Simple Black Bean Cakes w/Eggs

This is one of my all time favorite winter meals. I hope you will give it a try!

Simple Black Bean Cakes Topped with Over Medium Eggs

This recipe makes about 12 bean cakes (6 servings).

Drain and Rinse 2 14 oz cans of black beans.

In a medium skillet sauté a handful of diced onion and two cloves of finely chopped garlic.

Mash the beans and onion/garlic mixture with a potato masher until smooth. Using a fork incorporate about ¼ cup of cornmeal. Form bean mixture into 2 inch balls and flatten into cakes.

Heat cakes in skillet over medium heat until brown on both sides and warm in the center.

Top each pair of bean cakes with 2 eggs fried over medium, a couple of spoonfuls of green salsa and some bleu cheese or feta crumbles.

Serve with a salad of baby field greens!

I’m linking this post to Real Food Wednesdays on Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Password to Dressing Broiler Hens

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PICTURES OF CHICKEN BLOOD AND GUTS AND OTHER GROSSNESS.

I am including pictures in this post for informational purposes only. The pictures were taken in a respectful manner and are not to be shared for any purpose other than as an educational tool for those interested in learning how to process  broiler hens for themselves.

If you think you are going to be offended, please don’t read it.

The rest of you are invited to read more. The password is Free2Farm. Please click here to enter the password. Thanks y’all!

This post is linked to Homestead Barn Hop, Hearth and Soul, Real Food Wednesdays, Works for Me Wednesdays, Simple Lives Thursdays, and Fight Back Friday.

Fried Morels

Well I may be a little late with this post but all that talk of poke sallet got me thinkin’ about wild food and next thing you know I had mushrooms on my mind. I didn’t know a thing about mushroom hunting until I met my husband. His folks are from Ohio where wild morels are a pretty big deal. Each spring his family takes to the woods in Vinton County with hopes of discovering these tasty morsels. Morels can be found across the US from April through mid June. They like to grow at the base of certain types of trees including elms and ash or in old apple orchards.

Here’s how our Ohio folks like to cook up a batch of morels:

First of all you’ve got to quarter your shrooms and soak them in salt water for several hours to get bugs off.

Then you drain them, pat ‘em dry and dredge them in seasoned (salt ‘n pepper) flour.

Then you fry ‘em up in butter and serve with steak and mashed potatoes or just eat them right out of the skillet.

While fried morels are a tasty springtime treat, my favorite thing about huntin’ for mushrooms is getting outside with my favorite peeps!

I’m linking this post to Hearth and Soul.

Poke Sallet Scramble

My friend at the feed store gave me this recipe. She and her husband drive around this time of year looking for wild patches of pokeweed. They love the stuff. She says the younger leaves make the best salad.

Oh, and I should mention that while pokeweed, including the roots and berries, has been widely used in folk remedies the entire plant especially the berries but also the tender greens, are considered toxic. That’s why you have to cook the tar out of it and drain off the water between boilings.

Poke Sallet Scramble:

Start with a mess of fresh poke greens

Shake debris from greens

Rinse twice

Parboil for 30 minutes

Drain

Parboil for another 30 minutes

Drain and squeeze dry

Heat bacon drippings in a skillet over med high heat

Add drained greens to hot bacon drippings and cook over med heat for several minutes

Lightly beat 12 eggs with ¼ cup sweet milk or goat milk

Pour egg mixture into skillet with greens and scramble until done

Here’s some more unverified info about pokeweed I found on wikipedia:

Since pioneer times, pokeweed has been used as a folk remedy to treat many ailments. It can be applied topically or taken internally. Topical treatments have been used for acne and other ailments. Internal treatments include tonsillitis, swollen glands and weight loss. Dried berries were ingested whole as a treatment for boils, taken 1 berry per day for 7 days. Grated pokeroot was used by Native Americans as a poultice to treat inflammations and rashes of the breast. Independent researchers are investigating phytolacca’s use in treating AIDS and cancer patients. Especially to those who have not been properly trained in its use, pokeweed should be considered dangerous and possibly deadly.

Ingestion of poisonous parts of the plant may cause severe stomach cramping, nausea with persistent diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes bloody, slow and difficult breathing, weakness, spasms, hypertension, severe convulsions, and death. However, consuming fewer than 10 uncooked berries is generally harmless to adults. Several investigators have reported deaths in children following the ingestion of uncooked berries or pokeberry juice. Severe poisonings have been reported in adults who ingested mature pokeweed leaves and following the ingestion of tea brewed from one-half teaspoonful of powdered pokeroot.

Pokeweed berries yield a red ink or dye, which was once used by aboriginal Americans to decorate their horses. Many letters written home during the American Civil War were written in pokeberry ink; the writing in these surviving letters appears brown. The red juice has also been used to symbolize blood, as in the anti-slavery protest of Benjamin Lay. A rich brown dye can be made by soaking fabrics in fermenting berries in a hollowed-out pumpkin.

 This post is linked to Hearth and Soul.