Doctors Without Summer Homes

Japanese Chicken & Mushroom Broth (a cure for all that ails ya)

So, here is the soup as promised....(not sure why all my pictures decided to be long and skinny)

First thing I did was to bake the wings at 375 degrees for awhile (until they were browned - about 40 minutes). Then I put them in a pot.

I chopped up some ginger (about a 4 inch piece of a root about as big around as...I don't know...enough to get a pile this big (about 3 T). I also chopped up some green onions - about a cup or so. 

I put this all in the pot with about 6 cups of water, brought it to a boil, and then, simmered it for, oh say, 30-40 minutes to get all the goodie (read healthful properties) out of the chicken bones. 

Cool it off a little so that you can stick your hands in it to fish out all the bones. 

Chop up a considerable pile of assorted mushrooms - this pile has shiitake, button, and maitake - about 2 cups. I had the pak choi ready to go in, but once I realized the healing properties of this soup, I decided to leave it out to try it without with the intention of putting it in the next day to change up the taste. Throw in the mushrooms, bring it back to a boil, turn down to simmer, and cook for about 10-15 minutes more.

I gotta say, I have now had three bowls of the stuff and have yet to say, "gee, let's change up the taste." This stuff is amazingly good (you might want to add a tad bit of salt in that last step, though). And given that it has most of the immune boosters the planet has to offer (ginger, onion, chicken marrow, chicken fat, and mushrooms), I would wager that it would cure whatever ails you. 

And of course, you can serve it up with a toasted piece of homemade bread. However, this is probably not a low cal dish so easy on the side additions! Here's to your health!!

A use for all that butter you just made...

Hey, this stuff is called CHRISTMAS CRACK.    Make it.  You will see why it is called that (Well, I don't know about the "Christmas" part...  I would make it year round.)

1   12.8 oz. box of Rice Chex cereal
1   12 oz. box of Golden Grahams cereal
1   7 oz. bag shredded coconut
1   4 oz. bag slivered almonds (notice mine are pecans instead)
1 1/2 cups butter  (yes that is 3... I said 3) sticks of butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups corn syrup

Combine cereals, coconut and nuts in a VERY LARGE bowl.  (Next time I will use a dish pan)  Stir to combine.

In a large saucepan cook butter, sugar, and corn syrup to the "soft ball" stage.  In case your mother did not teach you how to determine soft ball stage (and I don't remember that I did), this stage can be determined by dropping a spoonful of hot syrup into a bowl of very cold water. In the water, use your fingers to gather the cooled syrup into a ball. If it has reached soft-ball stage, the syrup easily forms a ball while in the cold water, but flattens once removed from the water.  Or just use a candy thermometer, and wait until the mercury is up to the soft ball line at about 234 degrees.

Remove from heat and pour onto the cereal mixture, tossing until everything is evenly coated.  Spread out on two cookie sheets to cool.  The recipe says to stir it around occasionally to keep it from "clumping," but we found it was easier to eat if we just grabbed a clump. 

Now I dare you to stay out of it long enough to need to know that it should be stored in an airtight container.  Experiment with different nuts and cereals......

Hey... You Should Make Some Butter

Now you are asking, "Why on EARTH would I make butter?"

4 reasons:
1.  Because it it FUN
2.  Because it is EASY
3.  Because it is WAYYY healthier than say....MARGARINE...   (plus it tastes a WHOLE lot better in your recipes)
and 4.  Because I said, "Hey, you should make some butter."

You need 2 things:

cheesecloth  (or any loosely woven clean cloth)
Mixer  (Use your Kitchen Aid with the wire whip)
     I suppose if you do not have a mixer with a wire whip, you can do it by hand with a whisk or with a butter churn, but that makes it work instead of the "EASY" I mentioned above.

Ingredients:  Oh wait--- there is ONLY ONE ingredient!!

Heavy cream  (How ever much you want.  You can usually plan on about half as much butter as the amount of cream you start with, depending on the fat content of the cream.)

Directions:

Whip the cream.

When you get whipped cream, DON'T STOP, just keep whipping it another 5 minutes or so.  At some point, you will hear the tell tale splashing noise indicating that it has separated.  Stop and drain the liquid. (That is the whey. You can save it and use it for recipes that call for whey, but I don't have any of those, so I just drain it off and dump it.) 


Gather up the solid parts into a cheesecloth.  Twist the top of the cloth and give it a mighty squeeze.  Squeeze  out as much liquid as you can.  Rinse under running water and squeeze again.  Rinse until the water runs clear.  If it is not rinsed well, it will spoil faster.

Look.  You have butter!!




  Now go make some cookies... or mold it into pretty blocks of butter for your next dinner party.  Or just leave it in a blob and spread it on your toast.

Beans & Chard

So, another "use-what's-in-the-fridge" night...I took a couple cans of beans (one black, one white). Drained and rinsed them. Put them in a pot with two little cups of leftover green salsa from Moe's (about 3 T), juice of one lemon (or 3 T. Real Lemon), some freshly ground sea salt and white pepper, and about 3/4 cup water.

While that was heating to a boil, I chopped up some very wilted Swiss chard that had been in my refrigerator since I got back from Africa.

When the pot was boiling, I tossed it in and cooked it until the stems were tender (about 5-10 min).

Since it has so few calories, it is fair to serve with some freshly grated parmesan and some chunks of homemade bread toasted with butter and garlic......(trust me, this was really good).

Fried Green tomatoes

Our school has a ranch run by the Special Education students as part of their Life Skills program.  They sell vegetables from it all summer, and usually have a pumpkin patch for the elementary students.  They grew lots of tomatoes this year, and many are still green.  Because it is time to shut the heat off in the greenhouse, the guy who runs the ranch gave me a bucket and told me to go out and pick what I want.  I did.  I now have a bunch of green tomatoes, and having never eaten "fried green tomatoes" I decided to give them a try.

Here is the recipe I used:  (I looked at about 10 recipes, and most of them were basically the same)

Fried green tomatoes

4 to 6 green tomatoes, cut into 1/4" slices  (some recipes say as thick as 1/2 inch)  I tried both.
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup milk
flour for dusting
Panko bread crumbs (or just make cracker crumbs in your food processor so they are really fine)
salt and pepper

In shallow dishes (I used paper plates--- easy cleanup) set up a dipping station: 
1.  flour
2.  eggs with milk mixed in
3.   Panko or cracker crumbs with salt and pepper mixed in

Heat about 1/2" oil in a large frying pan (cast iron is best) to about 375 degrees   (OK.  I did not take the temperature.  Throw in a cracker crumb and when it starts to sizzle, it is probably hot enough)

Coat both sides of each tomato slice with flour, then egg, then crumbs.  Carefully put into hot oil and cook about 3 minutes on each side until lightly browned.  (If it cooks too fast, turn the heat down, and vice versa)  Carefuly lift out of oil and drain on paper towels  (I did this on a paper plate also, stacking them with paper towels between)

If you are doing a bunch of them, you can put each batch into a 200 degree oven to keep them warm while you finish the rest.

Now here is the kicker...  I did not like them.  They are tart like a green apple (which I do not like either)  If you like green apples, you will probably like these.  I think I will let some ripen, and do this with red tomatoes and see how that works.  The problem I see with that is that as they ripen, they lose their stability, so maybe they won't hold together in the oil.  We will see.

Speaking of letting them ripen.....  Before, when we had green tomatoes, we took the entire vine with the tomatoes on it and hung them over the rafters in the cellar.  I do not have the vines this time, so I am going to try something (so they don't all ripen at once).  When I was a kid, we took the green apples off the tree and wrapped them in magazine pages or newspaper and put them in the dark in the cellar.  They ripened a few at a time, and we had apples all winter.  I am going to try that with the tomatoes.  I have read somewhere that it will work, so why not give it a try?  I will let you know what happens.