New Orleans-Style Blackeye Peas

Posted on by August 14, 2022

Original Camellia Brand recipe extracted 8/14/2018 from https://www.camelliabrand.com/recipes/new-orleans-style-black-eyed-peas. Not made for the first time until 8/13/2022. Ironically, exactly four years later. This was very good, gave the peas more flavor and, was like a meatless gumbo.

Ingredients:

1 (1-pound) package Camellia Brand Blackeye Peas
~2 tablespoons bacon fat
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper. [8/13/22 used two small ones from the garden]
3 stalks of celery, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste from a tube
~10 cups Honeybaked hambone broth with the ham bits that came from it
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot cornbread or rice
1 bunch of green onions from the garden, sliced

Directions:

  1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add bacon fat and sauté onions, bell pepper, celery, and garlic until slightly wilted on the edges. Add to simmering broth pot that still has the bone. Stir and let heat up.
  2. Add bay leaves and tomato paste; bring to a boil.
  3. Add blackeye peas, stir well and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer—with no lid to reduce the broth—for 1½ to 2 hours or until peas are tender, stirring occasionally.
  4. Remove bone. Serve over cornbread or hot cooked rice. Garnish with chopped green onions.

Air Fryer Blackened Shrimp

Posted on by August 6, 2022

8/6/2022 – This was Mary’s first shrimp cook in her new Ninja Air Fryer. The shrimp turned out good and we learned a few things to make them better.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined.
  • Drizzle of olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon of our blackened seasoning
  • Chopped green onions from the Grow Boxes

Instructions

  1. In a mixing bowl, seasoned shrimp with Blackening Seasoning, tossed with oil then let marinate in the refrigerator for several hours.
  2. Preheat air fryer to 400 degrees for 5 minutes.
  3. Oiled basket lightly and added shrimp. [Should have put more blackening on it then.]
  4. Cook at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes, shaking once halfway through. This cook shook them at 2 minutes but should have waited to 3 minutes. Cook until shrimp turn pink.

Pickled Okra 2022-25

Posted on by August 30, 2025

8/3/2022 – Given the 60-ft row of Clemson Spineless and the 60-ft row of Red Burgundy okra at the beginning of their season…at least this year…we had enough to make our popular pickled okra.

8/18/2022 – Made 4 more pints using this recipe and process.

8/1/2024 – Two years later we found two pints. We opened one and, at room temperature, they were still firm and had a good flavor.

8/19 & 29/2025 – Made 6 pints so increased the brine by 50 percent for the 8/19 prep and had far too much. On 8/29 made the recipe quantities for 4 pints and had more than enough for 6 pints.

8/18/2022 – The prep was based on what we did on 8/3/2021 based on the first effort in 2019. The only difference is using our dehydrated Carolina Cayenne Peppers instead of Jalapenos and Serranos.

  1. Sanitized jars and lids in boiling water.
  2. Packed 4 pint jars with fresh small okra from our garden with stem ends trimmed off.
  3. Made the brine with the following ingredients and brought it to a boil. [See note above on 8/19/2025 as this makes enough for 6 pints.]
    1. 3 cups white vinegar,
    2. 3 cups water
    3. 1/4 cup + 1T canning salt,
    4. 1/8 cup + 1T sugar
    5. NOTE: These amounts are not exactly what the past pickled was. That was for 3 pints of okra mix 2C+2C+¼C+1/8C.
  4. Pour over okra, filling to 1/2 inch from the top.
  5. While filling added:
    1. Large cayenne peppers dehydrated this week from Carolina Cayennes that are hotter than typical cayennes. Equivalent to 1/4 teaspoon.
    2. 2-3 garlic cloves, each cut in half in the bottom and top and
    3. 1 level tsp. of dill seeds in the bottom of each jar and 1 in the top.
  6. Place jars in the canner so covered by 1 inch of simmering water. Bring water to a rolling boil for 10 minutes.
  7. Cool, label, and store

Small Roast & Veggie Tray on the Recteq #2

Posted on by August 3, 2022

8/3/2022 – This smoke is the second small beef roast on the Recteq based on the first one here. Dry brined a 2 lb. roast 2 days earlier and seasoned well with fresh coarse ground black pepper and a light dusting of 6pogs on both sides. Preheated Recteq to 260°.

While that was getting underway, Mary cut up the following and drizzled it with pecan oil and thyme. mixed it with her hands. The full tray smoked with the meat as outlined below.

  1. 1:45 PM – Put it on the smoker at 260°. Probe read the IT was 55 as we had let it sit out for maybe an hour.
  2. 2:35 PM – Added vegetable tray.
  3. 4:00 PM – Roast’s IT was 148 and when sliced open it was still a little pink. Pulled and wrapped in foil to rest on the counter. Stirred the veggie tray. They are close to being done.

Tomato Cucumber Feta Salad

Posted on by July 23, 2022

A great salad was first made on 7/20/2022. Inspired by the recipe at NatachasKitchen.com

Ingredients

  • 1 lb Better Boy tomatoes from our garden, chopped
  • 1 medium cucumber from our garden, sliced
  • 6 oz feta cheese, crumbled
  • 1 small red onion, sliced
  • 1/4 cup basil from our garden, chopped
  • 1/2 cup Calamata Olive slices

Salad Dressing Ingredients:

Reverse Seared Burgers on the Recteq ToTry

Posted on by July 16, 2022

Inspired by the recipe at Recteq.

INGREDIENTS:

3 pounds Ground Beef 80/20
2 tablespoons 6POGS
2 1/3 tablespoons Creole Seasoning
Our Russian Dressing
6 Kaiser Rolls
Lettuce & Tomato

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Preheat recteq to 225°F with a sear kit flat side up.
  2. Shape the ground beef into 6 large 1/2 pound burger patties. Season each side with 6POGS
  3. Smoke the burgers at 225°F for 45-60 minutes until 120°F internal.
  4. In a medium size bowl, prepare the burger sauce by combining the mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, sweet pickle relish, 1 tablespoon Creole Seasoning and two shakes of 6POGS. Mix well.
  5. Once the burgers have hit 120°F, remove them from the grill and isert the sear kit flat side up and increase the grill temperature to 500°F.
  6. Once the grill has reached the higher temperature, add the burger to the flat side of the sear kit and cook for 3-4 minutes a side until 135°F internal.

Marinara & Cajun Tomato Sauce to Freeze

Posted on by June 7, 2024

7/9/2022 – We have a lot of tomatoes and bell peppers from the garden and decided to put them up prepared into two base dishes for use with meat in the winter.

  • Cut off all the bad places and chopped the tomatoes.
  • Chopped red onions, celery, and carrots for the marinara. About 1:1:1.
  • Chopped yellow onions, celery, and bell pepper for the Cajun sauce. About 3:2:1.
  1. Cooked them in the two large deep pots (marinara in the deep aluminum pot) with bacon grease and olive oil. After partially wilted, added 1/3rd of the garlic.
  2. After it wilted more, added the fresh tomatoes. Added another third of the garlic.
  3. Add salt and fresh coarse ground black pepper to both. Then added our homemade Italian seasoning (which had a lot of red pepper flakes in it) to the marinara and Kip’s Creole Seasoning to the cajun sauce.
  4. Simmered them for about 5 hours until they became a chunky sauce with a deep aroma. The simmering was halted before it was ready so when it is reheated the meat can cook before the sauce becomes mush.

Q: How much of the seasoning blends were used? A: Until it smelled right.

Stirring in the fresh chopped tomatoes
After simmering about 5 hours–ready to feeze

Stuff Jalapeno Peppers & Pork for the 4th, 2022

Posted on by November 13, 2022

We invited family and friends to enjoy a July 4th celebration with us. Lanier, Lanea with Spencer and Peggy with Frank were the family component. Bro. Digger Creel, Carol, and Morita, with Sterling and Helen Hines, plus Ann Gaston, were the friends.* The hit was the smoked, stuffed jalapenos.

Notable food prepared and served by us was:

Smoked Pork shoulders

  1. Two for a total of 20 lbs. after trimming. Dry brined for 36 hours.
  2. Removed from the refrigerator to warm up for about an hour. Slathered with yellow mustard as they were not moist enough to hold the seasoning. Shook on 6POGS moderately.
  3. Smoked in the Recteq at 276° for 6 hours.
  4. Pulled, wrapped in aluminum foil, poured in maybe a cup of ACV, wrapped tightly, and put into the convection oven at 275° until the probe alarmed at 205 in the average size piece.
  5. Pulled that piece and the smaller piece. Moved the probe to the large piece and pulled it when the probe alarmed at 205.°
  6. Put the pieces in the small Igloo cooler. About 2 hours later when removed and served they were still hot, very moist, and falling apart–but not too much.
  7. Comments – Good flavor and not too spicy for this crowd who are wimps.

Smoked, Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers, Bacon Wrapper

These were very popular and many said they were special.

  • Made with fresh, milder Everman Jalapenos grown in our garden.
  • Removed the stems and sliced the large meaty peppers in half and removed seeds and pith.
  • Stuffed them high with Ina’s Spicy Pimento Cheeze with small pieces of last week’s Pork Roast with a lot of bark bits.
  • Wrapped them in Zeigler’s thin-sliced bacon and seasoned with Creole Seasoning.
  • Smoked at 250° for about 1.25 hours until the bacon was crispy. Some of the stuffing had melted and run out of the jalapenos.
  • Put them on a small baking sheet, covered with foil, and put them into the warm oven for about an hour.
  • Pulled them to cool for about 30-45 minutes before serving so the cheese would not be runny.
  • Sliced them into 3/4 to 1″ lengths and served on the wooded cutting board with toothpicks.

.* Becky did not want to drive at night so she did not attend. Tommy Browning just caught Covid so none of them attended. Don’t know where Jack is.

Italian Seasoning

Posted on by November 30, 2025

7/1/2022, updated 11/29/2025 – In July 2022, we did not have any store-bought Italian Seasoning so looked up a recipe and tweaked it to what we would like with what we had on hand. This is based on the recipe here. This blend or some slight variation was good and more was made in 2023, 2024. To be able to accurately make large batches we the weighted the quantities in Nov. 2025 as cited below.

Ingredients from AllRecipes.com

  • 2 tablespoons dried basil – In Nov. 2025 she calls for 4 Tbls.
  • 2 tablespoons dried oregano
  • 2 tablespoons dried rosemary
  • 2 tablespoons dried marjoram
  • 2 tablespoons dried thyme
  • 2 tablespoons dried savory
  • 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes (cayenne) from the year before last’s garden. Hotter than store bought.

11/29/2025 — This has been a good blend for us although the garden’s red pepper flake quantity is a bit high. Today we made a double batch, with the full load of red pepper flakes and weighed each quantity. This made slightly more than 1.5 cups. Reducing the red pepper flakes by 50% would make 1.5 cups.

  • dried basil – 11 gm. In Nov. 2025 she now calls for 4 Tbls. or in our double batch, 8 tbsp. so that would be 22 gms.
  • dried oregano – 11 gm
  • dried rosemary – 14 gm
  • dried thyme – 11 gms
  • dried savory – 12 gms
  • red pepper flakes (cayenne) – 16 gms from this year’s garden. Hotter than store bought. Next time reduce by 50%.