Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday I took out the American Harvest food dehydrator from the food storage room. I should keep this out all the time and have it running several times during the week all year long. Its so fun and easy to do.

Gathered up some tomatoes, peppers,zucchini and even some okra to dehydrate.

Never did okra before, they dry to tiny little things. I should think they will be good added to soups this coming fall and winter, yum!

I'm making herb pots. All kinds of wonderful herbs dried and tossed together in a jar, ready to be added to dishes for the seasoning. Oh this should be real good, cuz oh do they smell so delicious.

My kitchen sure does and I don't even mind some of the sprigs that fell on the floor while cleaning and preparing the herbs in the drier. Walking on them just makes it smell even better. ( those on the floor will be tossed to the chickens, they don't mind floor droppings)

I'm just doing herbs today, they take a lower heat then veggies. I do have many that are just hung and air dried. Theres so many ways one can dry foods. Very low heat in the oven, sun dry. I like my eletric dryer , but thinking of making a solar dryer would be cool to do as well.

I am dring Swiss Card also today. This will go in the herb pot jar too. I think I should have started this early this spring and added dandelion greens too. Can you see how healthy this herb jar will be when added to soups and such.

Pic is goodies ready to be stacked and dried.

Close up of herbs:
Rosemary,thyme,parsley,oregano, Texas tarragon,Italian basil, purple basil

I'm not heating the kitchen up with the gas stove today, so its used to hold the drier (don't look at the back of the stove, theres painting to be done in the kitchen. And yes that stove is in the corner, weird yes , but it is closer to my working station that way.

These not filled jars are from yesterdays drying. I think of all the dried foods that I have done so far that I like is the dried peppers. I toss a few in the pestle mortar, grind em up and toss in the dish i'm cookin, so easy. And the good part for those that don't like cooked peppers ( how could they not) you don't have the pepper showing just the great flavor. But then again you can redehydrate and there you got your nice pepper showing. I love these in baked beans, with a couple slabs of hickory flavored bacon on top. ummmm good!

Theres many more veggies and herbs to dry and craft projects can be made in the drier. Its fast and fun, so try out some drying this summer and fall. Ok winter and spring to. I am : )

Ok over on the counter where all the tomatoes are waiting to be either canned , dried or sliced on a piece of bread and mayo sandwich. I noticed, call me crazy, but I think one of my maters is winking at me, take a look 

Do you see it? Smile , nose, one spot open like an eye and the other closed. Ok its just a tomato, but still when you get my age you don't get winked at to often and the only whistles coming from the birdies outside. : /

But no matter, a homegrown tomato tastes good any way shape or form.

Thanks for stopping by. You have a super good day, keep cool if your in the heat zone, comfort today, 110*F . Oh where is Fall!!!

Blessings many
linda

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I picked up my gas stove this last weekend and it will be perfect in the harvest kitchen.  With six heavy duty burners it will hold those heavy pressure canners and my hugh hot water bath  pot for canning.

Its a Wolf  stove and very heavy duty.  I got a super good deal on it for $800 from a client that had it for 2 1/2 years, and she bought it wholesale for $4500.  I checked the internet and that one was over $7000 retail. Hot dog !!!!!! 

She loved  cooking with it  but was getting a smaller stove.  The oven  has lots of room for many pies that my dd will use to bake for church events.  

My use will be for canning.  The on the counter eletric range is just not heavy enough for the canning. I put a big pot on it and I can hear the unit cracking and the pots at a tilt, not safe. 

I'll keep the eletric stove for small cooking and everyday use. 

Take a look at these heavy burners , wow going to feel like some serious cooking going on here.

Now if not getting a good deal isn't enough when I went to pick up the stove , she is giving me her big 2 door stainless steel fridge, oh its big and 2 stainless steel dishwashers.  Shes got a big kitchen and redoing the whole thing.   It is beautiful .  I will be giving one dishwasher to my dd.  I still like doing dishes by hand but it wil be nice to have one when holidays come around : ) 

Now with a new stove , its time to redo my kitchen,  got new floor tile to put down yet , paint and tile on the backs of the counters,  putting in French doors to lead out to the outdoor kitchen (this project was set on back burner for awhile) . 

Our home is an earthcontact, so the kitchen was in the back, very dark with only the dinning room big windows for natural light . So opening this will bring in the light and look right into the woods, with a big fireplace outside and a root cellar on the side with one of those old fashion wine cellar doors.  I'm looking for an old world look .

Plans have been long in the making with little steps and taking care of things that needed greater attention. 

My kitchen will be the harvest kichen I have always wanted.  Lots of work yet to do but well worth it.

Starting my spring cleaning early this year, so when garden time come i'll be outside doing what I love to do.  Plant !!!!!!    Oh I can't wait  and the way time is flying it will be here soon. 

Garden talk:

In my next blog I'm working on my garden seed list and I will share  my new seeds that I will try this season. 

Getting the store room ready for seed planting with grow lights, will be starting that next month and I'm going to try some peas in the garden next month too.

Taters planted in March, Oh My Gosh its almost time for all that : )

Well I need to go through the seed cataloges and do the hard part, picking only a few and not all of them , kind of hard to do but oh so fun and makes the winter go by very fast thumbing through all those seed cataloges and dreaming and making plans for a better garden this year.

Blessings

linda

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    Nothing better then cooking outdoors, warm fire and nature all around, smells of twigs and leaves burning before the smell of coffee and then the cooking begins.  Could be a hot dog roast to getting out the cast iron Dutch Oven and tryin your hand at Dutch Oven cooking.

    Picture shows a Camp Cooking  from 100 years, cookbook ,oh they ate good back then.  Lots of outdoor cooking was the norm.  Many a camp whether it was family camping to lumber jack camps. Food was hot and good , the stick to your ribs type of grub.

    So gather some nice apples, your iron Dutch Oven, build ya a fire, cus this looks like a yummy Apple Pie recipe.

            Dutch Oven Apple Pie

Your favorite pie crust, (you could use pre-made pie crust)

5 c apples, peeled and sliced

3/4 c sugar

2 Tbsp flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Sprinkle of salt

2 Tbsp butter or margarine

1 Tbsp sugar

(Temp. - Equivalent of about 375* to 400*)  , one nice hot firepit

If you want to make this easy, get a pie tin that fits down n the bottom of your Dutch oven- say a medium (10-inch) or (12-inch.  if you don't have one don't worry. Just follow these instruction, but do them directly in the bottom of the Dutch oven.

You might want o to flour the bottom of you Dutch oven before you put the crust in it.

Put the first pie crust in the bottom and up the sides, In a sparate bowl mix apples, sugar,flour,cinnamon, and salt.  Pour this mixture into the first crust.  Dot mixture with butter.  Take the second pie crust cu t into strips. Put stripsabout 1/2 inch apart over the top of pie  in one direction first and the opposite direction (again 1/2 apart) forming a lattice appearance.  Put the edges of the top pie crust into the bottom pie crust so that they stick together, and then cut away any extra.  Sprinkle the top with the remaining sugar.

Cover and bake about 45 minutes to 1 hour  or until you can't standit no more and just gotta have a taste.

        How about some  tasty Campfire Apples in Tin Foil

3-4 apples ( this depending on the gather around the campfire and how many apples you can eat)

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cube of butter

1/2 c maple syrup

Peel and cut apples into slices taking out core.  Combine the melted butter , maple syrup, and nuts n a bowl. Place a small handful of apples onto a piece of aluminum foil. Top the apples with a large spoonful of nut mixture. Fold the foil, leaving an opening for ventilation. Place on the campfire and cook 30-40 minutes, or until the apples are soft butnot mushy.

     I like to bake apples in the oven leaving whole and cutting out the core, add sugar and cinnamon and a dab of butter.  These are so tasty and oh the smell of the kitchen.

     Beautiful Autumn weather brings out the outdoor cooking in me.   Our campsite is just a little walk in the woods but its great  to gather around with family  with pie tin type plates waiting for that flap jack  with warm maple syrup and butter.  Toss on a piece of bacon and a cup of hot coffee and you got it made in the shade, or I should say leaves falling :)

     Happy eating

linda   

      1st of my recipes of camp cooking, will be stored in my Favorite  Recipes  Categories , hope you'll enjoy.

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Herbal Vinegars

 

Sometimes the kitchen doesn't always smell like home cooked meals , not when your pickling and using vinegar. Your not going to have the family coming in and putting their noses in for a good smell. Your pretty much along when it come to vinegar time. Well that's todays smell.

With canning you come across many scents. I like the smell of Autumn, with baked apples, pumpkin bread, chili in a big ol pot, spiced cider, oh stop it you. I just can't help but think of cool crisp Fall in these awful hot days. I even put on Christmas movies with lots of snow just to think cold. Hey it works!!!!!!

Gathering some herbs from the garden , cleaned out the fancy herbal jars, heated up the cider vinegar, I was ready to go . Pretty easy to do. One was purple basil, another rosemary in white vinegar ( I did that one earlier). Tarragon with a couple of garlic cloves. Then red hot chili peppers. Oh will that go good over a bowl of chili, just a splash tho.

Not only is the herbal vinegar's fun to make but oh so good when needing a special kick to a recipe or making your own salad dressings.

Picture also show the half pint jars of dried cherry tomatoes and the sweet roasted tomatoes in olive oil and sweet basil ( oh they are soooo good). That I did the other day. I will be using the dried tomatoes in breads and other recipes. More canning will be this Friday and Saturday.

I really like to dehydrate foods , can use the pestle & mortar and pulverize the heck out of veggies for my own spices. When making jerky it goes as fast as I make it. Kids like that the best.

Sister doesn't like the texture of green peppers so I use the dried ones, pulverized, and the dishes are flavored. Oh I haven't had a stuffed green pepper for a long time, I'm cravin that right now!!!!! Hummm what to do, potatoes chips!!!!!

Later tonight I'm making a Ristas with the Super Hot Chili's and Long Red Cayenne peppers. Going to wear gloves when stringing them up. Didn't one year and learned a lesson. Hot hands, hands touch face, hot face and eyes, oh boy was that a lesson.


I need a glass of lemonade , all this sour smells is doing it and the potatoe chips : /. But before I head off, I wanted to also share what dh and I saw last night on the country road when riding out to see our grandkiddies. (oh were they full of energy and good thing I have two ears cus both was being talked into.

Ok we seen a big ol owl flying right in front of us holding in his claws a small skunk , its tail was flappin up and down, poor skunk, poor owl
Life in its true raw form. Its a food chain thing.

Then my sister who is a book of knowledge and knows her animals tells of the small skunks predator which is the owl. I always thought it was the roads. If your my age , do your remember the song "Dead skunk in the middle of the road stinkin to high heaven" ??

Well this has been a smelly blog from vinegars to skunks, now isn't that the way of the blogs. Well mine anyways,lol.

Keep cool and hope for rain if you need it. Thanks for dropping my friends.


Blessings to ya!!!!
linda

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Dandelions (Taraxacum officinale), you either dislike 'em or love 'em. Being as we got a whole bunch of them, I best lov 'em. Now you can see dandelions almost everywhere, well I havn't been everywhere so I think its ok using the word almost.

We use to eat the tender young leaves when I was kid, fryed some fish and cooked up dandelion greens, w bacon pieces and green onions cooked in. I do that still, I like cooked spinach and to me dandelions have a more milder/sweeter taste then spinach.

We never had a lawn that was spotless of dandelions. Those beauties would grow and grow , the more you picked the more they grew. Mow them down and just a day or two, no that very day, they'd be up again. Even with our freeze and snow the other night they still hang in there. Must be the tough lion in their name that makes them that way. And really in the middle of the cold winter , walking down to feed the animals the hope of spring when I spot one on the ground, such a good site to see.

Have you ever put a dandelion flower under a little ones chin to see if they like butter or not? If their chin turn yellow by the reflexion of the flower , they like butter. Well maybe not scientific, but the kids like it.

Let me share a little about this plant.

Dandelions first appeared in the 10th century medical journals of Arabian physicians, then by the 16th century British apothecaries considered dandelion as having diuretic effects and considered it a valuable drug. Then by the 19th century Europe and America became a potherb.

This herb has lots of names,

Swines snout, (how about callin the kids in for a pot of that)!!!

yellow gowan, (i'm not gowan there)!!!,

Irish daisy, (that ones ok)!!

puffball, and peasants cloak.

And then theres the blowball that many a kid would blow those seeds all over before the wind would.(thanks guys)

Priest's crown was a midieval name, refers to the green and egar bud that first resembles a golden-haired seminarian and then matures into a distinguished pastor whose hair turns white and finally falls out.

The word we use Dandelion comes from the French, dent de lion, or lion's tooth, for the deeply jagged shape of the leaves


This is a great plant even tho most regard as a weed to rid of ASAP. Being nutritional and medicinal we should maybe look at this benefical growing right in our front yards.

According to Rodales Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs the juice of the dandelion roots are used by European herbalist to treat diabetes and
liver diseases, they regard dandelion as one of the best herbs for building up the blood and for curing anemia. Also a mild laxative, aids in digestion and an appetite stimulant.

Dandelion greens are more nutritional then spinach with more iron and rich in potassium, it is higher in vitamin A than most herbs, at least four times higher in vitamin C then lettuce.

The roots can be roasted for coffee substitues, dry the autumn roots w/artifical heat until the color of coffee, then ground up. You can mix the grounds w/ reg coffee too. Much like chicory root.

The tender leaves can be use in salads and the older ones work good for cooked greens. The flowers are edible to, used in butters for added color, that would be great if you make your own butter and need more yellow to make it like, hummmm, fake butter. Also as garnishes and in vinegars for the color too.

And then theres the dandelion wines--- good as a tonic for the blood this one is, make like reg wine except add ginger, slice lemon, orange rind. to improve flavor. Use 1 gal. of water & 3 1/2 lbs of sugar to each gal. of flowers. Add wine yeast for best results

Makes a great herbal bath and facial steams using the leaves.

Flowers used to make dyes for wools, this didn't work on my dyed eggs the other day, you'll have magenta if the whole plant is use, should have done that.

Campanion growing- good around fruit trees.

I have learned to love and live with dandelion and appreciate them. And it was so sweet when I got a little handful of flowers from my kids when they were little and now the GKiddies, makes my heart melt when they bring me a dandelion they picked just for me.

The picture is some dandelion jelly I picked up last friday, it will taste good on some homemade buscuits Sunday morning. I took that picture by some snow covered dandelions with my cheapo camera just to have around in remembrence of the snow that fell this month.

I had this blog typed out on Monday morning, Monday evening I was mowing dandelions down AGAIN that I mowed just Sunday.
BAHHHHHHH, I don't want to hear another thing about a dandelion. The dandelion, a love/hate relationship, : /

Thanks for dropping by, be like the dandelion, strong and spread the love around,cuz it just keeps comin back.

linda

APRIL 16,2007

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