© 2011 Joshua Stark
As a nice guy and unlucky hunter, but with friends who are skilled nimrods, I oftentimes reap the bounty of others' largesse. Last month, for example, I was the lucky and thankful recipient of Hank & Holly's freezer emptyin', both by attending a freezer-emptying dinner of theirs, and also by just showing up when they asked, "hey, Josh, you want some ducks and stuff?"
So a few weeks back, I cooked up wild turkey legs (and now you know how I got them, because I sure as heck didn't get 'em from shooting an actual wild turkey). I really liked how this turned out, and I want to keep the recipe for future reference (in case I ever find a wild turkey stupid enough to walk in front of me). Feel free to use it, too - but remember, I'm no chef nor cook.
Note: This is a variation from an old "Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook", and though I use some of their measurements here, I don't always do so when actually cooking, especially with the spices. Consider all spice amounts as a suggestion, and throw in or out whatever you see fit.
Turkey & Dumplings
2 wild turkey legs
3 C. water
2 Tsp. "Better than Bouillon" (or equivalent stock or bouillon)
1/4 C. walnut ketchup (or, 2-4 Tb. worchestershire sauce)
1/2 cup onions
2-4 cloves garlic
1 Tb. cooking oil
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. celery seed
1/2 - 1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
2 small zucchinis
2 small potatoes (optional)
First, fill a 4-qt. or so Dutch oven with the water, bouillon, salt, and marjoram, and heat to boil
While the water heats up, brown the turkey legs in a pan with the oil, allspice, paprika and black pepper. When the water is boiling and the legs browned on all sides, put them in the water. Cover the pot and cook for 25-30 minutes.
Chop your onions, zucchini and potato, and put them in the pot with the celery seed, walnut ketchup,
and garlic. Remove your turkey legs, bone them and remove any tendons, and chop the meat coarsely. Return to the pot and cover, cook for 10 more minutes.
To prepare the dumplings, mix together 1 C. flour, 1 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 - 1/2 tsp. salt. Stir in a little less than 1/4 C. canola oil, mixing together until it all resembles pea-sized crumbs. Add 1/2 C. yogurt or buttermilk, and stir til combined.
After 10 minutes of cooking, organize your meat and veggies to make some hills above the soup, and drop your dumplings onto these hills. Make six or so. Cover, and cook for 12-15 minutes.
This is a great, hearty meal, and like I said, make sure to spice as you see fit. Enjoy!
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recipe. Show all posts
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
One bowl oatmeal biscuits
© 2011 Joshua Stark
And by one bowl, I mean you don't take the dough out of the bowl until you put 'em on the cookie tray.
It's unrelated to my typical stuff (I didn't grow the oats or flour, milk the cow or mine the baking powder), but it worked out so well that I thought I'd write it down here.
First, the ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups flour (I use a half-&-half blend of whole wheat and unbleached)
1/2 Cup oatmeal
1/3 Cup vegetable oil (or butter)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 or so Cup yogurt
Next, directions:
Heat your oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit.
Cook your oatmeal according to their directions and let it cool (I use leftover oatmeal)
Add the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and oil, and mix it together.
Add the 1/2 Cup of yogurt and mix it together. The mixture should be wet dough - it comes together as a ball, but it's a bit slimy.
Cut 12 pieces out of the dough, one at a time, and put them on a baking sheet.
Cook them for 12-15 minutes.
No rolling, no kneading. The oatmeal imparts some liquid and also makes it easier to shape on the cookie sheet, so they don't look like flour drop biscuits. The oatmeal also makes the biscuits moist.
It's a good, simple recipe. I hope you like it.
And by one bowl, I mean you don't take the dough out of the bowl until you put 'em on the cookie tray.
It's unrelated to my typical stuff (I didn't grow the oats or flour, milk the cow or mine the baking powder), but it worked out so well that I thought I'd write it down here.
First, the ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups flour (I use a half-&-half blend of whole wheat and unbleached)
1/2 Cup oatmeal
1/3 Cup vegetable oil (or butter)
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 or so Cup yogurt
Next, directions:
Heat your oven to 450 degrees fahrenheit.
Cook your oatmeal according to their directions and let it cool (I use leftover oatmeal)
Add the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and oil, and mix it together.
Add the 1/2 Cup of yogurt and mix it together. The mixture should be wet dough - it comes together as a ball, but it's a bit slimy.
Cut 12 pieces out of the dough, one at a time, and put them on a baking sheet.
Cook them for 12-15 minutes.
No rolling, no kneading. The oatmeal imparts some liquid and also makes it easier to shape on the cookie sheet, so they don't look like flour drop biscuits. The oatmeal also makes the biscuits moist.
It's a good, simple recipe. I hope you like it.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
New Page: Green Walnuts & You
© 2011 Joshua Stark
Just beneath the title, you may notice a couple of links to stand-alone webpages. My newest one, on green walnuts and what you can do with them, is now up; let me know what you think.
And, thanks to Fragmentary Green for lighting a fire under me to get it done.
Just beneath the title, you may notice a couple of links to stand-alone webpages. My newest one, on green walnuts and what you can do with them, is now up; let me know what you think.
And, thanks to Fragmentary Green for lighting a fire under me to get it done.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Anybody making stuff with green walnuts?
© 2011 Joshua Stark
I'm working on a green walnut page, to include basic preparation, recipes, hints and tips. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
Tonight, I tried a green walnut ketchup & nocino barbecue sauce for some grilled spareribs (I dare not call them barbecue'd). I improvised, with about 1/4 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup vodka nocino, 1/4 cup molasses, liberal amounts of thyme & powdered garlic, some salt, a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, some paprika, and a chopped onion and garlic clove.
I didn't cook it down enough, and so it was more of a pour-over-the-meat sauce, but wow it was good. It was like dry-rub good, but with barbecue sauce caramel-y goodness. Cooked down to barbecue sauce consistency, it would have been amazing.
I will definitely do this right, and very soon.
P.S.: Even fewer pictures right now, because somebody absconded with our camera (and my fly rod). I'm sad about the camera... & devastated about the fly rod.
I'm working on a green walnut page, to include basic preparation, recipes, hints and tips. If you have any suggestions, let me know!
Tonight, I tried a green walnut ketchup & nocino barbecue sauce for some grilled spareribs (I dare not call them barbecue'd). I improvised, with about 1/4 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup vodka nocino, 1/4 cup molasses, liberal amounts of thyme & powdered garlic, some salt, a couple tablespoons of brown sugar, some paprika, and a chopped onion and garlic clove.
I didn't cook it down enough, and so it was more of a pour-over-the-meat sauce, but wow it was good. It was like dry-rub good, but with barbecue sauce caramel-y goodness. Cooked down to barbecue sauce consistency, it would have been amazing.
I will definitely do this right, and very soon.
P.S.: Even fewer pictures right now, because somebody absconded with our camera (and my fly rod). I'm sad about the camera... & devastated about the fly rod.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Weather and roasted tomatoes
© 2010 Joshua Stark
The strange weather in Northern California has brought some strange gardening. For example, I don't think we've seen one day over 105 this year, and although the National Weather Service says Sacramento has had eight days over 100, I only remember one hot weekend.
Our days have been in the 80's mostly, with a smattering of 90's. This is not 'normal' - Sacramento usually sees 22 days over 100 degrees in a Summer.
This is my excuse for four-foot corn plants and tomatoes that get a pale orange color when ripe, and the ten or so green beans we harvested from a dozen plants put in the ground.
And this week will continue a strange weather year, starting with temps at around 100 for two days, and then dropping down into the mid 80's... what are we supposed to do with this?
This morning, my daughter Phoebe and I had decided to pull the green-but-not-producing bean plants, along with the old corn stalks, and start planting greens for Fall. Hank's pak choy and other assorted greens are looking quite lovely, and I think we could get a couple of harvests of young pak choy in, as well as start maybe some garlic and cabbages.
But when we looked into the green beans, we saw flowers! And, one tiny bean, which I picked for Phoebe. So, the beans stay, getting a makeshift prop-up from some camphor tree limbs I cut last week. Hopefully with this week's hot snap, we'll see more beans.
The tomatoes, though not the prettiest, have been producing just fine the past few weeks, and I've started looking for recipes for them beyond just eating them off the plant.
I'm no fan of tomatoes (gasp!), which my wife finds funny, because I'm no fan of eggs (gasp!) or zucchinis (gasp!), either, but I grow them at home in great quantities. I'll eat them, and I love them all as valuable ingredients, don't get me wrong, but I don't much care for them in their purer states. This fact, coupled with my plethora of tomatoes this year, is the reason for the searching online.
Because I'm no fan of tomatoes (ga... oh, never mind), what I found was new to me, but may not be so to you all. I found oven roasted, oven dried, or slow roasted tomatoes, and what I've found I very much like.
The recipe I used this time, though there were many good-looking ones, was adapted from Julie Biuso's, because it had the shortest cooking time at one hour, and with the expected high temperatures, I'd like to keep the oven off. I say 'adapted', because I didn't use small tomatoes, I used big tomatoes (an heirloom variety about the size of a better boy) and canning tomatoes (an heirloom that bears a striking resemblance to romas, only longer). I put some basil on some, cut some tomatoes thicker and others thinner, and then taste-tested.
One of my reasons for not fancying tomatoes is the acid - it's too much for me - so after each bite, I would swish some baking soda water around in my mouth, which seemed to do the trick.
My favorite is the thicker slice with some basil on it:
It could have used some more cooking time, for sure - next time I'll try 90 minutes, instead of one hour. In the meantime, consider my version of an easy cooking method that yields a divine tomato:
Tomatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
Salt
Black Pepper
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Lay out sliced tomatoes, sprinkle chopped fresh basil, salt, and black pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Cook 'til done. Look for curled, slightly blackened edges, and a thicker, not-quite-fruit-leathery texture. Enjoy.
If you have any suggestions, ways to garden in the weird weather or ideas to make those oven-roasted tomatoes even snappier, please let me know.
The strange weather in Northern California has brought some strange gardening. For example, I don't think we've seen one day over 105 this year, and although the National Weather Service says Sacramento has had eight days over 100, I only remember one hot weekend.
Our days have been in the 80's mostly, with a smattering of 90's. This is not 'normal' - Sacramento usually sees 22 days over 100 degrees in a Summer.
This is my excuse for four-foot corn plants and tomatoes that get a pale orange color when ripe, and the ten or so green beans we harvested from a dozen plants put in the ground.
And this week will continue a strange weather year, starting with temps at around 100 for two days, and then dropping down into the mid 80's... what are we supposed to do with this?
This morning, my daughter Phoebe and I had decided to pull the green-but-not-producing bean plants, along with the old corn stalks, and start planting greens for Fall. Hank's pak choy and other assorted greens are looking quite lovely, and I think we could get a couple of harvests of young pak choy in, as well as start maybe some garlic and cabbages.
But when we looked into the green beans, we saw flowers! And, one tiny bean, which I picked for Phoebe. So, the beans stay, getting a makeshift prop-up from some camphor tree limbs I cut last week. Hopefully with this week's hot snap, we'll see more beans.
The tomatoes, though not the prettiest, have been producing just fine the past few weeks, and I've started looking for recipes for them beyond just eating them off the plant.
I'm no fan of tomatoes (gasp!), which my wife finds funny, because I'm no fan of eggs (gasp!) or zucchinis (gasp!), either, but I grow them at home in great quantities. I'll eat them, and I love them all as valuable ingredients, don't get me wrong, but I don't much care for them in their purer states. This fact, coupled with my plethora of tomatoes this year, is the reason for the searching online.
Because I'm no fan of tomatoes (ga... oh, never mind), what I found was new to me, but may not be so to you all. I found oven roasted, oven dried, or slow roasted tomatoes, and what I've found I very much like.
The recipe I used this time, though there were many good-looking ones, was adapted from Julie Biuso's, because it had the shortest cooking time at one hour, and with the expected high temperatures, I'd like to keep the oven off. I say 'adapted', because I didn't use small tomatoes, I used big tomatoes (an heirloom variety about the size of a better boy) and canning tomatoes (an heirloom that bears a striking resemblance to romas, only longer). I put some basil on some, cut some tomatoes thicker and others thinner, and then taste-tested.
One of my reasons for not fancying tomatoes is the acid - it's too much for me - so after each bite, I would swish some baking soda water around in my mouth, which seemed to do the trick.
My favorite is the thicker slice with some basil on it:
It could have used some more cooking time, for sure - next time I'll try 90 minutes, instead of one hour. In the meantime, consider my version of an easy cooking method that yields a divine tomato:
-------------------------------------------
Oven Roasted Tomatoes Tomatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
Salt
Black Pepper
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Lay out sliced tomatoes, sprinkle chopped fresh basil, salt, and black pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Cook 'til done. Look for curled, slightly blackened edges, and a thicker, not-quite-fruit-leathery texture. Enjoy.
If you have any suggestions, ways to garden in the weird weather or ideas to make those oven-roasted tomatoes even snappier, please let me know.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
When life knocks your walnuts out of the tree early...
© 2010 Joshua Stark
...you make green walnut ketchup and nocino.
At least, that's what I did.
More on this later, but I wanted to not here my big winner this time, so far, has been the green walnut chutney. I took a page from the 18th Century cook's site, and took the dregs from the green walnut ketchup, added ginger, red pepper flakes, an apple, vinegar, raisins, and brown sugar, and stirred up some chutney, and dang if it isn't absolutely amazing. I've also realized that I want to make other chutneys, because home-made (like most home-made things, and especially home-made things with good vinegar) chutney is much more subtle and flavorful, while still being pungent (and there's no better word).
It's gooooood.
...you make green walnut ketchup and nocino.
At least, that's what I did.
More on this later, but I wanted to not here my big winner this time, so far, has been the green walnut chutney. I took a page from the 18th Century cook's site, and took the dregs from the green walnut ketchup, added ginger, red pepper flakes, an apple, vinegar, raisins, and brown sugar, and stirred up some chutney, and dang if it isn't absolutely amazing. I've also realized that I want to make other chutneys, because home-made (like most home-made things, and especially home-made things with good vinegar) chutney is much more subtle and flavorful, while still being pungent (and there's no better word).
It's gooooood.
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