Eastern Idaho State Fair and My Blue Ribbon Recipes

We had a rainy day on Thursday of last week so we decided it was a perfect time to go to the fair since Andrew can't harvest in the rain. Though I admit it was pretty cold at the fair and pretty wet but the plus was that the fairgrounds were pretty empty and we didn't have to wait a half an hour to get our favorite Tiger Ears!

(humongous scones)

Despite the cold we had a good time and stayed indoors most of the time.

The first place we visited were the horses since I know I can depend on the Barney Shires to be in their regular spot in the Horse stalls. Kim Barney is good friend and old roommate of mine and she and her husband have these big beautiful shire horses. They were kind enough to let Leah jump up on one. She was really excited at first to just look at them but once we put her up on top of the horse she said, "Mommy, let's get outta here!"

So Andrew pulled her down and notice she wouldn't even look back at the horse after that. What a silly girl. She just likes to view the horses from afar.

The rabbits, however, got to be poked at and pinched. She wasn't afraid of these little guys, she would giggle when they would sniff their little noses at her fingers. Lily sat in her stroller and pointed and made cute little noises. I could tell both girls were thrilled to see all of the barnyard animals we have been reading so much about in their little storybooks.

We saw the 4-Hers do their thing and show off their goats. The same girl one every comp. she entered. Her goats were "spectacular"! I guess...... if you can really call goats spectacular. Mom and Dad, you have a comment?

We visited the quilt barn and noticed some beautiful quilts but this one caught my eye the most! And how could it not with all of those colors. IF you click on the picture you will see how tiny each and every strip is on this quilt. It's pretty amazing! The back was several large pieces of pink fabric, she must like pink.

We also went to the commercial barn and Andrew was fixed on finding something he could use on the farm. And that he did. The salesman says that this new product, Aluminum rod, will fix all our aluminum needs. I admit watching this guy use the aluminum rod to fix holes and slits in aluminum irrigation pipe was pretty impressive. Hope it works for Andrew he was so excited about it!

We also took a stroll through all of the homemaking and canning barn. I was looking at all of the cookies on the shelves and noticed some cookies that looked exactly like the ones that I had made the previous day!

Carrot Cookies! And guess what ribbon they had hanging from the plate? BLUE of course!

Here's a picture of mine I made and they turned out delicious! Notice the missing cookie at the top, yeah, that was Leah a.k.a  Swiper! So if you have carrots and are wondering what else to do with them, here's the Blue Ribbon Carrot Cookie Recipe!

 

1 cup mashed cooked carrots ( about 4 medium)

• I cooked my carrots in the microwave and then mashed them with my Braun hand grinder thing. Worked great!

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup shortening (part margarine or butter) softened

• I did 1/2 shortening and 1/2 butter, they were super soft and moist!

2 eggs

2 cups all purpose or whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup shredded or flaked coconut

1/2 recipe Orange Butter Frosting

 

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix carrots, sugar shortening and eggs.  Stir in flour, baking powder and salt.  Stir in coconut. 

Drop dough by teaspoonsfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake untilalmost no indentation remains when touched, about 8 minutes.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet; cool.  Frost with frosting.  About 5 dozen cookies

 

Frosting:

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup margarine or butter, softened

about 2 T. orange juice

2 tsp. grated orange peel

 

Thanks mom for the recipe!

Also in that building we saw the canned peaches and other such produce. I am alway so impressed with how good they can get their peaches to look inside the jars. I attempted to do the same at home with the box of peaches we ordered but I soon realized that it's like putting a ship in a bottle. Once they are in the bottle it's kind of hard to maneuver the slippery things!  They may not look like blue ribbon quality but they sure taste like it!