And today’s post is brought to you by August 2009. Shall we travel in time to the inferno that was last summer in Austin, Texas?

I am kicking myself that I did not post this sooner. Why? Because some of the details have since slipped my mind, and I didn’t have the good sense to write it all down.

Last year I walked in to my local H-E-B market to see a large tank full of creepy crawly crawfish, alive and well. Not sure what on earth about those beady-eyed buggers said “dinner” to me, but for some reason it birthed in me this insatiable desire to try a crawfish boil.

Well, that is one dinner with an expiration date. We waited too long and discovered crawfish in Austin have only a seasonal performance. If you miss the show, you’re out of luck.

So we opted for the next best thing – a Cajun shrimp boil.

A Cajun shrimp boil is one of those casual messy meals best shared with a laughter and friends, so a girl from my Alabama hometown brought a pitcher of sweet tea, a massive platter of cornbread and her teenage kids to share in the fun.

The meal was delightfully simple. Cooking and prep were easy as pie and clean up was a breeze. The only required dish was the huge stockpot for the boil. We covered the table in newspaper and ate right off the table. No serving dishes, plates or utensils required.  When we were finished we threw the paper in the trash and called it a night. Gotta love that right?

Next time you’re looking to host a crowd-pleasin’ affair, why not go Gulf Coast style? Give the shrimp boil a try. It’s a keeper for sure.

CAJUN SHRIMP BOIL

What you’ll need to feed the equivalent of a crowd of three adults and two hungry teenagers:

A plastic tablecloth and newspaper or butcher paper

A huge stock pot

6-8 quarts of water

1-3 smallish new potatoes per guest

3-4 ears of corn

About half of a 14 oz. bag of Zatarain’s Pro Boil Seasoning

(NOTE: The fishmonger at my local H-E-B said, “This brand is my favorite. I used it for my boil this past weekend.” How’s that for a man who knows what he’s talking about?)

5 pounds of shrimp

(NOTE: For simplicity’s sake, I used frozen Gulf Coast shrimp, de-headed and de-veined, shells left on. If you’re closer to ocean water, buy fresh the day of if you can. Some say the whole experience is best if the heads are left on the shrimp. Apparently it adds more flavor and is more authentic. Others argue that a barb on the shrimp’s head makes the potential for pain not worth the flavorful gain. You decide.)

A 5-pound bag of ice

Optional toppings: Cocktail Sauce, Tartar Sauce and my favorites – melted butter and wedges of fresh lemon.

What to do:

Set your table with a plastic tablecloth and cover with newsprint or butcher paper. I would have used butcher paper if I thought about it, since it’s cleaner than newspaper.

Pour the water and the seasoning in the stock pot. Cover with the lid and heat on high until boiling.

If using frozen shrimp, thaw the shrimp. I dumped the shrimp in one side of my pre-cleaned sink filled with cold water to thaw about 30-40 minutes before I planned to boil it.

Since I used headless, de-veined, pre-cleaned shrimp, no extra prep was necessary. If you’re short on time in life like me, this was a great move. Shells on is mandatory if you want any hint of authenticity to this experience. De-veined is optional, but I don’t like the reminder while I’m eating that shrimp are nature’s garbage men. There. I said it.

Scrub the potatoes and peel and scrub the ears of corn. Peel one curl of skin off the potatoes around their center. This will expose the meat of the potato to the yummy seasoning. Cut the ears of corn in half.

Once the water is boiling, add the potatoes. Let them boil for about 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes add the corn. Let it boil about five minutes.

Then add the shrimp. Watch the shrimp. It will only take 5 minutes or less to finish.

Here is a handy trick to know how the shrimp is done. As the shrimp cooks, the tail curls toward the head (or in my case, lack of head). If the curl is enough to make a “U”, the shrimp is still undercooked. If it makes a nice “C”, it is cooked. Don’t let it curl so much to make an “O”. Then it will be a rubbery overcooked mess.

Once the shrimp makes a nice “C”, drain the water from the stockpot and cover the shrimp with ice.

Let it sit in the ice 15-20 minutes to let the seasoning settle in to the shrimp. Scoop out the ice, and dump the contents of the shrimp boil on the middle of the papered table. Gather around and eat your heart out.

Have fun!

After some lively banter and a meaningless wager, I found myself owing a friend a Mexican Hot Chocolate. He owed me one too.

In Texas we like everything big. We even like to talk big. So after a few more big ego, loud-mouthed, witty exchanges, our Mexican Hot Chocolate swap escalated to a Food Network Style Throw Down.

We set a date and invited our spouses and a couple of mutual friends to judge.

In the quiet after the adrenaline-induced smacktalk, I realized: “What IS Mexican Hot Chocolate? And why do I think I can beat Jonathan Rosales at a Mexican Hot Chocolate Throw Down?”

While I spent hours on the web learning about Mexican Hot Chocolate, Jonathan and Julee merely had a chat with Jonathan’s grandma. (Oh yes people…I was taking on the Rosales Mexican Hot Chocolate family recipe. Did I mention we have big egos in Texas?)

More smacktalk, a bit of practice and a lot of chocolate later, the results are in from the judges. Looks like the world wide web knows how to make a Mexican Hot Chocolate. AND it looks like Grandma Rosales also knows how to make a Mexican Hot Chocolate.

Ding ding ding. We have a winner!

Me! I’m a winner for a my world wide web recipe. AND I’m a winner because I got to keep all the leftovers from Jonathan’s recipe.

Thanks guys! It was a lot of fun.

Do you want to make Mexican Hot Chocolate too? Here’s how:

GRANDMA ROSALES STYLE (WITH JONATHAN AND JULEE’S ADAPTATIONS)

1 Cup Chocolate Milk

1 Disk Mexican Chocolate

3 Teaspoons Drinking Chocolate Powder (found at specialty food stores)

1 Small Pinch of Chipotle Powder

1 Cinnamon Stick (Optional)

Warm the milk, chipotle powder and cinnamon stick, stirring constantly. Add the chocolates and stir constantly until melted. Bring nearly to a boil. Pour into a mug and froth with a hand frother. Serves 1.

WORLD WIDE WEB STYLE (WITH SARA’S ADAPTATIONS)

2 Cups Whole Milk

1 Disk Mexican Chocolate (I used the Nestle Abuelita brand.)

1 Stick of Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

1 Egg

Chop the disk of Mexican chocolate. Place in a saucepan with the milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Heat through, whisking constantly, until nearly boiling. Remove from the heat. Crack the egg in a bowl and beat lightly with a fork. Add a spoonful of the hot mixture to the egg whisking together constantly.  Then add the whole egg mixture to the hot chocolate whisking constantly. Return to the heat and cook for 3 more minutes, whisking constantly. Remove the cinnamon stick. Pour the mixture in a blender and carefully blend for about 30 seconds. Pour into mugs and enjoy. Serves 2.

A few weeks later I noticed Kenny was turning into an orange. He was doing his best to work his way through the massive bag hogging prime real estate in the third shelf of our fridge. I tried one and decided I didn’t like them. Difficult to peel, quite seedy and a little bland on flavor – these were not oranges for eating.

What to do with the remaining twelve pounds? Not to fear! Creativity is here!

I pulled out the Ball canning cookbook my mother-in-law gave me last summer. Orange marmalade! My mother planned a Thanksgiving visit. Orange marmalade is her favorite, so I decided to whip up a batch.

Never mind that I’ve never canned! Never mind that I’ve never properly made jam! I can do anything, right?

Well I now know – yes I can do anything. At least I can make orange marmalade. The more important question should have been this: “How long will it take me to do it?”

The answer? A half hour to consult with my mother-and-law and sister for canning advice. One hour to find the canning supplies at my local grocery stores. Two hours to slice and dice oranges and peels. One and a half hours to stir cooking marmalade. And an eternity to remove the orange smell from my fingers and house.

I wonder what I’m going to do with the eight remaining pounds of oranges?

Do you buy pumpkins in the fall to decorate your house? I do. One small one every year. I just feel sad to spend my money on a perfectly good pumpkin I’ll throw away in a few months.

I’ve considered fake pumpkins so I can keep them from year to year, but they’re fake. They look fake and I have to find a year-round home for them in my garage. Not gonna happen.

So as promised – I’m telling you how I’m learning to waste not, want not. This year I decided to put my pumpkin to good use.

I bought a sugar pumpkin. Don’t let the name fool you. These babies are work horses. They are great for baking.

I noticed my pumpkin was starting to look a little sad. Since Christmas is coming and I’m done with pumpkins, I decided the day had arrived to put the poor thing out of it’s misery. I chopped it in half.

ROASTING THE SEEDS:

I learned a neat little trick to quickly separate the seeds from the stringy goo. Use a fork to scrape them out. I put the seeds in a strainer and gave them a good washing while rubbing them together between my fingers. Bye bye goo! Then I poured the seeds into a ziploc bag, drizzled in a bit of olive oil, a sprinkling of salt and a dash of cajun seasoning salt – love that stuff! Shake, shake, shake and onto the cookie sheet they went for a forty-five minute roast in a 300 degree oven.

Yum!

My only regret? I wish I’d roasted these on a Saturday. I can only imagine them hot out of the oven accompanied by a cold Coke and a UT football game. Hook ‘em horns!

I’d show you a picture, but they were so delicious I ate them all before snapping a shot.

PUREEING THE MEAT:

The meat of the pumpkin was not so simple. I have very nice smooth knives (thanks mom!), but I found that a serrated knife was more effective to cut away the skin and cut off the remaining strings of goo. However, my serrated knife is very cheap and very dull. An hour later I was finished.

I cut the pumpkin meat into chunks, placed it in my saucepan and poured in about an inch of water. I simmered it on the stove about thirty minutes and mashed it with a wooden spoon. Voila! Beautiful pumpkin puree.

Pumpkins have a nasty reputation to create stringy puree. I didn’t trust the lovely puree in front of me, so I pushed it through my metal strainer. It was waisted effort. It all came through beautifully – no strings to be found. I think the sugar pumpkin variety accounts for this.

MAKING PUMPKIN BUTTER:

I found myself in an important quandry: what to do with two cups of lovely pumpkin puree?

Bake a pie perhaps?

We hold one thing sacred at our house this time of year. Pumpkin pie. Don’t mess with the pumpkin pie.

Ms. Libby makes a wonderful pumpkin puree I depend on for a tasty pie. She pumps out millions of cans and has been doing so for oodles of years. I don’t trust my pumpkin puree to live up to her standards. Besides her cans only cost a dollar.

So no pumpkin pie for my puree. No! I wanted something special!…adventurous!…for my pumpkin puree. This occasion called for pumpkin butter.

Did you know the USDA says not to can pumpkin butter at home? Apparently you can get all kinds of bacterial ickies this way. See! Your tax dollars ARE hard at work here in the U.S. of A.

However, supposedly you can freeze pumpkin butter. According to my Ball canning brand cookbook, modern canning jars are made to withstand freezer temperatures. Only use tapered jars for this purpose. They are better designed for the job.

After a bit of quick searching on the internet I found and adapted this recipe for pumpkin butter:

2 cups pumpkin puree

1/2 cup applesauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon allspice

1/4 tablespoon ground cloves

1/4 tablespoon ground nutmeg

1/4 tablespoon ground ginger

Stir together in a saucepan. Heat to boiling over high heat stirring constantly. Once boiling, turn heat to low and simmer for about forty-five minutes until thickened. Stir frequently. Ladle into clean eight ounce jars and freeze or refrigerate for storage. Makes about 24 ounces. NOTE: After trying this recipe, I would adjust the allspice to a lesser amount. Allspice has a funky peppery taste that was too strong, in my opinion, in this recipe.

SUMMARY:

I now am the proud owner of twenty-four ounces of pumpkin butter. My tummy is the proud owner of the roasted pumpkin seeds.

Would I do it again?

Well, maybe. But only if my fairy godmother (or my real mother) brings me a sharp serrated knife.

Which brings me to this conclusion…Danielle…your friends like food. And officially your neighbor has me beat. I do not have my own personal cheese dictionary.

Okay, so here’s the scoop from the cheese dictionary if you too want to be more authentic. I cannot vouch for the success of these cheeses in the enchiladas because I’ve not tried them. If you try them or have hints for working with them, please inform us all!

Queso Fresco – “Fresh curds pressed in round molds; soft, crumbly, slightly grainy and salty; similar in flavor to Ricotta or farmer cheese; softens but does not melt when heated; crumble, slice, or dice to top or fill tacos, chiles rellenos, enchiladas, burritos, etc.” I think I’ve even seen this cheese at Walmart.  Alternatively,

Requeson- “Fresh; similar to Ricotta; soft and spreadable with a fresh, milky taste; use as a filling for enchiladas and pasta or with jam as a spread for crackers or bread.”

Happy cooking!

Which brings me to a very important lesson I just learned: when sharing a camera with your spouse, make sure all your pictures are off of it before it is his turn to use it. Since this recipe is somewhat complicated I took a ton of pictures for you. Oh yeah…they’re gone. Gone baby gone. Written over by Texas Longhorns chasing pigskin balls.

Oh well. I’ll give you the recipe anyways. I don’t have pictures for half the recipe. Sorry!

As you know, I love the vegetarian combo plate at Trudy’s. I particularly like the spinach-filled enchilada. Rather than make the drive to Trudy’s every time I want these yummies, I decided to learn to make them at home.

Before I begin my enchilada tutorial, I must tell you, these were a bit of an experiment, so some of the measurements and ingredients were guesswork. I’m not a professional people! I’m just a home cook, just like most of you. However, they were yummy and I think I did iron out the details for you. If not, you’ve been duly warned.

Also, I must tell you a few other things. First: these are pretty spicy. I give some ideas at the end to cool them down a bit if spice is not your thing. Second: I used corn tortillas. Don’t do that. They went mushy. I will stick with flour tortillas next go around. I think they hold up better in baking. Last: the construction of these is fairly time-consuming, so don’t make these on a hungry whim. However, they do hold up well if you make them ahead. I also think they would freeze well if you really want to make them ahead.

Here are the ingredients (Please NOTE that some items are not pictured) :

2 thawed 10 ounce packages of frozen spinach

1 1/2 chopped onion, divided

2 minced cloves of garlic, divided

5-6 tablespoons of oil, divided (lard, vegetable, canola, olive…whatever. I used canola.)

1 15 ounce container of ricotta cheese (Mmm…this is probably not really a Tex-Mex ingredient. Got any suggestions for a more authentic substitute? Anyone? Anyone?)

4 cups shredded monterey jack or pepper jack cheese, divided. (I used equal parts of both.)

1 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons ground cumin, divided

20 tortillas (I used corn. As I said before, I don’t recommend doing that as they didn’t hold up well. Next time, I’ll try flour tortillas.)

1 15 oz can of crushed tomato

1 8 oz can of tomato sauce

1 7.5 oz can of chipotles in adobo sauce (We’ll only be using part of this can, but I think that is the smallest can you can buy.)

1 tspn basil

1 tspn oregano

1 tbspn sugar

1 tspn salt

Whew! That was a list. Don’t let it scare you away! You can do this! I’ll show you how.

First, squeeze all the extra water out of the thawed spinach.

Chop the onions and mince the cloves of garlic. Divide the garlic in half and set aside 1/3 of the chopped onion for the sauce. We’re going to work on the filling first.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil on high in a skillet. You’ll know the oil is hot enough when you sprinkle a couple drops of water on it. The drops of water should dance. (Stand back! Don’t get splattered with hot oil!)

Add all of the chopped onion other than the amount you’ve reserved for the sauce and 1 clove of the minced garlic.

Saute until the onion starts to turn translucent. Stir frequently. This will take about 1-2 minutes at most.

Add the thawed, drained spinach. Cook another couple minutes, breaking up the spinach and incorporating the onions into it. Remove from the heat and let it cool a bit.

Transfer to a large bowl and add 2 cups of shredded cheese, the 15 ounce package of ricotta, the cup of sour cream and 1 tablespoon of the cumin.

Stir together.

OKAY FRIENDS, HERE IS WHERE WE BRAVE ON TOGETHER WITHOUT THE AID OF PHOTOS. PUT ON YOUR IMAGINATION CAPS PEOPLE.

One by one, warm the tortillas in a skillet on high heat for about 15 seconds each. No oil is needed here! You’re doing this step to make them more malleable for filling and folding.

As you take a tortilla off the skillet fill it with a few spoonfuls of the filling. Roll it up and place it seam side down in a greased casserole dish. I think an 8X13 should be large enough.

Do this until all the filling is gone and all the tortillas are used.

Now for the sauce.

Meet my new best friends in the kitchen, chipotle peppers.

Oh wait! No! I can’t show you pictures of my new best friends, chipotle peppers, because I only have pictures of these Longhorn fans. Hook ‘Em Horns!

Chipotles are smoked jalapeno peppers in a nice hot sauce called adobo sauce. Look for them in small cans in the authentic Mexican food section of your grocer. Usually I find them on the shelves near the floor. Beware these little guys are hot! A little goes a long way. We’re not going to use the whole can because the fire department would have to visit our mouths.

Open the can of chipotles. Dump the whole thing into a blender and pulse until the whole mixture is nice and chunky. Reserve 1/4 of the mixture for this recipe. Do what you please with the rest. I divided it up and froze it for future use.

Remember that remaining 1/2 of a chopped onion and minced clove of garlic? It’s their time to shine.

Heat 2-3 more tablespoons of oil in a hot skillet. When the oil is hot, add the onion and garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes.

Then add the can of crushed tomato, the can of tomato sauce, the 1/4 a can of blended chipotles in adobo sauce, 2 tablespoons of cumin, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of basil, 1 teaspoon of oregano and 1 teaspoon of salt.

Mix together and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Remove sauce from the heat and pour it over the enchiladas. Sprinkle the enchiladas with the remaining 2 cups of cheese.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and bake the enchiladas for 20 minutes.

WARNING: In my personal opinion, this sauce was at the hottest end of heat I can take. I generally fall somewhere in the medium-hot category. For more heat, use more of the chipotles. For less heat, use less chipotles and consider this alternate sauce I made for Josh, since he has a baby mouth. (Josh is the summer intern who was living with us. He is a young adult and not a baby…so don’t feel bad if you too have a baby mouth.)

Alternate Sauce:

I pulled aside 5 of the enchiladas and covered them with this sauce for Josh. Since I was only needing to cover 5 enchiladas, I reserved 1/3 cup of the hot chipotle enchilada sauce we just made. I put it in a separate skillet on medium heat and added 1/2 cup of sour cream. I stirred it all for a couple minutes while the sour cream melted and the whole lot mixed together. Then I poured it over Josh’s enchiladas, topped them with cheese and baked them.

I’m not really sure what the best route would be for someone making a whole pan of the alternate sauce. I think it depends on how hot you like things. If you think you want to give this a try, feel free to comment and we can bounce some ideas off each other to come up with ingredient ratios that might work for you.

Yummy!

P.S. So after all that, I’m pretty sure it’s faster to just drive to Trudy’s. Ha!

Do you know what they are? They are a type of cactus.

This past week they were on sale in the grocery store. I found the produce clerk and asked for the full run-down on prickly pears.

“You’ve never had a prickly pear?!” he asked with wide-eyed wonder.

Really? Are they that common that I’m odd for never eating them?

He informed me that I needed to pick slightly soft firm ones with no smell. He also recommended what I should do with them.

I’m here to pass on the prickly pear advice to you. (I know…I know…thank God for the Dixie Gypsy! Really what WOULD you do without this helpful advice?)

Step 1: Peel and half them. (I only prickled two fingers doing this. Be careful! Prickly pears are prickly!)

Step 2: Cover them in brown sugar and melted butter. I also threw in a little vanilla and cinnamon.

Step 3: Bake them for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Step 4: Have all the people currently living in your house (and that number does change regularly at my house of late…today the count is at 5) taste them. But taste them first before you add the Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream from Amy’s Ice Cream.

Step 5: Put all the prickly pears down the kitchen sink disposal and eat the Mexican Vanilla Ice Cream. There’s a reason you’ve tried vanilla ice cream. There’s also a reason why you haven’t tried prickly pears.

Prickly pears…in case you’re wondering…are gross.

When I read this in my Facebook inbox I laughed outloud. Since our move to Austin, Kenny and I are making a greater effort to not eat all our income. We really love to eat out, and if we aren’t careful, before we know it, we’re out of control.

So, I’ve been making lunches for Kenny. Since our friend Josh is living with us this summer, I throw one in for him too. Apparently, their co-worker Paul noticed and now he wants a lunch.

He and I struck a deal yesterday. $2 a day will buy him a Dixie-Gypsy-hand-prepared lunch. I know, I know. For business purposes, I definitely undercharged him, but he is becoming a family friend, and he is young bachelor recently out of college, and he does work at a church…so I opted to go the cheap route and basically charge him cost.

“I’ll cut you a check in your name every week. I don’t want Kenny spending your money.” he promised.

So, today, I’ll be the big earner, since I’ll only make him one lunch this week.

Today I’ll make $2.

I’ve never had much to do with mangoes. I liked them alright and would order the occasional mango smoothie. However, I never bought them at the grocery store.

That’s all changed here in Austin.

I have self-imposed grocery store rules. I know how much I’m willing to pay for certain items and mangoes were always out of reach. So ’till now they’ve remained an occasional exotic treat.

I can tell I’m further south here in Austin. I think maybe I’m in mango territory. For three weeks now, H-E-B’s had a sale on mangoes imported from Mexico. Curious, I’ve been buying them.

Titus refuses to eat finger foods. He screams like we’re torturing him when we put anything on his high chair tray. Cheerios are one exception. And oddly enough, mangoes are the other. Needless to say, we’re hooked on mangoes these days.

Buying a new food can be a little tricky. How do I know how to pick out ripe mangoes? How do I store them at home? I like grocery stores that have the little cards in the produce bins answering all these simple questions. It takes out the guesswork. H-E-B doesn’t have the little cards, so I chatted it up with the produce man.

“Look for soft sweet-smelling mangoes,” he advised, “and don’t store them in the fridge. Eat them within a couple days.”

Well, I got a little carried away. Several days passed and I found myself with five very soft mangoes still on my kitchen counter.

I’ve heard rumor that mango crisp is delicious. After a little hunting on the web I found a recipe using ingredients in my pantry. I got to work.

Mango Crisp

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel and dice 4 cups worth of mangoes.

Mix together the following ingredients:

1 cup of oats

1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of flour

Cut 1/2 cup of butter into the mixture using a pastry knife or two knives.

The mixture should resemble crumbs.

Pour the diced mango into an 8X8 baking dish or a 9 inch pie plate. Cover with the crumbly topping.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.

Serve warm or cold.

I served it with ice cream and garnished with a light dusting of cinnamon on it all.

Very yummy! It is the perfect ending for a Tex Mex meal.

Now for a bit of trivia. Did I spell “mangoes” correctly? You tell me.

Collard greens are a staple of Southern cuisine, yet I’ve never been brave enough to try them until tonight.  The idea of wet, wilty, cooked leaves was not particularly appealing; but the end result…delightful! 

My brother-in-law grows a vegetable garden.  He doesn’t like any vegetables.

“So why grow a garden?” I asked, bemused by my meat-and-potato-eating in-law, who turns up his nose at the fruits of his labor.

“I just like to watch things grow,” he replied with a sheepish grin.

So this winter, my mother-in-law and I have been the happy recipients of broccoli and collard greens.

“The greens are in,” my mother-in-law announced one evening this week.  “Gary gave me a bag to share.”

“Nice!” I exclaimed as I curiously opened the bag and inspected the greens.

The leaves were quite large with a stiff spine and strange waxy texture.

“What do we do with them?” I asked.

“Well, we need to give them a thorough washing.  They’ll probably be pretty gritty,” my mother-in-law replied.

“And we’ll need to tear off the spine and keep the leaves,” she continued.

“Okay, you wash. I’ll tear?” I offered.

I was surprised to find as I tore the washed greens that a light mustard-like fragrance was released.

As we cleaned the greens, we added them to a large stock pot with a bit of water and salt pork.  Yep.  You read correctly.  Salt pork.

As I’ve only read about salt pork in the Little House on the Prairie series, I assumed salt pork was a meat for individuals using a covered wagon as a primary mode of transportation. Apparently it did not go extinct with the invention of cars and refrigeration.  It’s a fatty cut of pork similar to strips of bacon, and it infuses a nice salty, meaty flavor to the greens.  My mother-in-law claims it’s available at my local supermarket.

Over the heat, the greens began to wilt as the leaves released alot of their moisture. We kept them on the heat until they reached the consistency of cooked cabbage.  Then we drained the water and let the greens cool.  Apparently they are best reheated after a couple days, giving the salt flavor of the pork a chance to really infuse into the greens.

“You know, I think I’d like some shucky beans with the greens.” my mother-in-law exclaimed.

“Huh?” I looked at her dumbly, not sure what plan she was hatching.

“You know, leather britches?” she explained.

“Leather britches?” I asked, not following at all.

Shucky beans, sometimes known as leather britches, are a Kentucky dish my father-in-law grew up eating.  They are dried green beans, cooked with a handful of dried pinto beans, and…you guessed it…salt pork.  Apparently a bit of fat makes all once-healthy vegetables happy.

Gary’s garden produced a nice crop of green beans last summer, and since green beans are…well…green, my brother-in-law was all too happy to share them with my mother-in-law.  She dried them in her dehydrator…and voila…shucky beans.

So tonight was the night to try the results of this family food affair.  Quite nice.  The greens were a crisper texture than the wilted mess I was imagining, and their taste was delicious – salty from the pork and poignant like cabbage with a hint of mustard.  The shucky beans were out of this world. Quite simply, they had a country taste that evoked images of pioneers and courageous survival. 

I can see why these foods are a Southern staple.