Soup for What Ails You

Last week was a week of sickness in my house.  A horrible stomach virus made the rounds, beginning with my husband, who ended up with a brief stint in the emergency room getting rehydrated.  All the kids that got it (four of them!) faired slightly better and got well at home, but while it lasted it was miserable.  The patients were left feeling weak for several days.

Only two of us, my just-turned-18-year-old son and I, escaped unscathed.  And we are still somewhat surprised because, despite all the Lysol and Clorox, there is no way we were not exposed.  I am just very thankful, I prayed that I would not get sick until everyone else was done (all moms understand that prayer!).  I have ended up with a cold, but that is very minor in comparison.

This put a little damper on Christmas festivities around here.  The tree and some indoor decorations are up, but no outside lights:(  No goodies have been baked so far, either.  Not much cooking went on last week at all.

However, even sick people with little appetite need nourishment, so soup it was.  First I made this soup.

I'm sorry, I don't know where I got the recipe.   It's been copied on a card for YEARS and I never actually made it til last week.  I have to say I really liked it, a great soup for when you are feeling under the weather.  It's easy to make and the lemon flavor is refreshing.  (Caveat:  if you don't like lemon, this is not the soup for you.)  Here's the recipe:

Avgolemeno (Greek Lemon Soup)

Bring 6 cups of chicken broth to a simmer.  Add 1/2 cup uncooked rice.  Cover and simmer just until rice is done (about 15 minutes white rice, 30-40 minutes brown rice).  Whisk 3 egg yolks with 3 Tablespoons lemon juice.  Whisk a ladle of hot soup into egg mixture, then add back to pot.  Garnish with fresh parsley and black pepper.  Great with warm pitas and hummus.  Makes 8 cups.

Then I made good old chicken noodle soup.  I used this recipe.  I know there are many ways to make this soup, but this is a quick and easy one when your energy resources are low.  The only thing I would do different next time is to saute some celery in with the onion.  DO NOT double this recipe.  I almost did and am so thankful I didn't.  This makes a huge pot of soup, so be warned:)

Hope you are staying well this holiday season, but if not, you might want to try one of these soups:)

Cornbread

Very delicious, if I do say so myself 

Quite awhile ago, probably last winter, I had a request to share how I make cornbread.  Today is rainy, overcast and cool (fall is finally on the way!), which puts me in mind of soup weather, and cornbread is very good with soup.  So this seems like a good time to share.  

Now through the years I've eaten many varieties of cornbread, from golden brown little soft squares served in cafeterias, to the sweet cake-like cornbread of the Cayman Islands, to crunchy corncob-shaped pone.  And I grew up eating cornbread, mostly my grandmother's, which was the best.  However, mine is not exactly like hers because when I was grown and married, the recipe I happened to find and start using was from the 1977 edition of Tea Time at the Masters, a cookbook from the Junior League of Augusta, Georgia.  My recipe has a little bit of sweet to it, while my grandmother's did not (and my mom still prefers hers).  If I get ahold of her recipe, I'll pass it along.  In the meantime, my cornbread is still delicious and worth trying;)

To make good cornbread first assemble your ingredients.

You will need sugar, cornmeal (white or yellow, I've used both -- whatever you have), all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, an egg (beaten), milk, oil, and plain yogurt (sour cream is what the actual recipe calls for, but yogurt works fine).

And don't forget THIS, which is the secret to a good crust on the cornbread:

Bacon Grease

If you are not the type of person who has bacon grease stored in your refrigerator (like I am:), you need to become one.  Go out and buy some bacon and fry it up, pouring the grease into a coffee mug.  Store it in the refrigerator -- it will keep indefinitely.  There will be more than enough to use for the cornbread.  (You can also rub it on the outsides of baking potatoes, sprinkle them with coarse salt, poke holes in them with a fork and bake at 400 degrees for one hour -- but that's another recipe.)

You also need a cast-iron skillet, about 8 inches in diameter.

Put a dollop of bacon grease into the skillet, just enough to coat the bottom of the skillet.

Blurry, but you can see about how much to add

Put the skillet into the oven, and turn the oven on to:

Leave the skillet in the oven until the grease has melted, then take it out of the oven and set it on the stovetop:

Meanwhile, mix up your ingredients (I just do it by hand, no need to get the mixer out).

Pour the batter (which is fairly thick) into the skillet.  It will look like this:

Put it into your preheated oven for approximately 25 minutes, or until the middle is cooked through.

Doesn't it look beautifully crusty?

Now comes the fun part.  Take your skillet and flip the cornbread over onto a plate.

Hopefully it comes out looking like this:

If your cornbread sticks in the skillet, it will be messy but still taste good.  Go ahead and eat it.  It just means your skillet needs to be seasoned a little.  You can read up on how to do that yourself, but it's easy.  Basically, just grease your skillet down and warm it in the oven for a little while.  Take it out and let it cool.  Then wipe down with a paper towel and put away until next time.

I slice my cornbread up into 8 pieces to keep everything fair here at my house.

Another blurry shot

I usually make two cornbreads because of my large family. And now that I have another 8-inch cast-iron skillet, I can make two at the same time.  You can butter it or not, and it goes well with vegetable type soups and bean soups, too.

If you have any left over, my very favorite way to eat cornbread is to crumble it up into a mug, pour milk on top and eat with a spoon.  Mmmmm!  That was something my paternal grandfather loved, and then me, and now my daughter:)

Great for breakfast the next morning

Here's the recipe in an easy-to-write-down form.

Sour Cream (or Yogurt) Corn Bread

3/4 cup corn meal (yellow or white)
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream (or plain yogurt)
1/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients just enough to blend well.  Pour in a greased 8-inch square (or round) pan.  Bake at 425 ºF for 20-25 minutes.  8 pieces.

August Note Card Party -- Harvest

Vee at A Haven for Vee is hosting her monthly Note Card Party.  It's a great way to look back through your blog photos and put them together a little differently, and it's lots of fun to see what other bloggers do with it as well.

This month I chose the theme "Harvest."  I know that's a little early for a lot of you, but here in Texas my summer garden has come and gone.  August is the month you just kind of live through, every flower, blade of grass, and certainly any garden burnt to a crisp (at least that's how it is in my yard).  The good side is I will get to plant a small fall garden soon.

Anyway, these are some pictures of some of our little garden bounty this year, which we really enjoyed.  (And there is still some for us to enjoy -- either stored in the freezer, canned, or simply kept in a cool room temperature, dark place.)

Corn

Potatoes

Onions

Zucchini, Squash, Potatoes, Onions 

Please go here to check out some other notecards by some very talented bloggers.  Maybe you will consider joining in yourself:)

Strawberry Trifecta

I have truly been on a strawberry jam-making kick.  This strawberry/kiwi is the third batch.  The first two batches were plain strawberry and strawberry/rhubarb.  All of them were made with Pomona's Universal Pectin, which allowed me to sweeten to taste.

I made twelve jars of the strawberry/kiwi, but two jars had already been given away before I could get any photos.  The strawberry/kiwi is the tartest, the strawberry/rhubarb was the most expensive to make because of the price of rhubarb (!!) (I do think it's my favorite, though), and the plain strawberry was also delicious.   If my grocery store keeps having affordable strawberries, I am tempted to try strawberry/honey jam, too.

There were enough leftover strawberries to make what in my family is known as strawberry shortcake.

This is not really a shortcake.  It's just a yellow cake covered with sliced sweetened strawberries (and usually a dollop of whipped cream), but it's one of our favorites.

And with the strawberries that were left over from the cake:

Just pour a little milk on top and eat up -- mmmm.

Forays into Canning

In addition to putting corn and zucchini in the freezer, this summer I have been making forays into canning.  I grew up surrounded by people canning, my mamaw canned everything she could -- green beans, tomatoes, pickles, peaches, meat, sausage, relish, chow chow, and on and on.  She kept her jars  on wooden shelves down under the house in a little dirt-floored cellar until the day my papaw built a storage building so she could get to her canned goods a little more conveniently.  They also had at least two large chest freezers on the back porch that were stuffed full of more food.  If there had ever been a national disaster, I would've headed for their little house in the hills -- it would take a long time to starve them out.  For many years Mamaw kept me supplied with quart jars of green beans, tomatoes, and pickles.  When I got too many empty jars, I would bag them up and send them back to be used again.  It was my grandparents' way of taking care of me even though I lived far away.

Only once, about eighteen years ago, did I do any canning for myself, and then I made strawberry jam. I made that first batch of jam using Pomona's Universal Pectin, which allows you to use MUCH less sugar.  You can even make jams with sugar substitutes or honey.  I like being able to sweeten to taste because everyone at my house likes their jam a little less sweet.  And the directions that come with the pectin are easy to follow.  I found it at my local health food store, but if you can't find it locally you can find it online.  A box lasts you for at least two batches.  

This year I started with that same recipe.  I didn't grow any berries, but I found some at a good price and bought enough so that I was forced to can them.

I made ten little jelly jars of strawberry jam, and I was so proud and tickled pink I gave them their own little photo shoot.  Don't you love those little quilted jelly jars?

Then I had a whole counter full of cucumbers that needed to be dealt with.  This was on the same day that I put up that last batch of corn -- the day before I was leaving to go out of town.  Not great timing, but it needed to be done.  Maybe I work better under pressure.

Ignore the pack of hamburger that snuck into the picture

I sliced the cucumbers up into spears.

Since I hadn't done this before (not even eighteen years ago), I did the easy thing and purchased the Ball Kosher Dill seasonings mix and followed the directions on the package.

Pouring the pickling mix over the pickles

These are the wide-mouth pint jars.  At the moment I don't have a canner (although I have my eye on one), so I'm using my largest stockpot with a cake rack in the bottom.  It works fine except it is not deep enough for quarts.

The pickles have to sit six weeks in the jars without being opened, so I don't know yet how they turned out.  At least they actually LOOK like pickles.  I ended up with a dozen pint jars.

Here are the jars with their pretty labels.  The labels are a somewhat superfluous -- I could write on the lids -- but this is my first year canning, and I enjoyed shopping for the little accessories ;)

This past weekend I had the same problem with tomatoes that I had had with cucumbers.  They were overrunning my counter and had to be dealt with.  I had some slicing tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, but mostly I had Romas.  I initially planted the Romas intending to dehydrate them.  (I love dehydrated tomatoes.  They are a treat as good as candy to me).  But I don't own a dehydrator, and before I buy one I want to make sure I would really use it.  Any regular dehydrator users out there?

The last jar has a little separation but will still be fine (I think)

Anyway, I decided to can the tomatoes since I already had everything I needed for that.  I ended up with two pints of crushed tomatoes and two pints of tomato juice.  I learned three things from this experience:  1) a LOT of tomatoes go a LITTLE way  2)  better to use overripe tomatoes than underripe (don't even try)  3)  to make crushed tomatoes, you wring out the juice.  You might as well save all that juice and can it, too.

Finally, the strawberry jam was so delicious that I decided to do it again, only this time I made strawberry-rhubarb jam (eight jars).

It turned out delicious, too!

There is something about putting up food that is so satisfying. The pings as the lids seal are definitely music to my ears.  It is work, but it would be a rare person who is not proud of every jar they put on the shelf and every bag they put in the freezer.  Next I hope to get some peaches to freeze!

Here are the recipes I used:

Strawberry Jam -- Pomona Pectin recipes
Strawberry Rhubarb Jam -- Pomona Pectin recipes
Kosher Dill Pickles -- just followed the directions on Ball Kosher Dill mix
Crushed Tomatoes -- PickYourOwn.org

Let me add here that the PickYourOwn site is chockfull of helpful information.  Well worth a look!

I purchased a canning utensil set, which includes a wide-mouth funnel, a magnetic wand (to fish the lids out of the hot water), a thing to remove air bubbles, and a jar lifter.  I also purchased the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, the jars themselves (which can be reused), and the labels (not necessary, but a Sharpie marker is).  Not too much of an outlay, and next year it will be even less.  I am already dreaming of what else I can put up :)

Putting Up Corn

The day before I was to leave on a two-week trip to visit family, I harvested everything out of my garden that I could.  I did not want our hard work to go to waste.

I picked forty ears of corn.  Then I sat on the patio and shucked forty ears of corn.....  I had to share all but one of those forty ears with various corn worms; the wormy parts had to be cut off with a paring knife.  At least the worms were considerate and mostly stayed on the end, leaving the largest portion of the corn for me :) Overall the corn looked beautiful.

This is how my momma taught me to put up corn for the freezer.  This is not how she learned it from her momma, but this is the easier way ;)

After shucking it and getting most of the silks off, take the corn in and rinse it in cool water and put it in a big pot.  Cover the corn as best you can with water and turn the stove on high.

When it reaches a boil, keep boiling for 10 minutes.

Then turn the stove off and remove each ear from the hot water -- use tongs -- and stand the ears in a clean dish drainer to cool.

After the corn is cool enough to handle comfortably, scrape the kernels off the cob, using a sharp knife and a big bowl.

You will end up with a big stack of corn cobs and a big bowl of corn.

Put the corn in pint or sandwich size plastic bags,  filling the bag, then pressing the air out and sealing.  To store, put two pint bags inside a 1-quart freezer bag, label the bags and stick them in the freezer.

My big bowl yielded enough corn for seven meals.

The best way to fix this corn is to take it out of the freezer, remove it from the bag and put it in a glass bowl.  Thaw and cook it in the microwave (this is one of the few things I actually cook in the microwave), adding a little butter and a little salt.  It will taste almost as fresh as the day you put it up.

Zucchini/Squash Stew

My zucchini and squash have already come and gone (thanks to the infamous squash borer), but zucchini season, while brief, can be intense.  What to do with all that squash can become a dilemma. This zucchini/squash stew (a recipe from an old church cookbook I have) is one of my favorite ways to fix that prolific vegetable. The stew is delicious and plus it uses up quite a bit of zucchini.

First saute a chopped onion in olive oil.

While the onion is sauteing, chop 4 quarts of zucchini and squash into half-inch cubes.  I usually use half zucchini and half yellow squash, but I shredded a lot of my zucchini and put it in the freezer, and when I went out to the garden for more, my zucchini plant was dead :(  So this version only has yellow squash.

When the onion is clear, add the squash to the pot.

Also add a 15-ounce can of tomato sauce, salt, pepper, basil and oregano.

Simmer the stew until the squash is cooked down.  Serve over pasta or rice, with fresh grated cheese on top.

It's very simple, delicious and summery tasting.


Zucchini/Squash Stew

1 lg. onion, chopped
2 T. oil
2 qt. squash (yellow, zucchini or mixture) cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
shredded cheese (parmesan is good)
cooked rice or pasta

In 4 qt. saucepan, saute onion in oil until clear.  Add squash, tomato sauce, black pepper, salt, basil and oregano.  Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until squash is very tender and sauce has thickened. Serve over rice or pasta, or top with shredded cheese and serve as a vegetarian stew.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Last Sunday I needed to come up with a snack for youth group which was meeting at our house.  And I wanted to use up some of my zucchini.  Teenagers plus zucchini -- how to mix the two?  Add chocolate, that's always got to be good advice ;)  I found this recipe at Taste of Home.  I doubled it to make four loaves.  Look how pretty they are cooking in my oven:

After they were done, I set them on the counter to cool.

Four loaves may look like a lot, but I have to tell you that when I went to bed that night there was not a crumb left!

 I guess this recipe is a keeper.  I did substitute unsweetened applesauce for half the oil.  And next time I will cut the sugar by a third -- it was slightly too sweet for me, although I didn't hear any teenagers complain:)