Posted on 08/28/2006 11:20:06 AM PDT by freepatriot32
Some things are impossible to cook right without pork fat. Fried chicken, for example, or refried beans. Want something to taste good? Fry it up in lard. It'll taste great no matter what it is.
Leda, see #175 - "square foot gardening."
It may very well have been a banana leaf - but there is another name for it. I've seen it used in both Cuban and Hawaiian cooking.
It could also have been a plantain leaf.
Damn squirrels got all my tomatoes this year.
Well, at least they didn't go for your nuts.
They won't go for nuts until next month.
Lucky you. The folks that bought most of the acreage across the road from me are planning on building a stable and barn for horses and some cattle.....I have a feeling I'll be getting as much "fertilizer" and I desire once they get that going :)
it took me a long time to learn that.............I'm a yankee by birth.
Speaking of frying.........I've onions to chop and chicken livers to fry up.......
Shred finely several heads of cabbage.Take a crock or large jar and rinse it out. (A 1-gallon mayonnaise jar will make a nice quantity of sauerkaut. Just be careful when you pour in the boiling water; tetter rinse it out with hot water to start with.)
Pur a layer of shredded cabbage in the bottom and sprinkle on som salt. Don't overdo it, however. You can always taste the brine the second day and add a little more salt if needed.
Continue layering the cabbage and salting the layers until the crock is nearly full. Put a stone on top of the exposed cabbage.
Boil a kettleful of water and pour it into the crock until it covers all of the cabbage and the stone as well.
Leave it alone for 3 days. The cabbage does all the work. In 24 hours, you will have strong cabbage water; in 48, young sauerkraut; and in 72, the real thing.
(Don't forget to drink the juice for breakfast.)
As I posted above, mine came out kind of weak, but the only big jar I had was only about a half gallon -- it might have held the heat better if it was bigger.
The Lithuanian church near me, at its annual fair, serves up homemade kielbasa and sauerkraut dinners. They put caraway seed in the sauerkraut; I guess it's a Lithuanian thing, though my family never did it. My mother just used the canned, but after she drained and rinsed it, she'd chop an onion and put a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat in the pan to heat it up.
(The church did put out a cookbook one year that included a recipe for sauerkraut -- it started with 40 pounds of cabbage! It discouraged me right there. I think it also suggested using a stone crock, but I was fresh out of stone crocks.)
Exactly!
I see what the welfare mothers are buying with their WIC coupons and it makes me cringe.
I can buy four dozen eggs for the cost of one box of cereal, which box might make it through 1.5 breakfasts with a couple of kids.
For the cost of two bags of chips, I could buy several pounds of potatoes that can be made into all kinds of yummy things, including just put in a microwave.
For under a buck, I can buy a bag of dried beans, add $3.00 worth of Polish sausage and have a pot of good stuff to feed the whole family a couple of times.
That's just the beginning.
In the end, it usually costs way more to eat crappy food than good, basic food.
Now to eat fine food, that's another matter.
Exactly!
I see what the welfare mothers are buying with their WIC coupons and it makes me cringe.
I can buy four dozen eggs for the cost of one box of cereal, which box might make it through 1.5 breakfasts with a couple of kids.
For the cost of two bags of chips, I could buy several pounds of potatoes that can be made into all kinds of yummy things, including just put in a microwave.
For under a buck, I can buy a bag of dried beans, add $3.00 worth of Polish sausage and have a pot of good stuff to feed the whole family a couple of times.
That's just the beginning.
In the end, it usually costs way more to eat crappy food than good, basic food.
Now to eat fine food, that's another matter.
Yes, the freezer and pantry are the biggest moneysavers in the food budget universe!
If you have space to store stuff, you can really take advantage of sales. I never pay full price for meat. When it goes on a nice sale, I stock up and put it in the freezer. It's wonderful.
You forgot gahhh-lic . . .
What a wonderful gift you gave your friend!
My one food splurge that has gotten out of hand is snacks. I find having the prepackaged granola bars etc. very convenient for football practice days, etc. But, boy, the expense.
I'm going to get resituated so I can start making more snacks at home. They will be a lot healthier and certainly cheaper.
Must be the Parisians...(grin) :)
I'm sure...
Man--what a great idea to use V8 juice! I'll have to try that, that sounds really savory with beef stew.
We used to live where we had a big lawn to mow and DH had long hours at work.
End result was I had to take over the grill duty if we were ever going to have grilled food. I started grilling a little extra each time. By the end of the week, we'd have a big pile of some of this and some of that in the fridge. Fire it up a bit in the microwave and enjoy the "mixed meats grill platter."
Yum!
Poor people in past centuries looked emaciated and thin because of the lack of food. They were living in the wrong century to be in style, I guess. The rich back then could afford roasted ducks and piglets, pate' and petit fours, and it was all the rage to not LOOK LIKE POOR PEOPLE. So, fat was all the fashion. FAT = IN STYLE
This day and age, the poor can afford generally pretty good food and plenty of it. Big Macs and fries, pizza and fried chicken, and they aren't too proud to enjoy it.
In this society, the rich, as usual not wanting to look like the modern poor, can afford the fat farms, exclusive spas, personal trainers, special gourmet diet foods low in fat and carbs, live-in chefs and so forth - so they can appear the way the poor used to back in the old days.
SKINNY = IN STYLE WHATEVER THE POOR CAN'T AFFORD TO BE = IN STYLE in other words.
All in all, I think the poor today have the right idea for the most part - enjoy yer vittles!
The one appliance I will insist on when we have the room is an extra freezer.
My parents had an old upright freezer in the garage, and that thing was ALWAYS full of meat.
This stupid side-by-side we have now has enough room in the freezer for one half-gallon of ice cream, 10 of those zero-calorie Italian ices in the tube, and two bags of unidentified vegetables Xena's Guy brought home from some family dinner. Nothing else may enter.
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