GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR GREEN ONIONS

Tags

Dehydrating, Getting the Most out of your Green Onions, Money Saving Tips, Preventing Kitchen Waste, Saving Food Dollars

Every time I go to the store to get produce I will pick up two or so bunches of green onions to cook with. They are great in cooked dishes or to make creamed onions & tops to serve over toast, use them fresh in salads. There are so many uses for them.

However if you are in a hurry and get home and put them in the fridge while they are still in the plastic bag from the store, you will get a surprise, slimy green onions. Growing up when we had spring onions from the garden, mom always had the green onions in a jar of water in the refrigerator to use as needed, they do last a bit longer. We always used the tops just like you would chives in recipes.

There are times when you really do not want to waste the tops, but you do not have anything you want to use the in, what to do, what to do.

Well before the dehydrator, we would chop the chives and onion tops up and place into ice cube trays, fill with water and freeze them, and then bag them up to later use as fresh in soups and stews.

Dehydrating the tops is quick and easy, 4-6 hours at 135 degrees.

Many vegetables can be dehydrated for use in soups, stews and casseroles, several years ago, when living in Bridgewater, I had dehydrated carrots, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, celery, onions and many other things. I also found that you can save a lot by shopping for produce sales and marked down vegetables that were still in good shape. You can enhance the flavors of what you are cooking by processing your dried vegetables into powder form and adding to soups and stews to add to the body of these dishes.

You will be very surprised what will fit into quart and pint canning jars once foods are dehydrated. Several examples would be and to my own surprise was sliced carrots. Would you believe that a quart canning jar will fit 25 pounds of dehydrated carrots?  I won’t begin to tell you how many pounds of dried spinach fits into a pint jar. You can make very good cream of soups by adding powdered spinach, carrots, mushrooms etc. to your cream base.

A Great Day for a Pot of Homemade Soup!

Tags

Chowders, Dreary Cold Rainy Day, Heritage Basket Studio & Chair Caning, Homemade Soups, Stews

Today seems to be a continuation of a week of cold rain, raw weather and just plain drear.! We need the rain really badly in this area, so that is good.

When I lived in Bridgewater I would have gotten up and put the stock pot on the stove on a day like this to make and simmer a day long vegetable soup. Who cares if it is could and clammy outside, when you can be in the kitchen taking your time with all the ingredients.

A nice beef vegetable would be great on a day like this, Brown your chuck roast in the pan in olive oil toss in the onions, celery, garlic and carrots, let them sweat a bit, and then put the water to cover, along with bay leaves, spices, herbs what ever strikes your fancy, Vegetable Soup is not rocket science, the best part of making it is just doing it on a day like this. Taking your time to assemble, cut everything up, I mean what else are you going to do, watch TV all day?

I always added my potatoes, and cabbage later. towards the end. You end up with 8 quarts of nice soup that can be frozen or canned (if I was doing that latter would not cook as long and would most likely have started with the 20 quart stock pot.

Well for me those days seem gone forever, even cooking a pot of soup appears to be a thing of the past.

I wanted to go to the studio today to work on some hand caned chairs, however in Starbucks this morning people seem to be telling me that a Winter Weather Advisory is out and I need to look it up online.  I need to buy several space heaters for the studio for heat on these cold days, so that I can be warm while caning and basket weaving these cold winter days.

Well I tell you I went back over my blog and found I had no beef vegetable soup recipe, however everything else looked so good to me that I just could not help but put the links in here.

   

 

 

The wonderful thing on a day like this is that most kitchens have potatoes ready to use, and potato soup actually is a base for any soup your imagination will allow.

New England Clam Chowder, Seafood Chowder, Potato/Leek or Onion Soup, Potato Cheese Soup. all are creamy warm and delectable on a cold dreary winters day. 

Potato Soup A Simple Meal

Potato-Ham-Broccoli Soup

This is great if you have a couple small butternut squash laying around that you have not made pies, backed or cooked yet, great on a cold winters day!

Savory Bacon Browned Butternut Squash Soup

Cream of Asparagus Soup

This Chili below is great, and sticks with you on a cold day so well. makes me hungry for a bowl right now, but that is not going to happen.

Lentil & Ground Turkey Chili

Quick & Easy Seafood Chowder

I have found over the years I have post quite a few soup and chowder recipes you can find most of them by doing a simple search for Soup in the search box of the blog

Top 12 Most Popular Recipes

Tags

Applesauce Cake, Cucumbers Onions, Dulce de Leche, Gooey Shoofly Pie, Hot Fudge Sauce, Lemon Pound Cake, Oatmeal Cake, Onion Skins, Pie Dough

3 1/2 Years – Most Popular Recipes!

This morning I was looking on the statistics page of my blog, just curious after realizing that certain recipes show up on this page more than others. I clicked the button, to get a summary of the past 3 1/2 years and these were the results, doing this from time to time can really amaze you! I thought you might be interested in seeing what others are searching for also.

Cucumbers & Onions in Vinegar Water        1,367 views

Save Your Onion Skins!                                     1,336

Easy Dulce de Leche (Caramel)                     1,326

Lemon Pound Cake – Clear Lemon Glaze    1,089

Old Fashioned Flakey Pie Crust                         921

Easy Homemade Tapioca Pudding                  788

Easy Pennsylvania Dutch Gooey Shoofly Pie w/ Lemon Sauce     783

Old Fashioned Applesauce Cake                      567

Crunchy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies                     436

Hot Fudge Sauce – Can Freeze                          424

Ginger Syrup – Homemade Crystalized Ginger     375

Oatmeal Cake w/Broiled Coconut Icing            325

There are several other recipes that come up often during different times of the year, which include.

Unfortunately the cool days of Autumn are approaching, even though this always mean that Winter cannot be far behind, it does mean for most, an increase in baking and cooking, for those cooler/colder days ahead, and for the holidays. In some ways this is good, more sharing with others, and enjoyment of being at home with family and friends which is always good. So plan ahead and look up some recipes and be prepared when holiday time comes.

 

SLOW ROASTED PULLED PORK BBQ

OLD FASHIONED “REAL” POUND CAKE

Homemade Brown Sugar

Old Fashioned Potato Candy

Ice Water Cake

 

 

             

ROASTED GARLIC

Tags

Food, garlic, Roasted Garlic Cloves, Roasting

This is not your typical roast garlic, in that I am not roasting the entire head of garlic.

The other day at Costco I happened to see Christopher Ranch California Heirloom MONVISO Peeled Garlic, and I could not believe the price, a 3 pound bag for only 3.99.

I thought this is worth trying, as most of the time I buy fresh garlic and either forget to peel it until it is too late, or it starts sprouting on me before I can get to it. I thought for 3.99 bag this is worth trying. on their website I found this in a recipe to roast the peeled cloves.

Now I have found a new snack, “Roasted Garlic”

Christopher Ranch Website

Roasted Garlic Soup with Parmesan Crisps

This recipe gives the directions for roasting peeled garlic cloves. Very simple and very easy.

I thought this would be so easy to have and make into garlic mashed potatoes.

 You might like to look at their recipe section and the entire website, it is very informative and has great recipes, but I am happy just being able to have the fresh peeled garlic at hand whenever I want or need it., and for such a good price.