Category: Recipes

How to Make Great Tasting Stuffed Eggs

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Have you ever noticed how popular stuffed eggs are at picnics? It seems they are often all eaten. They are a wonderful way to eat eggs.

For the best tasting stuffed eggs you need to begin with eggs that have been raised right; eggs that taste wonderful because of the wonderful grass and nutritious feed the hens ate. Of course, fresh eggs are the best. But you may have noticed that fresh eggs don’t typically peel well. There is an easy remedy for this. If the eggs are less than 2 weeks old, bring the water in your kettle to a boil before you put the eggs into the kettle. When the water is boiling, add the eggs with a slotted spoon into the cooking pot and bring the water to a boil again. Then immediately turn the burner down as low as possible and cook the eggs for 10 minutes. As soon as your 10 minute timer goes off, let the coldest tap water run into the kettle until the eggs are cooled. If you don’t want the water to run that long, run the water for a little and then add ice to cool down the eggs quickly. This also helps to avoid making the eggs in which the outside of the yolks turn gray. There is nothing wrong with an egg like that, but it doesn’t look as appetizing.

When the eggs are cooled, peel them and cut each egg in half lengthwise. Carefully pop the yolks into a pie plate or other flat dish. Use a potato masher or fork to mash the yolks.

Now for the great taste I’m going to give some general instructions rather than exact measurements. It is the cook’s prerogative to taste the food to make sure it is just how you want it.

Add some mayonnaise and a little mustard; enough to make the mashed yolks creamy instead of dry. Add a little onion powder or maybe a little minced onion. Sprinkle on a little salt if it needs it. Stuffed eggs are also wonderful with a little dill weed in the yolks or some curry powder. Be creative and add whatever spices you think you’d like. Just remember that you can always add more, but you can’t take out spices so start with a little.

I like plenty of yolk mixture in my stuffed eggs so I always get rid of a few misshapen egg whites. Fill the egg whites with the yolk mixture so that it is mounded a little over the egg white shell and so that you can’t tell which end of the egg white the yolk was. When the eggs are all stuffed, you can sprinkle some dill or paprika or some other spice on top of the eggs if you so desire.

Happy Egging!

Pulled Chicken

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This recipe is a form of BBQ chicken, but has a unique flavor because of the orange juice and lots of cayenne pepper sauce. Yes, 1/3 cup is the right amount of hot sauce. Cayenne pepper sauce is a milder variety of hot sauce that adds tang and flavor, not just heat. If your chicken is large, just double the amount of sauce you prepare. This recipe is delicious served with mashed potatoes.

2 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 whole chicken (about 3 1/2 pounds), cut into quarters
1/3 cup cayenne pepper sauce*
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

In a 5-quart Dutch oven or sauce pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and green pepper and cook until tender and browned, about 20 minutes. When vegetables are tender, add chicken quarters, cayenne pepper sauce, orange juice, brown sugar, ketchup, and vinegar. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 1 hour or until chicken is very tender.

With a slotted spoon, transfer chicken to large plate, cool slightly. Skim fat from sauce in Dutch oven. Remove meat from bones; discard bones and skin. With two forks, pull meat into large shreds. Return meat to Dutch oven. Cook, uncovered, over medium-high heat until heated through.

From Good Housekeeping Best Chicken Dishes.

Sunday Fried Chicken

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This chicken recipe is a little more involved, but always worth it. There’s always extra coating left after I’ve coated the chicken pieces. I put the extra coating in a ziploc bag in the freezer and label it. Then I use it for a coating for any meat I want to fry.

2 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons dry mustard
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons garlic salt
1 tablespoon celery salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 tablespoon pepper (optional)
Chicken pieces from Jehovah-Jireh Farm
Cooking oil (I recommend coconut oil)

Combine all ingredients except chicken and oil. Place about 1 cup flour mixture in a paper or plastic  bag. Shake a few chicken pieces in the bag at a time, coating well. On medium-high, heat 1/4 inch of oil in a large skillet. Brown chicken on all sides; remove to a shallow baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes or until done. Recipe makes enough coating for three chickens. Store unused mixture in an airtight container.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: Saucy Apricot Chicken

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This recipe doesn’t keep you in the kitchen very long, but it is simply delicious.

8 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each)
2 to 3 tablespoons butter
1 cup apricot jam
1 cup Catalina or French salad dressing
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
1 teaspoon salt

In a large skillet, brown chicken in butter over medium heat for 3 minutes on each side or until lightly browned. Combine the apricot jam, salad dressing, minced onion and salt; pour over the chicken. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until juices run clear. Delicious served over rice. Yield 8 servings.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: The Well Equipped Kitchen Workshop

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I, Myron, am writing Cathy’s Cooking Corner this month for the husband or wife that is not doing the cooking, or that does not do most of the cooking.

You have kicked the cheap food and prepared foods mentality of our American culture and are eating real foods. In the cheap food culture, all that is needed is a coffeemaker, a microwave, a stove and oven and a few pots and pans. The kitchen is not a very important workshop. Most of the cooking is done in a big factory somewhere.

In changing to a real foods diet, your kitchen needs to be properly equipped to quickly and efficiently prepare real foods and health giving meals. View the kitchen as a very important workshop that needs to be properly equipped with quality tools and equipment. The tools and equipment do not need to be expensive, just good quality.

I have tried to make it a priority to make sure that Cathy’s kitchen is properly equipped with the tools that she needs. We keep adding things as we can afford them and when we can find them. Unfortunately, most kitchen stores such as Bed, Bath, and Beyond are filled with electronic gadgets and cheaply made small appliances that are not designed for real cooking with real foods. You can find quality made items, but it takes some looking around.

The take home message this month is: If you want to be healthy and eat right, equip your kitchen workshop so that you can eat right and be healthy.


After burning up several expensive homeowner type mixers, we bought this used 20 quart commercial mixer at an auction. It takes a lot of work out of making bread or large batches of cookies. Cathy can now make seven loaves of bread at a time. She puts some of the bread in the freezer to keep it fresh.

For more on this subject, read the article from last year: Selecting Pots and Pans.

“Crazy” Farmers Eat Two Breakfasts!

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We eat two breakfasts about five days a week. After learning several years ago that we get 80% of our energy from the air and sun, we realized that we could make a greater improvement on our health by focusing on the 80% in addition to the 20% – our food. After the normal food breakfast, we gather in the living room for about 20 minutes of spirited, four-part singing around the keyboard for our air breakfast. Each of the children have learned to sing harmony – alto, tenor, or bass. We take a hymnbook and start at the beginning and sing each song whether we know it or not. It is amazing how many excellent, beautiful songs there are that are not being sung, and the old “worn out” hymns are the ones that everyone sings. The singing makes an invigorating way to start the day. Cathy and I met while singing on the Rosedale Chorale from Rosedale Bible College in Ohio. We traveled together on two chorale tours in the US and Canada totaling over 12,000 miles.

Singing or playing the harmonica is an excellent way to develop one’s lungs. Dr. Alexander Beddoe, one of Carey Reams’s students, said that one of the best ways to increase our body’s intake of oxygen is to sing or play the harmonica several times a day. He said that it is not the inhaling that is important, but the controlled release of the air that helps the lungs take the oxygen out of the air. When we sing, we take a deep breath and then slowly release the air as we sing a phrase. It is the opposite principle of the lung exercising tool that they give to patients in the hospital that focuses on creating a vacuum by sucking with the lungs and then you give a quick exhale so you can take a breath again.

The concept that people, animals, and plants receive 80% of their nutrients from the air is a revolutionary concept when it comes to how we think about feeding ourselves and feeding plants. I had verified to my own satisfaction that plants receive at least 80% of their nutrients from the air. I shared some of my finding in the article “The Most Important Plant Food – In Your Face and You Can’t See It” https://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2010/06/14/the-most-important-plant-food-in-your-face-and-you-cant-see-it/

For people, it was more difficult to verify that we receive a significant amount of our nourishment from the air and sunshine. Some time ago, I read an article and I can’t locate it now, about how the human body radiates infrared light. The article stated that the body uses about 2000 calories to produce the infrared light in a 24 hour day. If a person eats a 2000 calorie diet each day and burns 2000 calories walking, working, and other activities, and burns another 2000 calories producing infrared light; and you subtract off the unused food in the waste that is excreted, we find that there is not enough calories used from the food to provide the 4000 calories that the body burned. We get the additional energy from the air.

An excellent article that explains how air (oxygen) is combined with the atoms from our food to produce the atomic energy that our bodies run on is titled “You, Me and Energy”. It explains how air is as an important an energy source for our bodies as the food we eat.   http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Body%20Energy/body_energy.htm

If anyone has any more information on how much energy our bodies take from the air, I am interested in hearing it.

For more on the importance of air as a food, you can read my article in the newsletter archives: “Trying to Stay Healthy Wrapped in Plastic and Living in a Sealed Insulated Box, Starving Ourselves From a Food We Can’t See”
https://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2010/11/19/trying-to-stay-healthy-wrapped-in-plastic-and-living-in-a-sealed-insulated-box-starving-ourselves-from-a-food-we-cant-see/
https://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2010/11/27/trying-to-stay-healthy-wrapped-in-plastic-and-living-in-a-sealed-insulated-box-starving-ourselves-from-a-food-we-cant-see-update/

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

Fried Turkey Cutlets 

This is by far Myron’s favorite way to eat turkey. It’s delicious, moist, tender, and so quick and easy. It is sure to get compliments from your guests.Cut turkey breast meat into 1/4 inch slices across the meat fibers. Dip in flour and sprinkle both sides of cutlets with salt. Fry in oil or butter just until no longer pink. Do not over fry it or it will get more dried out and tough.

Fajita Chicken and Vegetables on Rice

1 1/2 – 2 lbs. chicken breast
1 large onion, sliced
3 large carrots, peeled and sliced
1 lb whole green beans (can be frozen)
Rice, cooked
Oil for frying

Sauce:
1/4 c. oil
1/4 c. vinegar
1/2 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. salt

Cut chicken breast into into strips or bite size pieces. Stir the fajita sauce ingredients together and pour over the chicken. Stir to coat. Let set 1 hour and up to 24 hours. Fry the chicken pieces in a small amount of oil. Spoon into a large oven proof bowl. Set in a 200 degree oven to keep warm. Stir fry the carrots and onions in a little oil till crisp tender. Add to chicken. Stir fry the green beans in the remaining fajita sauce until crisp tender. Add to the chicken and veggies. Mix everything together. Serve over rice. (Note: You can also use leftover roasted chicken that you have taken off the bones.)

Have a blessed Christmas and Holiday Season!
Myron and Cathy Horst and Family

Jehovah-Jireh Farm
https://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

Cathy recently wrote a blog post for the Pantry Paratus website that you might find interesting on homeschooling on the farm.

The Kitchen Classroom with Cathy from Jehovah-Jireh Farm
http://pantryparatus.com/blog/homeschooling_farm/

Sunny Side Up Eggs

When I fry eggs I usually fry them on one side and then flip them over and fry the other side. This method is usually recommended so that the eggs are completely cooked. Restaurants are not allowed to sell sunny side up eggs because of the chance that they will not be cooked enough to kill bacteria.

Myron wanted some sunny side up eggs like he had when he was a boy, but I always hesitated at the problem of getting them over fried on the underside and not done enough on top. Recently I remembered seeing my mother put a little water in the pan with the eggs and then putting on the lid. I decided to try it. It did the trick. The eggs weren’t overdone but still cooked through the way he likes them. After 25 years of marriage and cooking, I am still learning some pretty basic new things.

Crack the eggs into your skillet. Fry them on the underside with a little butter. When the eggs are ready to be flipped, instead pour several tablespoons of water into the pan and cover it immediately. Cook them till they’re done as much as you like them.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner: Selecting Pots and Pans

By Myron Horst

Cathy and the girls do the cooking and the boys and I take care of most of the farm work. One of my priorities is that Cathy’s workshop (the kitchen) is properly outfitted with the tools and equipment that she needs to work efficiently and provide good-tasting food. Before we started farming, I worked for 14 years in the Washington DC area in high-end houses, observing people’s kitchens and the pots and pans that they had in their kitchens. Actually, I was a carpenter and cabinet maker, and worked for months at a time in different houses and would see what kind of pots and pans that they were using. It was very interesting seeing firsthand how wealthy people lived. That lifestyle was not as appealing to me viewing it from the inside as it looked from the outside. One of the things that amazed me was the poor quality cookware that many people had. Some did not know how to cook, and felt a certain amount of inferiority because if it. Cathy’s pots and pans were better quality than what many of those people had, even though they had many times the level of income that I had.

Pots and pans do not make a good cook, but poor quality cookware makes it much more difficult to achieve good results. Poor quality cookware burns the food much more quickly and requires closer attention during the cooking or frying process. If the food doesn’t burn on the bottom of a pan, it is much easier to wash up. Price is not necessarily a good indicator in buying good cookware.


One of the most important things to look for is a thick, heavy bottom. You can see that the skillet on the left and the pot on the right have extra metal attached to the bottom. A thick bottom is important to distribute the heat evenly and prevent “hot” spots that burn easily. The center pan is a Farberware pan and is a good choice also. It has received a lot of use. It has a layer of aluminum to distribute the heat evenly over the bottom. Handles on pots and pans are attached by welding or with rivets. The best attachment is heavy rivets like what is on the skillet on the left.


The stock pot on the right is the best designed with a thick bottom and riveted handles. The glass lid is a nice feature also. I purchased it at the Asian grocery store, H-Mart, in Gaithersburg for a very reasonable price.


The stock pot on the left is a piece of junk as cookware. The bottom is very thin. I bought it at a thrift store for $3 and it had a spot of burnt food tightly stuck to the bottom. I bought it as a stainless steel container for making cheese and uses other than cooking. The stock pot on the right has spot welds that hold the handles in place. So far they have held up well, but it is a weak point that is not as strong as rivets.


This is Cathy’s favorite roaster pan. The lid can be used as a skillet. Both the pan and the lid have thick bottoms. It is also attractive enough that it can be set on the table to serve from.


This is Cathy’s favorite non-stick skillet. It is a cast iron skillet with a wood handle. The wood handle is nice because you do not have to use a pot holder to handle it. It is probably over 50 years old and will last many more years of hard use. We have tried many kinds of non-stick skillets. Some were guaranteed to last 25 years. Before long, they got scratched and the coating started coming off. After hearing about the dangers of the chemicals in non-stick pans, we abandoned them. To make a cast iron skillet non-stick, “season” it by coating it with oil and let the pan get hot until the oil starts to smoke a little before you put food into it. Do this any time the cast iron gets the oil washed off. It has to have the oil to make it non-stick. A cast iron skillet is so easy to wash. Do not wash it with soap, because it will remove the oils in the metal. Just scrub it with a stainless steel scrubbing pad while running hot water over it. Dry it with a paper towel.


We do not have a microwave because of what it does to the food when it cooks it. To cook things quickly, Cathy bought this new style of pressure cooker that is much easier to use than the old style of pressure cooker, and it cooks food in a short period of time. If you buy one, get a cookbook that explains how to use it. One that we recommend is Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna Sass.


When it is hot, Cathy sometimes uses this large electric roaster and sets it on the porch. That way, she does not have to use the oven and heat up the kitchen.

Cathy’s Cooking Corner

In our family we eat lots of eggs for breakfast. Broth poached eggs are a favorite of ours.

Broth Poached Eggs

Pour chicken or beef broth into a kettle or skillet to a one inch depth. Bring to a boil. Crack each egg gently into the broth. Simmer till they are the done to your preference.


Broth poached eggs have rich flavor.

Barbeque Chicken
After selling fresh chickens in May, all the chickens that were left were on the smaller size. So we cut them into split halves. We sell them as grilling halves for $5.29/lb. We think they are fabulous grilled with the following recipe.

2 cups vinegar
2 cups water
1 stick butter
8 tsp. salt
4 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Bring to a boil. Marinate the chicken in this sauce for one hour before grilling. Brown both sides of the chicken well on the grill. I recommend grilling each side twice. Put into a hot crockpot on high for two to three hours, until the meat is very soft. You can also bake the chicken in the oven in a tightly closed casserole dish at 300 degrees for one to two hours instead of in the crockpot.

Have a wonderful Spring!

Myron and Cathy Horst and Family

Jehovah-Jireh Farm
https://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/