The Cook is in the Building

Wow. Look what Henrietta's up to now

Beer Butt Chicken

Sorry, that's what it's called, although I have also heard it called beer can chicken, and I'm not sure you would have to use beer, but why mess with a good thing.  They now have metal stands that hold the can that holds the chicken.  I always used the recipe that came on the package or just added my favorite seasonings to it. Personally, I dubbed this photo as "Two Drunk Chicks", but that's just me.  My friend Becky gave me a copy from a newspaper article about Browne of "Grilling America" that supposedly  originated in Blue Springs Kansas and That's what it was called.  No matter what you call it, this is the best version of it I've ever had. 

Beer-Butt Chicken starts with a dry rub consisting of brown sugar, onion and garlic powder, summer savory, cayenne pepper, paprika, dry yellow mustard and sea salt.  The chicken sits on a half a can of beer (I don't know whathappens to the other half).  While it's cooking you spray the chicken all round with a basting spray several time in the 1 1/2  to 2 hours cooking time.  For the complete recipe please click on the following link and I will have it available on our website. HTTP:// www.homecookingcentral.com/beerbuttchicken.html.

Tomatoes

I have been negligent in writing.  I have tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.  I have made spaghetti sauce, salsa, cooked and stewed.  I cored and peeled a large pot of tomatoes yesterday and wondered what I would do with them.  Today I decided to divide the  amount in half and season half of them with Italian seasonings and half with chili seasonings.  Now they're in the freezer and ready for one of those scrumptious pots of spaghetti sauce or chili.  Yum.

Mutants

 What are they?  Yes, they are red potatoes.  The weird ones.  Are you the type of person who looks up to the sky and sees figures in them, like puppies or ducks or dragons?  After I took these pictures my husband saw a face in the big one.  Do you see it.  Go down to comments at the bottom of this post and let me know what you see.  I'm curious to see if we can all see what others see if we take a second look.

Henrietta's crowin cause she's goin green

Henrietta is so excited with her news.  She is proudly displayed on our new reusable canvas totes.  Now you can take her with you to the grocery store, shopping, on the boat, or as a carry on for the plane trip.  She really gets around and is proud to show her colors while being ecologically correct.  Here's a picture.

                 

For more detail such as size and to purchase a bag visit our website at www.homecookingcentral.com

Pick a Peck of Pickled Peppers

Talk about true to life.  As you know, we garden and my husband cans.  When a crop comes in it's best to do something with it when it's fresh.  We have peppers in our garden, but not as many jalapenos as it takes at one time to do a good batch.  We were in southern Oklahoma this weekend and and our friend Becky had bunches so she offered and we took her up on jalapenos.  Even after driving home yesterday, my husband got busy and got his peppers pickled.  Oh, by the way, the recipe for these is in our cookbook.  Visit www.homecookingcentral.com

Cucumber time

My husband likes to can pickles.  It's one of those arts he learned as a kid growing up with a large garden and 5 brothers.  With that many kids to feed, it was a matter of survival.  They all had to tend, weed and pick the garden, but not all participated in canning (unless they had to).  The past couple of years he has been a little frustrated by not having enough cucumbers of the right size at the same time.  This year he remedied that problem by planting 4 plants.  Boy, do we have cucumbers.  He achieved his goal and has been making pickles all day.  This is his second pickle canning day and I think he thinks he has enough.  The first picture shows those cucumbers that were a little bigger than he wanted for pickles, but that was only half the picking for today.  The second is a shot of some of the pickles he made today.  I will have to start making some yummy cucumber salads, etc.  There are 2 really good ones in our cookbook and if you don't have one, you might want to go to our website www.homecookingcentral.com to purchase one.  Do you have any cucumber recipes you'd like to share?  You can add them to the comment portion of this post or you can go to our website and click on Submit a recipe.  I'd love to hear from you.  As you can see, when the crop comes in, you need to do something with them. 

potatoes

My granddaughter, Faith, was over yesterday and was looking around in the laundry room and noticed a new container that she had never seen before.  Being the curious kid that she is, she opened the lid and peeked inside.  She was puzzled.  I was in the kitchen so she came and got me and asked me to follow her.  She pointed to the container and said "what's that?'.  I thought she meant the container so I explained to her that it was for potatos and the the top part said "Taters" and the bottom was for onions and that taters was a slang word for potatoes.  "No, in there".  I opened the lid and showed her the purple potatoess we had dug up out of the garden.  They were small (like new potatoes) and purple.  She was still a little puzzled.  I picked one up and cut the end off to show her they really were potatoes, but the were purple on the inside too. She was intrigued, but that was enough of that for right then.  About 10 minutes later she went over and picked up the potato and asked.  "It's purple, can I color with it".  I had to inform her that it just wouldn't work.

posting a comment

I just wanted to let folks know who might be new to the blog scene that they can add their two cents to a post at anytime be scrolling to the bottom of it and clicking on "comment".  I like to hear from you.

What's the Dill?

My husband and I recently stopped by a local farm/grocery mart to get some fresh green beans.  You see the rabbits ate ours before they could get up enough to produce.  They just loved the little shoots as they would pop up out of the ground.  Everything else wasn't bothered that much.  Anyway, after we got the green beans, I noticed fresh bunches of dill.  Nostalgia took over.  I remember that wonderful "Dilly Bread" we had at a distant relatives house in Kansas.  We were really in the country and had gathered eggs, harvested dill and watched grandma churn fresh butter which we slathered on the bread after it baked.  It was so good I had to buy some.  Once I got home, I started searching for the dill bread recipe, but couldn't find it.  I found a couple of others and adapted them to my liking.  I am including a link to my website for you to see the recipe.  It is http://www.homecookingcentral.com/dillbread.html