Getting into a Jam

I have been canning and pickling about a year and a half now but I have been weary of getting in Jams and Jellies. Mostly because I had no idea what to do. Also there are sugar ratios and pectin ratios - plus fruit is kinda expensive.


At the farmers market a few months ago - I won a bag full of pectin from the canning demo. With a bag of pectin in my house, I suppose it was just a matter of time till I gave it a go!

Fresh Strawberries! 

I like to mix 2 kinds of berries - the raspberry cooks down and the small slices of strawberry make a nice texture so its more like preserves than jelly.

Fresh Raspberries!

Get your jars all lined up and ready to go. Make sure they are clean and sanitized and have lids ready!

Wonder Jars! 

In a big pot - add all the strawberries, raspberries, sugar, pectin and let cook for 30 min. Everything will cook down nicely! See individual recipes to get your ratios - it all depends on how much fruit you have.

Bubbling Sticky Goodness

Once everything is cooked down, while its still hot, pour into your jars and seal them up with lids - do it quick and they will self seal. Nothing like the sound of lids popping as the jam cools down.

Many jars of tasty preserves

Once the lids have sealed - put in the fridge to help the "gel" process. By the next day you have super tasty - not too much sugar - wonderful berry preserves!

Winter Dishes and New Years Eve 2012

Curly kale made into kale chips - with oil and coarse salt

 

Over the past few months, I have really developed a taste for leafy greens - things like kale, bok choy, mustard greens, chard, spinach, etc. I honestly like the taste and its so easy to make as a side dish. Almost all can be tossed into a pan with some olive oil and S&P and have a great and good for you side in minutes.

These are tasty mustard greens before the cook down. 

If you want to make the side into a main entree - just add a lean meat.

Chicken, Baby Bok Choy and Garlic stir fry

I am always trying to find a way to add more veggies into our world and I am striving to have more "meatless days". One of my favorite things to make is mushroom saute with garlic and onions. With all the local food we can get at our market - its makes for a tasty meal.

Habenero pasta Chibcha Roll  from Swedish Hill Bakery, Portabella Mushrooms,

 Raw Colby Cheese 

On New Years Eve we celebrated the last day of the 2011 market. It was fun to stock up on winter veggies, chicken and treats for New Years day munching.

Cauliflower, Broccoli, Bok Choy, Chicken, Burgers, Shrimp, Fennel, Eggs, Pasta, Bread, Crab Dip, Texas Caviar 

The big winner of the week was from Aunt Nita's booth and made by Miss Addie herself. It was some sort of spinach souffle that had a mix of peppers and cheese mixed it. We baked it till it was bubbling hot and golden brown. So incredibly good - we were able to share it with our friend John and still eat it with 2 meals! Way to go Addie!!

Addie's Spinach Souffle 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also got to ring in the New Year with Aunt Nita's homemade bloody Mary mix - that and our local vodka - TITOS! Read what all is one that label - this was not your typical drink. SO GOOD! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Happy 2012!

Garden Bricks

I really enjoy art for my yard and outside. I bought this brick making kit many years ago that was similar to the "word magnets on the fridge" that everyone had in the 90's. My original thought was once I owned my home, I would hand make a brick walkway and within it - have some great lyrics. I still hope to do this someday but I have yet to commit to a song. In the mean time, I make lyric bricks for the garden.

I mix my own concrete that I buy in 40 lb bags from Home Depot. I use old bookshelves as my smooth base to build the brick on. Its portable that way and I can take the bricks outside to dry in the sun or into the garage to remain damp.

I then use my lettering to make each word. It takes up to 3-4 days to dry and in this cold weather, sometime it took much longer. Once they are dried - I take them outside and paint them with about 3 layers of color.

This is how they look when they are done - such a  nice addition to a garden.

If you would like some for your garden - please check out my etsy site where I sell all different kinds of bricks, including custom bricks. If you have a lyric you need in your world - let me know!


www.etsy.com/shop/LemonLimeLlama

Whole Wheat Dog Treats

Sushi Weiner Dog

I love my dogs and I love making homemade treats for them. They are a sucker for a milkbone but these make a nice yield and last about 2 weeks. 

I got this dog biscuit recipe from my dear friend Nicole (aka: Nico) in Kansas City. She made me 2 large bags and gave me the recipe probably 10 year ago. I even made these as a wedding favor for our "dog friends" at our wedding reception. 

THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED

2 cups whole wheat flower

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup powdered milk

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 egg beaten 

5 tbsp oil 

1/4 cup water

2 jar baby food - any flavor (these are turkey sweet potato) 

Rollin the Dough

Preheat oven 350 degrees

In large bowl combine all ingredients and make a thick dough. I use my Kitchen-aid Mixer.

Knead on lightly floured baking mat until dough is smooth - approx 4 min. 

Sprinkle flour and roll out dough in 1/2 inch thickness

Use cookie cutters or a small drinking glass 

Bake on cookie sheet (I use foil) for approx 22 min. 

Let cool at least 30 min before feeding to pups

Goats!

 We used our goat cookie cutter as an ode to our local farmers we love so much ... and goats are cute. 

Owls

 We also make little owl treats as well. Owls rule and are everywhere at our house. They are also smaller than the goats so you can make a varied sizes. Just watch how long you bake them - obviously the smaller ones take less time - 15 min. Try not to let them burn - you can see the far right bottom owl is a little crispy. :) 

Also I usually double the recipe just because it does make quite a mess once you've got rollers and mixers out. I also sometimes add food coloring - if I make Valentines dog treats this year, they will be pink for sure!  Id love to hear if you try this for your dogs!

Supermodel

Saki snarfs these things down like steak but she doesn't want you to know that - hence her, refusal to be photographed with her favorite treat. She has a red carpet reputation to uphold. 

Hound

Sushi on the other hand, loves her treats and doesn't care who knows! Snarf! Snarf!! 

Fallish Winter Farmers Market

This is the time of year when we start to see the kind of veggies change at the market. Its like a shifting of the tide - the tomatoes go out - the potatoes come in. Its rather exciting to be completely honest. :)

 

Lots of whole fish available from K&S Seafood. We love this vendor! Not only are they the nicest people - the fish is always excellent. You can usually find us buying shrimp, crab, scallops, and tuna steak the most. We also sometimes get whole fish or fillets of snapper. 

These are oyster mushrooms from the farm - Kitchen Pride. I thought they looked like flowers today!

Everyone is kinda excited about scallions coming back! Green garlic cant be far behind. Johnson backyard always has an amazing selection. If they have bok choy - buy it! Its great - also their kale is perfect!

Beautiful Chard! Also from Johnson's Backyard

This week our grocery week has - Tuna Steak, Rango Peppers, Sharp Cheddar Cheese, Grits, Skirt Steak, Raisin Rolls, Eggs, Bok Choy, Kale, Dog Treats, Gluten Free Brownie and Cookie, Tomatoes, Butternut Squash Soup, Baby Portabelllas, Crab, and Bell Peppers

Another very successful trip to our favorite spot! Please join us each Sat morning to Lakeline Mall!

Adventures in Duck Breast and the Hope of Crispy Skin

As I have discussed before on this blog that I am a huge fan of TV's Top Chef show on Bravo. I feel like its free cooking lessons! I learned how to cook many things from watching these shows - scallops come to mind. This last week, we decided to take on a duck breast from local farm - Countryside! We bought this from our local farmers market - it cost about $22. Yes, a bit pricey but not if you think about how much it would cost if you went out to dinner for the same thing. $22 would be a steal! I had 2 main goals and ideas I had stolen from FoodTV - the most important thing was to get a crispy skin on it. Ive seen people get kicked off Top Chef and Chopped for rubbery duck skin. I also knew that I needed to render the duck fat and then use that duck fat for a tasty side dish. I decided to to with potatoes and scallions.

We first removed the wing - wanted a flat surface to work with on the skin side. *Note that Vodka and Jack Daniels helps the duck cooking process.

Next we scored the duck skin in a cross hatch pattern. Just deep enough to cut open the skin but not into the breast meat itself. This is done to help make grooves for the rendering of the fat. Duck fat is a special thing.

Place the duck - skin side down in a cold pan. Cold baby!! No oil - no nuthin. Turn the heat up to a med/high and let it cook for 7-10 minutes.

Soon, the duck fat will start to cook off - this my friends is RENDERING THE DUCK FAT.
I feel like Padma is going to come around the corner any moment and comment on my rendering skills.

After 10 minutes - flip over the duck breast and then spoon the duck fat over the top. This will help get that sought after CRISPY SKIN! Cook for an additional 7-10 minutes for med rare duck.

Let the duck rest for 10 min with a tin foil tent to help keep all the juices in the meat rather than your cutting board. Slice at a slant - like a tenderloin. If its too rare, toss back in the hot pan for a minute quick sear!

With the left over duck fat - add sliced potatoes and onions or scallions. Salt and Pepper and cook till potatoes are tender. This is very very good!


Overall, we really loved the duck! The skin was crispy and tasted of bacon. I thought the meat tasted more like steak than chicken. Safe to say that we will be adding duck into our home menu! Thanks for looking and hope to hear your duck stories too!

Farm day at Swede Goat Farm

We were so excited to get an invitation earlier this month to go visit Swede Goat Farm in Waller, TX. The Carlson's were nice enough to open up their home and farm to any of their clients that were interested to see where their goats milk comes from. Needless to say, we were totally in and packed up the car and headed 2 hours towards Houston.

 

This is farmer Tim and his main goat area. You can feel the love! 

Mike and Tim talk goats! 

This is me with Margaret Houston the goat. All of Tim's goats that come from Texas have Texas names.  Isn't she Lovely?? 

She was very cuddly towards Mike. Goat Love!

We later got the chance to learn how to milk the goats. We both felt like we had a natural touch to it. ;) 

Here is the REAL milkers who know what they are doing! 

This is Grace and she is milking Ima Hogg the goat.

This is Baba - no doubt cause she looks like a baby lamb. She was the smallest of the farm dogs but she was the one chasing cars and patrolling all around. 

They had many different kinds of animals on the farm besides the goats. They had alpacas, hogs, cats, turkeys and dogs. I was intrigued by the chickens and spent entirely too much time trying to get a good photo of them.  This was as good as it got.

We had such a great day - not only did we get to see how everything worked, we got to spend the day with fuzzy animals! Nothing ever beats that!

Fall/Winter Garden 2011

This is my second year of trying to grow food all the way into winter. This summer was the driest on record and really really hot, Like 80 days over 100 degrees and no rain for what must have been 5 months. My summer tomato plants had grown huge and totally out of control by late Aug but they were still producing small sweet fruits. I should have pulled them early Aug but it was so hot, I thought a brand new baby plant would have been doomed. I finally pulled my summer garden out in mid Sept and set out with some new plants for the winter. I also bought a few bags of revitalize fertilizer and turned over all the soil.

My winter garden consists of 1 jalapeno plant, 2 sweet 100 tomato plants, about 10 squash plants and 2 very sad looking cantaloupe plants. I'm not expecting to get any fruit from the cantaloupe - they are tiny plants. Unless the made teeny tiny cantaloupes and the would be pretty awesome too.

 This is the garden at one month. Lots of growth from the squash plants. Yellow flowers on both tomato plants and 2 or 3 jalapenos on the 1 pepper plant.

 This is a good size one for only being a month old plant! Spicy and Green!!

 The beginnings of baby tomatoes!

And after months and months of our yard looking like hay - we had 1 rain and our grass finally came back. 

It was so nice to see some color out our back door! 

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By the magic of the internet blog - here are some photos of the garden after 8 weeks! 

 As you can see, I had lots and lots of squash blossoms! They were so pretty in the morning when they would all open up! The tomato plants have grown quite a bit and have lots of bright green tomatoes on them! And the jalapeno plant hasn't grown very tall but it has produced many tasty peppers!

 Big bright green tomatoes! Hope they ripen before the frost! 

 And my favorite - the tiny little squash that are coming in. A lot can hold up to cold temps so hopefully these cold nights go by fast and we still have a few weeks left!

Kiss my Cheesy Grits!

Being from Kansas, there are some occasions when I come across food I'm not familiar with in Texas. Tamales are in this category as well as breakfast tacos. I came across this new item at our farmers market at Aunt Nita's booth. She is famous for her tacos but added a new breakfast treat - CHEESY GRITS!


I had only gotten the cheesy grits a few times over the past season but soon I found myself craving the taste & the texture! A few weeks ago, Addie who does lots of the cooking for Aunt Nita's, mentioned that you can slice up Cheesy Grits, fry them and top them with an egg for a flavor explosion, I of course had to get right on this!

Step 1 was to let the cheesy grits cool in this cute Chinesee take out box over night in the fridge. In the morning, it slid out like a firm tofu.

 

Step 2 - get your butter going in your pan. Enjoy the butter melting circles as they are relaxing.

 

Step 3 - is slice your grits - about a half inch. My block made 4 slices. Drop in the buttery pan to begin the frying process. Brown on each side - flipping half way through.

Step 4 - Once the grits are fried up - place on paper towel to blot excess oil. Using the same pan - get on medium heat and fry up some eggs! 

 After all is cooked up - make a stack of Fried Cheesy Grits with an Fried Egg on top. Also a touch of Cilantro is nice. Cilantro makes everything wonderful!

I suggest anyone who hasnt had grits to give them a try. A wonderful surprise and a great southern treat!
Enjoy!! I hope Aunt Nita has these at the market this week!!