Papaya Milkshake

Papaya Milkshake (1)
Originally uploaded by gummychild

A really tasty smoothie for a hot day like today! =)

Ingredients:
- 1 ripe papaya, scooped out into pieces with a spoon
- 3 Cups of milk
- 2 Cups of crushed ice
- 7-8 teaspoons of sugar (to taste, really)
- cinnamon
- mint leaves to garnish

Directions:

Use a blender to blend everything except for the cinnamon and mint leaves together (be careful! Remember that blenders can go crazy if you fill it all the way up...about halfway up is good, and if you need to do this in batches, that's fine too).

Serve with a dash of cinnamon sprinkled on top of the foam that will naturally be made, and top with a sprig of mint for some color, pizazz, and flavor. =) We didn't have any mint leaves available, but I think it would be nice. =)

We served ours in martini glasses, but this will serve beautifully in a tall glass as well! =)

blueberry crunch

I grew up in southeast Alaska, in the Tongass National Forest. Our house was surrounded by trees and berry bushes - countless salmonberries and blueberries. We made a ton of jelly and jam (which my sister sold to cruise ship passengers when they docked - we always laughed when they would ask this very blond, green-eyed girl if she was Eskimo - which of course also shows lack of geographic knowledge).

This recipe, from family friends, is one of my very favorite things to do with wild blueberries. Yes, "regular" blueberries are fine, but wild blueberries have a special deeper more intense flavor that make me go wild.

SITKA COMFORT FOOD

Mix and then put in 9 x 13 cake pan:
4 cups blueberries (1 quart)
~ 1/2 c sugar
3 T flour

Combine, then dab atop the berries:
1/2 c brown sugar
1 1/2 c flour
1 c oatmeal
1/2 c butter (originally she called for 1 c, but I find the lesser amount is fine)
1 tsp vanilla

Bake 40 minutes at 375 degrees. Enjoy with vanilla ice cream.

okra soup

An impending move has me seriously examining the contents of my freezer, knowing I need to empty it. I've spent the past year filling it with all sorts of treasures, so this is a challenge for me. But also a fun challenge!

Fry pancetta or bacon (alternatively, use cubed meat and/or a soup bone). Then saute onion & garlic & chopped peppers (bell and/or spicy).

Add in vegetables. I shall add:
*okra, frozen
*corn, frozen
*green beans, frozen
*spinach, frozen
*diced tomatoes, canned
*1 c tomato juice

Add enough stock/water/whey/bouillon to cover. Cook 30 minutes or so.

Season to taste with salt, pepper, herbs & spices. Probably a dash of salt and a few grinds of lemon pepper will satisfy me (and cayenne if no hot peppers).

New Orleans style cabbage

I spent New Year's Day at my friend Laura's house, where we had the traditional black-eyed peas (which she made "jerk") and cabbage. This cabbage was soooo good that I had to ask her how she made it. Yeah, an entire container of parmesan. Yeah. No wonder it's tasty!

So since I'm spending Easter tomorrow with Ruby's family, where I have not seen a lot of vegetables, I figured this would be a good way to finish off my parmesan - with moving, I'm in OPERATION: EMPTY FREEZER AND REFRIGERATOR, so this will do that ... and the breadcrumbs in the freezer ... and the cabbage in the crisper ... So, here are her directions.

What makes this New Orleans style? Well, her mimaw is from New Orleans, and she probably got this from an Italian neighbor at some point. But what REALLY makes this a New Orleans-style vegetable is that all the additions essentially negate all the positives of eating vegetables!

There's no particular recipe for the cabbage but I can give you a general idea. I cut the cabbage up into small strips and cooked it down with a little bit of olive oil, an onion, and some garlic. Once that's done, start mixing in Italian style breadcrumbs until it becomes a little pasty. You can add the cheese at this point. After that, I put it in a casserole dish, threw a little more cheese on top, and baked it on 350 for 30 minutes or so to get the top a little crunchy.

I hope that all makes sense. It's one of those things I picked up from Mimaw and she never had any measurements for it.

Note:  When my friend made it, it was really good.  When I made it, not so much.  I won't be making it again, but will enjoy at future parties.

canning lids!

These were as a Facebook ad and I'm so glad to have seen them!

They are Tattler reusable canning lids. I can be a bit of a canning fiend, but I get annoyed that I have to buy new lids each time. Sure, they're less than 10 cents a piece, but one of the benefits of canning is that you save money by reusing containers. So, I'm super excited to see that I have options!!

collards with ham hock

When I moved to the South, I took to okra immediately - it grows like crazy in my backyard and I cook it in various wonderful iterations, then pickle, freeze, and dry it and enjoy it. I am not in the least bit self-conscious of my okra affinity.

But collards? Truth be told, they're more complicated. Oftentimes when I would have them, they were too fatty for me and too doctored up. I wanted collards without the fancy dressing up, darn it.

But shortly after I moved here, I tried cooking my own collards to my own specifications. And honey child, they were atrocious. Bitter and tough (perhaps from the supermarket and not really fresh) and BLECH! And I gave up for the time being.

Now though, I feel more sure about my southern cooking repertoire, and so I tried again when I picked up some beautiful greens from the Farmers Market. And they're so good I think I might eat the whole darn pot today! Fortunately they're darn good for me - and here is an interesting article on their history & nutrition.

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Put one smoked ham hock in a large pot of liquid. (The liquid can be broth or water or whey from yogurt making, which is what I used.) Boil it to get the flavor of the ham hock in the liquid. (I boiled it about two hours, and truthfully this was too long because that flavor is too dominant. Next time I'll boil it maybe 1/2 hour, then pull out the ham hock and set it aside to use for something else later.)

While that is simmering, clean your greens. Generally for cleaning greens such as collards, you need to do a fair amount of dunking in a big tub of water and rinsing. They do trap dirt. Then chop the greens. I keep almost all the stem (just trimming off the bottom bit). I take a big bunch of collards and roll them together and chop through all the stems then on up to the leaves.

When the ham hock is falling apart, add the collards to the broth and stir well. (If they won't all fit, add what you can then let it wilt down a bit and then add the rest.)

Simmer for about 45 minutes. The collards are a tough bunch, and they need the time to break down the bitterness and fiber. The long cooking (usually I lightly cook vegetables so this goes against my intuition) is actually important to release nutrients as well.

Flavor to taste. Definitely taste before salting! The smoked ham hock was super salty to me. I had just finished a jar of pickled okra and tossed in the garlic & peppers from that jar, as well as a bit of the vinegar.

Enjoy! I ate on "Jazzmen" rice (also super good with cornbread) with a good dash of Crystal hot sauce on top. And oh soul, so good!

The liquid left from cooking greens is called "pot likker" and is super tasty and nutritious. You can sop it up with cornbread or rice, or you can save it and use as a soup base.

strawberry honey jam

(originally posted on other blog March, 2009)

Pre-work: prepare the jars & lids. Wash them well, then put them in separate pans. You want to boil the jars to get them very sterile, but do not boil the lids because that can destroy the sealing rubber gasket part. Get the lids to a simmer then turn off the heat; boil the jars about 10 minutes and then keep them in the pot. You'll use the same pot to boil them in later when they're full of jam, so don't dump the water out. [I have a problem with a film developing on the jars when they boil - my guess is from minerals in the water. Will need to figure it out.]



Then, wash the strawberries. Be gentle. Get organic strawberries, or at least unsprayed, so you're only washing to get off dirt, leaves, etc. Dry on a clean tea towel. Let them get to room temperature so that their flavor is very full.



Then, hull them. I take the stem off with my fingers, then use a huller for the tough attachment part. (Can also use a knife, but I find that seems to take off too much of the good berry.)



Slice until you think you'll have about 4 cups mashed (my best guess is about 2 1/2 pints). (You probably don't have to slice before mashing, but I think it makes the mashing easier.)



Then mash, leaving some yummy big chunks but getting out the juice. Measure into a pan to be sure you have 4 cups. {*I do multiple batches as well - see below.}


Get out your other supplies. I use Pomona's Universal Pomona because it doesn't require table sugar and has fantastic customer service (yeah, I've called twice). I use local honey because it tastes like ambrosia. I've never been all that into honey before, but this Westwego (on the West Bank) honey from Mynick's farm pushes me into paroxysms of pleasure. And the combination of local strawberries and honey is so wonderful!



The directions are clear for Universal Pectin, which I appreciate. You have to make "calcium water" (just adding some liquid to water to keep in a jar). You add 2 tsp of that to your 4 c of mashed berries, and then add 2 tsp from the other packet (pectin) to however much honey you want to use (I use 1/2 c to 3/4 c of honey per 4 cups of strawberries.)


Bring the fruit to boil while stirring so the bottom doesn't burn. Then add the honey mixture, stirring well to dissolve the pectin. Return to a boil and then remove from heat.

Fill the jars to 1/4" of top (it really helps to have a canning funnel). Wipe the rims clean, screw on the two piece lids, and put the jars in the boiling water to cover. Boil five minutes if you're at (or below, in my case) sea level, longer at higher altitude. Remove with the special tool for that (jar handler tool) and set on a towel on the counter to cool. For four cups of mashed berries, I filled three 1/2 pint jelly jars and then a larger jar that isn't for canning to use as fridge jam (I sterilized the jar & lid and will keep in fridge and use up right away).



And then you have jam! Yum! It's fantastic to eat throughout the year, and I especially like it in homemade yogurt.

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It is definitely possible to quadruple batches with this pectin (as long as you have enough pots, etc.).

3/24/09 - A whole flat of strawberries yielded about 18 1/2 c mashed strawberries (probably more but I measured generously). I put in about 2 1/2 c honey and 10 teaspoons each of calcium water and pectin.

It made 7 pints plus an applesauce jar, a jam jar, and another glass container I use for food leftovers.

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3/23/10 - A whole flat yielded about 17 c mashed berries (yeah, I nibbled on quite a few), which yielded 9 pint jars of jam plus a little bit.