Basil Water

While this did produce something, it felt a little bit like an epic fail. Found a way to distill herbs into essential oil that sounded easy and like it might just work and to a degree it did.

Started with a big old Dutch oven on the stove, a little bit of water in the bottom and lots and lots of basil as in the end of the season, grab it all picking laid and smashed into the pan. Next step, I put a ceramic bowl on top of the whole mess and put the lid on upside down. The upside down lid is important as the distilled liquid will collect on the lid and the concave shape of the lid will let the liquid drip into the bowl.

Here is a picture of what the whole setup looked like for me.

Once this is all setup, let the whole mess simmer down. The house smelled amazing while this process was going on and I did end up with about an ounce of liquid. The liquid can be stored in a small tight sealing jar and in a cool dark place.

This process can be used to distill most herbs. The key is that you need a lot of whatever you are distilling.

Have fun experimenting with this one!

Where did the Summer Go?!?!?

Not sure where the summer went and here it it is already canning season!

Not make excuses but I did have a small computer catastrophe which was fixed post haste with a new computer. It has been a long time since I have had a new computer and I am not sure I like this new beast. I suppose I will get used to it and if truth be known, I am already sort of getting used to "it" and kind of starting to like it some.

Otherwise, most of the summer was spent hanging out in parks and making music I guess. It was so much fun! Then to end the summer, a quick trip up the North Shore of Minnesota was just what the doctor ordered.

In July Dusty Rockers (see one of my other blogs) hosted the first Potluck Music Jam 7 Mile Creek County Park. It was a blast, new friends were made and the food was wonderful. Everyone enjoyed themselves so much that we hosted an impromptu hot dog roast in August. Good times were had by all.

In September, the North Shore beckoned and we answered the call. Spent time rock hunting on the shores of Lake Superior, checked out Gooseberry Falls...

and saw Split Rock Lighthouse up close and personal for the first time ever. It was wonderfully refreshing and we have both resolved not to wait so long before we go again.

With that all said... on to canning and preserving the summer and fall harvest for the frigid winter here in the frozen north.

Gourds!!!

So the fruits of last year's harvest continue to give as the garden is planted for the coming harvest. The gourds have been sitting since last fall through the winter and are ready to be cleaned up and used.

Here are a few that have been cleaned up. Some of them inside and out and a couple of them only on the outside while they wait for me to decide what they are going to become.

Two of these gourds have become purple martin houses, at least hopefully they will be pale enough to attract purple martins.

Only time will tell and yes, I realize they do not look like the traditional purple martin birdhouses. Call it an experiment if you will. At the very least if the purple martins don't like the houses, I am sure that some bird out there will... lol.

Ways to Use Homemade Yogurt

Loving this home made yogurt (recipe in previous post)!

Tonight I am trying a first. Since I am out of the plain yogurt I bought to make the first few batches of homemade yogurt, I will be making a new batch of yogurt from itself. I cannot imagine why this should not work and I am hoping that it will. I am becoming used to have the homemade yogurt as a staple in my refrigerator.

So far my favorite ways to eat it as a snack are:

• Cut fresh strawberries, sprinkle a little sugar or honey on them (I use Sun Crystals, a stevia based sweetener), spoon some home made yogurt over the top with a little vanilla, mix and eat
•  Use any kind of summer berry or fruit as above.
• Mix a bit of orange extract and honey into home made yogurt.
• Mix a little chocolate syrup into a bowl of the home made yogurt.

The list is as endless as your imagination. I have also started substituting the home made yogurt  for sour cream. Today I made mashed potatoes and mashed them with a little butter and home made yogurt instead of milk or sour cream. They were excellent!

Tonight I am making baked fish with a sour cream/home made sauce on top. All the sauce is made of is home made yogurt, Parmesan cheese, butter, salt and pepper. Can't wait to let you all know how it was. Waiting to post the recipe until it passes my taste test as I grabbed the recipe off the "net" and lately it seems that there have been several recipes I have tried that were not so good. Not terrible but not something I would ever make again without tweaking the recipe.

Homemade Yogurt

Finally got around to trying to make homemade yogurt. It was amazingly easy and I do believe that making your own is quite cost-effective.

Here is the recipe that I found worked the best for me.

HOME MADE YOGURT

4 cups of water-divided
1 3/4 cup dry milk powder
1 1/2 Tablespoon of plain yogurt with active cultures

Mix the yogurt into two cups of water and mix the dry milk mix into the other two cups of water. All you do now is put both mixtures together into a quart sized glass jar and put it in a warm spot for 12-15 hours. Once you have yogurt, chill it in the refrigerator.

When I make this, I actually start with lukewarm water from the tap and set mine on top of the refrigerator because it tends to be warm up there. If I have something cooking in the crock-pot, I set the jar between the crock-pot and the wall, another warm place. The original recipe suggested a heating pad, It did not say what setting to use but this might be something to experiment around with.

You can get yogurt with active/live cultures at just about any grocery store, Dannon and Old Home are two brands that come to mind who use active cultures. I would make sure that the yogurt is plain just because your homemade yogurt will be more versatile once it is done. Once you have made a batch, you will be able to use the yogurt you have made to make your next batch.

Here is the recipe for one of the things I have made with my homemade yogurt, so simple and so yummy.

CREAMY CUCUMBER SALAD

2-3 cucumbers-peeled and sliced thin
1 small sweet onion-sliced thin
sea salt (regular salt will work too)
1 cup homemade yogurt
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
Pepper to taste

Mix cucumbers and onions in a bowl and sprinkle with sea salt, enough so that they start to juice a little bit. Let them sit and juice for about an hour. If they make a lot of juice, drain them so your salad isn't too runny. In another bowl mix together yogurt, lemon juice and pepper. When cucumbers are ready, pour your yogurt mixture on top and mix gently. This is where you can add salt to taste if you like. There should be enough salt already on the cucumber and onions but if there isn't feel free to add some.

There is a lot of experimenting I want to do with my homemade yogurt but I am actually thinking I can substitute it for sour cream in most recipes. I have found that the one thing to keep in mind is that when you buy yogurt or sour cream from the store, there is salt in it if for no other reason than that they add salt to add weight. When you are cooking with your homemade yogurt, keep in mind that your homemade yogurt doesn't have salt added. Otherwise, take your homemade yogurt and have a blast trying it in new and old recipes.

Garden Sprouts

Got some sprouts popping up here. Green tomatoes and paste tomatoes are popping like crazy. The 6 holes in the middle are peppers and I expect them to pop any day now. Definitely need to do some thinning out and will be taking care of business there beginning of next week. Maybe by then there will be some pepper sprouts too!

Skillet Un-Corn Bread

Okay... this one is as super simple or as difficult as you care to make it. All you really need to do is take your favorite cornbread recipe and give it a new twist by substituting some uncooked multi-grain hot cereal for the corn meal, measure for measure. I like to use Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal (uncooked) with the recipe that you find on packages of Quaker Yellow Corn Meal. Here is that recipe in case you don't used corn meal or don't happen to have any on hand.

Easy Corn Bread
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour              
3/4 cup corn meal
1/4 cup sugar                                 
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt                            
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil                       
1 egg, beaten

Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately before stirring them together just until dry ingredients are moist. Turn into a 8" or 9" pan or skillet.
Bake at 400º until golden and toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm. I like to serve it warm with honey and butter, the real stuff. Makes about 8 servings.

Shiny Chrome

Just had to share this little cleaning tidbit I saw on television the other night, American Restoration to be exact.

Do you have chrome sink fixtures that have built up “yuck”? Hard water marks, years of soap scum build up or a combination of both? Because we rent our homes, many times we walk into a place that has been taken care with less care than what we would use. Not saying we are neat freaks and we do tend to have a lot of clutter that is interesting to us around our home. Clutter aside, we do try to keep a clean home, which is not always what we walk into when we move.

The other night American Restoration shared this cool tip for cleaning chrome. All you need is a piece of aluminum foil and a little water. Of course we had to try this.

We crumpled up some aluminum foil into a sort of cleaning ball and started working on the kitchen faucet. Amazing! After almost 2 years of scrubbing and cleaning with various household cleaners and varying degrees of success, we now have chrome bath and kitchen fixtures that are shiny bright and look like new.

Thank you Rick Dale, owner of Rick’s Restoration, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Peppery Creamed Chicken & Cheese Biscuits

This morning I was hungry for sausage gravy and biscuits. After rooting around in the kitchen I found no sausage… BUT I did find chicken. Okay, I will make chicken gravy and biscuits, probably healthier anyway. As always my disclaimer is this: Feel free to substitute to make it your own.

Peppery Chicken Gravy

2 frozen chicken breasts or 4 chicken tenderloins

8 oz carton of fresh mushrooms

1 bunch green onion tops

2 cloves garlic

2 jalapeno peppers (chopped)

1 banana pepper (chopped)

½ cup flour

3 cups milk

Spices or chicken bouillon (I used Tony Chachere’s Cajun Seasoning)

Salt and pepper

In a Dutch oven, place chicken, enough to water to cover chicken by 2 inches (about 6-8 cups). Add spices or chicken bouillon and peppers. Cook/simmer down to half, remove the chicken and chop it and then add everything else except the flour, milk, salt and pepper.

Once all ingredients are cooked and pot is simmering at a slow boil, mix flour, milk, salt and pepper until this is smooth. Mix slowly into the chicken broth and continue to stir until it thickens.

Serve over biscuits.

The biscuits do not have to be cheese biscuits.You can use ready to bake biscuits from the refrigerated section of the grocery store, you can use dry biscuit mix from the baking aisle of the grocery store or you can make your own cheese biscuits which is truly not as hard as it sounds.

Cheese Drop Biscuits

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup shortening

1 cup grated cheese (your choice, I like sharp chedder)

¾ - ½ cup milk

Preheat oven to 450º

Mix dry ingredients together and cut shortening into the dry with a pastry blender or fork until it is a crumbly texture. Mix the shredded cheese into the crumble mix and then stir in milk. Be careful not to over mix, just until the dry ingredients are wet.

Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the tops are golden.

There you have it, a favorite brunch recipe of mine for the weekend. 

Where Canning Begins

So this is where it all begins for next summer and fall. It is really quite simple. You order the seeds, you plant the seeds, you take care of them and watch them grow.

If you want to get away from ordering seeds, you start with a few heirloom seeds and save seed year to year when you find a variety of something that you really like. This is how I remember my grandparents doing it. I remember seeing "wet" seeds spread on newspaper and "dry" seeds in glass baby food jars all lined up on the ledges of the basement windows for the winter.

This year I begin a local collection with the help of some friends who live outside of a small town called Cleveland, Minnesota and family outside of Gibbon, Minnesota. Are you getting the drift that I live in town in a bright and sunny apartment but an apartment nonetheless? This year I ordered 3 types of seed from Seed Savers Exchange <http://read.timesprintingdigital.com/t/26979/8> to start the collection.

Because I love fried green tomatoes, that one was a no brainer when I saw Aunt Ruby's German Green Tomatoes. Then I noticed Amish Paste Tomatoes, yup, I can almost taste the sauce! But here is the seed that brought me to the seed catalog in the first place. Kalman's Hungarian Tomato Pepper! They look unbelievable interesting. Yes folks, other than the fact that I like peppers, I ordered them and want to grow them because they look so cool!

The Tarahumara White Seeded Sunflowers were an added bonus and one of the reasons I love ordering seeds. The seed companies almost always send along complimentary seeds and you never know what you will get, kind of like Forrest Gump's chocolates.

It is going to be an exercise in patience to keep these seeds till it is time to plant them. The way the weather is looking, I am thinking somewhere between the middle of March to the middle of April. I almost always do stuff like this on "gut instinct" and I think this will be no exception.

Heirloom and Hybrid Seeds

Heirloom vs. Hybrid Seeds

To begin defining heirloom seeds and plants, all you have to do is look at the definition of heirloom in general. Heirlooms are items that have been passed down, unchanged, through the generations. Heirloom seeds and plants fit into this same definition and are seeds and plants that have been cultivated openly and without change for decades. They remain consistent year after year. Seeds and cuttings from heirloom plants can be planted and propagated with identical results time after time.

That said heirlooms are not hybrids and vice versa. Hybrids are seed and plant varieties that are created through the combining of several other varieties of plants through cross-pollination or grafting. These are seeds and plants that do not have their genetic base altered. Most times a hybrid is a sterile, can be grown from hybrid seed once and will not reproduce. If a hybrid does reproduce in following years, it will grow as one of the original varieties used to create it.

To sum it all up, heirloom seeds and plants are truly non-GMO. Hybrid seeds and plants cannot be heirloom but can be either GMO or non-GMO.

Reference

<http://www.heirloomseeds.com/history.htm>

<http://www.goodgirlgonegreen.com/gardening/what-is-the-difference-between-organic-heirloom-hybrid-and-gmo>

What are GMO Seeds?

What are GMO Seeds?

Let’s start with GMO. What exactly is GMO and what does GMO stand for? It is the acronym for Genetically Modified Organism. Okay, so what does this exactly mean? Genetics are genes, DNA, the base cells that are the blueprint for what every living thing is and will become. Organisms are all things living, from the microscopic to the huge. Plants, animals, viruses, if it moves and/or grows it is an organism. Anything that is a living organism or that was a living organism has DNA.

Science has come so far that it has figured out how to alter the seeds that grow our food on this genetic level. This should not be confused with the art of cross breeding as this is a whole new ballgame. At first this seemed like a good idea. Science was capable of altering soy seed and corn seed to make them more disease resistant and give them higher yields. In a world where third world countries still exist with starving populations, this was huge. No one gave much thought to the long-term affects that are just now starting to be known.

These crops grown from GMO seeds are cross-pollinated with the noxious weeds that have been a bane to farmers for centuries. Because the GMO seeds have been made to be resistant to the herbicides that kill these weeds, the weeds have become resistant as well. More and more herbicide is needed to control the weeds and more herbicide use creates more opportunity for ground water contamination.

Then there are the “organisms” that carry the genetically altered pollen, like bees and butterflies. The following excerpt talks about a study on Monarch butterflies.

The results of a 1999 study conducted by researchers at Cornell University suggest that genetically engineered crops also endanger wildlife, specifically the Monarch butterfly. These researchers found that nearly half of the Monarch caterpillars that ate milkweed leaves dusted with pollen from genetically engineered corn died within four days. A study conducted one year later at Iowa State University found that plants that neighbor farms of genetically engineered corn are dusted with enough corn pollen to kill Monarch caterpillars.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=207

Are you starting to get the picture yet? While GMO seeds were initially looked at as a “god-send”, they may not have been looked at close enough before they began to be used on a large-scale basis and that my friends is GMO seeds in a nut-shell.

Now that you know what GMO seeds are, logic tells you that non-GMO seeds are seeds that have not been genetically modified. Be aware that this does not necessarily make them or not make them heirloom or hybrid. It just means they have not been been genetically altered at their base cell level.

Reference:

The World’s Healthiest Foods <http://www.whfoods.com/>

Seeds, seeds and more seeds!

So it is that time of year again. The cold winter wind is blowing, we are all huddled up in our homes dreaming of spring and the seed catalogs are coming in the mail feeding these dreams. But wait… Heirloom? Hybrids? GMO? Non-GMO? What are these types of seeds really? They are the good, the bad and the ugly. In order to make for easier reading, these will be broken up into more than one post.

Alpine Strawberries

Have you ever noticed that tiny blessings appear just when you seem to need it the most? I was blessed with one yesterday, just when I needed it the most.

This fall I was given a potted Alpine Strawberry (Fragaria Alipina). These are wild strawberries that grow a bit larger than their cousin the Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria Vesca), also a wild strawberry. I was told when it was given to me that it had never born fruit even though it had been grown outside all through the summer months. I did some research and found it is an ever-bearing strawberry and winters well indoors. Unfortunately, one article I read talked about how they need to be hand pollinated if they are kept indoors all year. Okay, I thought, not sure if I would ever get blossoms or berries but it is a pretty little plant nonetheless.

Alpine Strawberry (Fragaria Alpina)

Well, the pictures show what has happened with this lovely little plant over the past several weeks. It has not only blossom but a brand new baby berry as well, which I happened to notice yesterday when I most needed a tiny little miracle. There were only 2 blossoms that I could find, although I am sure there may well be more hiding in there somewhere. Today there is one blossom and one berry and I can’t wait to see if it actually does become a lovely little red strawberry.

Apples in the Pot to Apple Butter in the Jar-O

So last week was apple day at the Nest and I finally decided on making apple butter. I make my apple butter in the crockpot for several reasons. It never burns and it is such sweet torture to smell it cooking all day.

The first step is the apples. If you happen to have an apple tree in your backyard, wonderful. The only problem will be in figuring out how many pounds you have picked. Here is a chart and the link to help with that small problem.

            1 pound of apples equals:

2 large apples OR

3 medium apples OR

2 3/4 cups of cored & sliced/chopped apples OR

1 1/3 cup of applesauce

http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodequivalents/a/appleequiv.htm

If you do not have access to an apple tree, a good solution might be a local orchard. The apples are fresh picked, there are usually many varieties to pick and choose from and the apples are measured out by the pound for you.

Once the apples have been picked/bought, they need to be peeled, cored and chopped and thrown in the pot. Just add the sugar and spice and turn the crockpot on low.

Crockpot Apple Butter

3# apples

2 cups sugar

12 teaspoon cinnamon

1 pinch cloves or nutmeg

Simmer in the crockpot for 8-10 hours.

As soon as the apples are soft enough, I give them a spin in the blender and return them to the crockpot because I like a nice smooth apple butter. If you happen to like your apple butter a little more on the chunky side, you can use a potato masher while they are in the crockpot and mash them to the consistency you like. The apple butter should be cooked down to about half of what you started with. A wooden spoon should stand by itself in the middle of the whole hot yummy mess.

When the apple butter is done, put it into hot sterile jars and process in a canning bath for 25 minutes.

Four-legged Furry Staff

Just for the fun of it I thought I would share a picture of my furry ‘staff’ helping out with the writing of posts for this blog.

Meet Mona, she likes to keep the keyboard warm and tries to keep one paw on the touchpad with me. She enjoys watching the screen and started by watching bird videos. She has now graduated to watching just about anything happening on the screen.

Potato Soup

Here is a recipe that I have been making for years that I am not even sure where I ever learned to make it. I just know it is yummy good and can be tinkered with depending on what you have on hand.

Potato Soup

Ingredients:

6 potatoes diced

1 cup chopped onion

2 carrots thin sliced

2 ribs of celery thin sliced

4 cups chicken broth

¼ cup of flour

1 ½ cup of milk

Toss the potatoes, onion, carrots, celery and chicken broth in the crockpot on high. Cook until done, 2-3 hours should be good. Mix the milk and flour together like you would for milk gravy and add to the soup. Let it boil until thick and then turn on low to keep warm and serve.

Once again, no picture because I was not thinking of even posting this one but it is such a comfort food for a chilly fall day.

Creamed Cabbage (Baked)

So, I love creamed cabbage but I also love easy in the kitchen and this recipe seemed to have it all. Sorry there are no pictures for this one, we were really hungry and I guess I had never really intended to put this one on my blog at the time.

Since then I have decided that just because a recipe might seem strange or unusual, does not mean that there are not those out there who might like it and maybe did not even think to look for it. With that said, here it is.

Creamed Cabbage (Baked)

Ingredients:

1 cup milk                  
2 Tablespoons butter             
1 dash black pepper
¼ teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons flour                    
1 cup of Romano cheese

1 medium head of cabbage

Shred the cabbage and steam it until it is tender. To do this, I used a pasta kettle. Fill the bottom with a few inches of water, not enough to reach the top part. Bring the water to a boil and put the cabbage in the top for about 5 minutes or until it is tender. The time will vary depending on how thin or thick you shredded the cabbage.

In a heavy kettle over medium heat, melt the butter and then mix in the flour, salt and pepper and stir it into a soft dough ball. Add the milk and whisk the milk and the dough ball together and bring back to a boil to thicken the sauce. When sauce is thick and hot, whisk in the Romano cheese. (The original recipe calls for the cheese to be added to the cabbage separately and not added to the sauce.)

Put the cabbage in a baking dish, pour the sauce over the top and bake at 350° for about 30 minutes or until the sauce is hot and bubbly. (The original recipe calls for the cabbage, sauce and cheese to be put into the baking dish in layers.)

www.allrecipes.com/recipe/creamed-cabbage/

Apple Cider Pork Roast

Here in Southern Minnesota fall is apple season. This year we had the time and wherewithal to visit our local apple orchard, Welsh Heritage Farms Apple Orchard and Pie Shop and Harbo Cider. I love, love, love these places. It always smells to good and you get to taste test some of the wares, yummy.

Of course I bought apples and some local honey before moving on to the cider store. Not only do they sell fresh apple cider but they also sell hard cider and specialty cheese here.  It was the fresh apple cider and the pork roast in the freezer that had me hooked on this recipe. Not only did it sound like something different and tasty, it seemed to be just what the doctor ordered for this time of year.

Crockpot Apple Cider Pork Roast

Boneless pork shoulder or sirloin roast (3 ½ - 4 lbs)

2 medium onions sliced

4-6 carrots cut into 1 inch slices

2 cloves of garlic minced

½ teaspoon of salt

1/8 teaspoon of pepper

½ teaspoon of allspice (I used whole)

1 teaspoon of chili powder

1 teaspoon of  dried leaf marjoram or thyme

2 cups of natural apple juice or cider ( I used 1 ½ cups of apple cider and ½ cup of apple cherry juice)

2 Tablespoons of cider vinegar

Layer the onions on the bottom of the crock pot and put the roast on top of them. If there is netting on the roast leave it on.

Next put the carrots in the pot around the roast and put your spices on the top of the roast.

Pour the apple cider/juice over the top, cover and cook on high for 1 hour.

Finally you can either turn pot to low for 6-8 hours or leave it on high for another 3-4 hours.

When the roast is done, the juices can be transferred to a kettle and used for gravy if you like.

Accompany this dish with some sort of starch like mashed potatoes or buttered noodles and enjoy.

www.southernfood.about.com/od/crockpotporkandham/r/r81002c.htm

Here's what mine ended up looking like... yummy!

Disclaimer: This is not the entire roast... we were hungry!

Grandma's Tomato Jam

This is a jam I looked forward to every summer. I remember having it at my grandmother’s house when visiting and when I had my own home and my own garden I also made this yummy jam. Once again, it has been many years since I have made this jam and it still turned out just as yummy as I remember it.

6 cups of fresh tomato sauce (about a dozen medium to large tomatoes)

6 cups of sugar

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Prepare the jars you plan to put jam in and the you will need to peel the tomatoes. The easiest way I have found to peel tomatoes is to set them in boiling water for a minute or two and then take them out, letting them cool enough to handle and slip the skins right off. Cut out the stem and any undesirable spots and throw the tomatoes right into the Dutch oven (remember the Dutch oven?).

Here’s what I think of as the fun part. By this time the tomatoes should be cool enough to squish them up with your hands. Keep squishing until the tomatoes look like chunky tomato juice. Next I add the lemon juice and bring the tomatoes to a boil before adding the sugar After adding the sugar, I boil the whole hot mess until the sugar is melted into the tomatoes. Simmer what is now jam over medium heat for 1-2 hours or until it is thick enough to coat a spoon.

When the jam is done, pour it into your waiting jars and process them in a canning bath for 25 minutes.

Tomato Jam on the left.