Showing posts with label salt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salt. Show all posts

Monday, July 23, 2012

Green (unripe and already picked) Peach Relish

There's no tutorial tonight, folks.  The concept for the recipe was thought over, a call made to X's mom to get the base recipe, the ingredients processed, and the relish cooked all within an hour.  The camera wasn't in the kitchen until after it was over.

Waiting for purchased peaches to ripen has never been
a virtue.  I made something of them tonight.


I bought a half-bushel box of Chilton County (Alabama) peaches yesterday, worked on getting them sorted and peeled, sliced, and into various solutions of sugar and spices and **snicker** other things nices.  There were two dozen really unripe peaches, initially intended for a couple of pints of pickled peaches for Brother #3 (he loves them) but the recipe couldn't be found and Google was not forthcoming with any facsimile.
MMMmmmmmmmm...

I looked for a peach salsa recipe to can and couldn't find one suitable.  I thought about processing the unripend fruit into peach slices but that'd be boring and waste of a great opportunity to make something very different than what's normally done with peaches around here.

I started thinking about relishes.  Peach relishes.  Green peach relishes.  Again, nothing could be found. You'd think a gozillion hits would yield at least one recipe, wouldn't you?  It didn't.  The gray matter was settled on a relish so it further spun to remember favorite relishes.  And then it remembered Aunt Judy's ripe tomato relish recipe.  Easy.  Ingredients already on hand.  I made it with two dozen unripe peaches.  It's phenomenally different while being incredibly familiar.  It's a relish suitable for field peas, butter beans, cornbread, and turnip greens.  If you find yourself with an abundance of the not-quite-ripe fruit of the Prunus persica, please oh please do yourself a favor and make this quick relish.

Two dozen medium peaches, not quite ripe, finely chopped (CuisinArt does this wonderfully)
1 very large purple or other sweet onion, finely sliced
1 large bell pepper, finely minced
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive pot over medium heat until mixture comes to a boil, stirring to prevent sticking.  Turn heat down to low, stirring occasionally, until desired thickness is reached.

On the big stove it took thirty minutes from start to finish.

Can immediately.

I actually water bathed it for another thirty minutes, unusual behavior for me, but when in doubt, it's best to proceed with precaution.

This was the yield:  three pints and three half-cups or three and a half plus
a half cup pints?  Or maybe a half-cup shy of two quarts?  
I confuse myself. This is the entire yield.  I've quadrupled
the tomato relish recipe with no adverse affects so
there's no reason to think this green peach relish can't
be quadrupled.

Y'all enjoy!



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Mrs. Mary's Spicy Chocolate Buttermilk Pie

Having a 'fan' page on Facebook for an ongoing commentary on a slice of life in the Deep South has been an incredible blessing.  Folks (much preferred description than fans) come by to say "Hi" and mostly stick around.  A handful leave, the slice of life not always palatable.  It's okay.  I've left a few pages behind, myself.  The people at FB?  They're not fans:  they're friends.  They comment, share links, like photos of cakes, love Mama (a biggie in my book).  We're there for each other like long-lost kissing cousins.

They've become real friends too:  call-up-on-the-phone-and-talk-'til-the-battery-dies friends.  Mrs. Mary is one of those friends.  Weeks and weeks ago we were chatting on FB about favorite pies and the developing trend of fine chocolates with a heat source in them and she piped up with a comment about a chocolate buttermilk pie with a little pop to it;  then she came up with a recipe!

Despite having adhered to a very strict diet for going on four months,
this piece of pie broke extreme will-power as if it
had never existed.  I ate it.  And licked the plate.

It's a little different from the buttermilk pie usually made here.  This recipe has no flour but twice as many eggs.  It does have a smooth but coarse-custard texture (probably from the cocoa powder?) and is ever so bewitching that I'm having a difficult time not evening up the edges on it (a sure way to consume half of it at one sitting).  And the cayenne in it??? ohhhh wowzers.  It's not hot.  It's a warmth that develops on the tongue after the first few bites that makes the chocolate a deep richness that's indescribable.  Really!

Those are the ingredients in the photo but just in case they won't load for you here's a list:
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, melted
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 eggs, beaten until lemony-yellow light
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (I know - the dry erase board has tablespoon)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
TWO unbaked deep dish pie shells 

Melt chocolate chips in microwave, set aside (oops - use your imagination to see chocolate chips in the microwave please).

Combine all dry ingredients and stir thoroughly.  
See the vanilla in the medicine dispenser?  They're awesome
for being able to measure flavors in to prevent fumbling with
spoons at the last moment.

And don't forget the cocoa powder to stir in too!  Take extra care to make sure all lumps from the cocoa powder have been broken up and all the dry ingredients are well-mixed.
Most everybody knows dark chocolate is favored here at Mayree's.
This is Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa powder.
Use what you and your family loves.

Beat eggs until a light lemon-ish color and almost foamy.
Any time the hand mixer is out and being used, the mixing gets done
with the bowl down in the sink.  A bunch of wiping from splatters on
the kitchen walls and cabinets is saved by doing this.

Very slowly add dry ingredients until all are well-incorporated.
I ran out of hands to take a photo of the slow process.

It's smelling fine already!
Mix in the melted chocolate chips.

The intense flavor from the dark chocolate chips is called for in this recipe 
but if you really only like milk chocolate or
**shudder** white chocolate, by all means, go for it.

Add the buttermilk

And the vanilla, giving it one last mixing.

Pour into two unbaked deep dish pie shells.
Don't give me a hard time about not making my own crusts:
I don't have to do everything.

Bake at 350 Fahrenheit for approximately 40 minutes (my oven is a little cool so it may take less time) until the centers are set.  A knife will come out clean when they're done.
 These crusts are full.  Do yourself a favor and put them in
another pan to bake them in.  They didn't bake over,
but the possibility is definitely there.

I couldn't wait until they cooled until even warm.  I ate it hot!
 This piece of pie contains more refined sugars in one slice
than I've put in my body since the Fambly Reunion the
first weekend in June.  And it was worth ever
gram of it!

There you have it!

The top has a playful crunchy crust on it that belies the custard-y and densely-chocolate-y richness beneath.  There's the barely tale tell flavor of the traditional buttermilk pie but it's secondary to the chocolate.  And the cayenne and cinnamon?  I used Penzey's Ceylon Cinnamon but wish I had used their Vietnamese cinnamon to give a stronger presence.  The cayenne is just the right amount.  This small amount isn't hot at all, truly enriching the dark chocolate and leaving a warmth on the tongue that's absolutely exquisite.

This isn't a difficult pie to put together at and the recipe makes TWO (a bonus in my book).  Make your family one this evening.  Better yet, make yourself one this evening.   You'll be glad you did.

Y'all enjoy!
Mary











Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Sweet Pickle Sticks: Remembering Mr. Joe and Mrs. Ila Maude

Mr. Joe and Mrs. Ila Maude Carpenter lived up on the little hill above Aunt Selma and Uncle Sherman.  They were an ancient couple to a child, living well into their 80's (Mrs. Ila Maude lived into her 90's).   They were, reaching back through a youngster's memory, the little old couple that loved friends and family, loved to garden, and loved each other.  There was never a cross word uttered, each waiting on the other's needs with the sweetness of genuine affection that defies time.  They were slim, both wrinkled with care and age;  both stooped with years of work;  fixtures of the community as kind as the day is long, living long years in the little white house on the hill.

They used to buy whole milk and yard eggs from Mama.  Mama had her pet milk cow, Bossie, a black Angus of all breeds, that'd give two to three gallons of cream-rich sweet milk a day - more than enough for the bunch of us to eat everything with an abundance of real butter and clotted cream.   And yep - it's another story for another day.

Annnnyways...  More often than not, Mr. Joe'd come in the back door with a jar of something or another he and Mrs. Ila Maude had made:  strawberry figs, pickled okra, pickled banana peppers, or these sweet pickle sticks.

Tart, tangy, and sweet, loaded with flavor from the turmeric, mustard seed, and celery seed, I used to love them.  Lately I've had a hankering from them.  With a gift of over five gallons of cucumbers too large for pickles,  I decided to make them for the first time in roughly twenty-five years.  I had Mama dig out the Carpenter's recipe, not trusting memory enough to look for a similar one online.
This is roughly half of the cucumbers.  See how big they are?  
They're too large for 14 day sweet pickles and I didn't want
to make relish or mock spiced apple rings.
It's a good recipe to use those cucumbers that stayed on the vine three or four days beyond when they needed to be picked.

The pickles take two days to make and need to set (sit?) a week before opening and enjoying.  Y'all ready?

Wash, peel, deseed, and slice cucumbers into half inch strips.  I sliced a few of them thinner and wished I hadn't.  They were limp after the first night.

Don't forget to save the waste for the compost pile or your mama's chickens.  Or your chickens.
They'll cluck in delight you've afforded them this kindness.

Boil enough water to cover cucumber strips by an inch.
I didn't want to crank up the stove twice so I made sure there was
plenty of boiling water to cover them the first time.

Cover with boiling water, weighing cucumbers down, and let sit (set?) overnight or at least 8 to 10 hours.

Heavy porcelain on steel pot lids work great for pressing the
cucumbers under the boiling water and keeping them there.

I let mine set (sit?) overnight.  And most of the day, too, since Favorite Child is coming back in and a certain residence at Pine Level required cleaning.  Pour off water and let strips thoroughly drain.
**giggle** I almost forgot to get the pic, not that y'all need it to know
how to drain something.

Pack strips into clean, sterile jars.  Since these aren't going into the pressure canner I've used glass mayo jars.

Mama doesn't remember adding the turmeric directly into the jar.  I didn't tell her her memory was faulty, finding more and more hiatuses in my own lately than is comfortable.  I added a heaping teaspoon of turmeric to each quart jar - use 1/2 heaped teaspoon for a pint jar.
See?  I told you they were mayo jars.

In a non-reactive pot combine vinegar, sugar, salt, celery seed and mustard seed.  Bring to rolling boil, turn down a bit, and let cook for five minutes.

Pour over packed cucumber sticks, wipe rims, and seal jars.
See those socks in the corner of the pic?  I've repurposed stretched
hole-y socks into something beyond rags.  I'll show you!
Tadadaaaa!  The canner rack has been gone way long
time ago.  Old socks work GREAT for keeping the jars safe.
Water bath for thirty minutes.
Really.  I think the socks work better 'cause the jars are actually
cushioned and not bumping against the wire rack.

Tadadaaaaa!  Let them sit (set?) a week, open a jar and enjoy the complex flavor that these pickles are.

Sweet Pickle Strips Recipe (exactly as Mr. Joe wrote down for Mama)
Ten pounds cucumbers, peeled, deseeded, and cut into strips

Pour boiling water over and let stand overnight or 8 to 10 hours.

Pour off and drain.

Pack solid in jars.

In a porcelain pot, combine and boil for five minutes
3 1/4 cup vinegar
3 cups sugar
3 tablespoons salt
4 1/2 teaspoons turmeric
4 1/2 teaspoons celery seeds
4 1/2 teaspoons mustard seeds.

Pour over cucumbers in jars and seal.
Makes six pints
--------------
Since I had a lot more cucumbers than that I tripled everything but it's not rocket science by any means.  Double or triple as needed.   Y'all enjoy and have a Happy Fourth of July!

<3 Mary



Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Dave's Dad's Dry Rub Mix: the ONE recipe I can't give you

Many years ago the Happy Family lived in Grenada, Mississippi.   The service repairman that worked with the Fellow's dad used this dry rub mix on everything he grilled.  His own dad had come up with the spice mix years before.   A Memphis-style dry rub, it's good on just about every kind of meat you can bake, fry, smoke, or put on a grill.  It took much pleading and begging to get the recipe from the repairman all those 21 years ago.  I promised to never give it out because they wanted to market it,  it's just that excellent of a dry rub.

The recipe is so good, though, there's been lots of bantering in the gray matter as to where 21 years is long enough of a time for those good folks to get it on the store shelves or not and I can share a much requested recipe.  Well.  I decided I couldn't give out the ingredients or their proportions but I can certainly show you so if you want to come up with a fascimile in your kitchen, you can - just in time for grilling/smoking season.

Here are all the ingredients.  Pay attention to the order they're in and how many of each.
The bitty one is ground mustard.

Y'all wrote those down, right??  Okay.  Here's how much of each one (in order):
I don't use nearly as much salt as the recipe calls for,
preferring to salt the meat before marinating with the rub.
These are standard pint jars.

And here are the smaller amounts of spices:
The black pepper and garlic powder are reversed (oops).
And these are standard half-pint jars.

Pour them all in a recycled gallon mayo jug and shake vigorously, mixing all very well.  Not really.  Mix however you like!  This way is easy and almost no mess.  Chili powder somehow manages to jump to the counter when I try using a bowl and whisk/spoon/hand.  The jug keeps it contained.
The catsup on the counter is for next week's post:
Mama's Sweet Southern Barbecue Sauce!

Tadadaaaaa!  Put in a tight fitting jar (the large one is ours) and share with your neighbor.  It'll keep almost indefinitely and won't lump, as long as the lid is tight.  

The amounts shown were for a double batch of rub.  It makes approximately six cups of dry rub.  Most of the spices were purchased at the Dollar General Store and weren't expensive.  The only thing here that brand matters on is the seasoning salt.  The inexpensive stuff has too much salt - not enough flavor.

The pork ribs for the family reunion will be taken out of the freezer next Monday, rubbed with this Wednesday, and smoked Friday afternoon.  They're a Southern delight, served with Mama's barbecue sauce on the side.

Try it.  Customize it any way you like.  Want a sweeter rub?  Brown sugar is excellent.  Like a bit of heat?  Add a couple of tablespoons of cayenne.  Don't care for heat at all?  Take out the pepper and mustard - no problem.

So there.  A promise has been kept:  the recipe hasn't been given out.  Y'all enjoy!