My oldest daughter brought a recipe home from the grocery store the other day after trying a sample of the final product. We gave it a try and enjoyed it, so I'm sharing it here.

Salmon Surprise

1/2 pound Thai Rice Noodles, cooked
1 1/2 Tablespoons oil (I used a mixture of olive oil and coconut oil)
1 Tablespoon Thai Green Curry Paste
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 - 1 cup chopped green or red or yellow peppers
1-2 Tablespoons fish sauce (I didn't have this, so I left it out)
1 Tablespoon dried basil (I used Pesto Sauce instead)
1 large can salmon (I used one with no artificial color)
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1-1/2 shredded cheese of your choice (I used Sargento 4 Cheese Mexican Blend)


Cook the Thai Rice Noodles until al dente. Drain and set aside.


Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the curry paste, onions, peppers and basil. Cook until onions and peppers are tender.


Mix in the salmon and cook until it is heated through - this just takes a couple of minutes. Stir in the parmesan cheese. Add the rice noodes and fish sauce. Stir to mix, then plate.



Top with shredded cheese - I used the 4 cheese Mexican blend by Sargento. Serve while hot.

Nothing too fancy or too hard, but my girls love it when I make big meatballs like this and love it even more when they are filled will lots of yummy mozzarella cheese! Here's how I do it:

1-2 pounds of M4-D Ranch Pastured Ground Beef
Several 1/2 inch to 1 inch cubes of organic mozzarella cheese
salt - to taste
pepper - to taste
garlic pepper - to taste
any other seasoning you love - to taste
shredded cheese for topping at the end

For your first meatball, take about a 1/4 pound of ground beef (4 ounces) just like you would to make a hamburger patty. Instead of making a patty, I place a cube of mozzarella cheese in the middle and form the ground beef into a large meatball around the cheese. Now, if you make your own mozzarella, that's even better, but not something I've gotten around to doing quite yet.



Set meatball aside. Continue making meatballs like this until you've made as many as you'd like. 1 pound of ground beef should make 4 large meatballs; 2 pounds will make about 8. Sprinkle with whatever seasonings make your tastebuds tingle - I normally use salt, pepper and garlic powder as staples on my burgers.



Heat a skillet with a little olive oil. Now, our pastured ground beef is very lean and hardly ever has any extra grease - if anything I always have to add oil when cooking. So, I heat my skillet with a little olive oil and when it is heated I place the meatballs in to brown.



Brown them lightly on one side, then turn and brown them on the other side.



Next, add about 1/4 cup or so of water to the pan and put on a lid. Turn the heat down to medium or medium-low and allow the meatballs to steam until done. This is the key for having moist, juicy meatballs instead of hard, dried-out ones. Steam. Moist cooking.



When they are done to your liking (we like ours around medium), remove to a plate and sprinkle the tops with shredded cheese - any favorite will work just fine. This cheese will melt and you'll have delicious melted cheese inside and out. Yum.



Enjoy!

Quick and Easy Apple Cobbler:

1 can biscuits
1 gallon of sliced apples - firm, tart apples work best
1 stick of butter
1-2 cups of sugar - use to your discretion depending on the sweetness desired
2-3 Tablespoons cornstarch
Cinnamon to taste
Nutmeg to taste
1/4 - 1/2 cup water

Okay, when I am pressed for time, I cheat and use biscuits for my cobbler dough. I prefer to make my dough homemade, but sometimes you just gotta use a shortcut!

Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x13 inch pan with butter. On a floured surface, take a biscuit and roll it out very thin. Place on the bottom of the 9x13 inch pan. Continue with about 1/2 the can of biscuits or until the bottom of the pan is covered with dough. Don't worry if the dough overlaps some.

Place the gallon of sliced apples on top of the dough. In a bowl mix the sugar and cornstarch. Sprinkle over the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. I like both and probably use about 1-2 Tablespoons of cinnamon and about a teaspoon or two of nutmeg. Slice 1/2 a stick of butter and place the slices on the apples.

Cover the apples with the remaining rolled out biscuit dough. Sprinkle the dough generously with sugar and cinnamon and place butter slices on top. This will make a crispy crust that is just divine.

Carefully add some water around the edges of the pan to keep the cobbler from being too dry. Remember the apples will make some juice of their own - I recommend 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of water depending on your preference for a juicy cobbler or a drier one.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour - cobbler will be bubbling and crust on top will be very browned and crispy when done. Top with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or both! Delicious!

One of our new customers shared this recipe with me recently and I thought I'd pass it along! Enjoy!

Vegetable Beef Burgers

A twist on the family favorite. Serve with Lettuce, tomato and avocado.

2 pounds M4-D Ranch Ground Beef
1 small very firm tomato, finely chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 small green pepper, finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Mix gently together and form patties. Grill or pan fry in a little olive oil. If pan frying, sear and then reducing heat to cook.

You can also top with Provolone cheese and leave off the buns - we did and it was amazing!

This morning had a pretty neat start to the day. As a result of the Memphis Flyer article a couple of weeks ago about our natural beef, one of our local area news stations, Channel 3, contacted me late last week to see if I would appear this morning on their Live at 9 show to talk more about our philosophy on raising "happy, healthy cows"!

It was a fun morning, very relaxed and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The girls got a kick out of seeing their mom on TV and I got to spend a few minutes talking about the reasons why we think our grass-fed beef is the way to go.

If you want to watch for yourself - just click on the link below and select the June 2nd video - about 34 or so minutes in - right after the band finishes up.

"Do Happy Cows Make For Healthier Cows?"

We had a delightful reporter for one of our area's free weekly magazines come out to do a story on our ranch and our pastured beef a couple of weeks ago. The article published today - and we're so very pleased with how well it was written to capture our intent for raising our beef. Here's a link to our 5 seconds of fame:

Who's For Dinner? - by Bo List of the Memphis Flyer Magazine

Thanks Bo!

Just in time for the weekend and next week's holiday celebrations, how about a delicious, southern, summer cake? Guaranteed to tingle your tastebuds - ya'll will love it! Here we go! Remember to read through the whole recipe before you get started, so you'll know all the steps.

Lemon Tea Cake

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 Tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup steeped lemon tea
1 cup sugar
Powdered sugar for dusting, if desired

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 6-8 cup pan. I use a Bundt pan. Sift together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

With mixer on medium speed, cream butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. Remember, this takes time, as the objective is to coat every single bit of sugar with butter. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add lemon extract and lemon zest. Gradually beat in dry ingredients just until the batter is evenly mixed. Overbeating = rubbery cake. Pour into prepared pan and bake one hour or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cake cook in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire cooling rack.

While cake is baking, make syrup by combining the lemon juice, lemon tea and 1 cup of sugar in a small saucepan. Bring this to a boil and cook until the syrup thickens. You are not looking for molasses, just thick like maple syrup. This will take 5 minutes or so. Remove pan from heat and let syrup cool completely.

Pierce the flat side of the cake all over to help it absorb the syrup. Chopsticks work well for this task. Slowly pour syrup over the cake, allowing it to absorb completely. Let cake cool in the pan 10 minutes more. Transfer to a serving platter and allow it to cool completely. Dust cake with powdered sugar if desired and serve.

Serves 12.

Enjoy!

Recipe from Pick TN Products Recipe Booklet