Rhubarb Cherry Crunch

Regrettably, due to youth and naivete, I spent a large portion of my childhood saying, "No, thank you" when my mom offered rhubarb cherry crunch for dessert. This is a poor decision I'll have to live with for my entire life.

You, on the other hand, still have a chance to live your best rhubarb life starting here and now.

Just don't add the walnuts to the crumble. I mean, you CAN . . . if you're a squirrel or a chipmunk or some other kind of rodent who enjoys eating things that taste like tree bark. But if you're none of those things and can still dig walnuts and voluntarily wreck a perfectly good dessert by smothering the rhubarb and cherry deliciousness in them, we may never be able to see eye to eye. Or I may just encourage you to go to a doctor. It could go either way.

Regardless, try this dessert warm with a little milk poured over the top. It may not be the normal way to eat it, but it's the Iowa way, which clearly makes it the best way. Enjoy!

4 c. rhubarb

1/2 c. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

1 c. water

1 jar cherry pie filling

1 tsp. almond extract

3/4 c. oats

3/4 c. brown sugar, packed

3/4 c. sifted flour

pinch of salt

1/3 c. butter

1/2 c. walnuts

Place rhubarb in 11x7x1 1/2" baking dish. Combine sugar and cornstarch in small saucepan. Gradually stir in water. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thick. Stir in pie filling and extract. Combine oats, brown sugar, flour, salt, and butter until crumbly. Add walnuts. Sprinkle over fruit. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

dairy / COVID-19 interview round-up

Dairy farmers have been in the news lately, discussing the issue of, in some places, an oversupply of milk. Exports, restaurants, and schools are shut down and are no longer receiving regular shipments of dairy products. Unprocessed milk can't legally just be given away, and food pantries and food banks aren't set up to receive thousands of gallons of milk anyway. Cold storage is full. So, for some farmers, milk has simply had to go down the drain.

It's hard to get the full story in a brief news segment, but my farmer is doing his best to set the record straight about why it's happening, what people can do in the meantime, and -- the part that often gets left out -- that farmers have known hardship before, dug in, found a solution, and weathered the storm. And the good news? They'll do it again! 

Check out the links below from this past week to see/hear him chat about dairying during corona. (Not to be confused with dairying WITH a Corona, which is probably what most farmers would like to be doing right now.)

KMBC: "For a cow, once you stop milking her there is no restarting." Her milking, that is. Exports, restaurants, schools and the economy, for sure . . . and hopefully soon!

KFUO: You can listen to my farmer and me chat about the vocation of dairy farmer and how COVID-19 has impacted how we're taking care of our team, cows, and neighbors during this time.

FOX 4: "Eat that extra ice cream. Put that extra slice of cheese on your hamburger." Wise words from my husband for any day of the week, but now especially!

KCTV5: Rather than assume that farmers would rather dump milk than give it away, my farmer's encouraging people to learn the facts. "Just assume everyone is doing their best and working to beat this thing."

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

Mrs. Seifferlein's Baked Oatmeal {Deliciousness}

A couple of months ago, my kind husband told me that Sunday brunch is his favorite meal of the week. Naturally, I took his compliment as a reason to full-on panic.

MUST. MAKE. EVERY. BRUNCH. BETTER. THAN. THE. WEEK. BEFORE.

Of course, what he actually meant was, "I love Sunday brunch because it's the one mid-day meal of the week where I'm not answering 42 phone calls and text messages and having to shovel food in to rush back to the dairy."

But in my people-pleasing panic, I kind of missed that part.

Sunday brunch challenge: accepted.

It took me a couple of weeks of making sweet rolls and frying bacon while giving the baby a bottle and appeasing the toddler with Goldfish before I finally said, "Ok, I give. We have two little kids. I can't make a gourmet brunch and get them fed before 2 in the afternoon."

And in his usual calm way, he said, "Ok."

He's good like that.

So now, instead of trying to make cheesy grits with scallions and spinach/mushroom/ricotta omelets, I'm aiming for two goals: (1) getting lunch on the table quickly so my children don't act like they're about to starve and (2) making it tasty so that it's special for my husband.

That usually works out to scrambled eggs in tortillas (with peppers and sausage and taco sauce and cheese for toppings) or coffee cake and fruit and granola parfaits or 11 pieces of Great Harvest bread delivered from Minnesota to Missouri thanks to my parents.

But this week, we hit the jackpot with my friend Erin's baked oatmeal.

Except she's not your friend. She's my friend. So she's still Mrs. Seifferlein to you.

This met criteria #1 -- I made it the night before and baked it while making the rest of brunch and getting the kids changed out of church clothes -- and #2 because Chris ate three servings.

#winning

Now that we can add another healthy and quick staple to our Sunday brunch, I'm looking for your help.  What are your go-to brunch meals? Bonus points if they make your taste buds happy and your kids don't have to stare longingly out the window wondering where their next meal is.

Baked Oatmeal

2 c. oats
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. raisins (I omitted these because I don’t like raisins. What did grapes ever do to you, people?!)
1 T. chopped walnuts (I also omit because if I wanted to eat tree bark, I'd go gnaw on my maple in the front yard.)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. applesauce
2 T. melted butter
1 egg, beaten 

(I added a splash of vanilla and some cinnamon as well.)

Preheat oven to 375. Combine ingredients. Spray an 8 inch square pan with cooking spray. Pour into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with milk -- because hello! -- and fruit.

adopting a calf

Mrs. Miller's kindergarten class adopted one of our calves for the year. They wanted to adopt one through another program, but it turns out that dairy was fresh out of calves.

homemade granola bars

Breakfast is a struggle in our household, namely in that I struggle to get out of bed, so my husband has to find his own breakfast. 

So basically the struggle is just mine. 

But it is real. 

Thus, the hashtag. 

#thestruggleisreal

from cow to table

Someone recently asked: How long does it take for milk to get from the cow to the jug?

Short answer: About 48 hours!

Long answer: Our cows are milked three times a day. The milk leaves the cow and is immediately held in a tank where it's cooled to below 45 degrees as well as tested.

Milk trucks arrive at the farm each day. They transport the milk to Kansas City where it's tested again, pasteurized, homogenized and bottled. 

Then it makes another trip: to the grocery store! By the time it arrives on your grocer's shelves, it's left the cow fewer than 48 hours prior. 

So when it comes to the milk in your refrigerator or that your Cheerios are swimming in as you read this, you can bet the farm on the fact that it's pretty darn fresh! 

PS Check out this video. It'll show you milk's journey from the cow to your table in 48 seconds. Ready, set, go! 

Winter Dairy Favorites: Iown Corn Chowder | dairy

I could get used to the life of a cow. Eat. Sleep. Chat with the gals next door. Eat some more. 

Who're we kidding? That's basically how I'm spending the last few weeks of pregnancy. 

But while the cows are busy loving on this chilly weather and their own super deluxe mix of feed, I'm going to encourage you to eat some dairy goodness of your own this winter. 

Because if you don't, I will, and I have to step on the scales at the doctor's office every week these days and that's just not going to be pretty. 

Let's not dwell on that for too long. 

The good news is that we're giving away the family recipe goods with this Iowa Corn Chowder. 

The really good news is that it's a beautiful conglomeration of the cow and pig worlds. We've got milk and cheese in the dairy corner, and my personal favorite--bacon--on the ropes. 

What You'll Need

3 cups H20

2 cups cubed potatoes (skin on)

1/2 cup carrots

1/2 cup celery

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

2 cups milk

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

2 cans creamed corn (Remind me to tell you about the time I learned that creamed corn came in cans. Pretty sure I was about 25 years old.)

Combine the first seven ingredients in a large pot. Cook for about 10-12 minutes until the potatoes start to get poke-able with a fork. 

Poke-able. That's a word, right?

Let that concoction simmer while you melt 1/4 cup butter over medium heat and stir in 1/4 cup flour. Slowly add the milk and stir until it thickens up. 

Then add 2 cups of cheese and stir until it's nice and melty.

Revel in all that dairy goodness. 

Eat a Christmas cookie or two. Pour a glass of milk. You're allowed. St. Nick doesn't need them ALL. 

Then, when you're good and ready, add two cans of creamed corn and stir until it's heated through. 

Frankly, I could just eat this mixture right here, but that's not how the recipe goes. 

Sadly.

Add the mixture to the vegetables and stir until the chowder is warmed through. 

Sprinkle with bacon bits. (The hog farmers among us thank you.)

Voila! This thick and creamy soup has just the right amount of vegetables and dairy to fill you up, leave you wanting more, and warm your insides when you've been outside making sure the cows get what's best for them to eat too. 

It's a winter staple at our house, and we hope you make it one at yours too. Pair it with some corn bread and a veggie tray, and you've got Christmas Eve supper already in the bag. See how easy that was? 

Happy grazing! 

PS This recipe has been featured on Cheeserank's "50 Best Cheese Recipes from the 50 Best United States" so you know it's good. 

PPS Want some more holiday-related and dairy-friendly recipes? (Of course you do!) Check out some delicious recipes prepped by other dairy farmers. 

• Posset-ively Eggnog Is Ice Cream by Farmer Bright
• #DairyChristmas: Peanut Butter Balls by Messy Kennedy
• Winter Iowa Corn Chowder (as featured on Cheeserank) by Little House on the Dairy
• #DairyChristmas Farm Barbie
• The best Christmas cookies in the world by Truth or Dairy
• Recipes for a Dairy Christmas by Cow Spots and Tales
• #DairyChristmas: Cherry Mint Sugar Cookies by Kimmi's Dairyland
• Perfect for a Party – Cheddar Olive Bites by DairyCarrie
• Dairy Christmas Traditions by Knolltop Farm Wife
• #DairyChristmas: Love and Latkes by New Moon Dairy
• Family at the Table by The Deere Milkmaid
• French Onion Soup – Our Family Christmas Tradition by Eat Farm Love
• Dairy Delight by Spotted Cow Review
• Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts by My Barnyard View
• Italian Soup by So She Married A Farmer
• Christmas Tapioca Pudding by Guernsey Dairy Mama
• #DairyChristmas: Festive Parmesan Frico by Dairy Good Life

Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles

My friend Sarah and I recently discovered that we have been baking Christmas cookies together every year for four years. We started out baking for an afternoon in my dinky kitchen in my little apartment in St. Louis, and now we've graduated to her spending the night and a Saturday baking away in the farmhouse kitchen.



She's a baking guru. As in, she made two cheesecakes while I . . . sat and was largely unhelpful. 

(My farmer also pointed out that the filaments aren't touching on my light bulb cookies, thus rendering them defunct. This is how you know you're married to a handy man.) 

Sarah also whipped up these Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles from Lauren's Latest, which were so tasty that I had to hide the ones she left us in the back of the freezer so my farmer couldn't find them. 

PLUS, you can get all the ingredients at Aldi, which is a big deal for those of us who don't like making nine stops at fourteen different grocery stores while out shopping. #thestruggleisreal PLUS PLUS, they have milk in them so . . . dairy!

This Christmas, channel your inner Sarah, hollow out a half hour to mix these truffles up, and pop these bad boys in the fridge/freezer for enjoying with your friends and family. 

If my mouth wasn't full of one right now, I'd tell you that you won't be sorry you made these. But . . . since I'm licking sprinkles off my fingers, you're just going to have to trust me on this one.

Deal? 

Christmas Funfetti Cake Batter Truffles

1 cup white cake mix
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon Christmas sprinkles + more for decoration
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips or vanilla almond bark

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, whisk cake mix, flour and sugar. Stir in melted butter, vanilla, milk and sprinkles. Mixture should be moist and be able to hold its shape easily when formed. Using a cookie scoop, form mixture into even balls and refrigerate 20-30 minutes.

In the mean time, melt chocolate in a double boiler or slowly in the microwave. Using a fork, drop one of the cake batter truffles into the chocolate and roll around to coat. Tap off the excess gently and transfer to cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Top with more sprinkles, if desired.

roasted cauliflower soup

Roasted cauliflower soup is not high on my list of favorite foods, namely because it's because not pizza, chicken salad, Taco Bell Crunchwraps or chocolate milk.

But my farmer came up with a tricky way for me to eat it . . . and other fruits and veggies too. 

And that's something for a girl who would live on dairy and carbs if she could. 

He told me that for every day that I ate my allotted servings of fruit and vegetables, we'd put a dollar in our vacation savings fund. 

So naturally I am now eating bananas and apples and squash and sweet potatoes like they're the only food left in the world . . . 

as well as roasted cauliflower soup. 

To be fair, while this soup features an entire head of cauliflower, it also includes milk, cream and bacon fat so . . . maybe I really just liked it because it DIDN'T taste like a vegetable. 

Hmmm. 

Here's the deal: If you like potato soup, or chowder, or anything a little heavier and creamier, this soup is for you. 

And me. 

Even though I don't even really like vegetables. 

And that's saying something. 

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

Yield 6-8 servings

1 large head cauliflower, trimmed and diced

3 T vegetable oil

6 slices bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces 

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups chicken broth

1 T fresh thyme

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground white pepper

2 1/2 cups whole milk

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 cup Parmesan cheese

For roasted cauliflower: Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine cauliflower and oil, stirring to combine. 

Place cauliflower on prepared pan. Bake until cauliflower is browned, 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool. 

For soup: In a large cast-iron Dutch oven, cook bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon, and let cool. Crumble and set aside. Reserve rendered bacon fat in pan. 

Add onion to pan. Cook, stirring often, until tender, approximately 5 minutes. Add roasted cauliflower, broth, thyme, salt, black pepper, nutmeg and white pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. 

In a container of a blender, puree soup in batches until smooth. Return to pan. Add milk, cream and cheese. Cook over medium heat until soup is heated through and cheese is melted. 

Garnish with bacon and cheese. 

babies and mustaches

"Hard work, honesty, integrity, faith, family, love, forgiveness." 

That's what we're about . . . and something tells me, that's true of a lot of other farmers too.

PS Oh yeah, and Baby and my farmer's mustache make appearances too. 

farm blog round-up: the best of the best!

It seems fitting to use the term "round-up" when it comes to farming blogs because old Western songs about round-ups and Roy Rogers' theme songs basically pop right into your head. 

Ok, or just mine. 

Winchester 

Also, you should be forewarned that this post has nothing to do with our farm dogs, although they do enjoy rounding things up.

Trash, for instance. Bottles. Corn stalks. Cardboard. A random glove. Pretty much anything they can find within a three-mile radius ends up in our yard. 

Now if I only could teach them to find discarded vintage Pyrex, we'd be set!

For those of you who may live in the city but are interested in farm life -- and I know you exist because you say so on Instagram -- get your mouse ready to do some clicking and bookmarking. Winter's coming, you know, and there's no better way to spend time waiting for the next blizzard to pass than pretending you're out on the prairie with Pa Ingalls trying to find your way from the house to the barn just by holding on to a rope strung between the two. 

Ok, maybe that isn't as fun as it sounds. 

Still. 

Colt 

Common Ground: The site and blog are written by farmers simply starting discussions about how they produce the food that ends up on your table. And they're super good at helping you break through all sorts of myths and misinformation. 

Country Linked: This is a sweet blog that's just right for all the people who grew up in the country and love hearing stories -- and seeing pictures -- of day-to-day life on the farm that brings all those memories right back. 

Cow Spots and Tales: Just go ahead and zip on over to Lisa's blog riiiiight now. She's a runner interested in nutrition, but she's also a dairy farmer, so all those stories you hear about whether or not it's good to eat meat and if there's antibiotics in your milk? She sets the record straight on pretty much all of them. 

Dairy Good Life: Sadie's blog's tagline says it all: "Cows. Kids. Chaos. It's all good." And it is! Plus, we once stayed at the same hotel in DC while attending two different conferences. We never got to meet, but our IG posts told us we were at least in the same vicinity and that counts for something! 

Petunia 

Dairy Carrie: You've probably seen or heard of Carrie on Twitter . .. or in Chipotle's nightmares . . . or on Facebook. She's a wife and a mom and a dairy farmer and a blogger all rolled into one -- with a sense of humor and a quest to make sure the truth is told to boot. 

Prairie Californian: Beautiful pictures, delicious meals, the truth about gluten and things you never even knew about raising sunflowers -- you'll get all that and more by following Jenny's blog! Just be prepared to leave hungry pretty much every time you visit. 

My Barnyard View: Janet's busy blogging about dairy . . . while learning how to drive a combine . . . all at the same time. I can hardly keep up! 

The Pinke Post: Katie is a wife, mom and agvocate who blogs from the prairie where she -- prepare yourself for this -- lives 97 miles from a Starbucks! That's worth reading about right there! 

You may not have grown up on a farm or ever lived on a farm or even been to visit a farm. But thanks to these ladies and social media, you can still meet the people who raise your food. You can learn how crops are grown. You can ask questions about what animal care looks like. You can hear their stories and tell them yours too. 

Like the time our dogs thought they wanted to take off after a coyote but then Petunia decided to just lay down and bark instead. 

Um, or maybe just go read a good blog about life in the country.

Yeah. 

Do that. 

And their tails all wagged happily every after. 

day 12 of farmacology: farms help communities

One of the things you may not know about farm folks is that

we know that farms are an economic benefit . 

Ok. You probably figured that, but sometimes it's worth repeating. A lot. 

Farms bring jobs to their communities. Our farm hires men and women to milk cows three times a day, mechanics to keep the machinery in working order, calf feeders, heifer feeders, welders, construction workers . . . 

But we also provide work for people outside the farm. The mechanics at our local dealership sometimes have to fix our equipment. The local trucking company supplies drivers to haul our milk, bring in gravel or drop off feed. Local law enforcement and teachers work part-time driving trucks during silage season. The local dozer operator does dirt work on terraces. 

And then consider the money that goes back into the community as a result of the farm's purchases: gas, diesel, electricity, water, seed, fertilizer, tires, paint, equipment, concrete, steel, dog food for our four canines who eat about as much as all the cows combined . . . 

Then there's the auxiliary people whose jobs are also dependent on agriculture: the accountant who keeps tabs on the books, the milk inspector who checks on the safety of the food produced, the public water supply district staff, the seed salesman . . . 

Jobs for people doing the farming, employment for folks providing services to the farm, dollars that go back into organizations providing goods to the farm . . . all added benefits to farming . . . on top of producing delicious things like milk! 

Or pork. Because I'll always be a pig farmer's daughter. 

And that, to quote my farmer, is why "capitalism is so freaking awesome." Its benefits are so far reaching!

Want to read more of my 31 day farmacology writing challenge? Click here. 

day 4 of farmacology: what do farmers eat?

One of the things you may not know about farm folks is that

we don't just eat meat and potatoes. 

I mean, I'd be fine eating steak and cheesy, buttery, herby mashed potatoes all week long, but we don't. Usually. 

A farmer's day usually entails a lot of physical labor, so it's not surprising that meat and potatoes are staples. Carb up and protein on! 

But we also actually also like wine and cheese, and BBQ and sweet potato fries, and butternut squash and alfredo-stuffed shells, and chicken enchiladas and homemade salsa (which I may or may not generally make just a shade too hot). 

We eat casseroles. We eat jello. We drink milk with our supper. 

But we also like jambalaya, and beet galettes with thyme and gorgonzola, and tangy sauces in chicken wraps, and edamame a hint of garlic and just a bit of salt and pepper. 

We're not foodies, but we do pay attention to what people are eating. After all, we produce food, and we're not going to sell a product we don't love ourselves. 

So don't be surprised when you come over for supper if we dish you up some Iowa corn chowder -- complete with a cup or two of cream -- or some steaks from cows we've raised, or Cowboy Caviar with corn from our garden. 

We like the staples, but we like our spinach tortellini soup too. So what if we have to eat an entire pot in one sitting to get us through the rest of the afternoon's work? There's always meat and potatoes for supper.  

Want to read more of my 31 day farmacology writing challenge? Click here.