Ranch Recipe #3

My Parents, Tecalitlan, Mexico

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(from L-R: our oldest daughter Heather, my father, my backside, my mother,

my husband John and our youngest daughter Katherine.

Our middle daughter Lauren must have been taking the picture.)

I have shared before that ‘making a round’ has always been

one of my family’s favorite things to do.



This photo was taken on a Saturday afternoon, long ago,

when we were

on such a round,

checking one of my father’s crops.

In this case he was growing onions.



I am sure he let one of my girls drive us there.



This was the farming of my life.



In addition to managing a ranch,

my father also farmed ‘on the side’.


So farming for me was about my father,

my brother, John Deere tractors and equipment,

and farm land owned and leased in

areas of South Texas like Ricardo, Fronton, Palito Blanco, Benavides,

Delmita, and finally

on his farm El Perdido in Starr County.

He farmed as little as 200 acres when he first started

as a young man

and up to

4500 acres as his ‘on the side’

farming operation grew.



He grew grain, cotton, watermelons, cantelope, and onions-

all at different times.


Farming for my family

was not the storybook picture

we see in movies,

but rather


the merciless heat of South Texas,

drought,

low slung ranch houses with big rooms,

bird hunting if your farm land had a water hole,

cattle guards,

locked gates built out of heavy iron pipe,

and caliche roads. 

This following recipe is great after making a round.

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Ranch Recipe #5

Picadillo Dip

2 pounds Velveeta cheese

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1 (8 ounce) can sliced mushrooms

1 (10 ounce ) can tomatoes and chiles

1 (6 ounce) can pitted, sliced black olives

Brown ground beef and onions. Drain.

Melt Velveeta in your crock pot.

Add all ingredients, including the ground beef mixture.

Stir to mix.

Serve with fritos.

*Note:  You could drizzle this on a concrete block, and it would taste good.

Serve when the first norther blows in or while watching college

football on tv.

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