Garden Success

My mother came to stay with us in May to help us with the baby which freed up some time to plant the garden.  I think we were officially crazy for doing our garden with a baby in the house! 

We had a great year as far as yield.  I think I picked 4 colanders full of tomatoes which were turned into pints and pints of sauce and marinara.  I do enjoy canning and glad that I do come winter when we're enjoying what we put up in the summer.  It can feel like a major chore when you spend your precious time off processing all of it and you have to do it when you do it because it is perishable.  As with everything in my life, I'm a good starter.  I make coffee and get out my favorite tools and equipment and enjoy the colors of the produce...

...and then much later that night my feet are swollen and painful from standing and I'm tired and just want to finish and go to bed but I know I still have to pump, etc.  I destroy the kitchen in the process and I'm ashamed to admit it but when I'm on a roll and canning several days in a row, I just leave the stove messy because it is just going to keep getting crusted up until I'm done.

As I said earlier though, it is worth it to enjoy the colorful treats of summer throughout our bleak and bland Minnesota winters.  Marek enjoys his little exer-saucer thing and I talked to him and picked his toys up when he'd throw them down and he was pretty well occupied while I worked in the kitchen.

You can sure tell the difference between this year and years past.  Our first year gardening, one of us would proudly march up the steps, "I picked a zucchini!" and we were thrilled.  Now I think, "Dirty son-of-a!  What am I going to do with these cucumbers?!"  Dave's mother shared a fantabulous pickle recipe and I've pickled so many cucumbers I've literally run out of jars!  That's one way to stop canning! 

I made zucchini tots, zucchini roll ups, zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, zucchini noodles, pizza with zucchini crust, zucchini cobbler, etc.  I've frozen both grated and chopped zucchini.  As crabby as I get sometimes trying to use it up, I miss it in the winter.

This is all that's left of the pint of pickles I cracked open this afternoon.  It's nice to have a little break from canning as the garden slows down.  The squash are finishing up and the only tomatoes left are green and not in any hurry to ripen.  Maybe I'll fry a few on my day off this week and eat them with the marinara I canned earlier!

Redneck Test Kitchen

I have long been a fan of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country on PBS.  They will test a recipe 87 times exploring every possible variable to arrive at the perfect version of the dish.  We've recently enjoyed their slow cooker ribs (awesome!) and bibimbap using their method.  Dave even gave me one of their compilation cook books a few Christmases ago but for the latest episodes and recipes, I have to DVR it and take careful notes.  We wanted to try out their spicy Korean wings and the universe was falling into place for us to make it, namely Target had 4 lbs packages of wings for 50% off on the Cartwheel.

I got this cooker years ago at Aldis because I thought it would be a really useful thing to have if we ever re-did our kitchen or in the event of a zombie apocalypse.  I never got it out of the box before this summer.  I'd been looking for an electric dutch oven for deep frying--because I could use it in the garage or on the deck rather than stinking up the house cooking with oil on the stove.  I didn't want a bona fide deep fat fryer with a basket because it can only be used for that one thing whereas an electric dutch oven would be more versatile.  I then remembered I had this thing sitting in the closet and one pot that would work on it.  Any pans used with induction must be magnetic.  This pan is older than I am and is the lone survivor of the pan set my mother cooked in when I was growing up. 

I still can't get over how awesome this cooker is!  It heats up so quickly and has a temperature setting built into it.  I tried to work quickly since I had raw chicken sitting in direct sunlight.  These wings were breaded with a thin flour and cornstarch batter and fried for 7 minutes, rested for 5 minutes before frying again for another 7.  They're  then tossed into a sauce that includes gochujang paste.  This is the spicy and delicious essence of Korean food.  Dave introduced me to it when we were still dating by taking me to Mirror of Korea restaurant and it's still one of our favorite places to go.  Their food is tasty and spicy and healthy as the dishes are very vegetable heavy with meat used only to flavor the dishes rather than be the centerpiece.  I remember I had a terrible case of tonsillitis that first time and I swear that pepper paste cleared it up.  It will definitely clear out your sinuses!  We even went there the week before I delivered hoping the spicy food would induce labor.  No such luck.

These were so crispy and the sauce was that perfect blend of spicy hot with a hint of sweetness.  Your lips tingle for a while after eating it.  It was a beautiful day for cooking out on the deck.  This recipe has earned a place in my recipe notebook and from here on, I will always watch for wings on sale!