Week of August 12, 2024
NEWS RELEASES
Cuming County Extension Board to Meet
The Cuming County Extension Board will meet for their August meeting on Monday, August 26th, at 7:00 p.m. in the Cuming County Courthouse Meeting Room. The agenda for the meeting is available for review at Nebraska Extension in Cuming County.
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SOURCE: Hannah Guenther, Extension Educator
RELEASE DATE; August 12, 2024
Food, Nutrition, & Health
Hannah Guenther, Extension Educator
Nebraska Extension Serving Cuming County
Week of August 5, 2024
Gardens are growing! Everyone is busy reaping the benefits of their hard work with garden produce and this year the cucumbers and zucchini are showing up. Both mild in flavor and delicious in their own way, they are slightly (dare I say) boring. There is only so much you can do beyond cucumber salad and zucchini bread. So today here are some unique ideas of how to utilize and use up your cucumbers and zucchini.
1. Cucumber Sandwiches. I know your mind is instantly going to a tea party but hear me out! Cucumbers are a great addition to sandwiches and wraps adding an extra crunch. I love to add cucumbers to turkey sandwiches, chicken wraps, or to a toasted piece of whole grain bread with cream cheese.
2. Cucumber Salad. I'm not talking about the one slathered in mayo or the one with sugar and onions (although those are delicious). Instead, I like to use cucumbers in a fresh herbaceous salad with chopped cucumbers, diced red onion, fresh mint, dill, feta, and drizzled with olive oil and lemon. This pairs beautifully with grilled chicken, shrimp or salmon!
3. Hai Hai inspired Beef Bowls. One of the recipes that has been on repeat in our house this summer is a recreation of a meal that we had at a Southeast Asian restaurant in Minneapolis, Hai Hai. This simple dish was rice, seasoned ground beef and marinated cucumbers. To make it at home we cook up lean ground beef and season with salt, pepper, and a little teriyaki sauce. While the rice is cooking, we dice up cucumbers and toss with a little rice wine vinegar. In a bowl, add 1 scoop of rice, I scoop of beef, and the diced cucumbers. It's refreshing, filling, and so good.
4. Zucchini Salsa. Let's turn the tables and focus on zucchini. I brought this recipe to the farmer's market, and it was a hit! Zucchini Salsa is very similar to a Pico but with squash instead of a tomato base. It's a great dish to enjoy by the pool, at the lake, or at home for a healthy snack. To make add 1 large, diced zucchini to a bowl. Add in 2 diced Roma tomatoes, 1 bunch of cilantro, and 1 diced onion. Add in the juice of 1 lime and salt to taste. Serve with tortilla chips.
5. Zucchini Pasta. Zucchini doesn't have a lot of flavors on it's own which makes it a great addition to a variety of dishes including pasta! Saute onion, zucchini and corn in a pan until soft. Add salt and red pepper flake. When the pasta is done cooking, drain and add in some butter with the sauteed vegetables. Top with parmesan for a delicious summer pasta.
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Week of July 8, 2024
Summer and slow cookers are not something you really think go together, but during warm summer months with temperatures steadily rising – your slow cooker is a great appliance to get dinner on the table without warming your kitchen. When you fire up the oven, opening and closing the door releases hot air into your home making your AC unit have to kick it into overdrive. The slow cooker will cook your food without warming your home, making it the perfect summer cooking appliance.
Let's review some basic tips and tricks when using your slow cooker:
1. First, always thaw meat and poultry in the refrigerator before cooking in the slow cooker. The slow cooker uses a low and slow cooking method, so to ensure that food is cooked safely and properly – thaw meats and poultry completely in the fridge prior to cooking.
2. Next, make sure not to over fill or under fill your slow cooker! Your slow cooker should be filled no less than half full and no more than 2/3 full. Under or over filled slow cookers can affect the cooking time, quality, and safety of the food involved.
3. Finally, with the slow cooker using the low and slow cooking method it makes it perfect for tough cuts of meat. This allows you to stretch your food dollars. For even cooking, try cutting larger cuts into even pieces.
Many of us pack away the slow cooker after winter months because chili, roasts, and soups don't sound as appetizing during the heat of summer. But the slow cooker is capable of cooking a variety of foods that are perfect for summer meals!
One of my family's favorite meals in the summer is tacos. I let my slow cooker do the work by adding boneless chicken breasts with a pack of taco seasoning and one cup chicken broth. I cook it on low for 6 hours or until chicken is completely shred-able. From there we load up our whole wheat tortillas with chicken, fresh tomatoes, lettuce, cilantro, and avocado for a simple, nutritious supper.
Headed to a family barbeque? There is no need to slave over the stove to make up a batch of baked beans, let your slow cooker do the work! Rinse and soak 1lb of navy beans for 10-12 hours followed by draining all the liquid. In your crock pot, lay down a layer of bacon followed by the beans, and one diced onion. Then mix together a sauce of 6 oz tomato paste, 1/3 cup maple syrup, ¼ cup brown sugar, and 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, salting as needed.
Finish off your meal with a sweet treat with the help of your slow cooker. Fill the liner of your greased slow cooker with 3 cups of fresh or frozen peaches and 3 cups of fresh or frozen berries. Add the juice of ½ a lemon, 3 tbsp sugar and ¼ tsp salt. Cook for 90 min – 2 hours and serve over ice cream!
Although you may need to pull it out of storage, summer is a great time to use your slow cooker for easy cooking that won't heat your home.
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Week of June 24, 2024
I married into a pretty great family if I do say so myself. This was confirmed this past week for two key reasons. The first being that after attending a family wedding in Georgia and breaking out my dance moves, they still claimed me. The other reason is I always get a call when Grandma Jan's herbs need a haircut. Last year I came back from lunch to the largest bucket of herbs that I have ever seen. This year she sent me home with a grocery sack full of herbs, oregano, rosemary, and more! To repay her for green gifts, all she asked was for an article about new ways to use herbs – so Grandma Jan, this one is for you.
It is that time of year when herb gardens are peaking, and it is hard to always know how to use herbs. Nutritionally herbs are a great way to infuse flavor without fat and calories, so here are ten new ways to cook with herbs.
1. Sandwich or Salad
Leafy herbs like basil, cilantro, oregano, or parsley make a perfect addition to sandwiches or salads. I love adding basil to turkey and tomato sandwiches or adding cilantro to my taco salad.
2. Compound Butter
Compound butter is simply another name for a flavored or infused butter. Soften butter slightly and add a mixture of herbs, refrigerate until solid and enjoy. My favorite addition is adding chopped rosemary and then using that butter to spread on toasted bread or all over a roast chicken.
3. Marinades
We are in the middle of grilling season and herbs play a crucial role in the development of flavor through marinades. One of my favorites is a cilantro lime marinate that is made using an entire bunch of chopped cilantro, the juice of three limes, salt, and vegetable oil. It makes for a delicious marinate for skirt steak or chicken.
4. Potato Salad
One of my favorite ways to use herbs is to brighten and lighten up a typically heavy recipe like potato salad. Instead of mayo, I like to toss my boiled potatoes in a light dressing made of olive oil, lemon, chives, and dill.
5. Pesto
Probably my favorite way to use up a large amount of herbs is by making a pesto. Many associate pesto with basil, but you can use a variety of herbs to make unique pesto recipes. A combination of herbs including basil, parsley, cilantro, and mint then paired with parmesan, lemon, garlic, and some toasted nuts makes for delicious pesto. I love adding pesto to pastas, sandwiches, and eggs!
6. Veggie Dip
If you have plain Greek yogurt in your fridge and herbs in your garden ready for trimming, make a delicious dip! Basil, dill, and chives with Greek yogurt, lemon, salt, and pepper make for a light nutritious vegetable dip.
7. Salad Dressing
Once you make your own salad dressing, I swear you'll never go back. Three parts olive oil to one part acid such as citrus juice or vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and add fresh chopped herbs. Shake to combine and enjoy a homemade salad dressing!
8. Fruit Salad
I love making fruit salads in the summer and my favorite secret ingredient is herbs. For a tropical fruit salad, I love the addition of mint. For a watermelon and feta salad, basil takes it to the next level.
9. Infused Water
With temperatures rising, hydration is so important. For many consuming plain water can be a challenge, but herbs can help! Combine herbs with lemon, lime, or orange slices into a large pitcher of water and enjoy delicious, infused water with added flavor and no added sugar.
10. Any Recipe is Better with Fresh Herbs
Ok. Maybe this last one is a little bit of a cop out, but it's true. It's easy to rely on salt and pepper for the main source of flavor in your recipes, but don't forget about herbs. Next time you are in the kitchen just ask yourself, could I add an herb to that? You might be surprised to find that herbs can provide fresh flavor in almost every recipe from mint in smoothies, to cilantro in salad, to basil in bread.
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Common Sense Farming and Ranching
Alfredo DiCostanzo
Livestock Systems Extension Educator
University of Nebraska
Week of August 12, 2024
Now that the Cuming County Fair is over, it is time for positive reflection, for kicks and giggles.
If you attended the Cuming County Fair last week, I hope you had the opportunity to witness children having fun.
Why should we pay attention to this? Because genuine laughter and fun reflect happiness, and true happiness is born out of a caring environment.
If you are an adult who participated in a fair event or simply visited the fair, it was difficult to miss children running around playing games and enjoying free time with their siblings, relatives or friends. Yes, there may have been bumps or bruises and even some hurt feelings, but I am sure the net outcome will be happy memories.
At a time when we are all bombarded with gadgetry-derived entertainment and communication, recognizing that children still have fun the old-fashioned way is comforting. There were very few instances where a cell phone was in their hands. (Likely an adult checking on or looking for them.)
What does this reveal? Many positive things. But first, congratulations to parents, extended family, teachers and mentors for creating a loving and nurturing environment where children can be children.
We all know that a solid foundation in childhood creates well-adapted, family-driven, and productive citizens. The proof is represented in the generations of adults that precede these children. The communities in Cuming County are thriving.
So, if you are a parent, relative, teacher or mentor to these students, thank you. Keep doing what you have been doing. The children will be grateful for it.
If you are a visitor who was able to contrast this happy behavior to the tantrum-dominated behavior, likely caused by excessive gadget-based babysitting, perhaps you may be able to suggest to their parents and guardians that happiness does not come from those gadgets. It comes from devoting nurturing time with children whose lives they influence, and by permitting them to simply be children.
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Week of July 29, 2024
Sometime ago, Dr. Terry Mader University of Nebraska Professor (retired from Haskell Lab), developed a Cattle Comfort Index (CCI) that is based on temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, and solar radiation. This index is used in the United States and other countries as a measure of the stress the environment is imposing on cattle. It resulted from several years of work both at Concord, NE and in Australia, where cattle also experience heat stress.
Index values are expressed on the temperature scale and are transformable between degrees Celsius and Fahrenheit. Cattle Comfort Index above 95 degrees represent severe heat stress while indices between 86 and 94 degrees represent mild heat stress.
I recently had the opportunity to study this index and work with it to test a database that is maintained at the University of Nebraska. It gave me the opportunity to create a few possible scenarios cattle may experience in high temperature and high humidity environments common to Northeast Nebraska.
For this exercise, I fixed solar radiation at the maximum, no cloud cover, and permitted relative humidity to vary from 50% to 99% at temperatures between 75 and 95 °F (5-degree increments) with wind speeds changing from 2 to 16 miles per hour. Using the threshold for severe heat stress index (95 °F), I set out to determine tradeoffs between these factors to prioritize heat stress abatement strategies.
• Heat stress will become severe at 85 °F when wind speeds are below 8 mph even at low humidity. Blocking 66% (or 66% cloud cover) or more solar radiation will permit air cooling from wind speeds below 8 mph.
• When temperatures are at or above 90 °F with wind speeds even as high as 16 mph and 50% humidity, heat stress will be severe if no solar radiation is blocked.
• At 70% humidity with temperatures in the 90's under shade or 100% cloud cover, wind speeds of 6 mph or better reduce CCI below the severe threshold. Under shade or cloud 100% cover at 95 °F, however, wind speeds must be faster than 10 mph to reduce CCI below the severe threshold.
Prioritizing use of shades reduces radiation protection while breezy days and nights contribute to cooling cattle even at single digit speeds.
Using this approach, one can also prove how high nighttime temperatures prevent cattle from cooling from the effects of daytime temperatures, particularly in still nights.
• A 75 °F still night with 85% humidity keeps the CCI within the moderate stress range by preventing cattle from cooling themselves before facing another hot day.
This is when alternative management approaches may be used. Wetting concrete surfaces, such as bunk aprons or slopes may help cattle cool faster at night when temperature and humidity are high in still nights.
I am grateful that this information was generated, in our own backyard by one of our scientists, to be able to devise and discuss strategies to minimize heat stress. This approach is straightforward and requires no access to experimental animals or facilities.
It is my sincere hope that you and your crew have had an uneventful heat event. Please reach out to me if you have any additional questions.
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Week of July 15, 2024
Micro-scale observations from a feeder market
Last week, I had the opportunity to be near a sale barn where sales of feeder yearlings and calves are reflecting the current interest by cattle feeders to fill yards. I also was fortunate to visit with folks who sold cattle at those sales.
The satisfaction with price trends was obvious; there was little to be disappointed about. Prices were good and, that day, over 8,000 head moved from the area to feedlots in Nebraska and other locations.
Amidst the good feeling the sale created for sellers, sale barn owners, and, hopefully, the feeders that bought cattle there, I asked myself a few questions: beyond the obvious market trends, including the attraction to feeding black cattle, what minor nuances affect market conditions and how can a cow-calf or stocker/yearling operator capture the most value from cattle they raise.
A few observations from the day and discussions with folks who bought and sold cattle there are in order.
Quality market outlets are quality market outlets and strive to retain that reputation. There is a high expectation by buyers and sale barn owners that high-quality cattle will be traded there. Thus, if a producer plans to market cattle there, they must be prepared to raise or purchase cattle of the quality buyers and sale barn owners expect.
This means that from the moment a genetic, selection or purchasing decision is made, the standards of that market outlet must be a driver of that decision. On the other hand, the wrong genetic selection or purchasing decision will cost more than the discounts it will generate such as holding or transportation costs to wait for or to seek a different date or outlet.
Although this seems obvious, it probably should be reiterated, quality cattle market outlets demand and thrive on quality cattle.
Despite this observation, even quality market outlets must sell a proportion of cattle that fit different standards whether that would be cull cows or bulls, broken-mouthed cows, off-season births, and they must accommodate the "tails" resulting from genetic dispersion (outliers resulting from well-planned mating decisions).
One might be inclined to suggest that if genetic, selection or purchasing decisions led to cattle not fitting the standards of quality for that outlet, particularly for sales labeled "special," cattle resulting from those decisions should be sold at a less "special" time at that market or elsewhere.
Even folks who were extremely happy with the outcome of their lots commented on how they sorted off cattle from the main groups they brought to the sale. In their case, cattle they are preparing to sell in August are all black; yet they will sort off cattle that are smaller in stature or weight, those that have off-black (reddish or brown hair) coats or still carry heavier (and rough) coats.
This represents another obvious observation, and a regular recommendation found in trade magazines or extension publications, but one for which a real-life example is made. These folks understand the demands of their market and their customers. They are concerned enough with the downside of a sorting decision. On a micro-scale, the market is driving that.
This was not an isolated comment, many of the folks I spoke with shared the same message. Because many of them raise large drafts of yearlings on grass, procuring the right type of cattle is the start of their quality control program. A particular example of individuals selecting weaned, lightweight heifers stuck with me.
You may ask yourself: how does the industry come about weaned, lightweight heifers in large enough drafts for a stocker operation to purchase? The answer is: it is not easy.
If a buyer is looking for lightweight heifers, in most markets, these are the discarded small size lots from either larger or ununiform groups. Eventually, one might fill a 100-head load but there may be over 10 ranches represented.
For this case, the individual works with their order buyer to find late season-born spring heifers of uniform genetic background and size, wherever that might be.
Special yearling sales occur in mid-summer at many locations. Many locations feature high-quality cattle sales. Yet, as a seller, understanding the objectives of the sale barn you intend to sell cattle at is a priority driver in decision making.
Sale barns have well established goals and operations. Thus, it is up to you to determine for yourself the following:
• Who is purchasing cattle at that barn and when?
• What are they looking for?
• What do they discount against?
• Am I ready to perform the necessary sorting to send uniform lots of cattle desirable at that market?
• Am I ready to seek (or raise) the cattle buyers are looking for in that market?
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Common Sense Farming & Ranching
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