It Doesn't Look Good, But it Tastes Great!

Last night I showed you that we planted some cowpeas in the garden plot in the side yard.  The three rows in our main garden are about to play out and it was time to get some new ones planted to have peas consistently coming in.  It is important in these crazy times to have food in your pantry and food in your garden.

Tonight I'd like to show you another sort of strange crop we have growing:  Black Turtle Beans.  They are, as the name suggests, black.  They are called turtle beans because they have a hard outer shell.  This bean is popular in Latin America and Cuba.  I harvested a bucket of them the other day.  I let these dry on the bush before picking.

I meant to save a photo of the black beans after I shelled them, but Tricia started cooking them before I was able to get a shot.  Suffice it to say, they are black and shiny.  We like to make refried black beans and use them as a dip to eat with chips.  We soak the beans for 7 hours in water and a some Apple Cider Vinegar.  We rinse the beans and cook them like you would any other bean.  When they are done, we pour most of the water off, add some oil and 'fry' them in a skillet until the consistency is like that of bean dip.

Then we dip our Blue Corn chips into our refried Black Beans for a delicious snack!

It may not look pretty, but it tastes great!  I saw the black beans were blooming again in the garden.  Perhaps we'll get another harvest.

Making Radish Dip

If there is anything easier than growing radishes, I haven't found it.  The trouble with radish growing,  is how many different things can you do with all the radishes you grow?  I mean, they are okay in a salad, but what else can you do with your bumper crop of radishes?  I'll show you in just a minute.

Intermixed with the random assortment of winter weeds is a nice, healthy crop of radishes.  I'll get around to weeding the radish plot later.  They are young and tender - about the size of your thumb.

I ventured out in the misting rain and picked a nice little handful of some of the biggest ones, cleaned them up in the rainwater barrel and fed the radish greens to the cows.  The radishes were brilliant red with white bottoms.

I had plans for these little radishes.  In our 'snack drawer,' I spotted a box of Ritz crackers that Tricia bought and it gave me an idea to make some radish dip.  We love this stuff and haven't found anyone who doesn't.  It is the simplest thing to put together.  You need the following ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
6 radishes (I added a couple more since these were small)
4 cloves garlic, peeled
salt and pepper to taste
chili powder (optional)

First thing you want to do is to mince your radishes and garlic in a food processor.  Don't puree it, just mince it up.

Then, simply pour the minced garlic and radishes into a bowl that contains your softened cream cheese and stir with a spoon.  You might think about putting this in the food processor to mix, but don't do it!  We tried that and found that it makes the dip too much of a liquid consistency that we didn't like.  Just stir it all with a spoon, adding salt and pepper to taste and a dash of chili powder, if desired.

Put it in the refrigerator to chill and then bust open a sleeve of Ritz crackers and scoop up some dip with a cracker.  I promise you'll enjoy it!

You may want to ration it, though...

Radish dip disappears quickly.  Fortunately, we have more radishes growing in the garden!

Making Homemade Ranch Dip with Dill & Parsley

Last Saturday morning I took a stroll in the garden after the milking chores were done.  A heavy dew covered all of the plants and I thought that it looked especially pretty covering the foliage on the dill in the row of herbs and lettuce.

Dew Drops on Dill

Here's another shot...

The colors of the red lettuce contrasting with the wispy dew covered dill made me think about a nice salad.  Pretty much everything we need is right here.

Nice colors on the lettuce/herb row

Coincidentally, Tricia was separating whey from kefir.  The kefir was in a cloth suspended from the cabinet and the whey was being collected in a measuring cup below.

Separating whey from kefir

You can see the whey dripping in the measuring cup below.  She captured about 2 cups.  Whey is acidic (lactic acid) and is used for preserving foods.  We're going to use it in a later post to make Ginger Carrots.

Collecting Whey

After the whey has dripped out, the curds (solids) are all that remains.  Tricia put this into a mason jar.  Remember the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet sitting on a tuffet eating her curds & whey?  Well this is what she was eating.

Curds

The ingredients to make our dip/salad dressing were gathered, which included the cup of curds, fresh parsley and dill from the garden, one clove garlic, onion and kosher salt.  

Ingredients for making our ranch dressing

The immersion blender works wonders!  Simply throw everything whole into the jar.

Immersion blender makes quick work

Vroom! Vroom!

All done!

And in a matter of seconds, you have homemade ranch dip.  Tricia added a little milk to make a dressing for our fresh salad.

Just the right consistency now...

You can also dip a carrot in it.

A healthy, delicious dip or salad dressing

Fresh Dill and Carrots go great together.  We demolished the jar of ranch dressing quickly.  With temperatures in the 80's already, the lettuce is beginning to bolt and go to seed.  Once it starts the leaves become bitter, so we've been eating salads almost every meal, enjoying a nice ranch dressing to accompany it.

Making Chicken Liver Pate

When we butcher chickens, in addition to the meat, we save the gizzards, hearts and livers for cooking.  The livers are my favorite, pan-fried in butter.  That's some good eating.  In looking for other ways to prepare a bunch of chicken livers, Tricia thought about making pate with them. Chicken liver pate can be used as a dip along with some bagel chips or crackers.

Although we'd never made it before, she found a recipe in her Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, by Sally Fallon, and got busy.  Here's the ingredient list:

3 Tablespoons butter
1 pound chicken livers
1/2 pound mushrooms
1 bunch green onions, chopped
2/3 cups white wine
1 clove garlic, mashed
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon dried dill
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 stick butter, softened
sea salt

First Tricia melted the butter in a cast iron skillet, adding the livers, onions and mushrooms.  She cooked them until the livers were nice and brown, stirring them around.  She then added the wine, garlic, mustard, lemon juice and herbs, boiling until the liquid is gone.  Then you allow it to cool completely.  She poured it all into the food processor with the softened butter and processed until smooth.

Processing

Using a spatula, the pate was moved into a bowl and we opened a bag of bagel chips to scoop up the pate.  It tasted rich and smooth, a perfect appetizer or dip.

We ate a bunch of it and then did a little research and discovered that it freezes well, so we packed it into individual containers for freezing.

It can be frozen and popped out and thawed for use later.  

It is a really simple recipe that is a delicious alternative for pan-fried chicken livers.

Delicious Party Dip

Tricia makes a delicious party dip that our family loves.  It doesn't last for very long. It is not made from something that you normally think about when making a good little appetizer or snacking dip - Radishes.  I stumbled across this recipe a couple of years ago when searching for something to do with a bumper crop of radishes and now radishes have become a staple crop in the fall/winter garden.

Here's a shot of the green leaves of a whole row of radishes growing right now:

A robust row of red radishes

Let's pick a nice handful:

Ruby Red Radishes

Of course when I'm in the garden, the girls have been conditioned to come running for a snack that I hand over the fence.  I pulled the tops of the radishes off and gave them to Rosie.  She was a happy little lady.

Thanks for the snack

Now if you're going to make dip, you need crackers.  Tricia decided to try to make crackers from scratch. With a cup of the cornmeal that we had hand-ground from whole kernel corn, she added a half cup of buttermilk, 3 tablespoons of butter, 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon sea salt, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda, 1/8 teaspoon Criolla Sella pepper, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder and 1 teaspoon garlic powder and she kneaded it all up and rolled it out flat.

Rolling the dough out flat

Then she sliced it into 'cracker-sized' pieces.

Cutting crackers

Then she popped them in an oven heated to 350 degrees F and baked for 15 minutes.  There's also a pumpkin pie in there as well - yum!

Lovin' in the oven!

And here we are - homemade crackers!

Snack Crackers

So let's make our dip or the crackers will disappear before we have a chance to dip them.  First, we cut off the root and what's left of the stem.

Cleaning up a few radishes

We peel a few cloves of garlic:

Garlic

We soften up a brick of cream cheese and cut it into squares and put into a bowl.

Cream cheese for the dip

We put the radishes and garlic in a food processor and chop them up until they are finely minced.  When you open the top, you get a big whiff of spicy radishes.

Chopping up the radishes and garlic

Spoon the radish/garlic mixture into the bowl of cream cheese and stir.

Once mixed up, add a splash of kosher salt and a dash of Criolla Sella ground pepper.  You can get creative and add chili powder, if you'd like, for more flavor.  Stir it up again to mix it all up.

Salt and red pepper

Now the only thing left to do is to eat!  Grab a cracker (or three) and help yourself.

A mouth-watering up close view

This is spicy and good.  We almost ate the entire bowl this evening.  No worries, we've got lots more radishes growing in the garden.  This recipe is so quick and easy to make, you'll be snacking in no time.