Taco Quiche

Supper Monday night was Taco Quiche, refried beans, & Lemon Lime Cake for dessert.

The taco quiche is one of my new favorite recipes. So quick and easy, it uses up eggs, and is really good!


For the crust:
Tortillas.  You can use either corn or flour, I used flour here because I had them.  Use 3 or 4, tear them in half if needed to make them fit, overlapping, in the bottom of the pan.

For the quiche:
Dice & saute an onion (I used a vidalia)
Brown 1 lb of ground beef in taco seasoning
mix together and place on top of the tortilla crust

top with 8 ounces of shredded Montery or Colby Jack Cheese

In a bowl, mix together 1 cup milk and 4 eggs.  Whisk well, then pour over the meat & cheese.

Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes, until set & starting to brown lightly

For the toppings:
Salsa
Chopped lettuce
Chopped Tomato
Chopped avacado
Sour Cream
Hot Sauce


From the Recipe Drawer - Goulash


What I used:
I ended up doubling the recipe.  It only calls for half that box of macaroni, and half that bottle of tomato juice.  I also added salt & pepper.

There was more cheese to add to individual bowls.  My normal goulash does not use vegetables, chili powder, or cheese, and I usually use canned whole tomatoes and a little spaghetti sauce instead of the juice and tomato sauce.  I like the addition of vegetables and will probably do that in the future - although I'll use frozen instead of canned, it is cheaper.  We loved the addition of cheese, and the chili powder is a nice touch.  

The Recipe Drawer
When we bought the farm from my mother in law, it came with a recipe drawer.  Her recipes, recipes from aunts, friends, sister in laws, mostly in family members handwriting. My daughter & I have been working through the drawer, trying as many of the recipes as we can.

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Vintage Cooking Items Defined

When we bought the farm from my mother in law, it came with a recipe drawer.  Her recipes, recipes from aunts, friends, sister in laws, mostly in family members handwriting. My daughter & I have been working through the drawer, trying as many of the recipes as we can.  In this process, we have come across some ingredients that we had to define before we could use them.  I'll continue to update this post as we work through the drawer and find more ingredients we don't quite understand at first.
Canned Milk
Both evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk, come in cans - but in vintage recipes that call for canned milk, they typically mean condensed milk.

Mangoes

When transcribing my husbands grandmothers cookbook, I came across a recipe that used "mangoes" where it did not sound like mangoes would have been used.  Especially since this is a depression era cook, and mangoes are not grown anywhere near us.  If they DID have access to mangoes in this area in 1935, I am sure they would have been way too expensive for most of the housewives to ever use.  

So I asked my mother in law, and she explained that a mango is a bell pepper.  I found this site that speculates on why, based on the word meaning pickled and stuffed pickled peppers being so popular..  it's a theory, anyway.


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Oleo 
Oleomargarine is the full term - it was the margarine of the 1950's.  In the recipes in the drawer here at the farm, I substitute half shortening/half butter for oleo.  I do not like margarine, but if I use just butter it often is not the right consistency. 


In 1886, dairy farmers were opposed to margarine.  Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan and Maine banned the product, & 32 states passed laws requiring it to be a color other than yellow, to make it clear to the public that this product was not butter. 


Originally margarine could not be colored yellow, as dairy farmers did not want it to be confused with butter.  It was sold white, and you could add yellow food dye to color it yourself.  In the ad above, you could buy it with the dye pack right in and mix it without putting it in a mixing bowl.

 Rep. William Price of Wisconsin, referred to margarine as "counterfeit butter" and sought a "tax so high that the operation of the law would utterly destroy the manufacture" of the butter competitor.  The margarine tax continued until 1950.

During the depression, when there were butter shortages, margarine gained popularity.  A gallup poll in 1948 showed that 33% of households were using margarine, with just 45% using butter.  Legislation was then introduced to repeal the margarine tax, and in 1950 the tax was repealed.  In a 1991 gallup poll, 63% of households were using margarine, with just 20% using butter.

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Sour Milk
Sour Milk is buttermilk  
Or, take 1 cup of water, remove 1 Tablespoon.  Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice, or vinegar.

Spanish Style Tomato Sauce
In a goulash recipe, I came across the ingredient "One small can Ideal spanish style tomato sauce".  I wasn't sure if this was spaghetti sauce, or a certain kind of tomato sauce.. the recipe also called for tomato juice, so plain sauce feels like overkill here. 

 I cannot find anything on the "Ideal" brand.  The best I could find was this description of the Goya tomato sauce: "Traditional Spanish style all-purpose tomato sauce made with rich tomatoes, peppers, and spices. Recognized for its consistency and multiple uses, it adds a special flavor to your meals"  

Here's a chart for what "slow oven", and "moderate oven", mean today.
Sorting through some vintage recipes this week, I came across the term "slow oven". As in, "cook in a slow oven".
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Printable Page For Our Family Cookbook

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Walking the cows home...


My husband, walking the cows home after they went to visit neighbors 2 miles away.

I didn't grow up on a farm. I openly admit that I do not know what I am doing most of the time, even after living here for 9 years. I really do not like inconveniencing others, and we seem to do a LOT of that since we moved here.  One of the reasons I did not want to raise cows is because when they get out of the fence, they travel.  I don't know what makes them leave acres of pasture, with water troughs, to walk across many acres of  varying hays, so they can stand in someone's manicured, flower bedded, UNfarm front yard, but they all seem to have that basic instinct.

It hasn't happened in a few years.. but this week it did.  My husband walked them home, across a neighbors farm.  I will remind him of this every time he gives me a hard time for giving the cows treats and hand feeding them.  They aren't skittish, and they will walk right with us, hoping for treats.  

After they returned, I posted this photo, and a few others on facebook, and I was surprised by how many commented about remembering doing this many times when they were younger.  Apparently we aren't the first to have cows escape the fence.  Maybe we aren't QUITE as bad at this as I had feared.



Day 9, Thursday: A moment in your day (this can be just a photo or both a photo and words)

Where is my gas tank?

I rarely put fuel in our vehicles, that is a job my husband takes care of for me.  Most of the time. Sometimes we drive a lot extra, and if he hasn't been in my car and doesn't notice, I may, occasionally, need to stop at a gas station if I want to make it home.  :-)  That happened this week, as we were headed home from our run at the lake, I realized my car was pretty much on empty, and i was driving right past the gas station to get home...

As I pulled into the station, I mumbled out loud "Which side is the gas tank on in this thing" and my daughter said "look for a little arrow on the display" pointing to my gas gauge.  Huh.  She was right - right beside the gas tank icon was a little tiny arrow pointing to the passenger side of the car, where the gas tank is located.  She said she saw the tip on Pinterest!  

(side note - why is it that I don't notice how dusty/dirty things are until I snap a photo of them with my cell phone?  I missed ONE week cleaning out the car, and this is how bad it is already...)


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Day 8, Wednesday: A piece of advice you have for others. Anything at all.

Planning Our Trip W/ Android Apps

In April 2013 we spent a week in San Antonio Texas, for our son's graduation from Air Force Basic Training.   See More Here:

Screenshot of the homescreen I created for this trip

The widget at the top of the screen is from the Tripit App.  The nice thing about this app was that I could forward all of our confirmation emails - flight reservation, car rental, hotel - all to an email provided by the app, and it automatically added all of the information to our itinerary, including the confirmation numbers.  Clicking on the widget showed the overview of our trip, with times for our flights, etc.

The folder on the top left was for directions.  I use Go Launcher on my phone, so it is simple to add shortcuts of any kind.  Click on menu, choose add, flick to the right and choose shortcut.  Then I chose "maps" and created a google map shortcut for all of our destinations.  Hotel, Air Force Base, Car Rental Return Location, Riverwalk, Japanese Tea Garden...  it didn't matter where we were at, I could click on the shortcut for where we wanted to go, and my phone navigated us there, without me having to search for the address, it was already saved.  This was really nice!

The second shortcut, the blue one, is a direct shortcut to the google docs document with the Lackland Air Force Base graduation schedule, so I could reference it quickly whenever I had questions.

The last two in that first row are GOBY, and Yelp.  Goby is more for events nearby, Yelp is great for reviews of restaurants and establishments.  We didn't really use the Goby app, but we did use the Yelp app - that is how we found the great gelati place near our hotel, and Congers Smoke shack for the fabulous BBQ.

The second row of shortcuts was mainly for on the plane  - shortcuts to two books I read on our trip, and the red shortcut on the right is to google play movies.  Before we left, I rented, and downloaded, The Life Of PI to watch on our flight.  This worked so well for my husband that he rented a second movie for the flight home.  (I used the time on the flight home to read a book, and work on our trip diary, which I typed into evernote)

The Riverwalk has it's own app.  It was a handy guide to read through.

We flew on Southwest - the southwest app sort of sucks, but I did use it to check our flight times.  One of our flights was delayed, I could watch the times on here.

Expensify allows you to snap pics of your receipts on you phone to track your expenses and your budget.  

The Trip Advisor San Antonio App was nice, we used that to browse for activities nearby.  It's how we chose the Japanse Tea Garden, our favorite spot on this trip.



Day 2, Thursday:
 Educate us on something you know a lot about or are good at. 
Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)


San Antonio Day 5 - All Day Town Pass

In April 2013 we spent a week in San Antonio Texas, for our son's graduation from Air Force Basic Training.  This is our trip diary from Day 3, our first day on base.  See More Here:
http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/p/air-force-mom.html
As near as we could tell, ALL the roads in San Antonio are a loop.  Which is nice, because if you miss your exit, no big deal, just take the next one..  
When your airman has a town pass, the important loop to remember is the 1604, shown in red here.  Your airman must remain INSIDE of this loop while on town pass.  He can apply for exceptions beforehand, if you have family nearby, etc.  This is a large loop, you should not have any trouble remaining inside of it.


  • Be sure you know where to meet your airman in the morning.  Many chose the parking lot by the baseball field.  We chose the mini mall
  • Do not panic if your airman is running late.  It was 9:20 before Luke got to us. 

As agreed the night before, we met Luke at the mini mall.  He came with his duffel of civilian clothes, to sort out.  We could have brought things home with us, but he had packed pretty light, other than some letters, he planned to take everything on to tech school with him.
 
The Japanese Tea Garden was  our favorite place in San Antonio.  There are more pics of it on the Day 2 trip diary.  Here, on the left, Luke is reading the plaque that explains why the sign above him reads "Chinese Tea Garden".  (Hint: the explanation involves the bombing of Pearl Harbor)

We went to the Japanese tea garden first, and walked, and talked, and sit, and talked, and walked, and talked...  it was quiet and peaceful there.  It was not empty, there were a lot of people taking photos, but it was still so much more peaceful than the river walk.  We had tea at the cafe, then called home to talk to his sister & friend who had run a zombie 5k that morning.

The new "no shine" shoes.  They do not need to shine them..  they remind me of the gel nail polish that you use the led light to set.

Hat check!  

Congers Smoke Shack

From there we drove to congers smoke shack for more of that amazing BBQ. 
Ordering Tip: get the three meat platter.  Make sure it includes the turkey.  I know, I know - trust me - it's amazing!  The brisket and pulled pork were my other two favorites.  For sides, get the potato salad (which is not like any other potato salad I have ever had) and the spiced cream corn (which is not really creamed - it is corn in a spicy cream sauce - but it was SO good!)

 We took it half a mile down the road to Robbers Baron park, to eat it.  Airman cannot walk & eat in their blues - they must stand absolutely still, or sit.  It is easier for them to slit.


Robber Baron park is a tiny little park, with a huge cave under it.  There was a group of scouts there when we arrived, with two cave guides.  Our airman is an eagle scout, so he enjoyed talking with them for awhile before we ate.  After we ate we walked down to see the cave entrance, which is so tiny!  It is hard to believe that this used to be open to commercial tours.

Next we went back to our hotel and Luke spent a couple of hours Skyping back home. :-)

 



Groupon had a deal for Monster Mini Golf, we took advantage of that.  It was fun - a place like this would be very possible here at home.

We used Yelp to find a restaurant nearby, Luke thought Greek food sounded good, so we tried Zorbas.  Compared to main street grill here at home (owned by a Greek family, with fabulous greek food) it was very disappointing.  But as with most things this week-end, it was more about sitting and talking with Luke than anything.


From there we stopped for gelati, before taking Luke back to base.  Dan & I had been to Brindles Awesome Ice Creams for Gelati earlier this week, we knew it was fabulous.  

Note: When taking your airman back to base, he will need to show his military ID at the gate, along with your base passes and drivers licenses..

Day 3 - Airmans Run, Coin Ceremony, Base Liberty
Day Four - Graduation Day!