I'm quite tired of boiled potatoes (how we ate them in Germany), so I roasted them today to eat with cabbage and they were great. I'm just putting this "recipe" here to remind myself of temperature and time.
Clean, chop potatoes. Mix with oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and whatever else (like rosemary).
Preheat oven to 425. Roast approximately 30 minutes.
Mirlitons are a big deal here in southern Louisiana. Known as chayote elsewhere, they're fruit of a vine that is used in fall dishes - such as stuffed mirlitons and mirliton dressing at Thanksgiving. Usually they use shrimp, which I can't eat, but when a neighbor had heaps to give away of course I grabbed some. I'll pot a couple to sprout my own vine, and the others I made this and it was good.
- Cook 3/4 c. wild rice to specifications (mine calls for scant 2c water, cook 45 minutes)
- In separate pan, saute 1/4-1/3# spicy Italian sausage. Once it's starting to brown, drain grease as necessary. Then add in
- 2 large mirlitons, peeled and chopped
Cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes. No need to add any liquid.
Once done, add in the wild rice mix and stir it up well. Taste and season as needed.
***
Update: this was actually really good and I didn't mind several days of leftovers. Even good for breakfast. Next time I'll cut the sausage a bit more and put a fried egg on it. Yum.
I always have yogurt in my fridge, and often I have a half a lemon that I need to use up. This is a tasty treat.
- 2 cups yogurt
- lemon zest & juice (1/2 - 1 lemon)
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
Stir it up and enjoy!
I've been letting the calamondins on my tree stay on because they're pretty in a drearier season and in a prominent front yard spot, but today I was inspired to use them instead. I first encountered this fruit when I lived in Oceania, and they were known by the local name "ging gong." The juice is outstanding with fish - such as with sashimi, and also as a marinade. Also outstanding as a beverage and I drank a lot of lemonade with it and with gin and tonics. I was delighted to find out that they grow well here, so last year I put in a tree and it's already giving me a lot.
So how about marmalade? I've got everything on hand.
This recipe is across the internet in numerous places so not sure of an original source.
Ingredients (ratios):
Steps:
After processing fruit, put into a pan and add the water. Bring to a rolling boil and keep it there for 15 minutes. Remove pot from the heat and let it sit overnight.
The next day, bring it back to a boil and very slowly add the sugar (can take 10 minutes). Stir until it completely dissolves. Bring temperature to 220 degrees.
Prep (sterilize) jars and lids, and put marmalade into them. No need to hot water bath.
Saving recipes here to try because I have a lot of tabs open with them right now.
Got some mirlitons from a neighbor with a very bountiful vine - https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chayote_with_tomato_and_green_chile/
I have a heap of bananas to use up that I harvested from my yard - https://www.forksoverknives.com/recipes/vegan-menus-collections/banana-recipes-ways-to-use-ripe-overripe-bananas/
It's time to shift back to using greens for salad - https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020002-kale-salad-with-cranberries-pecans-and-blue-cheese?campaign_id=58&emc=edit_ck_20221120&instance_id=77916&nl=cooking®i_id=149152460&segment_id=113766&te=1&user_id=60bb0b0e27845588c0500af6a8422617
Oh how I miss Liberian food - https://www.lovepeaceandtinyfeet.com/west-african-rice-recipes-liberian-potato-greens/ and https://www.lovepeaceandtinyfeet.com/quick-and-easy-west-african-dishes-jollof-rice-recipe/.
The greens in my garden are going gangbusters and I want a tasty meal with plenty of leftovers made from what I have around.
1. Boil whole potatoes (1.5#) for about 20 minutes. Cool enough to cube.
2. Brown ground turkey (1/2#), remove from pan.
3. Add oil to same pan and cook potato cubes until browned. Remove from pan.
4. In same pan, lightly saute garlic (2 large cloves or more) a few minutes until aromatic and softened.
5. Add in a bunch of chopped mizuna and lightly saute a couple of minutes to soften a little (let it keep texture).
6. Add back in the turkey and potatoes (or serve them separately) to heat together. Add pepper. I also salted it but it needed more something, so next time I would probably instead use oyster sauce and soy sauce.
Serve with kimchi.
Sausage or ground beef can substitute in for ground turkey, or can be omitted altogether.
This was ok. Idea from here.
- 1/2-1 onion, chopped
- 1 stalk celery, chopped
- 1-2 carrots, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic
- diced tomatoes (1 can was too much if they're saucy)
- 1 c. (ish) stock or bouillon
- 1/2-1 jar white beans
- 10 oz-ish okra
Heat up a pan and saute onion, celery, and carrots until soft. Add garlic for 30 seconds or so, until aromatic. Add tomatoes and stock and bring to a boil. Let simmer for 10ish minutes. Add okra and beans and let it cook another 10-15 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, Tony Chachere's. Eat with rice.
Years ago I made an amazing pickled okra but I apparently did not record the recipe.
So here goes.
This is what I did today, and I can adjust accordingly.
Sterilize jars in boiling water bath. Warm lids.
Make brine:
- 2 cups white vinegar
- 2 cups filtered water
- 1 T. salt
Heat it up for salt to dissolve.
Clean okra and trim caps (but not all the way).
Into each jar (pint size or somewhat larger*):
- 1 tsp mustard seed (scant)
- 1 tsp dill seed (scant)
- 1 tsp peppercords (heaping)
- 1 garlic clove
Fill with okra, pour in the brine to 1/4". Put on lids.
Process in hot water bath** for 10 minutes.
Let them brine for three weeks or so before opening. Shelf stable though I refrigerate after opening.
*I reused some jars a neighbor gave me, probably about 24 oz, that had grape leaves in them and were nice and round.
**The jars were too tall so I processed on low in canner for 10 minutes.
I like simple fare, and this using up of things I have on hand was very tasty and nutritious. All sort of substitutions would work great.
Bake
Saute:
Once the onion is soft and ground beef barely pink, add:
Let it cook until kale is preferred texture. Season with salt, pepper, etc. (I used garlic powder instead of cooking garlic in it.)
Put sweet potato on plate, serve with ground beef/kale and sides (I added sauerkraut and feta).
It makes enough for about four meals so I'll have it for breakfast the next few days.
*I got this from a local farmer, and they added in organ meats (liver, heart).
A neighbor gave me a bunch of jalapenos earlier this year, with which I made "cowboy candy." I did not care for that at all, and I'll reserve them for being chopped into cornbread in the future. So when my plant started producing heavily, I decided to go the more traditional pickled route, and I'm very glad I did because these are great.
- jalapenos (I had about 3/4#)
- garlic cloves (about 2, sliced)
- bay leaves, peppercorns
- water & white vinegar in equal amounts (I did about 1.5 cups of each)
- salt and sugar (about 1 T each)
Sterilize jars in water bath, heat lids.
Slice jalapenos and garlic.
Heat water, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Bring to simmer.
Pack peppers and garlic into hot jars, add a bay leaf and peppercorns to each jar, pour brine over.
PRocess water bath for 10 minutes.
I discovered a bag of past best by date sunflower seeds in the back of my refrigerator so I want to use them up quickly. This recipe for German Sonnenblumenkernenbrot was pretty good. Here's the video of making it, also.
I won't call this gumbo because the sausage isn't andouille and I don't ever make a roux, but it is super super good and I got to use up things in fridge and freezer.
Ingredients
Process
1. In pot over medium heat with oil, brown sausage.
2. Add onions, pepper, and celery and cook until lightly browned/onion translucent.
3. Add garlic and cook a couple of minutes, stirring.
4. Put this mixture in a bowl. Add more oil to pan, heat.
5. Cook okra about 5-7 minutes until with brown spots. If it's slimy at all, add some ACV.
6. Add back in the sausage mixture.
7. Add 2 cups chicken stock, heat.
8. Add in the chopped chicken.
9. Add in the Tony Chachere's.
10. Bring to low boil and let simmer covered for about 15 minutes.
11. Add in the file powder, stir, and taste.
Eat with rice.
Sweet potato fries, from here. Very tasty.
I ran across this "Turkish" recipe for mulberry brownies. While I know that mulberries are eaten there, I'm skeptical about the brownies part of that, but oh well.
It's likely quite good as is, but I wanted to use up some mulberry jam that's in my freezer.*
Ingredients
Instructions
I used a food processor so put things in one by one. It would be fine by hand, too, I'm sure.
They were ... ok.
*When I canned it, for some reason it siphoned out of most of the jars. So I put them in the freezer and need to use them up before hurricane season. Hence, this recipe. Plus, I can put the small pan in the toaster oven and don't have to heat the regular oven which is a lot of electricity and heat for summer.
Got a bunch of mulberries and I'm having some fun.
Mulberry jam - I use Pomona pectin and their instructions because it always works great for me and it gives me a low-sugar option.
Mash fruits and add lemon juice, bring to boil, add calcium water, bring to full rolling boil. Add the bowl of sugar/pectin and stir it in well for a couple of minutes and bring to full boil again. Put up in sterile jars, water bath for 10 minutes.
Mulberries for yogurt
I then took the rest of mulberries and heated them up again. (Because I gathered them from a dirty tarp, I wanted them cleaned thoroughly and cooked.) I added some honey then put in clean jars to refrigerate and add into yogurt or other such things.
So many loquats. I go to pick a few and the next thing I know, I have heaps. So I found this recipe for loquat cobbler which I modified.
Ingredients
Then mix together:
Add in:
combine with hand or fork. Sprinkle that atop the loquats and then put on top
Then melt and drizzle over the top:
I have a beautiful loquat tree in my backyard. Here in New Orleans they're called "misbeliefs" and they are also known as Japanese plums. They're not something you'll buy in the supermarket because they don't travel or store well, but they are very tasty. The dog and I have eaten countless loquats this year, as well as birds who like to come peck at them, and it just keeps producing. So I grabbed a heap to make loquat jam and remembered that they are not fun to process. Picking is easy, deseeding not so much. I skinned probably about half or more because of marred skins, and I removed seed and tried to remove the dark part of the seed sack that goes to the hard blossom end part. I kept a variety of ripenesses, from barely ripe to very ripe, for pectin and flavor differences. Cut in half, I then put them with sugar overnight in the fridge. Recipe below, taken from my own jamming knowledge and various websites.
Ingredients
Directions
Yield: about 6 jelly jars (half pints)
This recipe for grits and greens with NYT caught my eye. It's warming up here and some greens are starting to bolt, so I want to get all the goodness that I can.
Edit: this is really good. The ACV was enough umami that I didn't miss the meat at all, and I added a little butter to the grits and it was so good. Even good as leftovers. Four good meals worth.
I got this recipe for black bean burritos from the NYT, and I modified it a bit. The beans are also great as a dip.
I took the recipe from pickled carrots from here (adding bay leaf) and here but I think I should be able to figure it out in the future without dirtying every bowl and pan in my house. I cleared my garden beds to move them to the backyard - they were always just intended to be temporary (I reused old fence boards with planter blocks) and they look awful in the front yard. Now that my driveway is finally fixed I can fix the landscaping in the area so to the back these go, where I don't care if they look bad because they produce nourishment. If I can get them set up next weekend in backyard I'll plant anther run of beets, daikon, and carrots, but mostly I'm getting these deeper beds prepped for sweet potatoes. Anyway, I had about 4# of carrots so I made a batch of pickled carrots with about 2.75# (the amounts worked out well - I did three pint jars and two random small pickle jars) and the rest of the carrots (and daikon) will go into sauerkraut I'll make next weekend with cabbage from the garden.
Ingredients
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
2 cups white wine vinegar
2 cups water
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
2 teaspoons dried Mexican oregano (or dried oregano)
½ teaspoon black peppercorns, lightly crushed
1 small red onion, peeled and cut into ⅛-inch slices
2 to 4 jalapeño chiles, quartered (seeded for less heat)
2¾ pounds carrots, peeled and cut on a bias ½ inch thick
8 garlic cloves, peeled
bay leaf (1 per jar)
4 small dried red chiles (optional)
Directions
Sterilize jars. In a large, deep pot, add 4 pint jars and their lids. Cover with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat. Use tongs to remove the pint jars and lids from the hot water. Turn the jars upside down onto a kitchen towel to drain.
Toast cumin seeds. In a small skillet set over medium-high heat, add the cumin seeds and toast, stirring often, until the seeds are golden and fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a small plate to cool.
Make liquid. To a medium saucepan, add the vinegar, water, 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon of the salt, the oregano and crushed peppercorns and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the onion and jalapeños and turn off the heat. - NOTE: since I water bath these and it was kind of a mess and difficult to distribute the spices, next time I'll just add oregano and peppercorns to the jars directly.
Cook carrots. Bring a large saucepan of water and the remaining 1 tablespoon of salt to a boil. Add the carrots and simmer until al dente, about 3 minutes. Drain the carrots in a colander and immediately transfer them to the saucepan with the vinegar and onions. Bring the ingredients to a boil, then turn off the heat.
Jar it up. Divide the toasted cumin seeds, bay leaves, garlic cloves, and red chiles (if using) among the 4 jars. Using a slotted spoon, divide the carrots and onions among the jars. Top with the hot vinegar, leaving ½ inch of headspace at the top of the jar. Fasten the tops onto the jars and refrigerate for up to 1 month.
Water bath carrots. For longer storage, hot-water-process the pickles: Transfer the jars back to a pot of water, making sure the lids are tightly secured and that the jars are covered by at least a few inches of water, and boil for 10 minutes. Use tongs to transfer the jars to a kitchen-towel-lined surface and cool completely at room temperature. Store in a cool, dry, dark space.
This recipe for healthy banana muffins taken from here. They hit the spot, though I wish I'd used all whole wheat flour (or maybe some buckwheat) instead of the half-half with white flour (since I didn't have white whole wheat). Or added oat bran or something like that - I just wanted a little grittier texture, I guess. I also liked that this was a straightforward one-bowl recipe, not requiring a lot of fuss or cleanup, and while I don't usually have three overripe bananas on hand, I do always have the other things. I am looking forward to my banana plant producing and having heaps of very local bananas to use up.
Edits for time #2
Just made this soup (Italian chickpea and pasta stew) and it was outstanding.
