Smithy

Our families got together for Labor Day weekend, and combined the fun of a first birthday party for great-grandson with the fun of making and canning salsa. This year my DIL and I canned 4 dozen pints of salsa on 2 separate days, with the birthday party in between. In past years there have been three or four of us family and friends doing the washing, chopping, measuring, roasting and then canning. This year it was just DIL and me. We actually worked more quickly than when there were three or four of us in that kitchen: in the time it took her to do the tomatoes, I did the peppers, onions, seasonings, vinegar and sugar. We were also quite pleased with the discovery that blitzing the tomatoes in her new Nutribullet blender, then draining in a colander, was as effective as cutting the tomatoes by hand and draining them. I tell you, we've got this down to a science! Each day's batch made 12 pints plus some extra. From start to cleanup, we did each batch in under 4 hours. We also had fun, as we also do, varying the recipe a bit. Our husbands prefer more heat, so we added more hot peppers to one batch. She wanted more onion and salt in another batch. We went all-out on the "extra salt" batch and added a whopping 1/3 cup of salt rather than the 1/4 cup of salt called for. To a 26-cup batch of salsa. 🤣 (Nope, we can't taste the difference. Nope, we didn't do the math ahead of time.) She gave me some of hers, because they don't use quite as much as we do and don't have friends counting on this year's crop. Here's my haul: And here's the money shot, from tonight's "we aren't very hungry" snacking dinner.

Yes, please! I have that book, but it isn't always available to me (as now). Having it online would be wonderful.

If you'd like a virtual tour of Avery Island and the Tabasco factory, here's my entry from 2016 about it. Hardly the same thing as an actual tour, I realize! I went to look to see about my take on the aged Special Reserve Tabasco. It was only aged 8 years, but I thought its flavor more complex and slightly mellower than the grocery store brand. I'll bet the 15-year stuff is even more interesting. If you can make it out there, I do recommend the tour, the food, and the sampling. I'd love to go again!

Will it have any flavor left, once the juice has been squeezed out?

Beautiful! Did you do anything to the peppers aside from cutting them and removing the seeds? I'm thinking of blanching, roasting, peeling or nothing at all....? They look great in there.

I absolutely must try smoked salmon in a vodka cream sauce. Never occurred to me before now. That looks like an excellent dinner, and it celebrates a lovely occasion and tradition. Congratulations!

Congrats! I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it. 🙂

Thanks. I have a pretty good crop of basil this year, and this looks like a good way to save what I can't use now!

I need some clarity here: are the basil leaves shown here before blanching, or did you manage to blanch and dry them and still have them come out like that? (Either way, thanks for the preservation and usage tip!)

Be patient, and press lightly! And let us know how it goes!

Now that you mention it, I think that's what I have -- and who gave me the idea. I'm still careful about the pressure I apply, though. As often as not I'll use either my box grater or my Moulinex. The parmesan disc makes very fine shavings, and that may not be the texture @lindag is after.

I broke the spindle on my first food processor, trying to grate a hard cheese. I think it was parmesan, but it's been years. The food processor was inexpensive (and all I could afford then). I'm very careful to apply only light pressure on the rare occasions I grate hard cheese in my Cuisinart. Unless I need a huge amount, I generally grate by hand.

I'd have needed an explanation anyway! Thanks for the link. 🙂

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20 years ago, or more, when I lived in the unincorporated community of Castle Danger, a neighbor started up a brewery in his garage. He and his wife made good beers: lagers, ales, stouts, always in small batches (as befits a garage startup!) and always interesting to taste. My husband and I became fans. Eventually they expanded their microbrewery and opened a taproom in the nearby town of Two Harbors. We stop by there once in a while to see what's out, maybe buy a growler or two worth of different beers, and decide whether to indulge in a keg. I didn't think to take a photo of the exterior! My excuse is that I didn't think about doing a post like this until we were inside and enjoying ourselves for the umpteenth time. The place is worth showing off. This was the first surprise to us: 12 years! I had no idea they'd been in that location so long. And we were there for party weekend! And the weather was nice! The taproom is spacious. The wall lists their current offerings, some seasonal and some year-round. Check out the taps! The interior has a lot of tables where folks can sit, sip and eat food if they've brought it in. A nearby pizza joint delivers. A bistro is across the street. There's usually a food truck outside in the courtyard. The interior decorations feature labels from their various brews. I've always loved the artwork. Two of my favorite labels: Outside, on the deck, they have a wall listing brews they no longer make: The deck has a stairway to a lawn-level courtyard where people can be close to the food truck. There are games to be played (bean bag toss; board games like Scrabble) and the place is very family-friendly as well as dog-friendly. These women are my heroes! They kept busy the whole time we were there. They weren't showing off for my camera, either: this is the way they generally carried the glasses. One was good enough to stop and let me get the back of her shirt. Then, because I was a bit slow on the uptake, she explained the joke to me. 🙂 (It really is their middle name!) Gotta love a place with a monthly literary event in a town of 3600 people. We enjoyed our glasses of Castle Danger Cream Ale (a year-round brew) and their Oktoberfest offering, that had just come out: Maple Märzen. I would haven't selected that if I'd known about the maple, so I'm glad I ordered in ignorance. The maple flavoring is subtle, giving just a bare hint of sweetness to the brew. We came home with a growler of each of those. We'll be picking up a keg of the Castle Danger Cream Ale today. If you're ever up this way, I highly recommend a stop at the Castle Danger Brewery. I have no financial interest in them, but I love to see a local business make good.

@Kim Shook, I'm trying and failing to remember the last time I saw, much less ate, at a lunch counter! Nice that you can still find such a place!

That's a nice reference. Thank you! It does look as though our recipe is sherbet, or possibly gelato depending on which particular dairy I use.

Yes. Impressive, isn't it? And worthy of donations (hint, hint) to help the Society thrive for another year. See this post for links and more information.

Not with dairy, as I understand it. Is there too little cream / milk to qualify as ice cream?

Yes, you can scale it accordingly. I find it very scoopable when it's first churned. The leftovers do tend to set to a hard state. I wouldn't call them icy but they get firm.

Glad to! In fact, I'll give you two recipes, more or less the same but of different scales. Here's the original: Ruth Smith's Peach Ice Cream, exactly as we always made it with the large hand-cranked ice cream maker that used rock salt and ice. When Mom and I acquired Cuisinart ICE-50 ice cream makers, with the bowls that you freeze, we had to modify somewhat because the original recipe makes at least twice as much as will fit into the bowl. Of course, you can make the usual batch and keep some frozen for later churning if you have the room and the fruit. Here's a tutorial on the process, modified for the Cuisinart. In this particular version I think I was using a combination of plums and nectarines. By that time I'd stopped using egg and I don't think I've missed it. The ingredients here were * 4-6 nectarines, peaches, and/or plums, cut up and jammed into a blender jar. (Peel the peaches because of their fuzz. I don't bother peeling nectarines or plums, but you could.) It comes to about 4 cups' worth. * 1/2 lemon's worth of juice * 1 c sugar (you can do less, but I think it needs at least 3/4 c. I tried 1/2c once and had to add sugar) * ~1c milk, cream, or half-and-half. You need just enough to bring the above puree up to the fill line in the Cuisinart bowl. Don't overfill, because it'll come pooching out as overrun and that part won't get properly chilled. (You'll see what I mean in the tutorial. It'll still taste good.) I've messed around with heating the milk and dissolving the sugar into it, then chilling it. I think it may make a creamier ice cream, but I'm not a purist when there's good fruit to be had. I also suspect that the egg in the original -- which we never cooked -- was to serve some sort of custard purpose. Again, I've never missed it. Now that I think of it, I'm going to try thawing some of my mixture enough to pour it into a Ninja Creami and see what happens. I'll report back.

The food looks great, but I especially want to call attention to that gorgeous plate! Please tell more about it: where it's from, who made it, how long have you had it? It looks like it should be a family heirloom.

What specific Cajun dish(es) do you hope to make? If you want to make Andouille, as your topic title suggests, then you need to be prepared to make sausage. If you're simply trying to find out what makes it Cajun in the first place, then you'll be interested more in the approach than the finished dishes. If you're simply looking to make gumbo, jambalaya, etouffee, or any other regional dishes, then there's a wealth of reading for you in this forum -- and the possibility to revive old topics! Here are some specific topics you may find interesting: Gumbo, Jambalaya, Etouffee, Creole... (which, I admit, doesn't stick strictly to Cajun cuisine) Really Good Red Beans and Rice Gumbo: Cook-Off #3 For a general discussion, which is where you may be wanting to start, there's this topic: So, what makes it "Cajun"?

That's pretty steep for corn at this time of year in Minnesota, but the beans, melons and peppers sound like a good deal for high quality. Terrible shame about the tomatoes and cinnamon swirl bread! But as you settle in, you'll figure out whose stuff you like and whose to avoid...and I'm with you on the pleasure of an outdoor farmers' market at this time of year!