White Bean & Chard Soup

1/10/2021

Ingredients

1/2 lb. white navy beans
ham bones and 1.5 cups of ham chunks
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped (1 ½ cups)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (1 Tbsp.)
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
4 cups lower-sodium chicken broth
1 dried bay leaf
3 cups packed roughly chopped Luculus Swiss chard picked today from the garden, stems and rib removed.

Directions

Boil the bones in the old cast iron bean pot for several hours to create a ham broth.
Pour dried beans into boiling water and let soak for an hour.
Add partially cooked beans to the ham broth.
Heat oil in a heavy pot. Add onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent. Add garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Cook.
Add to the beans and broth and add the bay leaf.
Add the ham chunks and bring the mixture to a boil over high. Reduce heat to low; simmer, stirring occasionally, until the beans are tender. Remove and discard bay leaf.
Stir in chard. Cook, stirring often, until wilted and slightly softened. Garnish with Parmesan.

Pork Chops, Smothered

12/17/2020 – Made this great traditional dish and enjoyed it very much. It was simple and completely “comfort food”. This recipe was inspired by Paula Dean’s Low Country Smothered Pork Chops.

Ingredients

3 1-inch thick pork chops
cayenne pepper flakes from our garden
2 tablespoons butter
all-purpose flour for dredging
2 medium green bell peppers from our garden, chopped
2 yellow onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups Mary’s chicken broth
2 to 3 dashes Worcestershire sauce
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Season the chops well with salt, pepper, and cayenne. Dredge the seasoned chops in the flour, and brown them in the butter in the heavy red enamel cast iron saute pan with lid. Remove them from the skillet.

Add the bell peppers and onions, to the skillet, and sauté until wilted. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Push the vegetables to the side of the skillet. Add chops to pan and place vegetables on top of pork chops. Pour in the broth and sprinkle with Worcestershire sauce. Put on the lid and allow to simmer for 45 minutes or until chops are tender.

Serve with jasmine rice.

Refrigerator Pickled Red Onions & Daikons

12/6/2020 – We have too many red onions from the grocery store and some large daikons from the garden. A recipe here seemed good to use the onions. Made more onion pickling liquid than needed for the quart of onion so made a 12 oz. jar of Daikons sliced into coins. These are made to be stored in the refrigerator and eaten soon.

The pickling liquid was made with the ingredients below. The amounts of salt and sugar are a lot less than she used. Before adding it to the jars I tasted it and it was slightly sweet and the salt could almost be detected.

  • 4 cups apple cider vinegar
  • warm water at 2:1 ratio of the vinegar – See notes below of how this was achieved
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp pickling salt

The large red onion was sliced by hand into about 1/8″ thick slices and the two large daikons were peeled then cut into 1/8″ thick coins. The quart jar was filled with the onion slices and the commercial tall pickle jar was filled with the coins. We did not need all the coins so the tougher almost pithy coins were discarded.

The seasoned vinegar was poured into the jars until they were 1/3 full. The jars were then topped off with our well water. That provided for one part vinegar to 2 parts of water. The jars were then turned and shaken then put into the outside refrigerator to pickle for a couple of days.

Pickled Pepperoncini Peppers

12/2/2020 – With the hard freezes coming we harvested on Nov. 30 all the pepperoncini peppers from Mary’s garden. We were surprised there were about 3 gallons in a 5-gallon bucket from the four bushes. Made the bent ones as slices this date pickled in pint jars two ways. Then made 3 quarts as slices. All had slightly different spice levels as an experiment.

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Korean Pork Stir-fry

11/27/2020 – Mary made this with bok choy, green onions, and lemon from our garden. It was very good and one to repeat again. A little spicer and/or more ginger might be worth trying next time. This was inspired by the recipe by Marion here and her video where she said to only have two main vegetables in a stir fry to keep it simple. And, do not stir it too much.

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German Sauerkraut Preps with our 2020 Cabbage

11/27/2020 – We have harvested our first heads of K-Y (Taiwanese) cabbage whose leaves were tender and not as stiff as standard store bought cabbage. Used two of them in our German kraut using the Excell spreadsheet ingredient calculator that provided the ingredient weights below.

K-Y Cabbages1737
Caraway Seed – 2gm /1000 gm cabbage3.5
Juniper berries – 2 gm per 1000 gm cabbage3.5
Mustard Seed – 6 gm per 1000 gm of cabbage10.4
Salt – 1.6% of the cabbage27.8
Total1782.2
Projected 1/2 gallon jars at 1400 gm of cabbage per jar1.2

Actually made a 1/2 gallon and a quart. Both with space above the glass weight and not like we usually do where the jars are too full.

The next morning brine had accumulated to the top of the cabbage but did not submerge it. Mixed some 6% saltwater and topped each jar off so the glass weight was submerged. The water should have been 1.6% but the small amount of added 6% saltwater will make little difference.


12/7/2020 – Had two fresh heads of K-Y cabbage so made it into kraut. This amount made one 1/2 gallon jar that was full.

Cabbage gms1646
Caraway Seed – 2 gm per 1000 gm cabbage3.3
Juniper berries – 2 gm per 1000 gm cabbage3.3
Mustard Seed – 6 gm per 1000 gm of cabbage9.9
Salt – 1.6% of the cabbage26.3
Total1688.8

Sauerkraut with Our K-Y Cabbage

11/27/2020 – Jeff suggested we grow Taiwanese Cabbage and research about that cabbage turned up that here it is called K-Y cabbage. So, we grew some and now have three heads. Two went into sauerkraut and one into coleslaw. Based on the amounts computed using our Sauerkraut Calculator we prepared the following.

Cabbage1737
Caraway Seed – 2gm /1000 gm cabbage3.5
Juniper berries – 2 gm per 1000 gm cabbage3.5
Mustard Seed – 6 gm per 1000 gm of cabbage10.4
Salt – 1.6% of the cabbage27.8
Total1782.2
Projected 1/2 gallon jars at 1600 gm per jar1.2
Actually made – 1/2 gallon mason jars1.4
That equates to 1200 gms per jar