Hearty Midwest Ranch Recipes

Lyndy Ireland's sister Dell developed this ketchup-glazed meat loaf to feed crews hungry from long days in the corrals. "You need good food to do the work people do out here," Lyndy says.Lyndy and Kenny Ireland use their Spanish-style house, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, as both headquarters for their 2,000-acre ranch and as a bed and breakfast. Lyndy's great-grandfather built the house near the cottonwoods along South Dakota's Bad River in 1923 after saving enough alfalfa profits to upgrade from a cabin to a grand home built from a Sears kit.

Dell's Branding Day Meat Loaf

Lyndy Ireland cooks up breakfast favorites such as this classic biscuit mix recipe for her guests at Triangle Ranch in western South Dakota. She tops the Sausage Pie with refreshing salsa.

Six generations of prairie hospitality show in the meals Lyndy has served guests since she and her husband, Kenny, began hosting them on the ranch in 1996. The Triangle's meals, like those served to working cowboys and ranchers and ranch guests across the Great Plains, draw heavily on tradition, with ties to the chuck wagons of freedom-loving cowboys.On this and the following slides are some of the Triangle Ranch's most popular recipes.

Lazy Morning Sausage Pie

Bacon and brown sugar punch up the salty-sweet flavors in this canned pork and beans fix-up from Triangle Ranch Bed and Breakfast. Use half this amount of bacon if you want to cut calories, fat and sodium. For a candied top, leave Baked Beans 'n' Bacon uncovered in the oven.

Baked Beans 'n' Bacon

These turtle cookies are cooked in a waffle iron, not oven-baked. The recipe comes from the Triangle Ranch B&B in South Dakota.

Chocolate Waffle Turtle Cookies

This cake, another of Lyndy's breakfast favorites, is full of streusel crunch. Because of that, it doesn't cut into perfect slices. "Shingle two slices dusted with confectioner's sugar beside the entree and not a crumb will be left," Lyndy says. It gets even better as you store it, covered, at room temperature. If Lyndy has streusel left over after making Kate's Blue-Ribbon Coffee Cake, she uses it to top ice cream or French toast.

Kate's Blue-Ribbon Coffee Cake

A crunchy topping of walnuts, chocolate and sugar replaces the usual frosting on this rich and moist red-colored snack cake.

Chocolate Picnic Cake

Juicy grapes and crunchy broccoli blend sweet flavors with another all-time favorite ranch ingredient: savory, salty bacon. It's a lighter side-dish salad that often appeals to the ladies in the group, Lyndy says.

Broccoli Grape Salad

Diced green chile peppers give this baked and cheesy side dish character with some hotness. We like the crunch from the saltine crackers, too.

Triangle Ranch Scalloped Corn