How To Make Olive Salad For Muffuletta (Olive Tapenade)

I took a few liberties to reflect some of the ingredients we have on hand, including using some of my own home-canned pickled onions and pickled green tomatoes. I suspect there are lots of substitutions one could make to perfect it as "your own". :-)

Homemade Egg Noodles And Chicken or Turkey

I shared the text recipe for this several years ago on this blog, and now here is video to go along with it.

This time I made it using my own home-canned turkey! Enjoy!  :-)

Canning Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit

This is the season when Texas citrus are ripe. It is surprisingly easy to can fresh grapefruit  (or oranges) - and it tastes so fresh when we open it in the summer, when the refreshing sweet flavor is welcome for breakfast on a bright summer morning! These videos show how I do it!

Homemade Menudo: Mexican Tripe and Hominy Soup Recipe

This is so warming and delicious on cold days. Traditionally eaten for breakfast, we usually have it for supper.  The first cold snap each year, Paul will usually say "how about making a pot of menudo?" :-)

Green Tomato Mincemeat Pie Filling

This is a great way to use some of the green tomatoes left in the garden. I chose to use the small cherry tomatoes for this, cut into quarters, to take advantage of them for texture.  I used some of this to make a Mincemeat Cake (recipe here) to take to a gathering this week and it turned out great!

How To Make Gumbo For a Big Crowd - and a Garlic Peeling Tip!

Putting Up Pear Preserves

Introducing... Pecan Corner on You Tube! Canning, Cooking, Southern Food and Budget Abundance

As Paul has gotten better, he is now feeling like doing more even though he is still mostly house-bound. He has watched a lot of You Tube during this past year, and we've been discovering the amazing channels ordinary people have.   Now we are one of those!  :-)

Pecan Corner on You Tube won't have any political content (that is for the blog! :-) ), just my natural life-long "how to" preparedness. I have always kept a well-stocked larder, and we practice a concept I call "budget abundance" that allows us to still enjoy a high quality standard of living without debt and within a tiny budget. This is especially important during difficult economic times,

Videos so far include how to make prickly pear cactus jelly, canning apple pie filling, seasoning your own breakfast sausage, and inexpensive old fashioned home-cooked meals that can feed a family healthful food for very little. There are also recipes of products I make for my little Cottage Food home business - things to sell at farmer's markets and roadside stands. As we go along, I'm sure my other hobbies will find their way into it as well: letterpress printing, gardening, foraging wild foods, and our new-found fun: Living History and historical reenacting!

I hope you will subscribe, there will only be one a day so it won't overwhelm your inbox. They say You Tube now rates channels by subscribers as well as views, and I have monetized the channel so perhaps one day it will contribute a bit to the household. If nothing else, it is something fun we can do together, to make new friends and enjoy trading knowledge with others.

Here is a sample! Thanks for checking it out! :-)

O Tomato! Beautiful Heirloom Varieties I Am Gathering Now!

Tomatoes here are finally ripening and I am gathering about a peck or more each day.   I lost track of what tomatoes I have where since replanting them after the freeze, so as they ripen I am looking back at my lists to figure out what they are. We are having a lot of fun tasting these different varieties that we have never had before.

Chocolate Cherry - Just today I picked the first 4 of these, have not  tasted them yet. Weirdly, all of my cherry tomatoes are running kind of behind the full sized fruit. Maybe they will keep coming all summer though. 

Brandywine or Cherokee Purple? - I have a couple of plants with nice big 8 ounce pinkish tomatoes that have green shoulders, and the green is as sweet as the pink. Great flavor, nice and sweet. 

Rutgers are doing well too for me, making big red orange fruits. I think they would be great for fried green tomatoes because they are so meaty. 

Japanese Black Trifele (anyone know how to pronounce that?) is Paul's favorite so far. Wow, what flavor. I have gotten 6 tomatoes from the plant so far, and the new fruit is a long way from ripe. This is them, below - they have a nice mahogany brown color when fully ripe, and delicious complex flavor. 

Porter are awfully pretty and uniform. They look like pink eggs, weigh about 2 ounces, and have a good flavor. I am saving seed from them to plant again too.  Look how attractive they are in the two photos below!  They are producing to beat the band. 

Henderson Pink Ponderosa is doing great for me and I like them. They are a nice size, uniform and attractive. 

When you don't spray for bugs, the bugs do share the produce. This photo below shows different problems my tomatoes have - not many fruit have these issues, but a few.

The big Brandywine or Cherokee Purple (I have never see either - help is welcome) with green shoulders is one the grasshoppers have been snacking on. See how they kind of "mowed" along it?  That portion can be cut off and we can still eat the tomato but no one would want to pay for it.

To the left of it, in the top center, is a Pink Ponderosa that some kind of caterpillar or grub has drilled into - just as they have done to the Homestead tomato on the far left and the little cherry tomato.  These have to be thrown away because the damage inside is far greater than the damage outside. I don't even bother trying to "save" these fruits.

The white papery patch on the big Rutgers is sunscald. Although I let my plants sprawl, some are still exposed to constant sun, and it has been in the 90s all week. I don't see this on every variety, but perhaps these large fruits are more sensitive for some reason.

Yeeecccch. Enough of ugly tomatoes. Here is a prettier picture to end with, These gorgeous Costoluto Genovese are ripening...

I am mixing the varieties all together when canning, just using whatever is ripe to fill quart jars. That way I can put up two or three quarts at a time instead of trying to hold them. I am doing a water bath using my stock pot with a small rack, instead of my canner. Since I have a smooth top range, this works well for me.  

Remember to follow the instructions at the National Center for Home Food Preservation in ALL of your canning methods to be sure you are preserving safely. PickYourOwn.org also has a lot of great recipes and instructions.  Both are linked  from my sidebar, over to the right.  I don't get anything for recommending these - it is important that we learn how to look after ourselves in safe ways so that we feel completely confident in our own knowledge and ability. 

Tomato Vines Loaded with Green Fruit: Heirloom "Costoluto Genovese"

I have only picked a couple of ripe tomatoes so far, but the vines are all full of green fruit. This variety I grew from seed that I bought from Park Seed. They are called "Costoluto Genovese", an Italian heirloom tomato that is supposed have an intense flavor that makes them good for canning and sauce. I love the lobed shapes on these! 

I planted many different varieties, and in the first planting I had a nice chart of which were where. But after they all froze to death and I had to scurry to replant, I didn't track placement. So until they ripen, it is hard to tell which is which. These Genovese ones are unmistakeable though. 

Linocuts and Letterpress: Printing Seed Packets and Cottage Food Labels

I've been having fun this year in the print shop, turning out seed packets for saving seeds in.  The Pecan Corner Press is a hobby, and this kind of ephemera is what I usually produce. I use handset type and some fun old cuts.  I've been taking these to the local Farmer's Market since the grasshoppers and deer have eaten all my gardening efforts this year.  The empty ones are great for saving seed and tucking into a get well card or garden club seed exchanges. Some people even said they were going to use them in their little miniature display cabinets.

My Swiss Chard went to seed this year (it is a biennial, and can be harvested as long as it lives - it is never tough or bitter), so I made the linoleum cut and filled these to see how the seed would sell. This is the old variety, Fordhook, and they can be planted in Texas all the way though the fall.

I didn't take a press but I have taken a locked-up chase and it has drawn a lot of interest.  I have a ways to go before I sell enough to pay for my market fees, but this is a good way to support our little market and help it grow.

 
 When September rolls around, I'll be able to offer more items - we all will. Texas passed a Cottage Food Law a couple of years ago that made it possible to open one's home to sell baked goods and jams. It is a common-sense approach that recognizes that if we know the person doing the cooking, we can decide for ourselves whether we want to eat what they have cooked.  The newest version, which takes effect Sept 1st 2013, is pretty exciting, because it expands common sense to foods that are pretty much going to be safe to eat and allows us to take our products to Farmers' Markets and locally sponsored Fairs, as well as sell from home.

 Here's another place where we - Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Tea Party, Occupy... pretty much everybody but the Socialists and Communists - can come together, I think. We all want personal sovereignty over our food!!!!

 So, in anticipation of HB 970 (still awaiting the final rules to define exactly what items we can sell), I have been carving linoleum blocks to use on labels for my homemade jams, jellies, relishes, sauerkraut, syrups and baked goods. The linocuts, combined with Art Deco era typefaces, give the labels a fun old fashioned look. These are the first proofs of a few of them, printed on dry-gummed paper. I will tweek the colors and ink coverage a bit for the final labels.

How to Make Homemade Sauerkraut from Scratch

Sauerkraut, drained, rinsed and ready to eat!

 My family made pickles, but never sauerkraut. We ate it though: a regular weeknight supper at my grandparents' house was "weenies and sauerkraut". Paul's mother, Thelma, made her own kraut when he was a baby. She said when he was toddling around, he would reach into her crocks and get handfuls of kraut to eat! Cabbage in any form is still one of his favorite vegetables. We have sauerkraut fairly often, cooked in lots of different ways or on hot dogs (Hebrew National, thank you!).

 The health benefits of fermented cabbage or cucumbers are huge. But we don't get the same benefits when the pickles are made with vinegar or the kraut has been processed to death and treated with all kinds of "preservatives". The Lactic Acid that turns cabbage into kraut, makes it sour, and prevents it from spoiling once it is fermented, comes from the action of lactobacilli. These little friendly bacteria keep our digestion working properly, help remove toxins from the blood (sauerkraut was an old staple in hospitals that treated alcoholism), and now it looks like sauerkraut can even help prevent cancers. AND fermenting the cabbage bumps up the Vitamin C content tremendously (is there nothing Vitamin C can't do? ;-))!

 

Usually by the time I think of doing things that require time to ferment, it is already the height of summer and too hot for things to "bubble" properly. But one day in April, I took advantage of the very cool Spring we had this year and tried my hand at it.

For this batch, I used a gallon glass jar. Next time, I am going to use one of Big Grandmother's crocks - I am sterilizing it in the dishwasher right now. You could easily use one of the old style "crock pots" without plugging it in. You would still need to use the plate or bag method to weight down the cabbage to keep it under the brine. Be sure to read up on how to use various containers and weights BEFORE you get started. The National Center For Home Food Preservation is a reliable reference for safe canning and preserving methods.

[July 5, 2013 UPDATE: Second batch completed, as easy to make as the first, and we enjoyed some of it yesterday. But I learned I cannot use antique crocks. They have crazing that absorbs the liquid and that would also prevent them from being sterilized. Stick to glass or modern options such as the crock pots mentioned above, or brand new crocks. Thanks to everyone who has stopped in to read this! I hope it has been useful to you :-) ]

I got my recipe from here,  and they also detail the method: it is originally an Extension Service recipe from the University of Georgia. It is the same recipe that is given in many cookbooks and other websites, but I chose this one because it is very simple and the instructions are complete and matter-of-fact. I've added my notes within it, and given the lower portions for making a small batch.

I loved that there is also a recipe for making sauerkraut out of Collard Greens! It is too warm here in Texas for cabbage to do well, but we can grow some collards. Collards are one of those biennial vegetables that you can keep alive all through the year, making it possible to have fresh home-grown veg even in the dark of winter.  The Collard Sauerkraut Recipe is just below the one for cabbage. I haven't tried it yet.

 

Homemade Sauerkraut Recipe

1 head of cabbage or about 5 pounds
3 tablespoons of canning or pickling salt (you could use kosher salt but not sea salt or iodized salt, the iodine will interfere)

Discard outer leaves. Rinse the whole head under cold running water and drain. Do not use disinfectants or vinegar rinses on it, just a simple wash with plain tap water.

Cut the cabbage in quarters and remove cores. Shred or slice to a thickness of a quarter (about 1/8"). You can use a knife if you don't have a mandolin but don't chop it into little bits. Long shreds are what we want. I used one head of cabbage, and shredded it fine with a mandolin (be REALLY careful with those and always use the safety guards, make sure someone else is in charge of the kids while you are using it, etc. Most important: THINK and pay attention - don't get distracted by anything.).

Add 3 tablespoons of salt. If the weather is very warm, you may need to use a little more salt. Toss well and mix thoroughly with your hands, then pack it all into your fermenting jar or crock. Leave space at the top, maybe 4 or 5 inches, for the brine to cover the cabbage completely.

 Here is the hard work part: beat it down firmly to bruise it and start drawing the juice out.  I used a wooden meat pounder, or you could use a jelly mortar. I hammered on it a while until I was tired. Then I made a brine of one quart filtered water and 2 tablespoons of kosher salt, brought it to a boil, and let it cool to room temperature.  After it had cooled, I poured it over the cabbage.

I added a round piece of plastic that was the diameter of the jar and sealed weights inside a freezer bag and put them down in the brine to hold the cabbage down under the brine.  This time I used brine in a gallon freezer bag (actually two of them in case one leaked) and put it inside the jar to seal
the whole thing. You use brine in the bag in case it leaks because plain water would dilute the sauerkraut causing it to spoil. If you use a crock, you can put a plate inside it instead.

"Add plate and weights; cover container with a clean bath towel. Store at 70 to 75 °F while fermenting. At temperatures between 70 and 75 °F, kraut will be fully fermented in about 3 to 4 weeks; at 60 to 65 °F, fermentation may take 5 to 6 weeks. At temperatures lower than 60 °F, kraut may not ferment. Above 75 °F, kraut may become soft. If you weigh the cabbage down with a brine-filled bag, do not disturb the crock until normal fermentation is completed (when bubbling ceases). If you use jars as weight, check the kraut two to three times each week and remove scum if it forms."

I set my jar back in the floor in the guest room. That part of the house, on the south side, is always shaded so it stays pretty cool back there, especially down at the floor level because that room, one of the originals from about 1895, is on pier and beam foundation so cool air can circulate below.

It took right at 4 weeks for mine to be done, and I could tell it was done because I started smelling it! Mine did form some scum (scary looking stuff) but I just scooped and wiped it out before moving down to the good kraut.  

 

 I transferred the kraut and its juice directly into sterile pint jars, and stored them in the refrigerator. My head of cabbage made 3 full pints of sauerkraut.  To can for pantry storage, you would need to process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, just like any acidic food - there are specific instructions at the original link.

   

As promised above, here is the recipe for fermenting collard greens!

Collard Kraut Recipe

A big bunch of fresh collard greens, about a gallon when cleaned.
2 or 3 Tablespoons of canning or pickling salt for each one gallon of collards.

Procedure: Wash the greens well, and shred. Use the same process as given for Cabbage Sauerkraut above. Store at 70 ºF for fermenting. At this temperature it will take approximately 3 to 4 weeks to ferment. If any scum forms above the plate or weight, remove it about 2 to 3 times a week. Taste in about two weeks. Allow collards to ferment until desired flavor is reached. 

Store in refrigerator or process in boiling water bath, as directed at original link or at the National Center for Home Food Preservation.

~~~~~~~~

If you try making the collard kraut before I do, or the regular cabbage kraut, please post and let me know how it turns out!

 

Dinner In A Jar-O

Our Bunko group meets once a month, each of us taking turns hosting. We have a meal that has evolved from pot luck into whatever the hostess wishes to feed us. Our hostess for March served up Dinner-in-a-jar AND dessert-in-a-jar. Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute!!!!

She called this one a "Barbeque Sundae": layered beans, cole slaw, and pulled pork topped with barbeque sauce and a pickle spear, and served with corn chips and garlic toast. Oh and don't forget the red onion! Assembly-line construction and the pint sized Mason jars were all ready to pick up and carry to our table. It was sooooo good!!!!

When we stopped for dessert, she pulled Peach Cobbler In A Jar out of the oven. This was built and baked in half-pint jars and believe it or not, there were no leftovers! Not a soul plead their diet and passed it up. Imagine that? ;-)

Just use your favorite recipe, divide equally into your jars, and bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool down for 10 to 15 minutes before serving - with whipped cream or a melon-ball sized scoop of ice cream.

This is a great way to serve a large number of people without using disposables or having to acquire a bunch of dishes or store specialty buffet ware. Most of us have empty canning jars whilst we are between seasons and waiting for the pears or peppers to get ripe enough to put up. The possibilities are endless: Taco Salad in a jar, Frito Pie in a jar, Chicken Pot Pie in a jar.... yummmmmm!

Putting Up Peaches: Peach Chutney For A Change

It's Peach Season! Time to eat all we can and can all we can't. ;-) I love canning - it's one of those tasks where we get to enjoy the fruits of a day's work for a long time.

The jar to the far right is Peach Chutney I made last year. It turned out great! It is wonderful with roast poultry and makes a really nice alternative to cranberry sauce. We can't grow cranberries in Texas so this is a good thing for those trying to eat locally or do the "100 mile diet" bit. Aside from some of the spices, all the ingredients either were local or "could have been" homegrown.


Personally, I don't think we should count the spices when trying to eat locally, because spices were one of the early commodities traded as far back as stone age people thousands of years ago - right up to what is now called "The Spice Trade" explosion in the 15th century Age of Exploration. It's why Columbus discovered America: looking for a shorter trade route to the continents and islands of the Orient (the Orient - from the Latin root "orientem" meaning the direction of the sun rise - was the Eastern world, the Occident, from L. "occidentem", direction of the sunset, was the word for the West), where all sorts of wonderful spices originated.

I found the original version of this recipe for "Spicy Peach Chutney" on Allrecipes.com, submitted by "Shana":

Original Recipe Yield 6 - 1/2 pints

Ingredients
* 4 pounds sliced peeled peaches
* 1 cup raisins
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 cup chopped onion
* 5 ounces chopped preserved ginger
* 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
* 1 tablespoon mustard seed
* 1 teaspoon curry powder
* 4 cups packed brown sugar
* 4 cups apple cider vinegar
* 1/4 cup pickling spice

Directions
1. In a large heavy pot, stir together the peaches, raisins, garlic, onion, preserved ginger, chili powder, mustard seed, curry powder, brown sugar and cider vinegar. Wrap the pickling spice in a cheesecloth bag, and place in the pot.
2. Bring to a boil, and cook over medium heat uncovered until the mixture reaches your desired consistency. It will take about 1 1/2 hours to get a good thick sauce. Stir frequently to prevent scorching on the bottom.
3. Remove the spice bag, and ladle into hot sterilized jars. Wipe the rims with a clean moist cloth. Seal with lids and rings, and process in a barely simmering water bath for 10 minutes, or the time recommended by your local extension for your area. The water should cover the jars completely.

I used fresh peaches I had just picked off the tree, but it can as easily be made with canned, frozen or dehydrated fruit. You could even use your peach jam (I'd leave out the sugar in this recipe if I were making it with jam).

To make Peach Chutney using dried peaches, pour plain hot water over the fruit in a ratio of 1 1/2 cups water per cup of fruit and let soak for an hour. Don't add the sugar yet or it will keep the peaches from absorbing the water. Measure out 6 cups of reconsituted peaches and use in place of the fresh peaches called for in the recipe.

This recipe, like many pickles, is best after it has had time to age for at least 2 months. Made at this time of year, it was perfect by Thanksgiving, and we enjoyed it all the way through the winter.

Green Tomatoes, Winter Ripening and Chow Chow

Our neighbor - the one who grows amazing amounts of tomatoes in his yard and sells them wholesale - came in to where I work today . He asked about my garden and I told my tale of woe, that I didn't make tomatoes either at home or in my borrowed garden plot.

The vines looked good but most didn't fruit and those that did had poor quality. I told him I am going to try once more next year, and do things differently. He shared some tips with me, including the variety he likes best (Carnival), and to be sure and water every single day. He cages his, which I have not been doing but will do next year. And he told me not to put plastic under them as it will get too hot.

I bought a couple of flats of green tomatoes from him. Some of these green tomatoes I am going to store for ripening. My friend wraps each one in newspaper, and puts them in a single layer in a soda flat and stores them under a bed. She said she just took them out as needed, and each one ripened, and they all kept until they used the last of them in February.

Our neighbor said he has the best luck storing the ones that have gotten closer to beginning to ripen, that have turned a bit yellow-green, while the dark green ones don't keep as well.

One flat of the small, hard green tomatoes, I am going to use to make Chow-Chow. I do have my own onions and bell peppers for it, and I would have had to buy the cabbage anyway. I think the tomatoes will qualify as "local" since they were grown within 50 yards of the house! Heh! With luck I will be able to do that on Wednesday evening. Yum, I can't wait!

Dec 28th: Edited to add a link to the follow up post. Click here to check out how the green tomatoes are doing after two months of storage.

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 3

Be sure the see the first post (How to find and gather) and the second post (how to prepare the fruit and juice).

If you have not made jelly before, please do the safe thing and read up on specific canning methods, with up-to-date instructions before making this. The National Center for Home Food Preservation (linked from my sidebar) is a good place to go to start learning. If you have a dear one who knows how to can, call them and enlist their advice. Call your mom anyway, just for general principles.

Jelly is one of the easiest and safest home-canned foods you can make. I follow the instructions that come in the package of Sure-Jell, which is the brand of powdered pectin I usually use. For this batch I used Can-Jel, which is Kroger's brand, and it came out just fine. "Pectin" is a naturally occuring substance that causes fruit juice to gel when it is cooked with sugar. Apples, especially the peelings, have a great lot of it.

I always add extra pectin to my jellies and jams. I don't use liquid pectin, only the powdered type. However, my recipes all call for powdered pectin - be sure to use the type that your recipe calls for. It does make a difference!

Gather your jars, wash them and sterilize them with boiling water: either put the jars (jars only NOT the lids) in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes (use canning tongs to remove them), or run them through your dishwasher's "sterilize" cycle. I always sterilize one extra jar just in case I need it.

Set them on an old towel in a handy location so that you will be able to easily ladle the hot liquid jelly into them when the time comes. Right next to the stove works best for me, and is safest. You do not want to be carrying a pot full or even a jar-full of boiling liquid jelly. The towel under the jars is to catch spills.

The Prickly Pear Jelly recipe I use is very similar to recipes for elderberry jelly. It makes about 11 half-pints. Since this recipe calls for 2 boxes of pectin, you could half it but do not double it.
If you need more, make 2 batches. Use only sugar for this recipe - do not reduce the amount of sugar and do not use sugar substitutes.

Only make jelly when you can give it your full attention from start to finish. It won't take long for the actual cooking and putting up but you cannot leave it once you start. So get everything else done in advance, but make sure you have an hour of uninterrupted time and turn the phone off before you turn the stove on.

You will need:
6 cups of prepared Prickly Pear Juice
1/4 cup lemon juice (either fresh or bottled)
9 cups of sugar
2 boxes of powdered pectin
1/2 tsp of butter or margarine (to reduce foaming)

Put your jar lids (the seal part) into a sauce pan of water and heat to boiling. Turn the fire down and keep warm.

Measure the sugar into a large bowl and set aside.

Measure 6 cups of prepared juice into a large spaghetti pot and add 1/4 cup lemon juice. Add both packages of pectin and whisk or stir well. Add 1/2 tsp butter - this will help keep the foam down once the jelly starts boiling hard.

Cook on high heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down.

While stirring, pour all of the sugar in all at once, and keep stirring over high heat until it comes back to a full rolling boil.

Don't take your eyes off it at this point.

Once it is at a full rolling boil, boil it hard for one full minute - this is important, use your timer if you can.

Turn the stove off and remove from hear and keep stirring until the boil dies down. If there is foam on the top, use a metal spoon to skim it off and discard it (I put it into a bowl and use it as my first taste after all the jars are sealed, but you shouldn't have much foam if you put the butter in).

Ladle the jelly into jars to within 1/8" from the top. When they are all filled, wipe off the rims with a wet cloth.

One at a time, get the lids out of the hot water with tongs and put lid and ring onto the jar. Tighten as tight as you can and set back down on a level surface away from drafts.


Repeat with all the jars, setting them close together so they will cool slowly. In about half an hour to an hour you should start hearing the sweet sound of lids popping as they seal.

Don't disturb them til the next day, then you can set them into a sink of clean water and finish getting the jelly off the outside, dry off and label. If they have sealed, they will keep for years.

If the seal didn't tighten they will still keep a long time, but you could either refrigerate those or process them in a boiling water bath if you want (per the recommendations of the NCHFP). Until recently -- oh sometime last week I'm sure -- we sealed jelly with paraffin wax and kept it until we used it up!

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 2

The first post told how to find and gather the ripe prickly pears. You might want to refer back to it if you just arrived. This post is part 2: making the juice. Part 3 will explain how to make the jelly.

Preparing the prickly pears: I always singe (pronounced "sinj") the pears before I do anything with them. This helps assure that all those spines are gone. If you have a gas stove, you can do this over a burner. Otherwise, rev up the grill and do it there. You need flames to burn off the spines.

Hold each pear by tongs or a long fork and hold especially the blossom end into the fire, until it stops sparking, then turn and flame the other side, until all sides and top and bottom have been singed. Don't worry about overdoing it - for some reason the skins just never char, so you can keep them in the fire quite a long time if necessary. Set aside into a bowl and flame the next one until all are done.

Next, get a cutting board, sharp knife, your gloves, and tongs or a fork.

They can be eaten raw and you might like the flavor. To eat them that way, singe them and cut off the ends. Using a paring knife, hold the pear with a fork and cut away the peeling and discard. Then, cut the peeled pear in half and, with a spoon, scoop out the seeds - they are
hard and inedible. What is left is tasty raw fruit! You could prepare them this way, then candy them if you like, but I always make jelly.

To make juice so you can make jelly, there is no need to peel them nor to remove the seeds. Just cut the pear into 2 or 3 pieces and drop into a large cooking pot.

When they are all in the pot, add water until the pears are completely covered and an inch or two under water, depending on how many pears you have and how strong you want your juice.

Bring to a simmer and cook, covered, for about half an hour. This will give you the juice for your jelly. Strain it into a pot or pitcher, and discard the pulp of the pears (which will have lost their color into the water).

If you need more juice, and there is still a lot of color in the pears, you can add a little more fresh water to them and simmer again to get the last of the flavor from them. (The photo above shows the pears before they have been cooked. The juice is a much richer magenta color after cooking).

You can either make jelly right away or freeze the juice to use later.

Monday's post will have the jelly recipe.

How To Make Prickly Pear Cactus Jelly Part 1

One of my favorite things to make for Christmas gifts for many years was Prickly Pear Jelly. Devin asked me last year to make some, and Alvina mentioned it last week, so it is in my mind to make some this year. This article will be done in several parts, to cover the process from start to finish: from collecting the ripe prickly pears to beautiful jars of jelly.

The first part is finding the pears (or "tuna" as they are called in Spanish). I usually keep my eyes open throughout the year for sizeable prickly pear patches along county roads or waste places that might be ok to gather in. You can also ask friends with acreage if they have prickly pear cactus on their land, and if they would let you gather some.

We can't pick anything in State Parks or along state highways, but there's no need, really, because in the southwest, even up into Oklahoma, cactus is pretty common.

Once you have located a likely patch, keep your eyes open. Starting in late August or early September, the pears will begin ripening. You know they are ripe when they turn reddish purple. They ripen over time, with different plants turning red at different times Even in the same patch, some fruits will be ripe while others are still green. They will last a long time on the plant if they are not eaten by animals, so you have a little leeway, usually, to gather them.

CAUTION: THEY HAVE THORNS AND HORRIBLE LITTLE HAIR-LIKE SPINES on them, even on the pears!!!! I use a set of tongs to pull them so that I do not have to touch them at all - those little hair spines can get into gloves and are bad news!

I just grasp each ripe pear firmly with the tongs and twist and pull. They come right off. The riper the pear, the easier it will come loose. If your tongs are not strong, you can use them to hold the pear and a long knife to cut them at the base. Either way works fine. Just stay on strong footing and don't even think about trying to get pears from the middle of the patch. Leave those, and only collect the ones you can reach without reaching!!!

Drop them into a heavy paper sack (paper so the spines won't come thru and so you can throw it away when done. Do not reuse the bag as it will have invisible spines in it.

They will keep like this for several days until you are ready to use them. No need to refrigerate at this point.

Tomorrow's post will tell how to prepare them for eating and how to make juice for the jelly.  The third post tells how to make the jelly itself.

Crops In Their Season* : Local Products

We've been oh-so-gradually moving toward "slow food" and eating more locally. As a cook, Paul has always been a big advocate of having things "in their season" because that is when quality is highest.

So we tend not to buy fresh tomatoes except locally grown during the summer, and we much prefer Texas citrus (although Florida citrus is very good in a pinch), which is available only during the winter.

Today, we are very concerned to support our local economy and conserve resources, and we favor those companies that are located within Texas and nearby states such as Oklahoma and Louisiana. Local companies use less fuel getting it to us, and small companies generally use more sustainable packaging.

I love the packages in the photo, don't you? So simple, so utilitarian - these companies are "green" by their nature and not because some marketing firm told them to be. Nothing is more true to vintage living than this.



There are some things we really need to have year round. My garden is helping provide staples such as onions and peppers. Friends have shared their fruit with us, and I have also bought from near-by "U-PIC" orchards and gardens.

Two great resources are:

PickYourOwn.Org is a wonderful directory of pick-your-own farms near you. It covers all the United States and some foreign countries, and lets you drill down to the local level very easily. The site is kept updated frequently, and welcomes suggestions and corrections.

The Texas Dept of Agriculture's "Go Texan" program is a great help when shopping. I don't even have to be consciously looking but the "Go Texan" Logo catches my eye as I scan the shelves in the grocery store. You can go to the website and search out products too, if you like to plan your shopping.

By the way, the "Morton's Chili Blend" in the picture is an old brand that my family has used all my life. Pawpaw's recipe for chili specifies using this (we'll make some this winter when it is cold out). Made by an Amarillo company, this bag was packaged by "Disability Resources" of Abilene.

*Title quote is from Acts 14:17

Putting Up Figs: Homemade Fig Newtons

One thing I am always looking for is ways to use the pickles, relishes and preserves, jams and jellies that we put up when canning.

It's rather late in the season, but if you still have figs (or access to them), here's a good recipe I found. You could use fig preserves instead of fresh or dried figs, because by the time they are cooked, they pretty much are exactly like preserves. I started with fresh ones, and cooked them down, but in the winter I will use my fig preserves.

It is sort of like a Fig Newton, but the dough becomes a bit more like pastry than cake.
I'll just post the link and you can go there to see the recipe:
http://www.cajuncookingrecipes.com/closeclone/fig_newtons.htm

One note about the recipe: the "soak in water" part mentioned in the recipe is only for dried figs. Do not do this with fresh ones. The photo below is figs cooking in sugar - no water added.



Be sure to let the dough chill the full length of time or longer. It is a very tender dough, and it helps to roll it out on a pastry cloth - especially the top crust. I still had to pat it into place gently.


Spread the cooked figs (or fig preserves) onto half the dough, then cover with the over half. Don't worry about getting it tidy. By the time you cut into squares it will be fine.




Never wash your rolling pin if you can help it. Water is very bad for the wood, and also removes the "seasoning" that helps it develop a very smooth finish that dough won't stick to. Just take a clean towel and rub it clean.




Cut into rather small pieces, as they are very rich. These were a big hit with everyone who tried them. They also store nicely and are good the next day.