2/6/2021 – The original recipe was a Copy Cat of Carrabba’s famous soup that we liked a lot. As we did not have Italian sausage we used Conecuh’s Hot (i.e. Alabama level, not really hot) Cajun Sausage and a small ham bone with a little ham on it. The soup was easy to assemble and was good.
Continue reading2/??/2021 – This first-time kraut with cumin was inspired by the recipe here.
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 heads of green cabbage from our garden
- 2 bunches of green onions from our garden
- 1 large bunch of cilantro from our garden
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 jalapeno, seeded if less heat is desired
- 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 1.6% salt by weight
1/21/2021 – This is our first fermentation of Daikon Radishes this year. They were pulled, cleaned, and prepared today in the form of a long spear as opposed to last year when we did them as coins. This ferment also uses a 7% brine as suggested from last year’s limp coins made with a 6% brine. The result was crunchy but a little salty. All in all a success some would say but Mary said they smell really bad and I did not care much for the taste. This post was not deleted to record that 7% brine worked ok and the links below to brine calculators.
Continue reading1/17/2021 – This was Mary’s first Broccoli Cheddar Soup and it was GREAT. She said the fresh Brocolli from the garden helped. This recipe was inspired by the one here.
Continue reading1/10/2021
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.
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.
12/17/2020 – This soup was inspired by the recipe here. It was made with our fresh butternut squash, cabbage, green onions, and cilantro along with Mary’s homemade chicken broth. Half of the cooked veggies were emulsified so it had a nice consistency. It was very good on this cold windy winter day.
Continue reading12/16/2020 – This is our first time to preserve our first Meyer Lemon harvest in a lemon-juice/salt brine. What we did was inspired by the recipe here.
Continue reading12/6/2020 – 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.
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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