Preparing For the Zombie Apocalypse (I Mean Winter)

 Fresh veggies straight from the garden or farm are one of the best things about summer. Many times our snow peas don't even make it into the house (I need a Scare Hubby and Scare Teen, not a scare crow!)! Hubby brought home yesterday's CSA goodies and boy was it a great week! Rainbow carrots, cukes, zucchini, gold beets, green pepper, beans of every colour.....sooooo good.

We munched on a plate of fresh carrots, cukes, and green pepper paired with a homemade ranch style dip. I am proud to say the herbs for this one came from the garden!!

Ranch style dip

¼ cup mayo

2 tbsp sour cream

lemon juice (From one wedge)

2 – 4 tbsp buttermilk (enough to thin it to whatever consistency you want)

1 clove garlic, grated

1 tbsp chives, chopped

1 tbsp flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 tbsp dill, chopped

salt and pepper

Mix everything together. Taste and adjust seasonings or herbs as needed. If using as a salad dressing, add more buttermilk to thin out the dip.

Now onto preparing for the zombie apocalypse winter.  I started pickling today. (no,  I don't mean drinking, but sometimes it is tempting.) I mean pickling some of the fresh veggies for later use. Prairie living does require some prep and saving our summer bounty, especially back in the days of yore when people didn't have grocery stores full of produce. Canning your own garden or farmers' market buys is one way to ensure local food is an option all year round.

My mother in law and I made pickles once or twice. We bought a bunch of jars and went all out.  The we got out of the pickling game and those jars sat in the basement. Eventually I gave the jars to a friend who needed them.

I have bought some new jars and have even cleaned out all my old spices and dried herbs that I bought in mass quantities from a Mom's Pantry fundraiser years ago and placed in mason jars of varying sizes. I knew the herbs and spices were way to old to use but just never got around to tossing them.  I have jars a plenty, for now.

These old herbs are gone!!!

If you read my post from the other day, I have been reading my way through The Little House Cookbook by Barbara Walker which has inspired me to do some more traditional type of cooking, including pickling. I have quite a few beets in the garden and will soon be overrun with zucchini so why not give the pickling a go?

The on going joke around the Little Kitchen is I am really just learning skills to survive the zombie apocalypse when it occurs...The Boy tells me he never really thought about that side of it, just the killing the zombies part....he's so pretty.
I managed to get 4 jars of beets and 3 jars of zuchinni spears pickled today.  I'm not going to post the recipes today but I will. I want to take more pictures of the process, and this post is rambling on.

Plenty of room in the Little Kitchen for a canning setup!

Until next time, stay warm (avoid zombies) and eat well!

PhDs, Books & Lemonade, Oh My!

Oh Summer, you seem to pass by so quickly. Before we know it, it is almost August. Yikes!! We have been busy. My sister defended her PhD thesis last week so we had to have a BBQ and a cake.  A Yoda cake to be exact....She will be a Jedi Master following fall convocation. This is a big deal in our Prairie dwelling family of Jedi nerds.

I still need to practice the Yoda cake, but always fun!

 Things have calmed down around the Little Kitchen and I have even been able to get back to reading one of my favourite books. Many of you probably figured out that I have long been a fan of Little House on the Prairie (both the books and the tv show). I know, who'd a thunk it?

I bought this book last year when we were in St. Louis, MO and I even read through it last summer and enjoyed it. All this book has done has re sparked my interest in the Little House On The Prairie books to the point where I would like to read them again. This book has recipes that Ma Wilder used (or similar to ones she would have used).

 
That's right, The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker has become a favorite. Not so much for it's recipes but for some of the descriptions of the frontier life and the simple living (that was actually labour intensive).  Walker also uses excerpts from the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books where she describes in great detail the foods, the smells, and the feelings of the food. From the times the family nearly starved all the way to the richer times, Laura's life revolved around family and food.

I just like this book. I keep wanting to try some of the recipes from it. I am thinking the pickled beets would be great since I have a garden full of beets. I will work on that in the next while.

In the meantime, I am still making ginger syrup but have also started making lemon syrup for lemonade...oh and am I in love with lemon syrup...(especially with a shot of rum or gin or vodka in it....)

With many thanks to Pinterest for helping me find this one. The recipe actually hails from the Anne of Green Gables Cookbook (perhaps another one I should pick up...) but I found it on the Simply So Good Blog.  Perhaps I was drawn to this recipe over others due to its traditional roots.

It really is simple:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups lemon juice (fresh squeezed please)
zest from one lemon

Boil the sugar and water for about 5 minutes. Add the zest and lemon juice and allow to cool.  Transfer to a jar or other suitable storage vessel.

This works well using 1/3 cup syrup to 1 can of club soda or the equivalent amount of cold water. (Don't forget that shot of rum).

Adding some frozen fruit is fabulous as well...I like frozen blueberries but fresh strawberries muddled in the bottom....raspberries....blackberries....you get the idea!

Frozen blueberries

Fresh strawberries

We also got a fabulous haul from our CSA this week....

Check out other fabulous recipes at the Melt in Your Mouth Mondays Link up!

Until next time, stay warm keep cool and eat well.