Blackberry dumplins

A few weeks ago, my family and I went to a blackberry farm and picked til our hearts were content.  Well, almost.  It was 96 degrees and we picked til we gave out, really.  We managed 5 gallons.  After freezing them, I have been on a mission to find the PERFECT recipe.  I've found some good ones, but this one that I'm fixing to share with y'all is a family favorite.  When I tell people Blackberry dumplins are the best way to eat blackberries, I get several different reactions.  They range from looks of disgust to curiosity.   The dish is simple, yet complicated....rustic, yet elegant and I promise you won't be disappointed in the end result.  That being said, my mommas is better than mine and I can't figure that out, but nevertheless, mine is pretty good.  Also, I don't normally post a lot of pics with my recipes, but with this one, it was a must.

First, start with two cups of blackberries and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan.  You will need to add some water and I added two cups.  There's no specific amount...you will just need to watch the amount of juice you have when adding the dumplins.  You can easily adjust at several different points. 

Bring the berries and sugar up to a slow boil and allow berries to break apart and create a luscious, cranberry colored syrup.  Should take 5-7 minutes.  I even used frozen berries and my cooking time didn't change.

See what I mean?!  Wow.  Many recipes call for straining the juice at this point.  It's perfectly acceptable to do and please do if if you feel like it.  This woman does not strain her blackberry concoction because frankly, the texture of the seeds does not bother me (or my tummy) and I do not want to do anything to make this recipe take longer.  The sooner I can plate this up the better!  Keep your berries and juice simmering while you make the dumplins.  Combine 1 cup of self-rising flour with 2 tbsp of butter and cut in until butter is the size of peas.  Add enough milk to make a sticky dough.  I would say around a 1/2 cup.  Again, this will depend on several factors, especially humidity.  Our humidity has been hovering around 80%, so I have to use less liquid than most.

When dough leaves sides of bowl, you are  ready to pour out onto a well-floured surface.  Oh how I love to work with dough!!!  After kneading a few times, you will have a perfect little ball of dough!



Next, roll out dough to an 1/8" thickness and cut into squares.  Hopefully yours will be less irregular than mine...I still think my Five yr old did a pretty dang good job!

Drop dumplings into your simmering juice and cover and cook for 20 minutes.  NO PEEKING ALLOWED.  This is soo important.  I am no good at no peeking, so I make sure my pots and pans have glass lids.  I am a cheater when it comes to food ;)



This is what your dumplins should look like as soon as you drop them.....but in 20 short minutes you will have this....



If you want to be a really bad girl like me, feel free to spoon them up while they are still steamin' and pour cold heavy cream over the top.  I cannot stress how wonderful this is.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream doesn't hurt the experience either.  Whenever I make this recipe, I can't help but feel like my momma is standing next to me in the kitchen.  This is true Southern cooking at its finest.



Be still my heart

Tonight, my sweet, loving, redneck husband took me out for an early Birthday present.  My birthday is the 20th and due to various reasons, we will not be able to celebrate much next week or weekend.  The first leg of our journey was a distillery tour at Heaven Hill.  Living only 20 miles from the "Bourbon trail", it is surprising that I have only toured a distillery once and that was when I was Seven.  My precious devout Christian grandparents took my cousin and I to Barton distilleries.  Now that I think about it, the trip was strange.....enjoyable, but strange.  I really don't know why they saw fit to take us there, but I have never forgotten the smell of cooking mash, the yeasty aroma and the feeling of wanting to taste the forbidden end result.  My husband has mentioned several times that he would like to take a tour, so today was the day.  We were able to take a deluxe tour that lasted over an hour and it was wonderful.  We were given the history by a knowledgeable member of the Beam family (huge in bourbon) while walking down a path lined in glorious butterfly bushes.  The smells of the flowers overwhelmed our senses while butterflies swirled around our heads.  As we made our trek to a warehouse, the scent of bourbon and charred oak became stronger and stronger.  After touring the warehouse, we were invited back to a private tasting.  It was a perfect adventure! NOTE:  I did not partake of the tasting as we had our Five year old with us and we were not allowed to enter the tasting room with her.  That is okay by me and I have decided the smell of bourbon is MUCH better than the taste.  Blech!

After our distillery tour, we were starving.  Bardstown is VERY familiar to us as are the restaurants.  We were hoping for something different and relaxed with an inventive menu.  If I'm being honest, hubby was looking for quiet and relaxed and I was looking for inventive cuisine!!  We stumbled upon a new restaurant called Circa and it looked perfect.  The restaurant is located in a quaint two story home full of character and southern charm.  The grounds were well landscaped and the outdoor terrace looked very inviting.  We knew we had to give the restaurant a try.  Upon stepping inside, I knew we were in good hands.  The restaurant was classy, but not overly done and I felt very comfortable.  My redneck hubby wasn't as enthused as I, but was very pleased with the menu.  I wanted to try EVERYTHING.  From the beingnets made from pulled pork and makers mark barbecue sauce to the caprese salad with fresh pesto.  Heaven forbid I forget to mention the braised rabbit with mushroom ragu served over homemade gnocci.  Wow is all I can say.  I cannot wait to go back and try something new and enjoy a lovely glass of wine.  This restaurant is huge for a girl who has always had to travel over an hour one way for a decent food experience.  Woohoo!

The best ever.

Meatloaf, that is.  I know what y'all are thinking....meatloaf is grody.  The texture, the grease, the blandness of it all.  For years, I've avoided the stuff like the plague.  My mom's was gross, my granny's was gross and as far as I was concerned if they couldn't do it right, no one could.  Fast forward to me entering married life and my husband ask why I never fixed meatloaf.  Just the thought of it made me queasy...why couldn't he understand that?  Turns out, he is a meatloaf fan.  So, I went on a quest to make the perfect meatloaf.  Ashamedly, I will admit that my goal was not to satisfy my husband.  It was for my own personal satisfaction.  Failure I can handle in small doses, but that failure must not involve my culinary skills.  The kitchen is where I excel and am most competitive.  Quite possibly the biggest challenge I've ever given myself was to come up with a eatable meatloaf...Lol.  I am giggling because I'm quite sure if my husband read this blog, he would look into having me committed.  Hopefully he didn't marry me for my sanity alone!!!

Anyway, I ate a lot of nasty meatloaf before coming up with this one.  This meatloaf is now a family favorite.  My sweet brother, Geremy, could eat his weight in this recipe.

Best Meatloaf Eva

3/4 cup ketchup
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
2TBSP Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 lbs ground beef ( 80/20)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
1 cup crushed saltine crackers
1TBSP minced garlic
1TBSP brown sugar

Heat oven to 425 degrees.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with nonstick foil.  Whisk 1/2 cup ketchup with next five ingredients in a large bowl.  Add beef, onion, pepper, saltines and garlic.  Mix well with hands or wooden spoon.  Place on baking sheet and pat into 11x5 oval loaf. Combine  rest of ketchup and brown sugar and pour over meatloaf.  Bake 50 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted in center registers 160 degrees.  Wait 5 minutes before slicing.  Serves 6-8.
Try it out, y'all.  I think you will be pleasantly suprised.

Giggles and tears of joy make for a great night!!!

All my life, I've had a great love of reading.  When my workaholic parents were busy, I read.  When I was bored, I read.  Lonely, read.  You get the idea......One of my favorite gifts as a child was my Little House on the Prarie book collection given to me by my granny and papaw.  I was Seven.  As soon as my party was over, I escaped to my room and read the first book of the series with gusto.  In no time at all, I was swept away to the banks of Plum Creek with Laura Ingalls.  I could almost imagine fishing with a twig and a piece of string....or how exciting it would be to dance to Pa's fiddle playing every night before bedtime.  I could taste the sweetness of maple syrup candy made during the Christmas season by pouring a small stream of hot syrup onto cold, packed snow.  As I got older, I moved onto more mature books, of course, but I always enjoy going back to my roots (lol) and re-reading my Little House books.  The set is still intact, albeit a bit worn and with yellowed pages, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Tonight, my precious daughter, started a new chapter in her little life.  She is now a reader.  Now, I will admit she is a pretty sharp girl, much sharper than I ever was, but she can be stubborn.  She has refused to believe it, but she has been reading for some time.  This summer, we have been doing general kindergarten prep and I decided to step up her reading readiness skills.  We made a game of sticking index cards on various items in our home.  On the cards, I would write the name of the object and she would work on sounding them out and pronouncing the words.  She has had so much fun the last two days looking for new cards.  Today, we went to the library and checked out a beginning reader set.  The set is Bob books, set 1, beginning readers.  The set has several short stories (maybe 11?) that start super simple and slowly progress in difficulty.  She took out book one and read without any problem.  I was floored.  She continued to book four without trouble.  It was precious.  Baby girl had no idea what she was doing.  She looked up at me once and noticed the tears streaming down my face and said "what?"  About that time, she gave me a huge smile and squealed with joy.....I'm reading!!!!

After putting my happy girl to bed, I pulled out my Little House set and carried them to her room.  They are now setting proudly on her bookshelf waiting to be cherished by a new set of hands.  It will happen soon enough....

Simple womans daybook

I have enjoyed reading these type of posts on other blogs and though I would try my hand at it tonight.  Here goes:

Outside my window.....the sky is dark and calm.  A blessing after a couple of stormy nights.

I'm thinking about.......how it seems impossible to be so tired yet unable to sleep.

I am thankful for.....my husband and how he makes me feel needed, wanted and loved at all times.

From my learning......I am realizing going back to school has given me a great confidence boost.

From the kitchen.....My third load of dishes for the day is going in the dishwasher and everything is neat and tidy :)

I am wearing....comfy cotton shorts and a tank top, my usual bed attire.

I am creating......a scrapbook for a special friend.

I am going....to bed SOON.

I am reading....nothing.  I always have a couple of books on my reading list, but have read everything and haven't been able to get to the library yet this week.

I am hoping.....my 5 yr old will like her first teacher and have an easy transition into KG in a couple weeks.

I am hearing.....the ceiling fan and air conditioner.  It has been dangerously hot this week and I am so thankful for my cool house!

Around the house.......my garden is producing an abundance of veggies and later in the week, I will be freezing sweet corn. 

For the rest of the week:  Picking peaches at local orchard and freezing them.  Freezing corn from the garden, making salsa.  Heading to college to finish up on my scheduling and to buy my books, going to the library, detailing my car and enjoying my birthday festivities this weekend.

Chocolate X2

Sometimes a girl really only needs chocolate to make things better.  After a horrible weekend that won't stop, lots of stress and one big potential life-altering problem on my mind, I caved today.  I went into the kitchen and created chocolate comfort.  The comfort looked like this.....

It was as good as it looks, maybe better.  A boxed brownie mix, vanilla ice cream and some homemade chocolate sauce and I was in heaven.  For the few minutes I was stuffing my mouth, I felt better.  Really, I did.  I though I would share a recipe for the chocolate sauce I used in this recipe and for my moms thick, rich, chocolate sauce.  For me, they are both delish and are recipes that should be in everyone's kitchen. 

Chocolate Syrup

3 cups of sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

2 TBSP light Karo syrup

1 1/2 cups good quality dutch cocoa powder

In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar and water and bring to a boil.  Add rest of ingredients and allow to reduce.  Simple as that!  Keeps in fridge for a couple of weeks.  You may feel the need to strain the mixture after cooking, but if I use a whisk, I don't usually have any lumps.

This recipe if great for making decadent chocolate milk, chocolate gravy, adding into your iced coffee, etc.  Love it!!!

This next recipe is my mommas and it is divine.  Really, it's the best ever.  The end result is thick and fudgy and just wonderful.  Think hot fudge sundae and you have the idea.

4 oz bar of german chocolate

2/3 cup of sugar

1/2 cup butter

5 oz can of pet milk

1/2 tsp of salt

Bring all ingredients to a boil and boil for 4 minutes stirring constantly.  Cool.

I have used this in so many ways...mainly over ice cream, but you can also dip fresh fruit in this, use it on toast, etc. 

Hope you enjoy these recipes soon.  If you are like me, food provides comfort and every gal should have these recipes memorized!  Lol.  I keep these close to my heart as well as a couple of bible verses that are special to me.  Tomorrow, I intend to post a bit on what GOD says about worry, fear and comfort!

Sweet victory

Tonight I witnessed a thing of beauty.  You see, for a week now, I have been anticipating and dreaming about harvesting that first, perfect tomato.  Every morn, I have treked out to the garden and gently lifted my tomato vines and practically begged for a ripe tomato.  Specifically, I've been eyeing a pair of cherry tomatoes that have slowly gone from green to white and finally to yellow tinged with pink.  Oh the glory of it all!  Typically, I have ripe tomatoes by July 4th, but considering out constant state of either flooding or extreme drought, our season is all messed up.  Tonight as I gathered eggs, I saw yellow out of the corner of my eye.  Could it be?  I had an heirloom yellow plum tomato ripe.  This is the first year I've grown this variety, so I was particularly excited!!!  I also managed to find two ripe cherry tomatoes as well.  Great night indeed. 

Above is a picture of my bounty tonight ;)  Thank you Lord for blessing us with so many gifts.  I am thankful for all you have entrusted us with.