Bacon. Full Stop.

Feb 152011
 

So.

We made bacon this past weekend.

Ten pounds of the stuff – a full pork belly worth.

And, can I tell you? It’s amazing. . . .

Canning Stock for the Pantry

Dec 082010
 

Ahhh . . . stock. Watch any cooking show on TV, read any mainstream cookbook or food blog and you will come across that beloved ingredient . . . stock. Chicken stock. Beef stock. Veal stock. Vegetable stock.

Stock is nourishing. Stock is flavorful. Stock is frugal.

It’s the best of all worlds.

And, if you make it at home, it’s even better. A simmering pot of chicken stock is pretty much de rigeur around here the day after I roast a chicken, and T. knows better than to disrupt my bags of frozen chicken parts, awaiting their turn in the stockpot.

But then, once you’ve made it, how does one store stock? Sure, at the store, it comes in nice, cute, little, shelf-stable boxes, but at home it’s a bit more difficult of a storage problem. I’ve frozen it, with great success, in both freezer bags and glass jars, but I didn’t find it as useful for me. I’d forget to defrost it in time, or it ended up taking too much space in my small apartment freezers. When we moved to our new home, my freezer got smaller still, but in the interim, I inherited a pressure canner from my grandma, and oh, the places I can go with it!

My favorite (and what I use it the most for) pressure canning recipe? Stock.

It’s changed my life.

Wild Black Elderberry Syrup

Sep 082010
 

Last weekend T. and I finally tackled the giant jungle that we call our pond and gazebo area.  Deadheading commenced, weeds were hacked, climbing vines were wrestled from trees and yes, some things were even cut down to the ground in anticipation of winter. I could have used a machete. We finally got around to the back of our retaining wall that leads down a hill to what I lovingly call our “back 40″; un-lawned, un-mowed, un-tended prairie that we haven’t gotten around to worrying about. (It’s at this point that I wish we had some kind of grazing animal; they’d go nuts! But alas, we technically live in “village” limits and  cloven-hoofed livestock are verboten.  Yep, I’ve asked.  Oh well.) Anyway, so T. starts working his way around the [... To read more, click here ...]

Creole Sauce

Aug 252010
 

In my ever continuing journey to both eat unique, seasonal meals as well as cook ahead to make future meals easier I’ve been trying to both relish and enjoy the bounty of summer fresh and sweet, while also preserving some of it for my winter pantry. Lately, every week or so I have one “Big” cooking day.  I make a loaf or two of bread, feed all of my sourdoughs (yes, I have three now.), maybe shred some zucchini for the freezer, and then choose a recipe from one of my preserving books to make up for the pantry while summer produce is plentiful. I guess you could say that I’m making my own convenience foods when, you know, it’s convenient. While flipping through a recent read from the library [... To read more, click here ...]

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging for . . . Hatch Chile Season

Aug 202010
 

I may have mentioned once or twice . . . or 47 times . . . that my husband and I met while in college in New Mexico.  Both out-of-state students, we fell in love with each other, AND Southwestern Cuisine.  I love any and everything green chile.  Hamburgers?  Infinitely better with chile on top.  Breakfast burritos?  Yes, please.  Shredded Pork? Tortilla Soup?  Calabacitas?  Enchiladas?  Queso?  Stew?  Chile Rellenos?  All better with green chile. So when Hatch Chile Season comes along, I take advantage of it in any way I can! I know that every year around mid-August the chiles are coming. I find reasons to drop by my local grocery, just in case they’ve arrived already.  This past Tuesday I arrived just as they were unloading and setting up [... To read more, click here ...]

Lacto-Fermented Dilly Beans

Aug 022010
 

The first time I had a dilly bean , it was at a bar. Well, not really a bar, per se, more like a nice restaurant loungey-kind of bar. The kind that serves brunch.  And Bloody Mary’s. My first dilly bean was lovingly served in place of celery to stir a brunchy Bloody Mary, and I thought it was brilliant.  I’ve been hooked ever since. Dilly beans are great.  A green bean, pickled with seasonings you normally relegate to cucumbers.  Except. . . . they become different.  They’re crunchier, they have a better bite, and, of course, they don’t fall apart in one’s drink.  They’re the perfect thing you can do to a green bean, other than eat them fresh out of the garden. My parents make traditional dilly beans, [... To read more, click here ...]

Garlic Ginger Zucchini Pickles

Jul 282010
 

Remember when I mentioned that I love pickles? I really do.  I prefer lacto-fermented or fresh pickles over any that are heat processed both for crispness and to maintain the vitamins and minerals naturally present in the vegetables.  As I am up to my ears in zucchini and my cucumbers are just starting to grow, I decided to try a new recipe out . . . if only to keep up on my zucchini progress! This recipe for Garlic Ginger Zucchini Pickles is considered a fresh pickle in that they are neither fermented nor are they heat processed.  The vegetables are simply rinsed, sliced and seasoned/preserved with vinegar and spices. The flavor combination in this recipe is wonderful – strongly garlicky and spicy with a slight sweetness from the ginger [... To read more, click here ...]

Ginger Peach Pineapple Fruit Butter

Jul 132010
 

I grew up eating homemade jam.  Both my maternal and paternal grandparents made jam, my grandpa was actually a bit of a gourmet jam maker toward the end of his days, and we frequently had several jars in various stages of consumption in our fridge at any one time. I always ate it, enjoyed it, accepted jars of it when my grandma offered them, but never really thought about it.  That is, until I had a little one that I was making sandwiches for . . . the jams in the store were full of sugar or worse, high fructose corn syrup, and those that were mostly fruit, were highly expensive. Last year I began my first foray into jam making to be able to both keep high quality, fruit-heavy [... To read more, click here ...]

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