10/15/2017 – Cut and deboned half of a pork butt bought yesterday for $1.29/lb. Smoked the larger part of it today and shook on cure per the cure calculator that provided the values below. This was our first dry-cure of tasso and after 16 days it the meat was well cured and not hard to add rub, dry them smoke. Resulted in a mild flavor of smoked ham with noticeable seasoning but not spicy. It will be good additions to dishes as desired. Continue reading
10/15/2017 – Dry brined the tip roast with kosher salt the night before. This morning cleaned up the butt and took off about 3 lbs to cure for tasso. Rubbed the beef with Jeff’s Texas Rubb and the piece of the butt with Stubbs Hot Pork Rub. This simple cook with two small roasts worked out well and provide variety for the week. Continue reading
10/14/2017 – Mary made fried onion rings that were as good as the best we have had at restaurants. She was inspired by the recipe at http://www.laurainthekitchen.com/recipes/onion-rings/
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, cut into rings and each piece separated. In addition to Laura’s recipe, put the rings into about a quart of water with maybe about 1 T of kosher salt. Let them brine for maybe 45 minutes. Other recipes said 30 minutes.
- ~1 & 1/2 cup of All Purpose Flour
- ~2 cups of Buttermilk
- 1 egg
- ~1 T of Baking Powder
- ~2 T of Corn Starch
- ~2 T Kohl’s Creole Seasoning
- ~2 T Sriracha Hot Sauce
- Vegetable Oil
- Drain salt water before starting to fry
- Mix all dry ingredients then added Sriracha then the buttermilk to create a slurry, like thin pancake batter or a thick gravy.
- Add rings to the batter letting them soak while one batch fried.
- Lifted battered ring and let drip off before laying into the hot oil.
Note – She did not measure any of the ingredients so the only thing we are sure of is the one egg.
Next time, try Laura’s dipping sauce for blooming onion chips.
1/3 cup of Mayo
1 Tbsp of Ketchup
1 Tbsp of Prepared Horseradish
1 tsp of Paprika
1/4 tsp of Ground Oregano
Small Pinch of Salt and Pepper
12/8/2017 – Made following Kit Whol’s directions in her Creole Classics cookbook. Set the oven at 400 degrees and stirred the roux every 15 minutes. We had already cooked it on the stove to a light brown but got tired of stirring it. It was a dark caramel within an hour. This was a lot easier.
Here is another way we have not tried.Serves: Yield: 1 1/2 cups
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large cast iron skillet, whisk together the flour and oil to make a paste. Place the skillet in the oven and bake for 90 minutes to 2 hours for a dark roux, stirring every 30 minutes. Once the roux has achieved your desired color, transfer to a storage container or a gumbo-cooking vessel and proceed with the recipe.
Author: Becca at Amuse Your Bouche
Ingredients:
2 bananas
100 g rolled oats (~ 1 cup)
250 ml milk (~ 1 cup)
1 tbsp peanut butter
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions – Thoroughly mash the bananas. Add the remaining ingredients, and mix well. Cover, and leave in the fridge for 8 hours, or overnight. Serve cold.
10/8/2017 – Sunday after Hurricane Nate went into Biloxi. We are still in Houston. This cook turned out good and had a few new tricks such as using Stubbs and creole seasoning with ACV. Continue reading
INGREDIENTS
- 1 large sweet potato (yielding 1.5 cups mashed; roasting instructions below)
- 1 cup whole grain cornmeal
- ½ cup dry creamy wheat (i.e., Cream of Wheat)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 TB baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp table salt
- 2 large eggs, room temp
- ½ cup whole Greek yogurt, plain
- ¾ cup milk
- 2 TB olive oil
- 4-5 pats real butter
DIRECTIONS
- Do ahead: Wrap sweet potato in heavy foil and roast 1.5 hours at 425F in oven or toaster oven. Once it can easily be pierced with fork, it’s done. Carefully unwrap (it’s hot!) and let cool enough to handle. Mash sweet potato. Measure out 1.5 cups for use in this recipe.
- Spray a 10 inch cast iron skillet with oil and set in oven on lower middle rack. Preheat oven to 425F.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, dry creamy wheat, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine mashed roasted sweet potato, eggs, yogurt, milk, and olive oil. whisk to combine well. Mixture should be smooth and thick.
- Using a rubber spatula, gently fold sweet potato mixture with the cornmeal mixture just until no dry streaks of flour remain. Do not over-mix.
- Place preheated/greased skillet on a heat-safe surface. Scrape batter into skillet, evening out the top into the edges. Bake 25-30 minutes or until top is puffy and golden brown. There should be cracks visible around edges of cornbread. Place cornbread on wire rack. Immediately place 4-5 pats of butter on top, letting butter melt into the cornbread. slice and serve with additional butter, if desired.
All from the same tree
10/1/2017 – Using sand pears picked from the tree in the garden at the farm, Mary made preserves inspired by the blog post and advice here at the BlindPigAndTheAcorn web site. See the post about picking them here at SundownFarms.com.
The directions at the BlindPig site plus what she added are as follows.
- Pears were peeled, cored and soft places discarded. Then sliced, white sugar was shaken on and stirred with her hands. The bowl was covered and put into the refrigerator for two days, i.e. until Tuesday. We did not use as much sugar as the recipe called for.
- Went through the pears and sliced some of them thinner and cut some of them in half. We had already made a crisp from some of them and found that we should have sliced them thinner.
- They had not made much liquid so added water to barely cover them and simmered for about an hour or until the juices started to thicken. This took a while because these pears were not very ripe.
- At about half way I decided to add 2 tsps. of ground ginger along with the zest of 1 medium lemon and the juice from that lemon. Just thought it would be a good idea.
- All this time I had a pot of water boiling to submerge my ball jars and lids when it was just about time to fill them.
- Broke some longer pieces of cinnamon sticks in half and placed 2 pieces each in the bottom of the hot jars.
- Filled each hot jar with the hot pears and covered with the liquid.
- Immediately placed the hot lids on each jar and let them cool.
- Just happened to have a few that would not fit into the jars. They are absolutely delicious.
