Showing posts with label Freezing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freezing. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Dessert Mint Pesto


Garden mint is taking over my little corner of the world! I've been on a quest to find new ways to use this wonderfully aromatic herb. Happened upon a recipe while looking for different pesto recipes and had to give it a try.

2 cups mint leaves
1/2 cup walnuts
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

So out to the herb bed I went and I snipped and snipped, hardly making a dent in the abundance of mint (I think that just rhymed somehow!).

I rinsed my mint and shook it dry...

Then stripped all the leaves off into a measuring bowl...


I had four cups of mint leaves if I pressed down on them.

Pay no attention to all the squash in the background...
it is also trying to take over my world!

So, I doubled the recipe... In my blender I combined the mint leaves...


With the walnuts (any nut will do... Mmmmm Macadamia would be yummo! But I had walnuts... which are yummy too!


I added the honey...


And the vanilla extract (which I made last year, by the way, and it's wonderful! I'll never go back to storebought vanilla! Never!)


Then I blended it all up! This took a little doing and I almost grated the handle of a wooden spoon in there a time or two... but at last I got it all blended and smooth... Oh the SMELL!!!! I wish you could smell the smell!!!  Too bad we don't have smeller-net!


Then I poured (and scraped) it into a couple of freezer cups to store in the freezer (kept some out for eating NOW!)

My imagination is going WILD thinking of things to do with this stuff... I'm thinking sandwiched between two chocolate cookies... stirred in chocolate ice cream... as a filling between two layers of chocolate cake... (am I seeing a chocolate theme here or is that just my imagination?) or just with a spoon right out of the cup (well maybe not, but it's really really good!)
Posted by Pamela at 2:57 PM 19 comments
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Freezing Okra Mama's Way


As I've said before, there's no better way to eat okra than cut up, rolled in corn meal and fried... a mess of fried okr-y! A Southern tradition.

My Mama and the rest of my family always looked forward to the hottest days of summer when the okra, a heat-loving veggie began to ripen and a mess of fried okry was sure to find its way to many a summer supper, along with fresh sliced tomatoes, green beans, new potatoes cooked with just a bit of butter, and whatever additional bounty the garden offered. No meat needed! You never missed it!

Mama spent many summers trying to capture and preserve that summer "Fried Okry" flavor so we could enjoy the same yumminess come wintertime... just slicing and freezing the okra resulted in a big frozen lump that took forever to thaw and when it did was mushy and hard to roll in the meal... she tried freezing the okra pods whole but then you either had to slice hard-as-a-rock okra pods or wait til they thawed and again... mushy! Canning them resulted in slimy slimy and un-fry-able (pickled and canned are great, as is sliced and canned in veggie soup or gumbo, but we're talking okra for frying)...

So after quite some time and much trial and error, Mama came up with the following method... it's not perfect... nothing can take the place of fresh, fried okra... but it's pretty darn good...

Here's what she did... and what I did with my recent abundance of okra...

I sliced it up like I would to prepare for frying... My DH was a wonder... a gentleman and a scholar... he sliced all those itchy, slimy okra pods for me while I worked on other things... God bless that man!!!

Love Love Love that sweet man's hands!

I sprinkled a light coating of cornmeal onto the sliced okra (you want a light coating here, makes for the BEST fried okra... I hate that thick coated store-bought deep-fried stuff, it's NOT traditional, Southern-fried okra... Light coating of cornmeal! Just what sticks to the damp okra... shake off the rest!)

Then I spread the meal coated okra onto a baking pan and baked it to a partial-doneness in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes. It doesn't get brown, it only sort of bakes the corn meal onto the okra and dries it out a little so it doesn't stick together so much when frozen.


I took it out of the oven after the 20 minutes or so (work in batches if you have TONS of okra!) and allowed it to cool completely.


Once it was cool, I bagged it up and vacuum sealed it (don't have to vacuum seal, it's just what I did and since I have a vacuum sealer and CAN, I did... Mama never did) Freezer bags or containers will work fine.


If you DO have a vacuum sealer and decide to vacuum your okra... stop the seal about halfway through the vacuuming step so it doesn't squish the okra completely flat! You don't want that.


Pop your bags of okra into the freezer and you have "almost as good as fresh" fried okra to look forward to next winter!










Posted by Pamela at 6:50 AM 37 comments
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)
html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td { margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; outline: 0; font-size: 100%; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; } body { line-height: 1; } ol, ul { list-style: none; } blockquote, q { quotes: none; } /* remember to define focus styles! */ :focus { outline: 0; } /* remember to highlight inserts somehow! */ ins { text-decoration: none; } del { text-decoration: line-through; } /* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */ table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; }