Happy Birthday, Mom!

For my Mom's birthday - September 21, 2012. Happy Birthday, Mom! Hope it was wonderful. I wish I could have been there to tell you in person. Hope you enjoy this song.

Love, Tab

Feeling Fishy? How about other animal-ish?

Alright. It has been a BUSY week. We survived the first week of school and are ready to get back to it on Monday. Despite the craziness of school this week, I still managed to make some delicious dishes.

Salmon Patties and Home-made Biscuits

Thursday night my husband and his parents were "gettin' up the cows" to take to auction. We do this a few times a year when we have calves big enough to take to the sale. While this was going on I searched through the cupboards for something to make for dinner. When I looked though the fridge... there wasn't much there. So, I dig in the pantry. I came up with this:

Yup. That is a can of salmon. And now for operation Salmon Patties!

Time to get started. The first step is a little nasty. Open the can and you will see what I mean. I open the can and dump out a can-shaped wad of fishiness. Then I open that mass of fish and pull out all the bones and skin and any dark parts that look gross.

After "cleaning" the fish toss all the good parts into a mixing bowl and add 2 eggs, 2 or 3 tablespoons of flour, a dash of salt and pepper, and mix it all together.

And now for the secret ingredient - Premium Saltine Crackers! I crush about 3 handfulls, maybe 12 to 15 crackers, into the fishy concoction to make a thick paste.

Mold the paste into 3 inch patties and fry in canola oil until they are golden brown. Yummm.

But, you cannot have salmon patties without home-made biscuits. So, let's make some of those as well! We begin with a bowl of self rising flour. Then I add about equal amounts to milk and oil. And to give them a little extra fluff I add a spoonful of Clabber Girl Double Acting Baking Powder. 

Bake the biscuits and fry the salmon patties. I also cooked up a pot of rice and warmed up some left-over butter beans on the side. Ta-da! Dinner is served.

Rainbow Animal Cracker Dip

And now for dessert. Simply mix these three ingredients together in a bowl. I actually only made half of a batch (this is HALF of each of these ingredients). Fun for dipping animal crackers! Low-fat and delicious.

Bon Apetit!

Soup-Mix Revisited

Today's kitchen adventure is a bit deja vu. I DID make soup-mix a few weeks ago with my in-laws. But, today I've been making soup-mix with my cousin's wife, Krystal Nyland. Since my family members live in Michigan and their growing season begins later we didn't have every ingredient fresh from the garden. So, this recipe is the semi-home-made version.

We began with fresh tomatoes- mostly Roma. Step 1 - blanch the tomatoes. These tomatoes had a LOT of rotton spots on the ends, but no big deal. After blanching we just cut out the rotton spots when we pealed them.

After getting all the peeled and cored tomatoes into the pot we cut them into smaller chunks and put them on the stove to boil.

Now comes the semi-home-made part. We didn't have fresh corn, orka, or butter beans (lima beans). There hasn't been, nor will there be much, corn in many places this year because of the drought. So, we used frozen corn. And they don't have okra here... I guess. Since they don't really know what it is here. We added a whole bag of corn, about a half of a bag of orka, and a bag of buter beans that we cooked down in a separate pot.

After that everything is as usual. Let the soup-mix cook down and pour it into cleaned quart jar.

Ta-da! Soup-mix!

Home-Made Baked Goods

Today we will be baking in my Grandmother's kitchen. My Nanny, Thelma Berneda Ash, is 73 years old and still cookin' up love in the kitchen. She is a great country chef from back-woods Arkansas raised on home-cooked biscuits and gravy. She never measures anything and makes squirrel and dumplings good enough to make you slap yo' mama!

Nanny is most famous for her Chocolate Rolls! Chocolate rolls my very favorite dessert. What ARE chocolate rolls? Glad you asked. As far as we can... our family invented them. Nanny and her sisters make chocolate rolls because Great Grandma Gladys Harris used to make them. I was also informed that sometimes she would make fried chocolate pies with the same recipe. I say recipe... but in reality there IS no recipe. It's a little of this and a little of that. I'll do my best to explain how we made these delectable delights.

Step 1 - Home-Made Pie Dough

I have heard that the perfect pie dough is based on a 3-2-1 recipe which consists of 3 measures of flour, 2 measures of lard, and 1 measure of ice water. I am uncertain as to weather Nanny uses this rule since she just 'eye-balls' the measurements in a mixing bowl.

First, we knocked several large spoonfuls of shortning (if you don't know what this is... then I am sad for you) into a large mixing bowl. We like to use Crisco. Well, Nanny likes to used Crisco. I like to use Butter Flavored Crisco. And sometimes I like to use Oleo. And if you are from the South you know what Oleo is. Great-Grandma used lard. After listening to an Episode of the The Splendid Table all about making the perfect pie crust I believe that the very best pie dough contains lard. The common use of animal lard was was greatly effected around the turn of the 20th century because of misconceptions of slaughter houses. Since that time most bakers and chefs changed over to using a vegetable based shortning. Since lard is no longer a readily available commodity in this country we use Crisco.

The second ingredient is all purpose flour. I say all purpose flour (also called plain flour) because I need to clarify this for my Southern-most readers. You see, Mississippi cooks use self rising flour in nearly everything. This is just a part of southern cooking. Pie crust is probably the only reason that southern cooks would even purchase all purpose, plain flour. A pinch or two of salt must also be added to the plain flour. Self-rising flour is already a little salty but plain flour is un-stalted. . . so add some salt. Nanny adds a mountain of all purpose flour to the bowl and begins mixing with a pastry cutter. She continues to add flour and mix until the consistency is just right. Nanny says that the pie dough should have just enough shortning so that the dough will hold a ball together even before the water is added. However, it will not hold together when rolled out, so next we must add the water.

The third and final ingredient in ice water. The water being very cold helps to keep the shortning stiffer, the dough easier to work with, and the pie crust flaky when baked. The adding of this ingredien is very similar to each of the others - add until it looks right and feels like it is the correct consistency.

Step 2 - Home-Made Chocolate Sauce


Chocolate sauce is also made from 3 ingredients: sugar, cocoa powder, and evaporated milk. Again, it is hard to explain the measurements of the ingredients so I will describe the process to the best of my abilities.

First, a medium sized bowl is filled nearly to the top with granulated cane sugar. Nanny mentioned that she always uses the same bowl. I believe this is because she knows just how must to add for the size of the bowl since she always uses the same one.

Secondly, she spoons several large scoops of cocoa powder (we use Hershey's cocoa powder because is has a stronger chocolate flavor). She begins mixing the sugar and cocoa with a fork and continues to add more cocoa until it "looks" like there is enough.

Thirdly, Nanny opens a can of evaporated milk (carnation milk, pet milk, whatever people call it where you are from) and pours this into the frist two ingredients until is it thin enough to pour but not so thin that it will all run off of the pie dough.

Step 3 - Making Chocolate Rolls

Just making the first two main ingredients correctly is not enough. Lastly, you MUST roll out and fold the chocolate rolls correctly or you will ruin this dessert! My sister Liz and I learned this the hard way because we both spent years folding our chocolate rolls the wrong way, which causes the chocolate to run out of the rolls while baking and burn in the bottom of the pan. Lesson of the Day: pay attention when your grandmother shows you how to roll and fold chocolate rolls.





First, we roll one fistful of dough and roll it out into a circle. Next, we pour some (but not too much) chocolate sauce onto the dough.

The only other ingredient needed is margarine. Make sure you have plenty of margarine.

I suppose that butter would work just as well, but Nanny has always used margarine, so I sort of think that there must be something special about margarine... and it is cheeper.

Now, for the most important part! The folding of the chocolate roll! The chocolate roll must be folded over in 4ths. Two folds on the right take care of half of the roll. Then the left is folded from edge to center and then over the top of the right side. The ends are then pinched closed and the rolls are places in a pan. For years my sister and I folded them over in 3rds. This just doesn't work. The chocolate will all leak out into the pan and the rolls will burn and ruin. They must be folded in 4ths.

The oven is set to 480 - yes, you read that correctly. FOUR-HUNDRED AND EIGHTY DEGREES and baked until a golden brown. This takes 15 to 12 minutes.

Sometime, some of the chocolate rolls leak a little bit. Today, ALL of them leaked a little! I don't know why. It must be because I was helping and I always seem to ruin chocolate rolls. But, Nanny says that at least one chocolate roll has to leak or she didn't do them right. Very little chocolate burnt on the bottom of the pan. If the rolls are made well and the chocolate sauce is not too thin.

Ah, Chocolate Rolls! I enjoyed my favorite desert on some country china (a paper plate) with a coffee mug of milk! Life is good. Thank-you, Nanny! You are my favorite baker!

Apple Tree, Apple Tree, Will Your Apple Fall on Me?

Over the past week I made apple butter! Yum. I love apple butter. What is apple butter, you ask? Apple butter is like jam rather than jelly. Jelly is made from the juice of a fruit and jam has pieces of fruit in it. Apple butter is essentially apple jam.

The Apple Tree - Harrell Family Farm

First we need apples! This year the apple tree was loaded down. I actually decided to make apple butter close to the end of the season, so over half of the apples had already fallen on the ground. You may notice the yellow and brown apples all over the ground.

Ripe Apples

Picked!

These apples are yellowish-green when they are ripe. I am not entirely certain, but I think that they are some sort of yellow delicious variety. They are very tart and good for canning.

After pealing and slicing the apples they need to cooked down in a large boiler. My mother-in-law told me that her mother taught her to "add sugar to the fruit until it looks like you have too much... then add a little more." I also added a bit of apple pie spice, which is just a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, and all-spice that you can buy from your local grocer. 

So, that looked like enough sugar to me. Or, rather, more than enough and then a little bit more. Anyway, it tasted right. 

Ok, now here is the trick to jams, jellies, and preserves: they must be boiled the proper amount of time. After about an hour of sitting on the stove it was fully cooked and all the sugar was disolved but it was not just apple butter. It was in-fact apple sauce. But, I did not want to make apple sauce on this occasion. I was instead making apple butter. 

Once the apple sauce thickened into apple butter all I had to do was boil my jar lids, spoon the apple butter into the clean jars, tighten the jar lids, and there we have it!

Apple Butter!

Soup-er Busy

I have often wondered why preserving food in JARS is referred to as CANNING. Well, here is a 'jarring' story about canning! Soup mix is one of my favorite winter cuisines. However, in able to enjoy this hearty meal in the winter months it must be preserved in the mid-summer's heat. Let's get started!

The first thing we need are tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes! These tomatoes were grown n Harrell Family farm. They must be blanched, pealed, and chunked into large pieces.

 Next, we need corn. We use white field corn. But it was planted close to the indian corn and some of the stalks became cross-pollinated. This caused some of the white field corn to have red or purple colored kernels. It doesn't effect the taste of the corn. Pop (my father-in-law, Larry Harrell) cuts off the corn whole kernel into a pan.

We also cooked down some butter beans (these are somewhat akin to larger and tastier 'lima beans' for those of you that are not familiar with this vegetable) and cut come okra to add to the soup mix. A lot of people do not add this ingredient but I love okra in my soup mix.

                                                         Now it's time to combine the ingredients!

After all the ingredients have been added they are cooked down in a large pot, or in this case, two large pots. After the veggies are sufficiently cooked the coup mix is pored into quart jars and set on the counter to pressurize. The heat of the soup mix causes the lids to seal onto the jars and for the next few hours, every few now and then you hear "pop!" This is the sound of a tasty jar of soup being sealed to perfection!

Garden Fresh Feast

Everything on this plate was made from scratch and most of it came out of 

the Harrell Family Farm garden.

Creamed white field corn, cayenne pepper, better boy tomato,
Adirondack blue potato cake, cornbread hoe-cake, double-battered fried okra,
black-eye purple-hulled peas topped with home-canned chili sauce.

Tonight was the night of a garden feast. Patsye, my mother-in-law, and I got BUSY in the kitchen and this is how it went down. . .

Black-eyed Purple-hulled Peas 

I love peas. In the picture above you will notice that the black-eyed peas are topped with home-canned chili sauce. This is sort of like a sweet relish/salsa that we put on our peas and cornbread. It contains tomatoes, chilies, cayennes, onions, garlic, spices, and vinegar. All the ingredients are boiled down in a large pot until the mix is quite chunky. The mixture is then put into jars and stored for consumption and it is one of my very favorite foods to consume!  

Picked

Washed

Shelled

Cooked

Fried Foods!

Okay... so down in Mississippi we tend to fry a lot of foods... and it is delicious! So, I mentioned three fried foods - potato cakes, hoe-cakes, and double battered okra. I shall now explain each of these foods just in case you are from... let's say Michigan. 

Potato cakes! Or as my nephews call them - "tater cakes." Potato cakes are just something that I like to make with left-over mashed potatoes. My potato cakes are only purple because I grow Adirondack Blue potatoes. These potatoes are a deep purple and then become a lighter hazy purple when they are cooked. They have about the same taste and texture as Irish Red potatoes. So, simply mix the leftover mashed potatoes (which I made for lunch on Wednesday) with some onion and garlic powder, an egg, a few tablespoons of self-rising flour (the only kind of flour that Mississippi women think exists) and a splash of milk. Mix these ingredients to a medium thick consistency and FRY.

Hoe-cakes! The term 'hoe-cake' is a southern slang for fried cornbread. It is thought that this name came about because in the 'old days' field workers would make a paste from cornmeal and oil and fry it over hot coals on the flat metal surface of their hoe. Hmm... sounds like it might be gritty - with garden dirt. Anywho... my hoe-cakes are just a variation of cornbread that is fried in canola oil. This is such a simple and delicious recipe! Simply mix a scoop of white self-rising cornmeal with a dash of salt a spoonful of sugar and just enough milk to make a medium-thick batter. Heat about 1/4 (just enough to cover the bottom of a pan) of canola oil and add single spoonfuls of the batter. The batter will spread out and rise as it cooks so each hoe-cake is only one spoonful. Toss in pan and FRY!

Purple Potato Cakes made from Adirondack Blue Potatoes
Fried Cornbread Hoe-Cakes

Oh yum!

Double-battered Okra! There is a reason I say 'double-battered.' Most people just slice and toss their okra in a combination of flour, cornmeal, and salt and then fry it up. Ah, but there is a secret to making the BEST okra. After I coat my okra in a blend of salt, pepper, onion power, flour, and cornmeal... I bath them in an egg and milk mixture AND THEN I coat them in the flour and meal AGAIN! This makes the batter extra thick and also makes is stick to the okra. Okra that is only battered once tends to loose it's batter in the pan and then burn. So, you usually end up with a mess of burnt okra and burnt crumbles on the bottom. This okra is perfect every time. And yes, it is FRIED!

Double Battered Fried Okra

Fried Golden

Fresh Veggies

Ahhh... Fresh vegetables. I love anything fresh from the garden. On the Harrell Family Farm we eat fresh tomato slices with nearly every meal in the summer. This variety is called Better Boy. These tomatoes are fairly large and very sweet. This is the perfect 'sweet' to counter all the salty of any meal.

We also like to add a little spice to out meals. My father-in-law and I enjoy eating fresh cayenne peppers with our meals. At the beginning of the summer I eat all I can hold. They have such a fresh, green taste. However, as the summer progresses and the intensity of the summer heat increases, so does the intensity of the pepper! Hotter weather = hotter peppers. After the recent heat wave I only consumed one single cayenne with my dinner this evening.

Fresh picked Cayenne Peppers & Better Boy Tomatoes

After the table was all set it was time to feast. You may notice that a glass of sweet iced tea was being poured as the picture was taken. My mother-in-law and I prefer water with our meals, but Pop (my father-in-law) has to have sweet tea after a long day of picking peas and hauling manure. We wouldn't want that sugar to drop. Gotta keep that energy up! 

On the Dinner Table

"Heavenly Father, we thank You for the bounty You have laid before us. Bless this food to our bodies and our bodies to your service. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

CLEAN YOUR PLATE