Dave's Kitchen - Brined Green Beans

When bringing in produce from your garden, there are times when you have more than you can eat but not enough to warrant getting out the tools and utensils out to process it.

Produce can be stored in the fridge until you have enough but but things like Green Beans can spoil if kept more than a few days.

Green Beans can be "Brined" and kept that way for weeks without spoiling.  That can preserve them until enough are gathered to work with.

 

Brined Green Beans

To brine the beans, wash snap, string or cut them like you would
when preparing them to cook or can.

In a crock, cooking pot or other container, put a thin layer of green
beans in, then add a layer of salt and repeat until the container
is full or you run out of beans.  Top with an additional layer of
salt. Cover the container and set it aside.

Fairly quickly the beans will start to "cry" and after a day or
so the beans will be "swimming" in a brine formed by the salt and
liquid that was drawn out. They can be covered and stored this
way for weeks.  Just make sure the level of the liquid
stays above the green beans. If the brine level drops, just add
water.

More beans can be added and layered with salt as they come
in from the garden until the container is full.  Again, just make sure the
level of the liquid stays above the beans.

When you get ready to prepare them for preserving or eating, drain
the brine and soak them in fresh water for several hours or until the
salt leeches out, and process them like fresh beans. They can be
dehydrated, strung to air dry, or canned. Just process them
and treat them like fresh.

Keep in mind that if the beans are left in the brine for too long, they
may start to ferment and become "Pickles". Theres nothing wrong
with Pickled Green Beans but they will need to be treated like pickle
and processed accordingly.

 

 

 The freshly snapped green beans in a bin
layered in salt.

 

 

 The same bin after it has sat overnight, the salt has drawn
the juices out of the beans and formed the brine.


This is not an indefinite long term method of preserving and store
your green beans but is a good process to be familiar with.

 

 

 

I have a fresh email from Dave about the beans:

 

Just a note about the green beans...

We had our Thanksgiving meal and one thing on the menu was Green Beans so I made up a batch of the ones that have been in the brine for about 10 days now. They were every bit as good(and crisp) as if they had been prepared fresh. I soaked them in fresh water overnight then lightly boiled and drained the water again, they cooked up with just enough salt to season them to taste.

 

I am leaving the rest of the batch in the brine to see just how long they will last before they start to pickle.

 

Dave...

 

I hope he'll let us know about the green bean brine-to-pickles process!


Dave's Kitchen: Making hominy

Dave's been busy in his kitchen lately, while most of us slowed down as gardening season winds to a close and the harvest is preserved and stored.  Here's what he wrote to me today:

I use "Feed Corn" purchased from a local feed store to make Hominy
and to grind as "Corn Meal".  Many will say that this is not a "Healthy"
practice but I dont accept that argument as a general rule. That debate
can be pursued in other places.

I dont use "Deer Corn"; it is usually full of garbage, bits of cob and less
than perfect kernels. Also it doesn't usually have any limits of "Aflatoxin"
content like much of the feed corn, and all the corn marketed for human
consumption does.


How To Make Hominy

Pick and clean 2 quarts of corn.  The kernels can be poured on a table

top and picked through as one would do for dry beans. Reject any
kernels that are broken, damaged or otherwise not perfect. Cracked
kernels will break down in the soaking process and "Gum Up" the
works, making the finished hominy harder to rinse clean.

Place the cleaned/washed corn in a 4-gallon granitware pan and fill it
to about 4 inches of the top. Add 1 rounded tablespoon of Lime(Pickling
Lime from the Grocery store will work) per pint of corn and gently mix
it into the water. Be careful not to let the dust get airborne, it can be

hazardous to breathe. It may seem like a lot of water for the amount
of corn but at the end of the the "Liming", you will see why.

Place the pot on the stove and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to just
under a boil. Cover and let it sit for about 4-6 hours, stirring occasionally.

When the kernels have doubled or even tripled in size, pinch one between
your fingers and if there is no "Dry" material inside, it is ready to rinse.
Drain the lime water and rinse the corn in clean water and return it to
the pot.

Fill the pot with warm water and, using your hands, gently rub the
kernels together to remove any dissolved shell that may still be on
them, and rinse. Repeat until the water is clean and clear.

At this point the "Hominy" is finished and can be eaten. I usually
dehydrate and grind it into meal and use it to make cornbread, but it
can eaten fresh, cooked with peppers and onions and eaten like corn,
or made into tortillas. It's also good cooked into soups or chopped fine
in a food processor and added to Chili.

To dehydrate/dry the Hominy, it can be spread on a flat surface in a
warm, dry and clean location that is free of insects and other pests.
To dry in a dehydrator, spread the kernels on your tray in a thin
layer and dry at medium heat. If the dehydrator heat is set too
high, it may "Glaze" the outsides of the kernels and seal in the
moisture.

This batch of Hominy is destined to be ground into "Meal" so I
left much of the "Germ" in during the rinsing.  It adds flavor, fat
and other nutrients. If you are going to use the hominy as a table
dish, you may want to rinse the germ out for a better appearance.

 Two quarts of whole kernel corn straight from the feed
bag, along with the "cast offs" seperated from it. This bag of
corn had more broken kernels than most I buy but it was still
a good clean bag of grain.

The limed and rinsed kernels, ready
to eat or dehydrate.

 Kernels spread on the dehydrator tray, the layer is

thin enough to allow air flow around the hominy to speed the
drying process.

The finished dried hominy, ready to store or grind
into meal for use as "Grits", in cornbread or other recipes.

 

 

 

Thanks, Dave, for sharing this with us.  It sounds like something that would be good in Taco soup, among other things!  I'm looking forward to trying to make my own hominy.  We've always bought it in cans from the store. I love learning how to make things myself.   I appreciate all that I've learned from people as I've worked on this blog.

 

Please keep sending your emails with comments, suggestions, and questions!

 

Susan

povertyprepping@yahoo.com



Dave's Kitchen - Acorns

Below is a letter from Dave.  A lot of people don't realize that acorns are edible for humans, but they do require some processing first.  Acorns are widely available in most parts of the country and could be considered a supplemental food source.  Here is Dave's letter:

 

 

I had a call from my dad this morning and he said that he had gathered up a 5 gallon bucket of acorns from his "Burr Oak" trees and told me that I could have them If I wanted them. I couldn't say no, it's been a while since I have had acorn cakes so I went and picked them up. He is going to have several more buckets as soon as they fall off the tree and I will be getting them also.

Burr Oak acorns are pretty big so shelling them was fairly easy but time consuming, in about 45 minutes of leisurely work I had enough to make a batch of meal.

The acorns from the Burr Oak Oak trees are very low in astringent, mild in flavour and are really easy to prepare and use. This is the meal after I ran the acorns through the food processor to chop them.

This is the wet meal after leeching and the final is a picture of the finished cakes. Daing Sue, they are good. The total time from acorn to cake was about 1 1/2 hours, most of the time was shelling them.

 

To process the acorns, you shell/peel them, run them through a food processor until they are the consistency of course meal, wash the meal in fresh water and strain, repeat until rinse water is clear(a taste of the meal at this point shouldn't make you pucker), press the water out through a mesh strainer and it is ready for use. If you dont want to use it right away, put it in the fridge or dehydrate it for long term storage

 

The recipe I used was:

2 1/2 Cups Wet Acorn Meal

1 Cup Wheat Flour

3 Eggs

1/4 Cup Cooking Oil

1/2 Tea Spoon Salt

4 Table Spoons Sugar

1 Tea Spoon Baking Soda

Vinegar water to desired consistency

I cooked them on a hot skillet like pancakes or corn cakes. They can be eaten with syrup, buttered or just straight off the griddle, the acorns give the cakes a mild nutty flavor.

(Thank you, Dave, for sharing this information!)