Okra

Something I've never had until moving to the south is okra.  Gardeners who grow it say it's one of the easiest things to grow around here.  Judging by the overflowing bushels of the stuff every week at Sandra's farm, I would guess that to be no lie!

The classic way to prepare okra is to deep fry it.  That's all well and good, but I searched for a healthier way to use it.  I tried roasting it in various iterations (with garlic, with cherry tomatoes....) and didn't really come up with a way to use it that my family would eat.

Until..... my neighbor shared a jar of pickled okra with me.  It's yummy!  And Bridget loves it!  Time to pickle my own okra, and teach Missy B in the process!

Into the bottom of each jar goes mustard seed, dill, crushed garlic, one fresh jalepeno and one dried red chili.

The pickling liquid is equal parts cider vinegar and water and a whole bunch of pickling salt.  Packing the okra in the jars was a bit of a challenge.  I don't like to use wide-mouth jars so that my canning rings are interchangeable amongst my smaller jelly jars.  But, by alternating big end and little end, and starting with the largest okra pods first, we got the jars stuffed tightly.

Ladle in the hot pickling liquid, and drop them in boiling water to process for 10 minutes and voila!  Pickles!  Bridget loves them in her lunch and I hope we've made enough to get through the winter.

In touch with my food. Literally.

One thing I've learned in trying to eat more local, less processed foods is how much I have to touch my food now.  Whether it's for preservation or just prep for dinner, there is a lot more involved when you quit opening up cans.

Take the purple hull peas.  I'd never had them before.  Farmer Sandra grows them and I was intrigued.  They're a pretty greenish purple and look like beans.

Except they are not.  The edible part lies within the hull and must be painstakingly removed.

Shellin' peas - it can either be relaxing or mind-numbingly boring.

The first time, I did them all by myself.  What began as relaxing soon became monotonous.  It took well over an hour.

I cooked them in sauteed onion and bacon and then boiled them for about 90 minutes.  Delicious!  The kids LOVED them!

So, I decided they were worth the effort and the next time I brought them home from the farm I made it a Family Project to shell the peas.  What began as relaxing soon turned into bickering, adolescent fits, and at least one nameless person leaving the room in tears.

But I digress.

The point is, it took no little while to get all those peas out of their hulls.  But they were worth the work.  Purple hull peas are not something you'd ever find in the grocery store, in a can, or in the frozen food section. They are wonderful and this is the only way you can enjoy them.  By touching every little dang pea.

A few weeks back, when I went to "my farm" to get my veggies, Farmer Sandra had harvested ALL the carrots.  They were not going to stand up to the heat, and needed to be used now or they'd be no good at all.

I pretty much filled my bag with carrots that week, intending to find a way to preserve them.

Homegrown carrots are neither as "pretty" or as large as you find in the grocery store.  But they have a much more robust flavor, and earthiness that all good root vegetables should have.  And a lot more charm in their appearance.

Problem is, before preserving, all of these carrots needed to be vigorously scrubbed.  I'm a scrubber, not a peeler.  I think peeling is wasteful in both taste and mass and nutritional value.  Scrubbing hundreds of little carrots took no little while.

The next challenge is to preserve them in a way that I think enhances their flavor and makes eating them a pleasure rather than a chore.

As usual, I scanned a lot of recipes and decided to go a bit exotic.  Star anise, cinnamon, clove all seemed to be good compliments to their earthy flavor, and some lemon (juice and peel) to brighten the overall effect and contract all that earthiness.

They sure look pretty, but I need to give them a few weeks in the jars before trying them.  I'll let you know how they taste.

All this prep work gives new meaning to "handmade food."

Saturday morning farm visits

This year, I bought a share in a small local farm.  I am a big fan of locavorism, and while I am far from perfect, I do what I can.  I believe it is good for our bodies, good for our planet, and good for the dying breed of small growers.

My farmer's name is Sandra, and I found her on Local Harvest, a great website that connects consumers with local producers of all manner of food and goods.  I was very lucky to have hit the Local Harvest website shortly after she put up her profile, as she only sold 10 shares on her farm this year.

Sandra's farm is called Mansion Farms and it is out in Roanoke, the next town over from me.  Let's see if she's reading.....  Sandra, why do you call your place Mansion Farms?  You can leave a comment. ;-)

So.  Every Saturday morning I make the quick drive out to Sandra's place to pick up my share of the produce she has harvested that week.  Being a terrible novice gardener myself, I am learning a lot just from chatting with her for a few minutes every week.  Maybe someday it will all sink in enough that I can grow some of this stuff successfully myself, but for now I am glad that Sandra is doing it for me.

There is different stuff available every week, and the fun challenge is figuring out how not to let it go to waste. I try to incorporate everything I pick up that week into our meals, and if there is a lot of stuff, I try to preserve it.  It has all been a great learning experience.

Sandra has lots of stuff going on besides her 1/2 acre vegetable garden.  She keeps a flock of chickens and sells the eggs.  I know you've heard me say over and over and over - there is nothing like a farm fresh egg.  Once you try one, you will never buy those weak facsimiles from the grocery store again.

She has goats and sheep and is working on expanding her herd to use for meat.  She also keeps turkeys.  An endangered breed called Midget White.  One of these little guys will be my holiday bird this year.

Sandra also trains and rescues "Livestock Guardian Dogs."  You send these lovable guys out in the pasture with your goats, turkeys, sheep, etc. and they keep the predators at bay.  The turkeys have even figured out to run to the dogs when they sense a threat, such as a large bird overhead, etc.

It's a pleasant errand to run every Saturday.  I enjoy hearing Sandra's plans for expansion, learning what can and can't grow in different times of our growing season, and learning how to cook new foods such as okra, and purple hull peas.

As I've said before - Nature can't be wrong.  I think it will be worth it to listen to her rhythms and dance her dance.

The All Food All The Time Blog

I know.  You are just waiting anxiously to find out what I did with all that farm fresh produce!  And how were those pickles after all?  And what about the jelly?

And I just left you hanging.  I am sorry.  I've been busy eating.

The word Ray used to describe this creation was "fantasmagoric" I think.  Aidan's friend who was here for dinner said "Omigawd, Aidan, can I move in here?"   High praise, indeed.  Fresh ingredients, simply prepared - nothing more.

More of those vegetables were grilled an thrown into a yummy risotto that Ray made.  Leftovers of that will be my lunch today.

The pickles are delicious.  The bread and butter chips taste exactly like they are supposed to.  The dill that Ray made have a wonderful crunch and are just sour enough.

"But what about the blackberry jelly?" you ask....  Trial and error.  Super Confident Me did not do a test batch.  Super Confident Me cooked and processed about 30 jars in one marathon session.  Super Confident Me was horribly deflated to discover none of it jelled to Super Confident Me's satisfaction.

Ugh.

Deflated Me had to open up every jar.  Deflated Me had to clean and re-sterilize everything.  Deflated Me had to hubble bubble toil and trouble over the burning fire and bubbling cauldron for another afternoon.

Happy Me got jelly.  Happy Me made some cute labels of the cute berry pickers for the lids of the jelly.

Now I am back to Super Confident Me and saw the wild mustang grapes growing by the side of the road.  Super Confident Me went and picked a bunch.

Super Confident Me's kitchen looked like a murder scene as I rendered all the lovely, tart juice.

Super Confident Me has a couple of pitchers of juice which will make maybe about ten pints or so of jelly.  Should I do a test batch?  What do you think?

But dang.  I have to go to the boring old tire store.  The story of the wild mustang grape jelly will have to wait for another day.

Oh, the suspense!  What will you do!?

This week in Pam's local kitchen

Top left:  potatoes, carrots & beets.  I think I'll roast them.
Tom right:  zuchinni, yellow squash, banana peppers and some other kind of mild pepper.  Salsa?  Zuchinni tart?  Grilled squash?  Risotto with some roasted carrots too?
Bottom left:  More peppers, including some really spicy Asian varieties.  Currently on the back patio getting sun dried.
Center:  Tomatoes of all sizes.  Salsa?  Freeze for sauce later?  Bake the little ones with chicken breasts until they burst and become a sauce?
Bottom right:  Purple hull peas.  Never had them before but apparently the peas are delicious sauteed with onions, and then you can boil the hulls to make jelly.

Providers:  Two different neighbors and my farm share.  Everything was grown right near me.

My sincere apologies to those who come here for updates on the kids, or absurd and amusing tales of motherhood.  While the crops are bursting, this is now the All Food All The Time Blog.  We will get back to our regularly scheduled programming once the kids get around to doing something amusing or absurd.

The wild mustang grapes have ripened and are calling to me.  That must mean more jelly making is in my future.

Cucumbers are better than.....

This week at the farmer's market, I bought every cucumber they had.  I love cucumbers.  After all, they stay hard in the crisper for weeks, you know.  I got all sizes, because you know, size doesn't matter - and a cucumber will never try to convince you otherwise.  And even thought I bought a LOT of cucumbers, none of them seemed to have a problem with the fact that I could handle ALL those cucumbers.

OK.  I'll stop now.  My intentions for the cucumbers are purely culinary.  Seriously.

Ray even got interested in the cucumbers.  Culinarily speaking of course.  Seriously.

We both wanted pickles.  Dill for Ray, bread-n-butter for me.  Ray even got green tomatoes to pickle as well.  Hmmm....  are green tomatoes better than women and I missed the joke?

Back to the cucumbers.  Seriously.

And this is VERY serious, because I even broke out the French mandolin to slice 'em purty and didn't even lose any of my parts in the process.  Tricky things, them mandolins.  I also sliced onions and salted the whole mess of 'em and let them drain.  A little finely minced sweet red pepper went in there too.

As usual, no particular recipe was followed, but I just tossed in various ingredients that I'd seen listed in the recipes I perused on canning websites.  Tumeric, mustard seed, clove, garlic...  All simmered in a pot with equal parts cider vinegar and brown sugar.

In go the cucumber slices to heat through, and then fill and process the jars.  The hardest part of the whole ordeal is waiting the 3 weeks until they're ready.  I hope they're good, because I've already given a few jars away.

Ray is using a fermentation process for his dill pickles, which won't require water bath processing.  Being a beer maker, he's more comfortable with that whole fermentation thang than I am.  I should have helped him and maybe I'd learn a thing or two about how to properly treat a cucumber.  But Bunko the night before, followed by 5:30 wakeup for swim practice and a 9am meeting, and well, I confess I was sleeping in the middle of the day while my husband was in the kitchen having his way with several dozen cucumbers.  I know.  I missed out.

We'll let you know in a few weeks how good those cucumbers actually are!  Or maybe we won't.  We're shy that way.

Holiday canning

Once I learned how, it's hard to stop!

This holiday season, I canned two different types of treats to give as gifts and also to hoard some for ourselves.

The savory treat is cranberries with roasted shallots and ruby port.  It cries out to be spooned over a wedge of brie and enjoyed with a glass of Pinot Noir.

I boil the berries in brown sugar, water and port.  I roast the shallots until golden and carmelized.

Mix it all together, seal it in jars, process to ensure strerility, lable and voila!  Yummy treats!

The sweet treat was jelly.  Cranberry & jalepeno.  I live in Texas now and "when in Rome..."

The recipe couldn't be easier and the end result is so pretty!  The store was out of 8oz jars, so I had to do a lot of 4oz jars.  I was able to share with more people and they looked like little jewels!

I've really been enjoying this for breakfast.  Sweet, with a little kick.  Just like me!

We're All Gonna Starve

My hoards of readers might remember my last year's attempt at making grape jelly. I was, justifiably, proud of myself. It took a few days, my kitchen looked like a murder scene, but I was rewarded with twenty one pints of grape jelly.

It was gone in four months.

No, I didn't give it all away. Are you kidding? I worked so stinkin' hard, I was stingy with it! We ate it. If we had to depend on my jelly to ward off scurvy during a foodless winter, we'd all be toothless.

The grape jelly was borne of a couple of ideas. The desire to incorporate more local, in-season food into our diets. The idea of "slow food" and getting away from the convenience stuff. Wanting to expand my domestic arts and begin to learn how to preserve freshly grown food.

Since I haven't worked in years and years and years, and the economy being what it is, well, let's just say that our retirement is looking less and less like a waterside golf course community and more and more like a double-wide on some remote acreage and a subsistence farm since we can't afford to buy food. And whether or not that actually is the case, I hate to see these arts die and I want to learn how to grow food and how to preserve it so that I don't have to eat 27 zuchinnis a day during squash season, or throw out the tomatoes because there are too many.

My garden, alas, hasn't proven to be the cornucopia of produce that I had hoped. But the growing season isn't over and there is still reason to hope.

Until I really learn how to grow food, and in some useful quantity, I decided to pay a weekly visit to our farmer's market (really just a couple of good ol' boys from Ponder selling out of their trailer) and buy one or two things in quantity and preserve them.

Last week it was spicy green beens and freezer pickles. These are pretty much just condiments and garnishes and nothing you could expect to survive a winter on. But they ARE quite yummy and good in a Bloody Mary!

This week, it was tomatoes. I bought a large box of their "less than perfect" tomatoes, and some freshly dug onions. I de-seeded for hours. The kitchen once again looked like a murder scene. My back and feet ached from hours at the sink.

I filled two large roasting pans with tomatoes with a bit of onions, garlic, wine & salt. I also added the few tomatoes I've gotten off my plants so far. They've been sittin' in the freezer for just this reason. I roasted them all until they were soft enough to puree.

I pureed them and added a bunch of herbs and now they all fit in ONE roasting pan. Back into the oven at 200 for fourteen hours. Yum.

Start the big canning pot a-boilin'. Sterilize my jars, add a bit of citric acid to discourage botulism. Ladle the yummy sauce into the jars.

Six and a half quarts.That's all.

Do you know how quickly my family will go through six and a half quarts of tomato sauce?

Add in the four quarts of green beans and about two quarts of pickles and I figure we'd starve to death in about a month.

But there is a bright spot. I am becomming comfortable with canning. I had several leftover tomatoes from the tomato sauce, and had also recently made a watermelon gazpacho that left me with an orange pepper and a few jalepenos unused. They all went under the broiler while onions and garlic roasted further down in the oven. Into the food processor with cilantro, cider vinegar and lime juice and I had a yummy roasted salsa. A LOT of it. More than we'd eat before it went bad.


It was almost second nature to boil a big pot of water, pull out a few mason jars, fill 'em up and drop 'em in the pot for processing. Yummy roasted salsa, on my pantry shelf.



Come over with a pitcher of margaritas and I'll let ya try some!