Carrot Loaf

I recently posted about a fun retro cookbook I picked up at a charity book sale. It was published in 1972 by the folks at Southern Living magazine.The cookbook is full of simple and delightful vegetable recipes that were "created and perfected by homemakers from Maryland to Texas." and credit is given to the homemaker who contributed each recipe.

This recipe for "Carrot Loaf" was contributed by Sara Hancock of Florence, Alabama. She combines cooked mashed carrots with bread crumbs, chopped peanuts, and a few other ingredients. Then she spreads it in a shallow dish to bake. Simple!Sara Hancock, Florence, Alabama might have used her own home grown peanuts when she made carrot loaf. But I shelled some spicy hot seasoned peanuts to make mine...... and from now on I will always use these nuts to make this because the spicy crunch of those nuts was really tasty in this recipe!

Let's address two little issues before I share her recipe...

Firstly, I know it doesn't look like a "loaf." But "Carrot Loaf" is what Sara Hancock, Florence, Alabama named it, so "Carrot Loaf" it is. She suggests baking it in "greased molds or (a) shallow dish" and then "remove from molds or cut in squares to serve." So maybe if you use small molds it will look more like a "loaf." Secondly, when I first ate it, warm out of the oven, it was tasty (very tasty) but I didn't like the texture. The carrot part was too light, too fluffy. I put the remainder in the fridge and thought I probably wouldn't blog about it.

But I found that the texture had firmed when I cut some chilled pieces to go alongside a cup of Roasted Tomato Vegetable soup" the next day. And now I can tell you that "Carrot Loaf" is a really great finger food to serve with a cup of soup!CARROT LOAF

(From The Vegetables Cookbook, Southern Living Library, 1972, recipe contributed by Sara Hancock, Florence, Alabama)

1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 1/2 cups mashed cooked carrots
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon finely chopped onion
1 1/2 teaspoon butter (I used melted butter)
3/4 cup chopped peanuts (I used spicy hot seasoned peanuts)

Combine the crumbs and carrots. Beat the eggs and milk together. Add the egg mixture and remaining ingredients to the carrots. Turn into greased molds or shallow dish and set in a pan of water. (I used a greased 7 x 11 pan and set it in a 9 x 11 pan of water.) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. (I suggest placing it in the fridge overnight and serving it chilled.) Remove from molds or cut in squares to serve. 8 servings.

Roasted Tomato Vegetable Soup

This past Sunday was a gorgeous day! It felt like autumn blew in on a cool, crisp breeze. It brought beautiful clouds that dwarfed the fields, wisps of burning wood fires, and jacket weather.Trees are only beginning to hint about their color changes but soybeans have turned golden and will be harvested soon. This early autumn weather urges me to finish stacking my firewood. And it reminds me of all the other chores that I still need to get done around here before winter.

But autumn makes me think about fun things, too, like fresh apple cider, smokey campfires, bumpy hayrides, and soup...... this soup.

I love this soup!

When you read how to make this soup it might sound like it's complicated, but this is really a very simple recipe. Three different pans of ingredients are roasted. Then they are combined with some stock in a blender. That's it. Done!

This soup cans well, too. It maintains its flavor and consistency if you home can it. When you open up a jar of this soup it's just as fresh and tasty as the day you made it.

Here's how to prepare this soup:

1) Peel, seed, and chop 5 pounds of tomatoes. Spread them out into a shallow non-reactive pan. Add several cloves of rough chopped garlic. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with thyme, fresh ground pepper, and salt. Roast at 300 degrees for a couple of hours. This will yield about 2 quarts of roasted tomatoes, including their liquid. (Don't drain the liquid.)2) Roast, core, and peel 3 or 4 large red (or orange or yellow) peppers. Here's how I do it... I cut the flesh of the peppers into large sections that will lay flat on a baking pan. I place the pan in the oven under the broiler until they become mostly blackened. Then I remove the pan from the oven and I lay a piece of plastic wrap loosely on top of the blackened peppers. I let the peppers rest until they are cool enough to handle, then I rub the skin off of the peppers.3) Peel and roughly cut 4 cups of carrots. Peel and slice 2 cups of onions. (Optional: add a chopped jalapeno.) Combine carrots and onions (and jalapeno, if using) in a shallow baking baking pan. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with fresh ground pepper and salt. Cover pan and roast at 350 degrees for 1-2 hours, stirring or shaking pan occasionally, until carrots and onions are soft.

4) Puree prepared and cooled ingredients and a quart of vegetable stock, in a blender. This is quite a bit of soup. I have to blend 10-12 batches of it in my standard sized blender to puree all of it. I add a bit of each ingredient (some roasted tomatoes, some roasted and peeled peppers, some roasted carrots and onions, and some vegetable stock) to each batch that I whirl in the blender. Blend ingredients well so that no chunks of vegetables remain. Pour each blended batch into a large stock pot and stir to combine all the batches.

5) Heat soup. Add a pinch of sugar, adjust seasonings to taste, and serve!If canning, fill hot jars, leaving one inch of headspace, and process in a pressure canner at the pressure that is appropriate for your altitude. (Despite the tomatoes, this is a low acid food and can not be processed in a boiling water canner.) I process it for 35 minutes at 11 pounds pressure, the amount of time recommended for the least acidic ingredients, and the pressure required for my elevation. This recipe makes 7-8 pints of soup.ROASTED TOMATO VEGETABLE SOUP

5 pounds tomatoes
several cloves garlic
2 tablespoons of olive oil
thyme
salt and pepper

3-4 red (or orange or yellow) sweet peppers

several large carrots
1-2 onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper

1 quart vegetable stock

more salt and pepper, if needed
a pinch of sugar

1) Peel, seed, and chop 5 pounds of tomatoes. Spread them out into a shallow non-reactive pan. Add several cloves of peeled, rough chopped garlic. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with thyme, fresh ground pepper, and salt. Roast at 300 degrees for a couple of hours. This will yield about 2 quarts of roasted tomatoes and their liquid. (Don't drain the liquid.)

2) Roast, core, and peel 3 or 4 large red (or orange or yellow) peppers.

3) Peel and roughly cut 4 cups of carrots. Peel and slice 2 cups of onions. (Optional: add a chopped jalapeno.) Combine carrots and onions (and jalapeno, if using) in a shallow baking baking pan. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with fresh ground pepper and salt. Cover pan and roast at 350 degrees for 1-2 hours, stirring or shaking pan occasionally, until carrots and onions are soft.

4) Puree prepared and cooled ingredients and a quart of vegetable stock, in a blender. This is quite a bit of soup. I have to blend 10-12 batches of it in my standard sized blender to puree all of it. I add a bit of each ingredient (some roasted tomatoes, some roasted and peeled peppers, some roasted carrots and onions, and some vegetable stock) to each batch that I whirl in the blender. Blend ingredients well so that no chunks of vegetables remain. Pour each blended batch into a large stock pot and stir to combine all the batches.

5) Heat soup. Add a pinch of sugar, adjust seasonings to taste, and serve!

Stovetop Tomato Chicken Stew

Healthy, filling, and full of flavor, this meal cooks up on top of the stove in one pot. It's easy enough to be a quick weeknight meal but it's classy, too, and perfect for company because it doesn't require much attention while it simmers and cooks and teases you with its delicious aromas.

Change the spices to suit your own taste. Use some basil and oregano to give it an Italian flair and serve it topped with Italian cheeses. Give it more of a New Orleans spin with your favorite Creole seasoning. Or, use cumin, paprika, and some heat to give it a Mexican taste.

This time I seasoned mine simply with a bit of my "hot" spice... a variety of hot peppers, dehydrated and then ground. I rubbed the chicken pieces with a mixture of kosher salt, pepper, and "hot." Then I sprinkled more of those same seasonings and pushed a little sprig of fresh thyme into the dish as it was beginning to simmer on the stove. Usually I like to eat this with crusty bread or buttermilk biscuits. I like to push the bread down into the bowl to soak up every drop of that tasty sauce.STOVETOP TOMATO CHICKEN STEW

3-4 pounds, bone in, skin on, chicken parts
kosher salt, pepper, and a hot spice, (cayenne, chili, or chipolte powder, or red pepper flakes)
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
1 quart jar of tomatoes, undrained
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups chopped carrots
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups sliced onion
several cloves garlic, roughly chopped
a pinch of sugar
1-2 bay leaves
fresh or dried thyme, to taste
more salt and pepper, and hot spice, to taste

Rub chicken with kosher salt, pepper, and a hot spice such as cayenne pepper, chili powder, or chipolte powder. Heat olive oil in large stock pot and brown chicken on all sides, then remove chicken and set aside. Add chicken broth to pot and scrape up browned bits from bottom of pan. Add canned tomatoes and tomato sauce. (I like to can some 8 ounce jars of tomato sauce and chicken broth because I seem to use "1 cup of tomato sauce" or "1 cup of chicken broth" in a lot of recipes.) Add chopped vegetables and garlic, pinch of sugar, bay leaves, and thyme. Place chicken back in pot, Push pieces of chicken down into liquid. Simmer on stove top for about an hour, until chicken is very tender and falling off the bone. Remove chicken and let sit until cool enough to handle. Pull meat from chicken and return meat to pot (or skip this step and just leave the pieces of chicken whole). Add more salt and pepper and hot spice, to taste. Serve with fresh crusty bread or buttermilk biscuits.

Quart of Canned Carrots Cake

Did you know that today is National Carrot Cake Day?

A whole day dedicated to carrot cake?! Yes! Let's celebrate!!!

If you've visited here before, you may recall that I once shared with you the best idea that I ever had in my whole life... a fabulous way to store fresh carrots, a way that keeps them so fresh that they "snap" when you break them, for months! Really! You can read about it here.

But that doesn't mean that I don't pressure can some carrots, too. Because I do. Home canned carrots are nifty because you can whip them up into this fabulous cake...

But first, another carrot tip:If you have a little strainer like this, hold it over your jar of carrots and use it to drain your carrots... talk about nifty! Drained carrots in a jiffy!
By the way, I tend to be partial to simple, quick recipes. And this one is no exception. Combine your drained carrots and a few other ingredients in your blender, stir that into your flour and spices, and bake. It can hardly be easier than this...
QUART OF CANNED CARROTS CAKE

For the cake:
1 cup vegetable oil
1 quart canned carrots, drained
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan. Process oil, drained carrots, eggs, sugar, and vanilla together in blender until smooth. Stir flour, baking powder, spices, and salt together in a large bowl with a wire whisk. Pour blender ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Spread into buttered pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Spread frosting on cake.

For the frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
8 ounce package cream cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 cups confectioner's sugar
optional: stir in a handful of finely chopped black walnuts

Use hand mixer to blend ingredients together in order given. Add 3 to 4 cups confectioner's sugar, until frosting is the consistency that you like. Stir walnuts in by hand, if using. Spread on cooled cake.

Blue Monday Pot Roast

Everyone has an occasional blue day. It happens to all of us. It sometimes even happens to good natured countrygirls. Yes, it's true. We get blue, too.

According to some bean counters, a lot of folks have the blues today. They say that January 17th is the saddest day of 2011.

Others say the saddest day of 2011 is next Monday, January 24th.

This countrygirl thinks a case could be made for any Monday in January being the saddest day of the year. and I think there are others who might come on board with that observance.

Luckily, I have a remedy for sad January days... Blue Monday Pot Roast.

It's simple. It's delicious. And it makes the house smell really good. The aroma itself might lift your heart and pull you through the blues.

This is comfort food, homegrown comfort food, using ingredients that are readily available in January.

I leave my brussels sprouts in the garden through winter, breaking frozen sprouts off the stems of the plant when I want to eat them. Believe it or not, they are extra sweet and tasty this way. Parsnips can be dug in the fall and stored in buckets of dirt just like carrots. Herbs can be vacuum packed in individual bags and stored in the freezer for a very long time. And I've found that even if you don't raise your own cattle, you can sometimes make a nice trade with a friend, bales of hay in exchange for some home raised beef. Win. Win.

So the next time you're feeling the January blues, try this...BLUE MONDAY POT ROAST
(Adjust amounts and ingredients to your own tastes and what you have available.)

3 pound cut of roasting beef
black pepper
coarse salt
1 cup chopped onion
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
a splash of liquid smoke
a splash of worcestershire sauce
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 sprig rosemary (or herb of your choice)
6-8 cloves of peeled whole garlic
2 cups brussels sprouts. cut in half, if desired
2 cups chopped parsnips
2 cups chopped carrots
4-6 frozen roma tomatoes
additional black pepper and salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Pat meat dry and sprinkle liberally with pepper and coarse salt. Set aside. On stove top, heat olive oil in large (5-7 quart sized) dutch oven style pot and add onions. Cook onions, stirring occasionally, over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until they start to soften and even have a few brown spots on them. Remove onions and set aside. Increase heat to high so oil is very hot and brown each side of roast for 3-4 minutes. You want some seared looking spots on the meat. Remove meat and set aside. Add wine and deglaze bottom of pot, gently scraping up the brownish bits. Add a couple cups of chicken stock, a splash of liquid smoke and a splash of worcestershire sauce. Turn off stove burner. Put beef back in pot and add additional chicken stock, if necessary, so that meat is about half deep in stock. Dump browned onions back in. Push sprig of rosemary down into liquid. Add garlic, brussels sprouts, parsnips, and carrots. Place frozen romas on top. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper (watch amounts of salt and pepper if using salted chicken stock). Cover pot, place in oven, and cook about 3 hours (1 hour per pound of meat at 300 degrees).

For some true comfort, serve with mashed potatoes (special occasion mashed potato recipe here) or buttermilk biscuits.

Chicken & Dumplings. And a Confession

First, the confession... I was too hungry and too greedy and too undisciplined to take a picture of the Chicken & Dumplings last night. I just grabbed my spoon and dug in and ate until I was a lethargic glutenous blob of chicken & dumpling doo.

Sorry.

I should have thought of you and taken a picture of it.

But we're in luck.

Despite my bad behavior last night, a small amount of Chicken & Dumplings survived the attack. I found this little container in the fridge this morning. This photo is of cold, day old, globified Chicken & Dumplings.

And it's just as good this morning as it was last night. I'm eating it, cold, right now. It's like a drug. A comfort food drug.

But this is easier to get than drugs. All you have to do is raise some chickens, take care of them for a few years while they're laying eggs, feed them, give them fresh water, keep them warm in the wintertime, and clean the their coop. Then butcher them, clean the carcasses, simmer them in a great big pot of water, pressure can the meat, pressure can the stock, grow the rest of the makings in your garden, freeze your peas, store your carrots, dry your herbs, and then make this E-Z recipe.

Ok. You're right. Maybe drugs are easier to get.

But eating Chicken & Dumplings will give you a better high.

No lie.

If you don't have the time or place to grow your own ingredients you can certainly pick up all of these ingredients at your local grocery or farmer's market.

CHICKEN & DUMPLINGS

3-4 cups vegetables: fresh or frozen peas, chopped carrots, and chopped celery*
1 1/2 quart jars chicken stock (or use 2 whole quarts if you like it a bit soupier)
1 pint jar of chicken
to taste: salt, pepper

2 cups cake flour**
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
pinch salt
black pepper, sage, rosemary, thyme, or other seasoning of choice (optional), to taste
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 cup milk

chopped fresh parsley, if available

* I use frozen peas and carrots from storage. For much of the year I don't have fresh garden celery. At those times I just increase the amount of peas and carrots and I throw a pinch of dried celery leaves into the pot. I like a bit of celery taste in this dish. You can use any vegetables you wish. I use peas, carrots, and celery because they make this taste like comfort food to me. Sometimes I add in some chopped, carmelized onion or minced garlic and I have also occasionally added some diced potatoes when I'm really geeking for some starch.

**Cake flour will make slightly lighter, fluffier dumplings. If you don't happen to have cake flour on hand, just use all purpose flour. The dumplings will be just as tasty.

Pour chicken stock into large stock pot. Add carrots and celery. Simmer until vegetables start to soften. Add peas and pint of chicken. Continue heating until mixture returns to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk cake flour, baking powder, salt, and optional seasoning in a bowl. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and pour into a one cup measure. Add milk to equal 1 cup. Stir together. Pour milk and butter into flour mixture and stir just until batter is combined.

Using a spoon, drop golf ball sized portions of batter into simmering pot. Let each dumpling lay where it falls, don't stir them around in the pot. You will get about 16-18 dumplings from this batch of batter. Cover pot and let simmer, without lifting lid, for 15 minutes. The dumplings will fluff up and thicken the sauce as they cook.

Remove from heat and stir, just once around the pot, very gently. Let cool briefly before serving. This is hot!

If you have fresh parsley, chop some and sprinkle it over each serving.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Plant your butternut squash seeds in the summer and harvest the squash in the fall. Wait for a dry sunny day after they have fully matured. Break them off of the vine, leaving one to two inches of the stem intact. Put them in a cool, dry place, preferably a root cellar, if you have one (I don't).

I keep my winter squash in a wooden crate that Countryboy built for me. I line it with clean straw and place the squash between more layers of straw. This works like a charm.

Do this, and you can enjoy butternut squash for months. (Some other winter squash, like Delicata, also last a long time when stored like this.)

But nothing lasts forever. By March I usually see a few dark spots on any remaining squash. At this time I roast the squash in the oven, scoop out that pretty orange flesh into plastic bags and freeze it.

Roast whole squash in a 400 degree oven for 1-2 hours, until a knife inserted into the fleshy top part pushes in without resistance. Remove, cool, and scoop out the flesh, discarding the seeds and fiborous bits from the middle of the bulb end. If you have a vacuum sealer you may want to use it to package your roasted squash, but this isn't necessary unless you plan to store it in the freezer for a long time. I usually just scoop mine out into ordinary resealable freezer bags. I like to freeze foods in amounts that I will use them. In this case I usually put about 4 cups of butternut in each freezer bag because that is the amount I use when I make this smooth, rich, delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Soup...

ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH SOUP

4 cups roasted butternut squash
1 quart canned carrots, drained*
1 quart seasonal stock
1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk
4 tablespoons butter (Leave this out or reduce the amount if you must, but using it really brings out the rich, sweet taste of the squash.)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt (Seasonal Stock contains no added salt. If you are substituting purchased vegetable broth or chicken stock that contains salt you might want to add less salt)

*Although I have previously advocated against canning carrots, I do can some for use in some recipes. Using your frozen squash and canned carrots makes throwing this soup together a snap! Seriously, you can make this soup in less than 15 minutes. But you could roast fresh butternut and fresh carrots if you wanted to do everything the long way around.

Speaking of carrots, I have a handful of last summer's carrots remaining in storage and they are still nice and crisp, even though it is now April! You can read about my fabulous carrot storage system here.

Use a blender to puree roasted butternut, drained carrots, stock, and evaporated milk together in batches. Pour each batch into a large saucepot. Stir well to incorporate all batches of puree. Add butter and seasonings. Heat to a gentle simmer. Sprinkle some crumbled bacon, fresh grated parmesan cheese, or cracked pepper into each bowl. Serve with crusty bread or garlic toast.

Ode to a Root Cellar

"Oh, how I wish I had one."

That's it.

That's the whole poem, or "ode," if it were.

You weren't expecting more, were you?

Seriously. Count yourself lucky that's all there is.

But if the poem is lacking, the information is not.

Seriously.

I am about to tell you my most brilliant discovery of my entire life.

Do you think I'm joking??? I'm not!

I wish I could patent my idea. But it's just a 5 gallon bucket and a plastic bag, and how do you patent THAT?

Here it is. Listen carefully. This information might change your life forever...

You can keep carrots crispy fresh, where they "snap!" when you break them in half, for five to six months.

I am not kidding you.

Dear readers, (Hello? Is anyone out there?) this is the greatest discovery I've ever made in my whole entire life. It's easy. It's cheap. And it works:

Dig your carrots.

Layer your carrots in a 5 gallon bucket with moist (not wet) dirt. End with your carrots covered with dirt (not exposed like in the picture above).

Cover your bucket loosely with a plastic bag.

Put your bucket in a cool place, a real live root cellar if you are lucky enough to have one. (But I just use the basement... hence, the "ode.")That's it. Do this and you will have crispy carrots for five to six months.

Now you can quit reading this blog. There will never be another bit of information as good as this ever again.

Good Bye forever!