Just Horsin' Around - Thoughts on Central Texas Real Estate and More

This is a recipe that I've used often in my cheffing, and on days when I come home too tired to think about what to cook.  Everything but the cilantro and the sour cream is something that is in the pantry or freezer, and I usually have some of those on hand.  Enjoy!

Mexicali Pork Chops with Black Beans

  4                     boneless pork chops -- 3/4-inch thick
  1       15-ounce can  black beans -- rinsed and drained
  1                cup  salsa
                        OR
  1                cup  picante sauce
  1        4-ounce can  chopped green chiles -- undrained
  1         tablespoon  chopped fresh cilantro
  2          teaspoons  chili powder
     1/4      teaspoon  pepper
                        Vegetable oil
                        Sour cream (optional)

In a medium bowl combine black beans, salsa, chiles, cilantro, chili
powder and pepper. Set aside.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.

Brush chops lightly with oil and brown on each side; remove chops.

Add bean mixture to skillet; bring to boiling. Return chops to skillet;
cover tightly and cook over low heat for 5-6 minutes or until chops are
just done. Serve chops with bean mixture, with sour cream if desired.

Lauren Corna of Southlake, Texas, meme's me a couple of days ago, but I've been too busy drying out (or TRYING to dry out - stop raining for a second, will ya?) to respond.  I'm going to grab a couple of minutes while the sun is briefly peeking through the clouds and the creek is slowly dropping for the third time in two days to reply. 

1.  I grew up (until age 10) on an 800 acre church camp in East Texas, the daughter of an extremely ecumenical Methodist minister.  I can remember dinners at our table that included my father, the local Baptist preacher, the local rabbi, the local Catholic priest, and a religious leader of one or another of the sects in India all sitting around the table talking shop.  This upbringing had an impact on my world view that I'm still learning the ramifications of. 

2.  Since we shared the 800 acres with an assortment of wildlife, including snakes of various persuasions, my parents felt that I should become familiar with the different kinds and which ones I could pick up versus which ones had best be left to their own devices.  So, when the campers found a snake in or around their cabin, they'd call my father.  Daddy would go get the snake, put it in a jar, and bring it home for my edification.  At age 5, I had approximately 40 snakes in jars in my back yard, from garter snakes to coral snakes, king snakes to rattlesnakes, and everything in between.  I don't have a lot of issues with snakes, as a result.  However, one piece of snake-related advice:  do not, I repeat, DO NOT, even with a .22, shoot a snake in a metal chicken coop - your ears will be ringing for hours.  (Don't ask me how I know this, it's too embarrassing.)

3.  I have pretty good eye-hand coordination (meaning, things frequently go directly from my eye to my hand, bypassing my brain - uh, oh!).  Which explains why, the first time I sat down to a typewriter in typing class (oops, dated myself there, didn't I - how long ago did they stop having typing class in high school?) I typed 60 wpm.  Also means I'm an excellent shot with a rifle, not so great with a handgun, because I didn't have any real experience with a handgun until I was about 12 when a Texas Ranger taught me how to use one, while I learned to shoot a rifle at 8, taught by my Daddy the preacher. 

4.  I first took riding lessons at age 40 (although, as a Texan grownig up when I did, I'd of course been on a horse now and again over the course of my life).  Mainly because I wanted to go trail riding in the New Mexico mountains where I'd seen dogs trip on some of the trails they took and I thought I ought to have a clue  That turned, ultimately, into 55 acres, 10 horses, cows, chickens, and all the other accoutrements of a move to the country (including a tractor (actually, two), guys!).  

5.  Once something catches my interest, I don't tend to do it by halves, but dive in full tilt boogie.  (See 1 through 4 above.)  

Now, who shall I tag?  Hmmm . . . .

Pattie Reeves, of Magnolia, Texas

Leslie Olson, a stager from Austin, Texas

Janie Coffey, of Miami, Florida

We had rain last night.  All night.  Woke up periodically, heard the nice rain, thought, "How nice!" (we have had a drought in recent memory), turned over, went back to sleep. 

Last night, we'd heard that this afternoon there might be considerable rain, with perhaps flooding, and my husband had said that this morning he would go down into our storm shelter and get his mother's suitcase that had all the old family photos and papers - we put it in there for safekeeping in case of tornado - and bring it into the house for the night, as they were talking about the possibility of ten inches of rain. 

This morning, he went out, then came in looking pale.  It seems when he opened the door to the storm shelter, it was full almost to the top with water.  (It's always been dry as a bone no matter what, even when the creek reached the hundred year flood plain level.)  He thought that all of those photos and records, the record of his mother's existence, were lost. 

I went out, took a look, pulled out a couple of floating coolers (we keep food and water down there), and saw the suitcase floating in the back.  Went and got a pitchfork, pulled it forward, managed to manhandle it out and get it up to the porch. 

Everything in it was wet, but I've spent the day carefully, so carefully, separating pages and spreading them out (after researching at the NOLA site on how to do this - I figured if anyone would know, they would), and it looks like over the next couple of days we'll be able to save most of it. 

It was later that we heard that Marble Falls down the road in the Hill Country had over 19 inches of rain in 3 or 4 hours and the governor had been asked to declare it a disaster area.  Or that the San Gabriel River, a sleepy little river just bigger than a creek was raging almost up to the bridge over it on Austin Avenue, a main road in Georgetown.  Linked here is Blue Hole, a local swimming hole just upstream from the bridge in question, on a more pleasant days.  Below is Blue Hole today, taken from the bridge.  (There's a road down there somewhere alongside the river - buried under the water - and a waterfall, likewise.)  Probably 8-10 feet under water in this photo.)

We'll likely have to get a pump to pump out the storm shelter.  Think we'll wait until the rain is gone, though.  They're predicting maybe another 10-15 inches tonight. 

Yesterday I had promised to bring dessert to the local Lions' Club luncheon given at the senior center.  I needed something nummy, easily transported, easily eaten.  After prowling around through my cookbooks, I came across this recipe in the Cake Doctor cookbook that fit the bill admirably.  It would also be great for open houses, I think. 

Cooking spray for greasing cookie sheets

1          package plain spice cake mix

½         cup canola oil

½         cup applesauce

1          large egg

1          cup raisins

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350.
2. Lightly grease 2 cookie sheets with cooking spray.
3. Place the cake mix, oil, applesauce and egg in a large mixing bowl.  Blend for 1 minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber scraper.  Blend for 1 minute at medium using an electric mixer or by hand until thick and smooth. 
4. Fold in the raisins until well distributed.
5. Drop heaping teaspoons of dough on the prepared cookie sheets 2 inches apart. 
6. Place pans in oven.  Bake until cookies are light brown and firm to the touch when lightly pressed.
7. Remove cookies from oven and let cool for one minute.  Remove to wire racks to cool completely. 

The cookies can be stored for four days in an airtight container or wrapped in aluminum foil for a week, or they can be frozen, wrapped in foil and put in a freezer bag, for up to 3 months, making them very handy for an impromptu open house. 

Some time back Phil and I attended a seminar at a local business here in Central Texas, right down the road in near Lake Granger, just a hop skip and jump from Georgetown and Austin.   Betsy Ross Farms sells grass-fed beef - but they also have another business, Sustainable Growth Texas - and that's what the seminar was about, and that's what Betsy Ross is also about. 

One of the things that anyone who owns rural property is concerned about is how productive is their land, whether it be for crops, a garden, pasture, or hay.  A great deal of time (and money) is spent improving the soil, working on weed control, and other issues to increase that productivity.  However, all too often all that attention starts at the plant level, not where it truly should, beneath the ground itself.  If the ground is not healthy and full of nutrients, it can't provide those nutrients to the grass and the crops.  And those crops and that grass can't provide the nutrients to the consumers, be they cattle, horses, or people.  And so on up the chain.  You can't create something from nothing, is the general rule.  Most commonly, we add fertilizer to the soil to try to artificially replace the nutrients that we've stripped from it, and we apply weedkiller to try to control the weeds that are what will grow on the sickly soil - but we don't feed the soil itself. 

One of the more interesting parts of the seminar was touring Betsy's 500 acre cattle ranch (well, part of it, we WERE on foot).  Periodically she would dig up a bit of soil and show us what was underneath, what we should be looking for when we look at . . . well, dirt, really.  Trust me, dirt is not dirt is not dirt - there's a whole world underneath the surface that reflects our world up here, and that sustains it, and us, and we really need to be more aware of that world, our sister, our twin.

What is the miracle that Betsy Ross uses to feed that world?   Manure tea!  Your mother or your grandmother or the hippy down the street may have used it on their garden (or whatever crop they were growing), to great effect.  However, Betsy uses it on 500 acres, and Sustainable Growth Texas uses it on farms and ranches that hire them, just as some hire commercial fertilizer application companies, to apply manure tea in vast amounts to vast acreages - for about the same price.  No weedkiller, because as the soil becomes healthier and the grass becomes healthier, fewer weeds will grow - they'll be choked out by the "good stuff".  Imagine, not a compost pile, but giant mountains of compost (remember, this IS a cattle ranch!). 

There's a lot of information available on this - I recommend starting at the Sustainable Growth Texas website and following the links from there, and getting a couple of books.  It'll help you build the best foundation for your new place in the country or re-level the foundation of the one you already have, and you'll be doing your part for the planet as a whole.