What to do While Recovering from Surgery

I am well on the mend now and back to work but during this long, long, long, recovery from back surgery I turned to reading and cooking. I read the entire Inspector Morse series by Colin Dexter except the last one where he dies, 2 Dalgliesh novels by PD James, the Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, the Golden Journey by Agnus Turnbull, and the Kings Physician by Edgar Maas along with a few lessor tomes. Quite an eclectic grouping but still basically following my Anglophile phase. I have also found that I enjoy the writing and turn of phrase prevalent in early 20th Century English and French novels and I am entering that phase with my new reading program.

But cooking is where both Holly and I like to be adventurous and we enjoy cooking together, creating together, eating together, and having her with me at a meal would make an MRE seem like a feast.

                                                          Fresh Beef Tongue from a local farmer...

                                                    Chop up some fresh veggies and herbs...

                                                 And throw it in the crock pot with some spices and let er cook. For the squeamish, you peel the skin after its cooked and the resulting meat is the most beefy roast beef you can have. Its great sliced for sandwiches or as a main course.

                                         Some salmon patties one day with homemade tartar sauce

                       Or a stew, dont buy the cast offs from the grocer packaged as stew meat....seriously.

                                 Fresh beef cut from a GOOD cut of meat and to the size you like is much more             palatable and you can really tell the difference.

 And we harvested and cleaned Chinese 5 color peppers and more Cayenne for drying.

 We like spicy food and use a lot of peppers and these little colorful guys are HOT.

 Holly's famous fried chicken, cornbread and our farm grown black eyed peas. Not only does Holly make a killer fried chicken, her corn bread is the best I've ever had. Its cooked in a cast iron skillet and always has goodies inside like crackins, peppers, or fresh corn nibblets.

  And finally, we just shucked a bunch more black eyed peas in our first harvest of them this year (much more to go still on the vine. We dry them then put them in freezer bags and store them there so they dont mold. I can eat these babies almost every day.

So thats a sampling of how we eat around here. Fresh, differing, and made together as a family. If you come to our house to eat, you will be put to work as everyone gets in the act. This weekend, we tack fresh chicken livers, cook them up and add hard boiled eggs and onions for some chopped liver (to be spread on bagels).....makes me want to start right now!