

Busy, Busy, and Fiber Boys

I am so, so sorry to have neglected you these past few weeks. All I can say is time management...I need to learn it.

I hope to get back to the weekly recipes and fiber Wednesdays this weekend. I would have last weekend, but I had no internet for nearly 5 days. It was awful. It was worse than the caffeine withdrawal when I gave up Mt. Dew. (That of course lasted about as long as the internet blackout).

No excuses. I will get back on track.

On a totally different subject....

Yesterday was a fun day. We gained two more additions to the Lost Boy fiber herd. If you haven't heard of the Lost Boys, they are our herd of fiber animals. Most have been either rescued or re-purposed here (or rehomed I guess). These alpacas (we have both male and female) are non-breeders (either medically or by choice). They come here for many reasons. Some are not needed on their farms or don't fit the breeding program, some have medical issues that prevent them from breeding and others have simply been unwanted. We have worked with about a dozen farms in 4 different states to give these animals a new purpose in life.

They live a happy, lazy life here in return for their fiber once a year to be used in our new fiber studio (more on that in another blog post).

Anywho....give a big hello to Morgan and Mickey.

(Don't be fooled by the photos. It is very snowy here. I got these photos from their original owners)