I canned some venison tenderloins and some roast beef last year. I opened a quart last night and hubby is having a cold roast beef sandwich for his lunch today so I definitely want something good and hot for him for supper and he loves Potato Charlie. You all have canned beef before haven’t you? It’s incredible! Imagine the texture of that wonderful beef you get in a can of stew. That’s it!! If you’re needing room in the freezer by all means try canning beef or chicken too. It’s simply wonderful and terribly handy. The really nice part about canning it is that you can it raw, thereby the time involved in preparation is minimal. The time in the pressure cooker is long but hey, it’s worth it!! If anyone wants to know how to can beef or venison let me know and I will get the recipe on my Recipes Page.
This morning I got up and put some Great Northern Beans in the crockpot before I went to work. I had rinsed, drained and then set them to soaking overnight and this morning I put them in the crockpot with some onions and Herbes Fines to cook on low all day. When I get home I’ll turn it off, let it cool and put the soup in the frig. Then tomorrow I’ll add some fried bacon, shredded carrots, salt and pepper and cook it on top of the stove for a half hour or so. It ought to be pretty yummy for supper tomorrow evening with some cooked cabbage, fried potato patties and cornbread. I knew that Wednesday I would be working outside and I didn’t want a pot on the stove all day with me not in the house and I certainly didn’t want to have to run back in every 15 minutes to check on it, so this should work. Tonight we’re having Potato Charlie. You take a nice sized white potato, peel and halve it. Take a sheet of foil, lay the potato on it, salt and pepper it and lay a really nice thick slice of onion on one half. I love onion so my slice is monstrous!! You decide how much onion you want. Then put the potato back together and wrap with a couple slices of bacon, salt and pepper the whole thing again and wrap in foil. Just sort of make a package out of the foil - not too tight or the bacon will adhere to the foil as it bakes. Bake for 1 to 1-1/2 hours at 500 degrees. Make sure you put the foil-wrapped potato on or over a pan because the grease will drip out. That’s a Potato Charlie!! I will probably just have pear sauce to go with it but peas goes really well, as does just about any vegetable. A nice side salad fits the bill too. The bacon fries up crisp and you’re left with a luscious potato and a nice soft slice of onion. Just so good and not too outrageously caloric either.
I canned some venison tenderloins and some roast beef last year. I opened a quart last night and hubby is having a cold roast beef sandwich for his lunch today so I definitely want something good and hot for him for supper and he loves Potato Charlie. You all have canned beef before haven’t you? It’s incredible! Imagine the texture of that wonderful beef you get in a can of stew. That’s it!! If you’re needing room in the freezer by all means try canning beef or chicken too. It’s simply wonderful and terribly handy. The really nice part about canning it is that you can it raw, thereby the time involved in preparation is minimal. The time in the pressure cooker is long but hey, it’s worth it!! If anyone wants to know how to can beef or venison let me know and I will get the recipe on my Recipes Page.
0 Comments
Wow! It was kind of chilly this morning. Definitely not my cup of tea!! Tis the Fall season though and it's not likely to get warmer for several months so I've just got to suck it up. I like Fall. I really do but this cooler weather chills me to the bone and it's wet too - that doesn't help. Hubby and I worked out in the barn this week-end and I'm going to be posting pics on my Pictures Page of our journey from a blank canvas to our own homemade chicken coop. I'm learning more about cordless drills, screw bits and drill bits, etc., much more than I care too, but I'm a pretty good gopher!!! Honestly, I would never have made a carpenter! Today I'm back at work and at least doing something I know a "little" bit about! I hate to wish a whole week away but hubby and I are going to be visiting my niece and her husband this week-end and I am truly excited!! She and I have got that "thing" when it comes to being outdoors. That "thing" is a really fundamental, deep appreciation of nature and this week-end we are going to get together and tromp around in the woods and if we so desire, we can even pretend to be woodland nymphs!! TeeHee!! We're planning on whatever suits our fancy but hey, walking in a woods or field this time of year takes on a life of its own so who knows! I usually don't dig Jerusalem Artichoke(sun choke) tubers until after the first frost but I needed some for one of my dishes this week, using it fresh like a water chestnut, so I went ahead and dug a few. I put some in the basement frig for use later. They kind of remind you of ginger but then again, not really. When you are ready to use them you can peel them but they are so knobby most people just take an old toothbrush and brush them up under running water or spray them with a water hose, like I did, to make sure they are good and clean and then use them as you wish. They contain inulin and are very good for your intestinal health but again, I caution eating too many of them at first because they truly do cause extreme gasiness. If you like turnips or cabbage you will like these! They can be boiled, roasted, baked and eaten raw. Give them a try!! They will grow almost 10 feet tall and have a very pretty small sunflower. You see them along country roads all the time. You probably just don't realize it! I have a couple more pics on my Pictures Page. Check them out. It was wicked looking outside this morning. I hurriedly went around and battened everything down. I usually just keep my deck umbrella closed at night and then open during the day but when it looks like excess rain or wind is coming I take it completely down just to be on the safe side. So with everything in it's safe place I had to decide just what it was I wanted to do today. I finished the book I was reading last night, Overton Window. It was a real dose of what some would call just plain silly but what I would call very, very possible. Of course, it's fiction, but it was built on a whole lot of reality and truth. It was kind of a scary read, especially for those of us who are older and those of us who actually have our eyes wide open. But, all that being said, I suppose I'll have to find something else to do besides read today. Shucks!!! I'm in the reading mood but things do need to get accomplished!! I wanted you all to see the fruit of the passiflora incarnata or wild passion fruit/maypop! (Go to my Pictures Page for more pics and information.) The flower is beautiful and I had been told consistently for years that the fruit was not edible. That is NOT true!! When you open the fruit, inside are the seeds which are enclosed in a membrane. This membrane is absolutely delicious! You run the seeds through a mill and the juice that strains through from the membrane is excellent for making sorbets and I'm sure once you taste it you will find many more ways to use it. I often mix it with pineapple juice or orange juice in my sorbets and sherberts. Sometimes I've been known to make a salad dressing from it, using it in place of lemon juice or pouring it over bananas and oranges, etc. It's tart and probably you will wish to use some honey, sugar or stevia to sweeten it. It's very "tropical" tasting. Also, do not dismiss the leaves themselves. They are a very effective sleep agent. You can make a tea from them which I do quite frequently. I often mix lemon balm and passion fruit leaves for an excellent nighttime tea. I actually found my very first plant out in a field behind where we used to live. It was just growing sprawled across the ground. I thought the flowers were pretty. I knew absolutely nothing about it. Little did I know!!! I was afraid to use it or even grow it at first. I was young and terrified of anything new so I actually bought a plant that I thought looked like it in the magazine and lo and behold it was the EXACT same plant. I also went to numerous people who "supposedly" knew what they were talking about and that's when I realized how little people knew about wild herbs. It took me over 2 years to find out that it was edible and how to actually eat it!! So, just to let you all know, "I've been there and done that." Yes, I was perhaps what some would call stupid and timid - but I didn't have internet and there was no one around to tell me anything so I just quietly kept at it. You have a great advantage over me. I will admit that even to this day I am very careful, I check everything out and I'm extremely skeptical . . . but I do keep an open mind. I'm also not nearly as timid or intimidated as I used to be for which I am grateful. May I also add that I still have a whole lot to learn. Gosh, it was just short of warm this morning!! I couldn't believe it. The sun came out and the day was a warm and humid one with a little rain in the late afternoon. I went out into the garage this morning and hubby helped me cut some kind of a bendable pipe. Don't ask me what kind. I'm clueless. It was here when we moved in. It was just long enough that it would make 2 arches. I put them on each end of the zucchini and a straight sturdy stake in the middle. Now I'll find an old queen or king-size sheet to use as a cover and I'll put that on each afternoon while it's still warm and take it off each morning. I'm hoping that will give the zucchini plants enough heat through the night that they will finish growing. It may not work but I don't want to buy anything for just three plants. I've got 5 or 6 zucchinis that are about 3 or 4 inches long and I would like to see them make it before it frosts though. After that I went out to the herb garden and cut some lemon balm and some applemint, picked 3 figs and checked on my roselle which is forming lots of little buds. Oh, I am so excited about that!! Check out my Pictures Page if your interest is peaked for an informative picture. On my way back to the house I decided that since we were having pork chops for supper tomorrow I might as well go ahead and cut the Swiss Chard. This is the kind of weather that Swiss Chard and Kale just love. If you are growing it - it is or should start looking pretty terrific now!! So I put 1/2 of the Swiss Chard in the frig and blanched the other half for the freezer and tomorrow I'll stir fry the Swiss Chard and add some boiled potatoes and onions and whoa! It will be pretty tasty. I figure that will go perfectly with the pork chops and I may just fix some cornbread to go with it too. I'll halve some cherry tomatoes and that will be supper. Tonight we're having steak, baked sweet potatoes and I haven't decided yet what the third item will be. I want something along the line of a salad or a green. I'm still thinking on that. This picture shows where my garlic is planted. The portion from left to the middle is planted in hardneck garlic and then everything from the middle to the right of the picture is planted with softneck. I'd say there are about 75-80 cloves planted in there. First I pulled the few weeds that had formed in my bed then took a shovel and turned the entire bed over. That really wasn't as hard as it might seem because it was well cultivated originally. After turning the entire bed over and smoothing it out I put dried horse manure on top. I then went down a minimum of two inches and planted the garlic and covered it with straw. Now, I just let it sit until next Spring when I see the green onion-like tops pop through and if all frosts are over I will either take all the straw off or move it so that it's just laying around each plant, which is what I did last year. It helped keep the weeds down and held moisture in. Then let it grow. If it gets really, really dry you might have to water but other than keeping the weeds out, it should be no hassle for you through the Summer while you're doing other gardening. One thing to look for though are the scapes that will grow up on the hardneck variety. These are yummy and are a chef's delight so eat them or at the very least cut them off so all the plants' energies are put to the bulb. Garlic is so easy to grow!!! It was drizzling rain again this morning, and after I had my first cup of coffee and it got light enough outside that I could see, I went out to the herb garden and cut a nice big bag full of basil for my boss's wife. She said she didn't want too much but would like to dry some for the Winter. She said not to short myself but I told her that was not going to happen. Not possible considering I have about a bushel of it!!! I made the fig newtons last night and hubby just loved them. No, I do not think they taste like the ones you buy at the store. They taste cleaner and the cookie itself is crispier and flakier, don't get me wrong, not real crispy but crispier, and there is less gooey filling in the middle. I, personally, like them better than store-bought but then I don't like really gooey, sweet stuff anyway. Regardless of whether they taste like the store-bought or not, hubby liked them and that's enough for me!! I do think that I will make up a bunch of the fig filling and can a few jars. That is some awesome tasting stuff!! I do mean awesome!! It would go great with biscuits or on toast or pancakes or in cakes, etc. I really thought it was wonderful and since I still have quite a few figs coming on I think I'll make some of that this week-end. I'm waiting patiently for a dry day to plant garlic but the weather here lately is not cooperating. I bought some hardneck garlic that I had been wanting to try for the last several years. It is called "Music" and I can't wait to plant it, along with my softneck variety. I've had really good luck with the softneck garlic but not-so-great with the hardneck. I can grow it - it just doesn't seem to do as well. I'm going to be very careful this time because I really want this particular hardneck garlic to grow! One of the nicest connections I had with my sons while they were still living at home was because of music in one fashion, form or another. Music permeated our lives while they were growing up and I find it an amusing coincidence that the name of the hardneck garlic I've researched and decided would probably grow best in my garden is called "Music"!! Tonight I am boxing up the white potatoes and the sweet potatoes and putting them in the downstairs kitchen, shutting off the vent and shutting the doors to the kitchen so no extra heat can get in this Winter. That way it will stay extra cool, without getting too cold, and should be perfect for storing the potatoes as well as all the herbs I have in there. My poor kitchen is going to be so full I don't know how I'll ever get anything done in there. I really need more storage space but that will be another story for another day - I hope!! It was really foggy outside this morning and drizzling rain here in Southwestern Indiana. As soon as it stops I'm hiking it out to the herb garden to cut basil. Meanwhile, I'm catching up on e-mail, sorting laundry, and preparing for a day of pesto making. I'm also putting together some fig newtons for supper. Hubby had to work today and when he comes home to those baking in the oven he'll nearly drop over in ecstasy!!! I've put the lamb stewing meat on and am preparing it for barbecue. I've got some leftover spinach in the frig and some tomatoes have ripened so I thought for supper tonight we'd have barbecue sandwiches and a salad with cookies for dessert. I was going to plant garlic but it's too wet today. I also need to go through all my books and magazines this evening and get together some recipes on essential oils for using in oil diffusers and burners. During cooler weather the house stays closed up for longer periods of times and I like to use an oil diffuser or burner to clean the air and add healthy, uplifting scents. Last year when my nose got a little stuffed I added 2 or 3 essential oils together and put my soapstone diffuser in the bedroom at night and it cleared my sinuses right up. Sometimes if I can't sleep I'll add a little lavender oil and boom! I'm out like a light. I also use essential oils to cleanse the air. I don't use them all the time or for long periods of time, and you shouldn't, but they are extremely useful and beat any old spray product you could buy at the store which will be laden with unneeded and unhealthy chemicals. Some of those lovely scented candles only add to the chemicals floating around in your house and to the allergies that may cause headaches or agitation to your emotions. Obviously, I am negligent in writing down or at least compiling all of these recipes that I've used in the past so my “list” informs me that this is one of those items I need to be doing posthaste. My son has been requesting a few anyway so I need to get on it. I got busy and started cooking up the tomatoes that had ripened out on the deck, but only about 1/3 of them, so they are on low heat cooking up on the stove. I put a couple spoonfuls of the tomato sauce in my barbecue but I have 2 quarts left for the freezer. Maybe I'll use it for spaghetti and more chili in a couple weeks but we don't need to be eating anymore ground beef right away. ------------------------------------------ Well, it finally stopped raining and I was on my way out to the herb garden!! I got a little sidetracked under the pecan tree by a squirrel that jumped from the pecan tree to the wild cherry tree. I had spooked him; but it was also a reminder that I'd better pick up pecans while I could, so there I was in the middle of the yard stuffing my pockets full of pecans. I can't even imagine what a picture that made!! I had my shears and huge pan for basil in one hand resting on my hip and the other was cramming pecans into my pockets, while the tree was dripping water from the rain all over me. What an amazing life I live even if some do think I'm nutsy.(TeeHee, nice play on words, huh?!) I did get some of the basil cut and there's a picture of it below so now it's time to make pesto!!!! If you are going to eat it right away stir in by hand 1/2 cup freshly shredded (yes, you can use store-bought shredded cheeses but freshly shredded is to die for!) Parmesan or Pecorino Cheese and a little more olive oil. If you are going to freeze it, do not add the cheese, put it directly into a container and pour a little olive oil on top, cover and freeze. When you're ready to eat it, thaw, add your cheese, stir and happy eating!! Frozen like this, then thawed and adding cheese is about as close to fresh as you can get in the Winter!
I love to put it on roasts, toss potatoes in it before roasting, put it on pizza, in green beans, make bruschetta with it, put it in cheese balls and last but not least in pastas, oh my!!! I'm such a nutty person, I love to just eat it straight out on crackers!! It was a nice morning and as I set outside with hubby drinking coffee I was clicking off all the things I wanted to get done.
Hubby didn’t have to work today but I did, so I was trying to get everything set up for when I got home. That way I could zip in the house, get right to fixing supper and then get busy doing all that I needed to accomplish. I’m hitting my list pretty hard. Everyday I’m crossing 1 or 2 items off so I’m doing good - so far! Tonight I was going to do pesto but I’ve got so much basil and between making pesto, basil oil, basil butter and drying some I would be up until 3 in the morning so I decided to make almond butter instead and do the pesto tomorrow on my day off. You’d have thought that in the grand scheme of things I would have made my own peanut butter or almond butter by now but I haven’t; so while it may be just a boring adventure to most of you, I’m excited and extremely cautious because I want it to turn out the first time, and that’s that. One thing I’m not good at is waste. I can’t remember the last time we threw something over the hill to just rot. We have a dog, 2 horses and a compost pile so not much is ever wasted when it comes to food!! I really do think Pete, our dog, takes advantage of my good nature when I’m cooking up extra big batches of soups and gravies but then dogs gotta eat too!! I came in the front door and went straight to the hook beside the oven and grabbed my apron, pulled out some ground beef for burgers, patted them out, got them in the electric skillet and took some corn on the cob out of the freezer. Got a big pan full of hot boiling water and after the hamburgers were about half cooked, I put the corn in the pan. I had a little leftover pear sauce and some sliced tomatoes and in about 20 minutes we were chowing down. I then went in and changed out of my office clothes. I'm a real slob in the kitchen so old clothes are a necessity. Oh, I’m so excited - I hope the almond butter turns out perfect!!! Here we go!!! |
AuthorMy name is Nina. Southern Indiana has been my home since 1952. I've been a legal secretary most of my adult life and for my leisure time I enjoy everything connected to the world of herbs and cooking is almost like a "fever". I am also quite opinionated but try not to push my opinions on others. My family is grown and I'm left with a wonderful hubby sharing life with me. I'd guess you'd say my passion is living that life to the fullest. Archives
May 2016
Categories |