Friendship

The best kind of friend is the one

you could sit on a porch with,

never saying a word,

and walk away feeling like that was

the best conversation you've had.

~Author Unknown ~

{our doggie Nikoli & our kitty Mischief)

I hope you can take the time to say HI if you are here visiting. I love hearing from you and would like to return the visit. :) Tune in on Monday when I post a recipe for a YUMMY hot sandwich! Happy weekend everyone!!

Chocolate Cake and Frosting recipe!

Brrrr...it's a cold, blustery day here and they are even forecasting a winter weather warning for our area! NO....I am NOT ready for that weather. When it starts snowing this early it makes for a LONG winter!! Don't get me wrong...I love snow...especially on Christmas Eve....I love big, soft, fluffy snowflakes falling lazily over our farm. The problem is...this snow is not going to be THAT kind of snow....it's gonna be snow with 60 mile an hour winds! Yup....some of you may call that a blizzard! Around here....yeah...we are used to that kind of winter weather.


So, on that note...let's bake a cake with a yummy, rich, fudge like frosting! ;)

{note: I will not be held responsible for you licking the bowl and eating too much frosting}

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup low-fat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350. Spray pan with oil or butter the pan. I used a Bundt pan.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat in chocolate and vanilla. With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture in three parts and buttermilk in two, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Pour batter into pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan about 15 minutes; run a knife around edge of pan, and invert cake onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Start frosting your cake with the ganache. I made my frosting runny enough to be pour it on my cake. It looks neat and it is SOOO much eaiser and faster than actually frosting your cake.

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup

1.Place chocolate in a medium-size heatproof bowl. Bring cream and corn syrup just to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium-high heat; pour mixture over chocolate. Let stand, without stirring, until chocolate begins to melt.
2.Using a flexible spatula, gently stir chocolate and cream until totally combined; begin near the center of the bowl and gradually work your way toward the edge, pulling in as much chocolate as possible, until the mixture is smooth and glossy.

Thanks so much to my followers and readers for stopping by and leaving me comments too....I love reading what you have to say....so don't STOP!! :)

Have a great day everyone! :)

Pumpkins and Gourds Galore!

Just a few pictures of pumkins and gourds.

It is FALL after all!

I even put a few of the Jack-Be- Little Pumkins

in my light fixture above our dining room table.

I am so glad I planted these sweet lil punkins

and so glad that they grew so well this year.

I just LOVE them!

Here is a close up of the lil punkins I have in
basket by our dining room fireplace.

Here is the basket full of Jack-Be -Littles. :)

Aren't these little Robin's Egg Gourds just so cute too?

I love the little green striped ones...they

remind me of miniature watermelons!

A pumpkin from my garden next to my last

pot of flowers...one that escaped the majority

of the frost but did get a touch of it as you can see.

The rest of the pumpkins I grew in my garden.

Things are still pretty busy around the farm. Today we are harvesting soybeans. The weather has been beautiful and harvest is moving right along.

OH....I made this delicious cake for my brother's birthday.
The frosting was SOOOOOOOOO good. I will be posting the
recipe for both in a few days.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?
Leave me comment and tell me about it!

A few of my most popular fall items

Fall is such a popular season for my hand poured soy candles, melts and potpourri fixins! I thought I would give you a glimpse of some of my items.

Hand poured soy candle.

Most popular scents this month.

Spiced Cranberry

Spiced Pumpkin

Hot Apple Pie

Harvest Spice

Home for the Holiday

Grandma's Kitchen

Mulberry

Cinnamon Styx

(for scent descriptions go here)

Frost on the Punkin Potpourri Fixins

Cute lil punkins frosted with pretty sparkles and

scented in Pumpkin Pie scent.

Gingerbread Potpourri Fixins
scented with spicey Gingerbread scent and
sprinkled the cutest little Gingerbread men!

Candy Corn Potpourri Fixins
scented with yummy Candy Corn scent and
dotted with cute lil' candy corn

Cranberry Balsam
a beautiful mix scented with Cranberry and Balsam.
A Christmas holiday must have!

I wish for you a perfect fall day, my friends.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget

to leave me a message and let me know

you were here....so I can return the visit.

For more info on my candles or other products

please stop by my website.

http://prairieacscents.com

{ps...please excuse the crazy spacing in this post...I have tried to correct it but it just keeps going back to the wrong way!! It's not worth pulling my hair out over it so I am just leaving it like this!!!!}

Harvesting Flax

We are busy harvesting flax here on our farm. Thankfully, we are almost done!!! We will then only have soybeans and sunflowers left to harvest. This fall sure is moving along quickly.

Combining flax.

Dumping the flax from the combine into the truck.

One of our flax fields in full bloom.

Close-up of our beautiful flax.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures of our flax harvest. If you would like more information on flax please go to this post I wrote last year called Flax....A sea of blue.

Thanks for stopping by and as always....please leave me a comment so I know you were here and I can return the visit. Have a wonderful fall day! :)

Fall and comfort food go hand in hand

Autumn is in the air even though these last few days out here in the upper midwest it has been downright hot! I am looking forward to some cool fall days to show up here soon. :)

There are many things that I associate with fall and one of them is comfort food. I think of sitting down at our table with our family gathered around a nice hot, comforting meal. That is why I decided to make Baked Steak with homemade noodles. Now, is that comfort food or what? ;)

Baked Steak

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

6 beef cube steaks

1 tablespoon canola oil

2 10-3/4 ounce cans of fat free cream of mushroom soup

8 ounce can of mushrooms

2-1/2 cups water

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Mix the flour, salt and pepper in a shallow bowl--I like to use a glass pie plate. Sprinkle just a bit of salt and pepper on the cube steaks. Now, dredge the meat in the flour mixture. Heat your pan and then add your canola oil. I always heat my pans without the oil so that it doesn't smoke. Anyway, add your meat and brown on both sides. Lightly great a 9x13 baking dish and arrange meat. Combine soup, mushrooms and water in a bowl. Pour soup mixture over the meat and cover tightly with tinfoil. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for additional 15 minutes.

Serve with mashed potatoes or like I did with noodles and of course some broccoli! ;)

There you have it....comfort food at it's best!

Baked Steak

that's what's for supper in

Farmchick's kitchen!!

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments too. Check back soon as I have more pictures and recipes to share. :)

Sunflowers!

I realized the other day that I have tons of pictures....I mean, we are talking literally thousands of pictures. Not a day goes by that I do not snap a picture or two or 20! I have so many picture of our kids, my hubby, and things happening around our farm. I decided that even if the picture is not from exactly at the time of posting I would post it anyway.

So, that leads me to our sunflower crop. I took these pictures back in Augut when they were in full bloom. I love having acres and acres of sunflowers. They are just soooo pretty and you can't help but feel happy when you look at these fields.

Sadly, our sunflowers no longer look like this. In order to havest them the must "dry down". Which means they dry up and turn brown. They no longer look happy, yellow and sunny!

Come harvest, I will show you a few pictures of what the sunflowers look like when they are ready to be harvested.


Thanks so much for stopping by. I am hoping to get around and visit you all too. Things are still very busy here around our farm. Don't forget to say HI and let me know you were here.