Cooking in the West

Since my faithful mare, Tinkerbelle, died, I have been looking for the perfect old lady’s horse. Actually I found him in Ekalaka, Montana, but I can’t wrap my head around the asking price. I have come to realize that the perfect bomb proof Grandma’s horse is going to cost me about a trailer load of calves, but I am struggling with writing a check that size for something that could die the next day.

Several years ago, I realized that I no longer had any desire to hit the ground coming off a horse. After the cows were all worked, it was time to move them to a new pasture. There was only one horse left at the corral, which is usually a sign that there is a good reason for that. Nevertheless, I volunteered to ride C.D., an older paint horse for two reasons: A. He is over ten years old. B. I had never seen him buck--ever. It was a cool breezy day and daylight was disappearing quickly, so I jumped in my mother-in-law’s saddle, which suffice it to say was a small skosh . I was sort of perched halfway up the cantle with jockey length stirrups, but surely I could be of some help. Wrong!

As we trotted out to gather up the cows and start them for the pasture gate, my old paint mount pinned his ears and began to crow hop and then jump around in a stiff legged manner that signaled he was not happy. I slowed him to a walk, and he was fine. Every time I would try to trot him out, he would do the crow hop/stiff legged bounce. We were quickly falling behind, which made him even more agitated. My sister-in-law Renee suggested that I just lope him out, and he would soon get tired of this geriatric bucking display he was putting on. I tried that, but the lopes were getting much too high and choppy for someone perched on the cantle with short stirrups--especially if that someone was getting a bit long in the tooth.

Next, I did something I would have never done in my younger days; I pulled him up, got off him, tied the reins around his neck so the other riders would know he hadn’t bucked me off, and set off walking behind the cows until I could hitch a ride on a four wheeler. We will never know if he could have actually bucked me off or not, but the beauty of growing older is that I don’t care. I have reached the age where I no longer have to prove anything to myself, the horse, or anyone else. I think maybe I have finally become a grown up and a big chicken, which might be synonymous!

I can remember quite vividly the last time I got bucked off out of sheer stupidity, which was when Tinkerbelle was young.

Fortunately there were no witnesses to my descent, so I can tell the story pretty much as I choose, which is the beauty of being the storyteller instead of the story teller. Nevertheless, I will recount it fairly accurately, only because the people who tried to convince me to go to the Emergency Room predicted the true version would never be printed.

Anyway, I was loping down the road on my nice gentle mare, Tinkerbelle, who was a three-year-old at the time. I was leading an old broke horse, because that is the backwards stupid thing to do, when the neighbor’s dog shot out behind us. Immediately forgetting she was nice and gentle, Tinkerbelle instantly propelled herself airborne, sunfishing and bawling and tearing up the hardpan road with stiff-legged bucking. Oh wait, no, that’s not what happened. That’s the story I made up while I was lying pain-racked in the road. Actually, she took one gigantic jump sideways and crashed into the broke horse. He pulled back, and I plummeted to earth on the road between them.

My first thought was that I was dead, because there was a lot of dirt in my eyes, nose, and mouth. Then I realized the dirt was not on top of me; it was underneath me. Besides that, I don’t think dead people are supposed to feel searing pain. My next thought was that I had the wind knocked out of me, because that had been standard operating procedure in several of my previous experiences of being bucked off. Amazingly, I was breathing out and was just fine. I must have a broken back, I decided. I conducted self-diagnosis like we go through on the playground when someone falls off the monkey bars. (The teacher asks in a calm-voice imitation, “Can you wiggle your fingers? Can you wiggle your toes? Do your parents have medical insurance?”) I had great insurance, and my toes and fingers worked, so I tried my arms and legs, and they seemed to be fine. Then I tried rolling over, and that was when I discovered the extent of my injuries. I hurt my behind! I had suffered nothing spectacular - no spinal injury, no concussion, no compound limb fracture. No, I had a major gluteus maximus contusion!

If you think that cushioning a fall with your posterior is not serious, I must tell you that I hit so hard that 52¢ from my pocket and one of my post earrings were found later when my father-in-law was examining the crash site. Believe me when I say I hit like a ton of bricks...or with proportionate force for my mass, air speed, and wind velocity anyway.

Looking back, I realize that the good thing about it was that it happened so fast that I didn’t have time to worry about it nor to watch any lifetime images pass before my eyes. It was unlike my other near-death experience that happened in Roundup, Montana, during the Cattle Drive of 1989. I had been standing in the street when the herd of huge longhorn steers saw the wall of people on Main Street and turned back. I thought about a lot of things as I lay face down on the pavement on First Street East. Mostly I thought that being run down in the street by an overgrown steer was a strange way to go. Turns out, it was an 80-year-old lady, who was also fleeing from the steers, that had run me over and was breathing down the back of my neck. The only fatal injury that I could possibly have died from in that accident was embarrassment.

What is the point of this rambling story you ask? I am not sure, because I am old, and I fear I have forgotten where I was going with all this, but I am finished with a column that brings me a few bucks closer to buying my dream horse in Ekalaka!

My featured cook this week is a classy lady, my former County Superintendent colleague, Charlotte Miller of Powder River County. Thanks, Charlotte!

Pizza Casserole:

1 can Grands biscuits

15 oz. jar pizza sauce

1 lb. ground beef

2 C. grated cheese

green pepper

chopped onions

mushrooms

pepperoni

Brown hamburger and drain. Cut Grands biscuits into quarters. Place it on the bottom of a greased 9 X 13 pan. Once hamburgers are drained, add one jar of pizza sauce. Pour over biscuits. May add additional ingredients such as pepperoni, mushrooms, chopped onion and green pepper.) Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Pull from the oven, top with shredded cheese, and return to the oven for 5 minutes until the cheese melts.

Cake Mix Fruit Cobbler:

1 white or yellow cake mix

1 C. Half ‘n Half

1 C. sugar

4 C. fresh or frozen fruit

Mix cake mix as directed. Pour into a greased 9 X 13 pan. Add fruit (apples, blueberries or other favorite berries, rhubarb, or peaches). Sprinkle 1 C. sugar over fruit. Pour one cup Half ‘n Half over the mixture. Add cinnamon to taste. Bake for one hour at 350 degrees. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake:

Coffee Cake:

2 1/2 C. flour

3/4 C. sugar

3/4 C. cold butter, cubed

1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

3/4 C. sour cream

1 egg

1 t. almond extract

Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 C. sugar

1 egg

1/2 C. raspberry jam

Topping:

1/2 C. sliced almonds

Combine flour and sugar. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs, reserving 1 C. crumb mixture. To the remaining crumb mixture, add baking powder, soda, salt, sour cream, egg, and almond extract. Blend well. Spread batter over bottom and 2 inches up the side of a greased and floured 9 inch Springform pan. Batter should be 1/4 inch thick on the sides. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, 1/4 C. sugar and egg until smooth. Pour over batter in the pan. Carefully spoon jam evenly over cheese filling. In a small bowl, combine reserved flour mixture and almonds. Sprinkle over top. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 to 60 minutes or until cream cheese filling is set and the crust is a deep golden brown. Cool 15 minutes. Remove sides of pan. Serve warm or cool.