Posts in category: recipes

Cabbage is in season, and I am trying to figure out new ways to use the vegetable. Chinese cabbage is somewhat easier to use than head cabbage and often it is quicker to work with. This is a fast way to make a head of bok choy disappear. It isn’t a new way to use cabbage by any means, but most folks don’t usually use bok choy when making a coleslaw.

1 – Chop one large head of bok choy (about four or so unpacked cups worth) into pieces and strips. Add carrot, onion, radish, fruit or anything else that you like in coleslaw.

2 – Stir in one tablespoon of the vinegar of your choice. Add two or three tablespoons of mayonnaise or salad dressing. Add one teaspoon of salt and a bit of mustard.

3 – Mix and your done. The most time consuming part of the process is washing and chopping the bok choy.

Warning: this stuff is very addictive. Kristin and I ate almost the whole bowl in one sitting. Be warned…

For the quarts of peach halves –

1 – You can use a “syrup” to can whole or half fruits or you can simply use water. Sugar has no preserving qualities and is used mainly for taste. I decided to use a very light honey syrup. To 5 cups of water add 1 ½ cups of honey. Heat to simmering.

2 – Wash peaches while you boil a bit of water in a sauce pan, enough water to cover a half peach. Reduce water to a simmer after it boils.

3 – Cut peaches in half, remove pit and any pit pieces. Dunk the peach halves in the hot water for a few seconds. Skins will come right off after they cool for a few more seconds.

4 – Place the peach halves in the honey water mixture. Simmer for a few minutes.

5 – Hopefully you have started your canner water to boil and washed your jars. If you haven’t, now is the time. Simmer the jar lids and rings, then cover and set aside. Scald the quart jars in the boiling canner water.

6 – Taking the peaches right out of the simmering syrup, pack the halves in the quart jars as tightly as possible.

7 – Using a ladle or large spoon, fill the jar with the honey syrup to ½” of the jar top.

8 – Using a plastic spoon handle or chopstick, try to remove as many air bubbles as possible from the jar. Shove the utensil down the sides of the jar to remove the bubbles.

9 – Remove a ring and lid from the hot water and tighten on the jar.

10 – Place in the boiling water canner and process for 25 minutes, 20 minutes for pints.

11 – Remove the jars and let cool overnight. In the morning, check the seals, remove the rings, label and store in a cool dark place.

12 – Use the excess honey syrup to make peach honey vinegar.

For the peach sauce –

1 – Repeat steps 2 and 3 above. Also, get your canner water ready and wash up a bunch of pint and half pint jars. Simmer the lids and rings then cover and set aside.

2 – Add the peach halves to a large stock pot. Smash with a potato masher of whatever you have in order to get the peaches into small chunks. Heat to simmering.

3 – Add honey and cinnamon (if you have it) to taste. Neither of these things is necessary; they are merely for taste when the jars are opened for use.

4 – Heat the mixture to boiling, being careful not to burn it.

5 – Scald the jars then fill to ¼” of the jar top with the peach mixture.

6 – Remove jars and lids from the hot water and tighten on the jars.

7 – Process for 15 minutes in the boiling water canner.

8 – Remove the jars and let cool overnight. In the morning, check the seals, remove the rings, label and store in a cool dark place.

I use fruit sauces instead of jams for a few reasons. First, they don’t take as long to make. Cooking a peach jam without pectin would take several hours. Second, I use the sauces with my rice breakfasts for a little something in addition to the honey.

The rice and honey breakfast is great, but I’m finding that there isn’t always enough time to cook rice before work in the morning. With a 30 minute bicycle commute to factor in, 15 minutes of waiting for rice is a bit much. So here is my recipe for a very basic rice pudding that can be eaten cold over the course of several mornings.

1 – In a saucepan add ½ cup rice to 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed by the rice.

2 – Preheat oven to 325.

3 – In a glass baking dish, add 2 eggs, 2 ½ cups of the milk of your choice (I used some oat milk from The Stash, but goat milk will be next), ½ cup of honey (sugar if you have it or prefer it), and ¼ tsp salt (if you have it). You can also add vanilla and cinnamon, but 100 milers will have a hard time finding those items. Check your Stash as needed.

4 – Add the hot rice into the baking dish and mix thoroughly.

5 – Bake uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. The baking time might be more or less depending on what kind of milk you end up using.

6 – Remove from the oven and cool on a counter or put the dish in the fridge overnight.

7 – Enjoy for breakfast with some toast or eat it warm for dessert.

Adapted from online and book recipes; distilled to the primary 100 mile ingredients.

I used a quarter cup of Carolina Gold and a quarter cup of Forbidden Black in my first attempt at rice pudding. The result was, of course, black, but nonetheless tasty. As the song says, “use what ya got.”

These are the days when potatoes are in season and abundant. We’ve been eating pounds of yukons and red potatoes each week, and I’ve been trying to figure out some other ways to eat them besides the standards – mashed, fried and baked.

I consulted one of the many cookbooks on our shelf, Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook, published in 1996. (Betty is a “warm and friendly” name, yes?) This book was a gift from my Mom upon my graduation from college, and it was fairly well worn during its first few years in my possession. I have old stars written next to things like fajitas, spanish rice, banana muffins and cream of broccoli soup. Now it is mostly a reference book, although I still use the soup stock recipes.

I turned to the index, searching for a new idea for potatoes when I saw a previously unused recipe – potato pancakes. Checking the ingredients list for availability in the house was pretty easy – potatoes (45 miles), eggs (7 miles), salt (the stash), flour (some expired gluten free flour from the store). I added some scallions (19 miles) and some garlic (45 miles) to the easy recipe and went to work.

1 – Clean, then boil 4 medium potatoes for about 10 minutes. Cool them off in the freezer while getting the rest of the ingredients ready. If you don’t have a freezer, just set them on the counter until they are cool enough to handle.

2 – Finely chop 4 or 5 scallions and 2 cloves of garlic.

3 – Add the scallions and garlic to a bowl with 1/4 cup of flour, 1 tsp salt, and 4 eggs. Don’t have flour or salt? No problem; skip it. We’re minimalists here anyway.

4 – Shred the cooled off potatoes into the bowl then mix everything well.

5 – Heat some oil, butter, bacon grease, or whatever is handy in a frying pan. If you don’t have anything to grease the pan, just watch the cakes extra carefully as the eggs provide the grease, and be very careful not to burn the bottoms.

6 – Scoop out a bit of the batter and form pancakes. Fry both sides until they are nice and browned. A few minutes on each side seems to work fine.

7 – Pile on a plate and eat!

While the basic recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook, I have embellished it with additional ingredients and instructions. Enjoy.

I’m finding that cooking without various ingredients is a liberating experience and not a reason to stress. The new rule is to taste often. And as The Stash begins to dwindle, I have to wonder on the importance of certain ingredients. More on that later…

Two weeks ago while visiting Noel and Danielle at Black River, I picked up a forty pound box of #2 cucumbers that were going to be composted. According to the North Carolina Cucumber Outline, the grades for cucumbers –

“ …are U.S. Fancy, U.S. Extra 1, U.S. 1, U.S. 1 Small, U.S. 1 Large, U.S. 2. Cucumbers are graded on their color, size, form, diameter and defects.”

US #2 are the least desirable because they are off color, have bends, nick, scratches, rough spots, etc. The cucumbers in the box looked fine to me – I’m not about to pass up free local food, #2 or not.

After making 14 quarts and 7 pints of dill pickles, I still had about 20 pounds left. I gave 10 pounds away, which left me with enough for another project. So yesterday I made some gazpacho.

Digging around in the fridge, I found most of the necessary ingredients for the cold soup. I took a can of tomatoes from the cases on top of the cupboards, a handful of cherry tomatoes from the co-op garden (5 miles), a big cucumber (45 miles), an on-its-way-out green pepper (45 miles), some scallions from Linda Kerr in Rocky Point, NC (19 miles), some elephant garlic from John and Belle Shisko in Holly Ridge, NC (34 miles), some basil from the yard, and some other seasonings from the bottomless seasoning cupboard.

Here is how to make a very simple summer gazpacho –

1 – Puree a can of tomatoes (or 6 fresh slicers) and 3 cloves of garlic together in a blender or other mixer.

2 – Add chopped bell pepper (any color and size that you have), a half cup of chopped scallions or any other onion, a chopped cucumber (remove the seeds if you want), 1/3 cup of basil, 1/4 oil (whatever you have – if you don’t have oil, skip it), 2 tsp salt and some pepper to taste.

3 – Use the “pulse” on the blender to reduce the chunks a bit.

4 – Empty into another container and refrigerate for a day to let the flavors blend.

5 – Serve cold with bread or crackers. Many people like this soup with cheese, so sprinkle some cheese if you have some. I used some Nature’s Way (29 miles) goat mozzarella with mine.