What I love about fall in Texas!

Fall in Texas is a special time.  For our family it is full of football games (cheerleading), cattle shows, FFA, 4H, and of course our annual Yamboree and Texas A&M football games!  I love when the leaves start to turn and the air is cooler...humidity is a constant where we live..and any sign of cool air is like being able to breath again! 

In a week we will have our annual Yamboree Barndance party at our ranch.  Each year since my husband and I were in our 20's we have had our friends and families out to celebrate and eat before the town's barndance concert in our old school gymnasium.  It is like a slice of Americana to go to this barndance in the middle of our old town gymnasium.  And it's become a tradition for us to have a large crowd over the eat a little Texas style BBQ.  My husband enjoys smoking brisket and ribs, while I cook a huge vat of beans and roasted potatoes.  Friends and family help by bringing all the sides to go a long with the meal and it we are lucky we have a friend with a guitar to play a little music.

This year I am especially excited as my oldest daugther will be bringing in her sorority sisters from college at A&M.  We are a little sad however because my middle daughter won't be there as she has been selected to be a voting delegate at the National FFA Convention.  :o(  But our littliest daughter gets to show all her pigs at this our county festival..and her first time to ever show a market hog.  We hope all the hogs make 'sale'...because if they don't we have to pretend the pork chop on the table came from somewhere elese all winter.

Yamboree is a homecoming or sorts.  It's always a treat to get to see old high school buddies and walk the square eating a corny dog.  My tradition is to always eat one corn dog, one candied apple, and a slice of Yam pie before midnight on Saturday night!  Sometimes I treat myself on Sunday morning to my yam pie. 

So enjoy your fall...go to a county festival near you...eat the candied apple or corndog and think how it still taste as good as when you were little.  Hope you enjoy the Yam Pie recipe below as I love her recipe.....I am actually in this episode...so look for the dark haired woman at the Yam Decorating Contest....it was a really fun!

Rememer - life is meant to be enjoyed!  Happy Yamboree & Fall!

Sweet Potato (Yam) Pie

Recipe courtesy Mary Beth Johnson courtesy of The Food Network

Show: All-American FestivalsEpisode: East Texas Yamboree

Ingredients

• 1 unbaked pie crust, recipe follows*
• 1 1/2 cups cooked, peeled and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1 heaping teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk (canned, half and half, cream or whole milk)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons margarine, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Roll out 1 pie crust and place it in a pie plate. Mix all of the remaining ingredients together and pour into the unbaked pie crust. Bake for 45 minutes or until pie is firm. Allow to cool completely.
*Note: This filling is for 1 pie crust. The remaining 3 crusts can be used for other pies or frozen.

Pie Crust (recipe for 4 pie crusts):
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups shortening (butter flavored)
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Mix flour, shortening, salt and sugar together with a pastry blender until well blended. Slightly beat egg, water and vinegar together with a whisk and pour over the well blended flour mixture. Mix all ingredients together with a fork. Divide crust into 4 equal parts. Roll each with a rolling pin and place into 4 pie pans. Flute edges of crust.
Yield: 4 pie crusts

Get cooking!

Alise
                                                                                                                               

Ann's Jezebel Sauce

Today I am going to give a 'shout out' to my good friend Ann G.  She is a great cook and email companion.  She is a mom, teacher, and grandmother who finds time to cook and gave me this recipe for one of my favorite sauces/spreads to put over cream cheese.  It's just a little fattening....but sometimes you have to throw all sense of sensibility to the winds and just enjoy life!  I think I could sit down and eat an entire block of this - it's that good. 

In the fall as the weather turn colder here in Texas, this is always a hit!  I personally like crackers with this, but melba toast would be great as well.

Serve it on a pretty fall plate or crystal dish.  Place crackers around it or in a basket as they will get soggy if the crackers lay on the Jazebel Sauce. 

Enjoy and get cooking! 

Ann's Jezebel Sauce

2 16 oz jars pineapple jelly

1 16 oz jar apple jelly

1 4 oz jar creamy horseradish

1 tablespoon of dry mustard - (spice)

Mix together and keeps a LONG time in refrigerator - but always use good judgement :o) .  Serve over cream cheese with crackers.  Can use 2 of apple and 1 of pineapple if like. 

Great as a hostess gift or teacher gift at the holidays!

From Ann G. 

Hair and Makeup!

In the Nolan household it's show season again! It's our first year for the youngest of our girls to show her cattle in the ring as a full fledged junior here in our Jr. Hereford Association and Jr. FFA program.  She is as excited as the rest of us!


Hair and makeup is what my husband has always called getting the cattle ready for show...that means bathed...yes we wash our cows...combed...we comb, blow their hair out with large super strenght blow house like those you would use at the car wash except these blow out hair...and them we throw on a little hair spray or oil to puff their hair out like your favorite teddy bear!  So with three girls and one older mom at our house...my husband is always out voted...and he understands all too well the hair and make up of not only our cattle but the girls.  I tell everyone that I am the 'puff and fluff' of our outfit...I make sure everyone is fed, clothes are clean, and we are ready to show by looking our best.


Enclosed is a picture of our littliest one showing her heifer Angel.  We call her the 'showmanship hiefer' as she is not the most likely to win a show...but by far the most gentle and Audrey's favorite...she may never go out to pasture and just stay in our barn! 

If you have never watched a cow show....it is a different kind of fun!  We love it.  It has helped make our girls into what they have become and we couldn't be prouder! 

Alise

The Ranch's Chicken Spaghetti for a Crowd!

Tailgating!

It's this time of the year when I think of tailgating at Texas A&M and cooking at the State Fair of Texas for family and friends!  Each year my happiest moments are serving the recipe of Chicken Spaghetti for a Crowd that I have entered below.  It's a definite crowd pleaser and along with a salad, and bread sticks, it's fills even the biggest man up! 

I think the Rotel Tomatoes with cilantro are the big difference in this recipe compared to most others.  It adds a freshness and zing that I don't taste in other recipes.  It's a dump recipe at best and if you don't have a large roaster pot - it's a must have.  I recently made an East Texas styled pork roast and sweet potatotes in it that vanished quickly!  Spray  your pan down with Pam or grease it good so your clean up won't take so long!  Always make sure to dry the pans in these roasters, as with scratches they will rust. 

I hope you enjoy this simple dish as much as my friends in our Texas Hereford Associaton do and my local FFA group!  I haven't yet made this at a tailgate, but am looking at the Texas A&M vs. Nebraska game to serve this to a few Aggies I know!

This is my huge double recipe...you can easily cut this in two!

Enjoy!

Chicken Spaghetti for a Crowd

12 chicken breast, cooked and cubed (can used canned chicken and/or precooked chicken breast or thighs) 

4 large packages spaghetti noodles, broken into thirds

4 cans Hunts 4 Cheese Spaghetti Sauce or any brand will do!

4 cans Rotel Tomatoes with Cilantro

2 lg. containers chicken broth

2 lg. family sized mushroom soups

2 can’s cream of celery soups

2 large - 2 lb. packages of Velvetta Cheese (no light), cubed

*Optional – 2 – 4 large onions

Salt, pepper, and additional water to cover

Spray large roaster with Pam or oil.  Halve ingredients between two roasting pans.  Place sauce, Rotel tomatoes, chicken broth, mushroom soups, celery soups, onions and water to 6 inches from the top in the two roaster.  Bring to a boil.  Add 1 package of noodles (breaking noodles into thirds – I prefer the thin spaghetti) at a time and allow each package to soften some before adding the next.  Break apart the spaghetti with a fork to make sure the pasta does not stick together as you boil it.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Add chicken.  Continue cooking on medium to high heat. 

***Add cubed Velvetta cheese the last 30 minutes as it will stick horribly if added earlier. 

Get cooking!

Alise Nolan

Nolana's Family Hot Sauce

In Texas we LOVE our hot sauce!  My girls ate hot sauce along with their baby food!  Before I felt my oldest daughter could eat the tortilla chips without choking, she would dip a saltine cracker in the hot sauce from our favorite Mexican food restaurants.  

My girls love to eat Mexican food so much, that to tease them when they asked to go out, we'd say, "Yes, we are eating at Nolana's Family Restaurant tonight!"  Of course it took them a while to figure it out....but once they did the name stuck and of course we eat at Nolana's Family restaurant a lot!  Nolana's is of course my family kitchen.  

In an attempt to make my own family recipe that did not have to be cooked, but was fresh, easy, and most importantly tasty, I came up with this simple recipe.  

Here is my attempt at hot sauce or salsa, as some might call it!  My girls love it, as does my husband.  Their friends attack it when they come over!

This hot sauce or salsa keeps well in the refrigerator for up to one week.


Nolana's Family Hot Sauce

2 can's of canned tomatoes with green chili's (not Rotel Tomatoes)
1 small sweet onion, quartered (1015's in Texas)
1 jalapeno, seeded
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. cumin (optional)
2 tsp. sugar (optional)
1 bunch cilantro with stems removed\
1 half of a green pepper (optional)
1 half of a sweet banana pepper (optional)
1 lime, juiced (I cut in half and use a fork to get the juices out - works like a charm)

In a medium to large food processor put tomatoes, onions, jalapeno, additional peppers, and spices (garlic salt, pepper, cumin, & sugar.  Pulse for ten second or to desired consistency.  Add to this cilantro mixture and pulse quickly for 2 seconds.  

Cook's Note: This will keep for up to one week in the refrigerator. You can also use other onions like tradtional white and yellow cooking onions, but I think the sweet onions like Texas A&M's 1015's make the hot sauce taste better.

In hopes that your family enjoys it as much as mine does! 

Enjoy along with your favorite tortilla chips, with your Mexican food, on the side of eggs or some fresh cooked peas of any kind! 

Alise Nolan