EXCUSE THE MESS!!!

Please excuse the clutter here at the blog right now. I am in the process of redesigning it for easier access so please bear with me. Most of the old recipes are still here (for my old followers) and I am working on a complete new format, which I hope will make it easy to find stuff quickly.

Remember if a recipe has the letters T-A-O attached to it anywhere, it is one of my personal exclusives.

Thanks!!!

T~A~O

Dyeing Easter Eggs Without Using Chemical Dyes....

Start saving those onion skins and carrot tops!   If part of your Easter celebration includes dyeing eggs, try using natural dyes instead of those laced with chemicals.  Natural dyes tend to color your eggs in more earthy, toned down colors, which personally, I like so much better than those garish colors that result from Paas and other commercial dyeing kits.  The following is a chart showing what colors you might be able to achieve from various plant materials and after that, I have included some links on the subject as well as an instructional videos.  Have fun!!!




COLORS AND HOW TO GET THEM (Remember these colors will be much subdued.)

RED
Lots of Red Onions Skins (boiled)
Canned Cherries with Juice
Pomegranate Juice
Raspberries

PINK
Boiled beets or Pickeled Beet Juice
Cranberries or juice
Raspberries
Red Grape Juice

ORANGE
Boiled Yellow Onion Skins
Cooked Carrots
Chili Powder or Paprika (these 2 leave neat little dots on the eggs)

BROWN
Strong coffee (brewed or instant)
Black Walnut Shells
Strong Black Tea

GOLDEN BROWN
Dill Seed

YELLOW
Orange or Lemon Peels
Carrot Tops
Celery Seed
Ground Cumin or Tumeric
Chamomile Tea
Green Tea

YELLOW GREEN
Yellow Apple Peels

GREEN
Spinach Leaves
Liquid Chlorophyll or
Blue Green Algae (I take these for energy and just grind up a tab or 2)

BLUE
Blueberry juice
Red Cabbage Leaves
Purple Grape Juice

VIOLET BLUE
Violet blossoms
Red Onion Skins
Hibiscus Blossoms
Red Wine

LAVENDER
Violet Blossoms plus lemon juice
Red Zinger tea
Diluted Purple Grape Juice





How to make the perfect hardboiled egg (Food Network video) Pretty good tips on how to make perfect boiled eggs.  The dyeing technique she uses is not related to the natural dyeing method so you can turn this off after that point if you want.
Instructions on how to dye eggs using vegetables and spices.  This is a brief video that shows one technique for using natural dyes.





Taken from another of my blogs.....

Help stamp out Food Snobbery!!!!

I think that it is time that I do my part to bring attention to the issue of food prejudice.  Since I am so in touch with food, I am going to address the food snobs of the world here on my blog today. That's right, it is my blog and I can say what I want to about whatever subject I am inclined to write about....mu-ah-hahahahahaaaa.I love the power of the blog!! Okay, I am getting a power high so I better get back on subject. This just has to be said.

My simple definition of food snobbery: Refusing to even try or consider trying a particular fruit, vegetable, regional or local dish for any reason at all. I may not like or regularly eat all these things, but at least I have tried them all. If you are a food snob, let me help to set the record straighter on a couple of things:

Sushi versus Chitlins
I went to a Sushi restaurant in Japan once where there were a bunch of fish swimming happily together in a huge tank. We ordered and the next thing I know, the chef is screaming like a ninja and grabbing a live fish out of the tank and flinging it down on the table in front of us. When he pulled out a cleaver and hacked the head off right in front of me, I almost fainted. Needless to say, I didn't eat sushi (or much of anything else) for a while. Chitlins on the other hand are quite civilized by comparison. I have seen them being cooked before but that is it. Chitlin preparation has the good manners to stay out of the public eye as much as possible.

Grits versus Polenta
Grits and polenta are the same thing. If you let your grits simmer too long and they get really thick, you have made polenta. In Northern Italy, where polenta is a staple dish, it was first made when maize or corn was brought there by explorers. It is cooked down more than grits, but there is not much difference except for the seasoning and serving methods. Of course, grits can be pretty bland and boring if you buy those wussie white ones at the grocery store or you don't know how to cook them. I buy stone ground, organic yellow corn grits. Fortunately, I do know how to cook them (Granny taught me) and mine are delicious.

Livermush versus Blood Sausage
Do I even need to explain this one? Yes, I guess I do.
Livermush is decidedly Southern and Blood Sausage is decidedly disgusting.
Livermush probably had its origins with German settlers to the Southeastern areas of the US from Pennsylvania. Blood Sausage never quite caught on here in this area although I understand it is popular elsewhere. My best friend growing up moved to the US from Europe and I helped them to make BS at their house once. I repeat, ONCE. And I never ate any that I am aware of but sometimes when I ate dinner at their house, I was a little confused as to exactly what I was eating.

Okra versus anything
I already wrote an entire blog entry about okra, so refer to that post to read up on okra here . One quick note about okra: it is NOT indigenous to the Southern US (it just loves our climate); it is native to Africa; is an edible hibiscus; and is eaten all over the world.

Caviar versus Catfish Roe
I have eaten caviar once or twice myself, but don't remember particularily liking it. It tasted a little fishy. And speaking of fishy, there are people willing to pay $50+ for Beluga caviar yet look down their noses of folks who catch and clean their own fish and eat the roe. Joke is on them. Back in the late 1990's, the FDA busted a caviar "importer" who had been packaging and selling catfish roe as Beluga for years. Took DNA testing to determine that the roe in question was not from sturgeon, but in fact from the lowly Ictalarus punctatus or the common channel catfish. Nobody noticed the difference because, lets face it, who eats caviar on a regular basis? Do you know anyone who does? Neither do I.

Cow Peas versus English Peas
Cow Peas- A drought tolerant and warm weather crop, cowpeas are well-adapted to the drier regions of the tropics, where other food legumes do not perform well. It also has the useful ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen through its nodules, and it grows well in poor soils with more than 85% sand and with less than 0.2% organic matter and low levels of phosphorus. In addition, it is shade tolerant, and therefore, compatible as an intercrop with maize, millet, sorghum, sugarcane, and cotton. This makes cowpea an important component of traditional intercropping systems, especially in the complex and elegant subsistence farming systems of the dry savannas in sub-Saharan Africa. English peas are just a cooler weather, slightly different cultivar of Fabaceae or Leguminosae, or the legume family. There is nothing sophistocated or gourmet about English (green) peas. In fact, if you compared the common field pea grown in the South to the English pea, the English pea is by comparison a thin and pale relative, as far as adaptability and usage. 

Water Cress versus Creasy Greens
If you ever watched the Dobie Gillis show back in the 60's, you most probably remember Mrs. Chatsworth Osborne, Jr., Resident RB&S, who was forever giving parties where they served watercress sandwiches. This is probably about the silliest food affectation I know of, in all of my culinary experience. Watercress on buttered slices of bread with the crusts cut off was supposedly the height of snooty cuisine. Somehow the idea of a weed that grows along the sides of the road, in ditches where there is standing water pasted onto a tiny piece of white bread doesn't really impress me all that much. And why couldn't they even have a "big boy" sandwich with the crusts still on...did those rich people have weak choppers or just still long for mama? I don't get it.

Creasy greens on the other hand are delightful. I don't remember my Granny even planting this wonderful little green plant, but she certainly got excited once it showed up in the corn field in the fall. It grows in a rosette, kind of like arugula. Today, you can buy creasy green seeds (Upland Cress is how it is sold) and plant some for yourself, but in the foothills and mountains of NC, they were/are considered a wild, uncultivated food, not to be taken for granted. I think maybe planting creasys would not set well with some old timers. Creasy greens are cousin to watercress and the name "creasy" is probably an Appalachian mispronunciation of cress. They are peppery and add a little spice to other greens.

There are lots more foods I could mention, but my fingers are tired and my break is over and I need to get back to some real work. Hope you enjoyed my little tongue in cheek (Really? Maybe.) missive today.

Tomatoes I Have Grown

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Big Rainbow

Big Zebra

Black Brandywine

Black Cherry

Black Ethiopian

Black Pear

Black Prince

Black

Brown Berry
Carbon

Copia

Golden Currant

Gold Grape

Great White

Green Grape

Green Zebra

Henderson's Pink

Honey Grape

Isis Candy
Ivory Pear

Jaunne Flamme

Jolly

Juliet

Long Keeper

Mortgage Lifter, Radiator Charlie

Odoriko

Pineapple

Pink Brandywine

Purple Calabash

Cherokee Purple

Purple Cherry

Red Pear

Red Zebra


San Marzano Paste

Snow White Cherry

Sungold

Sweet 100

Black Plum

Red Grape
Tomato Berry

White Beauty

White Queen

White Tomesol

Yellow Brandywine


Yellow Mortgage Lifter

Yellow Roma

Yellow Teardrop