The Kitchen Table / The Things We Do for Love

Stated more precisely, "The Things We Do for Loved Ones."

• Get up early ✓
• Collect grilling implements, and other things; put in truck ✓
• Drive truck to workshop ✓
• Hook trailer up to truck ✓
• Load grill onto trailer ✓
• Drive truck-trailer-grill to Starkvegas

• Find destination

• Unload grill; find place to store truck-trailer that doesn't involve backing up
• Grill stuff
• Load hot grill onto trailer
• Return to Farm

 I think I'll have some pancakes for breakfast. ✓

A photo

Join us!

C'mon! Be The Pack.

Wait for it

patiently.

Three years ago today

Kat & Tony were married.

Mr. Big Food marked the occasion thusly:

Chicken Pot Pie

RIP: Noel Polk

via North Miss Commentor, Faulkner scholar Noel Polk has died. Polk's web page at Mississippi State is here.

The kids and Mr. Big Food were discussing Polk just this past weekend.

Recipe: Pickled Pepperoncini

Pepperoncinis are one of our favorite peppers. Should you decide you'd like to grow your own, be prepared for gazillions of peppers. The plants are prolific! I only have two this year and we have so many pepperoncinis...Mr. Big Food went looking for a recipe to make pickled pepperoncinis as you would find on an ante-pasta try. He found one on eHow!

I disagree with Morgan O'Conner (below), though. On the Scoville scale, which measures pepper "heat," pepperoncinis come in at 100-500. Bell peppers are 0; pimento, 100-500; Scotch Bonnet habaneros, 100,000 - 325,000; police grade pepper spray, 5,300,000. (From Chiliworld.com)

“Pepperoncini, part of the pepper family, can add some heat to your dishes. They are not as spicy as many other peppers, so they are a good choice for those who do not enjoy extremely spicy food. You can stuff them, add them to soups and sandwiches, incorporate them into soups and stews, and even eat them plain. Pepperoncini are most often pickled rather than used plain. Pickling your own pepperoncini is a relatively simple process that can help you enjoy these peppers for months to come.”—Morgan O’Connor, eHow contributor

Recipe: Pickled Jalapeno Peppers

Because you can never have enough!

PICKLED JALAPENO PEPPERS

1 lb jalapeno peppers

Boiling water (to blanch peppers)

1 small onion, chopped

1 Tbsp olive oil

½ Tbsp fresh garlic, chopped

Dash basil

Dash oregano

Dash thyme

Boiling brine solution: 1 pint 5% vinegar, 1 pint water, 2 Tbsp sugar, 5 Tbsp salt

Poke a small hole in each jalapeno, then blanch for 4 minutes in boiling water. (The holes keep the peppers from collapsing.) Drain and pack peppers into a hot pint canning jar. Before the peppers cool, add onion, garlic, basil, oregano, thyme, and olive oil to jar. Pour in boiling brine solution. (Ideally, you will have this mixture begin to boil as you begin to blanch your peppers.) Cap the jar tight and boil in a boiling water for 15 minutes. Allow to cool on racks, and refrigerate or store.

Recipe: Hot Pickled Okra

Thanks to this recipe and a couple of others, we are finally making our way through the hot pepper pods I grew and dried about five years ago!

This recipe is easily made smaller if you don't have six pounds of okra. It's so easy, you can do the math in your head!

HOT PICKLED OKRA

Makes 10 pints

6 lbs young okra, washed

1 ½ quarts white vinegar

1 ½ quarts water

½ C salt (canning or pickling preferred)

10-20 hot pepper pods

10 garlic cloves, halved

Boil white vinegar, water, and salt for 10 minutes. Pack okra into hot pint jars with 1 pepper pod and 1 clove garlic in each jar. Pour boiling liquid over okra, seal jars, and process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Monday Night

back to normal.

Chuck Berry

Yes. I know it is Tuesday. I'm just catching up.

 

Today,

Mr. Big Food and I worked together for about three hours making Christmas Presents pickles.
~~

Mr. Big Food is balancing the checkbook right now. As soon as he's reconciled things done doing Math in his Head-- I'll ask about the names of the Christmas Presents pickles.

Don't you think everyone should do math in his head? [Instapundit had a link to something about the gentrification of English. I didn't look... ] Wait...

He's off.

... 

There's almost all of it! He's only a dime off now.
~~

Recipe: Buttermilk yeast pancakes

This is the recipe for the pancakes I mentioned the other day. It keeps for up to two weeks! And it is good. 

Sorry, no photo as the pancakes kept getting eaten before I could get my camera. 

BUTTERMILK YEAST PANCAKES

4 C flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp baking soda

1 quart buttermilk

Mix together all ingredients and add the following:

1 tsp salt

¼ C oil

1 envelope yeast

6 eggs, beaten

Mix well, place mixture in a covered container, and store in refrigerator until ready to use. “Will keep for 2 weeks. Add milk to thin for crepes.”

Another Take on Giving

Since I posted about "How America Gives" earlier today, the World Wide Web has been awash in "analyses" and "commentary." One thing seems to me to be conspicuously missing. 

One of the limitations of the survey is its reliance of data from Schedule A, itemized deductions. I see this as unavoidable and, in all but the most uncommon circumstances, as not being especially consequential. Another limitation is the complete lack of knowledge of the recipients of charitable giving at every level (nationally, state, locale). Again, unavoidable given the nature of the data set, but that shouldn't stop us from putting on our thinking caps.

Most striking to the pundits, et al. is the relatively high proportion of discretionary income given to charity by folks making  $50,000 - 99,000 versus those in higher brackets. Religion vs. Godless greedy bastards? Conservationism vs. Liberal greedy bastards? Rural vs. Godless Liberal greedy City Mice? To be sure, there are many correlations to explore before anyone should start talking about causality.

Here's one-- one which my father often said-- I haven't seen mentioned: "There but for the Grace of God go I."

http://www.cherylteague.net/images/disasters.gif

Severe storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes account for nearly one-half of all disasters in the United States. Floods, a probable consequence of those storms, account for-- what would you say?-- 3/4 of 1/2? 

Big rain events create disaster.

And where do folks who give live? 

This should be interesting.

Oh look. A senator. Someone from the UN & Mozambique. And Korea!

Thank you Marica ______ , you have been successfully registered for the Technology Implementation at the Local Level: Food Security for the Future Conference. For additional information about the conference, please contact Benjy Mikel, director of the Mississippi State University International Institute, at ________. Also, be sure to check the agenda.

This is a generated email. Please do not respond to this email.

[my edits; I don't like publishing email addresses.]

This could turn out to be quite educational. Or it could be a lot of gibberish. We shall see. 

Giving

"It's purple on the map!"

The Chronicle of Philanthropy today released "How America Gives," its report on charitable giving in the United States. Fascinating stuff.

Although some of the content is behind a pay-wall, what's freely available online is more than enough to keep you busy. The report is searchable by state, county, zip code, city, income level and so on. 

For example, according to the report* residents of my little county donated $2,000,000 to charity in 2008 (most recent data available). That represented 8.8% of the median discretionary income of $39,505. This is significantly more than the national average of 4.7% of the much larger median national discretionary income of $54,783. 

As a state, Mississippi ranks only behind Utah in giving. But what would you expect from a bunch of fat lazy folk who aren't even smart enough to hold onto their own money?

Discretionary income ≥ $200,000, giving = 3.8%

*The methods section is also available online. It has a few caveats about the way the data were collected and analyzed. E.g., Data are from 2008 tax returns but only those returns with itemized deductions.

Recipe: Creative Cooking Hot Sweet and Sour Barbecue Sauce

This is one of my favorite barbecue sauces. Mr. Big Food used it on the grilled chicken that was accompanied by the zucchini lasagne. But don't forget! Don't start slathering on sauce as soon as you put the chicken on the grill. Start with a "mop" to keep the chicken moist. Then baste with the sauce during the last few minutes. Mr. Big Food like to use tea-- green tea-- with a dash of Tabasco and what have you on hand as his chicken mop.

Here's what the authors of Creative Cooking have to say about barbecue and sauce. (Recipe below the fold.)

Regardless of whether you roast meat on a spit over an open fire, grill it over charcoal or cook it in an oven, you can turn it into delicious barbecue by basting it with a special sauce. This sauce is made by combining onion, garlic, catsup and various seasonings and is named Basic Barbecue Sauce.

            All over this country, people barbecue for private get-togethers and special events, on holidays and other important occasions. The Spanish word “barbacoa,” from which our word barbecue probably comes, means “a framework of sticks on which meat is roasted.” It is a good guess that the first barbecue sauce was developed to enhance the flavor of meat roasted over such a structure. The sauce is almost as important to today’s hostess as the wooden spit was to early barbecue cooks.

            If you are planning a barbecue anytime soon, we know you want to make yours stand out. Because of this, we have included three distinctively delicious barbecue sauces. These recipes combine such ingredients as catsup, onions, vegetables and apples. They are guaranteed to turn meat or poultry into a real treat.

            The first recipe we’ve included is for Basic Barbecue Sauce, which teams especially well with beef or chicken [see recipe in this section]. The other two sauce, Hot Sweet and Sour Barbecue Sauce and Hot Apple Barbecue Sauce [see recipe in this section], are culinary delights in themselves. Try them both on pork and chicken, the two meats we think they best compliment. Whichever you try, we know your barbecue will be a smashing success.

“Use as a basting sauce for barbecuing pork and chicken.”—The Creative Cooking Course (1982)

Recipe: Zucchini Lasagne and Variation

No noodles!

We used some of the frozen baby round zucchini, and of course, the marinara sauce was made from fresh tomatoes, basil, oregano and so on.

Recipe below

Recipe: Cream Cheese Pound Cake and Variation

Not for the faint of heart which is probably why it's so good.

CREAM CHEESE POUND CAKE AND VARIATION

2 C chopped pecans

3 sticks butter, softened

8 oz package cream cheese, softened

3 C sugar

6 eggs

3 C flour

Dash salt

1 ½ tsp vanilla

Recipe: Beer Bread

Beer bread with dewberry jam

Simple. Delicious. Perfect for Sunday Morning's house guests.

BEER BREAD

Makes 3 small loaves or 1 large loaf

3 C self-rising flour (strictly fresh, for best results)

2 Tbsp sugar

12 oz beer

1/3 C butter, melted (2 Tbsp if cooking as a single large loaf)

Preheat oven to 350^o. Mix flour and sugar with wooden spoon, and blend in beer one-third at a time. Turn batter into three greased small (6x3 inch) loaf pans or a greased large (9x5 inch) loaf pan, drizzle butter (evenly) over top(s), and bake 50 minutes.

I Need Help

Okra

I don't like asking for help.

But I really can not reach the okra.

And there's okra up there.

So I asked Mr. Big Food if he would help, and he agreed.
~~
Okra is easy to grow. 

For those who follow along,

here are a few photos of this weekend that were taken on my crappy camera, not my good one.

And I was wrong. We didn't have pancakes this morning. 

We had Beer Bread with dewberry jam, and scrambled eggs with pepperoncini peppers. 

We've said this before (see the YouTube video; warning! Vulgar language), but we'll say it again, "For Arthur!" "It's a wabbit."

Sure is quiet

around here now that the Farm Kids have left the Farm to resume their City Mice lives. 

Mr Big Food just said, "Almost too quiet." And then he chucked. 

They'll be back.

Self

reliance.

Remarkable / Or is is?

Not counting looking at the radar on U's phone earlier (before it started raining) I hadn't looked at the world wide from mid-day yesterday to just now.

A cursory look reveals that nothing much has changed-- not even the weather!

Keep it up, world! I'm enjoying a weekend with family & friends.  

~~

I will post the pancake recipe soon. It's a buttermilk and yeast batter that can stay in the fridge for two weeks. Mr. Big Food made it last evening before he started frying. It came in handy this morning, as it will tomorrow.

The Kids on The Farm

are so Funny!

A gift from

A. Leland

Cigar?

No. Only cigarettes.

Fried catfish and (not pictured) spicy frozen cucumbers (see recipes page) and onion rings.

Derek's Cherry Pie

Tonight's dessert?

Mr. Big Food's Homemade Rum Coconut Ice Cream

Mr. Big Food and I retired before the Kids. We awoke-- before the Kids-- to find two books on the picnic table: Paul Churchland's Scientific Realism and Plasticity of Mind which Daughter C had brought out, and The City Mouse and The Country Mouse, which Mike-- or maybe A. Leland-- had brought out.

Funny stuff.

Are you ready

for some football? Folks around here sure are!

This week's newspaper included the Three County Football Guide 2012.

It took us a while to learn how to spell 'Oktibbeha.'

Sixteen colorful pages of analyses, schedules, introductions, and advertisements. 16!

Page 16 really cracked us up.

Got a text from Daughter C (UPDATED)

[UPDATED because I pushed the publish button out of habit before I finished my thoughts.]

which read:

Hey so we're coming out tmw night. I'm bringing my friend... . so play nice.

To which I responded,

Ok

Check email.

Am I better off than I was four years ago? Hell yeah.

It's a Law #15

Law of Logical Argument: Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.

So true. Just ask A. Leland. 

~~

Tip of the hat to Mr. Big Food's Dad who passed along some laws for the real world.

"The Wolf and The Dog."

A little story from pages 120-121 of the crappy old book, The World's Best Poetry, Volume Eight, National Spirit (1904, John D. Morris and Company, Philadelphia). Original formatting not preserved as I do have a life and chores to do.

A prowling wolf, whose shaggy skin
(so strict the watch of dogs had been)
hid little but his bones,
once met a mastiff dog astray.
A prouder, fatter sleeker Tray
no human mortal owns.
Sir Wolf, in famished plight,
would fain have made a ration
upon his fat relation:
but then he first must fight;
and well the dog seemed able
to save from wolfish table
his carcass snug and tight.

So then in civil conversation
the wolf expressed his admiration
of Tray's fine case. Said Tray politely,

Oh, the things he says!

"Hell, I'd become Continental for that" said A. Leland, where "that" is a pay raise of twenty thousand dollars.

~~

If anyone reading this is a fb friend of Master Aaron, you may want to pass that sentiment along.

How great is it

to start your day this happy?

I'm talking about me, not the dogs (although they are happy to have had a run before 8am). A. Leland took Mr. Big Food to the car pool drop off so I didn't have to. Big Life.

It's a Law.

From Mr. Big Food's Dad, Real Law #11:

Law of the Theater & Sporting Events: At any event, the people whose seats are furthest from the aisle, always arrive last. They are the ones who will leave their seats several times to go for food, beer, or the toilet and who leave early before the end of the performance or the game is over. The folks in the aisle seats come early, never move once, have long gangly legs or big bellies and stay to the bitter end of the performance. The aisle people also are very surly folk.

The Presidents of The United States of America

In light of the fact my library contains multiple copies of the Declaration of Independence-- and of the Constitution-- I was a bit surprised to realize that I only own three crappy old books devoted solely to the men who have served as President of the United States. And truth be told, these crappy old books aren't really all that old. But they are instructive. To wit:

All types of boys-- rich boys, poor boys, orphans, city kids, farm lads-- became in later years the nation's Number One citizen. ...

Hard work, hard thinking, hard praying-- these qualities made a free country. And faith in human decency and dignity-- this quality, above all others, was essential to the government of a country that existed because, as the Declaration of Independence stated, "we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Wise old Thomas Jefferson had a pretty shrewd insight into the American character. "When a man assumes a public trust," Jefferson said, "he should consider himself as public property." Happily the Presidents of the United States have agreed. Error of judgement they have made in office, but never an error of spirit. Not all have done well-- a few have seemed exceptional, a few sad failures-- but all have been men of good will, brave hearts, and devotion to our form of government as "the last, best hope of earth."

And all, without exception, have been heroes in that thrilling tale we call American history. ...

America and Its Presidents. Earl Schenck Miers. 1959. Gosset & Dunlap Publishers. New York.

~~
A bit more below.

Country Supper

Extricated from Happiness

or some such gibberish. I am but a lowly country bumpkin vegetable farmer who loves her some guns and even I know this don't make no sense. Melissa Harris-Perry:

I’m deeply irritated by their notion that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ means money for the richest and that we extricate the capacity of ordinary people to pursue happiness.

Extricate the capacity?

extricate: to free or release from entanglement; disengage

We disengage the capacity of ordinary people... .

It's the Law.

Mr. Big Food's Dad has passed along some Real Laws about the way the world really works. Here's #1.

Law of Mechanical Repair: After your hands become coated with grease, your nose will begin to itch and you'll have to pee.

Stuffed Cucumbers. No. Really.

Sorry about the shadows

I am not having a good cucumber year. That said, there are still the inevitable "How in the world did I miss that?" cucumbers. They are too large for even dill pickles, and definitely too large for a salad-- about the size of tasteless cucumbers in the store. Not long ago, Mr. Big Food came across a couple of recipes for stuffed cucumbers which called for just these cukes! 

I had my doubts, but they are surprisingly good! Recipe shortly.

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!

[May Gomer Pyle stay in your head all day!]

Welcome back to the Farm, Rudy!

A few chosen folks-- in addition to family members-- have a standing invitation to visit the Farm. A standing invitation means these chosen few do not need to give us any advanced warning notice that they are coming. Prior to 4pm yesterday, Sam had been the only one who'd come close to exercising his standing invitation-- but in the end he'd called when he was three hours away. 

Leave it to A. Leland to be the first! 

By the way, A. Leland lives in Chicago and is rapidly becoming a full-fledged Libertarian. Cause & effect.

[This post is intended to explain the lack of posting.]

"Get that

camera out of my face and go finish your housework. Sheeeze. It's nap time for crying out loud,"

said Rocky, the short-haired dog.

Note to self on house-cleaning day

Dear Self,

Hope and pray that Missy lives to a ripe old age. But remember to never ever get a long-haired dog ever again. 

Have a nice day,

Myself

Missy, the long-haired dog

Mexican Night

:-)

Lime butter grilled tortillas

Beef kabobs with fresh Marconi peppers and 'Ranch Style Beans'

Simple. Quick. Delicious.

Neon Dogs

Rocky (L) & Missy (R) in the kitchen last evening.

[Original photo enhanced in GIMP.]

Note the crappy old iron on top of the waste basket in the center of the photo.

I'm no artist, but I think it's lovely.

Some weeks ago, I splurged on new waste baskets for the kitchen because as Missy grew taller and taller and taller, her ability to reach deeper and deeper and deeper into the lid-less waste baskets improved considerably. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know I should just teach her to not do that. But dude, this is real life and the Dog Whisper ain't coming out to the Farm any time soon and Daughter C-- the disciplinarian-- no longer lives here. So I decided that as Rocky and Missy are dogs, I'd re-fit the kitchen with waste baskets with dog-proof lids.