Kilt Lettuce
The person who posts as "Journey of a mountain woman" on Facebook posted this the other day. We have been talking about kilt lettuce quite a bit lately.
Some have asked what kilt lettuce is…here goes…well you should put on a pone of cornbread after you pick a mess of lettuce from your garden. I put mine in cold water with some salt in case there’s a creature rambling around in it. I fry some bacon…those bits and pieces are fine or even the streaked bacon or as we called it fat back. You are mostly interested in the bacon grease and small pieces of bacon. Cut up some green onions, also from your garden, and cut up your lettuce to eatin size, then throw the onions in. Then pour your grease over the onions and lettuce. Eat it before the grease gets cold with your cornbread on the side. If you have any cornbread left you can crumble it in a glass of milk, sweet or buttermilk, for desert. This is food from the holler. Have a lovely evening!
After that I found the following on the wonderful Celebrating Appalachia blog:
Somewhere on their great blog is an advertisement for a small cookbook that Tipper is selling through Etsy. If you go to Etsy and put in BlindPigAndTheAcorn you will find it easily enough. This is a great bargain for only a few dollars and it is easy and fun to use. Highly recommended!
Black-Eyed Peas With Collard Greens
Don't be fooled---this really is easy.
Clean your greens and clean them again. Roll them up and chop them up on a cutting board. Put that aside.
Stir some tomato paste into some water the way that you like it. A few tablespoons works well. Put that aside, too.
Chop up some garlic and onion to your taste---at least one onion and and at least three cloves of garlic. Keep those separate plates or apart on your cutting board.
You're going to need some oil handy. Use olive oil if you can afford it.
You may want a bay leaf.
You will want some pepper, and probably a good bit of dill.
You're going to need salt.
Some people will use bacon grease or ham hocks.
Put about one-half-of-a- pound of clean black-eyed peas in a big pan, cover them with water and add about two inches more of water on top of that, bring that to a boil and drain it all off.
Some people boil a ham hock or soup bones in the water before they add the water to cover the beans.
Cut up half of one yellow onion and some garlic (at least one clove) and put that in a big pan. Add the beans, cover with water, and add another two inches of water. Some people will add a bay leaf, but that has never done much for me. Some people add salt, and that does work for me. Get that simmering until the beans taste tender. That might take half an hour, but probably not longer. Strain that off.
Get your oven up to 350 degrees. If you have one, get out a Dutch oven. If you don't have one, get a skillet that you can use in the oven or one of those old small blue roasting pans with a lid. Put that on the stove top. Put a few tablespoons of oil in whatever you're using. I always use too much; I'm told that two tablespoons of olive oil will work fine, but I've used vegetable oil and even lots of bacon grease with mixed results. Put in half of one chopped onion and stir that around for a few minutes. Be careful here; don't burn yourself. Add in a few cloves of chopped garlic. Stir that together for a minute or two. Some people add bits of ham here.
Add in your greens, but don't put them in all at once. Be gentle and slow with them. Let them wilt a little before you add more. Add in a couple of tablespoons or more of the tomato paste. Stir everything together. Unless you object, add some salt.
Add the beans and enough water to cover everything. Put that in your oven. This part will take about 30 minutes or less. You want soft beans and collards that are tender, and you don't want mush or something dry enough to choke on. I like mine just a little undercooked. Add some water if you need to.
Add in some more oil and some dill. You can use a handful of dill and be okay. Cook it for just a little while longer, or maybe 10 minutes but not longer. Add your pepper in when everything is nice and hot.
Overnight Bread and Butter Pickles
One of my favorites!
Slice up 6 medium-sized fresh cucumbers and one fresh sweet onion. Slice these pretty thin. Toss them together in a large bowl. Add some kosher salt---depending on the freshness and thickness of the cukes and onion and your taste you can use 1-3 tablespoons. The more you use in this range, the better.
Set that in your refrigerator for one hour or so.
After that time passes, rinse off everything in the bowl with cold water using a strainer. Do it, and do it again. And again if you have to.
Put all of that in a half-gallon jar or smaller jars if you have them. Be careful here; follow the rules for canning and use commonsense.
Mix up about one or one-and-one-half cups of white sugar, one-quarter cup of brown sugar, two cups of good cider vinegar, and about three teaspoons of mustard seeds in a stove pan. You can use a little more mustard seeds if you like. I once added coconut sugar instead of brown sugar and it worked okay, but I would not really want to do that again. Heat that up to the point where everything is dissolved and looking good. Don't use high heat and burn this.
Let that cool for awhile off of the stove. That might take half an hour. Be patient. This is going to be good.
Pour this over your cucumbers when it's cool. If you're using separate jars, eyeball out the same amounts of cukes and liquid.
Let this stay in your refrigerator overnight. Start enjoying it for lunch or supper the next day. I would not advise keeping this long as leftovers, but the fact is that if I'm around that isn't a problem because I'll eat it all in a day or two. This goes great with ribs, hamburgers, hotdogs, tacos, some spiced beef dishes from Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants, or at a nice supper where you have a good choice of sweets and sours.
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