In the Kitchen with DirtDiva.

[dirtdiva]

Lots of eggs right now and the asparagus is still going strong. Eat what you grow and this is an easy dinner or a satisfying breakfast. 


Ham, Asparagus and Quiche

1 single pie crust

1-1/2 cups cubed ham

1- 1/2 cups shredded cheese of your choice

1 cup chopped bite size asparagus

1 medium vidalia onion

4 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

preheat oven to 375 degrees
prepare pie crust of your choice and put into pie pan
saute onions until clear. ( I prefer to caramelize my onions)
Layer ham, cheese, asparagus and onion in crust lined pie pan
In medium bowl beat eggs, milk , salt and pepper. Pour into pie crust over the layered ingredients.
Bake 35 to 45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.
Let stand 5 to 10 minutes. Slice and serve warm.

[dirtdiva]

My eldest son is an avid hog hunter. He came for a visit and brought me a present. He had frozen pig fat. I cooked it down in my
large electric roaster and made leaf lard.

There ya go! Beautiful clear white lard. This stuff makes the flakiest pie crusts and biscuits on the planet. Now for health reasons I would not cook with it everyday but in a survival situation fats and oils can be hard to come by. I keep mine in the freezer. The brown jars are cracklins or pig skins. Adding cracklins to cornbread adds an extra pork taste and crunch. 

I make soap with the lard. Homemade goats milk soap. 

[Tim Horton]

FANTASTIC....

We made almost 30 (?) pint of snow white lard like you show, from the fresh pork shoulders we got..

I like to course grind the chilled fat with the Kitchen Aid mixer attachment before rendering.. It makes a good yield and the crumbs are great warmed up on toast and such..

Have you ever ground your finished cracklins ?? Wonder how well that would work ??

[dirtdiva]

Have you ever ground your finished cracklins ?? Wonder how well that would work ??

Tim I have never ground my cracklins. If I put them in cornbread I just put them into a kitchen towel and take the rolling pin to them 
I'm real high tech like that. 

I too grind my frozen fat though. We don't have a kitchenaid but do own a medium size electric grinder we bought long ago with a sausage stuffing attachment and also a smaller non electric hand grinder. We also have a nonelectric hand mixer for mixing sausage. It is a big bin with a handle and paddles of sort for mixing large amounts of ground meat with spices. It helps with making large batches of sausage. We also have an electric meat slicer that we used for making jerky in large quantities. Some of the best investments we made long ago and used many times through the years. Especially if you raise your own livestock or hunt.  

[dirtdiva]

With the garden winding down my kitchen is hopping right now. 



2 half gallons of sauerkraut from that fall cabbage to go in the fridge




The last of the sweet bell peppers are sliced to go in the freezer




3 half gallons of plum brandy and a half gallon of blackberry brandy

[dirtdiva]

Dehydrating Blueberries

Even though I am not harvesting much at this time of year I am taking the time to deal with things like fruit that were picked and frozen until time permitted to take inventory and deal with some of the harvests. I froze 57 bags of blueberries this year from 6 bushes. Each bag contains 2 cups of fresh frozen blueberries. That is 114 cups of blueberries and after organizing the freezer found blueberries left from the spring before. First I have to take into account what I normally use the fruit for. As a general rule I add frozen blueberries occasionally to pancakes or muffins. I also have a blueberry coffeecake recipe that I make so I will leave some in there for those recipes. We also like to throw blueberries frozen into the blender with greek yogurt and protein powder for smoothies. So taking all that into account and the fact that I also had a bumper crop of blackberries and plums in the freezer as well. I pulled out a dozen bags to start with and started dehydrating them.

Dehydrating blueberries from frozen is so much easier than fresh. When they are fresh they have to be dropped in boiling water to pop that outer skin to allow the inside to dry. When frozen the skin pops on it's own in the dehydrator. Simply place them on your racks and I set my dehydrator to 135 for about 13 to 15 hours. 

Once dry they resemble small blue raisins with a similar consistency. These dehydrated blueberries are then placed in mylar bags with an oxygen absorber and placed in food safe buckets with screw lids. This allows me to preserve these without tying up freezer space. We eat them out of hand like raisins or they can be used in baked goods or trail mixes. 

[Tim Horton]

You CAN NOT do anything bad with a blueberry... Unless you drop it and step on it... ICK...

One of my favorites is a mixed fruit jam of about 1/4 blueberry and a mix of other dark and red berries..

And scones..... OMG... warm scones with lots of blueberries and butter...

[dirtdiva]

Oct 25, 2021 13:25:14 GMT 10 Tim Horton said:

You CAN NOT do anything bad with a blueberry... Unless you drop it and step on it... ICK...

One of my favorites is a mixed fruit jam of about 1/4 blueberry and a mix of other dark and red berries..

And scones..... OMG... warm scones with lots of blueberries and butter...

I agree with you and love blueberries too. SO much I doubled my bushes this year. I have 6 mature trees and planted an additional 8. We like blueberry muffins and blueberry coffeecake the best but I do usually put up a couple jars of blueberry jam. It is heavenly on scones. 

I have seen those mixed berry jams in stores but have never tried them. I guess I am somewhat of a purist.