They tried to kill us, We survived, Let's eat!

...it's the Jewish story boiled down a bit, ha!   At this Passover season, we celebrate God's deliverance by remembering and reciting the story of the Exodus.  And unwittingly my mother also experienced a deliverance on that same anniversary in 1966 by giving birth to me, woo!

This is a brief post due to my waiting till the last minute to cook a few more things for the big Seder tonight.  Our yearly most requested favorite I owe to this recipe which is truly worth the few steps it requires.  I thought I'd repost it...it's a matzah covered with a toffee crunch layer and then spread with chocolate and toppings such as nuts or coconut.


Chag Pesach Sameach to our Jewish friends out there, and to everyone else, happy holidays!! 

Wood Stork Buffet

(clicking on pics will enlarge)

I had never seen a wood stork before moving to Florida.  They are not your average waterbird, either.  Oddly ugly in contrast to the slender, plumed great egrets, their wrinkled heads seem nearly prehistoric, like a pterodactyl head stuck on a heron's body.  They are also surprisingly large, which can be startling the first time you're approached by a friendly one in your yard.  Most of the time, though, as with the wood storks in these pictures, they are wary of humans and like to keep their distance. They look gawky and awkward, but their wingspan is awe-inspiring and when they do take to the skies they are grace on the wing.

Our first home here was a small duplex in an older neighborhood, and among the tamer sorts of birds, there were some "regulars"...great egrets and wood storks...who made the rounds of the front doors looking for handouts.  There are now laws on the books about not feeding native wildlife, and whether they were in force back then I'm not sure, but the neighbors would often leave an opened can of tuna or other fish snack on the doorstep for the wandering beggars, and they would tolerate being watched at close range, mere feet (or even inches) away.

A couple mornings ago, we awoke to the noise of large machinery being operated in the backyard along the swale.  It was time again for the digging out of the overgrowth to allow for better drainage, and the heavy equipment dug a deeper trench, piled the scraped-away cattails and other water plants up on the surrounding banks, and left a lengthening strip of newly-exposed mud down the center...a wetland bird's feast!   Oblivious to the noise and heavy machinery, a mixed group of wading birds followed at close range, snapping up the frogs, snakes and other hidden critters as fast as their beaks could grab them.

For more reading about wood storks you can start here

What's lurking in your backyard?  I'd love to see your pictures!

:)  Robbyn

Free Power for All, Free From the Grid?

Do you enjoy the TED talks? This one grabbed my attention...Justin Hall-Tipping: Freeing energy from the grid. I love it when people think outside the box...or beyond "normal"

My Blog Content Has Been Stolen

I recently received the news that content from my website had been duplicated at another site found at this link.  I have contacted Blogger and filed a request to have it removed, but so far I have received nothing but a form email response, and this is now Day Three.

Two years' worth of my blog posts dating back to 2010 have been duplicated (except any mention of my authorship) and all of the accompanying original photos in those posts have been duplicated over at the other site as well.

If anyone has any idea how I might address this, I'd love any ideas.  I left comments at the site alerting the person(s) that I know they took my stuff, but of course have received no response.

JERKS.

Any ideas out there??  I'm furious and will get to the bottom of this somehow...

Thai Fish Sauce: A Quick Kosher Substitute

We're facing an already-picked stack of green papayas, and the clock is ticking...they were picked because of the freezes and now I need to use them...all!  As I don't have a pressure canner, I'm trying my hand at various green papaya recipes.

There seem to be some Asian recipes online that include green papaya.  Molly Wizenberg's recipe for Thai Green Papaya Salad did sound delicious, (there are different versions of this Thai dish, traditionally called Som Tam, all over the net).  However, I'll have to make it minus the shrimp and the bottled fish sauce.  I've been a reader of Molly's blog for a couple years now, and I trust that when she says her husband makes this and she's addicted to it, it's certainly worth a try.

In order to accomplish that, I need to find a kosher approximation of the fish sauce in order to make it.

A Mock Fish Sauce (and kosher!)
I found this 3-ingredient recipe online, and it's simplicity itself..anchovies, garlic, and soy sauce.  The reviews state that it's not got the truly authentic fish sauce taste, but that it's a satisfactory replacement. And for someone who just needs a way to present green papayas in a delicious meal form without a lot of fuss..and without shellfish...it's certainly worth a try.

I'll report back once I gather the ingredients and pull the dish together.  Anyone ever tried this?  Do you have any other uses for green papaya?

I'm a Tennessee transplant to Florida, so papaya is still new to me...  :)

Easy Homemade Mayo: Mess or Success

Once upon a time...
What do olive oil, egg, lemon, vinegar, and salt grow up to be? If you do it right, it makes great mayo!
If you don't, you fall into the category of folks like me that got downright slimed in the kitchen.  But there is hope, and I survived the learning curve and am here to tell you about the quickie 2- minute stick blender method I just tried...and found successful!

Mayo Schmayo
I grew up in a family that was highly mayonnaise-prejudiced.  My father couldn't stand anything that obviously had mayo as an ingredient.  My mother was a bit more neutral, and also necessarily bargain-conscious, so we got the store brand mayo sometimes, but the other times we purchased Hellman's.  Never has my family on either side made their own mayonnaise.  And up until today, I've been a total Hellman's snob because its texture is less smear-y and the taste is tarter than most others out there.

Hellman's vs Miracle Whip
It's a firmly divided camp.  I've found there are loyal Miracle Whip families, and staunch Hellman's folks.  in our case it was NO salad dressing or Miracle Whip.  It HAD to be Hellman's.  But, that said, I've had plenty of times I couldn't afford anything but the store brand.  I've leaned a bit farther towards liking mayonnaise in things than my father ever did, but I still am not its biggest fan until it comes to sandwiches.

Oh Brother, that Mother...
We all know the saying that necessity is the mother of invention.  Sometimes I intentionally make certain things necessary so that I have to find a better solution, as in this case.  I let myself run out of mayo, and after reading the long list of ingredients on the store jar, I knew making it myself would cut out a lot of preservatives and iffy ingredients.  And it would be cheap.  And it would be REAL.  The mayo labeled "olive oil mayo" at the store may have had some olive oil in it, but it also had soy oil and some unpronounceable additives.  And a a bigger price.

I'm making a penny scream for mercy at the checkout counter these days, and when I see store prices for things I could easily make much more economically myself, I cringe.  I almost never buy baked goods anymore from the store, or cereals. And so on.   I've been long overdue to try my hand at mayo, especially since it's something I need only in small quantities now and then.  But when you need it, there's really no substitute...say for making tuna salad, or a tomato sandwich.  So this week, I  painted myself into a corner when it came to grocery shopping and my weekly meal plan included some things requiring mayo.  It was time to learn to do it myself.

Only a few basic ingredients...
I had seen online the short list of ingredients it takes to make a basic homemade mayo, and asked myself how hard this could possibly be.  The only expensive ingredient in the basic recipe is the oil, depending on what sort is used...the other things are minimal...an egg, pinch of salt, something acidic like lemon juice or vinegar, and a bit of dry or prepared mustard.  Other spices are optional...

We can't afford the deluxe forms of oils at this point, so we keep a light olive oil on hand, one we buy in the larger bulk size at the bulk warehouse.  It doesn't have a strong flavor, so it's my go-to oil for most things.  When I saw the price of the mayo versus the price of the oil which is mayo's biggest component, it made more sense this week to try my hand at a homemade replacement.

When I got home, I was in a hurry in the kitchen, multitasking several cooking projects.  Sometimes I have great success at this, but that night was the exception, argghhh!   I was reheating some homemade chicken and dumplings and scorched the whole thing (drat!), the quickie frozen pizza I stuck in the oven as its fast replacement was...errr...left for too long and ended up becoming a smoking petrified frisbee.  I was mentally tallying the wasted grocery money as the disasters compounded, all the while chopping left over bits of this and that to put into a hasty tuna salad.

It was time to make the "easy mayo."

EPIC FAIL #1

I'll sum up.

I never realized the "slow drip oil" method was crucial to mayonnaise-making the classic way, and I never knew mayo is one of those acquired skills of a good cook.  The cookbooks I had pulled out (at this last minute) warned against curdling and separation.  Huh??  Oh dear, this was sounding touchy.   I (wrongly) deduced that maybe a better and faster way to forgo the drip method (which they said could take a long time, drip dripping oil into the other ingredients while whisking) would be to use the blender.  The REGULAR blender, the one that's big and makes smoothies in quantity.

End result?  Oh gosh...it was enough to put a person off eggs and oil for a longg time.

EPIC FAIL #2
It was a big mess, and the more I tried to salvage it, the worse it got.  There was actually a section in the Joy of Cooking cookbook instructing what to do in case of a "mayonnaise failure."   I tried their instructions, and just ended up wasting more ingredients.

And had totally slimed the kitchen in the process!

In the end, I had a sink full of oily dishes and nothing to show for the lost grocery ingredients, UGH.

But the fun continues...

Since today is a new day, and I'm not a girl who's easily vanquished in the kitchen (for the sole reason that if I accept defeat, we don't eat), today was a Do Over.  And I did what I usually do when I have to find an easier way to do something...I consult the Oracle That Is Google.

And that is how I found out a STICK BLENDER, i.e. an immersion blender, seems to be the way to go unless you are a mayonnaise snob, a French chef, or MUCH better at making saucy things than I am.

Since my standards are limited to 1.  Know the ingredients  2.  Afford the ingredients  3.  Achieve success and actually produce a real food product, I went the stick blender route.

Here's a video to show how quick and easy this is...

...(and don't think just traditional method flunkies use it -- I also saw a youtube video of Gordon Ramsay demonstrating the stick method himself)

Ingredients, thou are simplicity:
The recipes call for egg, oil, vinegar/lemon juice, often a teaspoon of spicy mustard, and salt.

Where the blender recipes vary is whether to use a whole egg, or just the yolk.  Either way produces a good mayo, though forums on the internet show debates about mayos with whole eggs (meaning including the whites, not the shells, ha) and how anything with an egg white as an ingredient isn't a true mayo.  Whatever.

Apparently the three easy tips for success with the stick blender are: 


1.  Have the egg(s) at room temp before using
2.  Do the stick blending in a narrow container such as a beaker or Mason jar (if it's much wider, it doesn't mix the same...and do not use metal containers.
3.  Position the blender stick blade all the way to the bottom, over the eggs (the other ingredients naturally will rise higher than the eggs, which are heavier, when you dump everything together before blending), and don't move the blender away from the bottom when blending, until the bottom liquid becomes thick.  THEN you move the stick up and down a few times to incorporate the rest of the oil.

NOT difficult!  And it's really good :)

Today, I did it just as the videos show and the online sites describe.  With the stick blender, it literally took two minutes!  Next time I SHALL leave the egg(s) out at room temp, as most of the instructions state.  But it still worked fine with my cold ones straight from the fridge.

The stick blender was set right at the bottom of the jar, over the eggs, and then I started blending it without moving the stick.  It started emulsifying first the eggs and I left it right there till it thickened at the bottom, then slowly moved the stick  around to incorporate the rest of the oil.  I left it in there a couple minutes.  The result was ACTUAL MAYONNAISE...hoorayyy!!!  It then went right into the fridge, and also right onto a tomato sandwich.  And it was GREAT...thick and not runny, and delicious!  (Even to a Hellman's gal)

I'm going to play with ingredients to tweak them to make my own "best" as I keep on trying this.

I went with:

1 egg plus one yolk
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp of dijon mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp vinegar ( used my homemade pine needled vinegar!)
few shakes of paprika
3/4 - 1 cup light olive oil


But the combinations are endless and there can be plenty of differing amounts and substitutes.

Here are some good recipes out there on the net and some blogs:

http://www.circle-b-kitchen.com/food-and-recipes/2011/8/8/stick-blender-mayonnaise.html

http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/homemade_mayonnaise_recipe.htm

http://forums.cooking.com/showthread.php?t=10699


As a final note, some pages warn that since raw eggs are an ingredient, there is a risk in using them.  Some sites online show the same stick blender method, but give instructions to first heat the eggs before using.  My Amish cookbook has recipes for "cooked salad dressings" as well.  I will personally be making very small amounts of mayo at a time and using them quickly, and not leaving it out at room temp at all, especially since we're down here in warm Florida.   Use these recipes at your own risk, if you do make the raw egg method...I'm just relaying my own experiments here, but each cook takes responsibility for the safety measures in his/her own kitchen.

Do you make your own mayo or other condiments?  If so, do you have a proven, favorite recipe?  I'd love it if you'd share!

Green Papayas as a Vegetable Dish

I've never cooked green papayas before, so I wanted to start with something really easy.  I decided to just peel, cube, and boil/simmer till cooked, about 20-30 minutes.  We have an excess of papayas right now and they have not been quick to ripen indoors, so it was time to experiment.

I chose one and peeled it easily.  There were bead-like white immature seeds inside this one, and I removed those with a spoon.  The texture of the fruit when cubed was something like a butternut squash, but easier to cut through.  The chunks were very firm, with no stringy-ness.

It cooked up really nicely, and has a mild neutral flavor leaning slightly towards a winter squash without the sweetness, and somewhat like potato but without the granular starchiness.  I served it with sauteed garlic, a pinch of sea salt, a dab of butter, and served it instead of rice as the base for some sauteed/stewed onion, thinly-sliced steak, peppers and garlic.    At least that was Jack's.  I had mine by itself with a side of greens.  The next night, it found its way into some curry, and was just as good that way, too.

Next time, maybe I'll try shredding it raw and making a kosher version of Som Tam, a Thai fresh salad, and substituting my own anchovy/garlic/soy blend for the fish sauce and omitting the shrimp.

I'm delighted to find a "veggie" use for a green fruit we can grow!

I think a lot of folks who don't exactly love the musky flavor of ripe papaya fruits would find a way to love the cooked green fruit because of its vegetable-ish attributes and its very mild and completely different (than the fruit) flavor.

Does anyone out here have any other way to use green papayas?   


.