A Merry Band of Bloggers

My sister lives in Colorado, where the sun always shines and the air is always fresh and the temperature is always just right. So when she visited recently and stepped out of her car, she about fell into a small heap in our driveway because breathing humid Missouri summer air is not for the faint of heart.

Or the faint of hair.

So let's hear it for all the food bloggers and dietitians who willingly volunteered to visit the dairy on a hot, humid Saturday morning, knowing full well what it would do to their hair. I mean, hearts. I mean, heat. It was hot.

Ok. C'mon, guys. Just clap.



(And while you're at it, please give a gentle, quiet "Hooray!" -- we don't want to startle them after all -- for the cows, who start feeling heat stress in about January and don't get a break from it until the following December. Well, not quite. But let's just say they love water misters and fans in the summer as much as kids love a good water park. More maybe.)

Thanks to our friends at Midwest Dairy,  we were able to host these brave blogging souls on a warm day in June, giving them a chance to see where their food comes from up close and personal. Like, so personal a calf could suck on their fingers personal. (Sorry for my white legs. My spiritual gift is getting sunburned without tanning. Clearly.)



Our merry band of bloggers got to see baby calves, only a couple of hours old, and hear from my farmer how we care for the littlest animals on the farm. Between the calves and our multitude of kittens, everybody would have been fine being done at that point.

BUT WE PERSEVERED.

And by that I mean that we kindly nudged them on to meet some of the older heifers and the mama cows who took time out of their lunch to pose for photographs.

#2780 showing off her best side.

(Let's face it: Every girl has a best side.)

 

We rounded out the tour with a trip through the commodity shed to see what our cows eat, explain how our nutritionist tweaks the ration, talk about what silage is and discover why it's an important part of a cow's diet.

After that, we headed back to the shop to guzzle a bathtub full of water (Did you know that's about how much water a cow drinks in a day? Almost 35 gallons! And here you thought your eight glasses of water were good . . . ) and enjoy a meal together, surrounded by silage choppers and wrenches and flies because that's what life is like on a real dairy.

Lauren Lane, one of our favorite food bloggers, even made us brownies for dessert, and I'm not saying that I maybe basically skipped lunch and just went straight for the chocolate, but I CAN say that there was one extra pulled pork wrap left over because, well, I maybe basically skipped lunch and just went straight for the chocolate.

Side note: Brownies taste even more fudgy when enjoyed with milk. And because milk is healthy and so wonderfully good for you, you can even have a second brownie if you want. They basically balance each other out.

This is why you need farmers in your life. We can be helpful when you're trying to make important life choices like this. 

 

We're thankful for our social media influencer friends -- whether they're Instagrammers or bloggers or Facebookers or all of the above -- not just because they took time to come to the farm and see how their food is made, but because as farmers, we're busy . . . you know . . . FARMING. And that means we don't always have a lot of free time to chat with every person in the grocery store or on the street about why dairy is such an affordable, healthy food option.

But people like Cara of Streetsmart Nutrition and Lauren of Lauren Lane Culinarian do. They have the gift of story telling, photography, research and knowing their followers so that they can share information with them in a helpful and winsome way.

 So when a Lauren or a Cara or a Steph of KC Cheeses or Shanna from Wellness for the Win want to know or be reminded of see for themselves where their food comes from, and when, seeing how we care for our animals and land and each other, they believe as strongly as we do about milk and butter and cream and eggs, they help us tell our story in really fun ways.

And we are -- and remain -- grateful for that.


Photos courtesy Wheat Photography

rye silage

Amy Grant may think that Christmas it the most wonderful time of the year, but at the dairy, we think silage chopping time is actually the best!

Or maybe just the most high energy. 

Ok, fine, Amy. You were right all along. But silage is still a pretty sweet time of year, no matter how many CDs you sold!

Where was I? Oh! What is silage? you're wondering. 

It's ok. I was too the first year. Turns out I have this handsome farmer who is happy to explain. Have a read!

Me: What is silage?

Chris: Silage is harvesting and ensiling a forage. 

Me: Wait. What's a forage? Isn't that what dogs do behind dumpsters?

eggplant parmigiana | dairy

One of these days, November is actually going to get semi-cold. And when that happens, I'm going to indulge in comfort food and not feel the least bit bad about it. For now, we're eating eggplant parmigiana, which is a close second.

But just as soon as there's frost on the ground . . . 

Mashed potatoes? I'm in. 

Chicken pot pie? Sign me up. 

Chicken tettrazini? I'm so there. 

      

When I lived in St. Louis, I'd treat myself to one of those KFC Famous Bowls of deliciousness now then, the one with mashed potatoes and fried chicken and corn. I mean, I always got gut rot afterward, but just as soon as it's freezing outside, I'm recreating that bad boy. 

In the meantime, how about some eggplant parmigiana? That's healthy-ish, right? It's filled with cheese (yay, dairy!) and eggs and veggies. Ok, so it's at least better for you than the KFC Bowl of Unnecessary Calories. 

Look at all that cheese. 

Mozzarella. 

Parmesan. 

Provolone. 

It's almost better than my mom's famous nachos: Doritos covered in cheddar and pepper jack! 

Almost. 

Speaking of cheese, we interrupt this recipe to bring you Dorothy Lynch, dairy champion.  

Well, she's at least a relative to good old DL anyway.

Basically any slightly reddish, brownish cow is a Dorothy Lynch in my world. 

Also, please tell me you knew that was a salad dressing?

The days of mashed potatoes and pasta are coming. But until then, we're slicing up the eggplant, chopping up the salad, tipping our hats to Dorothy Lynch and enjoying these golden days of November.

But don't think we don't see you, KFC Bowls.

We do.

Boy, do we.

Eggplant Parmigiana

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3 medium yellow onions, sliced
• 6 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 28-oz. cans plum tomatoes
• 2 medium eggplant, cut 1/2-inch thick
• 1/2 cup flour
• 5 eggs
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 4 cups Italian breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon oregon
• 1 tablespoon thyme
• 1 1/2 lbs. mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 lb. provolone cheese
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Cooking Directions

1. Sauce: Heat olive oil. Add onion, garlic, salt and red pepper flakes. Cook 3-5 minutes. Add sugar and tomatoes. Cook 15 minutes.
2. Eggplant: Arrange in a single layer on baking sheets. Sprinkle both sides with salt. Sit 1 hour. Rinse with cold water. Pat dry.
3. Heat oil. Fry eggplant. Drain on paper towel. Lightly salt.
4. Layer sauce, eggplant and cheese.
5. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

what we've been up to

January was here and now it's gone. But on the farm, we're still doing what we were doing last month. 

We're kissing a baby, smooching a baby, smiling at a baby, snuggling a baby, staring at a baby . . . all the baby things. 

Meanwhile, the heifers are doing what they were doing in January too: staring down the dogs . . . eating . . . digging the cooler weather . . . 

 . . . running just to run, bellowing at coyotes, behaving themselves for the most part . . . 

but most of all, they're looking forward to spring. And so are we. 

So . . . who's with them?  

I mean, with us?  

wally and blackjack, cowdog wannabes

We had a lot of snow last year. Like, the kind where my car couldn't always make it over the drifts to get into town kind of snow. 

This year has been snowless and relatively warm. I--to put it mildly--find this fantastic.