Poor Man's Stew

As broke as the last year left everyone, and as cold as it is in much of the country, Poor Man's stew is an economical way to warm you up from the inside out! Not only will you start out the new year a bit warmer, the flavor will make you smile as well
Half gallon water
1lb hamburger
1c chopped green chili
4 potatoes
1 medium onion
4 cloves garlic
1T salt
Peel and chop onion and garlic, then place in a one gallon pot with hamburger on medium heat, until hamburger is browned. While hamburger is browning, peel potatoes and chop into half inch pieces. When hamburger is browned, add remaining ngredients. Turn heat to high until mixture begins to boil. Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.
Serves 4.

Rosebud Shrimp

Coming up with new recipes can be fun, and easy. This gourmet meal came about when I noticed dried rosebuds in the grocery store on Christmas eve.I just started grabbing a few more ingredients, took it home and had dinner made in under half an hour.  Serve it over the pasta of your choice.
1 lb fresh peeled shrimp
1/2 pt fresh cream
4 oz Feta Cheese
3 cloves garlic
4 bulb onions
1/2 C chopped parsley 
1/4 cup crushed dried rosebuds
4 T butter

Slice onion and garlic into slivers and saute over medium heat  in butter until clear. Add shrimp and parsley, and saute until a few shrimp begin to turn pink. Add cream and parsley, stirring frequently. Once cream begins to boil, add crushed rosebuds and feta cheese, stirring constantly. Once mixture has begun to thicken, remove from heat and serve.
Serves 3

Santa Fe Kiev

You don’t live in New Mexico for long without becoming addicted to chili. Sometimes it seems as though nothing tastes right unless it has chili in it. Therefore, while working on a ranch near Santa Fe, the chili "accidentally" wound up in the Kiev. This simple but elegant recipe is perfect for that intimate holiday meal!
4 Tbl butter
1 Tbl minced onion
1 clove minced garlic
1 Tbl diced green chili
4 boneless chicken breasts
2 oz cream cheese
Melt butter over low heat, then sauté onion, garlic and green chili until clear and remove from heat. Using a meat mallet, pound bone side of breasts until they are flat. After flattening breast, spoon equal amounts of sautéed ingredients, reserving 2 Tbl of butter mixture. Place 1/2 tsp cream cheese on each breast, roll and secure with toothpicks, and place into a pie pan. Pour remaining butter mixture over the breasts, cover and refrigerate eight to twenty-four hours. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
Serves 2
This recipe is in my cookbook, The Gourmet Cowboy available at Amazon. Just click on the link below!

Cowboy Breakfast to warm up with

Cowboys have one important meal of the day...Breakfast! Pancho Villa Omelet is guaranteed to fill up any cowboy and keep them warm all day. Legend has it that the famous outlaw insisted on having this omelet
every morning for breakfast. He claimed it had a magic which kept
him one step ahead of his foes. On the day of his capture, it is said
that Cookie substituted cheddar cheese for the cream cheese.
2 Tbl butter
3 eggs
2 tsp cream
1/2 c cream cheese
2 oz chopped green chili
Melt butter in an omelet pan on medium heat. While butter is melting,
combine eggs with cream and beat until frothy. Pour egg mixture
in pan and cook until the top starts to solidify, then turn. Spread
evenly with cream cheese and chili, cover and cook for one minute.
Fold and serve.
Serves 1.

Fall Gathering Sooup

Here is anther cowboy recipe from my cookbook, The Gourmet Cowboy.
Enjoy!
When the aspen leaves turn gold in the fall, it is the signal to move
the cattle down out of the mountains before the first snow flies.
Thework is hard, but enjoyable, especially when you get down
to the few animals who refuse to be found.
A friend of mine once made the analogy that
“its just like hunting elk, only you have to bring them in alive.”
Since the crews used to gather often number ten or more you
need enough to feed a lot of people, and this recipe fits the bill for
gathering crews or holiday parties.
7 - 16 oz cans white potatoes
5 lb diced ham
2 large onions
1 gallon milk
1/4 lb butter
5 - 12 oz cans evaporated milk
11/2 lb muenster cheese
1 bunch celery
2 cloves garlic
1 Tbl black pepper
4 bay leaves
Chop onion and sliver garlic into small
pieces. Sauté onion and garlic in butter until clear.
Chop celery while onion and garlic are sautéing.
When onion and garlic are clear, add remaining
ingredients, reserving cheese. Cook over medium
heat for 35 minutes, stirring every five minutes,
making sure soup does not boil. While soup is
cooking grate cheese. After soup has been cooking
thirty minutes, stir in the cheese and continue cooking
until cheese has melted.
Makes approximately two gallons.
If you like this recipe, The Gourmet Cowboy
cookbook is plumb full of more like it. Just
follow the link trail below to buy!

Brandy, The Christmas Dog

THERE ARE cow dogs, and then there are cow dogs,and Brandy was one of the latter. She could work eitherend of a cow, nipping the heels of a slow-moving steer or
grabbing the ear of a wild runaway. She had helped me gather four hundred steers out of a five-section pasture in one day and pen cattle into corrals with gates only on
the outside corners. If I needed to count cattle through a gate, all I had to do was start the herd, then simply sit back and count as she pushed the rest through on her
own.

When I moved into town to train horses, she would follow me everywhere I went. If I left her home when I went out in a friend’s vehicle, she would be waiting in the
back of my truck when I returned. On the rare occasions when I took my truck somewhere and left her home, she would always be waiting for me faithfully at the door when I returned.

Then, two days before Thanksgiving, a couple of friends stopped by to take me out to dinner. During dinner a fierce wind roared in out of the north, destroying
everything which wasn’t nailed down. I returned home to find a small metal shed torn apart and pieces of the barn roof missing, as was Brandy. The wind was blowing too
hard to call her, so I looked in the barn and around the farm. For the first time in the six years I’d had her, she was gone.

Over the next two weeks I searched daily. My dogs come to my whistle better than to their names, so I whistled as I rode searching for her along the river and
down unfamiliar side roads. Every time I saw a Blue Heeler from a distance, I would have to get a closer look. After two weeks, I had to concede to myself that my faithful companion of the last six years was gone. I could only speculate on what had happened. The wind and blowing
tin must have terrified her so badly that she ran away, but then what? I knew she had not been killed by a car because I would have found her body, unless she had
managed to crawl into the brush to die. She had not been taken to any of the local veterinarians or to any animal shelter. I would never know the final resting place of my faithful companion.

The night before Christmas Eve, I went to a party with my friend Rachel, and when we returned, there was a message on her answering machine for me. It was my
landlady, who lived next door to me. I was thrilled to hear, “Bob there are a bunch of dogs on the porch, and I think one of them is Brandy!”

I jumped in my truck and drove straight home. There I was greeted by none other than Brandy herself, squirming on her side, thumping her tail, and literally
grinning from ear to ear. It was as if the other dogs had brought her home for Christmas, for, like Santa, they were nowhere around.

I wish dogs could talk so that she could have let me know what had happened to her. She couldn’t use one back leg and was a virtual skeleton from having to fend for herself while being hurt.
The next day at work, she was in her usual place,seated in the middle of the arena watching me ride. I guess miracles do happen around Christmas time, don’t
they?

Thankful Turkey

The fear of all turkeys is that they will wind up dry, resembling a dehydrated “just add water” meal, without the water, rather than the moist delicacy enjoyed by the Pilgrims. To help alleviate this fear, and have the turkeys flocking to your house for Thanksgiving dinner, just follow this moisture guaranteed recipe.

20 lb Turkey
750 ml bottle Chablis Blanc
14 oz pkg bread stuffing mix
1/2 lb butter
8 oz pkg sliced mushrooms
1 c walnuts
1 onion
2 Tbl honey
2 Tbl dried summer savory
1/2 tsp garlic juice
1/2 tsp onion juice
The night before cooking the bird, pour the Chablis into a saucepan, wrap summer savory in a coffee filter and secure with a piece of thread. Cover for the night. Remove summer savory from Chablis (reserving savory for stuffing ) and add butter, garlic juice, onion juice and honey to Chablis. Inject this mixture evenly throughout bird. Melt remaining butter over low heat.
While butter is melting chop onion. When butter is melted add onion and sauté until clear. When onion is clear combine this mixture with stuffing mix, walnuts, mushrooms and summer savory. When this mixture is well blended, loosely stuff body and neck cavities of the bird, tie legs together. Cover and roast for 5 hours on 350. After 4 hours, remove cover and cook for an additional hour or until the wings remove easily when pulled.
Serves 8 to 10.