What to do with all those collards?

We love vegetables in our household.  So much that we not only have our own mildly successful small garden but we also participate in a CSA.  Check out Pinckney's Produce if you are in South Carolina.  They are great.  We love vegetables and we get a medium share, which was plenty for us to share with our dear friend Ali (the blog inspirer).  But Ali moved to the big city, so we have continued to get the same size share and put up (freeze and this year, can) vegetables that we know we will not get around to eating before they go bad.

So being in South Carolina, early spring and fall CSA shares have collards, you just can't get away from it.  And collards are great, but what do you do with them?  Sure, everyone is calling them the new Kale, but really...

Well, for starters, you can make, well, collards: whether you saute them with fat back and vinegar or stew them with ham hocks or turkey necks, or if you get fancy and make a shredded collard green salad with a sweet dressing and mandarin oranges, it doesn't matter.  But, honestly, there's aren't a million ways to make them.  It's kind of like lettuce, you're gonna probably eat a salad if you have them.

So, we don't particularly like them sauteed and stewed collards are great, but don't really keep well frozen or refrigerated.  So what do you do with all these collards you get?

Here's the answer:  You make white bean, tomato and collard soup.  It's so bleepin' easy and so tasty and so customizable, it's ridiculous.

I got this recipe from converting my mother's in laws recipe for "beans and greens" which mainly used canned everything.  This makes the beans and greens a little fresher and a soup, a great soup that freezes amazingly well.

Here's what you do:

Before anything else, soak your dried white beans over night.


Fry  chopped lardon/fat back/bacon/or brown a hamhock in some oil in a big dutch oven.  If you want to make this vegetarian, feel free, but make sure you have REALLY GOOD vegetable stock, and maybe add some good seasoning, whether generous salt and pepper or your favorite spices.



After the oil starts to  render out of the fat, or the hock starts to brown a little, add some garlic, you can smash it and throw it in or mince.  I'm usually lazy and just smash it.  Now is when you add white beans.  I usually soak dried white beans over night, drain, rinse and add them to the pot.  Then I add collard greens, you can use fresh that have been washed and dried or frozen.


Now you can add water if you are using a ham hock or, for more depth of flavor, chicken or vegetable stock.  Make sure you have enough to cover the beans and collards and make a nice soup consistency. Keep in mind some of the beans will soak up some of the liquid and it will evaporate, too.

Then throw in a can of tomatoes or your own crushed tomatoes.  You can do diced, crushed, whatever you want.  After you do that, add a nice helping of salt, pepper and any other seasoning.  I usually throw in some crushed red pepper or even some hot sauce.

Next, you put the lid on it and let it simmer for a few hours.  Y'all, I'm not kidding, serve this with some saltines and it's all you need.  Feelin' fancy?  Serve with homemade skillet cornbread!  It's my go-to for getting rid of collards.  Even people who don't really like collard greens will like this soup!  Sometimes when it's hot outside and I don't want soup, I'll just make this anyway and put it in the freezer for quick lunch/dinner sometime in the next few days, weeks or even months.

Canning: First Time for Everything!

So, last year for Christmas my husband bought me all this canning stuff:  canning supplies, canning cook books, etc.  Part of this was to help fulfill our desire to be able to not only grow our own food but to be able to keep it as well.  I've never canned before because well, the freezer is just so darn easy.  I've made freezer jam, I've blanched, sealed and vacuumed sealed all kinds of veggies.  Whenever I make pasta sauce, I usually eat it all within a week or two before it gets funky, so there was never really a need.

But last year, with our own semi-successful garden and our CSA, I realized that we had more vegetables than we could physically eat before they went bad.  It also didn't help that I would often then go supplement our vegetable horde with a flat of Strawberries or a couple Cantaloupe or several pints of blue and blackberries.

I'm not a shopper and usually get by with what I have but my two weaknesses in this world are shoes and fruit.

Anyway, I realized that 1) our freezer isn't’t big enough to freeze all of this stuff, 2) we do not have space for a deep freezer, and 3) that if I didn't do something quick, a lot of the goodness from our farmer friends and the edibles the good Lord provided to us in our back yard were surely and soon to be wasted.

I thought I would get into canning this summer, but I didn't really have a canning pot.  I mean, I have big pots, but not TALL pots.  So finally this winter I got a for-real canner from my mom for Christmas and I finally broke down and read a few of my canning books.

I have the Classic Ball book.  Which is great and simple and very straightforward—but it also assumes you already know how to can.  So I studied the book posted below:  

Even though I think some of her recipes are  “foody” (she even admits in her introduction that these recipes are to HER taste), and even though I know that “foody” is just my way of saying—ok, weird, I would never eat that or put that together, Krissoff's introduction to canning is probably the best thing I have found about why we can, and then why once we decide to do it, why do we have to do it a particular way.  Why is acidity so important and why is a vacuum seal paramount?  I won't go into all this here, but Krisoff really explains it in a basic way that makes you go "ooohhhhhh" without having to be a food scientist to understand.

So, I decided to get over my fear of canning and go for it.  It was actually kind of easy, but I learned some critical things along the way. 

I make tomato sauce very very often. We eat a lot of pasta and homemade pizzas in our family, so I figured this was a natural step.  You’d think tomatoes are really acidic, so you wouldn't have to worry with the amount when you can.  Well, tomatoes are acidic, but depending on the type of tomato the acid can really differ.  So most tomato sauce canning recipes call to add citric acid to be safe and sure.

Most tomato sauce recipes use fresh tomatoes.  I was using already canned whole tomatoes-and as you can see here—they already have citric acid in them.

Don’t ask about the calcium chloride…the cans for $3 for 5 cans.

Prepping for canning is paramount.  As I discovered, it’s very important to have your empty sterilized mason jars as close as possible to the food you are putting in them, because I tell you, I dripped tomato sauce all over my kitchen.  Also, when they say, “Fill up your canning pot…” they don't mean to really fill it up.  Fill it like, half way---if that.  If you fill it up all the way like this dummy, you will have boiling water explode all over your kitchen and flood your counter tops.  Also, you don’t have to have your water boiling when you put your filled cans in there  I'm sure this point helped my explosion.  Sterilize your cans in very warm simmering water, remove them, fill them, put a lid on them and a ring and then put them back in the simmering water—THEN bring to a boil.  This also will help in case you did put too much water, you can ladle out before you have water fireworks.  I was so concerned with having at least an inch of water over my cans to seal them that I didn't realize the mistake I was making i.e. the incoming hot water storm.  Luckily no one was hurt, just my cat was terrified and hid under the bed all day.  So word for the wise and for the future, put less water than you think.  You can always add more to get that 1 inch over your cans and bring up to a boil. 

But I was successful and have sealed cans!!

Here’s my recipe for tomato sauce:

Make yourself a friend in a food processor and chopp your onions and garlic together the easy way.  I used a couple cloves of garlic and one medium sized white or yellow onion.

Put that  in your pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper over medium heat.  Usually I add fresh basil at some point in the process, but since it’s January I popped in one of my olive oil/herb mix cubes I made in the early fall by freezing olive oil and herbs in ice cube trays.

Since I found a deal on whole peeled tomatoes, I also “crushed” them by processing them in the food processor.  You can use canned crushed tomatoes or whatever else you like, or you can use fresh and peel, seed and crush them yourselves---just make sure if you are going to can them you look up a receipe for how much citric acid you need to use.

Once the onions and garlic are translucent and golden, pour in all your tomatoes and stir. At this point I usually add some dried Italian seasoning or my fresh basil if it’s summer time.  You can let this cook for as little as 30 minutes or as long as you want, just monitor your heat and stir often.  The longer you cook the more rich and intense the flavor is—it also will reduce down quite a bit and get thicker as the water evaporates.  I usually adjust my heat to a simmer, stir every 10 minutes or so and at about 30 minutes begin tasting.  I keep tasting until it tastes so good I could just sit there and eat the whole thing as a soup.  Then it’s ready!

Here are some more canning pictures:

Sterilizing Cans.

Fililng Cans.

Tightening Rings on Cans.

Processing.  Notice the water everywhere!

Finished!

A note:  We've since tried the sauce after a few weeks in storage and we are still alive.  Hooray!

What i'm Reading: My Backyard Jungle

For my birthday this year, a friend gave me the book "My Backyard Jungle" by James Barilla.  My husband and I bought a home about a year ago with a large backyard.  We are in the process of making it a bird paradise, a garden and making it ours.  This book and the description seem to be about this very thing, making your backyard co-habitable with wildlife.  However, this book was not at all what I expected.  And probably not what my friend expected when she bought this for me.  You can see more about our adventure in taming a yard for ourselves and the birds (but not the squirrels) here.  To be honest, I was disappointed with the way this book was marketed.  I  really was looking forward to a book that was going to give me tips and side notes and a to do and don't list for my own little "jungle".  The fact that Barilla currently resides in my current city was perfect, we'd have the same wildlife to work with!

However, the disappointment comes because this book doesn't  even go into specifics of turning your backyard into a jungle.  Besides a funny tale about his battle with squirrels and rats, there's really nothing that connects his story with my wishes for our backyard.    I was expecting something like Barbara Kingslover's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"--a diary of this man and his family's adventures turning the backyard into a wildlife area.  I was hoping to be inspired!!

Instead you get Barilla's adventures discovering how the urban and the wild collide, how the domestic and untame intersect, and how we as people are connected and disconnected from the animal kingdom.  He explores how humanity simultaneously longs for closeness to our animal friends but also fearfully disrupts the natural order of things in our quest be near (or far) from nature.

So during the second chapter when this guy goes on an adventure to Florida to look at monkeys (who knew, right?!), I wondered where this was going.  But the Barilla's writing style, subtle humor, gritty but not overly "TMI" descriptions, kept me interested. The stories of Brazil, India, and elsewhere were fascinating.  And by the end of the book I was only a little bit disappointed I didn't learn something about how to make my backyard more habitable with animals.  In the end,  Barilla was getting at something bigger than wanting birds on your backyard.  He embarks on a quest to find out how we impact wildlife for the better and worse, but does so without ever being preachy.

There's also a real "human" aspect to this "nature book" in the relationships he forms with people along the way--the guides, the "natives", the scientists, and the everyday Joes.  Not only are we connected to the wildlife we encounter everyday big and small, but we are also connected with our fellow man all across the world.

It also reads very quickly, so I would recommend it to anyone who'd like to spend a weekend reading a jonfiction book about urbanization and wildlife.

What I'm reading--Hard Times

Whenever it starts to cool off, I get the urge to read Dickens.  There is nothing in this world I love more than opening up one of my Nonesuch Dickens Copies (check them out here: http://nonesuchdickens.com/ ) by a roaring fire with a cup of hot Earl Grey Tea and some Chopin Nocturnes on the record player.  I know, I know...I sound all fancy. 

There is something about the heaviness of these Nonesuch Dickens volumes and the grittiness of these stories that remind me of winter.  

So this year I decided to read Hard Times.  It's not quite as long as many of Dickens' famous works, and though it is not my favorite and doesn't have the best of those great Dicken's characters, it is still a great book and a poignant read.

Stephen Blackpool is our saddest tale of the story--dear Lord, his starlight prayer after being pulled from the pit is the reason why I love Dickens.  It's like Jo's prayer in Bleak House.  If you don't cry, you need to go talk to Ebeneezer Scrooge for a moment or two...

Louisa's story is heartbreaking as well, but at least with Louisa she can find rest and resurgence back in her home with her family, her father and dear Sissy Jupe.

Ultimately, Hard Times is a story about why we need more than facts, figures and work in our lives.  Important all these things are, yes, but if left alone, they suck life out of people.  Love, affection, sympathy, charity and imagination: all these make up the life that is worth living.

A few business matters: I've had some trouble lately keeping up with the blog being weekly and with keeping the blog theme into the week it's supposed to go with.  So I'm going to do away with the weekly themes.  I'll still try to mix it up with food, nature, stuff I've done/want to do, and things I'm reading but without the limitations of having to do these themes in a certain week and without the pressure of having to produce a blog post weekly.  I just don't have that much time--and going into the holiday season (and my work busy season) I do not need that kind of pressure!

'Til next time!

Second/Third Week of October: Nature and Food-- Apples and Apple Cake

So my family is a family of weavers.  It goes back many generations.  We sell our wares at my grandpa's work room, but also at many craft shows around the area.  One of my favorite ones to go to is the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival in North Wilkesboro, NC.  We always get the best NC Mountain apples when we go there.  This year I got 3 varieties:  Stayman, JonaGold, and Fuji.

A little bit about each of these types of apples....

Most people have heard of a Fuji apple.  It's very popular and commonly sold in the US.  It was first cultivated in Japan about 100 years ago.  It's a great "eating apple".

 JonaGold is a cross between a Golden Delicious and a Jonathan apple.  Golden Delicious are really sweet to me, so a JonaGold is a great way to get a crisp, sweet, juicy apple that's not quite so sweet as a Golden Delicious.

A Stayman apple is an "old timey" apple.  It's a beautiful apple, but it's not as great just eating it straight.  It has a very starchy consistency.  But, that's what makes this a phenomenal baking apple.  It's flavor is light and tart, so it takes on your cinnamon or pecans or whatever else you cook with very well.  However, when you cook it, it seems to get more "apple-y" in flavor.

My husband and I really want an apple tree, but considering we live on the boarder of a coastal plain and our soil is sandy--I just don't think it's possible.

Apples are really amazing.  They are a lot like tomatoes in the sense that an apple eaten in May is flavorless and kind of mealy.  Just like a tomato in January.  It's really one of those foods you should eat locally when they are in season.  And when they are in season?  Eat the mess out of them!!  I eat a least an apple a day (until I run out or the trees run out) in the Fall.

So now that I have these Stayman apples, and I have a bunch of them. I need to figure out what to do with them.  I've made a pie, I can stew them, I can can or preserve them.  Or....I can make an Apple Cake....

Which is what the most reasonable of these choices are!  So this is the recipe I'm going to use.  Thank you Our State Magazine!!!

• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup Crisco oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 small cup coconut
• 3 cups tart apples, grated
• 1 teaspoon salt

So you take some apples.  How many is really depending on the size.  You need to get 3 cups shredded.

 

We chopped them up into smaller sizes...

 ...then used my food processor to shred them.  It was so much easier than using a stand grater.  It's nice to be able to do this process quickly, or maybe even after you have done the mixing part of your baking, as our apples started to turn very quickly.  Of course in the baking process it doesn't really matter if your apples have turned brown.

You beat your sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla together pretty well. (I love my stand mixer!)

Meanwhile, you sift all your dry ingredients together. 

Then you slowly add your dry ingredients to your wet.  Remember to have your mixer on the lowest setting or you will get a facepoof of flour!

Afterward, fold in your coconut, chopped pecans (we used the food processor again to do the chopping for us) and finally the shredded apple.  Then you pour into your pan.  I used a bunt pan.

After an hour of cooking at 325 degrees, you take the cake out and let it sit in its pan until it's completely cooled.  Your house will smell like magic during all this, by the way.

Ta da!!!  It was amazing.  The recipe link says you can make a smile glaze for it, but I did not think it needed it.  I used sweetened flaked coconut, so it was plenty sweet and is perfect with a cup of coffee as breakfast!

HOORAY FOR APPLES!

First Week of October: Reading--Little Women PART TWO?!

After I finished Vein of Iron, I went to our library to look for another book and decided I wanted something pretty easy that could be read quickly. I remembered that the Little Women series had Little Men and Jo's Boys as well, so I picked up our copy of Alcott's collected writing to read one of those additions to the Little Women story.  I was surprised that I discovered Little Women part 2, or "Let's get them all Married so they can have babies and the story can continue". I'm not sure how I missed this--I grew up with Little Women dolls and the the book.  I was under the impression that the book ended with all of them teenagers--not 20 somethings looking for husbands!

Alcott's stories aren't the best in children's/young adult literature.  However, the charming story of the March Family is well worth reading, and if you, like me, did not realize there was a Part 2 to Little Women and have a rainy Saturday afternoon, I recommend picking it up to read.  Is it perfect? No.  Is it dull at some points?  Yes.  Does it sometimes make you roll your eyes?  Maybe.  But on the whole, you get more of the same March sister characters and get to see them become more well-rounded women.  Amy chills out and becomes less superficial, and Jo keeps her fiery spirit but learns to try to control it.  Of course, both of these characters do so through marriage--but whatever, I'm not going to get into some feminist rant, blasting Alcott for making her characters mature because of their relationships with men.  In fact, I don't think this is that bizarre or horrible--from my own experience, I became much more mature and well rounded through my relationship with my husband.

Tangent Alert! And with that, we'll say upcoming Spoiler Alerts....

The romance novelist reader in me got a little upset because of the ultimate pairings of the March Sisters.   We all hope that Laurie and Jo, being best friends and all, will grow up to be the most passionate of lovers.  But that doesn't happen, despite Laurie's multiple attempts and ultimate heartache.  Jo ends up with an old German professor and Laurie get's sloppy seconds with Amy.  Now ultimately this works out, the characters of Jo and Amy pair better with their ultimate partners, but I have to admit I was hoping for some passionate declaration of love on both Jo and Laurie's part.  This doesn't happen, and when you wake up and realize you are still reading Alcott and not Danielle Steele, you are ok.

Probably the most beautiful, if not predictable, part of the book is Beth's Death.  We all know she's too good for this earth, too sweet, too kind, too frail, too angelic in every sense of the word.  Her scare in the first part of the books was the climax and crux of the novel, and her demise and death in the second part is a growing up point for the sisters.  In a way, Beth dying is a way for them to see beyond themselves.  But Alcott's description of how Beth fades away is beautiful, peaceful, and sad--but not at all terrible or even heart wrenching.

A Note on Meg:  She is married from the beginning of the story and plays housewife.  She really becomes the "comic" relief of the novel--making us laugh with the attempts to be the perfect wife and hostess despite her inability to make something simple like preserves. See here for my attempt!

Expectations for Little Men and Jo's boys aren't high.  I'm sure the stories will be very similar to Little Women 1 & 2, and I wonder how far Alcott can take these characters and squeeze more interest out of them.

It's Fall now, so I've picked up Dickens. Updates later....

Fourth Week of September: Something I've done--Pink Beds Loop Pisgah National Forest

This past weekend, my husband and I went for a long weekend to Brevard, NC.  It's a great town to explore with lots of options of outdoor activities, but also close to Asheville and Greenville if you want more "big city" adventure.  Brevard is in Transylvania County--also known as the "land of waterfalls" and home of the white squirrels--we saw 2 white squirrels! We always love to go to the mountains and sit in a cabin and hike--and nothing more. We don't go out to eat, but instead bring all the food we'll eat and grill.  I had heard about a great hike on websites and travel books called the "Pink Beds Loop" in Pisgah National Forest. Pisgah's "home base" is in Transylvania county and is a great place to go for all ages!  They offer a lot of activities, such as fishing, hiking, waterfall hunting, wildlife observation.  And all of this is offered on a variety of skill/active level.  It's also right off of HWY 276 which is a gorgeous winding mountain road that can take you to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I had heard the Pink Beds Loop is a great hike because it's fairly easy, but has the option to be a long hike (6+ miles), so it's good for people who enjoy long half-day hikes, but don't necessarily desire to climb thousands of feet in less than a mile....

I'm going to take you on a picture journey of the Pink Beds Loop and describe what makes this place so wonderful, but before we go that far--I HIGHLY recommend visiting the Ranger Station in Pisgah National Forest off HWY 276.  The staff were so helpful to us--gave us a range of hiking options to choose from WITH maps, described the hikes and any obstacles and even shared a few secrets with us!  

To start, you go up HWY 276, past the Cradle of Forestry museum to the Pink Beds Loop picnic area seen here.

We had our lunch there and it was beautiful and peaceful.  This area is called the Cradle of Forestry in America, because back in the 1800s this was where modern forestry techniques were put into practice and a school was created to help teach people how to use one of the best resources God has given us, lumber--but how to manage it in a way that was least destructive to wildlife and helped forests to return and not die off. Therefore you get these random small fields in the midst of the wooded trail.  Here's me eating my picnic lunch:

A creek ran through most of the Pink Beds Loop.  This creek plays an integral part of the last portion of the trail. 

The first bit of the hike was varied, as you'd walk through a forest, then come out of it into a field.  Lots of butterflies were hanging out in these areas. 

Parts of the hike were absolutely breathtaking--you really thought you were in another word--completely surrounded by wildlife, the rhododendron and mountain laurel hung over you in a very mysterious way. As me and my husband say, it's like we're walking to Hobbiton or Narnia or something...

And then you got to these awesome areas--actually real-live fern gullies--or more like fern forests.  The entire floor bed of the forest was covered in ferns in some areas, even at 1pm when we were in the thick of hiking, there was a foggy mist in the air as if dawn had just broken.

I had heard the trail could be very swampy and muddy, so much that you would have to wade through water at points--this is where the Ranger was so helpful.  He said at certain times of the year the Pink Beds Loop is a muddy mess, but at this time of year it was perfect (though I was still glad in certain areas I had my hiking boots on and not just my every-day tennis shoes).  Recently made a lot of improvements especially at the latter part of the loop that made the trail possible. 

So the Pink Beds loop is a loop that is intersected by the Brushy Branch trail (it may not be Brushy--but it's something with a B and it's Blue Blazed).  If you are not up for a long hike, you can turn right onto the Branch trail and cut the Pink Beds Loop in half.  OR if you want to add a mile or two onto your loop, you do what we did--and what the Ranger suggested we do.--you turn Left onto the Branch trail and suddenly you start a very small, but steady incline.  This incline continues until you get to a service road.  Cross the service road and you find what looks like the rest of the Branch trail and you continue on up.  Suddenly the forest is dark, and frogs, crickets and all sorts of wildlife sounds can be heard--the forest becomes so dark, dank and think that you wonder if a storm is approaching.  Pink Beds is a fairly "bright" trail at points, especially with the random fields, so this is a total contrast.  The whole point of this dark woody adventure is to get to the "Secret" falls.  A gorgeous, tall but trickling waterfall hidden in the mountains.  

Transylvania County being Waterfall country means they advertise about 50+ of their waterfalls on maps.  These waterfalls and the trails that lead to them can often be crowded.  Though it's worth it to go waterfall hunting even for the most popular of waterfalls---it's very special to find your own secret waterfall.  (Even if the ranger tells everyone about this waterfall, it doesn't lose it's charm when you are there all alone with the crickets and the wind and the water.)

(I'm hoping this video will work.)

The forest was green and thick near the falls. 

So we re-traced our steps and walked back the branch trail to the Pink Beds Loop and turned left on the loop trail to continue on.  This is one of the best things about this trail--let's say you did hike to the Secret Falls and decided you were a little tired after the incline, you can retrace your steps back to the parking lot, or take the branch trail short cut to the end of the loop trail and still see a lot.  We however, wanted to do the whole loop--so we did. 

This was just a neato tree that had been demolished by termites.

The most bizarre thing about the Pink Beds Loop is that it's really a mountain swamp.  It's a flat trail that follows a creek bed--but the creek has been recently dammed up by Beavers and completely changed part of the landscape.  It's very interesting to think that this area is known as the Cradle of Forestry and was a place for humans to practice forestry techniques, and 100 years later--Beavers are doing the same thing.

Near the Beaver Dam and Swamp area, it was quite bright and warm--very different from near the falls.

Below is a picture of the board walk over the swamp.  Without this, you would half to tread waist deep water.

I love how they keep it pretty wild still.

Lots of cool rocks near this part of the trail. This was the only part of the Pink Beds Loop that had a bit of a inclined hike--but it was still very easy.

Here's a picture of the boardwalk over the swamp.

Below is a great picture of the Beaver dam and how it's completely altered the landscape. This looks like something you'd see east of I-95 in North and South Carolina, not something in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains....

So this is something I've done that I really suggest to all of you that find yourself in Brevard, NC.  Even if you don't want to hike, it's worth it to travel through Pisgah National Forest and discover the White Squirrels and waterfalls and see how our mountain forests used to look, how we've changed them, and how wildlife has changed them.