Cabbage Slaw Salad

A completely different twist from traditional coleslaw with it's goopy mayonnaise dressing,  this dressing is a mixture of vinegar's, sugar, and spicy mustard yumminess.

It is the perfect Cabbage Slaw Salad to serve anytime of the year and pairs really well with pulled pork or fried or grilled chicken.

Recipe
Ingredients
½ cabbage, sliced into thin strips
2 carrots, sliced into carrot sticks
½ onion, sliced into thin strips
¼ cup white wine vinegar
2 tbls. balsamic vinegar
½ cup sugar
1 tbls. olive oil
1 tbls. spicy mustard
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp course-ground black pepper

Method
Combine the vinegar's, sugar, olive oil, spicy mustard, salt and pepper in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle rolling boil, stirring frequently until the sugar is dissolved.

Place this mixture aside and allow to cool.

Pour the vinaigrette over the coleslaw veggies and place in the fridge to chill for several hours before serving.

Really good with fried or grilled chicken or pulled pork.

Enjoy,
Mary

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Sweet Potato Buttermilk Pancakes

This is a wonderful spicy twist to traditional pancakes. Full of sweet potato (or pumpkin) goodness, and the wonderful taste of cinnamon and nutmeg, it is a delicious seasonal breakfast treat.

RECIPE

Ingredients

1 cup baked mashed sweet potato (or pumpkin)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. sea salt

2 cups buttermilk (make your own by adding 2-3 tsp. lemon juice to milk)

2 tbsp. butter melted

2 large farm fresh eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Method

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt; set aside.

Combine buttermilk with 2 tbsp, butter, eggs, mashed sweet potato (or pumpkin) and vanilla. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture and gently combine. Batter will be somewhat thick and lumpy, but easily poured; avoid over-mixing.

Heat griddle to desired temperature and pour about 1/3 cup for each pancake on top, leaving 1/2" between pancakes. When pancakes begin to bubble up and edges appear dry, turn over to brown other side.

Serve immediately with butter and syrup.

Enjoy,

Mary

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Pumpkin Dump Cake

This made from scratch pumpkin dump cake is a breeze to make with fresh pumpkin puree, and no boxed cake mix. 

Believe me, it's easy to do and tasty too. It's pumpkin pie and pumpkin cake all mixed up into one luscious dessert.

RECIPE
Ingredients 
For the pumpkin layer
3 1/2 cups fresh pumpkin puree (or one 29 oz. can pumpkin puree)
2 farm fresh eggs (3 eggs if using canned pumpkin)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 - 12 oz can evaporated milk
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
For the cake mix layer
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup butter melted

Method
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 13 x 9-inch baking pan with baking spray. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients for the pumpkin layer, blending well; set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour sugar, baking powder and salt.

Pour pumpkin mixture into prepared pan and sprinkle cake mixture evenly over top. Top with chopped pecans and drizzle melted butter evenly over all.

Bake 50-60 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool.

Slice and serve with fresh whipped cream.

Enjoy,
Mary

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Fresh Pumpkin Bread {Quick Bread}

This super easy, one bowl pumpkin quick bread is delicious. Served plain or with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, it is one we all enjoy.

Moist, tender, delicious pumpkin quick bread is sure to please everyone in the family. Enjoy it as a breakfast treat, afternoon snack or as a dessert!

I was very fortunate a good friend brought me a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin to use when making the fresh pumpkin puree for this bread.

Did you know?
Before European colonists arrived in America, many nations of Native Americans lived from the land. They shared food preservation techniques as well as the Three Sister practice of growing corn, beans, and squash with the European colonists.

Pumpkin, an American native that is a cultivar of the squash plant, is celebrated as a symbol of autumn, and harvested for both decoration and good eating. The Long Island Cheese Pumpkin is one of the oldest varieties cultivated in America. Well suited for the region’s climate, it is an invaluable part of Long Island food history, culture, and tradition, and a delicious choice for many types of cooking.

In the 1800s, cookbooks and farmers almanacs in the Long Island Sound frequently cited the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin as a regional favorite, and in 1807, Bernard McMahon introduced the pumpkin to the commercial market. In an issue of “Michigan Farmer” from 1855, D.D. Tooker noted, “the sweet pumpkin alias cheese pumpkin or pie squash is the only true article in my opinion for making the most delicious of Yankee notions - pumpkin pie - and I am not alone in my opinions, for I have yet to see the individual who would not agree with me in this matter. The shape and color of this fruit resembles that of a small sized dairy cheese, its flesh is very firm, fine grained and brittle, is of a rich color and very sweet. They will keep all winter in a cool dry cellar if picked and stored before Jack Frost touches them." (source: slowfoodusa.org)

RECIPE
Ingredients
1 cup fresh pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. salt
* 1/4 cup water (omit this when using fresh baked pumpkin puree)

Method
Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together the pumpkin, eggs, oil, brown sugar,vanilla and *water (if using). In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, sugar, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix well with a wooden spoon.

Spray a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with baking spray and pour in batter. Bake 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Let cool 1 hour, then removed from the loaf pan and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Slice, serve and enjoy.

Enjoy,
Mary

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Farmers Market Vegetable Soup

This Farmers Market Vegetable Soup features many fresh vegetables I found over the summer and "put up" by either canning or freezing. If you don't have time to "do it yourself" you can certainly buy organic vegetable stock and other ingredients at your local grocery store.

This is a quick and easy soup to make, that's also very satisfying. It's perfect for meatless Monday or any day of the week you want a quick, but nutrient-rich, soup.

RECIPE
Ingredients
1 tbls. olive oil
6 cups vegetable stock
1 quart (32 oz) tomato sauce
1 pint (14.5-16 oz) petite diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cups green beans
2 cups niblet corn
2 large carrots, sliced into thick coins
2 cups cubed potatoes
2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. Italian seasoning
2 tsp.dried oregano
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. course-ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
Optional - butter beans, lima beans, green peas, chunks of zucchini or yellow squash

Method
Heat olive oil in a large stock pot. Add onions and celery and cook until vegetables are softening. Add vegetable stock, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and spices. Stir in green beans, corn, carrots and potatoes.

Cook over medium-high heat until soup boils. Reduce heat to low-simmer, and adjust all seasonings to taste. Continue cooking until vegetables are al dente, about 20-30 minutes. 

Serve immediately while hot with corn muffins, cornbread, biscuits or crusty bread. Store leftover in the refrigerator for several days or freeze.

Yield: 8-10 servings

Enjoy,
Mary

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Apple Crisp Cake

Seriously, what could be better than a rich yellow cake topped with apples and an "apple crisp" topping? Not much! This cake is so good, rich and decadent. The perfect cake to top with a dollop of fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.

Recipe

Ingredients
For the Crisp Topping
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

For the Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks (farm fresh is best)
1 tbls. pure vanilla extract
1 tbls. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk

For the Apple Layer
6 apples, peeled, sliced, cored and cut into chunks
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tbls. all-purpose flour
1 tbls. lemon juice

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9-x-13 inch baking pan with nonstick baking spray.

Cut butter into pieces and place in a medium bowl. Add brown sugar, flour, oats, salt and cinnamon. Using a pastry cutter (or your hands), mix together until coarse crumbs form. Set aside.

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes. Add eggs and egg yolks one at a time, and mix until fully combined after each addition. Add vanilla, mix in baking powder, salt and half of the flour and mix until blended well. Add half of the milk and mix. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour and mix until combined. Pour in the remaining 3/4 cup milk and mix until a smooth batter forms. Pour into the prepared baking pan.

Place cut apple chunks into a medium bowl and add brown sugar, cinnamon and flour. Toss to coat apples evenly. Pour lemon juice on top and stir thoroughly.

Arrange apples onto the cake batter in the pan in an even layer. Sprinkle crisp topping over the apples and place in the oven.

Bake for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean and cake appears to be set.

Remove from the oven and let cake cool for at least 1 hour. Cut into slices and dust with confectioner's sugar, if desired.

Enjoy,
Mary 

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Bourbon Maple APPLE Jam

This is a great slightly boozy jam full of flavor with just the right amount of spiciness. 

• Use in place of apple pie filling when making hand pies
• serve over pancakes and waffles, or top on biscuits and scones
• It's also great over a dish of vanilla ice-cream, or as a basting glaze on grilled or roasted pork. Delicious!

RECIPE
Ingredients
3 quarts chopped, peeled, cored apples (about 6 pounds or 18 medium sized apples)
1 package Sure-Jell (powdered pectin)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
6 cups sugar
1 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup bourbon

Method
Combine apples, Sure-Jell, and spices in a large stock pot. Bring slowly to a boil and cook 10 minutes, stirring often, until apples have softened.

Stir in sugar and maple syrup and return to a rolling boil. Boil hard one minute. Remove from heat and carefully stir in 1/2 cup bourbon (mixture will bubble and splatter, so be very careful).

Ladle hot jam in hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head-space. Process in boiling water bath 10 minutes.

Remove jars and let cool undisturbed on your kitchen counter 24 hours. Jars are sealed when button in the middle of the lid is fully depressed.

Store in pantry up to one year. Open jars need to be refrigerated.

Yield:  5 pints or 10 half-pint jars

Enjoy,
Mary

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Brined Fresh Ham Steak

First day of the brine

Updated and Revised November 2021

I've been on a "mission" of sorts to brine a fresh ham (pork). I've seen all kinds of techniques, watched so many videos I lost count, all the while thinking there has to be a "safe" way for a home cook to do this.

After 3 days curing in the refrigerator

The reason I wanted to do it is none of my local family farms who we buy all of our meat from sell cured hams or ham steaks. Now I wish they would, but understand why they don't. While the processing plant does offer this service, it takes months to get the product back, and being small farms as they are, I imagine it's simply time they don't want to invest when they can sell the uncured pork product very easily.

So ... there I was ... trying to figure this one out. It had to be a wet brine I could refrigerate. I didn't want to start with a whole ham, but rather with a ham steak, so if there were any "tweaks" I needed to do, I could figure those out with the ham steak. I also do not use "pink salt" or any product containing nitrates or nitrites, therefore this ham steak will never be a bright pink color, but rather stay a grayish color.

While it doesn't taste "exactly" like a ham, it is pretty darn good and very close to a "ham flavor" without a lot of time and effort spent on months of curing.

All cooked and ready to eat

RECIPE
Ingredients
Brine:
1 fresh pork (ham) steak
1/2 cups kosher salt
1/2 cups sugar
2 bay leaves
2 tbls. mustard seeds
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 tbls. minced garlic
1/2 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
water to cover
Glaze: (optional)
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/4 cup whole-grain mustard
1/4 cup honey

Method
Mix first 9 ingredients together in a bowl. Place fresh pork ham steak in a large glass 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Add mixed ingredients and add enough water until pork is submerged. Cover and refrigerate 3 days, turning pork once.

When read to cook, remove from brine and discard brine. Soak pork ham steak in fresh cold water 30 minutes prior to grilling.

Grill fresh pork ham steak 7 1/2 minutes per side over medium high heat. Baste on glaze (if using) during the last 5 minutes. Serve remaining glaze with ham steak if desired.

Enjoy,
Mary

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Homemade Chicken and Rice Soup

Updated July 2020

One of the easiest things to make is your own soup. You add your own fresh ingredients, season it to suit your taste, no preservatives or other additives; just pure, simple homemade soup. What could be better than that? Plus your house will smell AMAZING while it cooks!

This soup is wonderful if you start with your own chicken bone broth, which takes a bit of time to make, but it cooks in a slow cooker, or in a stock pot on your stove top, and it's really very easy to do. Of course, you can skip this step and use packaged chicken stock if you want to.

RECIPE
Ingredients
1 quart (4 cups) chicken or turkey bone broth 
2 cups water
2-3 carrots, sliced into coins
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. course-ground black pepper
2-3 cups chicken, cooked and diced
2 cups cooked rice

Method
Bring broth, water, carrots, celery and spices to a boil over medium-high heat and cook until vegetables are tender. Adjust seasonings to taste, add chicken and simmer 15-20 minutes.

Add hot cooked rice to bowls and ladle soup over top. Serve immediately while hot with cornbread, biscuits or crusty bread.

Cooks note - do not add the cooked rice directly to the soup. The rice will continue to swell and absorb the broth resulting in a less than desirable soup. Store leftover soup and rice separately in a refrigerator. It keeps several days refrigerated or freeze leftover soup for another time.

Yield:  4 -6 servings

Enjoy,
Mary

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Watermelon and Wine Pepper Jelly

On a couple of recent farm outings, one to visit Mercer House Estate Winery, an organic vineyard, and the other to visit Bradford Watermelons, a heritage melon being reintroduced, I decided to try making a jelly using both of these amazing products.

Because they are working toward organic certification, and have organic practices in place, I wanted to make this jelly as natural as possible, something that proved to be a bit difficult, but one I eventually conquered.

Why difficult? Well making jams or jellies is a fine ratio between fruit or juice and sugars or sweeteners, and some with wine, vinegar or lemon juice. Difficult because I was replacing sugar with a natural raw local honey and some local sorghum syrup which is heavier and cooks differently than sugar.  It took me a bit of experimenting, but I finally got it!

This Watermelon & Wine Pepper Jelly is spicy, sweet, full flavored and delicious. It is best served over cream cheese on crackers, but would also make an excellent glaze for a roasted/grilled pork loin or ham.


Recipe
Ingredients
6 cups chopped watermelon (Bradford Watermelons)
1 1/4 cups "Adele" Muscadine Wine (Mercer House Estate Winery)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
12 jalapeno peppers, sliced
2 cups raw local honey (Bell Honey Company)
2 cups sorghum syrup (Carolina Bay Farms)
1 package Sure-Jell (powdered pectin)
1 tsp. butter

10 whole cloves

2 cinnamon sticks


Method
Place whole cloves and cinnamon sticks in a spice bag. Pour honey and sorghum syrup in a small sauce pan and add spice bag. Bring to a simmer and cook 20-30 minutes or until spices are well infused in the honey/sorghum. Remove from heat and set aside (do not remove spice bag).

In a large stock pot, add watermelon, muscadine wine, red wine vinegar, jalapeno peppers, butter and Sure-Jell. Bring to a rolling boil over medium high heat, stirring often. Remove spice bag from honey/sorghum mixture and discard. Add honey/sorghum mixture to watermelon and return to a rolling boil. Boil hard 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and ladle into prepared canning jars. Top with lids and seals and process in a boiling water bath 10 minutes.

Remove jars and let rest on your kitchen counter-top 24 hours undisturbed. Jars are sealed when button in middle of lid is completely depressed.

Store in pantry up to one year. Opened jars must be refrigerated.

Serve over cream cheese on crackers or heat and baste on a roasted or grilled pork loin or ham.

Cooks note - jelly may take 2-3 days to completely set-up.

Enjoy,
Mary

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