Tag Archives: Food

Some Recipes

Salsa before cooking downWe’ve found a few recipes that we like a lot when we can stuff.  A few folks have asked for our the recipes we use so here they are…I credit the sources I know while others remain anonymous. 

 

 We can most stuff in pints because that suits our needs but I suppose you could adapt as needed.  These recipes work for us but you use them at your own risk.   Improper recipes, canning methods, etc can be dangerous.  More likely, with a little care, it will be a good time! 

 

Salsa – from my friend Erin

8 cups tomatoes, peeled, chopped, drained
2 1/2 cups onion, diced medium
1/8 cup canning salt
1 1/2 cups green peppers, small chunks
1 cup jalapeno diced fine
3+ habaneros (to taste…more is better!)
6 cloves minced garlic
2+ tsp pepper
1 small can of tomato paste
1/3 cup vinegar
2 tsp cumin
1/3 cup (or less) sugar
sometimes we add a bunch of cayenne pepper diced fine too…

Mix and boil 10 minutes, put into pint jars and seal in water bath for 10 minutes
Makes 5 pints

Pizza Sauce
12 cups chopped ripe tomatoes (Roma tomatoes give best results)
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves minced garlic
3 tbsp fresh chopped oregano or 1 1/2 tsp dried
1 tbsp fresh basil or 1/2 tsp dried
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt

Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, oregano, sugar, pepper and bay leaves and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and boil gently uncovered until very thick (about 75 minutes), stirring frequently. Add lemon juice and salt, stir and ladle into 1/2 pint jars. Water bath can for 35 minutes. Makes 5 half-pints

Zucchini Pickles Achorn Farm
2 lbs. sliced zucchini
2 medium onions
1/4 cup salt
2 cups white vinegar
1-2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons mustard seed
Place zucchini in a large pot. Add salt and enough water, cover and let stand for 2 hours then drain well. Combine remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Have glass jars prepared filled with the zucchini and onion then fill jars with boiled liquid, seal jars and boil jars for 10 minutes.

We’ve made this with yellow summer squash too…I suppose anything that will take up the flavors would work!

 

Hot Pepper Spread
28 or so hot peppers
8 regular peppers
1 qrt mustard
1 qrt sugar
1 cup vinegar

Chop peppers, mix ingredients and cook about 20 minutes. Be sure and spray pan with cooking spray as it sticks very easily. Have ready 1/2 cup corn starch. Add just enough water to corn starch to make a thin paste, then add to the pepper mix…let it thicken. Water bath can for 10 minutes in pint jars

Tomatoes

Behold...the tomato!

These are some pictures that we’ve taken recently and, for some reason, I just really like them. Tomatoes are going full steam right now so we are making salsa and pizza sauce and debating about making spaghetti sauce. We don’t really have a good spaghetti sauce recipe so we have been hesitant. I sort of have fun just arranging piles of tomatoes and staring at them. I wonder if I have a problem?
Piles of tomatoes!

Tomatoes and zuke pickles!
different types of tomatoes!

Anyhow, we planted around 50 tomato plants that we started from seed this spring. I can’t remember the exact mix but we have some ox hearts, mortgage lifters, romas, WV hillbillies, and yellow amish tomatoes.

I really must do better next year about keeping track of which is which!

 

Zucchini pickles

zukes!

We planted only a half row of zucchini fearing the plague of fruit that usually follows.  I think it was a wise move as we haven’t been overrun with the stuff but we had plenty to make a couple of batches of zucchini pickles.  I found the recipe at Achorn Farm’s blog.  Anyhow, we made a dozen pints of the stuff.  They are delicious…but a little potent!  The pickling juice also stains…even clear plastic measuring cups.

Topped with onions

Ready for lids

zucchini pickles!

The end of blackberries

WV BlackberriesWe seem to have come to the end of the blackberries.  When we started picking at the end of June, we could easily pick until our baskets were full.  I never weighed the berries we picked but we harvested a lot of berries.  All together, we made 54 half pints of jam, 10 pints of syrup, three pies and we froze around 8-10 more quart-sized freezer bags.  We went a few nights ago and the berries have surely dwindled (or else someone else found our spot!).  We got enough to fill a quart freezer bag but no more. Although a little eariler than planned, we had figured on stopping picking sometime around the end of summer. There is an English wives’ tale that goes something like this…

When the Devil was kicked out of Heaven on October 11(the date of Michaelmas though I have seen it posted as September 29 also…one is old Michaelmas and the other modern Michaelmas I guess), he landed, cursing and screaming, on a thorny blackberry bush.

He avenges himself on the same day every year by spitting (or some say, peeing) on the berries, which makes them inedible.

Apparently, there is some truth to leaving blackberries alone in the Fall.  The climatic changes of Autumn apparently are ripe for mold to breed which may make the blackberries unsafe to eat.

There is another English tale regarding blackberries…
Once upon a time, a cormorant (a seabird that dives for fish), a bat, and a blackberry bush entered the wool business together, buying, shipping, and selling wool.  Unfortunately, their ship, loaded with wool, sank on its first voyage, and their business went belly-up.   Ever since, the cormorant dives into the sea looking for the ship. The bat hides from his creditors in a cave, venturing forth only after dark. And the blackberry bush grabs wool from any passing sheep, trying to replace his loss.

 

I found all sorts of interesting stuff about blackberries here and here.

I also found an interesting site that has some explanations of old traditions associated with the Celtic season/month

Smoked Ribs!

Smoker in action!
We had some friends over last night and decided to smoke some ribs on the smoker. We were gifted this smoker by a neighbor in TN. Anyhow, Emily bought 2 full racks of ribs which we covered with a dry rub. We used to get a rub mix in TN called “Butt Rub” but got something else here in WV. Anyhow, we rubbed the meat with it and waited for the charcoal to get ready. I always apply a generous dose of lighter fluid to the charcoal before I light it. I wait for it to burn down and then add another generous dose (don’t try this at home…I now have significantly less hair on my right leg as compared to my left leg). Once that flare up burns down, I add a pan of water, the meat racks and the meat. Ribs take around 5 hours to smoke if all goes well. I add hickory chips pretty often but not obsessively so. Sometimes I soak them overnight and sometimes I don’t. I don’t see too much difference really. Anyhow, the fire never needs tending…except to add more hickory now and then. We smoke a lot of different meats including whole chickens, salmon, pork chops, and steak. I haven’t found anything I don’t like on it. The meat is never dry (that’s why we add the pan of water) or tough. Most times, it falls right off the bones in fact. The only downside is that it takes a long time to cook, it can be hard to start a fire in the rain, and neighborhood dogs may become curious (who can blame them?)Smoked Ribs!

We had a debate last night regarding the benefits of dry rub versus wet sauce. We definitely prefer dry rub as it just seems more civilized. Ribs are pretty messy anyhow, but wet ribs are the worst. The compromise we worked out last night was to provide bbq sauce for anyone who wanted it (the uncivilized few!)