Making Gumbo.

Gumbo is one of those dishes that makes people shy away from Cajun cooking. The trinity, the copper colored Roux, adding veggies and meats to make it taste great...seems to put a few cooks into a state of confusion and they doubt their abilities. There is no secret to good gumbo, really, I'm not kidding. Once you learn to cook a roux to a color and depth you like, the rest is just adding meat and seasonings to your taste buds. And there is no limit on what can be added to your gumbo so it's a great way to use up leftovers from the fridge or your garden produce. Meats can be as exotic as turtle to as plain as chicken. And veggies such as okra, corn, cabbage, and even carrots can be thrown in the pot if wanted.

The mysterious roux is just a combination of oil and flour. I use olive oil and vegetable oil combined, as olive can't take high heat but does add flavor. The technique is simple: Add oil to your pot, add your trinity (onions, green pepper, and celery) to the oil, cook until onion is transparent and other veggies are tender. Add flour to oil and veggies and stir constantly until the mixture turns from whitish to a coppery color. YOU HAVE TO STAND NEXT TO THE POT AND STIR the entire time or the roux will burn and taste nasty! Cajuns time the roux cooking by beer: a one beer roux is light copper colored, a two beer roux is medium, and a 3 beer roux is very dark copper (pretty much burnt if the cook is still standing).

So now you understand how the roux is made. You can also make the roux without the veggies. By doing it this way it just takes longer for the veggies to cook. No big deal. Also you can make roux ahead of time and store it in the fridge. Just remember this...hot broth add cold roux, hot roux add cold broth, and you will never do it wrong.

Ok, before you start the roux make sure you have all your ingredients in order. A bowl of cut up veggies (okra, tomatoes, corn, etc),

A bowl of meat (chicken, fish, rabbit, sausage, shrimp, etc), a few quarts of stock (chicken, fish, rabbit) and your seasonings (red pepper, black pepper, file, salt, garlic). If you have everything cut up and in bowls waiting making the gumbo goes much easier and quicker.

Once your roux is ready in the bottom of the pot, you add your stock slowly and stir it into the roux. Remember: add cold stock to hot roux! After you have the stock added and have stirred it well, let the stock/roux mixture come back up to almost simmering temp. At this time you can add your veggies and meat. One word of advice: if using shrimp, and the shrimp during the last 5-8 minutes of cooking before serving, otherwise they get tough.

Let the gumbo cook on a medium-low heat and stir every few minutes to check for how done the veggies and meat are. When the veggies seem tender enough and meat heated through then add your seasonings and stir. Let gumbo cook about 5-10 minutes more to incorporate the seasonings.

That's it! Serve the gumbo into bowls with a huge chunk of cornbread and a dessert.

Leftovers can be frozen for later use, and heats back up tasting excellent!

So try your hand at making a gumbo, just jump in fearless and confident, you can't mess up gumbo unless you burn the roux.

Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez!!!

Creole Red Beans and rice recipe.

I make red beans and rice mainly on Mondays as a no meat monday thing, but sometimes I just gotta have it on other days! I can this delicious southern treat so I can open a jar and savor the flavor anytime I want. I'm sharing my recipe today for those who love the cajun/creole fare as much as I do.

Crockpot Creole Red Beans


(4-5 qt) crock pot:

1 bag red beans
1 med onion, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, sliced
1 small green pepper, chopped
1-2 Tbsp zatarians seasoning (or more to taste) *
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 can diced tomatoes (or one pint)
2-3 chicken flavoring cubes

Rinse and sort beans, place in crock and
cover with warm water (about 3-4 quarts). Turn crock on high. Add remaining ingredients and cover.

Cook on high about 8 hours. Lower temp to low setting and add any meat like chicken, sausage or seafood if desired.

Serve hot over bowls of rice.

*I found 1 1/2 Tbsp to be about right.

To Can: Place bean mixture from crockpot in hot canning jars, (just ladle it in with plenty of broth)  and leaving about 1 inch headspace, wipe rims and place lids and rings on. Put in Pressure Canner. Let Canner vent 10 minutes. Cook at
10/11 pounds pressure for:

* No meat Beans - 65 minutes for pints

* With meat beans - 75 minutes for pints

I usually don't do quarts, but I would go by the meat bean times listed in the Ball Blue Book for those.

Pear sauce recipe.

I prepare my pear sauce in a crockpot, same as I do my apple sauce and apple butter. It just seems to turn out better in the crockpot! Here is my recipe I use:

9 pounds pears -- peeled, cored and sliced
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar (I use brown sugar)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon - (to 2) -- (optional)
1 tsp allspice (optional)

Combine pears, water, sugar and lemon juice in a crockpot. Place crockpot on low setting and cover. Stir every hour to judge thickness. When the sauce is thickened to what you prefer add cinnamon and allspice. Stir well. If sauce is too chunky put it thru a food mill.

Fill prepared hot jars with hot pear sauce, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Gently run a narrow nonmetallic spatula between sauce and jars to release air bubbles. Wipe rims clean; top with hot lids, then firmly screw on bands.

Process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes for pints, 30 minutes for quarts.

This recipe yields 4 pints or 2 quarts

Pear season.

It seems the pears just keep coming off our two little trees. Yesterday I canned up 2 more buckets into brown sugar and cinnamon pears, and pear sauce in the crockpot.

Last week I did 3 buckets as mint pears and red cinnamon pears.

Week before that I did multiple canner loads of brown sugar and cinnamon pears from 2 buckets. I still have 2 buckets waiting and at least another 3-4 buckets on the trees yet.

To break up the boredom I made some hot chili sauce, cajun beans and mild salsa. Thats whats in the other jars in the first picture. I have 20 pounds of tomatoes to process and I'm still getting about a half pound of peppers from the garden every couple days. Thinking of making some green hot sauce with the peppers and just canning the tomatoes diced.

It's also time to shear the goats! I am looking at this trimmer at Tractor Supply: Lister Star. It has more blades that can be used for sheep and goats as well as dogs and horses. Price is a little steep but if it works good and lasts quite a few years it will be worth the cost. Anyone have any recommendations for a trimmer??

Tattler Lid review and contest!

My friends over at Adventures in Self Reliance have posted a review for the tattler reusable canning lids, and they are hosting a give-away for 3 boxes of lids!! These lids are great, and I use them myself. So head on over there and enter the contest! Good luck!

Discovering nature

Got up this morning and drove to the store with DH, and on the way back down our 1/4 mile driveway I spotted these big oval green thingys hanging from some bushes.

I grab one, cut it open and think loofah! But to make sure I bring it into the house with some leaves and research on the net to find out what it is. Turns out it is Passion Fruit!! The distinct leaves gave it away. So did the pretty purple flowers.

The vines are kinda wrapped around a bunch of bushes and other brush, and the vegetation is pretty thick, but when I really started looking the fruits hanging were more noticable. I can't wait to make something with them when are ripe!

Are discovering these gems I started really taking a look at the other bushes and trees. I ended up finding a few things that I can use for dying wool. Pokeberries were used during the Civil War by the soldiers for ink to write letters and diaries. These have also been used in the past and currently as dye for wool, and turns out a beautiful burgundy color. I want to come up with a way to preserve the juice of these berries in jars for dying year round. there has to be a way to can this stuff, or dry maybe. The other berry I came across was the beauty berry.

These berries will dye the wool a pink/red color. Neither the poke or beauty berries can be eaten by humans, but some animals and birds enjoy them. Deer especially are said to like the beauty berries.
The last one I found was red elderberries. I knew they gre in this area, but have not seen them on the property until today. Maybe I just wasn't looking for them very hard. The red elderberry can't be eaten in it raw state, but when cooked it can be used in wine, jams and jelly or pies even. I'm going to see if there are any canning recipes for this little berry so I can preserve them.

That was a pretty good morning, learning what was growing here and what I can use for making other things, especially canning and dying wool with just free things from nature.

I took some photos yesterday of my angora goats and one of the rabbits as I was out watering them.

In the last photo if you look at her mouth you'll see she is smiling! These goats are very gentle and people friendly. I should be shearing them in September or October. Here are a few more pictures I took around the yard.

Finally!

The potatoes are finished! I ended up with 23 quarts and 13 pints, plus a quart of dried and enough leftover to make dinner. that was alot of potatos.

The heat here is absolutely crazy, with heta indexes running over 100 and 100% humidity. Yesterday I had to braid the horses manes because they were sweating so bad under them. It helps to get air flow on their necks and they aren't as miserable. The rest of the critters all seem ok. We're suppose to get more rain today, and the garden sure needs it! I opened my gate to the garden so the ducks and chickens could get in there and eat some of those crickets that are chewing everything up. My bush bean plants are full of holes and the corn is getting chewed up. Hopefully they get in there and get the job done.

Today I will be spinning somemore yarn so I have more than a 100 yards of this alpaca/wool blend to make a beenie hat for one of the boys for Christmas.

I still have over half to go on Stormies latchhook horse rug, too, but I found her a bathroom set with horses on it and it has a shower curtain, trash container, tooth brush holder, soap dish, lotion container, and cup. I got it on Ebay for $23 plus shipping. Her bathroom should look pretty cute after these get put in.  I have so many project going at once all the time, if I don't write them down, I never finish them, LOL.

Well, back to canning, I picked up peaches, tomatoes, and stewing steak yesterday, so those are next into the jars!!