The Cook is in the Building

this years harvest

We canned this year.......A LOT










 
We canned this year.......A LOT
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

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.

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. 

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

Between Holidays

Well Mother's day has come and gone and Memorial day is fast approaching.  Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's say.  We did.  As usual the whole clan gathered and we had a wonderful day.  We each took a dish or two over to Jean's to add to the feast being prepared inside and out and shared the food and the company.  The weather was so nice that we ate outside and the girls dipped their feet in the pool.  Soon we'll homor our loved ones that have passed.  P eople will be heading out to the lake or park for a cook out and the brave ones may actually take a dip in the water.  I don't think I'm that brave.  Jean and I (actually, me and then Jean) are on the back row both wearing navy shirts.  No it wasn't planned.

The first harvest

Wow!  We have picked our first things from this years garden.  I'm not used to getting out there and planting seeds when it's still cold and yuckey, but I must conciede that these are the rewards.  Aren't they beautiful.  There is nothing like fresh veggies from the garden.

Introducing

I'd like to introduce our newest member to the Higgins Sisters family.  Her name is Henrietta.

She's even newer than my beautiful grand-daughter Violet (picture to follow).  Forgive me, I'm a proud grandmother.  As I was saying, Henrietta is a pretty smart chick.  She has household and cooking tips to share and she always seems to be up to something.  I know, Violet will be too as she gets a little bigger.  Be watching for Henrietta's adventures and advice.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          violet   

Great new dish

My sister came up with a new dish, Cauliflower Confetti, which she gave out on our teleseminar last Thursday.  Since we usually eat dinner with the neighbors when we go down to Lonnie's house, I decided I'd take all the ingredients along and make it once I got down there.  I wasn't confident that everybody would like raw cauliflower, so I substituted cole slaw.  As it turned out everyone I asked said that yes, indeed, they did like cauliflower and the only two that didn't like cauliflower didn't eat any of the coleslaw either.  It's all irrelevant because it was very good either way.

I must explain this caricature of me.  It  was done at a Soul Food Cook off that Jean and I went to.  There were booths with samples of food and the attendees voted on a peoples choice winner.  Back behind the booth tables was a girl doing caricatures so we decided to give it a whirl.  It's always interesting to see how other people see you.  We decided to use the caricatures so you would know who is writing.  Here's hers.  Look at the About me page to see what we really look like