Take it away, TaMara…
Not my most original recipe, but a summer classic, for sure. LFern and her husband think collard greens are great, which is why I even grew them in my garden one year. I know some people like them, but if you don’t, you can easily substitute spinach in the recipe. I love fruit crisps, and I’ve featured this crisp before, but thought it was worth repeating in this menu. As far as the steaks go, a good ribeye needs very little in the way of seasoning before grilling, but if you want to take it up a notch, the coffee rub from February was very popular. You can use any good cut of steak for this menu.
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On the board tonight:
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1. Grilled Ribeyes
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2. Grilled Baked Potatoes
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3. Collard Greens w/Bacon
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4. Apple & Blackberry Crisp
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As ever, recipes and shopping list at the link.
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Food-related bleg from Anne Laurie: Since several people spoke favorably of the concept on yesterday’s tomato thread, does anyone have recommendations or advice on food dehydrators? Are they worth the money if my only goal, at the moment, is to stockpile tomatoes without the labor of canning?
MikeJ
Blackberries are already ripe where you are? Still a week or two away here, but when they start, stand back. You can’t swing a cat without hitting blackberries.
RedKitten
We always enjoyed our dehydrator — making homemade jerky is awesome.
I’m just looking forward to being able to eat actual food again. I managed to contract hand-foot-and-mouth disease from one of the kids at Sam’s daycare. Imagine having someone beat the shit out of you, set your skin on fire, and then pour broken, salt-encrusted glass down your throat, and you’ve pretty much got the gist. It’s hellish.
debit
@RedKitten: Oh my god. Is there any treatment, or do you just have to bear with it until it’s over?
jeffreyw
@RedKitten: Ack!
RedKitten
Just have to bear with it — it’s viral, not bacterial. So I’ve been putting the blender to good use and making a lot of smoothies. But even then, I have to be careful, because if the fruit I use is too acidic, it burns like a bugger. I tried tomato soup earlier tonight, and that just did not work out well at all. It’s awful — I have these really painful little blisters all over my throat and tongue.
lamh32
Man, these recipes open thread makes me feel so inadequate. Not because I can’t cook can really “burnsit tup” in the kitchen, I just don’t use recipes.
I learned all my cooking from my grams, and she didn’t cook from a recipe either. I remember once in college, I was taking a “Technical Writing” class and one assignment was taking a family recipe and creating an actual essay on how to prepare the dish, not in recipe form, but as real “literature”. I remember asking my grams to give me exact measurments, but she had no ideas of measurements. When she added salt to the gumbo, I was like “so is that a tsp or tbsp”, she said “just this much” (holding her index and thumb finger up).
But we figured it out, and I got an A for that paper, my teacher even asked me if it was a real recipe, and could she use it at home. My grams was so proud…damn I miss that woman.
BTW, “burnstit tup” is a lil colloquialism from my area of NOLA. It means you can really get down in the kitchen…variation “burn it up” in the kitchen. Also, I wish I still had that paper, but I lost all the papers and disc from that time due to katrina.
TaMara (BHF)
@RedKitten: OMG, that’s just horrible. Feel better soon.
Booger
Focus on drying the Juliets, as they are prolific and consistent sized. Any good dehydrator will do; it should have some kind of thermostat so you can keep the heat under control. Low heat, lots of airflow. East coast summers aren’t good for dehydrating naturally.
TaMara (BHF)
@lamh32: Two things, one I totally understand. When I got the brilliant idea to start a menu service, my first hurdle was creating recipes. I usually just throw stuff together.
Second, I may be in your neck of the woods in October. As it gets closer, may pick your brain on things I must see. Will be my first trip to that area.
debit
@RedKitten: I repeat: oh my god. I am so sorry. I remember reading Barbara Woodhouse’s autobiography and her description of catching something like that when she was in Argentina. She wrote about having to wear a towel tied around her neck because of the uncontrollable drool. Uck.
lamh32
@TaMara (BHF):
cool beans. currently i living out my lowly existence in Dallas/Fort Worth, but hopefully will be going back to NOLA eventually.
Still my sis and all my fam are back in NOLA, so I do got a little of the inside scoop.
jharp
An interesting fact on collards. And all of the cole vegetables.
They are best picked early in the morning after a cold night. They combat the cold by sending moisture, thus nutrients, into the leaves.
And if you think about it, that’s why the greens suck in hot weather. I think.
mikey
Hi Anne Laurie. I’ve missed you the most.
Canned tomatoes are NOT dried tomatoes. One does not let you avoid the other. Dried tomatoes are a valuable addition to the pantry, and if you have excess capacity should certainly be part of your preservation strategy, but you’ll STILL, unfortunately need to preserve tomatoes and some kind of tomato sauce in sterilized jars. The one is simply not a replacement for the other…
mikey
SiubhanDuinne
@RedKitten: That sounds like the most beastly thing imaginable (up to now, shingles would have been the strongest contender in the beastliness department, but this sounds worse). I hope it doesn’t last much longer and that it never returns. Did SamKitten catch it too?
Larkspur
Oh dear jeebus, RedKitten, you are suffering a noxious scourge indeed. I do not mock. I just have a thesaurus window open. What manner of viral affliction are you presently enduring? Has it a specific appellation? Is it a tribulation not uncommon to those with offspring? I would not know, being without issue myself.
I mean, I have issues. Everyone does. I mean I didn’t replicate, nor do I work with younguns, so if it is a bane particular to those who have, or do, I might not know about it.
But I have heard tell of chicken soup. Where are you? Want me to bring some over? Surely one of us is within chicken soup distance of you.
debit
@Larkspur: I ascertain that you should watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr_3S4GcZNo
Corner Stone
I’m having sushi. And that’s all there is to it.
Larkspur
@debit: debit, I thank you. You have limned the problem succinctly. This work’s hard.
ceece
I use a dehydrator constantly during persimmon season (Hachiyas come in during November here) and most years I can dry about 200 lb of fruit. For this I use a large ‘Excalibur’ dehydrator, which has square trays and a quality thermostat and fan. Trays only need to be rotated 180 in the box once during a 16 hour drying session.
Dried persimmons are wonderful, much better than the rather slimy ripe Hachiyas. You can dry them when they are orange but still hard, way too early to eat them. Fruit leather with 50% persimmon is also yummy.
I dry paste tomatoes mostly (halved), beefsteaks are a little too watery and become tomato chips when dried.
RedKitten
I haven’t been drooling, no. There’s no external unsightliness, so it’s one of those telegenic diseases where I can languish in bed in a white eyelet nightgown.
And chicken soup would only work if you took all of the salt out of it and then chilled the living hell out of it. But thanks anyway. :)
Sam had it several weeks ago, and whined considerably less than I have been, which fills me with shame.
SiubhanDuinne
@RedKitten #20: Well, as long as you can lounge around looking frail and pathetic and very very lovely . . . .
When I was afflicted by the aforementioned shingles, I basically curled up in a little ball and whimpered for three weeks. You and Sam are made of sterner stuff, apparently.
Larkspur
@RedKitten: Okay, chilled gazpacho, hold the tomatoes, salt, and almost everything else.
But if the affliction is telegenic, a soundtrack must inevitably follow. As you languish on your pillows, your white eyelet gown so lovely, but inadequate to the task of concealing your alarming but strangely alluring slenderness and pallid countenance, what tunes is playing?
JoyousMN
Anne,
Just freeze ’em. I’ve canned many and it’s a ton of work. Just take them out of the garden, wash them and put them in the freezer. You can cut out the core if you like, but I’m not sure it’s worth it.
Then this winter, when you want to use them, let them sit overnight in a colander in the sink. If the skins haven’t split you can run a knife over the skin to open it. The water drains out and the skins slip right off and poof, they are ready to be made into salsa, tomato sauce, or whatever.
By all means dry some, they are lovely in olive oil and garlic sauces, but hands-down, nothing beats freezing for easy convenience and good taste.
Yutsano
@RedKitten: Oh my gravy. You are definitely being put through the wringer. There isn’t an anti-viral they could put you on to assist in the healing process?
protected static
@RedKitten – I count myself lucky to have missed that particular scourge. Daycare is really a fever swamp, isn’t it?
If it makes you feel any better, consider this: by the time SamKitten hits kindergarten, he should have next to no sick days… Our spawn is entering 5th grade (OMFG, I feel old typing that) and has averaged one sick day a year since kindergarten.
@mikey – mikey! this where you hang out these days?
hamletta
RedKitten, I am so sorry.
I had some weird virusy thing last summer and thought I was gonna die. I had eight solid hours of nausea every 20 minutes, broken up by the distinct sensation that I had lunched on angry badger with battery acid sauce.
I was weak as a kitten for days afterward. My church had its 150-year celebration a few days later, and at choir practice the day before, every trip up the stairs made me feel like it was I who was 150 years old.
But no mouth sores. That sounds awful. Hope you feel better soon!
apikoros
It’s so simplestupid I feel bad mentioning it but I was considering a dehydrator a couple years ago when a friend told me what he did. I now do the same with great success and no expense!
Did you know that a car parked in the sun can reach 140-150 degrees? and that according to Boyle’s ideal gas law the humidity at that temperature can drop to near zero? That it’s really horrible for pets/kids? and really terrific for drying fruit/vegetables? Seriously! buy a couple fine gridded racks (or old window screens), cut your object of desire (to dry) into 1/4″ or less slices, spread them on the rack/screen, put them in the car, park the car in the sun for a day or two with the windows cracked a inch.
This may not work in Seattle or in an unsafe inner city location, but if you are anywhere that a car can be safely left and left in the sun with cracked windows, you have nicely dried fruit/vegetables in ~48 hours (in northern VA). YMMV, adjust for location.
Corner Stone
Can I just say that the commercial with the rich Russian oligarch saving money on his cable bill is freakin hilarious?
Now we’re mocking the existence of a capitalist uber wealthy class in Russia.
There are so many meta levels going on here I don’t have time for them all.
FlyingToaster
We have a dehydrator for drying about half of the [not-eaten-immediately] paste tomatoes; the remainder we make into sauce and freeze in these little cube Rubbermaid containers (I believe it’s a pint, but it might technically be a half-liter, ymmv). We also jar up some of the dried paste tomatoes in fine olive oil; 3 1-quart jars don’t quite last the winter here, since dried tomatoes go into every salad and a number of dishes as-is. And then the infused olive oil gets used in cooking.
We also dry a number of herbs (buy the extra mesh screens, it’s worth it) and given the eating habits of WarriorBabyGirl, we’ll probably try drying some apples this fall.
Yutsano
General Service Announcement (of special interest to all you bike-riding folks) Freelancer is off being a slacker on the Ragbrai ride. It kinda looks like fun.
http://ragbrai.com/
gilintx
If you’d rather dry tomatoes than put them up, you don’t necessarily need a dehydrator to do that. Shirley O. Corriher has a recipe for oven dried tomatoes that works very well. It beats having an extra single-use appliance around the house.
suzanne
@RedKitten: Oh, Good Lord, you poor thing.
Kids are so nasty and germy and ew ew ew ew ew. It’s a good thing they’re so cute and sweet and squishy, right? How any beings can manage both simultaneously is beyond me.
ChrisS
Tangentially, I just got around to watching the last episode of Top Chef and found my hackles raising watching the beltway hoi polloi sitting around gnoshing on lobster, lamb, porterhouses, salmon, etc. And listening to Joe Scarborough talking about the good old days int he 80s when he and his
croniesfellow travelers were eating giant steaks washed down with red wine followed with a huge cigar.The next time Joe says something about real Americans I think he should be punched in the face.
chopper
jesus. my 19-month-old starts day care this fall. i’m expecting her to come home with every virus and bacteria in the book over those first months.
TaMara (BHF)
I usually stop in Friday morning to see if any questions have come up after I’ve collapsed for the night. I just want to say, without equivocation that Larkspur wins this thread.
That is all.
Not J Bean
I seem to be caught in a spam filter for some reason, so here’s one more try.
Canning tomatoes is actually quite easy, if you do it 1-2 canner loads at a time. You just need jars and a big stockpot. Directions are readily available on line. Check the U of Georgia website. It’s well worth the effort. If you can boil sh*t, you can can.