comfort food

With temperatures dropping significantly this week, my kitchen calls me to make warming, comfort food.  I was home all day yesterday and wanted something in the crock pot to fill our home with the scent of good food.  I made cabbage and polish sausage in the crock pot and topped it off with my Granddaddy's stick cornbread recipe.  I would have and wanted to make PW's cornbread recipe that is my favorite but I lacked enough of one key ingredient in cornbread.... corn meal.  Her recipe calls for one cup and after I had already made some make-shift buttermilk I realized I didn't have enough.  I really didn't want to pour out the buttermilk.  I thumbed through my recipes and found the piece of scrap paper with Granddaddy's recipe on it and remembered the Tuesday evening at his house in 2011 when he taught it to me as he made the recipe that he catered down for himself to only make seven corn sticks which is how many is in one cast iron corn stick pan.  It called for 2/3 cup self rising cornmeal and as I measured out the little bit of cornmeal that I had it perfectly measured out to 2/3 cup.  Thanks Granddaddy... now help with the rest of the recipe that I short-handedly wrote down as you made yours!  Apparently he did because it turned perfect AND it didn't even stick in the pan.   The cornbread and cabbage with sausage was fantastic especially after a cool evening of sitting in the deer blind where I had a two second shot but didn't shoot my first deer.  That is a pretty intense feeling.  I was glad to have supper when we got in the house at least.  I had pictures of the whole crock pot dish but left my camera at home today.  Have a great week!

A Brand New Year

Happy New Year to all!!!

New Year's Day is one of my favorite days of the year.  It's the start of a new year of course but also I always make my traditional food for the day and somehow folks always show up to get their yearly dose of luck!  My menu always includes the following:

Ham - Pork symbolizes rooting into the new year (chicken is not to be eaten on new year's day, it symbolizes going backward to the old year because of chickens scratching backward... pigs root forward... get it?)  this year we are having honey ham with pineapple

Black Eyed Peas - for luck of course!  I cook mine with hog something or other usually a piece of something we have cooked on the smoker or country ham... something with flavor.

Cabbage - symbolizing good fortune or wealth.  I don't know about the wealth part but I eat it anyway.  I make my cabbage in the crock pot with broth and caraway seeds.

Cinnamon Apples - I usually open up canned apples either grocery store bought or canned by me, add some brown sugar and a tiny handful of red hots.  This symbolizes "red hot love" and sweetness for the year and I made it up.  Either way, apples go good with the meal.

Cornbread - So that our home will not know hunger.  Sounds good doesn't it.  Bread is a traditional gift of a new home for folks along with wine so the new house never knows hunger or thirst.

Pie - In case you didn't get enough to eat. 

I am getting hungry thinking about the smells of my kitchen on new year's day. 

I also read another superstition that says:  Using a knife during the first days of the New Year "cuts off" all the good luck for the coming year.   And that all knives must be put away.  I wonder if this means before or after you eat the black eyed peas?!?!  This one is a Chinese tradition.  I'm not Chinese but I may try this one just for fun.  That means that I'll have to chop my cabbage and onion early and make the pie and cut it early.... use forks to cut the ham... sounds like too much trouble to me.  I think I will start the knife tradition after my black eyed peas are eaten. 

What are some of your traditions and superstitions associated with the new year??










These are journals that I made for my guests a few years back.  So easy to do.... HERE.

Grow Baby Grow

 

I feel like we are in the down hill stretch of seed starting and really we are.  This year I started a lot of seeds indoors, especially in the tomato department.  I currently have 96 plants if they all make it.  I know that sounds like a lot but to me it is just about right.  We will plant our normal batch in our garden which is usually around eighty of the same variety, a handful at the day care and the rest are late tomatoes that won't get planted until later.  This time I have about half Bradley, half Roma for the first batch planted.  I will can the Bradley's and make pasta sauce and make salsa from the Roma's.  The store on Etsy that I ordered my Bradley seeds from also sent a free packet of variety tomatoes, of which I planted them all like a good girl.  So really, my late tomatoes are a grab bag assortment and who knows what we will get.  The good part about that is that if we get something we like we can save our seeds for next year.

 

I also have cabbage and eggplant planted which is the first time I have begun both from seed.  They are doing great.  My green peppers did not come up so I will have to buy those plants. 

I have two dill plants which need a few more weeks, zinnias in two varieties who are ready for the ground, and a new flower that I've never grown before called Cleome. 

 

I have been caring for these little seeds, seedlings and plants for weeks upon weeks now, watering putting in sunny windows and moving them outside on sunny days and back in at night.  I actually get nervous when they are first planted in the ground like a little mother hen thinking a rain drop will drown them.  Our planting time seemed like it was taking it's sweet time getting here since we plant on May 10th or there-a-bouts.  This year we are already planning to wait another week or two.  The ground temperature is not warm enough nor dry enough to plant for our taste.  It takes warm ground to make these babies grow and I am not convinced that we won't have another frost.  I have to say it is ok with me right now that my plants have a couple of more weeks to mature.  If not, I would be stressing about not having them in the ground and might be tempted to plant them when I shouldn't.   Patience and gardening grow hand in hand.

 

Late tomatoes.

 

They look like they need water but really they don't.  I watered then decided that some needed a little more soil for support. 



A New Year

The first day of the year is one of my favorite days.  I always make a big lunch that includes all the traditional dishes of cabbage, black eyed peas, pork, apples and cornbread.  I am a country gal and I do cook with lard and am very proud of it.  This year our lunch included country ham (pork) from our pigs symbolizing rooting in to the new year, cabbage cooked in the crock pot in broth with onions and caraway seeds for money, black eyed peas with hog fat for luck and cinnamon apples for spicy love.  I made the last one up and it usually is made with red hots for "red hot love" but sadly I was lacking in the red hot department in the pantry so I made do with spices.  Still fantastic.  My New Year's lunch is always accompanied by guests because I also believe that the luck and such must be shared and somehow a different crowd is here every year.  I am just glad to share.

After lunch, I put my coveralls and rain boots on and Molly and I took a walk in the woods. We checked on the garden, looked for flint rocks and walked down the old trail on the edge of the woods. I also had to take care of chores outside myself because I have given my nasty cold to my darling husband.  If you can't share with the ones you love who can you share with?

I have thought about resolutions and actually thought about not making any.  However, I have come up with a couple of things that I love to do but with busy-ness have fallen short in doing.  So my two resolutions so far are to walk in the woods once a week and  make suet this winter for the birds.  I have done both today so I am off to a good start.  I also believe that what you do on New Year's day is what you will be doing all year.  So no fretting, no kicking myself for no reason and lots of love for what I have been given in life. 

What resolutions have you made for yourself so far?