cookin' veggies!!!
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| Red Pepper's olde Tyme Casserole Mix 1 Red, yellow or orange pepper 1/2 Purple Onion Snow Peas (Healthy handful) Veggie of your choice 1 Box Spanish or Mexican rice, your choice Directions Cut vegetables into healthy chunks, soak them for a few minutes in a marinade of Italian dressing with just a bit of olive oil stirred into them. Sauté in medium hot pan, leaning put into the pan. Stir occasionally until they are cooked to the desired texture (make it firm!) This makes a great dish right now, just put some of the prepared Spanish rice on a plate, and mix in the vegetables. A little bit of bread and olive oil, or some good crackers, this makes a delicious meal. The good part is still to come, though - in a medium metal casserole pan, put the rice mixed with veggies and then cover with layers of your favorite cheeses (I have found that Havarti and muenster cheeses work great, but cheddar and American would work as well). Cook in oven or toaster oven at 375 until cheese is a golden brown, about 40-45 minutes. Delicious! |
| PICKLED MUSHROOMS (from Sypriss' Recipe Book) 2 cups mushrooms (whole chanterellas or meadow mushrooms, or slice oyster mushrooms or sulfur shelf) 3/4 cup olive oil 1/2 cup wine vinegar 1/2 cup lemon juice 1/2 cup water 4 or 5 wild garlic bulbs, chopped 1/2 cup wild onions (white part), chopped 1 tsp. dry mustard 3 small bay leaves 2 tsp. packaged mixed pickling spice 2 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp. ground pepper 1/2 cup sugar 1. Divide the mushrooms among 3 sterile half pint canning jars. 2. Combine the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, water, galic, onions, mustard powder or seed, bay leaves, salt, pepper, pickling spice, and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil; boil 3 minutes. 3. Pour over mushrooms, dividing spices, garlic, and onions among the jars, and seal. Store in frige. The pickles may be used after a day or two and should be used within a very few days. |
| New Recipes added 4-25-2008 |
| Balti Baby Veggies Serves 4-6 10 new potatoes, halves 12-14 baby carrots 12-14 baby zucchini 2 tablespoons chili sauce 1 teaspoon garlic pulp 1 teaspoon ginger pulp 1 teaspoon salt 14-ounce can chickpeas, drained 10 cherry tomatoes 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper and 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, garnish 1)Bring a medium pan of salted water to a boil and add the new potatoes and baby carrots. After 12-15 minutes, add the zucchini and boil for another 5 minutes, or until all the vegetables are just tender. 2)Drain veggies well and set aside. 3)Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok and add the onions. Cook until the onions turn golden brown. Lower the heat and add the chili sauce, garlic, ginger and salt, taking care not to burn the mixture. 4) Add the chickpeas and stir-fry over medium heat until the moisture has been absorbed. 5) Add the cooked veggies and cherry tomatoes and continue cooking over medium heat, stirring w/ a slotted spoon for about 2 minutes. 6) Garnish with crumbled red pepper and sesame seeds. |
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| Fried Green Tomatoes |
| First, prepare a small bottomed frying pan with about a quarter inch of cooking oil in the bottom; heat to a high medium. The pan should have steep sloping sides like the one pictured, and the bottom cooking area should be about 5 or 6 inches in diameter. What a great spring treat! These tomatoes were grown in my friend's garden, and enjoyed great North Carolina sunshine and soil, along with a bit more rain this year than last. They are a bit smaller than baseballs, and are perfect for our pan today! The tomatoes are, of course, washed, and then the very top and bottom are cut off to flatten the sphere. Cut the remaining tomatoes into about quarter inch thick slices, all the way through. Three tomatoes this size, along with a small salad, make a great meal! Also at the suggestion of my friend (they were her tomatoes after all), I decided to bread the little buggers a bit differently; usually I use cornmeal, but this time I went with a nicely spiced flour based mix, and used two eggs and a bit of milk for the dip. This created a nice thick coating! Just wet the slices, and then place them in the flour mix; as well, you can salt and pepper the eggs a bit for a bit more flavor! Use a whisk to cover the slice; gently shake the excess flour off. Place the battered tomatoes in the preheated grease, and DO NOT TOUCH for at least several minutes. You want the batter to achieve integrity before flipping over the little slices. Once both sides are set, continue to flip gently until the batter is a deep golden brown; drain on a paper towel for several minutes (this serves to cool the tomato as well), and serve while still quite hot! This is a delicacy, but most people agree that they should be eaten immediately. Inevitably there is egg mixture left over; this can be stored in a good fridge with a tight lid and used as omelet or scrambled egg mix in the morning! |
| There is something about certain foods - maybe it is childhood memory, or what you would want childhood memories to be. Fried green tomatoes were a mystery to me as a child; I grew up in Kansas, and went to the farm every summer, and watched them grow cows and wheat, and sometimes corn, but never did I once see them take a green tomato, cut it into slices and batter it up. What a treat, I later learned, to have missed. Food, even if it is the food from the childhood of others, can remind us of the past; it is the same dish now, fixed over heat in the same way as our ancestors a hundred years ago were fixing it. There are good things and bad things in our past, as a nation, as states, as peoples and as individuals, we should go out of our way to celebrate the good things, and they should always outshine the bad. Food is one of the most direct connections we have with our past as societies, families and humans; it reminds us, in preparing, cooking and serving that the land is our lifeblood, and love and respect for one another all the reason we need for life itself So if your not sure whether you like fried green tomatoes, and it may be that you do not like this delicious treat, follow the recipe in the cookin veggies section, and think about how far we have come, and how far we have to go. Lets travel there together, and eat fried green tomatoes when we arrive! |