DanConnor

One more breakfast comment: I put them in the pot with the water and just let them soak overnight- they cook up quick the next morning.

Homemade kraut is so easy and great- everyone should do it! I use a kitchenaid to grate it, and ferment in a 4 gallon glass crock with water-filled plastic bags on top to locjk out atmosphere. The one thing I don't bother with is sterilizing the crock- it's being filled with unsterile cabbage, after all. I do make sure it is nice and clean though.

The old Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash would be great. Each vegetable gets extensive treatments in its own chapter. Mine is beat to heck. Out of print, but available used.

I use a food processor too. I do a large amount and freeze it- one thing I've noticed is I actually prefer the previously-frozen to the fresh stuff. Seems to mellow out a bit. Usually I make it with walnuts, but tomorrow I'll be putting up a batch with pine nuts.

Why yes they do! However, I'm somewhat skeptical that horses, who spend all day eating grass and bales of hay, really need flax supplements.

Wilted chokecherry foliage is poisonous to animals, and people too, but not the fruits. Actually that's true of any type cherry I think. In upstate New York we are having a banner year, and every morning the picnic table is covered with a fresh layer of fallen fruit. Come to think of it, I'm not absolutely certain if they are chokecherries or black cherries. Very astringent at any rate, and hang abundantly on good-sized wild trees. I also put them in homebrew once- they made a nice strong cherry flavor.

This year I ordered paprika pepper seeds from Johnny's Seeds, and now have a few dozen lovely big paprika peppers. I'm not exactly sure how to process them, but it seems pretty straightforward. I sliced a half dozen fairly small, and have them in a dehydrator now. After drying, I had planned to grind them up in a little spice grinder, but my wife burned it out trying to turn a 50 lb sack of flax seed into meal for her horses. Someone told me you could make them into powder with a mortar and pestle. I'm not too sure about that, but will give it a dry. Probably will end up replacing the spice grinder. I wonder exactly how dry to let the peppers get. I also wonder what is the best way to store the paprika. Maybe as the dehydrated peppers, and then just grind as needed? Any thoughts welcome!

We have 7 ducks we keep on a pond in the back yard, and use them in place of chicken eggs for everything. Ours never taste fishy, and I'm not sure what would cause that. Duck eggs are harder to crack than chicken, and the whites have an elastic quality that make it about impossible to avoid leaving a string of white across the counter on the way to the compost bucket. Cooked, they taste just like big chicken eggs.

I notice that if I set my 9x3 inch springform pan down on top of a saucer so the bottom was pushed up, and then tightened it, it formed a perfect 9x2 pan, so I decided to try that. BAD IDEA! Everything was fine when I baked it with the weights, but a few minutes in to the 2nd bake I checked it and the bottom had inflated like a hot air balloon; as high as the rim. I hastily replaced the weights, and the moved them in and out a few times until the bottom appeared to harden. Needless to say, this created some weak spots, even though no obvious holes, and I had some nasty leaks. It still came out very nice though; the leek and blue cheese one. My first quiche actually. Question: I have one of those quiche pans with the fluted sides. Is it hard to get the quiche out of that? Does Keller's technique work properly with that pan? Its the right size, and has the removable bottom...

I just made my first gumbo today, using Fifi's chicken and sausage recipe. Very fun to cook. The veggies hitting the roux creates a very distinctive aroma that I identify with gumbo- I think it's the "secret." I used a big Le Creuset pot, and the roux seemed to go faster than the suggested times; I think it was darker than peanut butter in 15 or 20 minutes. I stopped there, and maybe that's why mine seemed to be a bit thicker than most pictured here. Also I put in a bunch of home-grown okra; maybe 2 or 3 cups, at the same time as the chicken (last hour). Was that the right time?

I didn't see this addressed in the thread; hope I didn't miss it. I live in Upstate NY and have been growing okra for years. They grow very well, and you can easily get okras on some varieties to 10 inches or so. My plants currently are almost 5 feet tall. However, once the pods get beyond about 5 inches they become much too tough to use. Its possible they have some more tender varieties that allow them to use full sized okras down in Lousiana, but I'm doubtful. It's been a while since I've been down there, but the cross-sections in the gombos etc I ate indicated a smallish pod size....

Well, if you have a number of chickens (or ducks in my case) you do everything with them, and of course eat them- as many ways as possible. Lately we like them sauteed with yesterdays kasha varnishkas.

Thank, you all for the great advice, Anna particularly. Having done 25 chickens, I'm thinking maybe doing my own butchering is not really for me. In fact, I'd keep raising chickens but I can't find a way to outsource the cleaning etc! I'm going to split a pig with a friend, and maybe the following year put piglet or two out back.

Hi all, I live in the country, and have access to a number of farms that will sell me a half or whole organic, pastured pig, delivered to the butcher. I know I can just tell the butcher to do his thing and I will get typical results, but probably a lot will get discarded, or maybe it won't be the best way. If anyone has an opinion about directions to give the butcher, any at all, I'm all ears! Thanks.

I like them sauteed in a very lot of olive oil and an even larger amount of salt. Cook them until it is an oily, salty mush. No other ingredients! Then eat with a really good quality crusty italian bread. Comfort food....

That's something I've been a bit confused by. I followed a recipe once for making a single jar of kraut, in which I was instructed to seal the jar for fermentation! I did, but hid it in the top of a closet wrapped in towels because I thought it would explode. It didn't. In fact it worked fine. I have no idea why.

Excellent style, woodburner! I make quite a bit of kraut myself. Usually, I grow a couple of rows of cabbage in the garden; big late-season varieties. I shred it with a kitchenaid shredder attachment; seems to work pretty well. Then mix it up in a giant (about 5 gallons) glass jar I have with some salt. I just do it roughly to taste. Also I don't bother to sterilize the jar, after all the cabbage certainly isn't sterile. I do rinse it out though. Pack it nice and tight in the container and add a little water if its too dry. To get a good seal on the top I cover the kraut with platic bags half-filled with water. They deform themselves to seal every opening pretty well. I put the glass cover on too. I let it go for about a week, then jar and store in the refrigerator. It makes a good dozen or so jars. Kim chee is fun too!