Texas Sheet Cake

Texas Sheet Cake is a great dessert when you are baking for a crowd! A delicious combination of chocolate cake and brownies in one that everyone will love.

This recipe is another one of my favorites I have learned from my grandma! I know I have said it before with some other recipes, that I am wanting to learn some family recipes that everyone loves and that are favorites of mine. Texas Sheet Cakes are like a family tradition, you might have eaten it as a kid as well as your parents may have as well. Enjoyable every time!

Texas Sheet Cake definitely satisfies that craving for something chocolaty. It's packed with flavor, moist, and buttery. Plus the frosting itself is amazingly tasty!

This cake recipe is baked in a large jelly roll pan creating a large cake, which is why it is perfect for get togethers and potlucks. A sweet treat for dessert and able to serve several.

Texas sheet cake is a easy recipe to put together, but one of the tricks to this yummy dessert is to frost it when the cake is still warm. This allows the frosting to be able to spread well on top of the cake and to soak into the cake as it cools.

Texas Sheet Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Clabber Girl baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2 sticks margarine - melted
2 cups flour
4 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups nuts -chopped  (optional - I prefer pecans or walnuts best, but I usually leave the nuts out of the cake and just put in the icing).

Icing:
1 stick margarine - melted
4 Tbsp cocoa
6 Tbsp buttermilk
4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup nuts - chopped (optional - I prefer pecans or walnuts best)

Directions: 

In a mixing bowl combine sugar, eggs, salt, baking soda, vanilla and margarine together and mix. Then add the flour, cocoa, buttermilk, and nuts if choosing to. Mix with hand mixer until smooth.

Pour batter into a greased, large jelly roll pan (17"x 12" x 2" or so).

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

As soon as the cake is done, make the icing. In a sauce pan combine margarine, cocoa, and buttermilk together as margarine melts. Then add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir until smooth. Add nuts if choosing to. Pour immediately over the warm cake and spread out to all edges of the cake.

Make it with nuts, any kind of nuts you'd like, or without depending on your liking.

PRINTABLE RECIPE HERE

Next time you need to serve several and thinking of a chocolate, cake, or brownie idea, this Texas Sheet Cake is a perfect and delicious option to bake!

Enjoy!!

       This post is sponsored by Clabber Girl Baking Soda but my

 thoughts/opinions are always 100% my own. 

Garden Pasta Salad

Garden Pasta Salad is one of our favorite side dishes to have with our meals. This recipe is my husband's favorite pasta salad and what a great way to use some vegetables from the garden if you have them, carrots, onion, cucumbers, and tomatoes!

Summer picnics and family reunions will be coming up this summer. This is sure to be a favorite side dish! You know the feeling when you are invited to pot lucks or family reunions and asked to bring a side dish. I don't know about you but sometimes I really ponder over what I want to take. Something easy to make that will feed several and that I think many will enjoy. This pasta salad is a good choice and super easy to double up the recipe to make more.

This recipe comes from my mom, its her go to pasta salad recipe. There are so many different pasta salads, but this one is my farmer's favorite that he always requests. My mom has been making it for years and I remember the first time my husband had it when we were dating. I think he may have first had it at a family reunion picnic. He loved this recipe immediately.

This pasta salad is packed with flavor and so easy to make. Super colorful and delicious too! We especially love it when we can pick produce fresh out of our garden and whip up this pasta salad to enjoy for a few days! With lots of growing in the garden, this recipe is an easy one for us to make. We can gather up the vegetables needed, prepare them, and make the pasta salad in time for the meal that day. We are busy on our farm planning our vegetable gardens and ordering seed, so its fun to think about the recipes we crave in the summer time!

Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

1 lb. tri-color rotini pasta
1/2 cup onion, chopped (use red onion for more color)
1 cup tomato chopped (I use grape tomatoes cut in quarters)
1 cup cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 cup carrots, sliced and chopped
2 oz jar of pimentos

(Dressing)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup sugar
2 tsp mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried parsley

Directions:
Cook your pasta until tender and drain. Place pasta in a large mixing bowl and put in refrigerator to cool. Then mix all the dressing ingredients together. Prepare the onion, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and mix together with the dressing and pimentos. After this is mixed, combine with the cooled pasta and mix all together. Serve cool.

PRINT RECIPE HERE

How to Plan Your Vegetable Garden

Spring is right around the corner and it will soon be time to brush off those garden tools and garden gloves and get to work.

Here in Indiana we have had several sunshine days and warmer temperatures. Nice weather in January definitely gets you in the Spring mood and ready to be thinking about working outside and fresh vegetables from the garden, among many other things!! 

Seed catalogs start filling up mailboxes makes everyone anxious for fresh produce harvested from the garden. 

So here early on, is the time to start the garden planning. How to plan your vegetable garden?

We grow produce to sell at the farmers market and for our CSA, but when ordering seed and picking varieties we also think about what we like to eat ourselves during the gardening season as well as what I am going to preserve by canning and freezing for the year. For this post, we will address it as in your own personal vegetable garden.

Things to think about when planning out your vegetable garden.

If you have grown a garden in previous years, you may have saved your seed from last season. Go through your seed and see what you have left. You may only need to get a little bit of one variety instead of a larger amount. Write down what you already have available so that you have a list ready when ordering your seed. This will help you know what you already have instead of going back and looking. A lot of time with gardening for several years in a row, you might make notes of what you liked on certain varieties of vegetables. This can also help you decide if you want to order specific varieties again or change it up.

You might be one who preserves the harvest from your garden. If so or want to try, go through your canned goods and your frozen produce and see what you have left. For example, we eat a lot of green beans that I can each summer. It is almost certain that every year we need to plant a good amount of green beans for me to put up several quarts each season. Although, I am the only one in my family that eats pickled beets, and we generally have some left over, so we take note that we don't need to sow as many beet seeds for ourselves.

Review all the seed catalogs that come in the mail. We have favorites we order from and you may too, but we also check out for the best prices and look for different varieties we want to try that another company might not carry.

Buying in bulk is great when you need to plant a substantial amount of one variety. A lot of these seed catalogs you can buy in bulk, but also don't forget to check out your local garden shops and centers. A lot of garden centers will have bulk seed you can buy by weight. Seed packets are also available at many stores and garden centers if you only need a little of a specific variety and want to go that route.

Where are you going to plant your garden. You might draw out a diagram of your planting space for your garden. Draw out the complete section and section off where you will plant each vegetable. Grid paper is great for this. You can use the rule that one square is equal to one square foot. If your garden is smaller or larger, you can adjust accordingly. This will also be helpful after planting has been done to remember when you planted things. If planting more than one variety of a vegetable, be sure to indicate on your diagram what variety is planted where and then you will know when the plants come up and grow as well as when the vegetable is harvested.

Seed planting schedule. You can plant several of varieties of vegetables indoors and get an early start. Then transplant them later when it is warmer outside. This is how we get started with our vegetables each year. Refer to your seed catalogs or seed packets of your different varieties of seed as to when to start your seeds either indoors or direct sow outdoors based on days of maturity.

We have the garden season on our minds. These are some of the things we are thinking about as we have been ordering seed and spacing out our garden planting. Looking forward to a great growing season and watching the vegetables grow and enjoying them!!

Loaded Cauliflower Chowder

Loaded Cauliflower Chowder, a simple alternative with a lighter calorie load than a loaded potato soup. Enjoy the great flavors with an added bonus vegetable included. It will really hit the spot on a cool evening and also on a nice summer day.

We don't eat soup often in our home, but it is certainly enjoyed when we do. I would like to incorporate more soup meals in our meal plan. I especially love a variety of soups, but the kids aren't big fans of soup.

A nice bowl of soup is always perfect in the winter months on a cool weather day.

Using fresh produce from the garden in the summer is always a great way to put together dinners as well. We love to use our home grown cauliflower for a variety of different meals. It is a healthy alternative as well to other carbs.

Here in the Midwest in mid January we are doing a lot of planning for the upcoming growing season. Planning out what we want to plant and how much. Getting our seed order prepared also is an important part of our planning. We have our CSA open for sign ups as well. During the busy winter months, a nice warm bowl of soup always is a perfect meal and hits the spot.

We really love this Loaded Cauliflower Chowder, very similar to loaded potato soup, but substituting most of the potatoes with a less calorie option, cauliflower.

Top it off with bacon, cheese and even a dollop of sour cream to complete the yummy dish.

Loaded Cauliflower Chowder

Ingredients
1 cup water
2 cups chicken broth
2 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
1/4 onion - chopped
1/4 cup celery
2 potatoes - peeled and diced (you can also leave the skin on, I like it off more for this recipe)
1 head cauliflower -chopped into florets pieces
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
pepper to taste
6 strips of bacon - or desired amount
sour cream (optional)

Directions
- Fry the bacon until crispy, crumble into small pieces and set aside.
- In a large stock pot, combine water, chicken brother, milk, butter, onion, and celery and cook on medium heat.
- Steam potatoes in microwave until tender and add to stock pot.
- Steam cauliflower in microwave until tender and add to stock pot.
- Bring to a boil. I then use my hand stick blender and blend out the chunks
- Mix in the shredded cheese and add pepper to your liking
- Place in bowls and top off with bacon, cheese, and sour cream to complete the dish.

Enjoy!!

Christmas In The Country Reveal 2015

The Christmas decorations are down as the holiday season has come and gone. I love the joy the holiday season brings! We are in a fresh new year and it's exciting to look forward to a new year as well.

This is my second year participating in Christmas In the Country, a secret gift exchange among bloggers! It's a fun way to give and receive a gift and connect with bloggers.

This year my gift was from Katherine over at Katherine's Corner. I'm glad this exchange linked me to finding her blog and shops on Etsy! An inspiration! I enjoyed reading some of her posts! Katherine really took heed of my cues for the exchange and built her gift on my favorite colors mason jar blue and chartreuse green and the fact that I crochet!! She gifted me a crochet caddy, a crochet hook wallet to store a variety of hooks in, and some super comfy and fun socks!! I love everything and have been using them since they were delivered!! The crochet caddy and hook wallet is super helpful as I take my crochet projects when traveling. I look forward to bringing it along on many trips!

Love everything!!

Fun and cozy socks

Crochet hook organizer

Crochet Project tote - already carrying with my current projects

In addition to receiving a gift, it was equally as fun to put together a gift!! Head over to Home on The Range Exchange to find out what I sent to Lori.

How to Care for Chickens in the Winter

Winter is here and like preparing everything else for the winter months, it is also important to plan ahead when caring for animals in the winter. In this post, I will discuss a few simple checkpoints on how to care for your chickens in the winter.

We have had our own backyard chickens for about 3 years now. This fall we built our chickens a new chicken house for them to have more room. When it comes to our chickens, I love saying the expression "If you take care of them, they will take care of you," as we usually get several dozen eggs each week from our chickens. We definitely enjoy using fresh farm eggs for our meals, cooking, and baking. Chickens are pretty easy to care for, but you also might be interested in knowing some extra tips for how to care for them in the winter months. They are pretty hearty birds and can handle cooler temperatures if provided adequate necessities in those cooler winter months.

Provide a strong wind barrier. By providing a chicken coop or chicken house for the chickens will help the chickens stay warm and out of the wind. Each fall we check over the chicken house, winterize it, and make sure its not drafty for the chickens.

Fresh water. Chickens need a good amount of water to produce eggs. Since it is likely that the water will freeze in the winter time, you might invest in a heated water pan or also be sure to provide fresh water to the chickens a few times a day. Chickens can often make a mess out of their water pan, so I would suggest not leaving it in the area of the chicken house where it would wet the bedding. Maybe keep water pan outside or in an area with less traffic. Keep extra waterers on hand incase you need to switch out ones that have frozen over.

Provide protein rich feed. Added nutrients will be valuable for the chickens during the cooler winter months. This will give them extra energy and help them stay warm as well.

Good ventilation. During the cooler temperatures, chickens like to crowd together to stay warm. Moisture should not be able to accumulate and freeze. Good ventilation will help keep the chicken house dry and also prevent sickness in the chickens.

Provide good bedding.  Use straw or shavings to keep the chicken coop floor dry and comfortable for the chickens to live in. Changing the bedding frequently will also help keep the chicken coop dry maintaining a healthy chicken coop.

Use a heat lamp. Adding a supplemental heat source will help prolong egg laying. Once the chickens are all nestled together they provide their own heat source with their bodies that is adequate for the cooler temperatures. A heat lamp isn't necessary, but they are often used. Use with caution.

Check chicken nests often.  If your chickens are laying well, you will still want to check their nests often to be sure you gather eggs often. This will prevent the egg from freezing.


A few simple steps during the winter months will help your chickens remain healthy and stay happy chickens.

Homemade Caramels

Making holiday treats is one of my favorite traditions of the Christmas season! This recipe of my grandma's soft, chewy, and creamy caramels is definitely a well liked treat among my family.

I have so many memories growing up of family getting together to make a variety of holiday treats for the Christmas season. All of us cousins, sitting around grandma's table wrapping the individual caramels and talking about Christmas was something I looked forward to each year. Today, Grandma continues to make caramels with help from several family members that would also like some. If you read my last recipe post, I mentioned what we did growing up to say Merry Christmas to our neighbors and service workers. I have continued this on a smaller scale with my kids and include these homemade caramels in my goodie packages. My oldest son especially loves these caramels too!

They are great to give several by themselves, or use them in other Christmas treats you might want to make, like turtle candies or inside cookies. Add them to a mixed candy/cookie tray and take to work, give to your everyday service people, neighbors and friends. Package up several in a small mason jar and they are great teacher gifts as well.

So let's get to the recipe of these creamy homemade caramels!

Ingredients:
1- 16 oz bottle of Karo syrup
4 cups sugar
3 pints whipping cream
1/2 cup chipped paraffin

Chipped Paraffin

Supplies:
-Heavy cast iron pan or pressure cooker pan
-Candy thermometer
-Wax paper cut to wrap bite size pieces. roughly 4"x 4"
-Large cookie sheet 11 1/2" x 17" x 1/2 deep roughly
-Lard to grease cookie sheet
-Long handled spoon
-Paring knife

Directions:
-Mix syrup, sugar and 1 pint whipping cream together in pressure cooker pan. Cook on medium heat to "soft ball" on thermometer. Stir occasionally.
-Add 1 pint cream and stir in while pouring. Cook to "soft ball'. Stir more often.
-Add the last pint of cream and stir while pouring. Cook to 242 degrees F. Turn off heat. and stir in paraffin chips until completely melted. Stir more often so it doesn't burn.
-Pour into a large cookie sheet greased heavily with lard.
-Cool, cut into bite size pieces, and wrap with wax paper.

*A few notes*
-When caramel is cooled, wipe top layer of wax off with paper towel. This helps get excess wax off the caramels.
-Making the caramels takes a good hour to hour and half for cooking start to finish. Plus about an hour to cool.
-The caramels get darker with each cream added
-One batch makes approximately 5 lbs of caramels.

Enjoy!!