Tomato Aspic

Tomato Aspic is an old traditional Southern side dish. There are as many variations as there are cooks, each claiming the best and often secret recipe. Many recipes add chopped vegetables, celery, cabbage, peppers, etc….Some Southern cooks use lemon jello instead of plain gelatin. This recipe is a well seasoned basic tomato aspic.

Tomato Aspic

2 cups tomato juice
8 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons vinegar
1 onion, chopped
juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
salt to taste
1 teaspoon celery seed
2 tablespoons gelatin
1/2 cup water

Dissolve gelatin in 1/2 cup water. Cook together everything except lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Adjust seasoning, add lemon juice, Worcestershire and dissolved gelatin. Pour into desired molds and chill. Serve on a bed of lettuce

Tomato Juice Cocktail

If you have plenty of tomatoes this year, try this wonderfully refreshing and easy tomato juice cocktail. Full of vitamins and flavor… Its like a supercharged tomato juice. This takes a little time to cook and sieve the tomatoes, but it is easy.
Tomato Juice Cocktail

2 quarts tomato juice and pulp made from fresh tomatoes
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 Tablespoon Salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon thyme
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
hot sterile pint or quart jars

Wash and cut up (but do not peel) the desired amount of tomatoes. Boil until tomatoes are soft enough to go through a sieve easily. Put through sieve, then measure. For every 2 quarts of juice and pulp, add the above seasonings (except Worcestershire). Bring to a boil and cook for 5 to 8 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce – 2 teaspoons for every 2 quarts juice. Pour into hot sterile jars and seal. Process immediately for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Baked Cajun Catfish

This recipe comes from the Mississippi – Louisiana area, but is not spicy hot like you might expect from the Cajun area. Try it! Read more

Avocado Orange Salad

Make Avocado Orange Salad with fresh oranges or tangarines during the winter, if you can get a ripe avocado. In the summer use canned mandarin oranges for an acceptable substitute.

Salad:
1 medium head Bibb lettuce
1 small cucumber
1 avocado
3/4 cup fresh orange or tangarine slices or an 11 ounce can mandarin oranges
2 Tablespoons diced green onion

Dressing:
½ teaspoon grated orange zest
¼ cup orange juice
½ cup salad oil
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

Tear lettuce into small pieces, slice cucumber thin, slice avocado and remove the seeds from orange slices.
Toss all of salad ingredients together, or arrange on 4 salad plates.
Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a blender and blend.
Pour dressing over salad and toss. Serves 4

North Carolina Style Barbecue — Pulled Pork

Almost everyone in the South will agree that pork means barbecue! But travel a few miles and the barbecue changes. The sweet tomato style of sauce popular in the Smoky Mountain regions gets diluted with vinegar for this North Carolina style barbecue. True barbecue gurus would disagree with me about the cooking method, but to me easy means use the oven and timer. No fire to tend, but that rich flavor is still there!

4 to 5 pound Boston Butt pork roast
1 large onion, chopped
1 ½ cups water
1 cup vinegar
½ cup catsup
½ cup Worcestershire sauce
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons dry mustard
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground red pepper

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Place roast in a roasting pan.
3. Combine remaining ingredients, stir well, and pour over roast.
4. Cover and bake until meat is very tender – approximately 5 to 6 hours.
5. Remove from oven and let cool.
6. Remove roast from sauce and chop meat or “pull” apart with 2 forks, removing excess fat as you go.
7. Skim excess fat from sauce. Return the meat to the sauce, stir well, and bake at 325 for another 15 minutes or until heated through.
8. Serve as is – yum- or on buns with coleslaw.

The Best Bread and Butter Pickles!

I love the flavor of bread and butter pickles- that sweet and sour mixture is just perfect to my taste! My favorite part is the onions, so I usually add a little more than it calls for here, but you can be flexible. Beware: an old wives tale says that the pickles will take on the personality of the person preparing them. So watch your mood- unless you like your pickles sour!

1 gallon cucumbers
8 small onions
2 green peppers (optional, but good)
½ cup salt
cracked ice
5 cups sugar
½ teaspoon tumeric
½ teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons whole mustard seeds
2 tablespoons whole celery seeds
5 cups vinegar (or more if needed to almost cover pickles)
6-8 pint jars, lids, and rings

1. Slice cucumbers, onions and peppers into very thin slices.
2. Cover with salt. Cover completely with cracked ice and stir.
3. Top with a weighted lid. (I put a plate on top that just fits the container and then weight it down with a heavy can, etc. on top of that.) Allow to stand for 3 hours.
4. Prepare the Jars by cleaning and covering with boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes, then keep hot until ready to fill.
5. Drain cucumbers, but DO NOT RINSE.
6. Combine remaining ingredients and cook until the sugar dissolves.
7. Pour over the cucumbers, bring to a boil.
8. Put in sterile jars and seal while still hot. Hand tighten lid. No additional processing is needed.
9. Put jars upside down to cool. Any jar that does not seal should be put in the fridge for immediate use.

NOTES: Your cucumbers should be fresh. If they have been standing around too long, the pickles will have holes in them. If this happens to you, your cucumbers were not as fresh as they could have been. (You can still eat them.) Its best to pick your cucumbers as close to pickling time as possible, but do not let them get too big- you want the small to medium sized cucumbers. The large ones are all seeds.