Gordon's Living Site

Ginger Garlic Green Beans

Here's another recipe inspired by September's Gourmet Magazine. It always helps if your ingredients are home grown. I used canned beans from my garden and next summer I'll try this or a similar recipe using fresh beans. The ginger is home grown, too. I literally dug it fresh to use. The garlic was frozen from this spring.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 pints canned home grown green beans
• 3 home grown garlic cloves
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1 T home grown ginger, grated
• 2 tsp unflavored rice vinegar
• 1 T olive oil
• 1/2 tsp Asian sesame oil

DIRECTIONS

Chop and crush garlic to make a paste. Grate ginger. Mix ingredients and then mix with beans. This is best if served cold.

Peppercorn Crusted Pork Loin

This recipe is inspired by a recipe in Gourmet magazine September '09. Their recipe called for beef tenderloin but this rub can work with just about anything. I especially like the uniqueness of ground whole cloves in the rub.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 tsp White peppercorn
• 1 1/2 tsp coriander seed
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp ground mustard (it's better if you have mustard seed)
• 1/2 tsp whole cloves
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp ground cardomom (seeds from pods if you have it)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 2-3 lb pork loin
• 2 T olive oil

DIRECTIONS

Combine dry ingredients and toast in a dry hot pan (not Teflon) until seeds start to brown slightly. A little at a time, grind with mortar and pestle. Rub over loin, including ends. You can do the night before if desired. Add olive oil to pan and brown pork loin 3 to 5 minutes on both sides. Place loin in covered roaster and bake in 350F oven until it is 120F on the inside. This takes around 45 minutes. Remove and let sit 10 minutes before slicing.

Grean Bean Casserole

If you look on the internet for recipes, you'll find about 3 ways to make green bean casserole. People still manage to leverage that into about 75,000 links. I've tried to make mine a little more imaginative than most of those. I hope you'll like it.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 pints home grown green beans
• 2 cans cream of celery
• 2 large mushrooms, chopped
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• salt and pepper to taste
• handful of grated cheese (use your imagination, this is an opportunity to personalize it)
• bacon bits
• french-fried onion bits

DIRECTIONS

Mix first five ingredients together. Place in oiled casserole dish. Spread cheese over top, add about a cup of onion bits and a generous helping of bacon bits. Place covered dish into oven preheated to 375F. Bake about 35-40 minutes.

You can personalize this by using cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup. Try a different kind of cheese. Try adding some finely chopped peppers and garlic.

Homemade Granola Bars

I'm getting better at this. Instead of baking this in the oven, I shaped bars and placed them in my food dehydrator.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/3 cups whole oats
• 1/2 c peanuts, chopped
• 2/3 c almonds, chopped
• 1/2 c cashews, chopped
• 1/4 c sunflower kernels
• 1 1/3 c raisin
• 2 T flax seed
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1/2 c water
• 1 c honey

DIRECTIONS

Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Stir in water. Last, stir in honey. Roughly shape into bars and place in food dehydrator. Set about 105F for about 24 hours. These should keep a good while if wrapped in foil, but I keep them in the freezer just in case. They are so good, I almost hate to eat them! Great snack if you're going outdoors or a sporting event and way cheaper and healthier than anything you'll be able to buy.

More salsa

This has a lot of peppers in it, but it isn't very hot after all. Most of these are sweet peppers and not hot peppers. The only thing not home grown are the 2 Roma tomatoes I added to give color. I ran this in a blender, but I'd recommend you chop everything finely instead. If you have a food processor it's that much better.

INGREDIENTS   

• 4 small Ancho chili
• 3 medium Anaheim peppers
• 2 small Da Nang Market chili
• 9 small Red chili pepper
• 4 small tomatillas
• 2 pints tomatoes
• 3 T lime juice
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 Roma tomatoes

DIRECTIONS

Chop everything very finely. Place in boiler and simmer slowly around 2 hours, covered. Refrigerate. It should keep at least a couple of weeks. It's hard to tell, though, since it disappears much sooner.

Homemade Salsa

I harvested a LOT of Holy Moly peppers yesterday. Now, what do I do with them? You can't get these in the store, I bought the seed from Territorial Seed Company and grew my own. They grow up to 8 inches long, are a deep green and are moderately hot.

The homegrown ingredients in this recipe are Holy Moly peppers, jalapeno peppers, onion, garlic, some of the tomatoes and tomatillas.

INGREDIENTS

• 8 chopped Roma tomato
• 1 pound home-grown chopped white onion
• 4 long home-grown Holy Moly pepper
• 5 small home-grown jalapeno
• 15 small cloves home-grown garlic
• 5-6 home-grown tomatillas
• 1 pint home-grown heirloom tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup apple-cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon course ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon corn starch dissolved in hot water
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

DIRECTIONS

Chop ingredients and add everything but cilantro to large pot.Heat to boiling and simmer about 2 hours. Chop and add cilantro and simmer another hour. Transfer to containers and place in refrigerator while still hot. This is quite acidic and hot so it should keep in the refrigerator for a good while.

The small amount of sugar gives this a surprising and subtle sweetness I haven't found in commercial salsas. The first taste of this salsa doesn't seem to be hot but the pepper builds on you quickly. I found this true of the raw Holy Moly as well. It doesn't taste at all hot when you first try it, but it gets that way pretty soon.

Joel likes this a lot. That's a major endorsement.

You can substitute other peppers for the Holy Moly. Try different peppers to adjust it hotter or cooler as you like. Besides being good served as a dip with chips, I think it might add something to a winter soup if you added a 1/4 to a 1/2 cup to your soup stock.