Putting up green peppers evokes ties to "granny-lady gardeners" of the past

I never feel so "at one" with the granny-lady gardeners of the past as I do when we plant and harvest green bell peppers.

With our green-pepper yield we truly "put food by" in the way that people, of necessity, utilized their gardens in days gone by.

Our green peppers traditionally are prolific, with far more that we could possibly use during one summer's time.

As each summer wanes, I get my knife and chopping board out and pulverize into bits my leftover peppers. Then I line up small, airtight, plastic containers and dump the chopped peppers in, label them, and store them in the freezer.

This industrious act fairly uses up all my plastic containers as well as a couple of shelves in the deepfreeze. Staring at the green-pepper collection that I've just put away, I always believe I've stored up far more green peppers than I can use in any 10 non-growing seasons.

I'm always wrong. I find amazing the number of recipes that list green peppers as an ingredient. Deep in the winter, when the pepper plants are gone, I can feel smug as I traverse the few steps to my freezer and haul out one of my airtight containers into which just weeks before I've put away chopped peppers. Then just about the time, in mid-to-late summer, when the freezer cupboard starts running bare of my stockup, new green peppers are starting to pop out from the current year's garden. So goes the cycle--just as it has in people's stored-away garden supplies for generations, except of course that I have the blessings of a modern, electric deepfreeze for storage.

Last year my cousin Yvonne gave me a wonderful tip. She told me that she takes green peppers from her garden and from them makes a whole flotilla of Stuffed Green Peppers. Then she cooks and freezes the stuffed peppers in portions that ultimately will make dinner-sized servings for her and her husband, Wheat. In the depths of winter, then, she's ready to thaw a nourishing meal and reheat it for their dinner.

After hearing her suggestion, at the end of last summer I tried this. We especially enjoyed our Stuffed Green Peppers during the month of December, which, as any woman with the weight of Christmas prep on her shoulders knows, is a month in which frenzied activity makes cooking regular meals impossible. How good to simply gallop over to my freezer and thaw and then microwave a wholesome Stuffed Green Pepper dish made from our own garden peppers a few months back!

Our garden's green-pepper rows look promising this year, but we're still too early to breeze out and pluck a few when I run across green bell peppers in a recipe. So for our meal a few nights ago, thankfully I still have a few airtight plastic containers marked "green peppers" in my deepfreeze. For "Sweet and Sour Chicken" (recipe from a Sam's Club flyer), I had only to walk a few steps and raid my supply--and once again felt self-satisfied (and as though I was linking arms with many generations past) in doing so.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

4 to 6 (6-ouce) boneless skinless chicken breasts (we used chicken tenders)

1/2 teaspoon salt (we use salt substitute)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

cooking spray

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 teaspoon orange zest

1/4 cup water

3 tablespoons honey

4 teaspoons vinegar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 cup green bell peppers, diced (can add red bell peppers as well, if you have them)

1 cup pineapple chunks, drained

1 teaspoon cornstarch

Heat grill to medium (we use our countertop grill). Spray the chicken breast lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill for 4-5 minutes on each side. While chicken is grilling, combine juice, water, zest, honey, 3 teaspoons vinegar, and brown sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. In a small bowl combine cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of vinegar. Add to saucepan and mix until thick. Add pineapple and bell peppers. Simmer on low for 5 minutes until chicken is ready. Plate the chicken and top each breast with 3/4 cup of sauce. Can be served over rice. Serves 4.

"Essence of summer" food must-have list just got a new addition

Some foods literally exude summer. Everyone has his or her faves, but my "essence of summer" foods are lemon ice-box pie, strawberry shortcake, marinated cucumber salad, and calico beef burgers, to name a few.

They're the menu items that I just can't "do" the summer season without. So early on, I start making a mental list to be sure I'm not having to cram in some last-minute gorging as the season wanes.

A new quintessential summer dish moved onto my radar screen this week. I wasn't looking for a summer synonym--but simply something to use the ample ears of corn my hubby brought home from Kroger this week because the produce area had it at a good sale price. (The corn in our garden is materializing but isn't quite as high as an elephant's eye yet, so we're still supplementing from the grocery until we bring in our own corn ears.)

So I stumbled on a recipe for "Avocado Salsa". I thought the mingling of avocados, cherry tomatoes, and fresh corn sounded, well, colorful at least. Like several other recipes I've mentioned in this blog, this one inspired skepticism also. "It just seems like it would need some kind of a dressing," I reported to Hubby as I assembled the ingredients.

Interesting role-reversal. He's usually the one who raises a dubious eyebrow about whether a recipe will "work". This time he was the Encouraging Barnabas of the kitchen. "I bet the lime juice is all it needs," he assessed as he scanned the salsa recipe in the "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" booklet from the Chickasaw Nation.

He was right. The lime juice, mixed with the salt and chopped cilantro, worked miracles on the avocado, tomato, and corn combination (and even more so the second day after the concoction refrigerated overnight.)

The result! "Avocado Salsa", which we served over spinach but also could be an appetizer alongside tortilla chips--became instant, edible summer--a new dish perfect for summer staple events such as picnics, family reunions, church potlucks, lunches at the lake, or as we experienced it--a simple summer dinner-for-two at home.

Avocado Salsa

2 avocados, peeled, seeded, and chopped

2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes, quartered

1 cup corn, cooked and cut off cob

3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon salt (we use salt substitute)

Combine avocado, tomatoes, corn, and cilantro; toss. Slowly pour lime juice over the salsa and toss to combine. Chill for 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend.

When crop is smaller than expected, selective use can still impress the taste buds

I'm having to be very picky; I didn't want to be.

Yes, this year's peach crop is a far sight better than last year's. And of course the sad year before—2008—because of the great 2007 deluge which killed our prolific peach trees, we had none.

But I got my hopes quite elevated late this spring when our first new tree budded and within days we began seeing those gorgeous orbs hanging from the branches (see my 5/31 blog, "Summer days turn perfectly peachy, but what to make with that first delightful crop?") I raced out and hauled in the first one for my breakfast cereal and then made "Miss Sallie's Pudding" with the first official yield. My mind began churning about all the peach recipes that were on my wish list--what would be next to prepare, and then the next, and then the next, and so on.

Now reality is just a little more, well, real. Second-in-Command Peach Tree, although trying its best, won't be abundant. Third-in-Command has some potential but looks less promising than #2.

The other two in the garden? Too new. Just won't be their year. To sum it up, hubby says we're still a year away from that truly bumper crop. "Next year in Jerusalem", or at least "next year in the peach orchard", will have to be our mantra.

So, grrr, grrr, grrr, with those facts in mind, what will my "cup-half-full" response be? To be an excellent steward of the peaches I've been given for the summer of 2010. To be highly strategic in my cooking plan. To experiment with a few new recipes I've been saving as well as to invest in some old favorites. And maybe, just maybe, this year's peach haul will stretch further than I anticipate.

This weekend I hit the experimentation category--a recipe for "Individual Peach Berry Crisps" from the pages of Prevention magazine. It combined two of my favorite fruit--peaches and blueberries--in a healthy but filling desert--a dessert that I'd promised myself to try but didn't in years past. It called for using individual ramekins (small quiche dishes) so every person could have his or her very own "Crisp."

No disappointments there! The desserts looked beautiful, the peaches were divine, and you can bet I savored every stewardly bite. My next well-thought-out peach dessert? The subject of another blog!

Individual Peach-Berry Crisps

1 cup peeled, chopped peaches

1/4 cup blueberries

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (I used sugar substitute)

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup crushed graham cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons old-fashioned rolled oats

1 teaspoon butter, softened

2 teaspoons chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put peaches in microwave-safe, covered glass dish. Add 1 teaspoon water; cook covered on high for 4 minutes until peaches are beginning to soften. In medium bowl mix peaches, blueberries, sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, lemon zest, salt, and cinnamon. Let stand 10 minutes. In small bowl combine graham-cracker crumbs, oats, butter, and pecans and stir until mixture comes together. Coat 2 (6-ounce) ramekins with cooking spray. Divide peach mixture evenly between dishes. Top each with half of the graham-cracker mixture. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until topping is golden and peaches are heated through. Serves 2. Recipe can be doubled.

Despite frustrating allergies, nothing keeps us from our prized pecans

The same dance occurs about this time every year.

My hubby threatens to cut down our prized, paper-shell pecan trees.

These very same trees are the treasure trove of our most exemplary pecans--so sweet straight from the nut that they taste almost like candy--with shells so thin you can crack them using your thumb.

Our property contains nine pecan trees, but we usually make the pecan crop from the seven others available to friends, neighbors, and pecan-seekers from the general public who know our block is the source of free pecans and who annually line the curbside in the fall.

The annual yield of our two paper-shell pecans is ample for all our personal pecan needs for the year ahead.

My hubby loves the trees and what they produce, but he takes pity when he sees my eyes almost swollen shut from my late-in-life-onset pecan allergy when the trees shed their green, tassel-like "catkins", or pollen-producing flowers, in the late spring. I have to swear off my contact lenses for weeks on end while I wait for catkin-shedding period to pass.

"Let's just cut them down," he always threatens of our towering paper-shell producers, which happen to be the pecan trees nearest the driveway and house and therefore the ones with the greatest impact on my allergies.

If we ever seriously entertained such a thought, my parents likely would rise up from their burial spots in protest and haunt us forever. My daddy's pecan trees on his lot around my growing-up home (just down from us on Garland's 11th Street) were like children to him. He took such pride in their fertility. (Only when my hubby and I lived on the East Coast during our past pilgrimage was I fully aware that not every state possessed such a prize native treasure as the stately pecan.)

Even when she was on hospice, my mother one fall was fretting over who would pick the pecans that layered her yard unpicked. She ultimately called a friend who was a local baker to help herself to the nuts that would go into some of that friend's bakery specialties.

My Nanny's Pecan Pie recipe is one of the first dishes we annually make in the fall when the first new pecans are brought in. I usually follow that by stirring up Pecan Pie Muffins (both of these two recipes are in my first cookbook, Way Back in the Country.) Some other favorites are Sour Cream Apple Cake and Caramel Apple Coffee Cake (the last one appears in my new cookbook, Way Back in the Country Garden.)

What would I do if my hubby carried out on his annual comment and we had to look elsewhere for our marvelous paper-shells?

In the end I didn't have to worry. We decide to put off for at least another year any decision about tree-removal. I slogged through another spring and the pecan-tree discharge. My daughter's optometrist friend suggested to her that I store my allergy drops for my eyes in the refrigerator to make them more soothing when applied. I ordered a new lens (gas-permeable) for my left eye, which seems to be the one most sensitive to the shedding. I built my wearing time back up. I persevered. All for those buttery, paper-shell pecans, which, incidentally, are rich in omega-6 fatty acids and therefore help people maintain good health.

After all, they're what make my new recipe for Citrus Pecan Spinach Salad, which we enjoyed this weekend and my hubby pronounced "the very best salad ever", sizzle!

Citrus Pecan Spinach Salad

1 (9-ounce) bag ready to eat spinach

1 green apple, cut in very thin slices

1 (15.25-ounce) can tropical fruit mix, drained

1/3 cup feta cheese

1 handful pecans, broken in pieces (not chopped)

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons raspberry vinegar

2 tablespoons raspberry preserves (we use sugar-free)

On a pie plate place pecans in a layer. In a 350-degree oven toast pecans until they are brown (about 8 minutes). Set aside to cool. For dressing, mix olive oil, raspberry vinegar, and raspberry preserves. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. In salad bowl toss spinach, thinly sliced apple, drained fruit, and feta cheese. Toss together with refrigerated dressing. Add toasted pecans and toss again slightly to coat nuts. Serves 4.

Garden-fresh tomatoes add missing ingredient to these very "elementary" beans

My hubby couldn't have been more insulted. The recipe card that I, with a hopeful look on my face, plunked in front of him was labeled "Beans 101."

Hubby fancies himself as the Grand Pooh-Bah of Bean-Cooking. My recipe card with its unusual title apparently hinted to him that he might have something yet to learn on the subject.

Why “101”? his expression seemed to say. I'm already on the doctoral level where beans are concerned.

Nevertheless, he undertook the recipe and helped me out with what would be the next night's dinner. After all, he'd already been commenting that we'd need to have some homemade beans again sometime soon. And besides, the recipe card hailed from his beloved Chickasaw Nutrition Services office. As a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, to him these freebie recipe cards (mentioned in yesterday's blog) are—like everything else Chickasaw—sacrosanct.

Some 10 hours later, after the concoction bubbled on low overnight (and greeted us in the morning with an awesome aroma), hubby had a frown on his face when he sampled the mixture. "Needs something," he murmured with furrowed brow.

He grabbed the salt substitute and poured some into the crockpot. Not sufficient, he determined on taste. Next he browned some ground turkey (our substitute for ground beef) and dumped it in. Improving, he assessed. Then he thought of tomatoes--fresh tomatoes from the garden, or the canned-and-drained variety as a substitute. Now that's getting tasty, his pleased look communicated.

For our purposes we changed the name of the recipe to Tomato Chili Beans. Fresh tomatoes had saved the day, added lycopene and vitamins C and A, and given the chili beans an improved color, with red chunks bobbing in the liquid. (Cooked tomatoes are said to have even more health benefits than raw ones do.) We heaped our soup bowls high and then dabbed on sour cream with a dusting of shredded cheese and slices of avocado.

Beans 101 turned out to be a fine refresher course in perseverance and ingenuity. And as Grand Pooh-Bah of Bean-Cooking, my husband can add one more success story--this time with Tomato Chili Beans (see below)--to his repertoire.

Tomato Chili Beans

3 cups dried pinto beans

1/2 small onion, diced

10 sliced jalapenos (optional)

1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons black pepper

12 cups water

salt to taste

about 6 tomatoes, peeled and seeded (or 1 14-ounce can salt-free diced tomatoes, drained)

1 pound ground turkey, browned and drained (optional)

sour cream

grated cheddar cheese

sliced avacado

Wash and sort 3 cups of pinto beans. Discard any small stones. Place beans in a slow-cooker and fill with 12 cups of water. place small diced onion and jalapenos (if desired) in slow cooker. Add chili powder and black pepper. Add tomato. Add browned ground turkey, if desired. Cook on high for 1 hour; then turn down to low to cook overnight (10 hours). Check water level in the morning. May add more water if needed. Cook on low all day and served in the evening. Spoon into bowls. Add sour cream, cheddar cheese, and avocado.

To avoid the drab, even farmwives of yesteryear needed help with recipe inspiration

What do I do with all this stuff?

You've had an exhilarating day at the farmer's market and returned with a backseat-load of produce--colorful, healthy, and diverse.

Or, your trip to your garden plot has yielded a potpourri basketful of bits and pieces--some random okra, a few corn ears, a handful of tomatoes, an onion here and there--not enough to stock a cellar with canned goods but never-so-fresh-as-now and calling to be prepared and eaten.

What to do? Where do you go for inspiration?

Farmwives of the past, believe it or not, faced the same dilemma.

We tend to regard women of bygone days--when gardens were a necessity and when frugal food preparation meant the difference between survival and starvation for some families--as born wise in the "how-to" department. We tend to think of granny ladies of that era as people who hatched out mature and well-versed in automatically knowing how to use their garden produce.

Enter our Aunt Frances and her first job out of high school.

As a young woman entering the work world in Delta County, TX, Aunt Frances was hired by the county extension agent as an office helper. Her job was to type the recipes that the agent then carried to rural homes throughout the region. The recipes were welcome helps to farmwives who were stumped about how to use their garden pickin's so they didn't have to fix the "same-old, same-old" for supper. (An entire chapter, "Downtown", is devoted to this in my new cookbook, Way Back in the Country Garden.)

An example of the kind of recipes Aunt Frances would type--and also tuck away for the eventual day she, as a married lady, would be queen of her own kitchen--is today's feature: Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes. A few evenings ago, when we brought in just "a bit of this and a bit of that" from our garden, this dish was a perfect medley. As I mentioned in my blog post, "Fresh vegetables unadorned make for some delightful seasoned greetings", Hubby and I always are incredulous how the fresh vegetables season themselves--with only limited salt and pepper recommended to be added--yet how immensely flavorful!

What the county extension office did in Aunt Frances' day is the same kind of help the Chickasaw Nation Nutrition Services office provides today to help Chickasaws learn to cook more healthily and to use homegrown produce. My hubby and I stand amazed each time we visit our closest Chickasaw offices in Ardmore, OK. The nutrition-services building has free recipe cards on display in its entry. Live food demos are scheduled several times a day; they feature test kitchen and personnel to show how recipes on the freebie cards are prepared.

(Of course in today's Internet age, merely "Googling" the names of ingredients you have also can turn up a wealth of ideas as well.)

Hubby and I enjoyed our Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes for dinner alongside Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccini (featured in Wednesday's blog). The fact that we had this okra medley recipe in our collection (thanks to Aunt Frances, who by the way died a year ago at age 102) made us really happy that those farmwives of yesteryear needed a little help now and then!

Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes

2 pounds fresh okra, with stems and tips removed

3 pounds tomatoes, skinned and seeded

8 ears fresh corn

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons oil

4 cups onions, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon salt (we used salt substitute)

freshly ground pepper

Cut okra into 1/4-inch rounds; discard tops. This should make about 6 cups of okra. Put tomatoes in stainless or enameled pan and cook slowly for about half an hour. Do not scorch. Drain any liquid. This should make about 2 cups of tomatoes. Use sharp knife to cut corn from cob. In a skillet heat butter and oil. Add okra and onions. Cook until onions are wilted and okra has begun to brown at edges, about 10-15 minutes. Turn often; add reduced tomatoes and salt; cook 5 minutes. Add corn and cook 3-4 more minutes. Add salt and pepper; season to taste.

That healthy veggie, zucchini, wins kudos in entree for sultry summer evening

My hubby has only a few, minor pet peeves. These include—

• finding used tissue stuffed under my pillows when he makes the bed;

• finding dishes stacked in front of his coffeemaker, thus barring easy access to his java;

• finding that someone has taken out the kitchen trash without fitting a fresh trash bag onto the waste can;

• being unable to locate a pen or pencil when he's on the telephone and needs to scribble something;

• running out of paper goods (i.e., finding the paper-towel holder empty without any spares).

(He's easily pleased, don't you think? And you'll notice I didn't even mention the ubiquitous direction-of-the-toilet-paper thingy. He's cool on that one.)

But one irritation can spur him to a major meltdown. His PETTEST PEEVE of all has nothing to do with the genre of the above irritations: it's finding the kitchen oven on with me baking something on a hot summer day. Hubby believes this is the highest waste of energy; it heats up the house and causes the air-conditioner to pump more. Thus it drives up the fuel bill. He believes a ban should be enacted on all summer baking and that we should turn to more energy-conserving types of food preparation. (Of course that would eliminate the peach cobblers and peach muffins and all the other peach baked goodies I rhapsodized over yesterday, wouldn't it?)

His penchant for the un-oven baked caused him to be ecstatic over a meal one night this week; it had Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccine as its main course. (Since our Texas temps already are nearing the triple digits, concern about heating up the kitchen makes excellent sense.)

From our May visit to the Chickasaw farmer's market we had just a handful of items unused; a tad bit of zucchini was one of them, but that tad was plenty for a recipe I'd been wanting to try. Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccine (which I borrowed from Family Circle magazine) called for only two large zucchini, trimmed and shredded.

This light summer meal was absolutely perfect for a sultry summer evening. The toasted pine nuts (toast them in a countertop toaster oven to avoid the forbidden "oven-baking") add a perfect touch and make the pasta dish feel substantial. Parmesan cheese lends texture and, of course, flavor. We served it as an entree alongside a stir-fried vegetable medley dish (more on that tomorrow). As my hubby remarked about the meatless main course of Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccine, "This was enough--very filling."

He can expect to see more of it on the table before the summer ends. That giant vegetable plant in the corner of his garden--the plant he thought was yellow squash? Turns out to be zucchini, with tiny zucchinis bursting forth all throughout its massive leaves.

If I only could find a way to "un-bake" zucchini muffins. My cousin Jana's recipe in my new cookbook, Way Back in the Country Garden, makes the best use ever of that healthy vegetable.

Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccini

8 ounces fettuccini pasta

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoon minced garlic

2 large zucchini (1 pound total), trimmed and shredded

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted

3/4 teaspoon salt (we used salt substitute)

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 ounces shaved Parmesan cheese

Cook fettuccini according to package directions. Drain and place in a large serving bowl. Heat a large nonstick skillet over high heat until very hot. Add 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, garlic, and shredded zucchini. Saute for 1 minute. Add zucchini to pasta in bowl along with pine nuts, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil; toss to combine. Sprinkle with shaved Parmesan cheese and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.