Cooking and Tips

½ kg beef or lamb liver sliced thinly
4 large onions chopped
1teaspoon chilly powder
½ teaspoon pepper powder
½ teaspoon tumeric powder
2 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon cumin powder
½ teaspoon coriander powder

Wash the liver well. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onions lightly. Add the sliced liver, ginger garlic paste, salt tumeric powder, chilly powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and pepper powder and mix well. Cover and simmer on low heat till the liver is cooked. Add a little water while cooking if gravy is required. Serve hot with rice or bread.

Theres a lot of information out there about saving seeds, much from people a lot more experienced than me at saving seeds. But as Ive gotten interested in the subject, Ive realized just how much misinformation is out there too, and I thought Id try to clarify, for myself as much as anyone else, what I have been learning this year about saving seeds. Im also going to break it up into several posts, because its a big topic.

It is my plan to start saving a lot of seeds. For one thing, sometimes favourite things just disappear from the seed catalogues, never to be seen again. I remember growing a yellow pole bean called Gold Straw when we had allotment gardens, about 15 years ago and really, really liking it. Can I find it now? Not so much as a whisper of its existance. Also, seeds can get expensive. Individual packets dont usually cost much, but when you multiply them by a garden full, that can be some real money. If you can cut the amount of seeds you need to buy even in half, it will make a real difference. So, Im going to start by saving seeds from annual vegetables, that is the ones that produce seed in their first year of growth. For obvious reasons, this removes a whole layer of complications and makes them usually the easiest to save seed from. To make it even easier, Im going to stick with annuals that are also self-pollinating.

Vegetables that can produce seed by self-pollinating - also know as inbreeding plants - do not suffer from inbreeding depression, which can reduce the quality of a strain of seeds in vegetables that require external pollination (outbreeding plants). It is therefore possible to save seeds from a much smaller pool of parents. However, just because plants are USUALLY inbreeding does not mean that they CANNOT oubreed, and care must still be taken to avoid crosses, or at least you must be prepared for the possibility.

Essentially, that means peas, beans, and members of the solanacea family such as tomatoes and peppers.

Eggplants, like tomatoes and peppers are generally self fertile but may cross. Tomatillos will cross with each other, but are generally similar enough to each other that it doesn matter. Ground cherries, I suspect pretty much the same, and at any rate unless you are a ground cherry breeder you are not too likely to be growing more than one strain. Potatoes are an entire topic on their own, and I will not discuss them here.

The easiest and most financially rewarding seeds to save are for peas and beans. They are generally packed very few to an envelope, as they are large and bulky, and expensive to ship. Furthermore, they are self-fertile - they are actually usually fertilized and the peas and beans ready to develop before the flowers even open. I say usually. Some people say they have a lot of problems with beans crossing, and others say they dont cross. Ive had no problem with them crossing in my garden even growing different varieties jammed right up against each other. I suspect it depends very much on your particular situation. My suspicion is that the closer you are to the ancestral home of beans (Central America) the more likely you are to have insects in your garden that are capable of cross-fertilizing them, although I have no proof of this. I think in general we are probably pretty safe around here, but note that I make no guarantees. Peas, on the other hand, are more reliably self-fertile everywhere.

Tomatoes are a plant that a lot of people save seed from, and they are treated very similarly to the related peppers. Like peas and beans, they are annuals, and like them they are self-fertile. Heres where I differ from the common wisdom again... most people think tomatoes dont cross often. My experience is that they DO INDEED cross often enough for it to be a bloody nuisance. Ive gotten more crossed tomato seeds than anything else, both from my own seed saving, and from seed companies who should damned well know better. One source says that peppers and tomatoes are 85% self fertile. Other people report crossing rates varying from 5% to 40%! Here are a few useful observations.

Conventional advice is to keep your tomatoes separated by 25 feet. Good luck with that, in most gardens. If you want to save seed, probably the best advice is to bag the blossom with a sheer nylon bag before it opens, and keep the resulting tomato well marked until ripe and seeds can be extracted. There is some good information on tomato seed saving here. Or perhaps even better advice: glue the unopened flowers shut. Then, mark the resulting tomato to save for seed. I really will have to try this.

It is my understanding that tomatoes with blossoms that have a long style (the tube with the stigma at the end, in the middle of the flower) are more likely to be cross pollinated, as are tomatoes with large blossoms. In general, this seems to mean the larger tomatoes. Ive had problems with Striped German and Paul Robeson in particular. But it can happen with smaller tomatoes too - Im growing a plant which ought to be Jaune Flammé this year, but which plainly isnt quite. Im actually going to save seed from it - in the hopes that it hasnt crossed with anything else and that its stable- because in fact its a nice, tasty little red tomato with some of Jaune Flammées best qualities: early, productive, robust and very long producing. But most of the crossed tomatoes Ive grown have been noticeably inferior to their parents. 

Peppers, it is my impression, are even more prone to crossing than tomatoes. Furthermore, if you grow both hot and sweet varieties, you may be in for some unpleasant surprises if you save seed. In particular, sweet peppers from crossed seed may grow to look exactly as they should - but be hot, rather than sweet. So, if you intend to save pepper seeds, even more care to isolate them will be needed, and bagging or otherwise sealing off the flowers from outside pollination is still recommended. The situation is a bit more complicated than that, in that there are 5 species of peppers grown in gardens (although around here, really only 4) and they may or may not cross with each other. Still, the large majority of peppers grown in Canada are members of the capsicum annuum species, and will cross.

As far as the mechanics of seed saving, most of these are also very easy. Allow peas and beans to dry on the plant, but remove them and shell them before the shells split naturally and spill the seed.

Pepper seeds need only be removed from very ripe fruits and dried. Eggplant as well, although for them "very ripe" is a state few gardeners and cooks will ever see. Allow the first eggplant to form to go to seed; it will likely take all season to ripen, until it turns yellowish. Mash the flesh and wash out the seeds - the sinkers are the good ones (This applies to most seeds.) The same technique can be used for tomatillos and ground cherries.

As for tomatoes, there are two ways to go about it.Most people prefer to squeeze or scoop the seeds, with the surrounding gel, from the chosen ripe tomato into a jar of water, which should then be left in the sun to ferment for a week or so. A rather revolting layer of mold will develop on the surface. Add more water, stir up well, then rinse the seeds well in a mesh colander to clean. This fermentation will help kill diseases, but is not strictly necessary. If you do not think you can do it, scoop the seeds out and rinse them. Lay them on a piece of paper towel to dry thoroughly for a week or so, then scrape them off and store them as usual.
 
You should not save seeds if you have known diseases in your plants, although if you cannot replace the seed any other way, choose the best, least affected fruits you can find to save some seed from. Dry and store them as usual, but soak them in a solution of 1% to 3% hydrogen peroxide for 12 hours before planting. Actually, this brings me to the next point about seed saving, which is selection...

I was craving a turkey dinner (for lunch),  so I whipped this up meal with ingredients  I had on-hand today, and it was scrumptious...

Servings: (4)
Prep: 30 Mins. |
Cook/Bake: 30 Mins.

Posted by Sandra

INGREDIENTS

***Turkey:
1 (1.5 lb.) fully-cooked, extra lean ¼-hickory-smoked turkey breast, cut into ½” thick slices
sprinkling of poultry seasoning

***Deviled Eggs:
4 eggs
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
1 teaspoon sweet pickle relish
pinch of garlic powder, and onion powder
¼ teaspoon lemon juice
kosher salt and ground pepper, to taste
--garnish: paprika, and freshly chopped parsley

***Dressing:
1 (6 oz. bag) seasoned dressing cubes
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup onion, finely chopped
½ cup celery, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning
1-1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth (more if you like moister dressing)
--garnish: freshly chopped parsley

***Smashed Potatoes:
2 large russet potatoes, peeled, and cut into ½” cubes for faster boiling
¼ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons sour cream
½ teaspoon garlic powder
kosher salt and ground pepper, to taste

***Gravy:
1 (10.75 oz. can) cream of mushroom soup (save can to measure broth & milk)
1/3 can low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 can milk
¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning
pinch of ground garlic powder, ground onion powder, and ground pepper
¼ teaspoon worcestershire sauce

***Sweet Potatoes:
1 (9.3 oz. can) cut sweet potatoes, drained, reserving ½ the liquid
½ tablespoon brown sugar
¼ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
¼ cup miniature marshmallows

***Cranberry Sauce:
1 (14.oz. can) cranberry sauce (whole berries, or jellied)

METHOD

Begin by boiling the eggs in a small saucepan, covered, for 15 minutes. When done, let cold water run over them in the saucepan placed in the sink so they cool quickly.

While eggs are cooking, in a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the onions, and celery, and poultry seasoning, and saute until onions are translucent. Add the chicken broth and bring to boil, and let simmer for 3 minutes. Stir in the bread cubes in with a fork and combine until moistened. Spray a small baking dish with butter spray, add the dressing, and sprinkle with parsley. Cover with tin foil, and set aside.

When the eggs are cooled, peel and cut them in half lengthwise and pop out the yolks into a small bowl. Smash the yolks with a fork, then add mayonnaise, relish, garlic and onion powders, lemon juice, kosher salt, and ground pepper to taste; mixing to combine. With a teaspoon, fill each of the egg white halves equally. Place on a small plate, and sprinkle with paprika and parsley, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the cranberry sauce in a decorative dish, and cover with plastic wrap, and then place in refrigerator to cool.

Place the sweet potatoes and half of the sauce into a small baking dish, and add the remaining ingredients in order listed, and set aside (uncovered).

Place the smoked turkey breast slices in a 9”x9” baking dish, and sprinkle with poultry seasoning, cover with a glass lid (or tin foil), and place in oven. Also, place the uncovered sweet potatoes, and the covered stuffing in as well. Bake all for 30 minutes (I like to baste the turkey in it’s own juices about ½ way through the baking process).

Place the potato cubes in a medium saucepan, cover the potatoes with water, and add a ½ teaspoon kosher salt and a drizzle of oil, and bring to boil. Tilt the lid so it is ajar to prevent them from boiling over, and cook for 20 minutes, until tender. Drain, and add remaining ingredients, and smash to your desired consistency.

Meanwhile, prepare the gravy by adding all the ingredients into a small saucepan, whisk to combine until smooth. Cover, and bring to a slight boil, and reduce the heat to warm, just until potatoes and the remaining dishes are done.

Serve family style, and don’t forget your deviled eggs and cranberry sauce in the refrigerator. - Enjoy!


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Tip: A fruit salad, rolls, whole olives, and pumpkin pie for dessert would be nice side dishes as well ;-)

Madeleine Cookies

Taste Test!

Ive just received this award from Deanna at Tastenc.com the award asks you to blog 10 honest things about yourself so here goes:

1. I am 50 years old (ouch that one hurt!)
2. The first cookbook I bought which really inspired me was A Taste of the Country by Pamela Westland, I was 14 at the time.
3. I was a full time farmer for 4 years, now a part-time farmer with a demanding full-time job in education.
4. I like red wine
5. I like dark chocolate
6. I dont eat tongue (its been in somebody elses mouth)
7. I dont iron my bed linen, in fact I use the iron as little as possible
8. I wouldnt like to cook or bake for a living.
9. I like to read crime fiction
10. I spend far too much time on the internet!

Im not going to pass this on to anyone this time, but if you want to join in just copy the award and share some honest stuff about yourself.

Ingredients
Big onion-4
Potato-1
Tomato-1
Red chillies-6
Coconut grated-4 table spoons
Cashew nut-6 or pottukadalai-2 table spoons
Pattai-2 bits
Kirambu-2
Fennel seeds (perungeerakam)-1 teaspoon

 I am so pleased that I found the time to take part in Random Recipes this month.  I love homemade bread and although I dont have a problem making it, somehow I dont get round to doing it very often, but as Dom at Belleau Kitchen has challenged us to a Random bread making challenge, it was the perfect opporutunity to try something different.
First take your Bread books, there were eight, then choose one at Random. Its the 5th of May (might not be by the time this is posted but that is the day of the Random choosing) so pick number 5.

Dill Onion Yogurt Bread
For a 1 1/2 lb (675g) loaf
120ml (4fl oz) water
185ml (6fl oz) natural yogurt
3 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp dried dill weed
1 tbsp dried onion flakes (I sauted a finely chopped onion in butter instead)
1 tsp salt
425g (15oz) strong white flour
2 1/4 tsp fast action yeast

Put all the ingredients into the bread pan of your machine in the order suggested by your machine I structions. Set for white bread, medium crust. Press start.

 Note: as long as you keep the salt and yeast separate when you add them to the pan I find the order doesnt matter. 

No bread machine? Just use any handmade white bread recipe, BBC Food have an easy white bread recipe by Paul Hollywood which explains the techniques.

Printable Recipe


 I was really impressed with the even texture of this bread, the dill and onion had spread through the dough beautifully and it had baked to a golden crust.  The recipes suggests that the loaf is good for sandwiches and I can see why.  It is lovely and soft and the savoury taste of herb and onion would add to the flavour of the filling.  When I had tea at The Dorchester (highly recommended) one of the sandwiches was chicken served on basil bread and it was divine.  I may try making some of that myself using this recipe.

The loaf is very tasty indeed and the herb and onion is not overpowering.  Im looking forward to having some tomorrow with the leek and potato soup I made.

Use just over half of the pastry to line the base of the tin (these are the same 17cm tins used in the Rhubarb Bakewell)


Gently fry an onion in a little oil, let it cool slightly and mix with 400g raw turkey mince and season with salt & pepper.  Fill the base of the pie with half the minced turkey mix, cover with a layer of Peppadew Piquante Peppers and then put the rest of the mince mixture on top.

Cover with remaining pastry and  brush with beaten egg. Bake for 30- 40 minutes at 180C until the pastry is golden brown.  Serve warm with new potatoes and green vegetables or cold with salad.  This is the perfect picnic pie as the filling holds together really well when cold.

This recipe comes from the April edition of Cooking Light...go figure. Why a fried donut recipe is in a magazine called Cooking Light, Im not sure, but it is...I tried it, and they were delicious...light as air.
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6 tablespoons warm water (see note)
¼ cup granulated sugar
1+ 1/8 teaspoons dry active yeast (I used 1¼)
6.75 ounces flour (about 1½ cups) divided (see note)
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 large egg, lightly beaten
6 cups peanut oil (I used vegetable oil)
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Combine first 3 ingredients in a large bowl, let stand for 5 minutes or until bubbly. Weigh, or lightly spoon 5.63 ounces (about 1¼ cups) flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife, add salt.
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Add sour cream and lightly beaten egg to yeast mixture and mix until smooth. Add the flour mixture and mix until a moist dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 3 minutes); add enough of the remaining flour (1 tablespoon at a time) to prevent dough from sticking to your hands. (dough will feel slightly sticky). See note.
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Place dough in a bowl coated with cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place (85 degrees) for 1 hour or until almost double in size. (see note)
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Punch down dough. Divide into 36 equal portions; roll each portion into a ball. Cover dough with plastic wrap coated with cooking spray; let sit 30 minutes.
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Fry in 375F oil, for 2 minutes or until golden and done. Drain donuts on paper towels. Glaze or roll in sugar.
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OK, now that was their instructions...heres mine: I ended up using two cups of flour because their recommendation was simply not enough. I shaped the donut holes and placed them on a square of parchment paper that I had sprayed with cooking spray and then wiped off with a paper towel. This allows you to pick up each donut hole without deflating it.
Yeast doughs only cooperate with you if they are kept warm, so, either bring the egg and sour cream to room temperature before you use them, or sit your bowl of dough (and later your pan of shaped donut holes) over a large bowl of very warm water (the hottest water coming from your kitchen sink).


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I find that an electric skillet works well for frying donuts because you can set the temperature and it doesnt take all that much oil. Just make sure you flip them over every 30 seconds for a total fry time of 2 minutes.