Making chicken & sausage gumbo with our homegrown okra

Being a "Yankee" by birth (NE PA is my home of record), okra is not a veggie I grew up with.  In fact, I never tasted it before I went to Navy bootcamp.  And I did NOT like it!  YUCK.  Slimy!

Since I moved to Georgia back in 2005, I've had a change of heart.  I love fried okra.  We grow okra. We buy froze, canned and pickled okra.  And now I've learned to cook gumbo, and I'm really hooked. 

Josh has been picking from the garden each morning. I've been holding onto the okra, until I had enough to make some gumbo.  This morning he brought in a few more pods, and I believe I have enough.

Today was a cooler day, so making some warm food for our lunch seemed like a good idea.  I got out my trusty New Joy of Cooking recipe book and gathered my ingredients.

My recipe, page 253

I like this recipe because it's straight forward.  Nothing fancy.  Just tasty, basic ingredients.

Dry ingredients

The peppers, tomatoes and cayenne were grown in our garden. 

Tomato paste, home grown okra and Old Bay seasoning

Next, I chopped our okra.  I needed 2 cups of chopped okra, but only had 1 1/2.  So I had to add a can of canned okra with tomato.  I like tomato in my gumbo.  So, I also added some tomato paste for added flavor.

Cooked free range chicken

Smoked sausage.  Chicken, pork and beef

Next, I cooked about a pound of free range chicken.  This was cut into about 1/4 inch chunks.













This sausage adds a nice, smokey flavor without being really greasy.  This was also cooked and cut into 1/4 inch chunks.












To get the gumbo itself started, you must first make the roux. This is fairly easy.  I use 1/3 cup olive oil and 1/3 cup flour.

 Make it nice and bubbly.  This adds the smooth thickening and much of the subtle flavorings.

Finished gumbo, ready to eat.

Serve your gumbo over cooked white rice.

I've also been trying an experiment with what's called a Ginger Bug.  Here's a link for the directions.  Ginger Bug starter for homemade ginger ale

Here's what my bug looks like.

I've also been trying a new sourdough recipe my friend Gena Stout shared with me.  This starter includes instant potatoes in the starter.  I've found I really like this recipe.  And the bread tasted really good.  I made a batch for my step daughter Tammy and her partner Rickie when they were here a few weeks ago.  It must have tasted pretty good, because they were cutting off hot hunks and slathering it with butter.  That's how I like it too!

I feed the starter every 4 days or so by adding a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of sugar.  I stir it well, and only add liquid if it's too thick.  When I'm ready to bake, I divide it in half.  I save the reserved starter and put it back in the fridge.

I put the starter I'm using into a large mixing bowl, add 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of whey (or water).  I mix this well and let it sit over night.  The next day, I use the bubble goodness to make my bread using the same recipe I've used in my other sourdough bread posts.  That link is here.  Making cheese and sourdough bread

Damn, the water pump stopped working...

Living in rural America has it's own set of challenges.  Running water, for instance, is a whole subject onto itself.  Getting it where you want it, keeping it under control, and then removing it when you're done with it...  water does seem to have a mind of it's own.  I know it's only the manifestation of gravity at work, but it seems alive to me.

Anyway, so two days ago I am having this VERY strange dream that a friend from my Navy day in Kami Seya Japan was talking to me, shaking me, and telling me I had to wake up because "they" needed me. "You need to wake up!  We need you!"  OK.  So, now I'm awake.  My first thought is  "geeze, that was weird".  I haven't talked to that particular person for, hummmmm, what maybe 15 years.  OK. 

So, I get up and do a quick scan of the house.  Nothing seems to be amiss.  I quickly head to the bathroom.  No problem in here.  I let the dog out for her morning tinkle.  She doesn't seem to find anything particularly interesting going on outside.

Peanut dog... guardian extraordinary!

Peanut and I come back in the house.  My next normal activity is to fill the tea kettle so I can get my morning coffee fix.  I turn on the kitchen faucet, and all I get is air.  WHAT THE HECK?!  I quickly go and check the toilet to make use it had filled when I used it.  Sure enough, the water tank is full.  Now I'm confused!

On go my boots.  With flashlight in hand, I head out to the pump house.  There's not a sound, and there's a fresh very wet hole in the ground in front of the structure.  Exactly where the water line comes out into the ground.  CRAP!!  Is this from a water leak?  From all the rain we had that day (3 inches)?  Damn, damn, damn....

The little red building is the pump house

I tromp back into the house.  What to do?  I need to turn the power off to the pump, just in case the tank out in the pump has sprung a leak or something.  I don't want the pump to keep running and burn up.  Now, I couldn't hear the pump running when I was at the pump house.  But, our pump is 400 feet underground!  That makes it kinda hard to hear.

In order to turn off the power to the pump, I need to access the circuit breaker which is in our bedroom closet.  It's 4:30 AM.  It's dark and my husband John is still sleeping.  As much as I hate to, I gently shake John and tell him "Honey, the water pump's not working.  I need to shut it off."  He mumbles, "well turn the power off".  Yep.  On comes the light.  I open the closet and find the right breaker switch.  Ok.  Pump power is now off.

In the morning light, when my husband and son Josh are up and awake, they discuss the lack of water.  John heads to the pump house and Josh gets the tools.  I follow along, hoping to be useful.  John let's me know my assistance is not required, "go do you're own stuff.  We got this."  OK.  Fine.  And so Peanut and I go feed the chickens.
After about 20 minutes investigation of the inside of the pump house and the wet hole in the yard....  it's determined that the power box inside the pump house has been pulled off the wall.  This shut off the power to the pump.  Out comes the electric screw driver.  The power box is re-installed on the wall.  Now, into the house to turn the power switch back on.  Back out to the pump house.  Sure enough.  Everything is working fine.

And who caused all this commotion?  Here's the culprit.  A damn armadillo!

Digging a nice hole, trying to get into the pump house.  And it pulled the power box right off the wall, turning the water pump off.  I hope the darn thing scared itself silly when it fell down!

How to you armadillo-proof your pump house????  I guess we put rocks around it.  We do live in Arkansas.  We have plenty of rocks.

So, the water's back on in half an hour.  We resume our day and wonder about the stupid armadillo.

Summer vacation with our grand daughter is over

Grand daughter Ariel went back to Georgia a few days ago.  Her mama, my step daughter Tammy, and her partner Rickie got onto the homestead on Monday afternoon.  We had a great visit, ate well, and shared a lot of laughs.  It was wonderful to have them here visiting.  I will miss Ariel, we had a fun summer together.  But, school for her starts on August 8th... so it was time to head for home.

I haven't been posting while she was here.  I wanted to focus my time on her, not on my writing.  I enjoy blogging, although I'm not sure anyone else is enjoying reading it!

I'm slowly learning how to use this Android tablet.  There are so many apps out there.  It's very confusing to me.  I've been using a "personal computer" since those early TRS-80 days back at the Naval War College.  That was in 1981 through 1984.  I had to learn Basic and Fortran.  And C.  I was helping write code to analyse battle damage assessment.  And we were writing it from scratch.  I even had to learn to use "the law of co-signs" before I could write a small program to use it.  I remember that I didn't even know WHAT a co-sign WAS!  But my boss said,"write a subroutine to use the law of co-signs", and so I did.  I guess if I could learn that, I can learn to use this tablet!

Ariel and I spent a lot of time cooking and crafting while she was here.  She learned how to make potato salad, egg salad, strawberry shortcake (the old fashioned kind) from scratch,  and pineapple upside down cake.  She also completed a small plastic canvas needlepoint purse.  She even lined it, put in pockets and embellished to edging.  She used a long piece of flat kumi himo I'd woven as the strap.  We had a fun "girls day" sundying party with Gena Stout and Beth Daniels.  We dyed silk scarves.  Ariel and I also did several kumi himo projects together.

She took her purse, bracelets and scarf to the County Fair.  She did very well, 4 Blue ribbons (First place) and 1 Red (Second place).  Her purse was also under consideration as Best of Show.  That's pretty impressive for a first timer.

HOT HOT HOT here in Arkansas!

Lordy, it's been hot the past week!  Yesterday, it was only 97.  But it was 101 in the SHADE on Tuesday!  That's just tooooo damn hot!

And, of course, the condenser on our air conditioner gave out yesterday.  I guess Josh and I will be on a purchasing adventure first thing this morning.  What a hassle.

With the design and age of our house, we don't have any way to install "central air".  So we have to make do with window units in the bedrooms.  The unit we have in the "great room" is one of those floor standing models from Walmart, and that's the one that gave out.  The great room has 17 foot high ceilings and is about 700 square feet.  That's a big volume of air to cool.  So, we'll have to find something that will handle it.  Add the problem of sliding windows that are only 17 inches wide.... and a floor unit is about our only option.

Anyway, enough about the air conditioning!

Ariel saw a very large rat snake in the guinea cage the other day, eating eggs!  So, Josh had to go shoot the darn thing.  It was 72 inches long!

Grand daughter Ariel with the dead rat snake

Yard patrol expert Peanut inspects the dead snake

Earlier in the week, she found this nasty visitor to the front porch!  Yikes!

Pygmy rattler on the front porch

It was curled up under the rocking chair.  It's a good thing we've been drilling snake awareness into her little brain.  She and the dog were both close enough it could have bitten them.  Now she finally understands why we say NO FLIPFLOPS!  Wear your darn shoes, girl!

The hot weather should continue for another 6 weeks or so.  Josh has been watering the garden.  It's looking great.  We're getting yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers and okra now.  We've harvested potatoes twice.  We should start having tomatoes any day now.  I can't wait!  I love fresh tomato sandwiches!

Summer is here!

Well, summer is finally here.  We've been having hot weather this past week.  The high's have been in the mid to upper 90's.  It was 98 at one point in the day yesterday.  That makes for a lot of sweating!

John, Joshua and I spent some time talking with Ariel yesterday.  We all went out in the driveway and demonstrated many ways to actually start a fire.  She's 10 years old now, old enough to learn how to handle a lighter or matches safely.  She learned how to stack her tinder.  How to feed a fire.  How to restart a fire.  Build a fire bundle to take somewhere with her.  And most importantly, how to put a fire out.  We also made sure she understood that she should NEVER leave a fire unattended in the dry woods at this time of year.  Running for your life from a forest fire is horrifying!

I recently finished a crocheted baby blanket for my youngest niece, Felicia.  Her baby's due in September.  I made it from 100% pima cotton.  It washed up nicely, and should last the baby many years.

Crocheted baby blanket

I used Knit Pick's Crayon yarn.  It's a great yarn!  Too bad it's discontinued.  Oh well.  I have a pretty good stash of it, so I can use it for some time to come.

I've been teaching Ariel some baking skills.  We've made soft pretzels, strawberry shortcake, made some ricotta cheese and then baked whey bread and cinnamon rolls with the whey.  She's really liked them all so far.

We bought some fresh, dressed rabbit from a local lady on Tuesday and I made some fried rabbit.  Leftovers went into rabbit stew the following day.  Both were very yummy.  We still have another rabbit to cook and I think I'll try some hasenpfeffer.  Hasenpfeffer.

All the chicks that hatched 2 months ago have gone to their new homes.  We still have 2 bantam chicks and 3 week old RIR chicks.  Very cute, all of them.

Rhode Island Red chicks

Bantam chicks

Poultry updates

The chicks that hatched out 2 months ago have all found new homes.  Our friend Jennifer took the Brahma Cochin chicks and the RIR/Copper Moran cross chicks.  She posted a picture of them on Facebook.  Very cute!

Jennifer's chicks

Friends Mark and Lisa came on Tuesday and picked up the RIR chicks.  Here's a picture I took of them on Monday.

2 month old RIR chicks

We had the incubator set up and had 18 guinea eggs and 18 chicken eggs set.  And we got 3 chicks.  Not sure if the hatch rate was so low because of storms... muddy conditions on the eggs - killing the embryo?  Temperature wasn't right???  It's frustrating.  But, it seems I have the best hatch rates first thing in the spring.  The later I try, the lower the hatch rate.  Anyway...  We got 2 RIR chicks and one Brahma Cochin chick.  The Cochin chick had a "birth injury", it's one leg was twisted.  And the poor little thing expired yesterday.  These 2 chicks are promised to our friend Beth.  She got 8 RIR chicks from us last year.  Six were hens and 2 roosters.  One rooster has since become Sunday dinner.

Anyway... here's a picture of the 2 newest chicks.

Rhode Island Red chicks hatched 6 days ago

The chicks that our Bantam hen Pebbles hatched 6 weeks ago are doing well.  Pebbles is done raising them, and has started laying again.  So, she's back in with the rooster Fred and the chicks are in a cage by themselves.

Bantam duck wing chicks 6 weeks old

Fred and Pebbles

It's been a week since my husband had surgery on his neck, having a plate inserted to help stabilize his vertebra.  The surgery went well, and he's recuperating nicely.  His horrible migraine headaches seem to have been cured.  That is a great relief for him.  He's suffered with daily headaches for the past year.  Any relief he can get will really add to his quality of life.  His Parkinson's seems to be a bit worse though.  His shaking doesn't stop...  Maybe another week or two of recovery will  help.

Grand-daughter Ariel seems to be enjoying the summer so far.  We took another trip down to the creek and caught crawfish on Tuesday afternoon.  Josh tried to do a little fishing.  But it seems all the larger fish went downstream after the last big rainfall we had last week.  Oh well.  There's always the Spring River.

I hope everyone else is enjoying their late Spring/early Summer.  It's not really Summer until next week after the solstice.  But it's been 95 plus the past few days.  Thankfully, we have air conditioning!

Getting on with the summer

We're back from Georgia, Ariel's come to visit for the summer.  She's having fun so far, I think.  We went down to the creek and played in the water the other day.  That was fun.  She really can laugh.

Our garden is growing well.  My lettuce experiment hasn't gone so well though.  First it got too cold.  Then too dry.  Now... it's just died.  Oh well.

I'll go take some pictures of the garden later today and get them posted.

Ok, so I'm a day late... and kinda behind.  But, I did take the garden pictures.  Here they are!

Squash, cucumbers, Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes

Tomatoes and nasturtiums

Squash, melons and tomatoes