i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
If you walk along the streets of Flushing or NYC’s Chinatown, carts located on the corners waft the heavenly spiced scent of Xinjiang style kebabs to passerby’s. Lamb, beef, chicken are available, but delectable organ meats such as kidney, liver, heart, intestine, and tendon jockey …
One of the things I am thankful for after starting to grow my own food is also being friends with other homesteaders, big and small, who also focus on being mindful in terms of where our food comes from and the care it takes into …
Every year, during the course of my crabbing adventures I catch a few soft shelled crabs. When that happens, I start thinking about what deliciousness I can make with them.
Soft shelled crabs are crabs that have just molted from their shells and their new shells have not hardened just yet. This occurs so that they can grow bigger. In this phase, they’re eaten whole, shell and all, and make for delightful fried dishes. Po Boy’s and sushi (Spider roll, anyone?) and other delicately crispy, crabby, treats that take no effort on the part of the person eating.
While you could also use them for Crab Nanbanzuke, today I decided for more southern fare: fried soft shelled crab and grits. I drizzled a lemon garlic Bourbon butter sauce over it, and topped it with a fried egg. I thought it looked cute, like the crab is wearing a little sunhat. Chives from the garden, some slices of radish for color and bite, and some cheddar cheese made brunch a decadent affair.
You should clean the crab by cutting off the front and pulling out the stomach (crabs are scavengers), lifting each point of the shells up and remove the gills. Finally, cut off the apron on the stomach. I only lightly dredged it in a cornstarch spice mixture because I find that very often, the batter is too thick which detracts from the original flavor of the crab.
Every year, inevitably, all sorts of plants emerge from my compost pile from the seeds of the stuff I throw into it. Squash and pumpkin most commonly, especially since much of the Halloween decorations get tossed in at the end of the season. This year …
A cascade of blue claws this year has me cleaning and freezing them around the clock (I remove the stomach before freezing and scrub, so that they don’t have a fishy flavor due to crabs being scavengers.) Nanbanzuke is an easy Japanese side dish most …
I can be very extra with my food, and this is one such case. This morning me and the family went down to the docks, expecting to come away with maybe a couple crabs and some fish. Instead, we ended up pulling up two and a half dozen big, fat, blue claw crabs in just an hour and a half. As such, the race to figure out what to do with them has begun. I called up my mom who requested me to make and bring some ganjang gejang for her as she has been stuck in Costa Rica for over 5 months due to Covid and finally returned last week (thankfully they are not without projects as their little mall is in the midst of construction.)
I separated the males and the females (which I am praying will be full of roe) and the females will go to that Korean raw marinated crab delicacy, while the males will be otherwise used for meat. I also pulled up two soft shells which have gone into the freezer, likely destined for a fried dish—like tempura, maybe with a sweet and spicy chili sauce. Oh the possibilities.
I decided I’d make a deviled eggs version of a spicy california roll, since, why not—except I’d use real, fresh crabmeat. Imitation crab meat can, if course, be used as well. There’s two ways to make this and it depends on what you want to showcase. The yolks can either be done with avocado, or with wasabi. Both are quite delicious. This one I used wasabi in the yolk, so I sliced some avocado for the top.
It is a tower of decadence and I ended up eating three whole eggs before stopping myself. Deviled eggs are a great way to accidentally eat a buttload of eggs, and I am unable to keep away from temptation. I imagine some crisped rice cake on top would take it to another level, but as it is I’m quite satisfied.
As we get further into blue claw season in Long Island, I am busy making tasty things with them. This lemon crab pasta is really easy to make, and the splash of cream at the end gives this a delicious richness that is difficult to …
I was recommended tomato chutney as a possible recipe when my tomatoes started ripening in earnest. I have never had any before, to my knowledge, which is a pity because after this week, I’ll be canning as much as I could of this delicious condiment. …
And just like that, my tomatoes have started to cascade in red globes and spheres of all sizes, and with them come the abundantly delicious things I could make. Before I start the process of storing them (most likely dehydrated and powdered), I wanted to fully enjoy them in all their glory.
I tend to eat pretty healthy in general, indulging occasionally—but when I do indulge, I go all the way. I was actually forced to make this because one of the moderators in the Backyard Poultry Discord Server that I run, which doubles as a homesteading chat server, made a decked out grilled cheese with his tomatoes, and it looked SO GOOD that I absolutely had to make one too.
Mine is nowhere near as fancy, just two slices of sourdough, juicy tomato slices, shredded basil from the garden, American cheese, and enough butter to land me in the hospital, but it is delicious and my regret was only for my waistline. I use American cheese because it’s the OG for grilled cheese, and I will not be convinced otherwise—stringy cheese would, in my opinion, be too reminiscent of pizza, and I’m not making a pizza sandwich (yet).
Usually it doesn’t really matter which side goes down first, but here I made sure the tomato side was first so that it has access to heat the longest.
I didn’t grow cucumbers this year but luckily a friend did (and what cucumbers they grew!) I traded them a jar of floral raspberry jam, and ferreted home a bag of cucumbers as thick as my wrist (I clearly came out on top in this …