Marinated Vegetable Salad

Looking for a cool vegetable salad recipe that can make a bunch or just enough and keep for a while in the refrigerator?  This is it:  marinated vegetable salad.  I've made a gallon  for a wedding reception over in Gulf Shores, Alabama this weekend.  I'd provided the food for the bride's uncle's wedding several years ago.  In a little community like Leakesville, you grow up knowing everybody.  The father of the bride and his little brother were both in Mama's kindergarten;  their mother is a class mate of Brother #1, their uncle a class mate of Brother #3.  I'd line out all the other connections but it'd get confusing after a while.  You might be tempted to make a Southern joke.  The South doesn't need one more joke...

There's no specific recipe to this recipe.  I'll show you what all is in this salad, but use what you and your family likes.  It's quick to put together.  So quick I forgot to show you all the veggies draining in the colander.

Here are the ingredients for the vinaigrette:

Apple cider vinegar
White vinegar
Grapeseed oil
Vegetable oil
Celery seed
Dill weed
Garlic powder
Granulated sugar

There's a ratio for a sweet and sour vinaigrette:  equal amounts of sugar and vinegar and half as much oil as vinegar.  And whatever herbs and spices your taste buds are set on.  I like the bite of apple cider vinegar but there is such a thing as too much of it, so I use half white vinegar also.  I've also been enjoying lightening up olive oil recipes with grapeseed oil but it's kind of pricey and is used sparingly.  Celery seed and dill weed are always good in a salad but if you don't like them, don't use them, it's just that easy.

Put all the ingredients into a microwave safe bowl or measuring cup and microwave for three or four minutes.  Stir and microwave again another couple of minutes.  All you're doing is making sure the sugar is melted and incorporated.

I know.  This is where I stand to ladle jelly into jars.

You can see splatters of jelly all over the front of 

the microwave.  I should probably clean that

tomorrow.

In the meantime, open all your vegetables and put in a colander to drain.  Asparagus is delicious in this, but I didn't add it.  It's one of those acquired tastes that not everybody likes.  Water chestnuts give a nice crunch, even if they aren't real flavorful.  They're cut into thin strips to keep from having a mouthful of sort of tasteless crunchiness.

That's a sweet onion.  I'd forgotten green onions

so used what was on hand.  

MMMMmmmmm.  Wickles:  wickedly delicious pickles.

Or in this case wicked pepper strips.  They're a little

hot and a lot sweet.  More and more often they're 

getting added to salads right along with

homemade sweet pickles.

When the vinaigrette is finished and onions (to taste) are diced, all the well drained vegetables are placed in  a large container.  Add the vinaigrette.

Tadadaaaaa!  That's all there is to it!

Let it sit a couple of hours for the flavors to marry.

It's much better the next day and even MORE 

better several days later (please don't call

the Grammar Police).

After I'd put the salad all together I thought about transporting it Saturday and the amount of room the gallon jug would take up in the cooler and having to leave the precious jug with the clients and depend upon them to get it back to me.  The better thought was to put the salad  into a large ziplock bag in a baking dish.  Ziplock bags conform themselves around other things in coolers.  I won't feel sad about leaving a bag behind...

Y'all enjoy!

Blueberry Fig Jam

There's an abundance of figs in the Deep South of (almost) Coastal Mississippi this year.  Everybody that has a good-sized tree has shared and shared some more with Mama and me.  She makes fig preserves with most of hers, saving enough for a batch of strawberry figs.  I'm not particularly fond of fig preserves, having eaten enough for a lifetime before Hurricane Frederick came along and took out our tree that was large enough for an adult to climb in.

There's also been a profusion of blueberries the entire spring stretching into full-blown summer.  Hopefully the last picking of the rabbit's eye berries will be completed tomorrow just in time to start picking the older cultivar of smaller blacker blueberries with less seed and more flavor (a lemon blueberry jelly recipe is also slowly evolving, since there's no shortage of the small yummylicious berries).

Finding a recipe to combine the two tasty fruits into one jam occupied several hours on Google Wednesday evening.  No single recipe tingled the taste buds with imaginative delight though, so several were combined and refined to develop one.  I even left out a few ingredients like gingered honey at the last minute 'cause the resultant jam was already deliciously flavored and needed nothing more.

Easy to assemble with non-foreign ingredients i.e. ones not found at WalMart or Piggly Wiggly, relatively quick cooking, and the tastiest thing in a jelly jar since the vanilla bean pear jelly, here's a delightful recipe for

Blueberry Fig Jam

8 cups ripe figs, stemmed
3 cups blueberries, smashed a little
5 cups granulated sugar
1 box SureJel (optional)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Zest from one lemon

Place all ingredients in a non-reactive pan and let sit for several hours.  The process of drawing juice can be sped up somewhat if everything is gently stirred enough for the sugar to reach to the bottom.  Mama puts her figs in sugar late at night, letting them draw juice until the morning when she starts cooking them.  If the figs and blueberries are ripe, though, they'll get watery pretty quick.

Cook on low to medium heat, stirring often to prevent scorching (ewwwww - nasty) until figs have cooked clear and jam has reduced to desired consistency.

Ladle into sterile jars and seal.  Lots of folks water bath their jams and jellies.  Mama and I never have but that's just us.  The USDA recommends it to be safe.

Makes 5 1/2 pints.

The SureJel absolutely is optional.  Blueberries have a high amount of natural pectin so it's not  necessary.  I like to use it for the extra bit of jelling assurance, though.

Y'all enjoy!  It's yyyyyummy and just one more way to have figs (and blueberries) preserved in the pantry!