I learned canning, pickling and freezing from grandmother and later in college took classes in food preservation, where I also learned about dehydrating. This year I have missed being able to "put food by", as the old saying goes. The only food I have put by is some pesto I got in the freezer just before we came to Nashville. I will be grateful for small favours.
Along with putting food up for the winter, the greatest pleasure of the summer garden is eating freshly picked fruit and veggies. The other day while exploring, Sally and I found a farmstand selling locally grown organic produce. They had squash, tomatoes, onions, green tomatoes, purple hull peas, assorted pickles, watermelons and other things I can't recall at the moment. Dinner last night and lunch today were meals out of my past, but from the farmstand.
Dinner Saturday:
Peas
Fried Green Tomatoes
Cornbread
Lunch Sunday:
Peas, topped with fresh chopped tomato and onion
Cornbread
Watermelon
Sally had baked the cornbread, so Mike sliced and toasted that for us. He fried the green tomatoes himself (with only a little direction), and did the chopping of the onions and tomatoes. Peas he only needed to reheat. The watermelon was ice cold and cutting was all that was required to get it ready. I love summer vegetable and fruit meals. Especially when they taste like the meals with which I grew up. I could live on food just from the garden.
namasté,
Alabama Time
Paris Time
Venice Time
Posts
5 comments:
I am intrigued by 'cushaw' as it is entirely new to me. Off to perform acts of Google-Fu and see if I can learn more. I love that you always prompt me to think more or I learn some new tidbit in your writings. Thanks for adding to my little world in that way!-
Off to google, too! So glad your counts are allowing you to enjoy summer's bounty.
Ah, I forget sometimes that not everyone grew up with the same foods I did. Cushaw is a winter squash. It's large -like pumpkins, but with a neck - and it's green and white striped. They are typically hard, so be careful cutting them. I googled and found out that many people make them into pies instead of using pumpkin. We never did that. My grandmother would peel them, remove the seeds, and cut the flesh into about 1" or 1/2" cubes. She'd put the cubes in a large baking pan, sprinkle on sugar (a good bit), salt (just a tad) and chip butter over the top. Then she'd cover it and bake it till the squash was pretty much translucent and somewhat candied. Sometimes the cubes will keep their shape and sometimes they cook down.
I know there are measurements for all this written down, because I made sure I did that one day when she was cooking. When I make cushaw I do not add as much sugar and butter as she did. It's still delish! Cushaw goes great with peas and cornbread. They won't be ready for awhile yet. I wonder if the farmer's market here in Nashville will have them.
I've got a great photo of a cushaw sitting on the hall tree in my foyer. I will look on my other hard drive and see if I can find it to post.
Becky, I have always admired you for still preparing the foods you grew up on. It's a great way of remembering and honoring your relatives and chilhood; and they do provide great comfort. Today I decided to copy your recipes for crunchy pea salad, coined potatoes and Kentucky potatoes. They all sound so good and easy. I agree that there's nothing like a summer platter of food on those tropical days. I am so glad that on most days you can enjoy food.
Carol
Enjoy your blog. Thank you for sharing. Glad to read you are doing so well. My husband had a transplant also but it was his own. He is doing well.
Post a Comment