mom guts and quinoa stuffed sweet potatoes

It's official. I have a mom gut. And while this bothers me, it also doesn't. 

After Baby gets here, your jeans don't fit the same. Your stomach doesn't lay flat. And as my friend Jeni noted, "It's like parts of your body just up and move some place else!"

While this can be a great source of consternation, I prefer to think of it as a merit badge. Hey! I have a mom gut! That means I have a baby! And there's no better reason to not fit into your jeans than a sweet, smiley baby. 

So I may never fit into my wedding dress again. Who cares? I wore it on the day it matters. So I have to buy a few new pairs of pants. Shopping spree! So I have a big C-section scar. I also have a baby who is learning how to giggle, loves music and has the biggest, sweetest, toothless grin in the whole world...hands down. 

The mom gut? Meh. A mere blip on the radar screen. 

Admittedly, it's also a good reason to put down the donuts and get on the treadmill. For a few minutes anyway. 

Or maybe just to have half a donut. And then work out. And then have the other half. 

And it's also cause to use up the last few sweet potatoes from our garden last fall. Mostly we've been eating them as the base for nachos on Friday night. But they're also pretty darn delicious stuffed with quinoa, black beans and corn . . . with a slab of meat.

Because we're dairy farmers and steak is just how we do.

So whether you've got a mom gut or you don't, whether you fit into your jeans or don't give a darn, fire up the grill, simmer that quinoa, and scrub the dirt off your sweet potatoes. Your mood . . . and your waistline . . . will thank you. 

PS Or you can just have a donut. Life is too short anyway. 

Honey Lime Quinoa Stuffed Sweet Potatoes

• 4 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed and rinsed then pierced several times with a fork or cut in half and steamed
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 3/4 cup chicken or veggie broth
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 1/2 cups grilled or frozen corn
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground paprika
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1/8 tsp caynenne pepper
• 3 1/2 Tbsp fresh lime juice
• 3 1/2 Tbsp honey
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 T chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
• 2 oz shredded Monterey Jack cheese (1/2 cup)
• 
  

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place sweet potatoes on a baking sheet and bake in preheated oven until tender, about 40 minutes. Or steam in steamer for 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and broth to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover and simmer 15 minutes, or until fluffy.
• Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, add onion and saute until tender, about 4 minutes, adding in garlic during last 30 seconds of sauting. Add onion mixture to cooked quinoa, along with black beans, corn, cumin, paprika, coriander, cayenne, lime juice and honey, 3 Tbsp chopped cilantro and toss mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Cut cooked sweet potatoes in half and scoop out some of the sweet potato flesh to create a bowl shape, while leaving about 1/3 to 1/2-inch of sweet potato intact (reserve scooped out potato in refrigerator for another use). Fill sweet potatoes with quinoa mixture.
• 
  
• OPTIONAL: Sprinkle tops evenly with cheese. Transfer to oven and broil until cheese has melted. Serve warm garnished with cilantro and sour cream if desired.

paula teen's green tomato chutney

Our garden wasn't much of a garden last year. The rain washed out half the stuff I planted and the leaves on most of the other plants were yellow from . . . you guessed it . . . too much rain.

We had a few tomatoes, some sad-looking corn, a lot of sweet potatoes, a handful of zucchini and about four cucumbers. 

And a lot of grass. 

As we said last summer, "It'll be better next year."

Riiiiight. 

So before the bugs got the tomatoes or the rain washed them away in yet another toad strangler, I whipped up a batch of Paula Deen's green tomato chutney. 

 

Because Missouri is the farthest South I've ever lived, I feel like green tomatoes should be a thing, but frying sort of terrifies me so this is the closest I get. 

Ok, so it wasn't close at all. 

This chutney pairs well with meat, which comes in handy because between our families raising cows and chickens and hogs, we're pretty much set in the meat department around here. 

You can also scoop it up on biscuits or crackers, and pour yourself a glass of wine for a little mid-afternoon snack or pre-supper appetizer. 

Or mid-morning snack, I guess, if it's a really rough day.

It also goes pretty dang well with squash or sweet potatoes, and we love us some sweet potatoes. My farmer usually grows enough to get us through the winter. Just pop a couple of those bad boys in the steamer while you make supper, slather on some chutney and pat your belly in satisfaction. 

Or you can pat your baby. Babies are usually cuter than bellies anyway. Although to be fair, baby bellies are even cuter than regular bellies. 

I'm betting this would even taste pretty good on grilled cheese. And I'm not just saying that because my husband's a dairy farmer. 

But seriously . . . who doesn't love grilled cheese? 

The days are getting longer. The weather will eventually get warmer. Gardeners will start to plan their gardens. And if you're one of them, add an extra tomato plant or two so you can nab the green tomatoes for this chutney. Your squash . . . and even your sandwiches . . . will thank you. 

thanksgiving 2015

It's never good to step on the scale after Thanksgiving. It's an especially bad idea when you're pregnant. Nothing good can come of it. Just don't. Or don't look. Or live in denial. You have options. 

That's really the only downside to Thanksgiving. The upsides are countless. You get to spend time with your family, discussing everything from manure management plans to how to build life together in churches. Because that's what happens when you've got a pastor and farmers in the family. 

You can also wear princess dresses and help your grandma make the cranberries, but I really only recommend that if you're a 3-4-year-old girl. 

You can peel potatoes because you're the mashed potato queen . . . Ok, so the KitchenAid is the mashed potato queen but somebody has to show that thing who's boss. It also helps to have cute nephews nearby to pick up any scraps you may drop. 

You can eat until you feel like you're about to pass out. Or you can't breathe, which is really just like any other day if you're pregnant. Juicy Alton Brown turkey, lumpless mashed potatoes with sour cream and butter, homemade rolls, sweet potato bread pudding, strawberry pretzel salad . . . 

You can order up a pie flight: gooseberry, raisin cream, caramel apple and pumpkin. Or just eat a piece every hour on the hour through the entire Thanksgiving weekend. 

Or you can try to sample them before the meal even starts and while the girls aren't looking. It must be a guy thing. 

And when it's all over, you can go right back to the beginning: spending time with your family, talking about the things that matter and maybe, just maybe, sneaking a bite of turkey off the bone when nobody's looking before remembering that the scale knows . . . especially when you're pregnant. 

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. 

day 7 of farmacology: community gardens

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

we keep tabs on our neighbor's gardens. You know, just in case theirs look better than ours. 

I'm no gardener. I grew up in a garden -- because my mom made me help her plant and harvest vegetables I didn't want to eat anway -- but the two gardens I've planted since moving to Missouri have been, well, lackluster. 

Last year, we got a little -- shall we say -- overzealous with the pepper situation. We planted a cowhorn pepper, which is apparently one of the hottest peppers known to man . . . and which multiplies more quickly than rabbits. 

We couldn't get rid of them fast enough -- ok, or at all -- so I dried them in a low-temp oven, stored them and have been using them in salsa ever since. 

And just to clarify: When I say they're hot, I mean they're so hot that a quarter of one pepper in an entire vat of salsa makes my farmer, who has taste buds of steel, break a sweat. 

So that happened. 

This year, it rained all spring. As in, I planted two perfectly straight rows of carrots, and then it proceeded to rain for the next EIGHT YEARS. Or maybe just the next month. But I definitely blame that rain on the fact that we ended up with a few tomatoes, a couple servings of asparagus, a handful of zucchini and, if we're lucky, a sweet potato. 

LAME.

Thus the reason we keep an eye on our neighbor's gardens, just to make sure that whatever we planted that's dying or not producing isn't a personal problem on our part. 

Plus, we're nosy like that.

I am not at all above asking my hair stylist if her tomatoes are growing or how her sweet corn turned out. Because if by chance her tomatoes didn't produce or the ears of her sweet corn were tiny, then there's hope for me. 

Regardless of the cowhorns. 

Or the rain. 

Or, just maybe, the gardener herself. 

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. 

  

sweet potato and beet galette

I'm not a foodie but I have foodie friends. It's good to have friends that are foodies. Or to sell seashells down by the seashore. Whichever. 

So when they graciously agreed to trek three hours across country to spend a day in the, um, well, country, I wanted to make something funky that would warm their friendly foodie hearts. 

{Ok, I'll stop now.)

I made them a galette. I didn't actually know what that was or how to pronounce it, but that's what we have dictionaries for, people.