Pagan Foodies

Nutmeg Feather Cake

2011-12-31T19:16:00.001-08:00

My daughter loves to bake and to try new cakes. This is a Nutmeg Feather Cake--truly light and simple and flavorful. I know this because she just came in and offered me a bite. Quality control, you know.

1/4 C butter

1/4 C shortening

1 1/2 C sugar

1/2 t vanilla

3 eggs

2 C sifted cake flour

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

2 t fresh ground nutmeg

1/4 t salt

1 C buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 13 x 9 pan.

Cream together butter, shortening and sugar, beat til light. Add vanilla, then eggs one at a time. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour. Scrape down the sides and pour into prepared pan. Bake for about 1/2 hour.

Topping--Cream together 1/4 C butter and 1/2 C brown sugar. Add 2 T milk and mix well. Stir in 1 C coconut. Spread this mixture over the warm cake and slide it into the oven. Broil for about 5 minutes until golden.

Happy New Year! Eat well in the New Year!

Turkey Hash--Don't Be A Hater

2011-12-30T16:06:00.000-08:00

My mother-in-law was all for throwing away the legs from the Christmas bird and offered them to us for our trip home. I had wrapped them in foil--tidy and fat packages of succulent delight.

We had turkey tetrazini our first night home. Sauteed onion, garlic, tender sweet peas and bits of turkey in a rich cream and Parmesan sauce, tossed into long pasta, more grated Parm on top, liberal use of the black pepper mill.

The second night we had masses of yummy vegetables--greens, zucchini, salad--and lean ham.

The silver turkey legs remained in their ziplock bag, waiting...waiting.

I was booked for a couple of tarot readings this afternoon and our sunny warm day started slanting toward a cooling evening. As I drove home, I started thinking about something hot for supper, doing a mental inventory of what was in the fridge, in the pantry.

Celery, mushrooms, greens, potatoes, turkey legs.

Hash. Delicious turkey hash.

Yeah, I know everyone looks down their noses at this wholesome and homely food. But think about all those ingredients and imagine them sauteed in olive oil and served piping hot.

It was very good--so good I didn't even take time to make a picture to post here.

Maybe it needs a better name or something.

I Cheated Today

2011-12-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

and bought pre-cleaned collard greens. In a bag.

Honestly, my dead relatives are all probably spinning in their graves.

Or maybe they think I'm pretty darned lucky to not have to chop and clean all those bulky greens.

In any case, I will par-boil them--steam them, really--until almost tender and then saute them in olive oil with minced garlic.

Salt and pepper.

Served with black-eyed peas, corn bread, Boston butt pork roast.

Gosh, I'm already hungry.

Success! A Note About Cheese

2011-12-26T20:02:00.000-08:00

The faux ricotta impastata mentioned in the Oct 9 post has passed the sister-in-law test. I made a batch for her to check for texture and was worried it would not pass muster. But she checked it yesterday and the texture was right.

She had been concerned that the lemon juice used to curdle the milk would flavor the cheese, so I used less on this batch, which made it runny. Too runny for cannoli filling.

So I'll mess about with the recipe and I think it will work.

Success!

Chockies

2011-12-21T19:36:00.000-08:00

My cousin Evie used to make these yummy little bon bons about this time every year. I wanted a quick and easy candy to have available for both gifting and entertaining this season and ran across her recipe in my little recipe box. I have them listed as "Coconut Balls" but her daughter Kathy informed me tonight that Evie called them bon bons.

My cousin also opened a box of her mother's Rum (actually Bourbon) Balls and we tried those. String-flavored and very good, too. Evie is also the one who gave me the Cold Oven Poundcake recipe that I call the Old Coven Poundcake and which is, in fact, the best poundcake recipe in the world. I made two plain ones (plain! ha!) and one lemon one this season.

Back to the coconut balls...when I moved back here after grad school, I sometimes helped Evie get her candies ready this time of year and it was always fun. I remember those afternoons with great fondness every time I eat one of these fat delicious candies.

I tweaked the recipe a bit and here it is--

Cream together--

1 stick of butter

32 oz powdered sugar

1 can of condensed milk

1 ts vanilla

Add in 14 oz grated coconut.

Add in 1/4 finely chopped pecans (if desired)

Rolls into dime-sized balls and let dry out for a couple of hours. Dip them in melted dark chocolate.

I also added some prepared shopped orange rind--simply pressed it into the tops of some of the pre-dipped coconut balls and then dipped them.

My daughter and I are speculating some variations that include white chocolate for dipping.

Are you making seasonal candies or other yummies?

Cranberry...Sauce?

2011-11-23T05:29:00.000-08:00

Get a big fat orange. Wash it. Peel it carefully, leaving all the white on the sweet sphere. CHop the peel into fine-ish bits. Juice the orange.

In a saucepan--

1 C water

1 C orange juice

1 C sugar (or to taste)

the chopped peel

Bring to a bowl, stir, add 1 pound of crans.

Boil gently, as the crans pop and the whole thing begins to gel up. It'll take 10 minutes of so. Once they start popping, reduce the heat to medium. Stir occasionally.

Immerse 1 C of chopped nuts (I use English walnuts or pecans) in 1/4 C booze (I use bourbon or orange liqueur or something else flavorful).

Once the crans have popped and jelled, remove them from the heat and stir in the nut mixture. Allow to set in the warm pan for about 10 minutes.

Et voila!

Sweet Young Carrots

2011-11-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

We're having a mild November here in the southern highlands of Appalachia. Violets are blooming in the backyard and chickweed is out and very edible. Dandelions have acquired new fresh growth and it's damp and warmish like middle spring.

I went out late last week to think the winter-over greens--the spinach, lettuces, kale and chard that will be fat and sweet in late February. On a whim--and because it was a lovely day--I wondered back to the big summer garden to check on the strawberry runners and cut the last of the horehound for the season.

And there they were.

I had planted carrots as a companion plant for the cucumbers and hadn't been what you'd call thorough in thinning them out. The cuke vines are long gone and the cold-snap earlier this month fried the last of the heirloom tomatoes. So the beautiful, feathery fronds of the carrot tops were so alive, so fresh.

Who said gardening is a summer-time activity? As we explore old ways of lengthening the seasons, we are finding ourselves eating fresh veg out of the garden for almost 12 months out of the year.

Jack Frost, You Beast!

2011-11-03T20:40:00.000-07:00

So much to do at the end of the garden season and I often end up, like this year, with odds and ends of produce, culled right before the first hard frost or immediately after.

Last week I did big bunches of herbs--rosemary, oregano, melissa, mountain mint, horehound and catnip.

These gorgeous peppers were picked about the same time.

I also picked most of the green tomatoes and they are ripening in a colander in the laundry room.

Tonight our neighborhood association had its annual meeting and I made a box of that near-instant couscous (tomato lentil) and ringed it with bright tomatoes from the colander. It tasted like summer just as the year is darkening to winter.

The winter-over greens got covered over with leaves a week ago and now they're getting some nice rain. I'll think them out soon and they will be ready to eat in January or February. Do you grow any winter-over crops?

Not a Hallowe'en Mystery

2011-10-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

We're cleaning off the front porch because the roof has sprung a leak. All the loose canning jars are going into storage but the two partial boxes get to stay close by. Because now it's time to can pumpkin butter.

Yeppers, apple butter, peach butter and pear butter are enough in my buttery world.

Because pumpkin butter is healthy and yummy.

It didn't take you gazing into a crystal ball to know there'd be a little more canning this season, now, did it?

Cheese! The quest for cheese!

2011-10-09T06:27:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics of cheesemaking--

mixture curdling:

at the end of the first draining:

My sister-in-law is looking for the perfect cheese for the perfect cannoli cream. Apparently that cheese is ricotta impastata and we are having no luck in acquiring this super-smooth cheese.

It became a holy quest.

She lives in a much larger city than I, so I am now leaving it to her. But yesterday I thought I'd try making my own ricotta and compare the texture to some cannoli cream my husband brought back from New York last week. His mother touts it as the best, so it seemed like a good time to compare textures.

Here's the recipe--

1/2 gallon whole milk

1C heavy cream

1 tsp salt (I used fleur de sel)

Bring this to a slow boil, over medium heat, stirring frequently. Set aside and stir in 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice. Leave undisturbed for 10 minutes, then pour into a cheesecloth-lined sieve over a deep pot. Let drain two hours. Turn out into a bowl and whip with a mixer until very smooth. Return to cheesecloth and drain 24 hours.

Makes about 2 cups. At least I think it does. It might make more but I had a cheesetaster who kept putting a spoon in.

You know, quality control.

What I Did With Those Wee Tomatoes

2011-10-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

I washed them, chopped them up, threw in some onions, jalapenos and crushed pineapple.

Tossed all that with a slotted spoon and tasted it.

Added some big-grained salt.

Tasted again and pronounced it good, though it could use some chopped cilantro, which I don't have. I'll pick some up at the tailgate market tomorrow and add it in.

Very tasty stuff.

I used some Conny's Romas, Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple and a yellowish pear tomato whose name I don't know.

The freshness is almost overwhelming. Fresh food is the best food. And fresh food from your own garden is sublime.

I am filled with grief about this being the end of the tomato season. Truly.

Soup, Soup, Soup

2011-10-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup.

Tonight it was turkey kielbasa, sauteed in olive oil with mustards greens. Into that some summer squash all cooked up and pureed.

It's October now and I have to do something besides apple butter, pear butter or peach butter.

Next, with any luck this week--a batch of hard cider.

I Don't Have Time For This--Marzipan

2011-09-28T20:13:00.000-07:00

I was in a local funky grocery store called Amazing Savings today. They have returns on interesting products that we don't see in many stores around here and I've found it's a good place to buy interesting teas at very reasonable prices.

They also carry lots of local, mostly organic, produce and an extensive collection of bagged chips.

Go figure.

I wandered through the teas-and-cookies aisle and noticed boxed tubes of marzipan. My daughter and I love to do marzipan at Yuletide--the picture above shows our efforts from a couple of years ago.

But I don't have time right now for this kind of fun, do I? I still have apples to prep and cook, as well as putting down a batch of cider to get hard and delicious for the next vintage of "Sumbitch Groundhog Hard Cider."

Also, I'm writing a book, and I have a couple of articles due rather soon.

What I want to do, however, is get out the food coloring and create tiny apples and oranges, perfect sweet strawberries and even edible babies.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

Hoover and Cortland

2011-09-25T21:11:00.001-07:00

Apples, of course. I can barely think of anything else right now.

Okay, not true. I'm also thinking of pumpkins.

I stopped by a local fruit stand earlier this week to ostensibly pick up cider. No, I will not make apple juice one apple at a time with that lame juicer this year. I have some plans to have a portable cider press made by a friend's little husband but until then I'm buying sweet cider and fermenting it for my own evil pleasure.

(insert evil laugh here)

I got a big bag of Cortlands and Romes and wandered around the corner of the table and saw a big, firm red with some green apple. It had a big good smell and its name is Hoover. I got a bunch of those, too, because they looked like they might be a little tart.

They are.

Hooray!

Will the Butters Ever Be Done?

2011-09-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, probably.

I canned the last of the peach butter tonight and as soon as the jars are labeled, they'll join the pear butter and apple butter on our pantry shelves. I will probably do more apple butter because it is too darned yummy but my next quest is for organic apple cider, from which we will make hard cider.

Yes, that's the good stuff.

Lovely, lovely scrumpy.

Why is it cabbage season?

2011-09-15T19:21:00.000-07:00

No, I don't have an answer to that. I only know that I started sauteing cabbage earlier in the week and we had that batch with turkey sausage, and a brisk mustard. After tai chi class yesterday, I walked to our neighborhood grocery store and got a perfectly round, perfectly purple red cabbage. I'll chop it up tomorrow and cook it up with some potatoes from the rabbit-hutch potato bed in the back garden.

I will feel very Irish.

And somewhat gassy.

Okay, one more thing

2011-09-14T20:11:00.001-07:00

Here are the peaches.

A New and Shiny Toy

2011-09-14T20:08:00.001-07:00

Isn't it pretty? Now I can do a whole batch of yoghurt at once and not in two batches.

It is shiny and new--not dented or frayed, with bits of metal to jab into my hands.

Sometimes you just need a new tool to do the work you do.

Ah.

That's all really. I'm canning peaches from SC and will lay in fresh apple juice for cider next week. More on those adventures then.

September is Cider and Butter Time

2011-09-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

I live in Avalon, you know. Beautiful apples everywhere. And some not-so-beautiful...

It used to be that anyone who had a little garden space in the backyard also had an apple tree. We had three in our back yard when we bought this house in the 1980s and have lost two due to age and disease (we replanted one). We now have two trees but this wasn't a very good year for our apples.

But other people have had good apple crops. I visited a friend on Friday and she has a couple of trees in the back. She gave me a plastic grocery store bag and I filled it up. I'm a gleaner kind of person--I don't at all mind asking people if they're going to use those apples littering their lawns.

And you know what? Lots of people are more than happy to have you get those pesky apples off their nice lawn. I don't care how bumpy and weird they are--I'm going to peel and cut them up. They don't have to be market-perfect produce.

Right this moment--if you were watching me type up this blog post you'd know this--my house smells of apple butter. It's been cooking for a couple of days. Slowly. Stirred infrequently. Some cinnamon and sugar added at intervals, along with a splash of water.

Tonight it is almost dark enough. I'll stir it around for an hour or so in the morning and then can it up.

But I haven't gotten enough apples for cider. So I'll need to ramble over to the farmers' market and pick up several gallons of the yummy stuff, so I can make it even yummier.

Apple season!

First, Green Tomatoes

2011-09-02T19:36:00.001-07:00

Those are wide thin slices of green Mortgage Lifters. The cool nights here are playing havoc with my fab tomatoes so that means it's time to do some fry-ups of the greens. I sliced these very thinly, which was easy because they are very firm. Cooked them until they were soft in olive oil, lots of ground sea salt and ground pepper. I served them on a beg of turnip greens with poached eggs on the top.

Now, gugutz. That one over on the right. The latest cucuzzi treat was sauteed in the usual, added garlic, added some pre-cooked chicken, wrapped it in a tortilla with some lettuce and sour cream.

Yes, it was delicious.

I can't show you what's going on at this very minute...apple butter. Fresh apples from a friend's backyard, a bunch o' cinnamon, some white sugar. Stir, simmer, mash with masher, stir some more. Taste, add more sugar. Stir.

Won't be ready for a few more hours and I may need to finish it up in the morning. I also have a big bag of pears from another friend's front yard.

Pear butter? Peace sauce? Pear chutney?

I'll let you know. The young man next door is interested in canning, so I may draft him to help with that project.

Drop Peaches, Drop Hearts

2011-08-24T21:12:00.000-07:00

I made peach jam today with drop peaches. They were given to me by the orchardist who sells fruit at our local farmers' market. It was my last market of the season as a vendor (I sell baked goods there), because I start teaching next week and my schedule will no longer allow me to do it. But I hope to still be able to stop by there and grab some produce if I can get there before they close some days. The fruit they sell is wonderful: fat juicy peaches, pears, apricots, plums, and many varieties of apples in the fall.

Drop peaches are perfectly good except they tend to have a large bruise on one side. Damaged goods, they are. Can't sell them (well, maybe for a much reduced price). Can't eat them, plump and juicy, over the sink as you would a healthy peach because you never know if a bit of rot or mush lies just beneath the skin. Also, they tend to go moldy quickly so you have to use them immediately. So to make jam or preserves with them, you have to peel them and carve away all the soft, brown, moldy or damaged bits first. The fuzzy skin covering them, nature's firm but permeable jacket, must be cut away to reveal the vulnerable flesh within.

It feels wasteful cutting away all that damage. Like there's hardly any peach left. Like what IS left might not be good for much. And despite having to be somewhat ruthless cutting away those bruises and gashes, you still have to be gentle with the parts of the peach that are unharmed. Determination and compassion must be applied in equal measure. Also, some of the drop peaches may not be fully mature or ripe; so even if you can salvage portions of it that are free of spots or bruises, they may not be as sweet or juicy as a more mature peach. Oddly, the more mature the peach, the less hardy it is and the less resilient to bruising it is.

But if you're willing, and steadfast, you can make something wonderful from all that damaged fruit. Peach jam was always my favorite growing up: even over strawberry. Jam is summer, kept in a jar. It warms the soul, revitalizes winter tastebuds, and tastes lovely on buttered toast. It is worth making, and it is certainly an act of determined utility and creativity. I mean, turning a pile of bruised fruit into bright jars of sunshine? That is an accomplishment. Sure, you could toss them to the chickens and they'd be grateful for a moment. But think how much more jam will be appreciated by humans in the coming months.

After preparing the fruit, having removed its surface damage and exposed the tender flesh beneath (and of course you gnawed on the fruit left on the pit after cutting the useful parts off: why consign those pits to the compost bin when there are several small bites on fruit left clinging to them?), you then have to chop it. And boil it. And seal it in jars. Sugar and lemon juice must also be added. It's a process, making something beautiful and pleasurable from something bruised and unwanted. You will need fire and water. And other opposing forces you may find within you. It will take longer than you think. You will be rewarded. I wish you joy of it.

Another Way to Serve This Very Large Gourd

2011-08-24T19:38:00.000-07:00

More gugutz mania!

This time I sliced a gugutz into thick matchsticks and sauteed it in evoo, with garlic, green & banana peppers, fresh roma tomatoes and some basil and oregano. I tossed in a handful of sliced mushrooms and let it all saute until the shrooms and gugutz were soft.

Used this lovely mess on top of a mound of pasta, dressed it with fresh ground pepper, sea salt and a generous grating of Locatelli parmesan.

O, yeah, sisters. It was mighty good.

My only regret was a lack of foresight is securing some great bread.

Next time.

Maters

2011-08-18T18:27:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes are perfect and plentiful right now in the southern Highlands. I have three or four varieties, all delicious.

We're eating them for almost every meal because what's the point of making them into sauce or pumate when they are so delicious fresh, fresh, fresh.

If we get to the end of the season and I have an overabundance, I will make homemade tomato sauce and can it for the winter.

But until then, I will be eating things like the ones above.

The top image is simple sliced tomato on sliced white bread, with mayo and dressed with sea salt and capers. That was breakfast. Here in the south we used to call sliced bread "light bread".

The one underneath is the traditional tomato salad--slices of tomato and fresh mozz, interspersed with basil leaves, drizzled with olive oil and dressed with a little salt and pepper.

That was lunch.

We had them sliced and salted to go with our breaded and fried gugutz, okra and eggplant banquet. Yep, that was supper.

Tomatoes. Maters. Dumadas.

Yummy.

Pagan Drinkies

2011-08-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share my drink creation with you. I've been thinking about it for weeks but only got to try it last night. It's called a Brujita (which means "little Witch" in Spanish). Refreshing drink for summer--we had it last night with a crazy Mexican spread of guacamole, stuff-your-own-tacos, mango salsa and chips.

It's like a Bloody Mary, except you use tequila instead of vodka. Over ice. Crushed cilantro in the bottom of the glass.

Extra yummy. Didn't make a photo but will the next time.

What are you drinking this summer--besides water?

Hydration is important, after all.

Gugutz!

2011-08-03T18:32:00.001-07:00

This is a cucuzzi growing in my kitchen garden. Interesting shape, don't you think?

This is a pan filled with sliced cucuzzi (gugutz).

This is a slim breadkin, smeared with olive oil and minced garlic, covered in gugutz slices, sprinkled with grated parm and baked.

We had them this evening with a big salad. They do taste zucchini-like, but moister, higher water content. They are slightly sweet, too.

As more of them ripen, Ill be finding other ways to prepare them. But I wanted the first thing to be simple, so I could really taste it, determine the texture, etc.

We have begun harvesting the big tomatoes and I had a juicy great one for an evening snack. More green beans have been blanched and put in the freezer. The first batch of elderberries have been picked, cleaned and frozen.

Harvest, my friends!

But we could use a couple of days of good rain and that's the truth.

I Really Only Have One Thing to Say...

2011-08-02T19:46:00.000-07:00

Okra and yellow crookneck squash in a frying pan = summer.

The Problem With Cukes

2011-07-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

Seriously, it's not a problem. It's just that--they are all I want to eat right now. My kitchen sink always has peels in it and there is always a wee bowl of slices near my right hand. I've been careful to water the plants during this fantastical hot spell and they have rewarded me with sweet and succulent cucumbers.

The problem--and it isn't a problem--is that I'm always hungry.

Take this scenario: I come in from wherever and I am hungry. I slice up a big bowl of cucumbers and--because it is very hot--I add a big glass of water.

Yummy.

That fills up my tummy pretty quickly, though, and I am satisfied and full.

For about an hour...and then I think: I'm hungry.

And the cycle repeats.

Yes, I could add something else into the mix, like crackers or some cheese (see previous post). But I don't. I am in thrall to these green beauties. Peel, slice, salt, eat.

Repeat.

In fact, right now? I'm a little hungry.

There is Little in Life as Wondrous as Cheese

2011-07-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

there, I've said it. These hot days often require your humble food writer to nosh on something cold and fast. Yes, there is always Greek yoghurt but what shall I nibble while I'm finding a bowl and spoon and all that jazz?

A hunk of cheese, that's what.

I've been known to bite hunks out of a block of cheese while on my way to the cutting board to make a dainty slice.

I have been known to eat a pinch of cream cheese while waiting on the bagel to toast.

I have never--to this day--met a cheese I didn't like. O, I love some more than others--double Gloucester, for instance--but I like cheese stinky and mild, crumbly and runny, baked in filo or microwaved on a triscuit.

Years ago, my cholesterol was a little high and the doctor noted it. I asked, somewhat innocently--would brie do that? She looked appalled. Do you eat brie? Why, yes, I said. Rather a lot. Yes, she allowed, looking at me over the top of her spectacles, brie would do that.

The glory, the wonder of cheese.

My Funny...and Terribly Prolific...Valentine

2011-07-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

For the first time, I'm growing an heirloom haricot called Black Valentine. It grows to a good height--about 3 1/2 feet--and is easily trained to a simple stakes-and-twine support fence. It's a delicious bean! I pick them slim for steaming but also leave some of them to pod up for blanching and freezing.

The original two rows are starting to show their age and some insect damage, but I planted more of them in the kitchen garden with the squash and those are just starting to produce.

The cucumbers have blessed me with with the first time in my life that I can eat as many cucumbers as I want. I eat them every day and I ponder the notion of making pickles of some sort. But we've had some terribly hot weather and I can't bring myself to sterilize the jars and do the pickling.

So I'm eating them instead. I grew Straight 8s and they've been good keepers. They stay crisp no matter how large they grow and the flesh is firm and slightly sweet.

And soon...soon...

fresh tomatoes and okra and...squash.

It's Too Hot to Eat, Much Less Cook

2011-07-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

So I am living on salads (no, the lettuce from the garden is long gone), iced seltzer water and cucumbers.

That is not a problem. because I love cucumbers. For several years, we didn't have good luck with them--in fact, I started beekeeping in a futile attempt to have better cukes.

I went out today and picked another colander full of them. In spite of all the ones we're eating, there are still plenty more. So many that I'm considering making bread-and-butter pickles.

But for now, it's simple. Pick out a fat cuke. Peel it. Slice it in either direction. Salt it lightly.

Eat it up. Yum.

Sardines! Pesto! Guinness!

2011-07-16T20:31:00.001-07:00

This time of year, it's so nice to go out to the garden and pick a bunch of fresh veg and either eat it simply or make it into something more Cooks Digest-y.

Tonight we had a huge salad with carrots and cukes from the garden (the lettuce is purchase--we're between lettuces in our garden right now). Then I made some butterflied pork chops in the following manner:

In a big cast iron pan, I put a good drizzle of EVOO, some minced garlic and a splash of homemade wine. In went the chops, sliced long ways down the middle. Sizzle, turn, grind some pepper. A big splash of water and keep turning til they're almost cooked. Then add in some ready-made tomato sauce and 1/4 cup of capers. Simmer simmer simmer. When tender, eat them with some freshly steamed asparagus and the afore-mentioned huge salad.

A crusty loaf of bread would also have been most welcome, but, alas! Ive been too busy lately to make any.

Maybe next week.

Next up tomorrow is a big batch of pesto. I've already picked the basil.

And my huge salad? It also had sardines in it. Sardines in mustard, which were very very good.

Fixing Beans

2011-07-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is the new kitchen garden. It's planted now and has the cucuzzi and other squash.

Honeybees pollinating the cukes.

It is one of those ancient rituals of a mountain summer--preparing green beans, fresh from the garden. Even little children can do that and Southern children learn early about breaking both ends off a tiny bit and them snapping the long bean into small pieces. By the time you're my age, you will have done a lot of beans.

I grew a beautiful heirloom bean this year called Black Valentine. It is a prolific producer, strong and healthy plant with long beans. I've picked about half a bushel so far in the first row I planted, and the ones along the fence in the new kitchen garden are just starting to produce beans.

I detested green beans when I was younger, mostly because of the way they're cooked here. Boiled until there is no flavor left, with a big lump of fat back on the top. Nasty. When I got old enough to cook my own food, I found that they could be cooked with a lighter and gentler hand, seasoned with a little EVOO and salt and they were delicious.

This first harvest has been coked and eaten and the majority of it blanched, cooled and frozen. They were be wonderful in the winter, either alone or in soup or stew. Green beans are versatile and nutritious and freeze very easily.

My plan is also to do more canning and less freezing this year but the beans were always destined for freezing. They preserve better that way, I think.

Squash will start coming in soon. I'm also growing an edible Sicilian gourd called cucuzzi. It's beginning to flower now, so I'll report back on that a little later. It seems to be zucchini-ish.

Fleur de Sel Marocaine...also, Junior's Cheesecake

2011-07-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

I am in the Big Apple for a few days and am enjoying the foodie possibilities in such a diverse place. I hunted through all sorts of salts a couple of days ago and settled on Fleru de Sel Marocaine. I have a brownie recipe that calls for it and can't wait to get home to try it out.

Today, we had a theatre date and the City was humid and damp. So we not only had lunch but we waddled our way back towards the theatre and went by Junior's before curtain time. We had coffee and Junior's Classic cheesecake.

I'll post pictures after I've uploaded them but you'll have to take my word for it that it was just the thing, pre-Jerusalem.

Lunch was at a sweet little place called Bella Napoli. I had an excellent caesar salad with edible croutons. The bread basket was especially good.

Summer = Tabouli and Gazpacho, also a paean to kamut

2011-06-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

It is too hot to cook here in the southern highlands of Appalachian. 90s. Horrible. So we must subsist on a diet of uncooked or semi-cooked things and one thing we love is tabouli. I make it with kamut--more on that later. Here's how it goes--

grab a handful of parsley (and/or mint) from the back garden--chop it up

chop up a medium sized tomato

chop up 4 spring onions

throw in a heaping Tablespoon of minced garlic

add 1/4 cup or thereabouts of good olive oil

grind salt and pepper into the mix

Stir it all up with a spoon. Add the grain of your choice.

Kamut is a beautiful, fat, chewy grain--technically it is khorasan wheat and Kamut is the company that markets it. It is said to be very ancient and it looks like it--lumpy, ungainly.

I cook it in a 2-to-1 ratio, water to grain. I bring it to a boil, then turn off the stove and leave it for 45 minutes or so. It will be tough and chewy, which is how we like it.

I've also used it for Italian Grain Pie. I've used it as a base for all sorts of things-- sauteed veg, meat, oil/salt/pepper, or tomato sauce.

And, now., if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get out the gazpacho recipe. Cold soup--what's not to love?

Can't Write About Food--Too Busy Growing It

2011-05-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

But here's a quicky.

And it's about broccoli side shoots.

We've had peculiar weather this spring--too hot, too cold, wet, dry. And we've been clearing out the main garden from a huge pile of not-quite-composted leaf mold. This is all by way of saying that the broccoli didn't do well. The main heads were straggly and bolted fast. And I was ready to pull the tattered plants out and replant the beds.

Then they started sending out side shoots and they are plentiful, tender and delicious. Tonight, I steamed some with a handful of the new peas. Served them both with a tuna steak and the last of yesterday's potato salad.

Very tasty indeed. That's a wee pic of them above.

What are you cooking? Eating? Dreaming of eating?

Soy Yoghurt is...Yoghurting

2011-05-03T20:02:00.001-07:00

little green apples

The soy yoghurt is heated and mixed and in the wee Salton Yoghurt Maker, doing it's slow thing. At 8 in the morning, if all goes well, I'll put it in some cheesecloth to drain. Then I'll give it the old taste test and let you know.

And speaking of the taste test, I was marveling at the tiny green apples on the old Cortland tree yesterday. I rambled over to the MacIntosh tree by way of comparison and all those tiny green apples reminded me that it will be time for the annual making of the hard cider before we know it. Relieved to think we've finally bottled last year's grape wine.

The dregs of which I used on some little pork sirloins the other day. A long, slow, tenderizing simmer produced a lovely little dinner. Chard and kale from the garden were sauteed in with mushrooms to bring up some deep flavors.

And for the third time--which I certainly hope is a charm--I have planted artichoke plants in the Italian garden. These are Globe Imperials and I am hopeful of their eventual flowering, as well as their general survival.

Lettuces, Part the Second

2011-05-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

April was a tricky and busy month and the garden shows it. But I spent some cool Beltane afternoon hours weeding, pruning, picking and chasing a groundhog out of the garden. I harvested even more lettuce and looked longingly at the ripening strawberries.

We had some fresh broccoli, onions and lettuces for dinner.

Are you catching the theme here? Lettuces, lettuces...they and the radishes are the monarchs of the spring garden. Here they are now--

I wish I could tell you that I've been doing some delicious cooking but I simply haven't. We've been eating lettuces and the occasional loaf of soda bread and...

Greek yoghurt. I got out the old Salton yoghurt maker and started making Greek yoghurt about a month ago. In fact, I'll probably make another batch some time tomorrow. I've tried all the different fat levels in the milk and 2% seems best. Tomorrow's will be soy milk.

I am hopeful of acquiring local goat milk--doesn't that sound perfect? Greek goat's milk yoghurt.

Lettuces

2011-04-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

I will buy no more lettuce--for a few months, anyway. The winter-overs are lovely and rich. I harvest them a leaf at a time and soak them in cold water to plump and crisp.

Yummy.

So, I don't have much to say tonight except--I am eating those wide lettuce leaves, smeared with hummus.

I am drinking a homemade hard apple cider--one of the few left from the fall.

Life, while waiting to see if the gov shuts down, is quite delish.

Soup of the Evening...Again

2011-04-02T21:08:00.001-07:00

Do you make your own soup stock? It's easy and the potential for delicious is fairly high.

Tonight I put some schmalz, carrot ends, a baked chicken carcass, the tough greens from spring onions (which wintered-over in the garden) into a big pot and simmered the lot for a couple of hours. I strained all that mess out and added back in some carrots (chopped), lots of onion, fresh kale and spinach. I simmered that another 45 minutes until everything was soft and the flavors had blended a bit.

It's the kind of soup that will age well--if we leave around to age.

We do like soup around here.

Getting Me to the Greek

2011-04-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have a light dairy allergy and so I don't do a lot of dairy, including yoghurt. But a couple of months ago I had to do a run of antobiotics and chose to bring back the eco-system in my gut with some pro-bio Greek yoghurt.

It made me cough a little and gave me a bit of a runny nose but it seemed to get my "personal culture" back into shape quickly.

Plus, delicious!

So we did a yoghurt taste test around here to decide which brand was best. I found that the one with the best taste was 2% rather than 0%--no surprise there. But it was hard to find plain 2%.

Plus, pricey!

So I Goodled Greek yoghurt and found out that it's simply plain yoghurt that is drained of much of the whey, giving it that rich thickness. I dug out the out Salton yoghurt maker, gave it a very good cleaning and decided to try it.

I bought a half gallon of--oh, my goodness--full fat milk. Yes, I know. Crazy, right? I did two batches of yoghurt, draining each batch through a cheesecloth-lined strainer.

Friends, it is mighty tasty stuff. (cough cough) It works out to be about 35 cents a container, about the same price as commercial yoghurt and much cheaper than commercial Greek yoghurt.

Now, I want to play around with all kinds of milk and see how it works.

Boiled and yet delicious

2011-03-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

I don't often eat beef any more but with The Day yesterday, I thought I'd do a pot of corned beef, cabbage and tatties. It's terribly easy. (It's easy if you buy your beef already "corned.")

Cut the beef into big chunks and boil it up in water. No need for salt but you might add some pepper, rosemary, a bay leaf or two.

Simmer the whole pot until the beef is tender, then add in the tatties...maybe some onions and carrots, too. Last thing in is the loosely cut-up cabbage, which doesn't take long to cook. Let it all simmer another 15 minutes or so.

Serve it with some lovely fresh soda bread and a pint of the black stuff. Corned beef and cabbage is not traditionally Irish--I also like to boil up a pot of colcannon--cabbage, tatties, bacon and some butter...maybe a little greens (like kale).

Boiling meat is popular in many rural cultures because you could use older and tougher meat.

It's Pi Day...but I haven't any

2011-03-14T20:49:00.000-07:00

March 14. 3/14. Pi. Get it?

All I know is that I have no pie.

I do, however, have cake.

My daughter--who is the best kid ever--made me a birthday cake while she was home for spring break. She started her cake-making adventures years ago with boxed mixes and canned frosting. Then she moved on to cake mixes and homemade frosting.

This cake is a moist chocolate two-layer--from scratch. And it is iced with a rich cream cheese/butter frosting, with just a hint of nutmeg.

Delicious, not too sweet, very rich and flavorful.

Birthday cake will have to do on Pi Day. We'll have Pie later in the week.

And speaking of later in the week, I've got a nice corned beef to make for Thursday. Some colcannon, a loaf of soda bread and a gallon of the black stuff.

That sounds like a good St. Patrick's Day, I think.

Haggis En Croute

2011-03-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

It has been so long since I've posted here that I need to go back a bit and tell you about the whiskey-soaked celebration that was Burns' Night.

I have no idea what inspired me but I determined to celebrate it with some friends this year. We all brought small bottles of whiskey and I made what actually passed for haggis.

Well, sort of. If you squint your eyes and aren't too much of a purist. It had all the unmentionable offal parts--most of them, anyway--but instead of stuffing it all into a stomach, I rolled out a thin and buttery crust.

I baked the whole thing in a cast-iron pan and it came out piping hot and quite edible. Served it with a couple of different kinds of mustard, with chippy sauce and a green salad.

Haggis en croute--it's either a brilliant modern take on a classic cultural mainstay or it's an abomination. Either way, it was awfully tasty.

Why Pagans Should Get Busy

2011-02-16T16:50:00.000-08:00

This article in TIME suggests that the "foodies" among us are poised to help revitalize and drive the environmental movement. Lately the news has been full of scary stories about Monsanto and genetically-modified alfalfa, and many of us have been feeling kind of helpless. As Michael Pollan has pointed put more than once, food legislation is a rather cloak and dagger affair in this country. That's ironic given how so much media attention is being given to this issue lately, and how passionately many people feel about eating healthy food.

So, news flash: people who enjoy food and care about food safety are often the same people who care about the environment. You can't grow good crops or raise healthy livestock if you destroy the land with pesticides and toxic waste, after all; you can't get safe salon out of polluted oceans. Clearly the best people to help raise awareness about these interconnected issues are foodies, and environmentalists.

Or, ya know, PAGANS.

So I want to suggest that more of us step up and get involved in strengthening this movement. Of course maybe you're already well-informed, and you support your local farm markets and buy organic and maybe you even grow your own vegetables or raise chickens. But are you working to help others and your community gain access to healthy foods and better information about nutrition? Are you researching the laws regarding food safety in your area? Are you finding out how to stop that old orchard from being razed and sold to developers, or how to start a community garden program in your community? The possible ways to engage in this movement are endless.

What are YOU doing? What would you like to see happen? Let us know.

A cool gluten-free blog...

2011-01-18T16:46:00.001-08:00

And it has plenty of links to other gluten-free blogs!

I've been wanting to try more gluten-free recipes, especially given a request from the local cafe I bake for.

So, here it is: Life of My Mouth.

The writer is young, sassy, and definitely a foodie.

PS

2011-01-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

On second thought, I'd make that 1/3 C of shortening. To be honest, I just plop in a heaped-up wooden spoon of the stuff.

Corn Bread

2011-01-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Peg (but really Todd),

Here is the recipe I use for cornbread.

Preheat oven to 400

Plop 1/4 C or slightly more vegetable shortening into a cast iron frying pan. We use the little one mostly--gives a fatter cake of bread. Heat the pan on top of the stove on very low and let the shortening melt. You can use lard or other animal fat for this part--that's traditional. I don't though.

Meanwhile--
stir together
1 C plain flour
1 C yellow plain cornmeal (did you know it also comes in self-rising?)
4 t baking powder
1 scant t of salt
Some folks add a little sugar to it, but I don't. If you want to try that, add about 1/4 cup.

Make a well in the middle and add in 2 beaten eggs, 1 C buttermilk.

Stir it up.

Pour most of the liquid shortening into the batter and stir it up, but here's the most important part of making good cornbread. Make sure there is a lot of liquid fat left in the pan. It should puddle in the bottom, not just gently grease bottom and sides. This will give you a crispier crust and the satisfying thwack of turning the cake onto a wooden board when it comes out of the oven.

The batter doesn't need to be perfectly smooth--it should be a little lumpy. Pour it into the pan and put it in the fast oven. It will be done in 20-40 minutes depending on the size of the pan.

When you take it out of the oven, turn it out immediately onto a wooden board or counter and then plate it up. Really whack it down and the cake will pop out with an unbroken crust.

Add butter.

Perhaps beer.

Also, a bowl of beans or some soup or...

You get the point it is good with everything.

Love,
Byron

Roast Beast of the week: Elk Meat Loaf!

2011-01-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were gifted with some frozen elk meat from his uncle. It's been in the freezer a few months and I was worried it wouldn't be good any more, but it was just perfect. I made meat loaf twice this week; first with roasted potatoes and carrots, then with garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed spinach.

Here's some photos I took.
The frozen package; in camouflage packaging!Mixing up my recipe: chopped onion and garlic, Worcestershire sauce, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, an egg, thyme, salt and pepper.
Into the oven with bacon it goes!
Mmm, all done and ready to eat!

It was delicious!

The Cult of Pie

2011-01-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

I love pie, as I may have mentioned here before. The slice above comes from Famous Louise's on 221, a restaurant that sits on three counties of western NC. That piece is Forestberry and the crust is darn-near perfect.

Coffee ain't bad there either.

There was a story on NPR this morning about 2011 being the Year of Pie. That sounds good to me. Pie can be for breakfast or for dinner, it can be meaty and savory or it can be sweet.

Is pie the perfect food?

Possibly not, if you have concerns about your carb intake. But even then, there are modifications that can mitigate that effect somewhat.

So, that's really all I have to say--2011=the Year of Pie. I love pie.

And my friend Shelly created a Cult of Pie page on Facebook.

Now that's a religion I can get behind.

Happy cultural New Year everyone! How about we celebrate with a nice piece of pie?

New blog added to our roll...Cheese and Biscuits

2010-12-31T06:05:00.000-08:00

I found this British food blogger via The Guardian (which recently had a great article on buying Scotch whisky); he seems to review mostly London restaurants. I did like the name. Also there's a fun "Cheese of the Month" feature (mmm, Cornish Yarg!), and plenty of yummy photos.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

2010-12-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Breakfast has become a comfortable sameness over the last few years. It was hard to find a cold cereal that wasn't loaded with carbs and I experimented with all sorts of other things for that fast-breaking meal.

But the truth of it is I am the kind of person who hits the ground running most mornings and I don't want to waste thought on it. I have more time to think of other meals and snacks but breakfast defeated me until I found My Perfect Breakfast.

(Okay, in the interest of complete disclosure, a Full English is My Perfect Breakfast but since I'm not a farm-worker it simply isn't practical or healthy to have that fatty goodness every day of the world.)

It starts with a half-portion of old-fashioned oats, into which is splashed enough water from the kettle to cover them. I then put the kettle on to boil for tea, usually a cup not a potful. The oats absorb rather a lot of the water and when the kettle has boiled, I turn the burner on simmer and put the pan of oats on it.

I make my cuppa and let it steep.

I slice a half banana into the bopttom of My Favorite Bowl, add a handful of raw nuts (walnuts right now) and a teaspoon of ginger preserves.

The oats are fluffy by this point and a little gooey--they get plopped onto the banana-nut-ginger mess and stirred up.

Add a splash of the milk of your choice, stir it all up and call it breakfast

Milk in the tea, too--at least for me.

Soup of the Evening, Beautiful Soup!

2010-12-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of days, we've had almost a foot of snow here in the southern highlands. It has kept an awful lot of people off the roads, including yours truly. As a Pagan, I don't celebrate Christmas but because I'm a Southerner, I often visit family in the area and snack on their spiral-sliced ham and potato salad and such.

This year, I've eaten rather a lot of yoghurt-covered nuts and some bacon.

That's just not right somehow.

So in the spirit of snow and not of Yuletide, I made a pot of soup today. Began by sauteeing onions, garlic, herbs and celery in some olive oil. Then I added a pound of chopped mushrooms. Then a can of diced tomatoes. Then a box of organic chicken broth. There were some over-cooked and subsequently frozen green beans from the garden that went in, too.

Cracked some pepper into it, let it simmer for a while.

Thick, frangrant. We grated some hard parm over each serving and dug in, with sliced baguette on the side.

Winter, snow, soup.

Hope you had some good soup, too.

Oyster Stew

2010-12-23T18:24:00.001-08:00

Odd, isn't it? Here in the southern highlands, a family tradition was oyster stew around Christmas-time. My mother would get a little can of frozen oysters, thaw them, saute them in a little butter and then add whole milk to the mix. That was heated gently, pepper was added and the bowls were served with oyster crackers.

Last time I was at the grocery store, I got fresh oysters (already shucked) and made oyster stew for our dinner. I bought Campbell's Oyster Stew as a base, so I did cheat a bit.

I cleaned the oysters, making sure there were no bits of shell--or pearls!--left in them. I sauteed them in olive oil, garlic and unsalted butter. Gently, lightly.

The soup went in then, with some half and half and some 1% milk.

Gently.

It really was perfect. I flourished the pepper grinder over each bowl and tossed in some very fresh oyster crackers.

Yummy. No lie.

Baking as Therapy

2010-12-13T12:24:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if so many of us bake for Yuletide gifts because it is one of the few things that keeps us same during this season. We are having unseasonably cold weather here in the southern Highlands of old Appalachia--high winds, very cold.

All I can think of is how good it is to have so much baking to do.

I reckon I will be called to do some cookies at some point but for me, for now, it's breads.

I made soda bread yesterday for a workshop that was cancelled because of the weather. That's it in the picture. I also made fruit cake and pumpkin bread. Today the back of my neck is so cold, I'm going to put on a scarf and an apron and make plum cakes.

I will also forage about in the freezer and see what other fruits and nuts may be languishing there. I will add them to flour, sugar, honey, spices, eggs and olive oil, put that in a floured pan and bake whatever the heck it is at 350 until it's ready to cool on the wire rack.

Grease,flour, repeat.

Bread broken up and eaten with fingers

2010-12-11T20:44:00.001-08:00

I went to a potluck today. Okay, let me be honest. I wasn't sure if it was a potluck or not. It was a ritual with a feast following. I had misplaced my invitation and couldn't remember if we were supposed to bring anything or not. I brought my own feastgear--bowl, spoon, fork, napkin, mason jar for drink.

When in doubt--especially this time of year--why not bring a frozen sweet bread, just in case.

So that's what I did. I pulled a loaf of apple-walnut bread out of the freezer and tucked it away in my bag.

Turns out it was a feast, not a potluck. There were huge pots of delicious soup and fresh bread with butter. I unwrapped the cake but let it on its ziplock bag so everyone could see what it was. But I didn't slice it or anything. When next I saw it, people were breaking chunks off and eating them. At the end of the evening, there weren't even many crumbs.

Let that be a lesson to you--the world is a simpler place when you have a few extra homemade breads frozen for later. Simpler, and more delicious.

The Season of Plums...Sugar and otherwise

2010-12-08T19:09:00.000-08:00

When I was a child, we had two plum trees on our property. One was a damson plum tree with dark purple, pointed fruits that were generally prolific but not tasty to eat. At least not to a kid in overalls who seemed to have adopted a hunter-gatherer lifestyle very early on. I'd love to have the plunder of that old tree now--what wines and cakes and preserves we could make!

The other tree had fat bright fruits that could be wiped on the sleeve and eaten out-of-hyand, the sweet juice sticky-ing up our hands and chins.

The fruit of that tree would also be most welcome in my adult hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Both alas are long gone--victims of long-neglect and absent property-owners.

We sit now in the season of sugarplums and it makes me think of those old, rangy trees and their dear harvests. I am also reminded of all that long-ago richness by the smells coming from my kitchen this evening.

I am making my mother's prune cake. A not-too-sweet dense cake that is glazed with sugar and butter and buttermilk. She always made it weeks ahead of the holiday season, glaze and all, and froze it. Something about the freezing and thawing process gave it a terrifically moist texture that was perfect with a cup of hot tea of a tot of bourbon (when I was older, of course).

I can almost give you the recipe from memory...
2 cups all purpose flour
1 T each of cinnamon, baking soda, allspice, nutmeg
1T of vanilla extract (I sometimes use spiced rum instead)
1/2 C sugar
1 C buttermilk
1 C oil
3 eggs
1 C dried plums/prunes, stewed

Mix that all together, add 1 cup of English or black walnuts. Pour into a greased and floured pan--a tube pan is good or a couple of loaf pans. Bake at 300 for about an hour. When it is cooked and somewhat cooled, cook up
1 C sugar
1/2 C buttermilk
1/2 t baking soda
2 T white syrup
1/2 C butter

Cook the glaze in a heavy pan for 3-5 minutes, until it is combined, and pour it over the cake.

I'd serve it with Irish whiskey, me.

The Bleak Midwinter

2010-12-07T20:16:00.001-08:00

It is unseasonably cold here in the southern Highlands and that means beans.

In this case, 15 bean soup. It simmered and simmered on the back burner of the stove, reminding me of wood cookstoves of my youth. There's a part of me that would love one of those old cookers--maybe not as my primary cooking tool. Nothing smells quite as good as food cooked on a wood cookstove.

I've been obsessing about beans lately. The fat bags stacked on the grocery store shelves, the rattly bins at the farmers market.

Pinto, lentils of many colors, crowder, field peas, great southern (ha), lima, black-eyed peas.

Poetry.

There comes a point in the simmer, dash of salt, simmer, add more water, simmer, add some olive oil, simmer process that a pone of cornbread must be whipped up and baked in a fast oven.

Then some butter, I reckon.

Some days I would have also added some strong greens, but today it was me and the 15 beans and the cornbread.

And Irish coffee, did I mention that?

How Foodies Get to Be Foodies

2010-11-09T06:07:00.001-08:00

The new photo topping our blog was taken in November of 2006, not long after my father died. He was a vegetable grower, and this is his compost heap. You can see a squash lying there on the top, probably one of the butternuts he was famous for at the local farmer's market. Dad only discovered the farmer's market the year before he died, so he was only part way into his second year of selling vegetables there when he passed at the beginning of October that year. Before that, he tried selling them from a makeshift stand in front of the house, as a couple of other backyard growers did: hence the crudely-lettered and poorly spelled sign in the picture.

He did get customers, though. But also thieves. He had another sign on the stand where he left the vegetables and a coffee can for money, it read "Be Honste." But some people were not honste. They took his veggies AND his money. Dad just shook his head, more in sadness than anger, and said "I would have given them anything they asked for."

That generosity was what defined my dad's Pagan Foodie heart. Although a lifelong Catholic, though not always a dutifully-practicing one, his love of the outdoors, his avid activities that brought him out into nature (hunting, fishing, food gathering) made him someone who could not help but teach his children a love of nature. But he did not keep the bounty of his adventures for himself, oh, no. He shared with others. Gods help him, he nearly lost his life doing it, as when he slipped on the ice and fell and broke his hip one year, just a few months into his retirement, when he ventured out one morning to deliver (what was it? a plate of fried smelt? some Italian cookies he'd made?) a wrapped dish of goodies to a friend. It took him many months to recover and his health, already compromised from years of bad habits, was never as robust again afterwards.

I remember one mainstay of the winter holidays for Dad was going around to the homes of friends and relatives with plates of food. I ventured along on some of these trips, and sometimes I made the food: Dad got to the point where he always asked me to make the pizzelles (those thin crispy cookies you make in a special waffle iron) each year because, he said, mine always came out better. He also made fried smelt (which he often caught himself), scalloped oysters, and various things covered in his homemade marinara sauce. As Mom (who is also a fabulous cook) and Dad got older, and Mom's MS got worse and it was just the two of them at home most of the time, the cooking did not happen as often. But Dad still did what he could. He continued canning every year, even though there was hardly anyone to eat it, so again, there were gifts for others, with his hand-scribbled labels and the date. He also took to pasting his address labels on the jars.

After he died, I cleaned out the pantry and collected three jars of peach jam, and several jars of sauerkraut-stuffed banana peppers for a friend who loved to eat them right out of the jar. That recipe even got published in a local paper (although Dad had found it in a book somewhere). He had also become quite notorious for giving jars of pickled garlic to his fellow farmer's market vendors, who raved about it when I visited there and talked to them about my Dad. He probably would have liked to get licensed to sell his canned products there, but having looked at the rules, and having been inspected and licensed to make baked goods for farm markets, which requires far simpler standards than canning acidic foods, I can say Dad's kitchen may not have passed muster for cleanliness. Heck, I even found a small bug or two in my peach jam. Comes out pretty easy with a teaspoon.

I admired Dad for trying to offset his small income during retirement with his own business; I understand he did very well. The market organizer, a woman who worked for the local Cooperative Extension, said the "little old ladies" would line up every week for Dad's giant, unblemished butternut squash. And his sense of humor and enthusiasm helped him make some new friends there.

Dad had a gardening partner, Larry, who helped him do the work and shared in the bounty (he now rents my parents' house and still farms that garden plot). I once asked him if they sprayed the vegetables and he admitted they did spray some things prone to pests. So I told my Dad one day, you know, people will pay extra for organically-grown vegetables. And you can get special signs for free to put on your stand. It's more work, but, I reasoned, you won't have to buy the chemicals, either. I didn't get into the evils of Monsanto and that hullaballoo, but I did remind him that organics were also healthier for everyone. He didn't agree or disagree, kept weeding his cucumbers, and I didn't think he'd actually change the way he'd always done things. But right after he died, I ran into Larry at the house, working in the garden (pictured above), and we were talking, and that conversation came up. Larry told me that he and my Dad had been planning to go organic the following year. I guess he was curious to try it out and see if he really made more money.

I'd always thought it was me who had learned things from my Dad, who had learned them from his father (who had owned his own fruit stand, and was a marvelous cook, whipping up huge meals for our Italian relatives every Sunday, with sauce made from scratch the night before). But at that point, I realized he had learned something from me. I only wish we'd been able to enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of this experiment together.

Why I Love Onions

2010-11-04T19:17:00.000-07:00

I love all kinds of onions. I like them young and green in the earliest part of the spring. I like them round and fat when they've been saved from an earlier garden.

Red ones.

Yellow ones.

White ones.

I even like those lame sweet ones from Vidalia, Georgia.

Cooked up with peppers and garlic, they are perfection. Baked with other veg in a slow oven, when they wear a light coat of olive oil and some kosher salt, they are the best part. Chunks baked into stuffing are more than acceptable.

But as the winter swoops down on the mountains, these are my two favorite ways to eat them. The first makes perfect sense and is an Appalachian favorite. After cooking a nice pot of beans--mmmm, pintos--I like onions chopped and diced and sprinkled all over the top of my bowl of beans. Corn bread on the side is handy, too.

Lately I've been making onions the way my mom used to to go on top of hot dogs. Only I don't have them on dogs. I plop them on top of scrambled eggs and sometimes I eat them rolled in a whole wheat tortilla.

And sometimes, I eat them with a spoon. Here it is, super simple, a little weird but good.

1 whole onion, diced
3-4 T mustard, whichever you prefer
2 T mayonnaise, either homemade or Duke's
Salt to taste, coarse salt is best

Stir it all up.

That's all.

How much do you love onions?

PS I also love garlic and ramps. Yum. Stinky foods.

And good for you, too.

Hidden Peppers

2010-11-03T19:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Tidy Up The Garden Day. All the dregs of harvests past had to be snatched up from the ground, the good dirt shaken from the roots and then off they went. Some to the compost, others down the steep bank, to discourage the kudzu.

This was not the best year for peppers--unlike last year when I pickled huge glowing jars of bells, jalapenos, habeneros, and bananas. This year, we only grew three varieties--a green bell, a red bell and some sweet banana peppers. I'd frankly given up on them but when I reached down to pull them up, I found stragglers under the leaves. Crisp and perfect peppers.

There were the usual lost onions. Every year there are onions that are pulled during the dry season and the tops pull loose, leaving the bulb underground. In the cool days following the last autumn rains, they send up rich green shoots again and are there to be picked and enjoyed.

So, last night for a late-night snack, I chopped up some spring onions and squirted a little mustard on them. I sliced up a long green pepper and used the fat slices to scoop up the mustardy onion.

I drank a bright beer with it and it was the perfect combination.

Honest, it was!

The Last of the Rosy Beans

2010-10-18T21:50:00.001-07:00

I accidentally grew some beautiful red beans this year.

Let me 'splain.

I got the seed at some remainders/seconds store here in the Salem of the South. Once the coveted haricots started bearing their slender spears of delight, I planted these red beans in the Italian garden. For some reason, I thought they were Kentucky Wonders.

Imagine my surprise when the beans that were left a couple of days too long on the plants started getting red streaks on their wide backs.

Weird.

I finally--after harvesting two messes of them--checked the box of seeds to look for the package. Rosa, they are called. Italian flat beans that eventually turn completely red on the outside. The inside is a big white bean with red streaks.

I've saved seed for those and the haricots, also this year's super prolific okra.

We ate the last of those rosy beans tonight, alongside some tender pork steaks cooked in red wine, with mushrooms.

Cider Pressing!

2010-10-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Late last month, I travelled to western New York for a weekend of chilly camping and a harvest festival including pressing fresh cider. At the Brushwood Folklore Center, there are a lot of wild apple trees. This year the crop was not bountiful enough for us to press much cider, but we did add a few of the wild apples to the bushels the campsite bought from a local orchard. The cider was absolutely delicious. I brought about a half gallon of unpasteurized fresh cider home, and drank a glass or two every day until it was (sob!) gone.

We also built a wicker man from crabapple boughs we pruned on labor Day weekend, and burned him in our ritual bonfire.

Here are a few photos of our adventures of Heartsong Harvest Weekend...enjoy!

Cool Enough to Cook

2010-09-27T15:12:00.001-07:00

I know, I know. I have been too busy planting and picking and canning and freezing to even think about cooking.

It's been awful. I've been living on fresh tomatoes and wormy apples.

But now the rains have come back and the temp has dropped and we can think about eating again.

To that will ask--guess what I just had for supper?

I sauteed taters, mushrooms and zucchini in bacon drippings. Then I added some crumbled up bacon. Real bacon, not those crappy bacon bits in a jar. I sprinkled it with good Celtic sea salt and ate it while drinking a dry, crisp hard cider from my own orchard.

Can life be yummier than that? I don't think so.

Another lovely aspect of cooler weather is the ability to bake in this old un-air-conditioned house. A good friend had a birthday yesterday and I made some pasta primavera and we finished the meal with...

a chocolate carrot cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Yep, made from scratch--from the grated back garden carrots to the licking of the mixer beaters. Handmade and pretty darn yummy, if I do say so myself.

I had never eaten such a beast but I was thinking of a dense, rich and chocolate-y cake and that came to mind.

Next time, I'll make it as a chocolate, chocolate-chip carrot cake.

O, yes.

Last of the Summer Sandwich

2010-08-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

We have a delicious summer sandwich--it may be the perfect one for me. Here's how it goes--

Fat banana peppers from the garden are sauteed in olive oil and just a smidge of butter.

Four eggs are whipped up with a little water and scrambled.

On whatever bread is around, we slather mayo on one side. When the eggs are ready, slices of cheddar are laid reverently atop and allowed to soften. The peppers go atop the cheese and slices of fresh tomato go on top of that.

Mayo side down on top.

Slice, if you like.

Juicy, messy, delicious.

We had what was probably the last one today, since we're not having a bang-up pepper season this year.

(The sandwich pictured above also has some avocado on it but otherwise very similar.)

Canning is Not for the Faint-of-Heart

2010-08-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

The time for preservation has come, dear friends. It began with picking apples and processing them into juice, then setting them down as cider.

We'll bottle that this week.

Then the currants were picked and processed, then frozen. Now they are in the ale pail, on their way to this year's currant wine.

The apricots were picked and processed a while back and now they are simmering in a pan--with rather a lot of sugar and cinnamon--darkening into fruit butter.

The grapes are ripening and will become both wine and jelly.

The last of the raspberries are in a pie.

And last night we made blueberry preserves with local bloobs.

There's a colander full of Cortland apples on the table, pondering their destiny.

Pie? Jelly? Crisp?

They'll get processed tomorrow and bunged into the freezer. Then we shall see.

What are you eating, this first night of Lughnasadh?

Yeast Goddesses

2010-07-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

A quick note to sing the praises of yeast, a paean to fermentation.

I was up early this morning, in the quiet. I was puttering around the kitchen, considering the relative merits of tea or coffee when I heard this odd popping sound.

Very soft, but somehow distinct.

I have fairly good hearing--especially considering my love of metal rock and opera--so I tracked the sound to the white pale in front of the old desk.

The cider--last night's labor of love--was merrily bubbling away, popping and off-gassing in the airlock.

Such a nice feeling. After the apple prep and the pasteurization process and the expensive yeast, it was a bit of a relief to hear that fermentation song.

Ah, I sing a song of fermentation, of the flesh of fruit and the active yeast!

Juicing the Pippins

2010-07-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

Actually, I was juicing the MacIntosh and pseudo-Cortlands. I used a hand-me-down Krupps juicer, which did not like the peels. Next year I'll know to peel the apples in the first processing. It was the first time I'd used the juicer and when it gets clogged it kicks like a mule.

But I tried to stay calm and unafraid--it's also pretty loud--and zip through those apples bag by bag.
Here are the 1/2 gallon Ball jars (they are now in the fridge). I'm too tired to do the next step, so will pick up the extra juice to make 5 gals tomorrow and put juice, honey and yeast into the ale pail to ferment.
I'll try to do some pics of that, too, and take you with me on this adventure. Until then, here's my bread box, spattered with apple guts:

Scrumpy

2010-07-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

The apples are processed and ready to be made into juice. Which will happen tomorrow.

In a flurry of angst and confusion, we visited the fella at AVL Brewing Supply and told him what we were doing.

Easy-peazy was the phrase he used several times.

We can only hope.

The good news is that we can add to however much juice these apples make by adding juice from the grocery store. And we can sweeten and feed the yeast with the honry from our late bees.

I am going to attempt to document the process here, so that you may gain confidence from my utter lack of experience in the hard cider department.

Hang on. Scrumpy's coming.

Too Busy Eating to Write About It

2010-07-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

Dear gods, y'all! Are you filling your fridge and belly with all this great produce?

Do it!

For dinner tonight we had rainbow chard, onions, carrots, green beans (more on Slenderette later) and yellow peppers that were sauteed in garlic and OO. On top were some poached mahi-mahi.

O. My. Goodness.

Do you have farmers' markets near you? Gorgeous produce coming out of your garden? A little of both?

Well done, you.

This morning we did another harvest of the MacIntosh apples, too. These (and the little Cortlands) are destined for the juicer and the happy world of hard cider. Scrumpy. Gosh, I love that stuff.

I got the old juicer out today. It was a gift from a friend who was moving cross-country and I've never used it. But until I have a portable cider mill at my disposal, this will have to do.

Bon appetit, y'all! Enjoy the utter perfect freshness of it all, while you can. Autumn--and her Sister Winter--are on their way.

I Ate My Weight in Fresh Shrimp

2010-06-28T04:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, not quite. But let me give a profound shout-out to one of my fave restaurants in the world--Gilligan's in Mt. Pleasant, SC. Old friends first took us there years ago and every time I'm in the Low Country (as I was last week), I get myself over there.

It's a local chain that started with one restaurant and has expanded over the years. Slaw is good and mayonaisse-y, fried okra is barely breaded and crisp. I've had the oysters, clams, mussels but the shrimp is my usual choice.

As a tribute to my friend Freddie Clarke, this time I ordered the AYCE shrimp. When asked about sides, I took a double okra.

The first helping was fried, the second steamed (a little too spicy for my mood on that evening but still yummy), after that--fried, fried, fried.

Lightly done, not too much breading--the star is the very fresh shrimp.

Are you waiting to hear about hushpuppies? Yes, I do adore those fierce projectiles and am particular about them. I am saddened to tell you the ones at Gilligan's were not the best on this trip. That award goes to the crisp, tender and slightly sweet ones from the Charleston Crab House. I can't remember much about my meal there but the hushpuppies were terrific.

And here they are--

Black Raspberries! And Dreaming of Making Jam...

2010-06-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

In recent months, many articles have appeared touting the cancer-fighting powers of these tasty summer fruits. They're rich in anti-oxidants, vitamin C, and fiber, and delicious! I've also found them to be pretty easy to grow. I have pulled up wild plants (they tend to grow near dead trees) and plant them by a fence where they get equal amounts of shade and sun. They tend to spread, so just pluck up the new young plants if you get too many, and share them with friends.

I moved this spring, and the lovely healthy berry bush I had growing died back when I uprooted it, and will not produce fruit this year, but it's already growing nicely again, so next year we should be back in business. I also pulled up another wild one and planted it this week, and once it finsihed drooping I will cut it back and wait for it to spring back next year.

I love them on Cheerios for breakfast; but only when they're fresh. Since they're only around for a few weeks, freezing is the best way to preserve them for year round enjoyment; I imagine I will throw them into my juicer occasionally. But I am going to make jam from them for the first time tis year. I've been gathering them and freezing them; a friend in the neighborhood has several clumps of bushes and can't eat all the berries; so he lets me come pick as many as I want (he'll get some jam for his generosity). Which is nice, since spelunking in the wild patches I picked from last week left me with big scratches on my lower legs, and a bee sting! Once I have enough, I will gather my jars and get cooking.

Last summer I made jam for the first time. The freezer jam was not so good (too runny), and the apricot preserves were too tart (should not have used pectin! next year I will follow this recipe to the letter), but the peach jam (pictured above), cooked slowly with a bit of sugar and a healthy dose of lemon juice, was lovely. It was my favorite as a kid, so I'm happy to follow in Mom's footsteps. I am going to try the no-pectin method again with the black raspberries.

I try not to eat too much sugar, and also not too many carbs; but homemade jam on toast is the breakfast of gods. When I read fiction from the good old days, they seem to eat an inordinate amount of jam. War-time films emphasize the importance of jam as a foodstuff in England. It's the next best thing to fresh fruit, I guess: juicy vitamins and fiber in a jar.

Good Eats

2010-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

We've eaten a lot of pasta-and this week. We had rice-and one day, too. So I had a long day at work and am looking at another one tomorrow and didn't want to think about what to make for supper. But I'd used up all my easy things (see sentences above) and besides I wanted to eat something healthy and yummy. Possibly fried.

So I wandered out to the garden to see what I could eat. It was a garden of eden out there. Spring onions. Rainbow chard. A cabbage. Snow peas. Broccoli.

Holy moly.

I sauteed (well, it is kind of frying) the onions, then threw in the stems of the chard, while chopping up the cabbage. That went in, too, at least part of it did.

Some left-over chicken went into the happy cast-iron skillet. Toss, add some fresh cracked pepper.

Wowser.

After eating that, I steamed the broccoli and the peas separately, and we can eat those tomorrow.

I'm full, happy, delirious to have so much good stuff in the back yard. And it ain't even tomato season yet.

Scientific Conclusion: Anything Can Be Sauteed

2010-05-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Why do I love olive oil so much? And how is it even better with tiny spring onions in it or fresh mashed garlic?

I only know I love it and will fling most any food stuff into it, stir it with a wooden spoon and dump it in a bowl.

Today, I made a gorgeous fat lasagna with mushrooms, four cheeses, spinach from the garden. Now, I don't eat that much pasta so I was scouting around for something for Mommy's supper.

I sauteed a sweet potato in OO, added some mushes, threw in a few fresh snow peas from the garden and topped it all off with a ton of spinach.

Holy moly, it was yummy. I scattered some mozz on top and it melted into the hot spinach.

Yep, it was heaven in a bowl.

Big Healthy Food

2010-05-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

There is something about the in-coming harvest from the back garden that inspires me to cook new, odd or interesting combinations of things.

Yesterday, we had some pan-roasted sweet potatoes and lightly-steamed broccoli. Big plates of it, with some rich slices of roasted-pepper focaccia and pear chutney.

It was filling and delicious.

Today I made a stew of green beans, diced tomatoes, hominy and fresh spinach from the garden. It smelled so good while it was slowly slowly slowly cooking that I was inspired to make a cake of corn bread. I even had some buttermilk, which makes it even better.

It is almost like autumn around here with this rich food. We're also having very cool nights here in the southern Highlands and this seems like such a delicious way to honor the last of the cool before summer weather hits.

Cornbread. Spinach. Hominy.

When was the last time you had hominy? Have you ever? This wasn't fresh-made--it came from a can. But the texture was as I remember--soft, yet firm.

What are you all eating these days? Strawberries? Salad greens? Spring onions?

O, goodness, I love spring onions.

Greens. Grrrrreeeens!

2010-05-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

The dry and freezing winter did a number on the seedlings I had hoped would turn into lush wintered-over greens. Due to gardener error--or incompetence, to be honest--this dream of green did not materialize this year.

And yet...and yet...

There are random, free-range collards, kale and chards that have sprung up in the tidy beds that now contain brussels sprouts and spinach. These edible beauties rise proudly about the other greens, showing their disdain for plants that didn't face the ferocity of a mountain winter.

It's almost a shame to eat them. But they are delicious in their terrible strength. And the seeds from these survivers? As strong as strong can be. Warrior greens.

It was the Preakness today, and we had these odd burgers

2010-05-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

My friend the chicka-fisha-terian was up for a visit and I got some of that odd turkey bacon for breakfast. I made fresh biscuits, and we had eggs.

So there was this odd turkey bacon left over--honestly, it was organic and all, but not terribly good (though it was terribly salty). I came back from an author event at the bookstore and decided to make turkey burgers while we watched Race Two of the Triple Crown.

Here was the delicious combo--juicy ground turket burger, slowly cooked in olive oil. It was served on a thin roll with goat cheese, fresh romaine from the garden, and some Duke's mayo. And fake bacon.

Rather tender and wonderful. I could have served it with apple cole slaw but I was too hungry to wait.

Banana Pudding et cetera

2010-05-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

I used to do a lot of experimenting with the basic idea of banana pudding. Is banana pudding a Southern delicacy? It is often found at potlucks and family reunions here in the Southland. And the folks who make it often have their own special take on this homeliest of sweets.

An African-American friend makes hers with Pepperidge Farm cookies, the ones with the chess figure on the front. A Low Country friend insists that one only use instant pudding. Another friend, with roots in the Deep South, insists on homemade pudding, rich in egg and heavy cream.

Among my experiments was a basic deep dish layered dessert with vanilla wafers, strawberries and chocolate pudding, with merigue on top and chocolate curls on top of that.

I am thinking of this today because we have a bag of slightly stale madeleines and they are destined for a pudding. Possibly tomorrow.

Ramps have been achieved, by the way. I feared I was too late but the plucky folks at the Farmers Market had some. They will be cooked in some fashion tomorrow.

And I'm thinking of planting some, too. I'll let you know how that goes.

So, what did you drink for Derby Day? I made some simple syrup for juleps but we gulped down Maywine instead. A light Pinot Grigio with the requisite sweet woodruff, with sunken strawberries in the bottom of the glass.

Bliss!

Nothing Could Be Finer

2010-04-18T19:18:00.000-07:00

There is so much pleasure in gardening--all senses involved in the digging and planting.

Then the day comes, maybe sooner than you expect, when you begin to eat the things you've planted and tended.

That day was today in my garden. I picked new romaine, a few leaves only. And two perfect cherry belle radishes. We have had some wintered-over greens, garlic and onions. And we've had wild food--nettles, chickweek, dandelions, ramps.

Do you know how good real food is--food that you pick in the warm sun of your garden and bring directly into your house?

Let me encourage you to carve out some garden space in your yard, if you have one. Grow a tomato plant on your patio or front stoop.

Food, glorious home-grown food!

Rampion

2010-04-15T20:56:00.000-07:00

Does the word evoke dangerous faery tales?

What would you give for a taste of this delicious green?

Delicious may be in the mouth of the beholder but ramps are in season here in the mountains and you would be wise to indulge.

They are stinky and wonderful, a sovereign tonic for spring.

You can get them at local tailgate and farmers markets. Narrow white bulbs and wide green leaves.

Prep them by taking the roots off the bulb end and washing them thoroughly to remove dirt and old mast. Pinch off any brown bits from the leaves but retain as much as you can of these precious greens.

I chop them up and saute them briefly in olive oil. Sometimes I serve them just like that--with perhaps a grind of light pepper.

They are also delicious in omelettes, with cheese. They can be tinctured in vinegar for future use. They can even be eaten raw.

Find them and eat them...and then stay away from your fellow humans for a few days. Their reputation as the Queen of Stink is well deserved and the stink often comes hours later, when the funk has had time to work through your system.

Brush and floss and use the strongest mouth wash to no avail. The smell remains on your breath, in your pores, in your sweat for a day or two.

But my, o my! is it worth it.

Nettle Soup is Way Too Green

2010-04-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

A friend left a super-stinky bag of fresh nettles for me yesterday. They are so beautiful when young--vibrant, bristley. Vast patches grow along the river here and exude a faint sense of cat pee.

Hardly sounds right, does it? Prickles that sting you and the appetizing smell of urine. Can you think of a better starter for a delicious and nutritious soup?

I carefully washed them today and parboiled them in vegetable broth and water. They turned an even brighter green and the smell was more spinach and less...well, you know.

I whipped them through the blender, then sauteed onions, garlic and mushrooms in olive oil. When all that was tender, I blended about half of that and added all the batches into one large pot. Low simmer for 15 minutes or so, to combine the flavors a bit.

Towards the end of that time, I added a half cup of half and half, and turned off the burner.

I served it for supper with a dollop of sour cream, a scrape of aged parmesan and a crank of fresh black pepper.

O, yea. Hot spring in a wide bowl. A glass of pinot grigio and some crusty bread and it's the best spring tonic.

Okay, the best except for ramps. More on those if I get some tomorrow.

Creasies, Dandelions, Nettles...and some excellent fried chicken

2010-04-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

The spring greens are starting to sprout up here in the hills of western North Carolina. The weather has turned mighty fair of late and I've been out and about, noticing the spikey dandelion greens that seem to call me to dinner in the spring. Do you love them?

I was raised on a wonderful story of my Great-Grandmother Westmoreland who could go out into bare fields and pick a washpan full of greens for a meal. I pick as much as I can--chickweed has been a recent fave.

Creasey greens and dandelions go beautifully together. Here's how I do them:

Wash them...many times. Soak them in cold water for a couple of hours, to plump them up. Then I chop them a bit and saute them in olive oil, often with a little garlic chopped into it.

Serve them hot, with maybe a scrape of hard cheese, like a Locatelli Romano.

Nettles are also peeking out their pointy selves. I also wash them heck out of them, soak them a bit. Then chop them up and boil them down, using the rich green broth and now-tender green shoots for soup.

The next thing I'll need to sample for my mountain spring tonic?

Yeppers.

Ramps.

I came down from the high country today and stopped at Famous Louise's Rockhouse Restaurant. I did not have pie and instead asked for a couple of pieces of the crispest fried chicken. I had it with a glass of cold water with lemon squeezed into it. My goodness, it was fine.

I thanked the woman who served it and the kind man who cooked it. When you get hot crispy fried chicken, you should be grateful, I think. It is rare enough to find it in an edible state. This was excellent.

Food--It's What I Planted in the Back Garden

2010-03-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Any Pagan foodie worth the name knows the ineffable joy of growing your own. Whether is a balcony windowbox, some containers on the deck or tilling up the Back 40, the pleasure of growing your own food cannot be oversold.

I began gardening as a child. My father's family had been country folk and he was itching to move to the country and try his hand at farming. We had a cow at some point, a goat, chickens, ducks. And a sloping south-facing garden that was tilled each spring and planted with corn and green beans and tomatoes.

Back then, western North Carolina was blessed with good amounts of rainfall in the summer and we hardly ever had to water the garden.

Now, I catch water from the roof of the house and water my garden with it. I garden organically--well, not certifiably organically--and have the pleasure of wiping soil off radishes and eating them in the field. I eat tomatoes warm from the sun, and perfectly ripe.

There is nothing fresher than food that comes from the back garden. The taste is different, the nutrition is better.

Win. Win. Win.

If you don't have a backyard, you might consider herbs in the window or containers at the front door.

So many articles are being written about knowing where your food comes from and how it was grown. May I suggest doing some of it yourself?

A Slight Chutney Obsession

2010-03-26T20:21:00.002-07:00

I made a delicious pear chutney yesterday, with a bag of dented and scarred pears from the produce department at my local grocery. Pears, onions,walnuts, currants, sugar and vinegar. Cooked for an hour, slowly. The house still reeks of it.

It is rich and exotic and will be delish with meats or beans and rice.

Or on a spoon, which is how I had some this morning. Wonder how it would be with oatmeal?

I love the mix of sweet and pungeant.

I made a mango chutney a few weeks aho and it was gone in a hurry. This bag of pears (3-4 lbs) yielded rather a lot, including 3 pints to give away as gifts.

Vegetables Everywhere

2010-02-14T16:16:00.000-08:00

We do try to eat healthy around here but February can be a trying time. We've mostly eaten what little we froze from last season's garden--it was devoured by groundhogs, except for the peppers and tomatoes. There are pickled peppers left but one can't live on pickled peppers alone.

The grocery store was filled with vegetables from far away. But they are somewhat fresh and looked very tempting.

For supper, I made a big pot of collard greens/ Then I sauteed peppers, napa cabbage and garlic in olive oil. We ate the last of a big piece of nan bread from Stick Boy in Boone. Good meal. Tasty.

But it's reminded me that gardening season should be upon us here in the mountains of WNC. But it isn't. We still have snow--more on its way tonight, we are told. The ground is too wet and too cold. Usually by this time, I have onion sets in the ground.

But not this year. I'm a little worried.

I cooked those lovely peppers in a relatively new cast iron pan. I have several old ones, ones I use all the time. I can't recall where I got this one--maybe on sale at Lodge. It hadn't been properly seasoned and as a result, I didn't use it. With all the recent snow and cold, it behooved me to do the job right and so I did.

Now it just needs a job of use and it'll be fine.

I love a good cast-iron frying pan. Everyone ought to have one. Or two. Or four.

They take a lot of attention--they are high-maintenance cooking tools. But treat them right and you will pass them down to your grandchildren. Perfectly seasoned. Ready to use.

Wonder how much family cookery DNA gets passed down that way. Does my oldest pan have a molecule of my grandmother's stewed potatoes and cabbage? The same dish I make now for comfort food when life is too hard?

I like to think so.

Yeah, You Heard Me. I Said "Livermush."

2010-02-04T20:54:00.000-08:00

Here in the South, we eat all sorts of interesting things. Squirrel, okra, head cheese. Don't ask. One of the things we eat is called livermush.

Bear with me a moment.

You see, Burns Night was a little over a week ago. That got me thinking about haggis...of course. Now, friends, I am not a haggis hater. I have had some quite delectable haggis in Scotland, in fact.

So I checked out cookery books and Google and could find not so many easy haggis recipes. So I gave up on it and simply drank Scotch instead.

Quite the celebration.

But I was at the grocery store a few days ago and found myself inexplicably drawn to the bologna and hot dog cooler. Why? Why am I standing here amongst things I rarely eat?

My eye caught the unappetizing grey square over to one side. Livermush.

Livermush.

Thanks for your patience--here's the point. Haggis is a bunch of animal (sheep or pig usually) bits chopped up and cooked with oatmeal. Livermush is pork bits chopped up and cooked with cornmeal.

Except for the casing, they are remarkably similar. Even in taste.

So, I am experimenting with an Appalachian haggis for next Burns Night. Next step is to find some proper casings.

Then I'll post some pictures.

Fingers crossed, dear foodies. This could either be brilliant or a total flaming disaster.

Snow and the Full Moon

2010-01-30T19:34:00.000-08:00

What is it about being snowed-in that requires baking? I made some dreadful cornbread yesterday, when the snow first started to stick outside.

I should tell you about my cornbread fixation. As a good Southern woman, I naturally love cornbread. But I can't stop experimenting with it--trying new recipes, tweaking recipes that I know work.

Last New Year's Day, I had a cornbread tasting. Plain, made with buttermilk. Bread with cracklins. Bread with whole wheat flour and niblet corn. Bread with extra eggs to make it rich.

We had a good time. In addition to corn bread, we had black-eyed peas and collards.

Yesterday, I discovered some white corn meal in the freezer and tried out the recipe on the back of the bag. It's very cake-y and tangy.

Not bad, exactly. But not corn bread.

My favorite recipe for cornbread is called Perfect Corn Bread and it's in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I've had since grad school.

Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside, draped with fresh butter.

Maybe I'll go make some right now.

Tsk, Tsk. Neglectful Wench

2010-01-24T17:50:00.001-08:00

Greetings, all. And welcome to a glorious new year of Pagan gardening, cooking, eating and food preservation.

Most of us are doing our bit for Haiti relief but I really must commend one of our local vegetarian restaurants. Rosetta's in Asheville does a marvelous cauldron of soup benefit most Sunday evenings. There's an enormous cauldron on a tripod, set over a gas flame. And there's fresh cornbread.

All of this is for a donation and it is an odd and wonderful group of folks, never the same from week to week.

Last week and this week, Haiti relief was the recipient.

So it is possible to do good, eat right and have a happy tummy.

I am sorry to report that the sub-zero weather here destroyed my fall-planted greens a couple of weeks ago. And now we are having The Deluge. So my dreams of early spinach, kale, collards and lettuce are a little thin on the ground--quite literally--these days.

Still, we soldier on, don't we?

What are you cooking and/or eating these days, hmmm?

Ginger Creams: a lovely holiday cookie

2009-12-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

I just shared this recipe with a friend on Facebook, whose partner tried it this summer and raved about it. These were my favorite cookies growing up, and that says a lot, considering how often my mother baked cookies from scratch.

She made the usual chocolate chippers (that was what the recipe in the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook called them), and her roll-out sugar cookies at holiday time are still the best recipe I've found (it's flavored with fresh lemon juice and nutmeg,a nd so not bland like many sugar cookie recipes). She also made chocolate crinkles (my younger brother's favorite, and pressed cookies, and bow-ties (a bit like fried dough rolled in confectioner's sugar), and cookies known as Never Fail Cookies, a vanilla cookie with cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on them.

But Ginger Creams were my favorite. So here's the recipe. It comes from my mother, but since it's Scandinavian in origin (a Finnish bakery in Boston sold them for a while and they tasted identical to what I remembered from childhood), I think she may have gotten it from a friend of hers who was Swedish. In any case, I hope you will try baking them and enjoy them.

Ginger Creams

Dough should be chilled for at least one hour before baking.

Mix together thoroughly:
1/4 cup shortening (butter or margarine)
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses (light or dark, not blackstrap)
1/2 cup water

Sift together and blend in:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Chill dough.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Grease cookie sheets.
Drop by spoonfuls about two inches apart on cookie sheet.
Bake for about eight minutes (do not use bottom rack or cookies may burn).
While still slightly warm, frost with lemon or vanilla frosting. (I make a simple vanilla buttercream).

This wonderful cookie blog has a Raw Ginger Cream recipe that looks worthwhile.The photo above is what they more or less look like before frosting; thanks to food blog Two Frog Home for the nice photo.

By the way, I have been compiling my mother's dessert recipes (mostly cookies) and am going to put them into a cookbook. I also want to include some of my Dad's recipes (though most of his were not written down). A sort of memoir with recipes (wish I was the first person to thin of this, but apparently it has already been done before I got off my ass. Still, it's a good format for what I want to do, which is tell the stories of the prominence of food and food-related activities (cooking, growing, gathering, fishing, hunting) in my upbringing. Tentative Title: Pickled Garlic and Sweet Milk.

Alone Again. Naturally.

2009-12-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

I've had some time on my own this week. I've gotten some stuff done but I've also gotten to eat whatever I want.

As it turns out, I've eaten pretty high on the hog.

After a long day at work on Sunday, I came home and baked fresh cornbread. I ate it with some fresh bean soup that I'd made the day before.

I've eaten salads and collard greens, lean chicken breasts and sauteed cabbage.

My main vice--if one can even call it that--was buying a grocery store bakery pumpkin pie on Tuesday evening. It has allowed me to have a cup of coffee and a sliver of pie, any time I want.

Now, that feels like a luxury to me.

I believe I'll have an apple, a banana and some organic peanut butter for dinner.

And a sliver of pie for dessert.

Turkey and Garlic

2009-11-29T19:45:00.000-08:00

I am one of those folks who thinks that most anything can be sauteed in olive oil and garlic and thus rendered edible. The past few days that has been the turkey treatment here at the urban famrstead. Instead of merely plucking a gout of turkey flesh from its plastic fridge container, salting it liberally and munching on it as I write or work, I've been making a little more effort.

Okay, not much more. I start heating the olive oil in the cast iron pan, get the garlic from the fridge and toss in rather a lot. Then I chop the turkey--dark meat--into the hot oil, stir it up and get a bowl.

Turkey, garlic, oil.

Very good.

Tonight, I lobbed a couple of tablespoons of cooked sweet poes into the mix.

Also good.

We're near the end of the turkey leftovers, though I did freeze a lot of turkey. We'll bring that out for future meals and remember the juicy, orangeness of our Thanksgiving friend.

Now, I must decide if I am doing a dinner on the 25th. I have often done a big formal dinner, but this may be a relaxing year instead.

I'll keep you posted.

No Open Fire

2009-11-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

...so the chestnuts were roasted in the oven. So much for romance.

But chestnuts are really yummy, especially roasted. You make little Xs on one plump side, so they don't explode in the oven. I roasted them at 425 for about 15 minutes. Because of the X, each succulent nut is easy to peel and the shell color is this rich warm brown.

They are good chopped and baked into dressing but we prefer to eat them out of hand. My husband's Italian family always has them after the big Thanksgiving meal, with wide slices of fresh fennel and assorted nuts-in-the-shell.

The turkey also spent time in the oven, being basted with olive oil and orange juice. Sweet and tender and very moist.

What did you have on your Thanksgiving table?

Cakes, Pumpkin Cheesecake and...The Day of Much Food

2009-11-25T18:51:00.001-08:00

It's a hedgehog cake--my sister-in-law made it a couple of days ago and I was called in to be Icing Woman. She has a lovely Kitchen Aid mixer (for which she just got the pasta-making attachments) and it made quick work of the frosting adventure. We also did a nice smooth two layer cake for my niece. So when it came time for this one, I picked it out with the icing spatula.

Tomorrow is that problematical American holiday, Thanksgiving. Problematical because we were raised on some peculiar mythological stories of pious Pilgrims and docile Natives that bore little resemblance to what really happened when Europeans came to this continent.

But many of us love those stories and the guilt we feel about the Empirical adventure that is America is often too much to bear. I want to suggest something to you.

Enjoy tomorrow. Enjoy the food, and the life we live here in America. Try to enjoy your family, try to be kind to those who aren't always kind to you.

Remember the people in your community who don't have enough to eat. Don't worry about the whole wide world--there are certainly lots of hungry folks everywhere. Focus instead on those in your town.

And, if you can afford it, buy some extra non-perishable food items and donate them. To your church or temple, to the food bank, to the homeless shelter.

You can't feed every hungry belly, but that can of tuna and that bag of dried beans will make a tummy in your town feel better. You can do that much. We can all do that much.

Ditch the guilt, be kind to your family and enjoy life for a change. And if you can do even a small thing to help another person, then do it.

Life is sweet and sometimes we forget that. Try to remember it tomorrow.

Charity Challenge for Thrifty Cooks Who DON"T Shop at Wal-Mart!

2009-11-22T18:01:00.000-08:00

This blog is hosting a charity event challenge to try and prove people can feed their families healthy inexpensive meals without relying on pre-fab, unhealthy food at Wal-Mart. The blog refers to the commercials claiming that you can make a fresh meal for less than $2 per person, but the meals shown are full of unhealthy junk food like sugary pastries and frozen garlic bread. The challenge is to remind us all to support local businesses and buy fresh foods whenever possible.

I should preface this by saying I rarely shop at Wal-Mart; we go to the one in western NY near where we camp every July, mainly because we can get everything we need in one place and there aren't many options in that area. I have tried not to shop there if we can patronize a smaller business, however, and this year discovered an Amish-owned greenhouse I love that convinced me to never buy overpriced sad-looking annuals at that Wal-Mart ever again.

But yesterday my husband and I did stop there; it was on our way home, we wanted a new DVD, and needed two items for dinner. They didn't have the DVD we wanted (Season Four of Battlestar Galactica), but I got a different one (Season One of Hex). Also, we got much more food than we planned because we were hungry and the prices and selection were so tempting. Peppered slab bacon! Cracklin' Oat Bran! Raisin Bran! Hershey's Special Dark baking chips! Romaine lettuce hearts! Natural chicken wings! Corn dogs! (Okay, that was my husband)

We felt a bit sheepish, coming away with so much more than we meant to, but also knowing we rarely buy food there. But I could completely understand why people would want to shop there, given the excellent prices. They even carry plenty of organic stuff, now (as mentioned in the documentary Food, Inc., Wal-Mart now carries organic Stonyfield Farms yogurt products. As my husband put it, just because the company is evil, doesn't mean the store is. Good point.

But I know I would never start doing all my shopping there, even if we were forced to tighten our belts. I am already a thrifty cook and shopper and I absolutely support our farmers' markets and locally grown foods. Our neighborhood market ended last week but one grower who has a CSA plan is still meeting locals once a week for the next three weeks to sell them anything they want from his list of available produce. This week I'll get some kale, watercress and eggs from pasture raised chickens.

So, can I cook a great-tasting healthy meal using fresh ingredients for less than $2 a person? You bet I can! And so can you. I'm going to take on this challenge and provide some recipes, and the blogger is even donating $2 to a food pantry for every qualified link. This is a win-win!

Some recipes I plan to share: Pasta with white beans and spinach; Black bean quesadillas; Baked penne pasta with Italian sausage.

Here Comes the Season of...well, lots of food

2009-11-21T07:20:00.000-08:00

I'm sure there was some hilarious and/or pithy title to come up with but I'd rather talk about food.

American Pagans, as you well know, often celebrate the American holiday Thanksgiving, though it doesn't appear on a standard Wheel of the Year diagram. In fact, many make the pilgrimage to the place of their birth and unto the house of their mothers. Often pretending they aren't Pagan at all, in order to keep the peace and enjoy the feast.

No matter. Hiding the glow of your connection to Earth and the fact that your "name" is now Lady Frostnipples ferch Yarrowroot, you sit at table with people who knew you when and still call you "Bucky".

But the food! Your mom always makes the best mashed poatatoes, just like you like them. And now you are in charge of the chestnut stuffing. What about those popovers? And the fresh cranberry sauce?

Pumpkin pie, Grandma's chocolate cake, Dad's Waldorf salad.

I hope that all of you will indulge in your favorite seasonal treats this week and will have a thought for those who are hungry. Maybe donate to a food pantry in your great-aunt's name--you know, the one who always had too much wine at dinner and slept through the evening.

And if you are hungry, please avail yourself of help that is in your community. Don't be too proud or to shy. Because nutrition is important and there are programs that can help. Even if you have to go to a church basement.

Hard Cider Renaissance!

2009-11-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share a recent blog post from my blog Orchards Forever, on the hard cider brewing renaissance.

Hard cider making seems a likely protege to the microbrew revolution. What about you? Do you like hard cider? Have you ever made it? Are you in love with the names of antique apple varieties used to make cider, like Cox Orange Pippin, Gold Rush, William's Pride, Wolf River, Campfield, or Muscat de Bernay? Let's hear your delicious thoughts.

Can It Be Planting Time...Again?

2009-11-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

Yeppers, we're having some gorgeous warm weather and I intend to clean out the Italian garden tomorrow and plant some greens to winter over. I've done this for the last few years--there is nothing like picking fresh spinach in late February.

But this is the first year in the Italian garden. That little plot of land is near the back door and easy to access.Spinach, onions, kale, collards maybe.

And today, I was pondering the plot and saw a wee bit of lacey green peeking out from the comfrey in the corner. A carrot! Joy! I resisted the urge to simply wipe it off.

I washed it, shook the water off and ate it.

Sweet, crisp, alive.And I ate it.Bad girl.

Older is Better

2009-10-29T19:42:00.000-07:00

I dropped by the local fancy gourmet grocery store yesterday. I didn't want to eat lunch out but wanted to eat something....apple? Sandwich? As I was heading to the deli, I ran across this display and laughed out-loud.

Cheesehenge!

One of the deli folk was walking past and I asked if I could make a pic--he said that was okay.

So, here it is. An aged cheddar, I assume, lovingly constructed as a neolithic monument.

Ah, the power of cheese!

Cider Pressing

2009-10-21T19:24:00.001-07:00

Here are some photos from the Heartsong Harvest Festival Weekend at Brushwood Folklore Center at the end of September. The campsite has many wild apple trees, so we get to use an abundance of unsprayed apples, many different varieties, for cider. Unfortunately, this year a late frost killed nearly all the blossoms, so we had to buy apples. Still, it was a big success and the cider was delicious!

The last photo is of me with a wicker man we made for the Mabon ritual that night.

Punkies

2009-10-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a rather lean year for pumpkins, or so I hear. But I went to the store today and got three giant NC pumpkins for $10 and the carving has begun.
But pumpkins are more than smelly scorching porch lights. The seeds! The seeds! I strain them and separate the goo from the fat seeds. I toss them with some salt and ground pepper, and spread them on a baking sheet. They roast at 300 degrees--stirring them about with the spatula every 10 minutes or so.
They keep a long time..if they're not sucked up as they come crispy out of the oven.
Pumpkin flesh makes not only pies but also cheesecake and soupl and even a swift saute with chilis.
Pumpkins and apples are the perfect foods.

In the kitchen

2009-10-20T18:28:00.001-07:00

we have two carboys of wine, perking away in the kitchen. One is concord grapes with montrachet yeast and that has a gorgeous merlot color. The other is this odd brew of red currants. Smells good, very active but won't be drinkable for years.
I'd like to try beer making, too, but the thing that calls me is hard cider.
I'll keep you posted