Homeschooling Cowgirl Foodie

New Years Treats

Growing Flowers — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:20:06 +0000

First – an apology. The holidays were crazy and, after my last post promising lots of sweet treats, I didn’t write anything ’til right now. Sorry.

So! Happy New Year – I can’t believe it’s 2012!! I have made a lot of resolutions:

Really improve my baking and I would like to bake or cook at least two times a week.
Blog at least 1-2 times a week.
Keep my room and bathroom clean!
I would say eat healthier, but my family and I eat quite healthily – it’s all organic!
Focus on ballet more, do Barre work once a day.

Resolutions, for me, are recognizing the things you want to do, whether they are ambitious or not!

So – some of the things that taste good around here!

Mason Jar Cookies

Polenta, Cheese, and Green Chile Tart with Garlic Cheddar Cheese Sauce.

Sweet Potato and Blue Cheese Tart

Chocolate Coconut Baked Custard, with coconut whipped cream and toasted coconut.

Mixed Berry and Pomegranate Fool

Ramekin Quiche

Ok – Before we go on to photos, recipes, and mouth-watering anticipation, I need to tell you what I got for Christmas. First, I got a pastry brush and a pastry cutter. A pastry cutter is the awesome thing that you can use to seal ravioli or crimp pie crust. I also received Ramekins!!! These gifts were amazing, but the incredible, huge present was: A HOBART KITCHENAID!!! I couldn’t believe it. I had been wanting one for 6 months. I now have a Hobart Kitchen Aid. It is one of the older, sturdier, better versions, before Hobart sold Kitchen Aid. I love it and use it every chance I get. I cannot imagine a better Christmas or New Years than this one!

Merry Belated Christmas, everyone!

So. Recipes!

Mason Jar cookies. They look like this:

AND they taste amazing! I made them for Christmas gifts and I even got an email from one recipient asking to be entrusted with the recipe and directions. The secret? You can’t go wrong with butter, chocolate, and coconut!

Mason Jar Cookies:

1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 teaspoon Salt

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1/2 cup White Sugar

1/4 cup Cocoa

1 cup Chocolate Chips

1/2 cup nuts or coconut! (optional, but yummy!)

3/4 cup Butter

1 egg , slightly beaten

1 teaspoon Vanilla

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients, add wet ingredients. Blend well, and shape into walnut sized rolls, spaced 1″ apart on baking sheet . Bake for 11-13 minutes, or cool until you cant wait to eat!

Enjoy!

If you would like to layer the cookies in a Mason Jar, combine the Salt Baking Powder and Soda, add it first, then add the Brown Sugar, White Sugar, Cocoa, Nuts or Coconut, and Chocolate Chips, packing down each layer as you go! ( I use the flat part of a cheese thermometer.) Attach a tag with the wet ingredients to add and the directions! This recipe makes enough for 1 Mason Jar.

An easy, impressive and delicious Brunch, Breakfast or Dinner contribution, this is one of my original recipes. (My mom wants me to emphasize that I made this up out of my own little noggin!)

Cheese, Green Chile, Garlic, Creamy Polenta

1 cup Sharp Cheddar, or another delicious cheese,

3/4 cup green chile

1 clove roughly chopped garlic

3 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup milk,cream or half and half

1 cup polenta

Put the water and half and half, into a pot and set it on high heat. When the mixture boils, add the polenta and stir with a wooden spoon until it is the consistency of a thick hot cereal. Add the Cheese, Garlic, Salt, Pepper, Green Chile, and a tad more half and half. Replace on medium heat, and stir until the cheese is melted and everything is combined. Grease a tart, cake, or loaf pan, scrape polenta into it, and chill for 1 hour or until set and slicable. (You could also eat it without chilling, with a fried egg, for a yummy breakfast.)

For the cheese sauce you will need:

1/2 cup cheese, 1 clove finely minced garlic, and 1 cup milk or half and half, or if you are really decadent, cream.

Combine the cheese and cream on high heat, when the cheese melts, add the finely minced garlic and boil for 2-3 minutes, until all the flavors meld. Serve drizzled over slices of polenta. Yum! I made this for lunch for my mom and I today, and we both loved it.

Another original recipe!

Sweet Potato Blue cheese Tart or Pie

Ingredients:

4-5 0r 6-7, depending on the size, sweet potatoes

1 1/2 cups blue cheese

1-2 medium onions

For Pie Crust:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4 1/2 ounces) very cold (or frozen) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg*

Pulse the flour, sugar and salt together in the bowl of a food processor. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. (You’re looking for some pieces the size of oatmeal flakes and some the size of peas.) Stir the yolk, just to break it up, and add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the egg is in, process in long pulses–about 10 seconds each–until the dough, which will look granular soon after the egg is added, forms clumps and curds. Just before you reach this stage, the sound of the machine working the dough will change–heads up. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and, very lightly and sparingly, knead the dough just to incorporate any dry ingredients that might have escaped mixing. Chill the dough, wrapped in plastic, for about 2 hours before rolling.

2. To roll the dough: Butter a 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom. Roll out chilled dough on floured sheet of parchment paper to 12-inch round, lifting and turning dough occasionally to free from paper. (Alternately, you can roll this out between two pieces of plastic, though flour the dough a bit anyway.) Using paper as aid, turn dough into 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom; peel off paper. Seal any cracks in dough. Trim overhang to 1/2 inch. Fold overhang in, making double-thick sides. Pierce crust all over with fork.

Alternately, you can press the dough in as soon as it is processed: Press it evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the tart shell. You want to press hard enough that the pieces cling to one another, but not so hard that it loses its crumbly texture.

3. Freeze the crust for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, before baking.

4. To fully or partially bake the crust: Center a rack in the oven and pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil (or use nonstick paper) and fit the foil, buttered side down, tightly against the crust. And here is the very best part: Since you froze the crust, you can bake it without weights. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake the crust for 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Carefully remove the foil. If the crust has puffed, press it down gently with the back of a spoon. Bake the crust about 10 minutes longer to fully bake it, or until it is firm and golden brown, brown being the important word: a pale crust doesn’t have a lot of flavor. (To partially bake it, only an additional 5 minutes is needed.) Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the crust to room temperature, and proceed with the rest of your recipe.

Do ahead: The dough can be wrapped and kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months. While the fully baked crust can be packed airtight and frozen for up to 2 months, the flavor will be fresher bake it directly from the freezer, already rolled out.

* Updated 2/4/09: In response to concerns (including mine!) about this crust crumbling easily when rolled out, I found that using the whole egg instead of just the egg yolk holds it together better, making it easy to roll out in one piece.*

A few tips for the shell before the recipe for the tart comes, you can find the shell recipe in the link above. I only had time to refrigerate it for 15 to twenty minutes, and it rolled out perfectly, though it does require the full 20 minute freezing time…

I was rushing around on Thanksgiving trying to get it into the oven to pre bake, but even though it only pre baked for about 5 minutes, it wasn’t soggy at all! Also – As you will see in the picture, I had some leftover crust, and so I made shapes out of them, and everyone thought they were sugar cookies – if you added a little more sugar and a tad more milk, this could be a great sugar cookie dough! I brushed the cookies with milk before putting them in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes.

*(I copied and pasted this recipe from my all time favorite blogger, Smitten Kitchen. Absolutely all credits go to her, this is not my ie crust recipe. The sweet potatoe filling, though, is all me.)

Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into rounds. pre-bake the pie dough for 5 minutes. When the dough is ready, layer the potatoes, onions and blue cheese to the very top of your tart or pie pan. (don’t worry about overflow, I found out the hard way that they shrank insanely!) Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, the potatoes are tender, and your kitchen smells divine!

So – I know that there are more recipes posted up above, but those are for another post and another time. I hope you like these recipes! Feel free to email or comment!

Weather Food

Growing Flowers — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:04:01 +0000

Yum!

I have a problem with taking photos. Not a bad or complicated problem, just that I usually bake or cook at night, and so this leaves me taking low-light photos, which turn out horrid or amazing – 50/50. If I do manage to get a good photo, it gets published as soon as possible, and, though taking photos can be hard, it is very satisfying when the staging, lights, and food cooperates! So – As we get closer to Christmas I am going to be posting many cookie recipes, as well as gingerbread! If anyone has a really good gingerbread recipe, feel free to comment or email it! I have never made gingerbread, just gingerbread cookies, so I am insanely excited! Today, though, I am going to post a recipe for curry veggies in a crock pot, which I made yesterday! You can serve this with Basmati rice or quinoa, and it is very satisfying when it is snowing outside! Yesterday, coming home from ballet class, there was already ice on the roads and a fresh dusting of snow on top of the old crusty stuff, I cant wait to go skiing!

The recipe calls for 3 pounds of veggies, and you can use whatever you have lying around….

Curry Crockpot veggies.

3 lbs. Chopped veggies

1 clove garlic

13 oz of tomatoes, (I used Organic canned and diced tomatoes. Unless I am much mistaken, I am not likely to find tomatoes in 3 feet of snow!)

1 can chick peas (garbanzo beans)

2 TBS curry powder

1 tsp coriander

1 cup / can coconut milk

1 1/2 cups water or stock ( which I completely forgot yesterday – I think I like it better without!) It is perfect with or without water or stock!

Combine all in crock pot, and set on 8 hours low, 4 hours high, or whichever setting fits your schedule…

Serve over rice or quinoa and enjoy!

Seasonal Goodies

Growing Flowers — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 00:53:16 +0000

Hey! Sooooo sorry for the long wait – I have been incredibly busy and just got back a while ago from visiting family! While we were there, I was incredibly excited to see a great kitchen shop, and so I splurged, and bought myself a longed for tart pan – I know, I know, how many fourteen year olds buy themselves tart pans for their birthday? All I know, is that it definitely is a valuable kitchen addition, and it will last forever! I had my birthday there, in Erie, Pennsylvania and I met a whole other half of my relatives I had never met! We had a blast, and I still can’t believe I am 14! For my birthday, I made a delicious, fudgey two layer chocolate gateau from 500 cakes by Susannah Blake…. I have also made two pumpkin tarts for thanksgiving, I hope you had a great one! Some coconut chocolate macaroons. (Don’t be intimidated, these are time-consuming but soo incredibly easy!) Chocolate Gateau – we divided this cake in half with a string, just wrap it along the cake and pull, it will divide cleanly.. (or, in my case, cleanly enough!) I filled this cake with whipped cream and strawberries, and decorated the sides with chocolate shavings – delish! I will post only a picture for this one.

The recipe on a later post, if you would like to have the recipe for this Gateau earlier, you can email me at homeschoolingcowgirlfoodie@gmail.com also, if you have any other questions or recipe request, feel free to email me for those as well, as long as they are food related!

The pumpkin tarts – first, I am sooo excited – not being able to find a tart recipe online, I created one. I was super excited when it worked out, because this was my first ever created recipe! and it will be one of the recipes posted here… The crust recipe is from one of my favorite bloggers, and I was really excited to make one of her recipes! Smitten Kitchen’s The great unshrinkable sweet tart shell!

I was rushing around on Thanksgiving trying to get it into the oven to pre bake, but even though it only pre baked for about 5 minutes, it wasnt soggy at all! Also – As you will see in the picture, I had some leftover crust, and so I made shapes out of them, and everyone thought they were sugar cookies – if you added a little more sugar and a tad more milk, this could be a great sugar cookie dough! I brushed the cookies with milk before putting them in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes.

Kaya’s yummy, easy Pumpkin Tart

Ingredients:

About 3-4 cups pumpkin, baked in a 400 degree oven ’til soft and easy to peel

dash of cinnamon

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

1-2 tablespoons garam masala – it will not taste like curry!

1 egg

pinch salt ( teeny pinch)

This makes enough for 1 9-inch tart, and, I would estimate, about 5 or 6 mini tarts, but this is definitely an estimation! Combine the pumpkin and sweetened condensed milk in a food processor fitted with a steel blade, and pulse until combined and with a fine, almost grated texture.

Add the cinnamon, garam masala, (add a bit, taste, and adjust) and salt, pulse for 10 more seconds, and add the egg. fill into the pre baked tart shell and bake in a 350 degree oven until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Coconut Macaroons with melted chocolate!

I made these macaroons for a bake sale fundraiser for the stables where I intern every Wednesday – they were sold out!

Ingredients:

1 can sweetened condensed milk – 14 oz

5 I/2 cups coconut

2 tsps vanilla

Chocolate chips (dark, semi sweet, milk)

Instructions: Combine all ingredients, I used just about 1/3 of a packet of chocolate chips, and they were great! Grease pans with butter. Now – there are two ways to shape these, one of them is to use two spoons, and compress the mixture between them, until you get a compressed, oval shape…. The other way, which i used for this bake sale, is to, using your hands, press spoonfuls of the mixture into cookie cutter shapes! Put a cookie cutter form down, spoon some macaroon mixture into them, and press and work it into all the corners, gingerly lift up the cookie cutter, and repeat! Bake at 350˚ for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Melt the reserved chocolate over a double boiler, spoon into a piping bag fitted with a number 4 plain tip (I cannot believe I am actually writing those words – I got piping bags and tips for my birthday, and I now use them at any and every opportunity – would you like your deviled egg mixture piped into your eggs? What about mashed potatoes?) You might also use a star or other tip, but plain works just fine… and pipe over all of your cool shapes! Now let cool, and enjoy or, rather, scarf down as if there is no tomorrow, because you can’t seem to stop, even though it is your third one… (Weird how that happens – must be the chocolate!)

Decadent Chocolate Torte

Growing Flowers — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:25:18 +0000

My papa’s birthday was Saturday, and so I decided to make his favorite chocolate torte. I have actually been planning this for months – ever since a friend of ours made it for another friend’s birthday. My dad had one slice, and, even though he is not much of one for sweet things, fell in love with it. So, for his 44th birthday, that was one of my gifts. I had made it once before with a friend of ours who was also a very experienced baker. She taught me the logistics of it, including folding, which, up to that point, I had just assumed was mixing gently… turns out I was wrong. When I made this torte for my papa’s birthday, every step was infused with love.

I beat the egg yolks with electric beaters, but you can beat it with a fork or whisk – it is easier if you take turns! My papa likes this cake because, contrary to what you will think when you see the ingredients, it is actually a very light, “chocolatey” torte. It is nice because you don’t feel like you have eaten a brick after you eat this torte. Plus, it is impressive, so if you have guests, you can appreciate the feeling of being a professional baker, even though you still measure your ingredients with a wet measuring cup, regardless if they are wet or dry. (Yes, that’s me!)

This torte is not hard to make, It is flourless, gluten-free, and absolutely decadent. The ganache that I made to glaze/frost it didn’t thicken up, but I did some research, beat it with some electric beaters, and it turned into a light fluffy mixture -sort of a cross between buttercream and chocolate mousse. It was perfect. Don’t let the “folding” and “bake in a water-bath” parts of this recipe scare you – they are a lot less complex than they sound! This torte is perfect for entertaining company – It has to be made and chilled for a few hours, preferably overnight before serving. You can cut the recipe in half and bake in a 5 or so inch cake pan. All in all it is fun and relatively easy to make.

Tip: Instead of chopping the chocolate, bang it with something hard, like a spoon, when you unwrap it, it will be in perfect little bits.

The recipe calls for the use of a roasting pan – I just used a cast iron pan. You can really use any pan that surrounds the cake evenly on all sides. The tin foil is not to keep it from leaking, but to help regulate the temperature.

Decadent Chocolate Torte.

Ingredients.

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus 1/2 tablespoon
1 pound semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup amaretto (I used coffee – it was just as good!)
8 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
Confectioners’ sugar or cocoa powder, for garnish (I didn’t use this or the raspberries either, because I made a ganache, but I am sure it would be great with it – plus a little whipped cream!)
Fresh raspberries, for garnish

Credits for this recipe go to Emeril Langossa of Food Network

Ganache.

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate
6 oz heavy, (double) cream.

So – here are a few tips before the instructions : Baking in a water bath just means that you boil a kettle of water, wrap some tin-foil securely around your cake and then put it into a cast iron or roasting pan, pour the boiling water into the pan, and bake!

Folding is just to gently incorporate ingredients to keep the air bubbles in, so, instead of mixing around the bowl, as you would with brownies or such things, gently use a rubber spatula to bring the chocolate mixture up over the egg, twisting the bowl as you go – it may sound confusing, but you will get the hang of it, the name is pretty self-explanatory!

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Using 1/2 tablespoon butter grease a 9-inch springform pan and line bottom with a parchment round. Cover pan underneath and along sides with foil and set in a roasting pan. Bring a medium saucepan of water to boil.

Combine the chocolate, butter, and amaretto in a metal bowl set over simmering water or in the top of adouble boiler. Melt the mixture, stirring constantly, until smooth and creamy, about 5 minutes; reserve.

Meanwhile combine eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until frothy and almost doubled in volume, about 5 to 10 minutes. Fold 1/3 of egg mixture into chocolate mixture using a rubber spatula. Repeat thisprocess 2 more times – until all of egg mixture has been folded into chocolate mixture.

Pour batter into prepared springform pan and place in the roasting pan. Pour enough boiling water into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides. Bake until cake has risen slightly and edges are just beginning to set, about 40 to 45 minutes. Remove cake from roasting pan and cool on wire rack to room temperature. Remove foil, cover, and refrigerate overnight.

Remove cake from refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving. Remove springform pan sides, invert cake onto a large plate, and peel away the parchment paper from bottom. Reinvert cake on another large plate or serving platter and garnish with confectioners’ sugar or cocoa powder immediately before serving. (Or glaze/frost with the chocolate ganache.)

Chocolate Ganache Recipe

Chop the 6 oz. of bittersweet chocolate, and pour into a large – ish bowl. Heat the cream until just hot enough to melt the chocolate, simmering. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit, or stir gently until the chocolate is completely mixed into the cream, and it looks thick and velvety. Chill in the fridge or freezer till thickened. Then, pour over cake and glaze. If you made a mistake, like I did, you can use electric beater, or a whisk, and whip it, as you would cream, until it becomes frostable, and use that in place of a glaze. Decorate as you wish, and serve!

A Day of Cooking!

Growing Flowers — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:22:21 +0000

Today, I woke up to 35 mph winds and, unbelievably, snow. Yes, you read that correctly, I said snow. Since when does it snow before November? Here in New Mexico, never. Ever. So, even though I had thought it was snowing last night, I did not expect to wake up and see a white outside; much less walloping winds. So, I dedicated the day to comfort food.

The Noodles!

When I think comfort food, I think, well, I think noodles and tomato sauce, some sort of hot, aromatic soup, and cheese. Sometimes I think cheese, although it can be too heavy. Todays comfort food picks were, of course, noodles and tomato sauce, (with cheese) and minestrone. Minestrone is one of those soups that is somehow the ultimate comfort food, or the easy company dinner, served with a salad and a loaf of bread. Also – the cleanup is minimal, since all you are doing is chopping veggies and opening cans. I managed to constrain all the mess to one counter, so it took me only 5 minutes to clean up, rather than 30. The tomato sauce for the noodles, we had for lunch, I dolled up by adding pepper, parmesan, cayenne pepper, and basil and swiss cheese, which I sprinkled on top instead of dissolving it into the sauce. (Which is what I did with the parmesan.)

Minestrone!!!

Here is the recipe step by step!

Amounts and veggies are suggestions, you can vary this recipe as you like… We added celery, and substituted white for red wine. The alcohol, by the way, cooks out, leaving you with great flavor.

2 onions (the only veggies we didn’t have.)
3 carrots.
2 zucchini (or 1 big one, they can be giants. Use as much as you want)
1 lb tomatoes canned or raw (I used a 1 lb 12 oz jar, not having a pound of tomatoes in the house at all times! I wish we did!)
Swiss chard
1/2 pound of white beans. ( I used 1 can of white beans, which was 15 oz.)
Garlic, as much as you like
Sage
Thyme
Rosemary
1 cup elbow pasta
1 cup wine.
Enough water to almost cover your veggies, or to come to the top of your pot.

Combine all, and make sure to cook the pasta and then add it in, they wont cook in the soup…(we found out the hard way)

I think this soup would be great with sausage, or a great with some added in, cut up, sautéed chicken breast. I put this soup in a slow cooker (Crock Pot) on high for 4 hours, but you can also cook for 8 hours on low, or whatever setting you like. If you make this soup on the stove, just let it cook with a lid on low -ish medium heat for a few hours, stirring every so often. This tastes best with local and organic ingredients, so support your local farmers and go to a farmers market! ( We used organic, local veggies, and the chard and rosemary, sage and thyme were from our garden!!!)

Combine All!

Meringues!

Growing Flowers — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 01:43:19 +0000

Can you guess what these are? No? Yes? Well, in case you haven’t guessed, they are brown sugar meringues, drying bottom-side up after I dipped them in chocolate. I made these meringues to send to my Uncle as a thank you for having me come and visit him for a week about a month ago. The recipe that I used was from Ryan’s Baking Blog, and, they were well worth the long baking time. I piped little swirls onto oiled baking sheets with a plastic bag (Yes, the rumors are true, it does work!) Anyway, I practiced and practiced and practiced until I got perfectly imperfect little swirls.

Swirl

The nice thing is that I live in New Mexico, so, as far as humidity goes, suffice it to say that our most humid day would be considered bone -achingly dry in Florida, That’s one problem out of the way! Meringue mixture is amazing to me, the way the whites triple, then multiply, then, well, you get the point. The end result that you want for your meringue is a glossy, stiff mixture that is slightly brownish, (this is after you have added the sugar.) I added my sugar a tablespoon full at a time, as I have had a sadly soup-ish, failed meringue mixture before, and was terrified of messing up again, but I think that if you added it in thirds it would be fine!

Before Piping!

Here is the link to the recipe, all credits go to Ryan from Ryans Baking Blog,

Here are mine!!!

Yum!

Thanks for reading!

Here is a link to my favorite food blogger of all time! Smitten Kitchen

Ocosingo

Growing Flowers — Fri, 07 May 2010 22:54:56 +0000

On saturday we got up at 6:45 to go to a coffee plantation in Ocosingo, stopping at some other towns along the way. It was an exhausting trip on 3 levels: spiritual, physical and emotional. I have never been to a coffee plantation before, (obviously.) It was physical because we walked a lot and we didn’t have anything to eat until 2 hours after we started the tour. It was very inspiring to see how these people lived…(more about that later) To start with we went to San Juan Chamula. We went and looked at a graveyard that had huge crosses guarding it.
We learned that white crosses signified a small child’s grave, a blue cross signified a middle-aged person grave, and a black cross signified an old persons grave. Sadly there were a lot of blue crosses. something very unusual to me was that there would be family graves, for example: if one person in a family died they would bury that person, and when another person died they would wait 30 years and then bury that person in the same grave that their family member that had died was in. I thought that this was an interesting concept/tradition. after going to San Juan Chamula we went to San Juan Cancuc and saw a church there, the guide explained that this was a very sacred church to the people. When we went inside we saw four people praying, one woman was also chanting something in tzeltal. The chanting really moved me, even though I did not have any inkling what she might have been chanting. It seems that theses people’s belief system is very out there, at least in my perspective. Next we went to our destination, Ocosingo!!!! When we parked the cars at Ocosingo we went down a hilly four mile trail to get to the coffee farm. Once there we were introduced to the, surprise, guide’s mother. He was a guide on his own farm!!!!! There were many people at the farm. Once the perfunctory greetings and introductions were made we sat down to eat beans and quesadillas. I didn’t eat the beans and quesadillas because I really don’t want to get sick. I did drink their homemade coffee though. Yum. One thing that surprised me was that they drank HUGE bottles of Coca-Cola!! there was even a baby drinking it!Yup. crazy huh?

After lunch we went and saw the coffee trees and the composting bins. Here are some non ripe coffee beans:After we saw the farm we went back up the 4 mile trail in 100 degree feeling heat and humidity. The drive back was marked with many stops at would-be stores, or tienditas. We stopped at many to find cold water. We ended up getting Fanta and Coca~Cola before we found water. One good thing about the Coca~Cola here is that they use glass bottles that are refilled, so that’s good, at least. The ride back was uneventful. We were very tired when we got home. I thought it was very inspiring to see how the people lived in a one room shack with a huge cooking fire in the middle of the shack. It was so different from the way we live! All in All it was an amazing trip and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I know that this is a pretty late post but its long, soo I hope you enjoy it!

If you want to learn about Tzeltal this is a good site.

Doggy with No Home.. :(

Growing Flowers — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:03:55 +0000

I don't know if this dog had a home or not, but he was un-spayed, it's that rather than being homeless that causes the problem in my opinion.

Sadly, there are a lot of stray dogs here, especially mama dogs. There are also homeless pregnant dogs. I feel so sorry for them, walking around with no home. Most likely having to scavenge out of dumpsters… I think that a lot of people get heated about this, and no wonder!! As I say in the caption to my photo, its being unspayed that causes the problem just as much as being homeless! If a dog is spayed eliminates the problem of having to capture homeless dogs and take them to the shelter, right? (Because it can’t mate.) It is my opinion that veterinarian clinics should lower their costs here so that people can bring their dogs in without it costing way more than they can afford!! I wonder if there is action going on to help this. I certainly hope that there is. If we help homeless people, why don’t we help homeless animals? We evolved from animals,right? I am writing this post to vent, mainly, and I hope this does not discourage you from reading my blog!!

If I had an animal shelter I would do spay and neuter for free!!!!

Photos…

Ernie, My dog. He is definitely not homeless! We love you, Ernie!!!

Chiapas

Growing Flowers — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:35:36 +0000

Crying babies at the market.

Hot sun beating down on your back.

Irresistable ice cream.

An afternoon siesta.

Popsicles look so tempting.

An amazing vacation.

Sorry but we can’t buy your wares.

Just a little poem that I wanted to write!!!

Longer Post tomorrow *Nika*

Not Like Taos

Growing Flowers — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:07:10 +0000

My title might seem obvious and a bit simple, (and it definitely is) but I wasn’t talking about the food or the houses, indeed I wasn’t even talking about the excess of stray dogs. I was talking about Chiapas and the women who make it seem so amazing to me. These women, that I am talking about, have stalls at the market. They are selling stuff that they have made. Indeed, a lot of the times you can see a woman weaving or embroidering or knitting or breast-feeding a child from ages 0-2 or older. It just amazes me that these women are so… so proud of their stalls, so uncaring about what others think of them… or at least that’s what I perceive!!! (I might be wrong.) Also the art that these people do is just amazing!!! Another amazing thing is that their children are growing up and learning this art as well! I could never weave a belt, or bead a parrot key chain!!!! (At least not without a lot of practice.) I am always tempted to buy stuff from the Indians that try to sell us a lot of homemade stuff… Of course I can’t buy a lot of it – I only have 22 dollars anyway! My bouts of homesickness and culture shock are not as intense now, but I still long for Taos sometimes. I am also dreading the airplane ride back, but that can’t be avoided – not if I want to get back to Taos – unless I wanted to wait 4 years and get my driver’s license and drive back and waste a lot of gas. I say waste, because I could have just flown on the airplane 4 years ago. Anyway, I will try to live and think more in the present. I think that is a good practice for all of us. I love Joan and Barry’s house – it is amazingly beautiful!! I want my house to look similar to theirs when “I grow up”! I want to thank all my readers (if there are any!) for reading this blog and commenting on it! I treasure your comments and am really happy that you all read my blog!

Till Next Post*Nika*