Eighth of an Acre Bounty

Pardon the poor picture quality, but I was hungry and there wasn’t much light left so the camera flash left everything a bit overexposed. It occurred to me that I have all but stopped cataloging  some of our meals. With canning and growing season well upon us, the daily food preparation takes a backseat. Add to that the fact that during the summer we don’t usually eat dinner until the sun starts to fade (8 or 8:30) means when dinner is finally cooked there is little time to snap pictures before we wolf it down.

Last night’s meal was in many ways the epitome of all that is good in the summertime. Two pork chops from Whistling Train were rubbed with fresh minced sage, garlic powder, salt and pepper and seared on the cast iron griddle. A pseudo-succotash comprised of peas, purslane, squash, squash blossoms, garlic and young (still green) coriander went alongside a few griddled grit sticks (don’t quite know how else to describe them - leftover grits that I had chilled in a bread pan in the fridge overnight) that had been mixed with fresh herbs and cheddar cheese.

The night before we had chicken heart stew.  We had several bags of chicken hearts left over from when we went out to Laura’s to process chickens earlier in June. I ended up with the majority of the hearts, feet and liver from the 79 chickens we butchered that day. The subsequent days were dedicated largely to making an amazing stock from all those feet and making a bourbon pate from the livers (both were canned to save freezer space). All of that took some significant time so I bagged the hearts in smaller portions and stuck them in the freezer until I could figure out what to do with them.

I doodled about on the internet looking for inspiration and came across a forum thread that mentioned a Puerto Rican stew. It had been a rather cool day and stew sounded good so I took inspiration from there and went rummaging around to see what I could put together. I pulled  a half bag of dried hominy out of the cupboard and set it to soak a few hours before. I diced up the remainder of a red onion that had been lanquishing in the fridge, grabbed a quart jar of the green tomato enchilada sauce I canned last year (pic here) and a two quarts of chicken stock. While all of the above ingredients simmered with the chicken hearts and a bit of additional cumin, I picked and washed a large bunch of purslane to be thrown in at the last minute. The result was hearty, delicious and perfect for that evening. The purslane added a great lemony accent to what was a very savory stew.

We’re eating good around here now with the garden in full swing. Pole beans are climbing up thier poles, the peas are slowly finishing and broccoli and cabbage heads make themselves ready. I’ll have to harass Gary to make a post on his 3 sisters garden out front - we ate the first squash from there this morning.