I have not posted since April?? OMG! It may because I type most of the day at the office (when I'm not chasing down a story, giving an interview, etc etc... have I mentioned today that I LOVE my job?). Well I guess it's time to catch up with my posting!
I made dandelion greens with salt pork, a traditional Acadian recipe, the other day, and it turned out quite yummy but a little bitter. Next time I'll add a touch more baking soda, I think. which cuts the bitter. Posting photos here of the process. I showed the pics to my publisher, while at the office, and they ended up in the paper in a very cute special column. :) Because you can only make these at certain times of the year, ya know!
Very simply, you go out somewhere that people and animals don't go if possible, and forage for little baby dandelion greens (up here they are relatively young) that have NOT produced a flower, then pick and wash thoroughly. (ADVICE - if you want to feed 4 or 5 people, you'll need to pick a bucket-full! I only picked a bowl full and ended up with roughly one cup of cooked greens!!)
Then you boil them in water with about 1/2 tsp of baking soda, and when done in abt 10 min, you drain and you pour the salt pork, drippings and all, into the greens and let sit for abt 5 min and serve. I only used about 1/3 of the drippings for health reasons! I served them with biscuits.
If you don't have salt pork you can use bacon or leftover meaty/fatty pieces from a baked ham, which is what I did (we only ate the meat bits, of course!).
I got the recipe from an Acadian cookbook made in 1989, it's full of great stuff like Cretons, Ployes, Snow Cake, "herbes salees" (salted herbs and scallions, which I am making tonight thanks to a kind farmer I interviewed - I was going to buy some from him afterward, but he sent me home with a bagful, on the house!). It's a treasure of a cookbook - I lent it to a friend but when I get it back I may share some of those recipes.
Anyway, the recipe is visible in most of the photos in case I left anything out.
So.... anyway... here at the house, I've tilled the garden thanks to a neighbor who lent us his tiller (well... actually the hubs did it, but the girls and I picked out rocks and weeds) and I've purchased a *#$%load of seeds, so I plan to plant the garden this Sunday. Really this is about the earliest we can do it - even the farmers are just now starting to plant the potato fields. I really look forward to my garden growing!
So that's it for now, and I have to catch up with my favorite bloggers this weekend. I'm going to sit here with my cup of coffee and do nothing but catch up with blogs. Well, in between the city-wide garage sale happening nearby, and taking the girls rollerskating, and planting the garden!!! Yee haw, this is going to be a fun weekend.
Smile! It's Spring! :)
T
5 comments:
Thanks for visiting. I always get excited when I meet another Canadian blogger. Keep the great great recipes coming!!!
Ok, how do you KNOW whether the dandelions have already produced a blossom or not?
Other than that, it actually sounds pretty good. I mean... bacon grease improves all greens so why wouldn't salt pork?
And I get such a little kick every time you mention your new job - so happy for you still!!!
Hee hee... PPG - ok - it's most likely too late in your region, but in the middle of the dandelion their'll be either the yellow flower (too late) or a green, closed flower bud on a tiny stalk where the flower is not yet bloomed - look close - , or even earlier than that, there is no stalk yet even through the leaves have grown, and the whole plant is small. This would be the best. Let's say you hadn't mowed the lawn in a few days (or along the woods) and you see dandelions that look undisturbed, uncut, but don't yet have a flower stalk in the middle at all, use those. Once there's a flower stalk they'd be a lot more bitter. :)
Hey neat tip about the baking soda, I didn't know that!!
Nice blog poost
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