Our goal is to share our joy of horses with you! With over 50 years experience with hunters/jumpers and dressage our focus is horsemanship and safety but most importantly FUN with horses. These amazing animals have taught us so much, helped us forge countless friendships and opened doors to so many opportunities we love sharing our experience and knowledge. Lessons for Littles  $40 (30 mins*) Let your little one learn to safely play, feed, brush, and ride a pony in a fun environment. shorter lesson length to accommodate little attention spans and a great introduction to riding. 5 years and under. Lessons for Beginners  $55 (60 min*) Riders learn how to groom, lead, feed, tack up, and ride with a focus on safety and horsemanship. 6+ years. Hunter/Jumper/Dressage lessons $65  For more experienced riders. We can come to your facility to teach you on your horse. *All lesson times are approximate as we tailor the lesson to fit each riders ability and aim to always end on a happy note for horse and rider which may mean the lesson runs a few mins longer or shorter. All riders must long pants or breeches, a closed-toe shoe or boot and a helmet. We have some helmets to lend if possible please bring a bike helmet until you are able to purchase your own. Lessons your child learns when they ride horses:  1. learning to control their fear 2. learning patience 3. learning the art of silent communication 4. learning to trust yourself, that you can do hard things 5. learning how to use your body and how strong you are 6. learning to love an animal 7. learning discipline, hard work every day adds up even if not always immediately 8. learning responsibility, horses need care even if you don’t “feel like it” 9. learning the art of how to be gentle and yet a consistent leader 10. learning to love nature and the outdoors  11. learning to polish up and be presentable, and also how to get dirt under their nails 12. learning to fall, to fail, and to keep trying Learn more about Steph's horse experience Learn more about Cori's horse experience

Homemade meatballs in a rich and creamy gravy served with warm German potato bacon salad. This is a great meal for the holiday season because it can be prepared early and left in the oven or reheated when get back from festive activities. My dad loved this meal more than anything even Christmas ham or turkey. My mom, Jean Larson learned it from his mother Elizabeth Larson and we used to have it on Christmas Eve every year. Swedish Meatballs 2 1/2 pounds ground beef 1 C fine chopped onions 1 C fine chopped celery and leaves 1 C fine chopped green pepper 1 C flour 2 eggs 1 t Salt 1/2 t Pepper Directions Prepare 1C flour with salt and pepper on a large plate. Sauté and cool veggie trilogy (onion, celery, green pepper). Add 2 eggs to ground beef and cooled veggie trilogy. Form into less than 2” balls and dredge through flour. Brown meatballs in a pan with hot cooking oil. Once browned remove to a casserole dish. Between each set of meatballs that are browned scrape up extra brown bits in the pan, they should be removed to use for gravy with the leftover flour from dredging the meatballs. Once all the meatballs are removed from the pan add leftover flour and brown bits. Stir in leftover oil or add tablespoon oil to brown flour a bit. Then add 2 cups of cold water to make a gravy. Pour gravy over the meatballs and place in the oven to keep warm Warm German Potato Salad 2 large onions 2 large peppers 5-6 celery stalks 1 pound bacon 12-15 potatoes - we use red, yellow, and russet all together 1/2 jar of Italian dressing 6 eggs (boiled) Salt Pepper Directions Chop and sauté the onion, celery, green peppers. Add 1/2 t pepper and 1 t salt. Chop bacon into 1-inch pieces sauté till crisp and add to veggies. Peel potatoes, cut into 2-inch pieces, and boil until cooked soft but not totally falling apart like mashed potatoes. It's ok if some of the potatoes still fall apart, it adds a nice texture you just don’t want them all to be mush (in the photo below you'll see we boiled the eggs in the same pot of water as the potatoes). Drain and add to veggies and bacon. Toss in 1 cup Italian salad dressing. Place in oven at 325 for 45 mins, lower temp to stay warm if in longer. Add more dressing to taste once out of the oven. Serve with sliced or 1/4 sliced eggs sprinkled with paprika (for a festive color) on top.

Crispy, chewy, lightly drizzled with icing and sprinkled with almonds. Halfway between a biscotti and a sugar/shortbread cookie and reminiscent of marzipan, this is the first cookie we make (a double batch of) every Christmas. I found this recipe in a magazine when Cori was a baby, still have it to this day And it has become a holiday favorite. It calls for almond extract but in past years we’ve added a little Amaretto or Sailor Jerry’s rum. Ingredients 1 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour 1⁄4 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking powder 1⁄2 cup margarine or 1/2 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 large egg 1⁄2 teaspoon almond extract (or sailor jerry rum or amaretto) milk 1⁄2 cup sliced almonds Icing 1 cup icing sugar 1⁄4 teaspoon almond extract 3 -4 teaspoons milk Directions Preheat oven to 325° stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl beat margarine or butter till softened. Add sugar and beat till fluffy. Add egg and the 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract and beat well. Add the flour mixture and beat till well mixed. Divide the dough into fourths, form each portion into a 12 inch roll. Place 2 of the rolls 4 to 5-inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten each roll till it is about 3 inches wide. Repeat with the remaining rolls. Brush each flattened roll with milk and sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of almonds each. Bake in a 325° oven for 12-14 minutes or till edges are lightly brown. While still warm, cut crosswise on the diagonal into 1 inch strips. Cool completely on a wire rack. Stir together the powdered sugar, the almond extract, and enough of the 3-4 teaspoons of milk to make a drizzling consistency. Drizzle over the cool bars.

This rhubarb cream pie recipe comes from my mom, Jean Larson. It comes out sweet and creamy like custard and is the only pie my father and brothers used to beg my mom to make. Later once my husband Herb joined the family and tasted it he always asked for it too. Even Cori asks for it whenever we see rhubarb at the grocery store which down here in California isn't that often and she insists we try to grow it no matter how many times it dies in the heat. Up in Canada rhubarb grows like a weed and my mom grew it in her garden in Calgary. She even took some to plant at her condo when they moved off their acreage. I remember as a kid being given a piece to eat with a little cup of sugar to dip it in. The recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens, as you can see my copy is held together with duct tape and stains. *Special note always cook it a little bit longer, you know it’s ready when it overflows and makes a mess (put a pan under the pie to catch the overflow). Mom didn’t love cooking so she always had great tricks to save time. She said, “if you transfer a frozen pie shell to your own glass pie dish no one will know you didn’t make it from scratch”. I have found that to make it fit in my pie dishes I press the edges of the crust out and up the dish (once it’s warmed to room temperature). I use the second pie shell (most store bought pie shells come in packs of two) for the top of the pie. You can cut it into stripes and lace it or press cookie molds-cutters into it like I did below.

Cooking from scratch aka limited ingredients! I have always cooked and made my dinners from scratch. My son-in-law has asked don’t you have any spaghetti sauce in the cupboard? Cori my daughter answered ‘that would be cheating, that’s against mom’s beliefs, NO!’ 😂 I make my own stuff like salad dressings, sauces, soups, marinates, granola because I can’t always count on finding what I want from the stores. After living on the road for many years, cooking anywhere I was, in anyone’s kitchen, cooking at a ranch, or as a camp cook in the bush, I wanted to always be able to make all of my recipes. Tonight I have converted an old classic because we have gone organic and Paleo, we are trying to get away from pesticides which are not banned in the US but in every other modern country. CLASSY CHICKEN is an old family favorite that we have been making for years from ’Best of Bridge’ a very famous Canadian Cookbook necessary in every Alberta kitchen. It calls for Mayo and Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom or Chicken Soup. Mayo is very easy to make or buy Primal Kitchen, which has no sugar, is made with healthy ingredients like Avocado Oil. I’ve tried to make a substitute for Cream of Mush soup forever. We have a million zucchini's growing in our garden and were lucky to get some giant ones from our neighbor so I decided to make this recipe more healthy (aka from scratch and paleo friendly) and stuff one of the zucchini. Here it is... Sauté your organic, humanly raised chicken tenders... OMG so tender and juicy when you get nice ones. Don’t over brown them and they will stay silky tender, once cooked just right, turn the heat off and add 3 crushed garlic cloves. Remove from pan and once cooled cut them into small size pieces. Sauté 2 chopped portobello mushrooms in avocado or olive oil, grind some fresh Himalayan salt and pepper over them. I have found that the trick to golden mushrooms is to let them cool, once you reheat them they are perfect. Use a medium bowl to mix 1/4 Cup of lemon or lime juice. (I have learned to substitute lime for lemon since I have lime trees), 1 t curry powder, 1/2 cup Primal Kitchen Mayo, then add mushroom and blend smooth with an immersion blender, mix chicken pieces and the mushroom sauce and spoon into large halved and seeded zucchini boats. Bake at 450 for 40 mins. Ingredients (serves 4) 1 extra large overgrown Zucchini 2 chicken breast 2 Portobello mushroom 3 garlic Avocado oil to cook with ¼ C lime juice 1 tsp curry ¼ - ½ C mayo Salt and Pepper

If it’s a birthday, anniversary, or any other special occasion in our house we are most likely making this dish or rouladen. We call this one “wine thin pork” because well, that’s what it is, pork tenderloin pounded thin like scallopini in a creamy white wine, lemon, butter, sauce topped with green onions. Every time we have it we laugh that we should really come up with a better name than “wine thin pork”. We serve it with homemade german egg noodles called Spaetzle (click here for recipe) and a fresh green leaf salad with a simple vinaigrette. Ingredients 1-2 lbs pork tenderloin (serves 4) 3 bunches green onions chopped 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/2 cup white wine 1/2 cup butter Directions 1. Slice pork tenderloin, any shape will do, then cover with ziplock bag or plastic wrap and pound flat until it’s double the size. Salt and pepper and lightly dust with flour. Brown each piece on both sides, removing once cooked to a serving dish. Keep warm in the oven. Leave all the brown crispy bits in the pan. 2. I make my noodles at this point, and our family's favorite is a German egg noodle called Spaetzle. (Click here for recipe) 3. Creamy white wine with green onion reduction - After thin pork medallions are all cooked and the pan is still hot add 1/2 C white wine and 1/4 C lemon juice over brown crispy leftover pork bits. Scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the brownings. Let reduce slowly to combine flavors it will reduce by almost 1/2. Let cool if it was boiling but keep it warm. Once you are ready to serve add the room temperature butter to the reduction. You want the butter to stay thick so don’t let it get too hot, stir in the chopped green onions and pour over the pork. Serve with spaetzle and a green vinaigrette salad.

You may have noticed that some of the recipes we've posted recently are made with limited ingredients or are keto-friendly. I take pride in shopping for and cooking healthy food from scratch for our family. I have always been very active, most of my jobs have been physical which has taken a toll on my body. I have made the decision to wake up every day and improve myself rather than wither away in pain. I want to be healthy and agile enough to play with my granddaughters, teach them to ride horses, and ski, two of my favorite activities. Having enough energy, removing stiffness, pain, and stress is key to my life. I had cooking jobs and I studied animal sciences and agriculture at University so I know a lot more than the average joe about nutrition. But, learning to eat better for a healthy lifestyle isn’t an easy thing these days, there is so much information and we have been influenced by the food industry giants into thinking what is good or bad for us. I had heard about a new way to think about health and eating while taking some courses on mindfulness called WildFit. I did a 90 Day WildFit challenge and am 30 pounds lighter. And a picture tells 1000 words. The WildFit program has changed the way I see my relationship with food, and I understand what foods do to our bodies. I haven’t gained a pound back, and have lost even more inches. I’m more agile, stronger, and just feel better. I have a bounce to my step again! It’s a phenomenal feeling of accomplishment. A month has gone by since my live calls, with my group and coach Joanna ended and I am confidently still eating Wildfit, with a few treats here and there. I’ve learned to believe and have patience with myself. I’ve learned to figure out what emotion is driving me to sabotage my health and look to reward that feeling with a healthy activity instead of food. For some reason, I am enjoying being so much more mindful of every task that I do. I don’t just do what has to be done, I do things with joy again. And my IBS seems to have become a memory and even if it returns I now know what I can do for relief. My second goal was to learn to eat and cook for me while cooking for others at the same time. I knew this was going to be a challenge because we have a multi-generational house and everyone has different preferences. With that being said I have found that I don’t mind buying, cooking nor watching other people eat stuff (like donuts) that I don’t feel is good for me nor do I want to eat it. My body thanks me for this new chance for better health. I thank all of the people of WildFit, for their knowledge and especially my coach Joanna for her support and friendship, this was a one of a kind experience. My Keto-Friendly Recipes: No Pasta Primavera Asian Bean Sprout Salad Sesame Salmon Taco Salad

To celebrate #WorldBreastfeedingWeek I thought I’d share my experience with it. I have written this reflection in my head a million times but always decided not to put it out there because I felt like I shouldn’t complain, I am very aware that I’m lucky to be able to bf when others cannot. So many people talk about breastfeeding as such a magical thing that I felt ashamed for having feelings that were not all 🌈 and 🦋about it. I am sharing now because I wish when I had my first baby that I had more information and saw more stories about it not always being easy or natural for everyone. Breastfeeding is hard! My first baby was tongue tied so it was extremely painful to bf for several months. I remember the first weeks spending 30 mins each feed struggling just to get her to latch. I was so exhausted both she and I would end up crying in frustration. Then once she figured out how to latch it was excruciating, it felt like sandpaper and glass slicing my nipples, I was raw and had milk blisters. I ended up dreading bf and had to mentally brace myself for every feed. Tears would stream down my face in pain as I tried not to flinch and upset the baby or give her bad vibes. It wasn’t till I spent my first night away when she was 2.5 months old that a friend saw me putting nipple cream on and said “Wow! Your nipples are still sore? Mine were only sore the first week or two” that I realized that it wasn’t normal to be in so much pain. We went to a lactation consultant who confirmed that my daughter was still tongue tied (we got it clipped right after she was born so I thought it was fixed but it wasn’t). We found a specialist who was able to fix her tongue/lip tie (thank you Team Tongue Tie) and finally the pain slowly went away as she learned how to properly latch. On top of the pain of bf, I also struggled with the mental toll of doing it every 2-3 hours. I felt like a cow, not a person. I felt isolated even know I was in a house full of people because I missed out on... conversations, going places, and doing things because I was alone in the baby’s room nursing all hours of the day (she didn’t drop the middle of the night feeding and sleep through the night till she was 12 months old). Plus there was the worry about leaving the house... Would I be back in time to feed if I left her at home? Or if I brought her with would I be able to find a place to feed her? What happened if she started screaming/crying in hunger and I couldn’t feed her cause I was driving or in the middle of a grocery store. I also constantly worried about pumping so I’d have enough stash to be able to leave her at home. Then when I did leave her I worried about finding a time/place to pump so my breasts wouldn’t get engorged, be painful, and start leaking. In the end, I bf for a year and 2 weeks, until one day she just arched away from me and shook her head. I was so relieved and also surprisingly sad. Even know I knew it was coming to an end because she had slowly weaned herself from 8 feeds to 1-2 per day I was shocked when she just stopped. When I got pregnant with baby 2 breastfeeding was the thing I dreaded second only to not sleeping and even more than labor because in some ways it’s harder than labor because labor lasts a day* and bf goes on for a year. Thankfully baby #2 only had a slight tongue tie that I felt immediately 😣 and we got clipped right away. After a week or two she figured out feeding and it’s been smooth sailing since. Still, I look forward to the day it’s done and I can have my body back, stop worrying about feeding and pumping and start sleeping. Thankfully with baby #2, I feel a lot less anxious about it all and I keep reminding myself how I was surprisingly sad when bf was over the first time which helps me be in the moment and enjoy it more. As they say, it is only a phase and one day I know I will look back and miss it. * Before you say no way bf is harder than labor or you must have had an easy birth (I didn’t, I pushed for 6 hours and had a broken tail bone with baby #1) hear me out. Milk drunk happy baby!

This is a keto friendly take on one of our family's favorite recipes, pasta primavera that I first learned 30 years ago from a Sunset Magazine cookbook. Click here for the original recipe. 4 small/medium zucchini’s spiraled ½ pound asparagus, 1 inch pieces, leaving the tips. ½ pound sliced mushrooms ½ cup slivered or torn prosciutto or diced chicken 1 Tablespoon avocado oil 1 cup frozen or fresh edamame 3 green onions, 1 inch pieces 1 teaspoon dry basil or some fresh chopped basil dash of grated nutmeg black pepper 2 - 3 Tablespoons sugar-free avocado mayonnaise (I like Primal Kitchen) Salt only for the boiling water If Cooking For One 1 small/medium zucchini’s spiraled 3-4 asparagus, 1 inch pieces, leaving the tips. 1 cup sliced mushrooms 3 sheets prosciutto tot into pieces or chicken 1 teaspoon avocado oil ½ cup frozen or fresh edamame 1 green onions, 1 inch pieces 1/4 teaspoon dry basil or some fresh chopped basil dash of grated nutmeg black pepper 1 Tablespoons sugar free avocado mayonnaise (I like Primal Kitchen) Directions Start boiling pot of water to blanch the zucchini noodles. Once the water is boiling gently stir zucchini noodles for only 1 -1/12 minutes just enough to get them hot. Drain the noodles and keep warm. At the same time sauté mushrooms and prosciutto/ chicken in avocado oil for 1 minute (3 minutes if chicken) then add asparagus and edamame. Stir occasionally, aprox 4 minutes Add green onions, basil, pepper, nutmeg to the meat and veggie mix. Then remove from heat and place in a serving bowl. Add zucchini noodles and avocado mayonnaise to rest of the ingredients mix well and serve. *If you have family members who aren't on a keto diet you can serve this same recipe on your favorite pasta noodle, the original recipe calls for fettucini.

Growing up my parents loved to go out for dinner, and Italian was one of our favorites. When I was first married and at home with Cori when she was little I wanted to learn how to cook some of the delicious food I had eaten out. I didn't have a clue how to cook anything Italian until I found the Sunset Magazine Italian cookbook. This was the first thing I learned from it and am still making it 30 years later. For the keto version on zucchini noodles click here. Ingredients ½ pound asparagus ½ pound sliced mushrooms ½ cup slivered or torn prosciutto 1 Tablespoon avocado oil 1 medium carrot thinly sliced 1 medium zucchini diced 8 ounces thin or medium egg noodles 3 green onions ½ cup frozen peas or edamame 1 teaspoon dry basil or some fresh chopped basil dash of grated nutmeg dash grated black pepper 1 cup thin cream (not whipping cream) or a can evaporated milk ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese Directions Cut asparagus in 1 inch pieces, leaving the tips. In a large wide frying pan over high heat add avocado oil mushroom and prosciutto. Sauté for 1 min then add carrots, cover and turn off heat. Meanwhile, cook noodles in a large kettle of salted boiling water. If you are using dry noodles start them before you start to cook the vegetables. Drain the noodles and keep warm. Turn heat back on when your noodles are 4 mins from being done and add asparagus, zucchini. Sauté stirring occasionally for three minutes. Add green onions, peas, basil, pepper, nutmeg, and cream. Increase the heat to high until liquid begins to boil. Look for shiny bubbles. Maybe a minute of boiling. Then remove from heat Stir in 1/4 of Parmesan cheese. Put drained noodles in a large bowl and add the primavera to the noodles. Serve with more Parmesan cheese.

Dressing 1 scallion (finely chopped) 2 tsp garlic (minced) or 3 cloves 2 tsp sesame oil 1 tsp sesame seeds (toasted) 1 T Coconut aminos 1 T Rice vinegar Only keep in the refrigerator for a few hours. This feeds 4 so it’s only a small amount of sesame oil, and by adding more or less raw garlic gives it a nice kick. Directions 1/2 lb. mung bean sprouts (rinsed thoroughly) and flash boil 3 medium zucchini, spiralized Bring 2 quarts of water to a boil throw the bean sprouts in for 1 min only, take them out of the water, and place in the refrigerator to start cooling In a large bowl, mix coconut aminos, vinegar, oil, garlic, then add bean sprouts and zucchini; toss until everything is coated with sauce Place in the refrigerator for 1/2 hr but no more than 2 hours. The juice comes out of the zucchini and adds to the sauce.

I never was a huge salmon fan till Steph found this recipe. It is so so good it has converted many skeptics into salmon lovers. We usually serve it with grilled veggies and rice. Ingredients Salmon fillet 1T Sesame oil 1 T ponzu sauce (if on a no sugar/keto diet you can use 1T each of lime juice and soy sauce or coconut aminos mixed together instead of ponzu) 1 T sesame seeds 1 T fine chopped green onions or chives Directions Rub sesame oil into top of salmon, sprinkle green herbs, and sesame seeds and let marinate for at least 1/2 hour. Before you start broiling in oven or BBQing pour the ponzu sauce or lime/soy mixture (I like to make this mixture ahead of time to let the flavors can meld) on top. The reason why I wait to apply the ponzu or lime/soy mixture is because the acidity will start cooking the salmon and make it mushy. Broil or BBQ for 7 to 15 mins. It’s done when you test that it flakes yet still has lots of moisture.

It’s a crazy time! Pandemic, quarantine, baby #2 arriving in a month. People are losing their lives, jobs, and minds. But for us, life isn’t really all that changed since covid19 arrived. My husband and I already both work from home so we are used to working while Eleanor is running around the house, crying, being cute, or the dog's bark when a delivery truck shows up. 😂 We also were at a point where we didn’t really go out like we used to pre-Eleanor etc. But we definitely do miss the visits we made to see friends and Donny’s mom who lives about an hour away. It's sad to have to stop taking Eleanor to “story time” at the library, the park, and gymnastics. I miss my pilates classes and Mom misses her MELT classes, even the dogs miss trips down to dog beach now that the weather has gotten hot! To say the least, we were already homebodies, and it kind of worked out that I’m pregnant with baby #2 right now because that naturally keeps you close to home. With that being said it is very scary being pregnant right now knowing I am going to be giving birth during a pandemic. I try not to think about the fact that being pregnant makes me high risk as is a newborn, and that we will be in a hospital with the chance of coming in contact with people who have the virus. Or that Mom's asthma makes her high risk too and I can’t even think about Eleanor's little body having to fend off this illness if she got sick. Needless to say, we are taking the quarantine seriously and only really leave the house to get essentials, and then whoever in the family does go into town has been wearing a mask, washing hands, and we even have them shower and change clothes as soon as they get home. I myself only go out for my baby checkup doctor appointments. This whole thing has made us even more aware of how very lucky we are to have our jobs still and so far not have anyone close to us get sick. We are also so lucky to have Oma and Opa (Steph and Herb) living here with us. There is no way both Donny and I could work from home without child care as a lot of our friends are having to do. Let alone Eleanor would be heartbroken if she couldn't see them every day. We are also so fortunate to live where we do! We have a big grassy backyard for Eleanor to play in and our horses in our backyard too. So there’s always a garden and yard to tend, horses to feed/brush/ride. Plus, we live on a private street so we are still taking our daily walks every morning and evening with Eleanor and the dogs. I truly can’t imagine how hard it is for people who don’t have a yard to get fresh air and play in especially with pets and kids. I guess the main thing for us is that we already went through the loneliness of not seeing friends and family when we moved and had a baby. We already went through the transition of living on a budget aka not going out to eat, shop, travel, etc when we started supporting 5 people and launched a new business all at the same time. 🤦‍♀️ We went through the challenges of living 24/7 with your extended family, aka a house with a lot of opinions. And while we still all have our days when we are frustrated by one another we have learned to get along, to help one another, and make it work. More than that we are happier than ever, we have each other to lean on and lift our spirits share our joy and in a time when so many people are sick, struggling, lonely, and sad we are acutely aware of how VERY lucky we are to have FAMILY. Steph's thoughts on the pandemic and lockdown... There are families that have lost lives, and families totally uprooted by this 2020 pandemic, we can’t imagine how devastating it would be and are very very grateful for our circumstances. With that being said we can imagine what a struggle a lot of people are going through living with your families 24/7 because we basically made the decision to move in together over 2 years ago, pool our resources, and spend as little money as we could, at times it felt like a lockdown. You can only imagine how strange and uncomfortable it was for four adults to move in together with a 6 week old baby. Even though we all were trying to fit in, help, and get along, at times the tension could be cut with a knife. Yet with time most points of friction smoothed over or were outgrown. We have become entirely different people, I see just as much change in all of us as one can see in Eleanor, from year to year. It feels like I’ve cooked a million meals, I’m in the kitchen most of the time, making almost everything from scratch, so I know exactly what is in the food we are eating, which is great for us but so important for little Eleanor to be eating healthy. I used to grocery shop every few days with Miss Eleanor, but now I shop once every 2 weeks and leave my precious Eleanor at home. We don’t go out to eat anymore "to give Oma a break" and only do take out once a week or so. But I take pride in fixing up a fun pub meal 🍗 , or pizza 🍕 that the whole family says is better than any restaurant. I have been out to eat a lot in my life so I have lots of ideas to bring to our table. I think back to when I was 13, my mom and I went out to eat 35 nights in a row 😂my dad was out of town and we were treating ourselves since we were alone. And you know what he asked us the 1st night he was home, “Do you girls want to go out for dinner?” Of course, the answer was, "Yes". So I try different recipes and when I make a bad meal no one complains, it just makes the great ones better. And let me tell you I never thought I would do this much laundry in my life, yet there is always a helping hand to fold. My mother taught me to love myself and do things for my own joy and satisfaction because there is no one better than me, and that it shows respect to others if I show that I care about myself and how I do something. So as day after day goes by I find it a pleasure taking care of our little tribe. I still ride every day that I can some weeks that's 5 days others only 2. I never lose the desire to learn or figure something out new on my horse. My big red mare is trained to perform moves I don’t know, so it’s always exciting when we understand each other well enough to experience moments of pure connection. I truly love this horse. It’s funny I find aging just means if I remember how to do something I used to do it’s just as good as learning something new. And last but surely not the least important is this quarantine has me missing teaching. My new students have said they were so lucky to find Cori and me to teach them because we have such passion that it shows in everything we teach them, that we have changed and filled there lives in a way they never ever could have imagined. This makes my heart sing and is why I love teaching so I look forward to when the lockdown lifts and they can come back and take lessons again.

We've been making this delicious taco salad for years. I first learned from my aunt Beverly Larson when I was 13 and didn't even know what a taco was. 😂 We used to dress it with store bought 1000 Island dressing but have been trying to buy less processed foods full of mystery ingredients (and sugar!) from big corporations. Here's how I made it entirely from scratch with healthier ingredients. No sugar, no gluten! It was so good even the menfolk in our house gobbled it up. Sauce/dressing Ground beef (or turkey) 1t dry mustard 1t smoked paprika Pinch of ground clove 4 cloves garlic 1/2 onion 1 can green salsa (Herdez) 3T avocado oil mayo (Primal Kitchen) 1T tomato paste 2T chopped dill pickles Chopped kale, swiss chard, celery (see photo) Salad Tortilla chips Iceberg lettuce and salad mixings - carrots, tomato, cucumber etc (see photo) Shredded cheese (optional) used to always add but with the extra sauce this time it didn't need it Directions The meat sauce ends up being the dressing for the salad. Start by sautéing ground beef then add 1t dry mustard, 1t smoked paprika, and a pinch ground clove, these spices are part of the 1000 Island flavor, no salt there is lots of salt in the tortilla chips added at the end. Add the chopped garlic and onions, sprinkle the onions with a dusting of baking soda this gets the onions to break down so they caramelize super fast. (I learned this from a New Scientist article see below). Add chopped celery, kale, and swiss chard. Sautéed just until greens have reduced in size, the veggies can be vibrant green as in barely cooked it’s a salad after all.  Add the 1T tomato paste, 1 small can green salsa, 3 T mayo, 2 T of chopped dill pickles then mix. When the greens were cooking chop whatever you normally put in a mixed salad we use iceberg lettuce because it holds its shape better than most lettuce with this heavy dressing. Sprinkle with crushed tortilla chips, cheese (optional), and the above meat sauce. Mix and Devour! Click Here for the fascinating article I read about the scientific shortcuts to cooking delicious caramelized onions in New Scientist 1/4/20.

Popovers are one of our favorite weekend breakfast treats. We serve with jam, peanut butter, and honey but Steph's homemade apple butter is Cori's favorite. We usually have a jar of it in the freezer but were all out when we checked this morning so we made some fresh apple butter on the fly while the popovers were in the oven. 5 apples (just used what we had around) *tip* make sure to add a granny smith 🍏 for tartness. Peel, cut up and simmer in pot with spices. Once they’ve softened a bit we use an emersion blender to purée it all right in the pot which speeds up the process by a lot (normally apples take an hour to completely soften/cook into a sauce). Stir constantly while simmering. Ready when it sheets off the spoon. 🥄1 pinch clove 🥄 1/4 tsp nutmeg 🥄 1 tsp cinnamon 👩‍🍳 Heaping spoon of brown sugar Popovers: We modified the recipe below because we had no milk #covidquarantine. Used 3/4 cup of kefir and 1 cup of water mixed with buttermilk powder. Popover recipe: https://www.ourstablelife.com/post/why-i-love-to-cook Kefir recipe: https://www.ourstablelife.com/post/homemade-kefir

Love seeing Grandma Jean’s handwriting on the old smudged recipe card. for her Coconut “Impossible Pie”. Ingredients * 2 cups milk * 1 cup flaked coconut * 4 eggs * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract * 1/2 cup all-purpose flour * 6 tablespoons margarine * 3/4 cup white sugar * 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg Directions * Melt butter in 10” pie pan then add to the rest of the pie ingredients * Mix milk, coconut, eggs, vanilla, flour, margarine, and sugar in blender or with an immersion blender. Mix well. Pour into pie plate. Sprinkle nutmeg on top. * Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 50 minutes.

I’ve been making 3 different kinds of kefir as well as kefir soda for almost 6 months now. It’s super easy and tastes great. Kefir is a lot like yogurt but is a more powerful probiotic. We eat it almost every morning topped with fresh fruit and granola and in our smoothies. To make it you start with kefir milk grains or kefir water grains, which I can give to anyone who lives near me, then mix with milk, oats, nuts, coconut milk, fruit just about anything, that’s it. Keep it out of sunlight. There is lots of info on the internet about how to make kefir and it's benefits. I am personally amazed at how it has helped improve my stomach issues.  In the photo above I am making kefir soda (small bottles) which is a 2nd fermentation of my water kefir.  And in the 3 larger jars is milk kefir, fruit kefir, and water kefir. Milk Kefir. Mix milk kefir grains and 4 cups of milk (we do organic cows milk or coconut milk). In 12-24 hours my milk kefir needs the kefir grains strained out and then I separate the curds and whey, which gives me a yogurt type product with most of the lactose gone and the whey portion is 93 percent water, which is very rich in potassium, it can help balance and remove excess fluids in the body and remove toxins. The milk kefir is strained through a plastic sieve leaving the kefir grains which look like gummy cauliflower florets.  After cleaning the jar I put the kefir grains back in with 4 Cups of milk and cover with a breathable cover (like a coffee filter). The kefir I made then can be used as is or separated into curds (a yogurt like texture) and whey (a clear fluid) which I use in smoothies. That’s it no cooking very simple. (EDIT: More on milk kefir at the bottom) I also make pure water kefir and fruit kefir. Every day or two I need to strain the kefir grains out of my jars. And start new batches. The water kefir is strained out with a small sieve (see pic below). After washing the jar I add 1/4 Cup of dark organic sugar and 1 cup of warm water and stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add 3 more cups of water and place a breathable cover over the opening. Experiment with different sugars until you find the one you like. The longer you leave it the less sweet it becomes, as the kefir grains use/eat the sugar to stay alive. The water kefir is delicious and ready to drink as is or you can pour it into pressure sealable bottles and make it into Kefir soda. You have to "burp" this soda daily so the bubbles don't explode, Kefir soda is ready in 3 days, remember to burp it daily as it can sit on the counter for weeks, it seems to be fine with a weekly burp if in frig. The fruit kefir is made by adding puréed fruit to a water kefir culture. It is strained with a jelly bag, then I add the previously used fruit and kefir grain mix back into the jar and add 4 cups of water and 1/4 of light colored sugar As well as some more fresh fruit. Here is some more info on kefir: https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/water-kefir/water-kefir-ingredients/ EDIT: After getting lots of questions about how we do our milk kefir we wanted to expand on what we use to make it and some of the steps. After milk has been in large mason jar with milk kefir grains for 12-24 hours we strain out the kefir grains by pouring it through a plastic sieve. The liquid you see in pyrex container is the "kefir" and it is ready to drink as is or you can add fruit, jam, sugar etc. This is like what you buy at the store, it is liquid-y easy to drink and you can taste the fuzzy/bubbly- ness of it. The longer you leave it the more fermented aka fuzzy it will be. We do a second strain of the kefir to separate the liquid (whey) which leaves it thicker and more yogurt like in texture. The clear liquid that is strained out can also be drank or we add it to recipes.

One of my favorite dinners ever is rouladen and spaetzle, Mom learned how to make it when she was 17 living in Tubingen, Germany as an au pair. This meal has become one of our family's all time favorites, it was Grandpa Larson's request every year for his Birthday. While fairly simple this recipe does take a little bit of time and needs to be made before noon of the day it is to be served. This way it can cook slowly for the rest of the afternoon getting nice and soft that no knife is required if done right. To start you need to clear up some counter space in your kitchen and clean it really well because the first step requires all of the raw pieces of round cut beef to be laid out flat directly on your counter. These will be the base for the next ingredients to be placed upon; when done the whole thing will be rolled up tight like a mini burrito. Start by laying a half a piece of raw bacon lengthwise on each piece of beef, make sure that the bacon does not go past the edges of the beef as it shouldn't stick out of the ends once the whole thing is rolled up. Next, sprinkle the meat with salt pepper and dried mustard; we usually use Coleman’s dried mustard. Now cover each with a generous layer of diced onions, don't worry about these staying in the edges of the meat just spread them everywhere, it will make a mess but that's half the fun. Finally, the key ingredient, is a dill pickle, place it across the width of the beef at one end, as it will be the center of the roll. My cousin hates pickles so we put a carrot in a few for her when she visited, which I think is totally sacrilegious as the pickle adds a subtle but divine hint of tanginess that just shouldn't be left out. So please at least give it a try before you replace it with something else. Also, a pickle is the traditional center of a rouladen that every German restaurant and recipe uses so it only makes sense to give it a try. Next, you roll up each rouladen one by one wrapping it with thread or we have flexible metal clamps to keep them rolled up during the cooking process. We used to always use thread and sometimes still do because the clamps can be a pain to clean. I suggest you use a bright colored thread that will stand out from the brown color of the cooked beef (it makes it easier to find and unwrap. Tip: Put the spindle of thread in a kitchen drawer and pull the loose end of the thread out of the drawer so you can easily pull long lengths of it without it getting all tangled up. This was my first job as a little girl. I would pull the long strips of thread out and cut them into lengths about the distance of my forearm and hand them to mom one at a time. She would then wrap the thread around the whole rouladen, starting at one end and finishing at the opposite. Each rouladen then goes directly into a hot frying pan with some vegetable oil to be browned. Make sure you healthily brown the rouladen on all sides (this is important if you do it until the meat is just grey your gravy will be grey, not golden brown). Then add the cold gravy mixture (below) it needs to be cold so it doesn't boil too fast and get lumpy to the pan with the browned rouladen. You will have onion bits that fell out of the rouladen when you rolled them up, scrape them off the counter and add them to the gravy and season with salt and pepper. The rouladen will simmer in this gravy for the next few hours. You can put them in a crockpot for 6 hours, or oven at 325 for 2 hours. You can also do it on the stovetop but you have to watch it closely to make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom. As it cooks this sauce will thicken and mix with the water and other juices to create an awesome gravy that we laughingly and lovingly call “Rouladen Soup! Spaetzle - Half an hour before you want to eat is when you make the next part of the recipe, which is homemade German noodles called spaetzle. First set up a big pot of water to boil, making sure you add some salt to the water. Then make up the dough for the spaetzle. We make the noodles with a spaetzle machine. If you don't have a ricer or spaetzle machine you can make them by hand. (Stay tuned for a blog on how). The water must be at a rolling boil before you press the noodles into it. Do not stir the noodles or the will break apart. You will know they are cooked and ready to scoop out (use a large mesh or slotted spoon) when they rise to the top of the pot. However, we usually push them down once or twice before we take them out just to make sure they are done. Then repeat the process one press at a time until all the dough is used up. As you add the noodles to the pot the water will start to boil over and continue to do so the whole time, the water needs to keep boiling so don't turn it down. When I was a little girl my mom used to put me on overflow duty; I would stand on a stool beside her armed with a glass of cold water so that the minute the water got too close to spilling over and making a mess of the stove I would add a little splash of cold water which always cooled it just enough to make the tempest subside. Cooking with my mom as a little girl was made special by little things like cutting the thread, and manning the overflow, which all started my interest in cooking. I remember how important I felt, how excited I was to be 'cooking' with mom. She would always tell everyone when we sat down to eat that it was Cori who made the spaetzle or the rouladen and of course I loved all the compliments I got for my ‘hard’ efforts from my grandparents. Eventually, I started helping her more and more like sprinkling the spices on the rouladen or adding the pickle before she rolled them. Then once I was older mom would always call me to help her in the kitchen by saying, "Cori! You better get in here and learn how to make this so if I kick the bucket you can carry on the tradition." I would always laugh and say "yeah right!" but it always brought us together, no matter what was going on in my life I always had time to cook with my mom it was 'our' time. Now that I have my own daughter I can't wait for her to grow up learning to cook with me and her Oma. Ingredients 1 minced onion 1/2 pound bacon or more Salt Pepper Dry mustard Dill pickles enough for each rouladen Thin beef round steaks (2 per person) most butchers know what you want if you tell them you need meat to make Rouladen. Gravy 3-4 cups of flour 3-4 cups cold water Mix till there are no lumps, I use an emersion blender. Spaetzle 6 eggs 1 cup flour 1 tsp salt ¼ cup of water

We make cranberry banana bread every Christmas. It is one of our family favorites. The tartness of the cranberry perfectly cuts the sweetness of the banana. Mom and her mom, Jean Larson used to send boxes of cookies, including molasses bars and mini loaves of this bread to all the relatives at Christmas. With Jean being the youngest of 12 that meant a lot of boxes! You can tell by the stained recipe card that we’ve tried many variations. This year we used “normal” flour and sugar but did a double batch cause it never seems to last long.

I’ve been trying to make the perfect pizza 🍕 dough for years. Finally I tried the one on the Fleischmann’s pizza yeast packet and no surprise it was awesome. (Shocker 🤦‍♀️) The dough is as good as any bread I’ve had in Europe. Chewy, fluffy, almost like pasta! Pizza Sauces Blend in mini food processor or use an immersion blender. Tomato Pizza Sauce - 1 Tbs tomato paste from tube - 1/4 or 1/2 onion - 1/4 cup zucchini or arugula - Salt & Pepper - 1 tsp dry or 1 Tbs fresh Oregano - dash Tabasco Pesto Pizza Sauce - 1/2 cup Arugula, spinach, kale (any leafy green) - 3 cloves Garlic - 3 Tbs Olive or Avocado Oil - 1/4 cup pine nuts or we used sprouted pumpkin seeds - 1/4 cup Parmesan - 2 tsp dry or 2 Tbs fresh basil Pizza crust - 2.5 to 3 cups all-purpose flour - 1 envelope Fleischmann's® Pizza Crust Yeast OR Fleischmann's® RapidRise Yeast - 3/4 teaspoon salt - 1 cup very warm water - 2 tablespoons olive oil - 1 tablespoon fresh herbs (dill and oregano or sage, garlic, rosemary). And because we have zucchini from garden I added a 1/4 cup grated zucchini. Directions Combine 2 cups flour, undissolved yeast and salt in a large bowl.  Stir very warm water and olive oil into flour mixture. Add herbs. Stir in enough remaining flour to make soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 4 to 6 minutes. Cover and let rise on floured surface 10 minutes.  (If using Pizza Crust Yeast, omit 10 minute rest.) *If you need to slow down process (aka horses need to be fed or baby changed) cover dough in a bowl and put into the refrigerator. Lightly oil 1 (14-inch) or 2 (12-inch) round pizza pan(s). Divide and press dough to fit desired pan(s). I lift it out and toss it to stretch the dough to reach the last 3 inches of pan. Let the dough rise for 10 minutes then top with whatever you like. On our pesto pizza we did tomatoes, mozzarella, more fresh basil leaves and then sometimes olives, onions or whatever is in fridge. For our tomato sauce pizza we do pepperoni, (sometime turkey pepperoni), green bell pepper, and then serve with fresh tomatoes sliced on top after it comes out of the oven. Bake in a preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes. The above is for a thin crust pizza, if you like a thicker crust you will need to pre bake the crust before you add the toppings then bake again once toppings are added otherwise the crust will not be cooked enough in the center.

Today Cori and I put a jumping saddle on my dressage mare, Winslett. Cori has been riding her now for 3 months and enjoying riding in my dressage saddle and learning about dressage. The riders position and commands are very different than what Cori knew as a show jumper so she's been having fun learning the dressage "buttons" or commands. In Dressage if a horse feels the smallest change in your position it is supposed respond and move invisibly in a new direction. But today we really had a lot of fun playing with lengthening and shorting strides moving from a forward but "normal" hunter/jumper seat to a half seat which is the position used for jumping. Winslett learned that even though Cori body’s position changed she was to hold her body shape/frame and pace the same. I was able to help Cori and Winslett get in sync. They went from mass confusion to complete harmony. Watching Cori and Winslett figure out what each other wanted was mesmerizing because I could see the light bulb come on for both of them right in front of me. The best part was when Cori came up to me at the end with a huge smile saying, “I can finally feel what you’ve been talking about in my saddle because it's closer contact than your dressage saddle, thanks mom that was a lot of fun.” 1st 📸 Cori learning how to ride in a dressage saddle. 2nd 📸 Cori in hunter/jumper saddle. Here we are teaching Winslett to be comfortable with someone up in a half seat position. She feels the rider move forward in the tack and the rein contact change when the rider presses down on her neck and thinks she is supposed to slow down. In the next photos Cori is cantering Winslett in a much more forward position with her upper body, both with her seat up out of the tack in the half seat (1st pic) and sitting in the tack (2nd pic) than Winslett is used to. So the mare is having to get used to carrying herself without the rider driving her with the seat and leg and more importantly with the rider's shoulder in a forward position (ahead of the vertical as we say) which is new for her. She is such sweet, smart, mare always trying to please she figured it real quick.

A friend of mine called me the other day and asked if I would come spend a few days at her ranch in Idaho to help with her horses, since her husband was going fishing for a week. Of course I jumped at the idea of a girls weekend playing with horses, cooking, drinking wine and talking about horses non-stop. I have been helping my friend Wendy with her riding since she was a kid, she reminded me of the summer I helped with her 15.2 hand paint mare when she was just 14 years old! The mare was trained as an all round pleasure show horse, and would jump almost anything at around 2 ft but one day when both of them were in one of my lessons, I ended up building the jump up to 4 ft and they jumped higher then she had ever imagined. That right there is why I love teaching. To be able to offer insight and help a rider and horse understand each other better, and then seeing that unity create a perfect moment that sets them both free. My teaching style is unique in that it stems from my understanding of balance and flow rather than resistance. l learned this skiing because I learned to ski with my parents before I could talk. And funny as it sounds riding is very much like skiing. Disasters can occur if your balance is off in both sports, you have to learn to let go, enjoy and channel the power you create not control it, as they say you can’t move a mountain. When an equestrian sees a horse moving with graceful agility and strength, we wish to be a part of the power and elegance of their movement yet most times we end up getting in the horse's way. For this reason a lot of riders are “lesson junkies” always trying to learn more so that we can better understand how to communicate with our horse. But if we ride alone a lot it can get confusing, as the voice in a riders head reminding them of what they learned in their last lesson can often end up outdated. Horses are always changing (that's what happens when you do a sport where the "equipment" has a mind of its own). The training tip the rider may be focusing on is for the way the horse was going during the last lesson not necessarily today. Which is why it’s key to try and always improve the exercise or movement you’re doing rather than "fixing" your horse as you might end up working on the symptom to a problem not the root cause of it. Often people try to improve the horse's way of going by training them to react in a way that shows obedience. For example, if a horse balances itself through its back and hindquarters correctly it will relax its head downward. Instead of focusing on making your horse put their head down use schooling figures (circles, serpentines, diagonals, half turns, shoulder-in) and transitions to improve your horse’s balance and strength, then they will lower their head naturally and voluntarily. On my trip to Idaho I was able to help my friend Wendy with all her horses and her friend Lisa on her horse by helping them find the right exercise to improve their horse's natural way of going. POOF ✨ everybody was happy. It was so nice to spend 4 days with such a great friend. Even though we come from completely different upbringings we have a lot of the same values so we can admire, understand, love, and banter about everything under the sun. We played horsey, cooked some great food and had endless conversations. Life (with horses) is good! 🤣

I started teaching again recently when a neighbor of ours asked and I am loving it! I had forgotten how fun and rewarding it is to help people learn and connect with horses. The surprise on someone’s face when they get a horse to respond "like magic" to an effortless gesture is the best. Riding and working with horses has always been a source of joy for me, they are unique animals because they are so curious and naturally want to communicate with us. So I love being able to help a horse and rider have that, "Ah Ha!" moment, when everything just clicks, and they become more in tune with one another. I have so many great memories of helping students achieve that moment in the past, and now seeing it happen again in a whole new environment fuels my passion for coaching. Teaching again has also given me a new found appreciation for what we all can learn from a horse about ourselves. No matter how you spend time with horses they teach us empathy, responsibility, sportsmanship, and they open our hearts. They are so sensitive yet forgiving, reading our body language and mood, teaching us to feel and read their signals. With horses it's all about give and take, they respond to us - we respond to them, creating a partnership so that a whisper becomes more effective than strength. The feeling of helping a person overcome their doubts and fears, and create a safe and rewarding environment, puts a smile on my face that lasts for hours. And of course I feel so proud when the horse sighs showing signs of understanding. I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to teach again and ride my own horse because when it comes down to it I want people to have fun spending time and learning from horses because that is what I love. 📖More Reading👇 Stephanie's Equestrian Bio Why I Still Ride Horses It is so great to watch mom teach again! I've never met someone who has so much love for horses and a love for sharing her knowledge about them with others. I've been telling her for years that she should get back to teaching because she is so good at it. You only have to watch her with a student for a minute and you can tell it truly is her calling. Young kids, teenagers, amateur ladies, she is able to connect with a rider and bring out their strengths. As a coach she has this amazing ability to see beyond what a horse or rider is having a problem with, to the root cause behind it. So many people try to fix the symptom but she always has an exercise that ends up fixing the issue. For example recently a student had a hard time getting the horse to respond to the leg and trot. Instead of telling the student to kick or squeeze harder for the umteenth time mom gave her an exercise to strengthen her position which helped the rider feel stronger and more secure in the tack. All of a sudden I saw the rider was able to communicate with the horse more clearly and the horse was naturally more willing to go forward. The best part of her teaching again is she finally has people to share what she knows with instead of talking our ears off about horses non-stop. 😂 We are all so proud of her and it is great to see how happy and fulfilled she is by teaching again. - Cori

An equestrian with years of experience in many areas of the horse industry. I love helping clients reach their equestrian goals both in and out of the saddle. I have worked with people from all walks of life and horses in every discipline, from dressage, hunter/jumper to ranches, and even a few board rooms. I have worked as a farrier, a wrangler with pack horses in the mountains, and learned from many renowned horsemen and women. Trained horses, riders, grooms and owned and operated a full training facility, that included buying and selling horses from Europe, to preparing students to show all over North America. Classically trained in Dressage, I have the eye to understand how to develop a horse’s training. Coupled with a natural desire to help others I see the cause of resistance between horse and rider and can communicate a solution. A friend of hers jokes that Stephanie will forget more than many people will ever know about horses My horse journey began when I first started riding at age 9, ever since I've been passionate about what I could learn from horses. I had a very simple start, mostly riding bareback whenever I wasn’t in school or sleeping. I belonged to Pony Club and competed in pony games and 3-day events. I got the chance to ride in Britain for a summer when I was 13, and Germany when I was 16 and got my first job with horses when I was 17 as a wrangler for a ranch/outfitting company where I trained dude horses, broke pack horses and then took people out to the mountain camps. Later I worked at breeding facilities, as a groom and assistant trainer, a wrangler (again) with dude and pack horses in the Green River Basin of Wyoming. A few different times I was a working student and assistant instructor at dressage and hunter/jumper barns, then a wrangler again on a 3000 head cattle ranch. I took equestrian courses while studying Beef Sciences at the University of Idaho, worked as a groom at the Calgary Racetrack, taught dressage clinics and summer camps, took farrier and welding classes. I have been a Horse Feed Salesman and VP of Marketing, where I learned the science behind equine nutrition. And then I bought and ran my own successful full training barn. I understand budgeting, marketing, stable management, client relations, sales, negotiating, veterinarian exams, importing horses from Europe, and transportation of sales and show horses, show entries and more. At one point I was managing a string of show horses full time on the horse show circuit some 40 weeks a year. My philosophy when it comes to coaching riders and training horses is all about being flexible to situations. By encouraging riders and horses to be curious and control their reactions their minds stay open to learn. I can see past the symptom to the underlying cause of a situation enabling me to help a horse or rider communicate more clearly. With clarity, we become open to new ideas and changes. I love to learn and understand which has lead me to help others. I believe in working with a horse and rider’s strengths and instincts and strive to create a positive experience where both feel safe. This allows me to shape attitudes before they become frustrated or afraid. My greatest satisfaction is when a horse and rider click, overcome a challenge and build a partnership. My unique perspective with horses based on years of experience in many different disciplines has given me a strong foundation and fresh insight to train horses and coach equestrians of any age or background. 📖More Reading👇 Why I Still Ride Horses Teaching Riding Again and It Feels So Good How Our Horse Journey All Started

Born and raised in Calgary, Canada as the daughter of a trainer Cori began riding a young age. She spent countless hours at the local barn where her mom rode and taught being “baby sat” by kind school horses in lesson after lesson. At the age of 12 her family bought their own farm and founded Equinox Stables, for Cori those next 10 years of riding, showing and later training and teaching so many different horses and students young and old from beginners to advanced was a dream come true. Growing up at a barn and helping run the family business was a great experience because she learned the various aspects of running a horse business; everything from feeding and fence building to helping the veterinarians and farrier. “We did everything growing up, cleaned tack, bandaged, braided, trailered, fed, and mucked out. If you wanted to ride you had to be willing to put in a little extra elbow grease. I remember one of my first away shows to the U.S. when I was 11 and becoming aware of grooms, I was shocked that some people didn’t do it all themselves, it was a totally foreign idea to me”. Over the years Cori was lucky to work with many great trainers from Trish Mrawkawa her first coach to Gail Greenough, Richard Spooner and most especially Dayton Gorsline and Lisa Carlson who coached her from the children’s and junior jumpers, to the CET medal finals and into her first Grand Prix by age 17. “As a trainer’s kid I’ve been fortunate to learn a lot from so many talented horse men and women both first hand, in clinics and by watching; it would take me forever to list them all but if I had to pinpoint one as my biggest influence it would definitely have to be my mom. Everything I know about coaching and training is from her, truly an ultimate horsewoman, she’s done it all: pony club, dressage for 30 years, breaking young horses, leading pack outfits into the mountains and even cattle drives. Whether it’s a flat lesson for a grand prix horse, teaching a young one to jump for the first time or getting a first time student safe and happy in the tack she is my go to.” By 20, Cori had been to Europe several times buying sales prospects and horses for clients, she also lived and trained in both France and Germany for extended periods of time to learn more about the European system. She’d also been invited to two different international shows, one in Germany as a junior and one in Ecuador as a professional. When asked what shaped her riding the most she said it was growing up in Calgary a stone’s throw away from Spruce Meadows, one of the most prestigious and famous show jumping venues in the world. “Being able to see the worlds best riders and horses in your own backyard was the most inspiring and exciting experience. It gave us young riders a real glimpse of the big time international jumper scene.” Which is why even know she rode the equitation and hunters a lot when younger and on clients horses it was the jumper divisions that were so appealing to her. As the years went on, being in such close proximity to Spruce Meadows opened doors for Cori as she got the chance to meet many of the top riders she idolized and eventually went on to teach many of their children. “During the summer circuit the big riders would see our students having lessons at our farm right next door to where they were showing, one thing lead to another and before we knew it “pony camp” for the visiting riders kids was born. Soon the Spruce Meadows shows became our busiest time as we were teaching Will and Nikki Simpson’s daughter, Rich Fellers kids, Richard Spooner’s daughter, Jan Tops and Tani Zeidler’s daughter and many more. I remember Karen Cudmore’s girls used to ride every pony on the farm so much we’d have to up their hay for those 6 weeks! For the parents it was a quick golf cart ride away, between their demanding class schedule, where they could watch their kids have some fun on horses, while learning in a safe, pressure free environment.” In the fall of 2004 Cori was given the opportunity to move to California to work with grand prix rider Richard Spooner. The time she spent one the road showing full time was invaluable, she learned a lot and got the chance to meet and work with many more great riders, coaches, officials, owners and amazing horses. During this time her family sold their training business and farm in Calgary and began enjoying semi-retirement. After a few more hectic years of showing non-stop, Cori took some time off from riding for the first time in her life and pursue her post secondary education. In 2009 she did a study abroad in Italy and remembered how much she loved Europe on all those horse buying trips and decided to move to London, England to finish her Bachelors degree.  In 2011 she graduated a semester early with a 4.0 GPA and a BA in Communications, Marketing and Management from Hult International Business School and then moved back to sunny San Diego. After a little time off from horses for college, marriage and baby she is currently getting back into riding with her mom in Fallbrook, CA. Read more about Cori and Steph in .... How Our Horse Journey All Started

Kase Strudel a sweet cheese pastry. Think cheese danish / cheese cake. This was one of the first things I had when I first met Herb’s family, on their farm near Stratford Ontario, and it has become a family favorite! Herb was born in Stuttgart Germany, yet his parents both came from Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia). Their recipes and family traditions are steeped in old world traditions and this is one of them. Having lived and cooked in Germany before I met Herb I enjoyed cooking many of his mothers recipes. When I learned this recipe she taught me how to make the paper thin dough from scratch, we stretched it out over a dinning room table, but in later years I found phyllo dough sheets to taste just as good and make it much faster and easier to make. Preheat oven 350 1 package of phyllo dough sheets 2 large containers (32 oz) small curd cottage cheese 12 eggs 1 t vanilla 1 cup sugar Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl with an emersion blender or beat eggs well before mixing in with the rest of ingredients. Make sure your phyllo is defrosted and that you have 2 damp kitchen dish towels. Open phyllo roll out onto one dish towel on your counter. Take 2 thin phyllo sheets from the stack and place them on the other damp towel. And then spoon 4-6 serving spoons of mixture on to 2 sheets of phyllo. Use the towel to lift and roll the phyllo into a roll. Roll this off your towel into a greased rectangular glass baking dish. Repeat until you have used all of the mixture. Pat the top of the rolls with a little oil and place in the oven for 25 mins or until about half of it is golden brown. Sometimes we use the same recipe but do grated apple (or pumpkin) and cinnamon and sugar to make apple strudel or pumpkin strudel but in our house everyone eats the cheese strudel first and requests it the most. In case you were wondering Käse is the German word for cheese.

2018 was a year of change some expected and some unexpected. I never have been good with change so it was one of the hardest years and yet also one of the very best because of our little Eleanor. She is the sweetest, happiest baby, a ray of sunshine in our lives. And if anything the highs of last year far outweigh the lows when I look at how happy we and especially she is. **This was my new years post that was so full of raw emotion I decided to table it for a while. I wrote the first version with tears of sadness and then relief as I finally got so many things I'd been holding onto out of my system. But I was still too chicken to put it all out there. So now a few months later I've decided to share it. 🙈 Even now as I re-read this I feel like a totally different person and can see how far I've come. My thoughts, plans and dreams for 2018 were completely different from what became. So on top of the steep learning curve of becoming a mom I felt an overwhelming sense of loss over what was to be. It started a week after Eleanor was born when we decided to sell our house and move in with my parents. We sold the house and were moved out within two months. Everything was a blur. I was exhausted from being up every 2-3 hours feeding Eleanor and felt so sad. I cried a lot. We loved that house, it was our first home, we put a lot of heart and pride into fixing it up and making it our own, it was by no mean perfect or fancy but it was ours. I loved being able to do exactly what I wanted... paint, furniture, decor and getting Eleanor's nursery ready was really special. We joked that she would be born at Home Depot because I was there multiple times a day (in fact I was there a few hours before my water broke). 😂 But more than the house itself it was saying goodbye to the life we had made there and the future I had envisioned of Eleanor growing up there… taking first steps, playing with the neighborhood kids, learning to ride her bike on our cul-de-sac. That version of our future was gone in a snap, it broke my heart and took me a long time to get over. Even months after we moved I teared up every time we drove past our old exit on the freeway. There were a lot of reasons why we sold our house, one was so we'd have help with Eleanor when I worked and as Donny launched/ran his business. He is so happy to not have a long commute every day and work for himself. My favorite thing is seeing Donny able to sneak a moment in with Eleanor in the middle of his work day. The joy he takes in creating his own business while being able to spend time with her is worth it all. Donny is my balance. When I feel bogged down by the past or am worrying about the future he reminds me to appreciate “The Now”, to enjoy these fleeting moments with Eleanor as she is right NOW because she grows and changes so fast. I don't know if it's all the Zen 🧘🏻‍♂️ books he reads but he's always helping me see things from another perspective. It’s like a dose of optimism when I feel engulfed by negativity or sadness. In general, I'd say I’m not a sad person but I think new-mom exhaustion magnifies emotions. And man those first 6 months of no sleep were tough. But once Eleanor started eating solids, sleeping (almost) through the night and exploring her surroundings it got easier for someone other than "mama" to look after her. I started to feel like myself again and not just a milk cow 🐄. More importantly, I can see what Donny's been telling me for months. That when you look at how happy Eleanor is, it is obvious we did the right thing by moving. Her joy is a reflection of our own. While Donny and I went through a lot last year - a new business, a new baby, moving in with your in laws - the pressure brought us closer. The sudden changes have shown us new sides and strengths of one another. We really do balance each other. One of my favorite things Donny says again and again when I'm feeling stressed is “we’re gonna be ok" because he's right we are, we already are more than ok. Beyond the personal changes, the last year was also difficult because we mourned the loss of both my grandmas within 16 months of each other. Both women played big parts in both of my parents' lives, losing them was especially tough because they were both their last living parents. Yet it ended up being bittersweet because my parents were able to relate and comfort one another through such a difficult time. Maria Christmann (my Oma) and Jean Larson (my Grams) were such strong, independent women I wish Eleanor could've spent time with them. But the joy we feel when we use their recipes, share them here, and reminisce about mom learning a recipe or dad eating one as a kid makes us all so happy it reminds me that they truly do live on through us. Their loss also makes me so grateful that I still have my parents and their help raising Eleanor. I love hearing them talking, giggling and singing with her when Donny and I are working in another room. She is lucky to have so many adoring sets of hands to crawl into on a daily basis. Maybe that's why she's such a happy baby? 🤷‍♀️ And Eleanor has been good for my parents, she's helped them find new joy and purpose. They had retired early and moved to California to be near me but found themselves with a lot of time on their hands. Now they are busier than ever helping look after Eleanor... us, 3 cats, 2 dogs 2.5 horses (and a partridge in a pear tree). 😂 Donny likes to tease me, “why enjoy the present when you can worry about the future?” This annoys me but probably because it is really good advice. It makes me stop and remember to appreciate the moment. The future is unknown but that's okay because I'm learning to enjoy the now. So, for 2019 I hope there are no big surprises or changes. I know, blah. But writing this post was cathartic. It has taught me to not be sad about letting go of dreams. Instead, I should understand why I had those dreams in the first place. I loved our old house/life because I imagined Eleanor's future there. Now I realize it doesn't matter where she is as long as she's happy and healthy. I am so thankful to have such a loving and supportive husband and family and especially for all the changes Eleanor has made in me and our lives. My lack of perspective makes me feel a bit sheepish 🙈 I guess that's just a part of growing up and what Our Stable Life is all about--sharing and learning from each other.

My favorite thing about Christmas is making the dishes that I learned from the matriarchs of our family. These handed down recipes are very dear to my heart. My mom taught me how to make our family Christmas Bread, we all knew it was my dad's mother Elizabeth Larson’s special recipe. This dough is also the same for her famous cinnamon rolls. 7-10 cups white flour 2 packages of Fleishman’s yeast 1 cup Sugar 1 tsp cardamom 1 tsp nutmeg 4 cups milk 1/4 cup butter 2 eggs 1 cup dried maraschino cherries chopped in one cup of flour 1 cup pecans or walnuts chopped First proof yeast- open two packages of yeast into a large glass bowl (never metal as it will kill the yeast) mix with a ¼ cup of water and 1 tsp sugar. Put in a warm place to proof while you put together other ingredients. Mix warmed milk, soft butter, cardamon, nutmeg, eggs and sugar together then gently fold proofed yeast into these ingredients. Next add 7-10 cups of flour and the cherries and walnuts; you know you have added enough flour to the dough when you can’t stir it any more. *It is important to mix the cherries with flour as you chop them up, to prevent them from bleeding into the dough making it look pink. Some people use red and green cherries for Christmas but we never used green ones because it makes the bread look like it has little bits of green mould in it. Grandma Larson told me not to over work the dough or it gets tough so just stir until everything is mixed. Next lightly cover top of dough with vegetable oil then cover with wax paper or a dish towel, put in a non drafty warm place and let it rise; once it doubles in size punch it down back into a ball. Always generously oil your hands before handling the dough so that it doesn’t stick to your hands. Take the ball of dough out of the bowl and place on a heavily floured cutting board; cut into 8 equal parts and place on greased cookie sheets (2-3 balls per sheet). Now put in a non-drafty warm place and allow to rise. It is very important that the place is not too hot because you don’t want the outside of the dough to cook, as this will prevent the dough from growing. Once the dough has doubled in size put them in the oven to cook for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Icing Melt ¼ cup of butter 1 cup of powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp water Prepare the same icing as for the Molasses Bars and once again as soon as you take the bread out of the oven paint it with the icing and shake sprinkles on the top while it is still hot so they stick. We use candy sprinkles not sugar sprinkles because the sugar ones bleed/melt on the hot bread. Years ago after we sold our farm in Calgary we were so excited to try out the new oven that first Christmas in our new house but we didn’t realize that the new fancy marble counters would hinder the process. We couldn’t figure out why the dough wouldn’t rise, finally grams pointed out that the marble counters were a lot colder than the old formica one in our old house. We ended up putting the dough on the wood floors in front of the warm oven it get them to rise, and sure enough it did the trick!

Pretty much if you like molasses you will love this chewy gingerbread squares. Don't let your eyes deceive you these are not brownies!! My mom and dad, Jean and Forrest Larson were both from Minnesota, this recipe comes from my mom's mom, Alice Caughey. They were dad's favorite and became the family favorite, because of all the stories associated with them. One of my sisters in law cooked them and he teased her that he couldn’t eat them because they weren’t burned like how our mom always managed to. My husband Herb was so excited when he saw them, the first year he spent Christmas with the Larson’s, that he stuffed a whole one in his mouth thinking they were brownies, only to spit it out as fast as it went in once he tasted the molasses. These are time sensitive while preparing. First when you mix the wet and dry ingredients, they need to be poured onto the cookie sheet as fast as you can because the magic of the baking soda starts the minute they combine. Spread the dough flat but don’t worry about spreading it right to the edges of the cookie sheet, it expands when it cooks. Time is of the essence again when you are spreading a thin layer of icing on them, do it as soon as they come out of the oven when still hot. The sprinkles also must go on right away, before the icing drys or they won't stick. Finally it helps to cut them while still warm (it's easier and they won't crack or crumble)! We use multi color candy sprinkles instead of red and green sugar ones (even though they are more festive for Christmas) because the sugar ones melt when put on hot icing/cookie. 1/2 C sugar 1 C molasses 1/2 shortening (crisco) 1/2 butter Melt and mix the wet ingredients, let cool, add 1 egg then add flour mixture. 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon cinnamon 2 1/2 C flour Icing Melt ¼ cup of butter 1 cup of powdered sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp water. Spread on cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Bake 325 for 8 mins then rotate in oven and another 8 mins or until toothpick comes out clean.

Every year at Christmas Herb's mom, Maria Christmann would send us a box of her Christmas cookies. The first ones to disappear were the "Krensall" or vanilla rings. These are Herb's favorites, he'd talk about them all year. I had her tell me the recipe ages ago but never needed to make them because she sent some every year. She passed this spring and when we were talking about making Christmas cookies this year and I asked Herb what cookie of hers he'd like me to try to make, these were it. After making these cookies I looked up some recipes to see how other people made them and there are a lot of versions for basically the same cookie. What I think is key is that they soften and the flavors blend after they've been in a cookie tin for a few days or a week, if that is you still have any cookies left after a week... These cookies are a bit of work but Mom Christmann’s recipe was very simple. Mix these four ingredients and then let them sit. 2 1/2 Cup flour 1 Cup butter 1/2 Cup sugar 4 Egg yolks Flour the surface your working on before you roll out some of the dough, if it crumbles too much put it back in the mixing bowl and add 2-3 tablespoons of water or left over egg white. Once the dough is rolled out cut circles (we used a stemless wine glass) and then cut out the center of 1/2 the circles to make the cookie tops. We started with a shot glass to cut out the centers because that's what my mom in law used but we ended up using a vodka bottle cap :) because it was thinner and smaller which caused less cracking than the shot glass we had. Bake for 12 mins at 350 until light brown. Spread apricot and/or raspberry jam on the bottoms and place the rings on top, sprinkle with vanilla flavored powder sugar and store in a tin as mentioned above. *Vanilla sugar can be bought at the store and added to the powdered sugar or you can make your own by putting a vanilla bean and some sugar in an airtight container for at least month.

When asked recently why I still ride horses my first thoughts were of the joy and laughter riding bareback all summer long when I was a little girl. To this day riding brings me that same happiness. My riding journey has taken many paths. I did pony club, worked with Thoroughbreds at the race track, and was a wrangler leading pack outfits in the mountains. My favorite is riding Dressage, which was my specialty for many years before I met my husband. I switched back to show jumping when Cori was little because I figured it would be more fun for her. Nowadays I am riding Dressage again because it’s safer and easier on my body. I am 61 after all and the thing about Dressage vs jumping horses is you’re a little less likely to fall off. The word Dressage means ‘training’ in French and is based on the movements used by cavalry in battle. Think horse moving sideways to dodge a sword or moving in place to trample an enemy. Modern dressage is about doing similar “moves” in perfect rhythm and balance so that it looks like dancing. The natural partnership that is required to make the moves look in sync and easy. The work invisible to the eye is what makes it so challenging and fulfilling for me. I got the dressage bug again after helping a young professional here in California, Niki Clarke. She is one of the most beautiful and talented new riders I have ever seen. I started dreaming about how much I’d love to have a Grand Prix or high level horse to have some fun on or, as they say, one last hurrah. One day I told Nicki to keep an eye out for me for a nice, safe, fun, Grand Prix type horse that would like to be retired, knowing that was quite common with show jumpers. She laughed and told me that she has never had anyone want to just retire a horse like that to a good home, that if they were still fit enough to ride they were always sold for tons of money. But the very next morning she called all excited to tell me that she had found my horse. Someone had called her the night before looking to place a lovely horse to a good home. She had known this horse since it was imported from Germany as a four year old and thought it would be a perfect match. (Talk about putting something out in the universe and getting an answer!) Even more amazing, when Cori and I went and rode “Winslett” for the first time, we found out that she is related to Cori’s horse Opus, who we still have, and his sire (dad) is Winslett’s grand sire! I have had Winslett for about a year and a half now and every time I go out to ride, I still feel that pure joy I did when I was a little girl riding bareback. But I am over 60 and have broke a lot of bones throughout my life, so some days are harder than others to get out there and it’s not been easy getting fit and strong enough to ride again at this level. So this morning was special, I felt like a teenager when I pulled my breeches on and I rushed out at dawn to ride before it started raining. When I got off Winslett today and Cori asked how my ride was I answered “Every part of it was great!”, which to me is true. I feel so lucky to still be able to ride. In hindsight I realized that wasn’t really a descriptive answer. After thinking about what I should have said, I thought of how neither my horse nor I ever get frustrated or confused. We really do enjoy our time together. I am having so much fun exploring the incredible complex movements that we practice… finding balance, flexion, lightness and impulsion. One of the most amazing things about this mare is that she shares little secrets that make us both smile. We really have a lovely two way conversation happening. Riding truly keeps me fit and happy. It gives me a bounce to my step and a smile on my face that lasts all day long. Even Opus loves Our Stable Life, he and Winslet have developed the cutest relationship, we catch them scratching each other’s necks and eating together, totally in love with each other. Living with my family and having a horse to escape and learn with is the best life I could imagine. 📖More Reading👇 Stephanie's Equestrian Bio Teaching Riding Again and It Feels So Good

Our holiday turkey dinners always include wild rice stuffing or as my mother called it "dressing". My mom and dad, Jean and Forrest Larson, were from Minnesota and even met at the University of Minnesota so she always used wild rice in a few recipes. Bring 1 cup of wild rice and 4 cups of water to a boil and then let simmer for 30 mins. Then turn it off and let it soak for at least 5 hours or overnight. *It can sit on stove overnight with lid on (doesn’t need to be refrigerated). Chop and sauté: 1 bunch of celery, 2 onions ( I like to do 1 yellow and 1 sweet onion) 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper 1/2 a portobello mushroom or 1 cup baby mushrooms Salt and Pepper Fresh sage or 1t poultry seasoning ( I also like using the dried sage from Light House if I don't have fresh sage). 2 -3 cups bread cubed Sauté all the veggies together until soft. Then in a large bowl mix together the cooked wild rice and sautéed veggies. Add poultry seasoning or fresh sage and salt and pepper. Next add bread cubes (we use old bread from the freezer) but we don’t like to add too much bread because we don’t want them to overwhelm the stuffing. Since it's recommended not to fill turkey's with stuffing any more we simply bake the stuffing in a casserole dish for 45 mins or more it should be a bit crispy on the edges.

Riding is a partnership like none other, every day is different because your horse has it’s own feelings, moods and experiences. I fell in love with riding over other sports because it was so challenging and yet so fulfilling when everything comes together. I still feel lucky to be able to work and learn from horses. For many years before we owned our own horse farm, I taught or trained from any field or barn that I could. I loved sharing and putting to use what I learned from some truly amazing horsemen and women, Olympians and cowboys alike in both North America and Europe. When Cori was four I was helping teach and train at Willow Grove Stables in Calgary, Canada and this is where she got started riding as purely a form of babysitting. I would bring one of the lesson horses in from the paddock for Cori to ride and then she would pull a milk carton over to stand on so she could brush and tack up the horse all on her own! Then she'd join whatever lesson I was teaching. Some days she would ride three different horses in that many of my lessons. She loved learning and was lucky to have some amazing school horses to “babysit” her. One of them was "Dude" shown in the photo. (Who we recently found out was bred and raised by a friend of ours, Janine Olsen of Two Willow Equine. Talk about a small world.) I remember that at some of her first horse shows we would sleep at the show grounds in our camper van so I could get up and braid 5-6 horses before she woke up in the morning, to help pay for her horse show entries. As time went by we bought and ran our own stable and Cori’s riding became our focus. But now I am riding again and Cori isn’t. The other day I was cleaning my horse and tack after my ride and thought of how much further along I am because of the experiences we had through Cori’s riding career. The talented horses we had for her, the people we met and learned from, the traveling, and so much more. I remember so vividly what renowned horseman, Norman Dello Joio once said at a clinic, "Never practice anything in your daily rides that you wouldn’t want to use in the show ring". Such great advice in riding and in life really. Basically don't put your time and energy into something that you know isn't productive, including negativity and self doubt. 📖More Reading👇 Teaching Riding Again and It Feels So Good Why I Still Ride Horses Stephanie's Equestrian Bio

I was cooking for a bunch of Geologists, deep in the Canadian Rocky Mountains as a camp cook the summer I met Herb. Over the years I had a number of cooking jobs, starting when I was an Au Pair in Germany at age 17, where my Germany family said I wasn't allowed to go back to Canada until I had learned to cook spatzle three ways. From then on I seemed to always find my way into peoples kitchens to learn what they were making. I passed my love of cooking and food to Cori, she was eating with chopsticks by age four. We love to spend time in the kitchen, whether we are cooking old traditional recipes handed down by the matriarchs of our family, or trying to replicate a dish we had at a restaurant or saw on a cooking show. My mother commented once that she loved watching how seamlessly we worked together while cooking in a kitchen. Even when Cori and I lived in different countries, we would text a picture of what we were eating or had cooked. I loved getting a call out of nowhere from Cori asking how to cook this or fix that. The best part of living back together is cooking for my family, especially since I now have all of Cori’s new kitchen gadgets and beautiful dishes from her wedding. It’s like playing with all new toys! It really makes cooking delicious meals for my family seem effortless. I am grateful and it’s a lot more fun sharing what I’m good at with the people that I love. One of our family favorites for breakfast is... Popovers 1 Cup Milk 1 Cup Flour 4 eggs 1 t vanilla Preheat oven to 375, put muffin tin in while oven is heating up with a little bit of butter in each cup. Once the butter is melted use a brush or paper towel to coat muffin cups so the popovers don't stick. Beat milk and eggs together then add flour and vanilla and mix till smooth. Fill muffin cups to 1/2 full Bake 20-30 mins Serve with peanut butter and jam (Herb's fav), or Cori's favorite homemade apple butter and honey! Similar to Yorkshire pudding these can also be eaten at dinner with gravy. Just replace the vanilla with salt and add cheese and/or chives.

Hi! We’re Stef and Cori, we talk too fast, finish each other's sentences and are more like sisters than mother and daughter in that we are best friends but still drive each other nuts sometimes. Ok, let’s rewind a little. We’re from Canada. Stef grew up on a horse and passed her love for riding with Cori. Our shared passion turned into a family business, Equinox Stables, where we taught riding lessons, trained horses, showed up and down the West Coast and traveled to Europe buying horses to train and sell. Long story short, Cori moved to California for a riding job, fell in love with the sunshine and never looked back. After a few years Stef and Cori’s dad, Herb, sold the riding stable and decided to retire to California. What the heck? Who wants to live in the cold when you don’t have to, right?! Stef and Cori continued showing horses in California for a few years until Cori decided to take time off riding to go to school. She ended up finishing her degree in London where she got a BA in Communications and Marketing. Stef got back into the riding for herself, now doing dressage instead of show jumping which she did before she had Cori. In 2016 Cori got married and in March 2018 she and her husband, Donny welcomed a baby girl named Eleanor. Just weeks later, Cori and Donny made the big decision to move in with Stef and Herb to have their help with Eleanor as Donny launched his own business. As you can imagine, it’s been a learning curve with 4 adults and a new baby living under one roof plus 2 dogs, 3 cats, and 3 horses. It's not something Cori and Donny planned or expected when they got married and bought their first house. And yet we all knew right away that it would be wonderful for Eleanor to grow up with two extra sets of hands loving and teaching her about life. We realize that it is a bit of a foreign concept nowadays to have all the family together, especially when we’re all encouraged to have our own white picket fence. But as Stef and Herb pointed out, in the old country where our relatives come from, it was common for the older generation to help raise the grandkids so their parents could work. In fact, Herb's Oma and Opa (German for grandparents) did exactly that for his parents. So for us with a new baby and new business, it just made sense. They say it takes a village to raise a family and we’re now living by that motto. As for getting along, it’s amazing how a baby changes everything. All of a sudden our relationships with one another are different. Stef and Herb are now Oma and Opa and Cori and Donny are now the mom and dad. Likewise, Cori and Stef used to fight like sisters but now it’s not about either of us--it’s all about Eleanor. We want to help and be helped. Yes we all get frustrated with one another from time to time but we’re more patient and thankful than ever before. Maybe it’s because we’re acutely aware of Eleanor’s little eyes and ears soaking up everything. We are joined by our love for her and want her to grow up learning to be kind and respectful, to laugh and learn, and, most of all to love, and know that she is loved. This blog is about…. our "stable" life. Learning to live together, the dynamics of a multi-generational family under one roof. We’ll share our favorite recipes because we love to cook, stories about riding (we are still horse girls at heart!), being a new mom, a new grandma, and everything in between. Why? Because we’re nuts? Maybe. But its more because we want to share our experiences with others and to create a community to encourage and be encouraged. Are we nervous about putting it all out there? For sure! But here we go!