Vegetable Soup

  Vegetable soup is another one of those foods that is synonymous with the cooler weather of fall. Making the soup also gives us a way to use up all of last year's frozen vegetables that didn't get used up as well as any new fresh vegetables that are available. Usually around the cabbage harvest is when we make our soup, so for our location it is around mid October or so. This is definitely one of our comfort foods and it fills the house with a smell that is so nice to walk in to. This is not necessarily a definitive recipe so to speak, as with many of our recipes it is more of a guide and we use whatever we have available.

Vegetable Soup (Makes about 12 quarts)

2 quarts vegetable stock

2 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes with basil

3 quarts frozen crushed tomatoes (from last year)
2 quarts frozen sweet corn (from last year)
2 quarts frozen Lima Beans (from last year)
2 quarts frozen green peas (from this year)
1 quart frozen yellow squash (from last year)
1 medium head of cabbage, sliced medium thin
1 quart of fresh carrots, course chop
1/4 c fresh parsley, course chop
3 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pepper
2 tsp garlic powder

  We used a 15 quart pot to make the soup. I added only enough water to get the pot up between the 14 and 15 quart mark. It will cook down to about the 12 quart level. We add everything to the pot and brought it to nearly boiling and simmered it for about 8 hours. Be sure to taste it at least at the halfway point to adjust any of the seasoning components. Stir it every now and then to keep the soup from scorching. If the soup does scorch, don't scrape the stuck bits on the bottom of the pot. This will contaminate the whole pot. Just transfer it to an appropriately sized container and clean the soup pot or use another one if you have it to spare. If you are going to eat it right away or freeze it then it should be ready to go.

  If you are going to can the soup here are a few things to remember:

• Don't add any starch components to the soup like pasta, potatoes or thickening agents. You can add these things when you heat the canned soup for consumption.
• You can cook the soup for 2 hours less because the canning time is 1.5 hours.
• Do this when you have enough time to can the soup after making it. We can only do 5 quarts at a time and since we canned 10 quarts total we had about 4 hours of canning time after making the soup. If time is tight, you can make the soup one night and store it in the refrigerator (after it cools) and then can it the next night. Just remember to get the soup back up to near boiling before jarring.

  We put ours in hot clean quart jars and processed them in a pressure canner for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. This was the first time we canned it and we have sampled the final product and it is wonderful. We will definitely do this again!

TTFN

B

Poultry Seasoning

  Poultry seasoning must be worth about the same amount per pound as gold or at least my local grocery store thinks so. I must have spent $20 last year on this blend alone. After that I made up my mind I was going to grow as many of the components as I could in my garden and find the rest of the ingredients cheap at a bulk spice retailer. I was able to easily grow the sage, thyme, parsley and rosemary. The volume I made today would have cost me over $20 in bulk already mixed and about $40 in those tiny cylindrical containers at the grocery store. I calculate it cost me only $1 using the stuff I grew and the other bulk components I bought. Ka-ching! Now if I could only find a way to get those bagged bread cubes for something less than the going rate for silver I would be in business. :-)

Poultry Seasoning

1 tbsp dried sage

1 tbsp dried rosemary

1 tbsp dried thyme

1 tbsp dried marjoram

1/2 tsp celery seed

1/2 tsp dried parsley

3/4 tsp ground pepper

  Put it all in a coffee grinder and mix it for 5-10 seconds. Done! This makes about the same amount as one of those small cylindrical containers you buy at the grocery store for $5.

TTFN

B

Lucy's Awesome Carrot Cake

  I never met Lucy. She befriended my girlfriend in another life and she wrote down her carrot cake recipe for her to try. Lucy is no longer with us but she is immortalized through her recipe. This is a perfect excuse to use up some those miniature carrots I grew in the bucket garden too. :-)

Lucy's Carrot Cake (1 loaf pan or 1/2 small cake pan)

1 c sugar (the poor dear forgot to write this down ;-)

1 c flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

2/3 c veg. oil

2 tsp grated orange zest

1 tsp vanilla

1 c carrots, finely chopped

3/4 c golden raisins

1/2 c walnuts, chopped

  Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. Bake for 40 minutes in a loaf pan. Double the recipe for a medium to large sized cake pan.

Cream Cheese Frosting (makes about 1 1/2 c)

1/2 stick butter, melted

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 c 10x sugar

1 tsp grated orange zest

  Mix ingredients well. Frost cake when cooled. Enjoy!

TTFN

B

Drago's Charbroiled Oysters

    If you ever get to New Orleans, I highly recommend you stop in at Drago's for some charbroiled oysters. Several months ago I was in New Orleans on business and I ate these every night I was there. Lately I have been jonesing for them again and when my aunt offered to bring a bushel of oysters back from the Carolinas, I knew exactly what to do with them.

Drago's Charbroiled Oysters (Makes 8 servings or if you are me, just 1 serving)

32 oysters on the half shell

1 c butter

2 lg cloves garlic, pressed

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 c grated Pecorino Ramano cheese

1/2 c fresh parsley, finely chopped

  Heat your grill to medium high heat. Melt butter in a sauce pan. Add garlic and pepper to butter. Mix cheeses together in a bowl. Spoon melted butter mixture into each oyster. Add a pinch of cheese mixture. Add a pinch of parsley. Grill for 8 minutes until hot and bubbly. Enjoy! :-)

TTFN
B

Holiday Cranberry Relish

  This is my mother's recipe. I think she may have been inspired by one of my aunts, but she has made it her own over the years. It just isn't the holidays without this around the house. We use it to go along with our turkey or sometimes we eat it all by itself. The sweet-tart flavor really hits the spot when the weather starts getting cold.

Holiday Cranberry Relish

1 lbs frozen fresh cranberries

1 small sweet red apple, cored

1 small tart green apple, cored

2 small navel oranges (or 1 large navel orange, include half of the orange peel)

2 c crushed pineapple

1 c sugar
1 c orange juice

1 small box Jell-O (Cherry, Black Cherry, Rasberry, whatever floats your boat)
1 c craisins (optional - I have started adding these lately)

 Using a food processor, coarsely grind cranberries, apples, oranges, craisins and pineapple. Add sugar, orange juice and jello, stir well. Refrigerate overnight before serving.

TTFN
B

(edited 11/24/18 to reflect some minor changes)

Traditional Brown Irish Soda Bread

  We recently returned from Ireland and one of my favorite things from Ireland is soda bread. I want to set the record straight on this subject. Many people think Irish Soda Bread is some sort of fruit cake like bread with nuts and dried fruit. It doesn't help when you can go to tourist type places in Ireland and buy something that resembles the description above. Understand one thing, soda bread is peasant food, damn good peasant food, but peasant food none-the-less. The traditional version is very simple. The people who subsisted on this bread didn't have an abundance of sugar, nuts and dried fruit.

  I looked around on the internet for a traditional recipe and got a wide veriety of results. I picked what I thought was the closest version and adapted as necessary. The traditional recipe contains only whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt and buttermilk. Here is the recipe I used:

Traditional Brown Irish Soda Bread (2 loaves or 4 rounds)

4 c whole wheat flour

1 c flour
1/3 c rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 c buttermilk

  Preheat oven to 425 degrees farenheit. I didn't have buttermilk so I used the common substitute of 1 tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice for every cup of milk. Combine all ingedients in an appropriate bowl. Only work the dough as much as is needed to thoroughly combine ingedients, no more. I put my dough in a Pyrex loaf pan. Bake for 40 minutes.
  For a more traditional result, use irish oat meal instead of rolled oats and form the loaves into rounds and score the top of the loaf into quarters.
 
  Of course, the final results makes a great vehicle for butter and our homemade peach jam. Enjoy!

TTFN
B

Grilled Sourdough and Eggplant Sandwich

  I saw a great recipe on another blog that I like to read and it inspired me to make this sandwich. I wanted to put a link on this entry to that recipe, but after searching through the contents I couldn't find it. However, the blog has a lot of good stuff on it and here is a link to it, http://www.eatdrink onewoman.com/.

  This was a natural evolution for me. I really like all the components to this sandwich, so it was inevitable. I prepared it the same way I would a grilled cheese sandwich. Butter two slices of sourdough bread. Put them butter side down in a pan on medium heat, pile a little shredded mozzarell cheese on each slice, put a slice of grilled eggplant on each slice of bread and put a little red sauce on one side. When the cheese has melted a little, invert one slice on to the other and brown each side until done. Enjoy!

TTFN

B

Country Ribs with Plum BBQ Sauce

  I knew this was coming when I posted the plum jam recipe and it worked out well. I had a general recipe in mind. So, after confirming a few of the proportions on the internet this is what I came up with:

Plum BBQ Sauce (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 c plum jam, recipe

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/4 c vinegar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground pepper

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp hot pepper flakes

1/4 c brown sugar

1 tbsp cornstarch

3 tbsp cool water

  Place the plum jam in a sauce pan. Combine water and corn starch, mix until smooth. Add cornstarch mixture to the plum jam and mix well. Add the remaining ingredients to the sauce pan. Mix well. Bring to a boil and immediately lower the heat to medium. Stir often. Continue simmering until the sauce is thick enough to cling to your meat, about 5-10 minutes. We applied the sauce 3 or 4 times during the grilling process and reserved a small amount for plating. I probably don't have to mention this would work well on chicken too. Enjoy!

TTFN

B

No Pectin Peach Jam

  Not much to say about this item except that it FREAKIN ROCKS and we are going to make more next year. This is good stuff. This may be my favorite thing out of all the items we canned this year. This was simple to do although, like the plum jam, it took some patience because we didn't add any pectin. I read through several recipes until I found a couple of pectin free versions. This is what we used:

Pectin Free Peach Jam (Makes 3 pints)

6 c peaches (pealed, pitted and finely chopped)

1/4 c lemon juice

3 c sugar

  We found using our food processor worked best for chopping the peaches. Combine peaches, lemon juice and sugar in an appropriate sized pot. Mix thoroughly. Bring to a boil and immediately lower the heat to medium low. We left it at this stage for 2 hours making sure to stir often. Skim any foam and discard. This was the part that took patience. You can certainly speed things up by using pectin. You could also raise the heat a little and stir almost constantly for 45 minutes to an hour. The Ball Blue Book explains the consistency to look for when a jam is ready to put in jars. This link explains it as well. We used the sheet method. Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space, seal and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes. Enjoy! :-)

TTFN

B

Last Garden Update for 2010

  Well, the last of the garden has been picked. Tomatoes, tiny bell peppers and a few herbs are all that remains. As usual we try to use up what we grow, but I won't bother to tell you how our green tomato pie turned out. We nicknamed it tobacco juice pie if that is any indicator. :-) The green tomato relish looks like it came out ok. We canned it already, but I haven't tasted it yet.

  It has been many weeks since my last post, but we haven't been idle. I have so many things to write about and hopefully I'll find the time to get it all done. There are still several canning items to post about from late August and early September and we canned some bread and butter cauliflower too. We made our own italian sausage and sourdough cinnamon rolls that are heavenly. I can't believe I have so many things in the queue that haven't made it to the blog yet. Look for more posts in the near future.

  Oh, and I just enabled comments for non-members. We'll see how that goes for a while. :-)

TTFN

B