Watermelon Pickles

Quick! While watermelons are in abundance! MAKE THESE PICKLES! I would never, ever steer you wrong. As I've said elsewhere, these things are DIVINE. And as always, if I can do this, ANYONE can do this. Here's the recipe.

WATERMELON PICKLES

3 lbs. watermelon rind, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
5c Sugar
2c Apple Cider Vinegar
1c Water
2T Whole Cloves
1 ½ T Whole Allspice
2T Stick Cinnamon (I wasn't sure how to translate that, but I used 6 sticks)
1 Lemon sliced

Let cubes soak overnight in large pot in salted water to cover. Drain. Cover with fresh cold water. Bring to boil and cook over low heat until tender. Drain. Combine rest of the ingredients and stir over medium heat until tender. Boil 5 minutes. Add watermelon-rind cubes; simmer until transparent-About 15 minutes. Remove spices and pack pickles into jars and process in a water-bath canner for 15 minutes.

And here are my notes, gathered from asking around and examining other recipes:

Peel the smooth, shiny outer skin from the rind, using a potato/carrot peeler. You don't have to take off any more than the outermost skin.

For the overnight soaking, use 1/4 cup pickling salt for each quart of water needed to completely cover rind chunks. For the rind from one large watermelon (the weight of which I have NO idea), this came out to about 2 quarts of water and 1/2 cup of pickling salt.

I rinsed the cubes twice, then covered them in fresh water and brought them to a slow boil. I cooked them until they were tender but not yet translucent.

I went ahead and pre-cooked the pickling mixture just enough to get all the sugar dissolved and get the ingredients to start melding together well.

After combining everything, I'm pretty sure I let it cook for a bit longer than 15 minutes. I let the melond-rind chunks get fairly translucent, but not soft or soggy.

I would add that YES, you DO need a jar funnel. Don't be like me and think you don't. You do. You also need one of those jar-lifters, while you're at it. Now get pickling!

Pea-Hull Jelly (Purple Hull Peas)

After shelling purple-hull peas, save the hulls, and wash them at least three times.

Pack clean hulls into a heavy pot, and cover with about 5 cups of water.

Boil hulls until tender. It's not the hulls you're concerned with--it's the purplish "tea" that you're making of the boiling water. Steep those babies until the water's pretty and purple.

Strain the "tea" from boiling the hulls, and pour 4 cups of it back into the saucepan.

Bring juice to a boil, then add 1 package of Sure-Jell (fruit pectin). Return liquid to a rolling boil, and add 5 cups of sugar.

Return liquid to a rolling boil again, and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside for 5 minutes. Skim. Pour into hot, sterilized jars, seal, and process in a water-bath for 5 minutes. Set jars aside on a towel for 24 hours.

Easiest Ever Broccoli-Ham Casserole

Start with this stuff--
leftover ham (or chicken, or mushrooms, or whatever)
1 cup or 2 cups cooked brown rice
1 cup sharp cheddar or cheese of choice
1/2 cup light sour cream
1 can reduced fat cream of mushroom (or celery, or chicken, or whatever) soup
bag of frozen broccoli
BaconSalt (or seasonings of choice)
buttered breadcrumbs:

Whomp everything except the breadcrumbs together right in the baking pan.

Top with buttered breadcrumbs.

Bake at 350 about 30 minutes, until heated through and bubbly. Tip your assistant.

Leftover-Fest Jambalaya

I got several things accomplished at once today, and I'm kinda proud. Tired, but proud. First of all, the kitchen is clean. The kitchen. Is. Clean. You have no idea how big that is. I made a good, hot dinner, and did it using leftovers and Stuff I Already Had On Hand. That is also huge. AND, everyone ate it. Admittedly, Bella only ate a molecule or two, but she is the preschooler human equivalent of an air fern.

OK, so here's what I had:

Ham left over from what Alex brought home last night
A partial package of frozen tail-on shrimp
Chicken broth that I cooked boil-in-bag rice in last week, and then froze
Three leftover pieces of frozen garlic bread
One packet of instant brown rice
Half a bag of frozen chopped onions
A can of diced tomatoes with peppers, onion and celery
File' powder
Garlic powder
Thyme
Olive Oil
Butter
Louisiana hot sauce
Coarse Kosher salt

And here's what I made with it:

And here's how--again, you can change this up about a million ways, however you like. I started with a pat of butter and a splash of olive oil in a Dutch oven.

Sauteed the onion and garlic (or garlic powder) until browned.

Added about a cup of uncooked, instant brown rice, and a couple cups of chopped ham, stirred to coat in oil.

Added the can of diced tomatoes (the variety with celery and peppers added).

Added the 2-3 cups of chicken broth, that I'd partially thawed in the microwave.

Reduced heat, covered, and simmered for a while, cooking down the liquid, while also adding gumbo file' powder to thicken.

When optimal thickness was reached, added the frozen shrimp and cooked just 'til done, a couple of minutes.

Removed shrimp, pulled tails off because my family would whine about having to do it themselves, put tailless shrimp back into jambalaya, made final adjustments to seasoning and thickness, then served with garlic bread, hey presto.

This is kind of a big deal for me, because I'm bad about accumulating ingredients in my pantry and freezer, and not using them. To stop doing that is one of the goals I'm trying to reach with all this (there are MANY), because to not do so is wasteful of food and money, and we certainly don't have money to spare around here. I work too hard organizing coupon sprees to waste the spoils of my victory.