The Pig and I

This picture was the best I could do, because we were all done eating in about 5 minutes and I didn't think about a picture until I realized I would need to replicate this at a later date. I had a lot of cabbage in my house. I mean really a lot. Brussels sprouts, green cabbage, kale, broccoli, and bok choy. I really needed to start using it up, because definitely not throwing it away. I decided I would fry up all of the cabbages except the green (that's slotted for kraut), but when I picked the Pig up from school, she told me that she had a loose incisor that was bothering her enough that she didn't even want to eat meat (that kid loves meat more than life). I told her that I'd planned to fry the cabbages and serve it over rice. No dice - she wanted soup. This wasn't soup, but it was soupish; more like a dinner porridge. So I decided to make a soup with cabbages and rice. It was vastly superior to what I'd intended to make, and I would like to make it...

And once again, the trees are laden in pollen. I always forget the midwinter episodes of crippling allergies. Since I feel like I have the flu due to tree pollen, I figured I should make some gentle stew so I'm still getting some nutrition while eating is hard. This recipe should be adapted to whatever is in your house that needs to be used up. I went through my produce bin and found a lot of "half of this, half of that" in there. Those all feature here. Whenever I'm feeling under the weather, the stews tend to be comprised of whatever I was able to easily forage from the fridge, pantry, freezer, and/or garden with a minimum of effort. This should serve 4 people on its own, but if you put it over rice, pasta, or similar, you can stretch it to 6 or so people. Hope you enjoy! In a 2-quart saucepan, combine the following: 1 tablespoon each: sesame and veg oil 1 cup beet stems, chopped into 1" pieces (I pre-chop these when I buy the bunch of beets, since I ...

The Pig asked me recently to make her some Olive Garden style meatballs and pasta, and I said okay. Today was that day. I looked up copycat recipes and thought, "nope." So I figured I'd just have a go at it. These were really, really easy to make, and everyone liked them. She asked if she could have leftovers for breakfast tomorrow, which is basically the highest compliment she gives. Outside the meat and an egg for the meatballs, all other ingredients can come from the pantry. I am not a huge fan of meatballs, so it's most likely I'll keep making this sauce without those. Hope you enjoy! Sauce: 1 14-ounce can each: stewed tomatoes, whole tomatoes 1/2c beef stock or water (I had leftover stock in the fridge, or I'd've used water) big, healthy shake of each: dried mint, dried basil, dried marjoram or other oregano, dried thyme, garlic and onion powders salt and pepper to taste add-on: meat, if desired, and/or olives, and/or mushrooms Put all of t...

I wouldn't normally label something as complex as a Yule log as "kid food," but this was done by request, and with the kid. The Pig has been really, really into the Great British Baking Show , and consequently found out there's a food version of the Yule log. In celebration of Yule this year, she asked if we could make one together. Since I sometimes don't think things through, and other times think I can do anything, I said yes. Not only did I say yes, I promised we'd do it on Yule itself. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But also smart, because wow she learned a lot about herself, the world, interpersonal dynamics, history, modernity, tenacity, and the import of keeping one's word. She also found out that I was right that reading legitimately is the most powerful skill one can develop. I learned that I can, in fact, draw something decent if I have no choice, and also that it turns out I can pipe chocolate attractively. I generally reserve the doing of fine detail de...

Whenever we buy a watermelon and it has rind to speak of (a lot of the little personal sized ones don't), I carefully trim away the green skin, then the rind, and cut it up before storing for later use. Interestingly, the rind of the watermelon is the most nutritious part, despite the awesome of the flesh. Today, I managed to get the Pig to take a nap, as she'd had a pretty long few days and even longer month following the death of our beloved cat Aleister. But I was starving . She'd already requested butter-poached fish, sauteed broccoli, and rice for dinner, so I didn't want to go flesh for my lunch and did want to bump up my veggies for the day. After poking about through the fridge, I discovered half of a small onion and a quart of rind, so this formed the basis of the meal. Poking about the kitchen further, I found a sad tomato that the Pig and I bought from a farmer on our way back from our last trip to Austin, as well as a bottle of ají picante that I'd re...

This is kind of a weird thing to say, but I usually can't stand mac'n'cheese. Occasionally I'll like a baked one, if it's lacking bechamel, but otherwise I'm a firm pass on this dish. My kid, however, really seems to like it. For a while, the Pig had gotten really into boxed MNC, and away from homemade of any type. One day, she really wanted MNC, and I was like, "I'm hungry too. If you let me make it homemade, I'll make it." She agreed, so I grabbed a bag of spätzle (b/c lazy) and made kasnocken for her. Since then, she's refused the box stuff. The other day, I didn't really feel like making that, when she asked for MNC, so I made this instead. The principle is basically the same, though. This takes about 20 minutes to make, which makes it perfect for a fast lunch. We split it, and she was happy because, she told me, it's fairly similar to the boxed without being quite the same. Hope you enjoy! 1 8-ounce package pasta (I use...

I started feeling sick on Monday, and foolishly attributed this to ragweed making a late season play against my general well-being. Tuesday, I realized how terribly wrong I was, but mostly just tried to suck this up with lots of fluids and broth, as well as various lozenges. By Tuesday night, I was sick enough that I realized I had gotten some kind of upper respiratory infection and couldn't breathe well enough to sleep without treating it properly. So I made some poultices and teas and drowned myself in them, then finally fell out. Wednesday, woke up quite a bit better, but the Pig was coughing. Turns out I'd passed the pestilence onto her. Since at 5, she's never been ill with normal stuff we're all used to, I figured I'd better nip it quickly and started drowning us both in tisanes, broth, elderberry syrup, and other such. Today, she was better, save a slight residual cough. I'm mostly better. It occurred to me at some point, though, that I lack the menta...

The Piggy and I developed this recipe specifically to go into ukha, a Russian fish soup. It's also really good in other things, but we mostly use it for soup, unless I'm frying something that needs both cabbage and leeks. This recipe is very easy to make, requiring only 3 ingredients, but it does need a bit of special equipment. If you don't have a muddler, use either a wine bottle, flat-ended rolling pin, or potato masher. In most of my fermented foods, I use swing-top fermenting jars (I use a mix of Fido, le Parfair, and Kilner, but I've got some odd IKEA jars and other such as well). I mostly use these because they obviate the need for multiple items per Mason jar you'll ferment in, such as weights, fermenting pipes, airlocks, and so forth, but it's also much simpler when you know there's no need to check your ferments to see if they're doing okay. If the seal is good, they're doing okay. Plus, I get to use my Mason jars for other things, like...

I realized the other day that it's been a very long time since my last post. My life has changed in a lot of ways, one of which is that I've returned to foraging. Since my interests currently lie primarily in foraged foods and ales, my focus will be on that for the foreseeable future. One favorite foraged food for us is black nightshade . Although commonly perceived as poisonous, this is a food plant if you're treating it properly. The leaves can be cooked and eaten (young ones raw as well), but the primary value to my 5 year old, Piggy, is the berries. Filled with seeds and sugary sweet, they're a lovely treat. I recently dug up some S. americanum plants and transplanted to our container garden, but most of the berries I cooked today came from a plant nearly as tall as me that I noticed while foraging for dock seeds. That bush was huge . And also weighed down with ripe fruits, so I took a lot of fruit. I left about 1/4 of the fruit for the birds, focusing only on fr...

I made this the other day for breakfast, because there was a quarter cabbage sitting in the fridge looking like it needed to be eaten, a bit of jarred garlic in the fridge when I wanted the jar to go away, and because I still have half a jar of those olives that I sincerely do need to eat up. Plus, I sometimes eat like a toddler. Anyway, this was delicious, I enjoyed it, and I will be making it again this weekend. Scale the quantities directly to feed more than 1 person with this recipe. Hope you enjoy! 1 tablespoon butter 1/4 cabbage, core removed, then cut up (I like slivers, but you could do cubes or whatever) 1 minced garlic clove (jarred is fine) salt and pepper to taste pinch nigella or caraway seeds 1/4 cup chicken broth 1 tablespoon lemon juice (can use zest instead; can use bottled juice) 3 jalapeno-stuffed olives, chopped (optional; you might want hot sauce if not, though; I rinsed mine because they're old) Melt butter in pan. Add cabbage, salt, and pepper. Fry until t...

Granola is always awesome, but it's very expensive to buy at the store. Making it at home is inexpensive and just takes a few minutes of active prep time, plus 80 minutes in the oven. For the blueberries, I buy fresh blueberries in massive quantities when they're in season and deeply discounted, then dry them. Typically I do this until I've got about a gallon dried total. If you don't have a dehydrator, you can either oven or sun dry them (If you've opted for sun drying, freeze them for 72 hours after they're finished to kill any possible insect eggs that may have been laid anyway and then store in the pantry). If you want some clumps, squeeze the mixture well once you've put it in the half sheet pan. Otherwise, it will be more like loose cereal. 4 cups rolled oats 1/4 cup each: wheat germ, wheat bran, flax seeds 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 cup sliced almonds 1 cup dried blueberries 1/2 cup each: vegetable oil, maple syrup  1/4 cup honey Preheat ove...

This is a two-in-one meal, as you can make the sauce and eat the remainder of it with pasta (or as sauce for pizza; you can also freeze the leftover sauce for a future meal). In general, I am not a huge fan of meatloaf. Mostly because people tend to put the onions in raw, and the flavor of ground meat and onions that cooked together icks me out. Ross, however, has been asking me for the last few weeks to make him a meatloaf. Specifically, a meatloaf topped with puttanesca sauce in lieu of the more typical ketchup or tomato sauce topping. I stalled on this, because I had some trouble figuring out how I would make this so it wouldn't seem gross to me. I needn't have worried, though: Ross ate almost the entire thing in two sittings. As it's summer here, I try to make all oven items early in the morning or later at night so it doesn't overheat out house. I made this last night for him, and we were intended to have it tonight for dinner. As soon as it came out of the oven,...

I had purchased a pound of fresh dates recently, and we ate on them a bit before realizing we all like them just a bit riper. In interest of not having them go to waste,  I decided to go on ahead and make a rice pudding. Dates are naturally high in sugar, and although these were less sweet than I prefer, I only added just a touch of sugar to compensate for that. Additionally, I made for dinner something I was fairly certain the Piggy wasn't going to enjoy, so this functioned as her dinner and our dessert, as rice is amongst her favorite foods no matter how it's prepared. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 stick butter 12 ounces fresh dates, pitted and chopped (I just cut these in quarters lengthwise, then cut them in half width-wise) 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar juice of 1 small lemon (probably 2 tablespoons) 1 cup rice 1 cup milk 1/2 cup cream Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat, then add dates, sugar, and lemon juice. Cover and let cook 20-30 minutes, or until dates are...

And, the last of the blackberry jams. Hope you enjoy! 2 pounds blackberries 2 cups sugar 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns Place peppercorns in a tea strainer or similar. Combine all ingredients in a large pot and macerate 1-2 hours. Bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes before removing peppercorns and vanilla pod (save the pod, rinsing it well, to toss in a jug of bourbon or to put in sugar for vanilla sugar). Finish boiling until it reaches the gel-point, then water bath process for 15 minutes. Makes 4 half-pints.

Here's the blackberry-bergamot. If you don't have access to bergamot, feel free to use a regular sour orange. It will change the flavor but will still be tasty. Hope you enjoy! 2 pounds blackberries 2 cups bergamot sugar pinch salt 2 tablespoons lemon juice 2 tablespoons bergamot juice Combine and macerate 1-2 hours. Boil to the gel-point and water bath process 15 minutes. Makes 4 half-pints.

Blackberries are deeply, deeply on sale right now, which is my cue to get ready for a lot of canning even if it's a food I'm not harvesting myself. I've purchased quite a lot of them and am doing three styles of jams: blackberry-lemon (today's post), blackberry-bergamot (tomorrow's post), and blackberry-vanilla-black pepper (Monday's post). Each one uses the same basic methodology I use for all jams, so those of you who've read other preserve posts will be familiar with this method. These are lovely as gifts, and also for eating oneself on toast, in cookies or tarts, as a pie base, or over ice cream after heated to thin. Hope you enjoy! 2 pounds blackberries 2 cups sugar juice and zest of one lemon pinch salt Put all ingredients together in a large pot and let macerate for 1-2 hours on the counter, or overnight in the fridge (covered). Bring to a boil, stirring, and remove from heat once it hits the gel-point. Water bath process 15 minutes. Makes 4 ha...

There are a million ways to make these, and I pretty much think they're all good. But I like this way for days when you're having sausage and kraut. Hope you enjoy! 8 ounces sliced button mushrooms 3-ish tablespoons finely diced red onion 1 large or two small cloves minced garlic 2-ish tablespoons white wine (I *think* this was a pinot but I froze it ages ago so can't remember for sure) 1-ish tablespoon lemon juice pinch each: salt, lemon peel, dried thyme 1-2 tablespoons olive oil Heat the olive oil in a small pan over medium to medium-high heat, then add the mushrooms, onions and spices. When they're about 3/4 of way done, add the remaining ingredients. When the liquid is gone they're done. Serves 2 if you feel like sharing.

The fig trees have been ripe a couple of weeks now and I've been busy preserving, preserving, preserving. There's a tree on the property of the condos we live in and there's also one at Ross' Nana's house. This has put me in good supply of figs, though I'm not convinced one can ever truly have enough of these little gems of yum. Ross' family prefers a Southern fig preserve with strawberry Jell-O, so I made around 3 cases total for him and them (last year I didn't make enough for him at half a case and it was gone in a month or two so I promised not to make this mistake again). I've also made some jars of the regular fig preserve I like (figs, sugar and lemon juice only). But in the middle of all that we started what I refer to as "monsoon season" in Houston, which is NOT good for figs. I ran over to the on property tree and saw that what I thought would happen did happen. Figs were overripening faster than I could get them, even with the Pi...

I got some buckwheat a while back, intending to make it with beets. Then I forgot all about it until today when I discovered some beets in the house that needed to be used. This was substantially more delicious than I expected it to be, and we all ate it up with gusto. Hope you enjoy! Buckwheat: 1/2 cup buckwheat groats 2-2 1/2 cups water 1 teaspoon salt pat of butter (optional) Put water, salt and butter (if using) in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir in the buckwheat and boil for 10 minutes, stirring every so often. Strain out remaining water and serve. Serves 2. Veggies: 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 beets, peeled and diced 2 carrots, peeled and diced 1 onion, diced 1 cup celery, sliced 1 small jicama root, peeled and diced 1/2 red bell pepper, diced 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half 1 teaspoon each: garlic powder, salt Heat oil in a skillet over medium, then add beets, carrots, onion, celery, jicama, garlic powder, and salt. F...

The Piggy loves eggplant and chick peas and has been harassing me to do something with the eggplant she's been seeing in the fridge. I wanted part of it to crust with potato and parmesan but didn't want to make the whole thing that way so I also made this for her. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 globe eggplant, peeled and diced 1 can chickpeas 1/2 red onion, diced 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 tablespoon za'atar 1 teaspoon salt juice of 1/2 lemon 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce In a skillet, heat oil over medium. Add onions and eggplant with salt and fry lightly. When the eggplant has slightly crisp exterior, add chickpeas, za'atar and lemon juice then cook down 1-2 minutes. Add tomato sauce and simmer until the sauce is slightly paste-like. Serves 4 as a side or 1 as a meal.