Some worth while along shore projects

[Ross]

This fall dig a three foot square of garden in a sunny place. About the time you start to get antsy about boating scratch up the dirt and sprinkle some lettuce seed on the ground and lightly rake it in. When they sprout thin them out until you have about four or five and plant some radish seed. If you find some potatoes that have sprouts on them cut the sprouts with a good chunk of potato and plant them deep. The lettuce will bolt to seed before the tomatos come in but put in one or two anyway. It is quite satisfying to pick some lettuce for a spring salad or to dig a few potatoes for supper about this time of year.
Plant some beet seeds about now , they make good greens cooked or in salad.

 

[zeehag]

dont forget to plant some serrano chiles--i will be there by the time they ripen into nice greeeen little hotties!!!! LOL.....i use those in almost everything---goood when green, yellow or red--i slice bits off a pepper and store the rest for the next time i cook---just need a bit here and there spices up the meal without pain ,,,LOL--just donot plant your bell peppers next to them or anywhere near them--the bells will be hotties as well!!!!!!...found that out with jalapenos ...LOL....some hot sweet peppers LOL--i want a small pot on board for growing some serranos--they take up hardly any space and on eplant will yeild many peppers-i keep forgetting to buy them in the grocery!!!!!--i also need to get some grass for kat--he is a hariball!!!!!! so i have to steal some from somewhere and grow it in a tuna can LOL....think anyone will notice?????? will be just a small circle of grass missing from the front lawn..........

 

[Ross]

I put a whole serrano in a pot of split pea soup with ham hocks and onions. When the stores get the variety of dried chillies I buy a packet of every variety and seed them and dry them in the oven until they are as crispy as a potato chip and then mill them in the food processor to make my own chilli powder and ground peppers for pizza.
This is what wild asparagras looks like at this time of year. Mark the location now for spring harvest.

 

[Ross]

last night I mixed together a pound of whole wheat flour and a pint of water and a pinch of yeast and covered it with plastic wrap. After noon today I added 3 pounds of white flour, 26 ounces of water, a teaspoon of yeast and two tablespoons of salt. After kneading and allowing rise time I make 8 one pound loaves of bread. I placed them on baking sheets and let them rise for a few hours and then baked them at 400 degrees f for 40 minutes. Now I have eight loaves of home made bread that cost me about 30 minutes labor and a buck and a half for flour.

Edit to add : I weighed the bread before and after baking. The raw loaves weighed 16 ounces and the finished loaves are 13 ounces.

 

[Dan H]

Got home from sailing and picked green beans, tomatoes and peppers from the garden last night. Grilled them up and grilled some beef and made fajitas.
I've gotten about 15 tomatoes already. Two of the plants I planted came from seed I started in the house. They are chock full of tomatoes.
I do not like asparagras but my wife loves it so I planted three roots in the spring. Supposed to plant them in the fall? They sprouted this year but with no yield of course. Hopefuly next spring...

 

[zeehag]

boys--i will be RIGHT THERE--- damn the cold--here we come LOL.....sounds like deliciousness is there !!!!!!

 

[Ross]

boys--i will be RIGHT THERE--- damn the cold--here we come LOL.....sounds like deliciousness is there !!!!!!

Winter time is for soups and stews and my brand of chilli.
For each pound of ground beef, chop one onion, about 2-3 inches of the whole bunch of celery,chopped, one each of every kind of pepper you can find in a good super market, all chopped, a large can of diced tomatoes, one tablespoon black pepper, one tablespoon of paprika, a half cup each of soy sauce and worchestershire sauce, I teaspoon of cumin salt to taste and a pound of well cooked kidney beans if you like beans in your chilli add beef stock as needed for cooking. serve with corn meal pancakes baked in bacon fat.

 

[Hermit Scott]

I know I am getting old because I find these threads interesting. I'm saving your chili recipe Ross. And Yes I do like beans in my chili (I grew up in Ohio) if you say out loud that you like beans in your chili in public in Texas you may be executed for treason.

When you say add beef stock as needed for cooking, what exactly do you mean by that? Also how long do you cook it for and at what temp? Pretend you are talking to someone who has never cooked chili before.

 

[Ross]

Beef stock is made by roasting beef bones, carrots, onions, and celery at 375 until they are nicely browned. The bones etc are then moved to a kettle and the roasting pan flooded with boiling water and scraped clean and that water poured into the kettle with the bones. The kettle is covered and a low simmering fire is kept for several hours (sorta like all day). The water is repleniched as needed to make up for evaporation. The stock is finally poured through a strainer into another kettle and the bones etc. put out for the dogs or in my case for a local fox.
For the chilli. I cook the meat with a lot of stirring until it turns rather gray and add the chopped peppers, celery, onion and continue until the onion is getting transparent, then I add the rest of the tomato, soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, black pepper cumin and about a pint of beef stock. The beans get cooked separately or come from a can and are added when the pot is hot but not quite boiling. Stir this often it wants to stick to the bottom and scorch. Check for salt. If you like you chilli very hot include a habanero chilli but be careful with those. The pot should be almost boiling. Sometimes I bring the pot up to heat and take it off the stove and set it on a board and wrap it with an old quilt and let it cook that way while I am away from the kitchen for a long time. It gets better with a little age the second day is better than the first bowl.

 

[bffatcat]

for Ross

Hey Ross

did you say wintertime is for soup? What wintertime? I always thought there was no wintertime on the chesapeake. As far as planting vegetables in the fall forget it, "Around here anyway" The vegetables will freeze long before they come up. I was thinkin about goin sailing today but I checked the temp on my back porch 45 degrees. If it warms up to 55 Ill go any colder than that Im not going

 

[Ross]

Hey Ross

did you say wintertime is for soup? What wintertime? I always thought there was no wintertime on the chesapeake. As far as planting vegetables in the fall forget it, "Around here anyway" The vegetables will freeze long before they come up. I was thinkin about goin sailing today but I checked the temp on my back porch 45 degrees. If it warms up to 55 Ill go any colder than that Im not going

I will post pictures of the river ice this year.

 

[Hermit Scott]

Sometimes I bring the pot up to heat and take it off the stove and set it on a board and wrap it with an old quilt and let it cook that way while I am away from the kitchen for a long time. It gets better with a little age the second day is better than the first bowl.

I will try to locate an 'old quilt' so I can make this chili.

 

[Ross]

Old winter parkas also work well.

 

[Bill Roosa]

So Hermit, what do they put in chilli in TX?

If they don't put beans what do they put in it? I'm from OH also and find that pretty odd.
BTW if you are from SE OH you are "of Appalachian decent" and not a hillbilly any more. At least in Cincinnati.

 

[Ross]

If they don't put beans what do they put in it? I'm from OH also and find that pretty odd.
BTW if you are from SE OH you are "of Appalachian decent" and not a hillbilly any more. At least in Cincinnati.

Just meat, onions, tomatoes and chillis. Don't thin it out with veggies. It doesn't suit me.

 

[Rick Webb]

Don't Forget to Add the Beer

A bottle of Lone Star was always added to my chili now it is Shiner God knows where Lone Star is made now.

As for Ohio chili I would not trust anybody’s chili if they put it on spaghetti anyway.

 

[JerryA]

Ross,
How do you prepare your chillis before grinding? I'd like to try that. What's the process?

Thanks,

JerryA

 

[Ross]

Ross,
How do you prepare your chillis before grinding? I'd like to try that. What's the process?

Thanks,

JerryA

I purchase dried chillis and break off the stems and shake out most of the seeds.(there are a lot of seeds) Spread the dried chillis on baking sheets and in a 250-275 degree oven dry them until they are a crispy as a potato chip. They are rather leathery from the bag. hand crush them and load them into a food processor and mill them until most would pass a 8x8 mesh wire basket strainer. They will be very fine and you will sneeze a lot. They reduce to a rather small volume. I sometimes use a tea strainer for a paprika fineness and for soups I just spoon or pinch out what I want.

 

[Hermit Scott]

If they don't put beans what do they put in it? I'm from OH also and find that pretty odd.
BTW if you are from SE OH you are "of Appalachian decent" and not a hillbilly any more. At least in Cincinnati.

Texas chili is ground meat and sauce. Beans are anathema for some reason.

My dad's family still lives in Hazzard county Kentucky(like the dukes of hazzard). They live in a "haller". I lived in Carlisle Ohio which is 30 minutes north of Cincinnatti on I-75.
Is "Appalachian descent" the politically correct way to call someone trailer trash? lol
I'm half hillbilly from my dad's side and half white trash from my mom's side.

 

[Franklin]

A bottle of Lone Star was always added to my chili now it is Shiner God knows where Lone Star is made now.

As for Ohio chili I would not trust anybody’s chili if they put it on spaghetti anyway.

hehehehe...I've heard it call Kansas Chilli, Indiana Chilli and now Ohio. I guess it's just Mid-Western Chilli. Anyway, my chilli is a mix between Mid-western chilli and southern chilli. It's very very spicy (not just hot) even though it has spagetti but the spagetti helps fill you up and that's a good thing because when I don't mello it out for newcomers, half a bowl is all your stomach is going to allow. Then again, when I made it for my ex-laws who are Mexican, I only got half a bowl out of a big big pot (they finished it off before I could get seconds).

Because I'm feeling generous, I'll give my ingrediances:

2 lbs of hamburger meat with 1.5 of that put in a pan in small balls and cooked seperate (cuts out a lot of fat out of the dish and gives it substance)

about 8-10 large tomatoes cut up into medium chunks

1 whole union diced to medium chunks (mabye 4 mm by 12 mm)

4 cans of spicy chilli beans (only can ingrediant). I don't know what spices they put in but it helps. I've tried all kinds with no difference.

about 15 serano pepers cut into 5 mm lengths

1-3 hallopanio peppers (1 for a good hot, 3 for stomach turning hot).

lots and lots of regular black pepper and medium salt (you'll have to test that...most don't put enough salt in it)

And the funny "what the ___ is that" sagetti....not a lot, just enough so that you should get a little in every 3rd bite or so. The sagetti makes it so that your mouth doesn't get burnt by all the peppers and also helps fill you up. That's why if you make it hot, it becomes a stomach turning hot, not a mouth burning hot. This chilli, if done right, will leave a hot and spicy taste in your mouth for about 15-30 minutes after eating and to me, that's how you judge a good chilli.

BTW: spicy doesn't = hot and hot doesn't = spicy. Good cooks know this...I'm not a good cook so I don't know how I know this