The sooner you get into the field after a large rain event the better, especially here.   This involves rubber boots (mine leaked today...I bought women's boots last time.  Just sayin'.)   What you want to see is how the water's moving on the land, if any checkdams or gabions have been damaged, where erosion is active (you hope for nowhere, but ( Read more... )

Years ago, when we lived in a different place with a reliable water supply, we grew a garden that included beans to dry for later.   Because we were trying things out, initially, we grew a small amount of several varieties, and that meant--once they were dry and in jars--that we didn't have enough of any one of them to make a big pot of bean soup ( Read more... )

On Wednesdays, a food co-op leaves boxes of produce at church--outside, in a little courtyard--for its members to pick up.   Arriving choir members headed for supper in the church and then rehearsal, like me, pass by people poking through the boxes and making their choices. Even if no one happens to be there, no choir member would think of ( Read more... )

With a new soup pot, it was necessary to use it today.   I also had three (green, red, yellow) bell peppers that hadn't yet been used.

So:

1 quart frozen homemade chicken stock (sensing a trend here?  the homemade stock?)
1 quart water
1 half very large onion, diced and sauteed until goldenish
3 peppers, cored and diced
1/2 cup barley
2 cups cooked ( Read more... )

Though it's too hot to really make up a soup--a big soup--the changing light is making me hungry for fall/winter foods.  Today I gave in to the urge and assembled a quickie-soup from frozen beef stock, rice, and canned stuff, plus a spare few sausages.

The base: 1 quart frozen beef stock (needed using up anyway.)    Plus maybe 2 cups of water.  To ( Read more... )

Chicken & Ham with Tomatoes, Green Chilis, Black Beans & Barley

1 quart homemade chicken stock  (from freezer)
2 cups cubed cooked chicken  (from freezer)
1 cup cubed cooked ham (from freezer--removed from 3 cup packet)
1 small (old regular) can of Ro-tel diced tomatoes & green chilis with lime juice & cilantro
1 can black beans, drained
1 cup ( Read more... )

Since a lot of what I cook is soup, this is yet another paeon to the Season of Soup (when it's not too hot to turn the stove on, in other words.)

There's really no secret to making good soup.   You put enough things that have a lot of flavor into a pot--things that have a lot of flavors that don't clash also helps--and you cook them to the point ( Read more... )

In the past two weeks, I've made some really good soups (yes, patting own back...tough) and took pictures of them in situ without showing just what a mess I make while making soup.    Soup #1, also known as "the bone soup" because it started with some cow vertebrae (it was "the vertebrae soup but a friend thought that was too gruesome) had two ( Read more... )

Today I finished up the stock,  first taking the flakes of fat off the top of the almost-jellied stock, then transferring it into quart containers and one larger one and putting it in the freezer.   About two quarts of stock stayed in the small (10 quart) pot as the basis for tonight's soup.  It's a thick soup, almost a stew, with diced tomatoes, ( Read more... )

Today, being wet and cold (sleet at dawn, cold rain thereafter, temps in the 30sF)  was the perfect day for soup-making.   I hauled out two packages of bones, perhaps 6 pounds altogether, slathered them with barbecue sauce, and started them roasting.   The usual vegetables and herbs and so on went into the big pot, when the bones were ready, and ( Read more... )