July Sure Champ VitaFerm Recipes From The Ranch Blog Entry

We are home!  Home sweet, Texas home!  Another Jr. National Hereford Expo is behind us and we  made memories to last a lifetime again!!

Our Audrey thrilled us all with her Reserve Champion in Jr. Showmanship and loves her belt buckle prize and new halter!  Her heifer About Time helped her achieve this huge honor and we couldn't be more proud of her!  It's every showman's secret desire to place in showmanship on the national scale!

Our Audrey and her buckle she won for winning Reserve Jr. Showmanship.  Showmanship contest in cattle shows judge the showman and how they handle their heifer in the ring.

We are so proud of her! 

A special thank you to Live Auction TV for broadcasting this contest so our big sister at home could watch her win! Thank you also to Sullivan's Show Supply for once again sponsoring this great contest!

Also a HUGE than you to the American Hereford Association, National Jr. Hereford Association and Amy Cowan their Youth Director, and the National Hereford Women for once again putting together another great show. To the Delegations from the eastern states and especially Pennsylvania, the Howe and Firestine families, thank you from the bottom of our hearts and stomachs. The meal plans, barn facilities and your beautiful area of the country are forever etched in our memories as a Jr. Nationals and cowcation we will never forget!  And to Diane Johnson for manning our HYFA Club!  You all deserve a standing ovation!

And last and certainly not least a special thank you to the team at Sure Champ VitaFerm for once again helping sponsor the Jr. National Hereford Expo and therefore enabling our future generations as you do!  It's an honor and a privilege to say I get to share recipes on your site, but most importantly the you impact so many families in such a positive way!  Rest Team Sure Champ....your summer has been a busy one!

Check out my newest blog recipe entries for Sure Champ VitaFerm at Recipes From The Ranch!  You'll find my linked recipes here (just click on colored name link in this sentence) for Sure Champ Pico de Gallo, our new Sure Winner Peach Ice Cream and The Ranch Kitchen's Garden Squash and Zucchini all with a Sure Champ theme!

Enjoy your summer and for those of you now officially off the show road for a small break...rest, and remember the reason we do this show thing is that while spending the quality time and funds that it takes, ultimately raises hard working, self sufficient kids and allow us to continually advocate agriculture.

 Its takes a lot of time in the barn and time in the trim shoot to get our heifer 'NH About Time' ready for the show ring!  A special thank you to the crew at Rainbow Cattle Company, Mark, Jade, and Chad for their care of our cattle and working so well with especially our Audrey and our family on this long trip to Pennsylvania and our first time to let someone else haul our Hereford cattle!  This allowed for some much needed family time and sightseeing!  

This final shot was on our last day of showing thanks to my friend and supporter Stephanie Keahey of Texas! She captured a sweet, sweet moment between our daughter and her dad. 

A picture I like to think that puts what we do as a family all in perspective!

I will always cherish this photo! Thanks Stephanie!

Alise - The Ranch Kitchen

The Ranch Kitchen's Pico De Galo

Click here for a recipe card of Pico de Galo

I miss summer.  I miss my flowers, my garden and most especially our homegrown tomatoes.  I am starting to be sick of winter and all that comes with it. EVERY mosquito in my yard should be dead by now.  And we are ready to camp, wear short sleeved shirts and grill outside again! Winter needs to go away quietly, but for some reason this year it's wetter, colder, and more miserable than we ever remember!

I don't think it's because I'm getting old.  I do however think it's because like so many of us this year our winter in the south, north, east and west has been the most brutal we can imagine.  My heating bill attest to it and we've burned more fires in our fireplace than in the past!  My husband said the other night he had built his last fire in the fireplace....Kyle and I think differently!

I had a few minutes to blog tonight and found a post of my summer tomatoes where I had posted the pictures above and below with the intent of posting the recipe some day soon.  Oh, how it made me ready for summer and this Pico de Galo!  Honestly though, this tomato side dish can be made anytime of year.  In Texas it's made year round in Mexican restaurants to go on the side of fajitas (beef skirt steak with bell peppers and onions served steaming hot on hot flour tortillas) or as a type of chunky salsa to dip your chips in (fried corn tortilla chips). 

The recipe pretty much follows what I have included below, but you can make variations by adding guacamole, sweet banana or bell peppers.  We love lots of lemon or lime juice in ours and I especially love using my Persian limes from my pot off my back porch.  And that makes me realize that I didn't think about how much I missed my fresh limes! 

Pico de Galo will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days and I have been known to add more tomatoes to it to keep it going bringing it out at dinner each night.  This dish isn't just for Mexican food and is great with just about anything be it summer, winter, spring or fall.

The Ranch Kitchen's Pico de Galo

8 tomatoes, chopped in 1/2 inch cubes

1 sweet white onion or red onion, chopped fine

1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped fine (optional)

1 sweet banana pepper, chopped fine

1 bunch cilantro, chopped fine

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped fine (seeding takes our some of the heat)

1 lime or lemon, juiced

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Cut up tomatoes, onions, bell and sweet peppers, cilantro and jalapeno pepper.  You use the food processor for the peppers on the pulse button to get my vegetables to the right consistency.  I don't suggest pulsing the tomatoes in the food processor as they may get too mushy.  I like my tomatoes firm for my Pico.  Add all seasoning and taste.  If you need more lemon or lime juice, garlic salt or pepper, just add it to your own liking.





Looking at this picture from last summer really makes me wish for

summer and our  garden tomatoes!