Pecan Corner

The little sprouts are ready to go into the seed starting medium now! :-)

I took a few liberties to reflect some of the ingredients we have on hand, including using some of my own home-canned pickled onions and pickled green tomatoes. I suspect there are lots of substitutions one could make to perfect it as "your own". :-)

I started keeping a grocery diary to track how my shopping has changed since I began raising and canning much of our own food, and since I resumed stocking up as a part of preparedness. I don't have to shop as often, and spend far less when I do go to the store. It also takes less time to shop now that I only have to walk around the perimeter instead of up and down every aisle! :-)

I've decided to track my spending on groceries this year, as I am growing and preserving more and more of our own food.  I will note when we eat out in these as well, but that is very seldom. We are starting also with a freezer full of various meats, a good stock of flour & sugar, and a pantry from my canning over the past 6 months.  This is the second video I've made on this. I can already see a strong drop in how much I spend each week for food, as well as a reduction in the amount of garbage we have!



I'd love to hear your tips or your reflections on the difference food storage or preservation has made for your family.  If you enjoy the video, please give it a "thumbs up" on You Tube & please subscribe to my channel there. :-)

This is the season when Texas citrus are ripe. It is surprisingly easy to can fresh grapefruit  (or oranges) - and it tastes so fresh when we open it in the summer, when the refreshing sweet flavor is welcome for breakfast on a bright summer morning! These videos show how I do it!

My video on working while waiting for frozen pipes to thaw. :-) I hope this will be helpful to you in keeping "real life" going while conserving water in the kitchen when the water is off or the well is dry!  I am going to use these techniques while camping too! :-)

December and January are the best time of year to buy some things... check out the bargains I found, that are probably available in your stores too!

Every town has their own "signature" Chicken Spaghetti recipe.  Here's the one from ours! :-) I made it with turkey this time, a good way to finish off the turkey from the holiday meal. This casserole can be put together in advance then heat in the oven shortly before serving.  Enjoy!

Hopefully, over the week the comments thread on this video will fill up with tasty family favorites! Do you have a You Tube channel? Make a video  and come share in the comments on You Tube!  Watch til the end to find out how to take part. Maybe your name will be drawn for the "Christmas with Martha Stewart Living" book give away! :-)

My latest video gets you ready for one of the easiest, quickest, after-work home cooked meals there is: Pesto with  pecans! :-)  Enjoy!

This is an old standby at our house. Low fat, super easy to make after work! Enjoy, and thank you for subscribing over on You Tube - it is appreciated :-)

As Paul has gotten better, he is now feeling like doing more even though he is still mostly house-bound. He has watched a lot of You Tube during this past year, and we've been discovering the amazing channels ordinary people have.   Now we are one of those!  :-)

Pecan Corner on You Tube won't have any political content (that is for the blog! :-) ), just my natural life-long "how to" preparedness. I have always kept a well-stocked larder, and we practice a concept I call "budget abundance" that allows us to still enjoy a high quality standard of living without debt and within a tiny budget. This is especially important during difficult economic times,

Videos so far include how to make prickly pear cactus jelly, canning apple pie filling, seasoning your own breakfast sausage, and inexpensive old fashioned home-cooked meals that can feed a family healthful food for very little. There are also recipes of products I make for my little Cottage Food home business - things to sell at farmer's markets and roadside stands. As we go along, I'm sure my other hobbies will find their way into it as well: letterpress printing, gardening, foraging wild foods, and our new-found fun: Living History and historical reenacting!

I hope you will subscribe, there will only be one a day so it won't overwhelm your inbox. They say You Tube now rates channels by subscribers as well as views, and I have monetized the channel so perhaps one day it will contribute a bit to the household. If nothing else, it is something fun we can do together, to make new friends and enjoy trading knowledge with others.

Here is a sample! Thanks for checking it out! :-)

I think the rumors that this is finally an El Nino year may prove true. God has been watering my garden every week for about a month now - including one eight inch gully washer that really DID wash a gully into our driveway - washing the gravel down onto the side of the street with the force of the runoff. I need to go shovel the gravel back into place.



It was so COLD this year! Every time we thought winter was over we would have a cold snap! I think the temperatures slowed everything down. Many things kind of just sat there, waiting. Then the past couple of weeks, things have started happening. I've been gathering Swiss Chard for about a month, baby beets with their tops on for a couple of weeks, and yellow squash all this past week. Just picked the first cucumbers today.  The grasshoppers have arrived and we are having to share with them, but they are not the plague they have been the past two years. The Deer Fencing WORKS and deer have not entered my garden since I hung the mylar on it!



My onions are finished for the year. Have I mentioned that I really LOVE growing onions. You can plant them during that cabin-fever time when it seems like spring will never get here, freezes don't hurt them.
They mostly take care of themselves, and when they are ready to be picked their tops just fall over one night. They are easy to gather and store for a long time.

This year, I planted late so a lot of mine were small.  I braided the large ones to hang for storage, and tied little net bags for the small ones. If I can raise enough onions next year, maybe I can demonstrate how to make the braids at the farmer's market.



So far, so good on my tomato plants. The vines all have green fruit on them but none ready to pick yet. It was about 3 weeks ago when I saw the first baby tomato, and over time each other plant has developed fruit.  I have lost 3 plants to an odd ailment in which the  leaves curl up lengthwise and feel hard and leathery. The plants continue to flower and even put on some fruit but they seem to dehydrate from the inside out and gradually shrink in on themselves. There are no yellow or brown spots. Everyone else I have talked to around here has mentioned this happening to their tomato plants too. From what I have read, it may have something to do with the cold nights and hot days. I have fertilized them twice since planting.


The Eggplant is starting to set fruit and there will be peppers to pick soon (peppers are another thing I really enjoy growing, but I only planted two kinds this year). Only one melon plant came up so hopefully it will bear a few cantaloupes for us.  I need to plant black eyed peas and some more beets.

All my jars are washed, and I bought more Food Saver material rolls for freezing.  Ready to start preserving any day now.  I have already made one batch of purple plum jam, and hope to go next week to pick peaches at a Pick Your Own nearby - look over on my right sidebar for a widget to a great site for finding U-Pic farms and orchards in your area.

Now if those tomatoes will just hurry up and ripen!!! :-)

I have seen articles claiming that it is now "cheaper to eat out than to cook". That is simply not true, and this recipe is a great example. While the McDonald's "Dollar Menu" may have a lot of $1 items on it, you are not going to be able to feed yourself for $1. But I cooked this recipe at home, and we enjoyed real comfort food for a total cost of about one dollar per person for the entire meal.

In the days before fast food, people had shortcuts they used to make it easier to get dinner on the table. One of those tricks was to make up some things for the week in advance. My first mother in law made tortillas fresh every morning, but she cooked one pot of beans on Monday, put it in the fridge and dipped out of it each day to make frijoles refritos.  Many Louisiana cooks made up several days' worth of roux at one time, saving themselves about half an hour of stirring at the stove each day.




A trick we had not seen before is to brown flour in the oven to use as a base for the roux. I tried this and when I put it into the hot oil, it browned up beautifully in about 5 minutes.  Wow. This gumbo turned out great, and only required about an hour to make. Paul gave it two thumbs up. Ethan and Chelsey left the rodeo to come get a second bowl to take back and eat in the stands!  So without further ado, here's the recipe. And below the recipe is a breakdown of the cost.

How to Make Browned Flour:

Line a baking pan with aluminum foil and sprinkle two cups of white flour over it evenly. Place in a 350 degree oven and bake for 30 minutes. It won't look very dark but it is done by then. Remove from oven and cool. Break up any clumps with a fork or sifter. Store in a jar until ready to use.



Quick Chicken and Sausage Gumbo Recipe 

1/2 cup of bacon grease, shortening or cooking oil
3/4 cup to 1 cup of browned flour
1 bell pepper, chopped
2 onions, chopped
1 cup of chopped celery
2 to 4 cloves of garlic
1 to 2 quarts of water
1 pound german sausage, sliced and browned
1 rotissery chicken, removed from bone and chopped (or 1 to 2 pounds cooked chicken)
1 Bay Leaf
1 tsp Thyme
1 1/2 pounds sliced okra, fresh or frozen (two 12 oz bags if frozen)
2 cans diced tomatoes with juice
2 cups dry white rice, cooked
Creole Seasoning or Hot Pepper Sauce

If you use a rice cooker, get it ready with the two cups of rice and turn it on now. Mine requires 51 minutes to cook that amount of rice, and it holds it hot for a good half hour. Don't be tempted to cook the rice in with the gumbo - it will turn into a goopy mess. The rice must be cooked and stored separately.

Have vegetables chopped before starting on the roux. Also, make sure the little ones are safely occupied somewhere out of the kitchen during this first phase so that you won't have to stop stirring until it is done.

Heat grease or oil in a deep pot, then stir in browned flour. Cook on high and stir constantly until the mixture is a rich caramel color. Don't turn your back and don't stop stirring! This took me about 5 minutes.





 When the color is right, put the onions, pepper and celery in and stir it all together. It will be thick and clump up. That is ok, don't add liquid yet, let it cook for about 3 minutes.

When onions and pepper have softened up, after 3 minutes or so, slowly add a quart of water and use a whisk to incorporate the flour mixture well.

Add Bay Leaf, Garlic, and Thyme. DO NOT SALT - the Tony Chachere's and other creole seasonings have salt in them and can be added at the table to taste.  Of course you can season while cooking if all of your bunch like it hot, but sadly I can't handle the heat, so our hot peppers get added at the table.




Brown the sliced sausage in a skillet and pour it and the pan drippings into the gumbo.  Add the coarsely chopped, cooked chicken.

Bring a quart of water to a boil in a kettle or pan and add it to the mixture. Cover with lid ajar and turn heat down to low. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Add Okra, frozen or fresh, return to a simmer and cook 5 minutes.  Now add the canned tomatoes and their liquid. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until rice is done.

To serve: Put 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup rice in each bowl, and ladle gumbo over it.   C'est Bon!



It is even better the next day. This batch of Gumbo made about 15 big servings, and cost less than a dollar per person.

Here is how I managed that:

I could have reduced the cost even more if I had cooked my own chicken, but I wanted this recipe to save time as well as money. Most of us can manage an hour after work to cook dinner, and knowing we don't have to cook a chicken makes the prospect much more appealing.

I buy rotisserie roasted chickens at our grocery store when they are on sale and use them for things like this. This small one cost $5 and weighed about 2 pounds. You can either use all the meat in this gumbo, or use the dark meat and bits in the gumbo and save the breast to make chicken salad for a nice lunch.

The sausage was on sale. In this case, Eddy Brand, a regional Texas brand, was $2.50 for the one pound link of either all beef or beef/pork (I won't buy sausage with chicken in it). This is a great way to use leftover sausage after a cookout, too.

Bell peppers are expensive! But they are still perfect for cooking with even if they are starting to get a little wrinkled. I watch for them in the "reduced" bin, cut them in half and remove the seeds, then put them in a baggie and pop them straight into the freezer. Pull them out as needed and chop while still frozen.
So this whole large bell pepper cost 50 cents.

Frozen okra, store brand, was $1.00 per 12 oz package at regular price and I used two bags . I figure about 50 cents worth of onions, a quarter for celery, 80 cents per can of tomatoes, maybe a dollar's worth of rice, and 50 cents for oil and flour.  We fed six adults supper with no extra courses or accompanying dishes, two more bowls for Ethan and Chelsey later that night, supper for me and Paul with seconds the next day, and I finished it off last night.

Altogether, it cost about $14 to make, and we got 15 meals out of it. Nothing beats homemade in price OR flavor!

Beans are incredibly healthy food. They are easy to cook, genuinely inexpensive, packed full of protein, freeze beautifully, and help our digestion work efficiently (one can leave off the expensive fiber supplements if one eats beans every day). Beans are also incredibly versatile, as we have been finding out at our house.

A couple of months ago, we made a decision to focus on a high-protein, high-fiber diet of mostly beans flavored with meat and vegetables. To help his incisions and nerves heal from the surgery, Paul needs a lot of protein.  He cannot use his legs yet, but he is still far too thin, so he needs calories. Others in this situation may need to avoid fats, but they are important for him right now. At his doctor's advice, he also has a snack of 1/3 cup of roasted cashews daily.

Paul isn't usually a fan of leftovers or repetition, so this was a bit of a challenge. By rotating between a few easily available varieties: Pintos, Limas (Butter beans), Navy Beans,  Black eyed Peas, and Black Beans, we have come up with a number of good dinners that taste good until the last spoonful. I thought I would share these recipes here over the next few weeks. Enjoy!




Black Eyed Peas, or Southern Peas, grow easily here, and there is time to make a couple of crops of them. Even from the home garden, you can let them dry on the vine to save for use as dry peas, or you can pick them and shell them while green - I will have recipes for the green ones when they come into season.

This recipe is for an old Southern dish called Hoppin' John (or less frequently, Hopping John). The origins of the name are lost to history, but this simple and tasty stew is served on tables all over Oklahoma, Texas, and the rest of the South. It is one of those great home-cooked meals that can vary depending on what you have on hand - or what you can afford.


Texas Style Hoppin' John Recipe

One pound dry black eyed peas, cooked (see below)
1 cup chopped onion
1 Bell Pepper (or other sweet pepper) chopped
3 Tablespoons Bacon Grease
1 Bay Leaf
One pound German, Polish or Cajun sausage
Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning, to taste (or substitute salt & Louisiana Hot Sauce)
2 cups white rice, cooked separately and kept separate from the peas (see below)

Take a one pound bag of dry black eyed peas, soaked overnight in tap water and drained, then cooked in 8 to 10 cups of simmering water for 2 to 4 hours until tender.  Do NOT add any salt.

If more water is needed, bring it to a boil separately and add the boiling water to the peas (just the same way you add extra water when cooking beans).

In a frying pan, saute the onion and bell pepper in bacon grease until soft and pour all, including juices and fat, into the cooked peas.  Add Bay Leaf to peas and continue simmering.

Slice the sausage into rounds or chop if you prefer. In the same frying pan, lightly brown the sausage and add it, along with its juices and fats, to the pot of peas.




Simmer gently for 30 minutes or so. Continue to resist the urge to add salt, as the Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning has salt in it.

If everyone in your house likes spicy food, add the Tony Chachere's just as you would salt, until it tastes just right. If some people are wimps like me, you can wait and people can add the Tony Chachere's to their own bowl at the table. It won't affect the flavor to wait.

Fill each individual bowl at the stove for serving. Put about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of cooked white rice in a soup or cereal bowl and ladle about 1 & 1/2 cup of peas and liquid over the rice.

Serve with cornbread if you wish.

Do not be tempted to toss the rice in with the peas at any time in cooking or as leftovers. I now remember why I never make soups with rice - the rice falls apart, soaks up the liquid, and turns a lovely dish into a mess of gruel. Not good. So keep the rice in its own container. If there is some leftover, you can refrigerate, then bring it out to get to room temp while the peas are reheating. Pouring the boiling peas & liquid over the rice in each bowl will heat it nicely.

Like all stews, Hoppin John is even better the next day. You can add a little water while heating if it is too thick. It also freezes well - this is a great dish to make and freeze in meal-sized containers, easy to pull out and warm for a wholesome and fast supper during the busy work week.

This year, I set myself the task of learning how to grow tomatoes, from seed to harvest. I've never had any luck with them, but others succeed, so surely I can figure them out too.  If you want to follow along, here are the links to Part One and Part Two of our thrilling adventures in Tomato Land.

When I planted my sprouted tomato seeds, I put them into Dixie cups in new potting soil that supposedly had fertilizer in it, so I did not think I would need to fertilize the seedlings until they had grown a bunch of
leaves.

I had two groups under the lights: the first, large batch that I had put in baggies about Feb 15th to sprout, and three other varieties that I ordered late, and didn't get sprouted until about 10 days later.  As of today, those last three seem to have caught up with the first batch, and about as many are sprouting second leaves on all of them.

The first batch grew like champs for a while - most sprouted within a week. I planted the ones that had not sprouted along with their precocious neighbors and most of those finally stretched and woke up too. I moved
them into little cups and they bounced right up and looked strong.

But then it was like time stood still. They reached a point and just stopped. I thought it might be a water issue, since the air and weather are so very dry here, so I stepped up their watering schedule. They still didn't improve.




Many of them started turning yellowish. So I read my little guide from Park Seeds, which said to fertilize them, and I read my fertilizer label, which listed a dilution for seedlings, and fertilized them.

The next day they were not improved - but they were no worse - so I diluted a half tsp of ammonia in a gallon of water and gave them that. (Not the whole gallon, but they each had a drink.)

Still no change the following day. So yesterday I watered them with fertilizer water again, just drenched them. FINALLY, today they are looking greener and starting to move forward with their second leaves.

Now to keep watching them. If it ever stops freezing at night, I will move them back into the sunny, South-facing laundry room, where they can get daylight. But for now, we are still alternating between 80 degrees one day, 30 degrees that night and 50 the next day. Springtime in Texas! LOL!

 Tune in again in a couple of weeks for the next episode. :-)

UPDATE: The results were fantastic!  Here are photos of some of the harvest!

Since the new Texas Cottage Food Law took effect September first, I have been baking bread to sell at our local Farmer's Market. It has been fun, because my bread always sells out and people are very happy to have it! Last week I took some to a small pioneer day event, and sold out there too.

The law requires that we put a label on our foods, and include our address on it. Today in my mailbox was the kindest Thank You note from a customer:

"Dear Friend,
My daughter and I visited Pioneer Day...on Saturday. She bought me a loaf of wheat bread. Oh my, it is wonderful. Had some on Sunday morning with ham and an egg. [here she drew a smiley face]  Made me happy all day. Love it. Thank you for sharing your time and talent with others.
Sincerely, [her name] "

This sweet lady and I do not know each other, so I was doubly enchanted by her note. Little kindnesses such as this add joy to life if we focus on "just for today".

This has given me much "food for thought" about this latest hobby, and the potential for good in the simplest things like real home-made food.

 I am going to miss these kinds of interaction when the Farmer's Market closes for the season in mid-October.

And I will look especially forward to having veggies to bring to it in the Spring!




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 I know it isn't quite Summer yet, but it is here since I have made the first batch of homemade ice cream. It is cherry season, at least in those places where they grow cherries. Central Texas doesn't get cold enough and gets too hot for the quaint stone fruit, so this is something we must import from places like.... New Mexico*, which I think of as close enough to be almost local.  Anyway, whereever they come from, fresh cherries are abundant and relatively inexpensive right now.

I found a bargain on some that were past their prime, and had been drastically discounted. For ice cream, we want them cut into quarters rather than halves, plus they need to be fully ripe, so this is a good use for imperfect fruit that has reached full flavor. The necessity of tiny pieces of fully ripe fruit I discovered last year when I made the mistake of using commercially frozen peaches in large chunks. They froze so hard that they were not pleasant to eat.

My recipe is a custard-type. It uses egg yolks and is cooked. This makes a luscious, rich ice cream with just the right amount of body. Mema used flour to thicken hers, but I never liked that, I prefer the smoothness of the eggs. The fact that we can buy yard eggs with golden yolks from our neighbor's happy hens is a bonus.

It takes a little practice to learn how to make a custard. There isn't really any secret, just have to be whisking the eggs really fast while pouring a stream of the hot milk into the eggs to "temper" them, then whisk the hot milk really fast while you pour the tempered egg yolk back into the pot and finish cooking. Until you get the hang of it, pour the whole cooked batch through a strainer when it is cooked. That will remove any "scrambled eggs". Eventually you won't need that step any longer.

*(*THINK FOR YOURSELF TIP O' THE DAY: I won't go into the politics of the northwestern state fruit growers and the unreported twists in a lot of the mess our domestic food and immigration policies are in but it is something worth researching sometime. Hint: you will learn a lot if you read news from about 1995 through 2005 on sites sympathetic to Migrant Labor, Fruit Growers, etc. )

Now without further ado, on with the recipe!
 


Fresh Cherry Ice Cream
Makes about 1 1/2 Quarts

1 1/4 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Whole Milk or Half and Half
5 Egg Yolks (freeze the whites to use for meringue)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Heavy Cream (Whipping Cream)
2 Cups Cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped (about 1 1/2 pounds)

Pit and chop the cherries, stir in 1/4 cup of sugar and set aside until the end.

Scald the milk in a 2 quart saucepan ("scald" means heat to steaming but do not boil).

Whisk the egg yolks and 1 cup of sugar in a mixing bowl.  Temper the yolks by pouring about half the hot milk in a thin stream while whisking the egg yolks very fast. I like to use a pyrex measuring cup for this, just dip it out (careful not to burn yourself) and pour. Makes it easier to keep whisking if you don't have someone to help you.  A stand mixer is also a good helper for this task - it can be beating the eggs whilst you pour.

Then pour the tempered egg yolks back into the rest of the milk while whisking the milk. Cook and stir, to prevent boiling, for 3 or 4 minutes until the mixture has thickened some. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temp. It is at this stage that you can strain it if you wish. 

After the custard has cooled, add the heavy cream and the vanilla extract.

Freeze in your ice cream freezer, following manufacturer's directions. Pay special attention to the need for salt in the freezing process - it is the salt that lowers the temperature below that of ice alone to enable freezing.

When the custard is frozen, remove the dasher and fold in the cherries. At this stage, I transfer my ice cream to freezer containers and put them in the chest freezer. If you want to finish the freezing in your ice cream maker, leave the canister set in the ice, remove the lid and the dasher, stir in the cherries then replace the lid securely, fill the whole bucket with more ice and salt, cover with a towel and let it sit for an hour or two until you are ready to serve, adding more ice as necessary.

I used to use a hand-cranked freezer, but last year I bought an electric one - mainly because my little manual one was not large enough. The electric one seems to take longer to freeze, but since I am not powering it that doesn't hurt! :-)

Enjoy!


About the photo:  Fresh Cherry Ice Cream gets pride of place for its picture in my great grandmother's Pink Cherry Blossom Depression Glass. Big Granddaddy gave this set to Big Grandmother for one of their anniversaries, and I inherited it from her.   Isn't that vintage spoon adorable? It says "Betty Lou" on the handle, and is Carlton Silverplate. I have a funny little collection of figural spoons. I'll take pictures and show them here sometime.