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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 10, 2021 18:12:59 GMT -6
Here where I live, a 'mess' of okra is about 2 pounds, or about all you can fit in a 10" inch skillet and still have room to turn the okra with a spatula without turning it out of the pan.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 10, 2021 18:55:42 GMT -6
Here where I live, a 'mess' of okra is about 2 pounds, or about all you can fit in a 10" inch skillet and still have room to turn the okra with a spatula without turning it out of the pan. In that case, I just chopped and cooked a mess of okra for our dinner tonight. It was for a batch of bhindi masala, and the okra was purchased from a “local” farm. (“Local” in this context can mean 100 miles away. I’m a member of a co-op of sorts that buys local produce and other goods from farmers and producers in the area, and this came from an area well to the south of us, so that’s how I got the fresh okra.). I did manage to pick onions, cherry tomatoes, and banana peppers from the garden for the other ingredients. That mess of okra sure made a good meal, and we do have some for leftovers for tomorrow. I found this little write up on the word “mess” in what appears to be a small town paper in Georgia. It gave me a chuckle. themonticellonews.com/pick-me-a-mess-of-butter-beans-p3185-107.htm
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 11, 2021 23:16:36 GMT -6
That article sure sounds like home to me, 300-pound cousins and all.
We have a big ol' family and have big ol' family reunions. We skipped last year because of Covid-19, but the year before last, my wife and I fried up a big ol' mess of okra for our extended family.
My birth Mom had 12 brothers and sisters; when she passed away back in '78 my Dad remarried to a woman who had 8 brothers and sisters. As a result, I have so many cousins that I don't even know where to begin with who belongs to which family.
The family at our family reunions is so big that each household just picks one dish (which ends up filling several dishes) and we cook that one thing to bring to the gathering. No one would dare bring a thing that they didn't cook themselves on site, except for the brown beans and the baked beans and the pies or cakes. To do that, we all start cooking outside at the same time. Someone fries up catfish, while someone else fries up hush puppies, while someone else fries up potatoes, while someone else fries up okra, while someone else shucks and boils corn, while someone else snaps and boils green beans, while someone else slices tomatoes, while someone else fries up squash, while someone else mixes up a batch of coleslaw, while someone else slices cucumbers for the vinegar and water, while someone else brews up a big ol' batch of iced tea, enough to fill a 10-gallon Igloo water can.
That particular year, it was our job to fry up 30 pounds of okra. (About one pound for every 4 people). We fry things on-site and just bring them to the serving tables when they're done. It took the two of us nearly two hours to get all that okra cut up and fried. In the stead of a skillet or a wok, we had a 24" inch disc blade from a plow, with a steel plug welded in the center to cover the spindle hole. The discing blade was mounted above a turkey fryer burner. The disc was about an inch thick in the center, so it took a lot of heat to get it up to speed.
Once the plowing disc was hot enough to smoke grease, one of my kids would dump about 5 pounds of seasoned and meal-dipped okra in there, while my wife and I took turns stirring with boat ore size spatulas. It was hotter than 9 buckets of you know where out there with the huge flames roaring under the homemade Wok, but we hung in there because we knew it was just as hot in the next spot over, where my cousins were timing and frying fish, hush puppies, and potatoes. Everyone was timing things in order to get them to the tables at nearly the same instant. We'd have to eat in shifts while taking turns cooking or else the cooks would never get a chance to eat ... That article you posted was very true to life.
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Post by macmex on Jul 17, 2021 15:02:23 GMT -6
Here's a real, heart healthy recipe for okra. Actually it's also especially good for ones brain, which is something that interests me a lot lately.
We chopped up a whole Spanish onion and some garlic into a frying pan with olive oil in it, and while that was browning we cut up a nice mess of okra, adding it, all at once, into the frying pan. Then we chopped up a couple of tomatoes to add to this mix. We finished it off by seasoning with 1/2 teaspoon of ground turmeric and about 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground long pepper (black pepper would do). This is absolutely scrumptious!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 17, 2021 19:14:22 GMT -6
George,
Thanks, for posting that nice, big photo.
That is about the prettiest pan full of okra I've ever seen in my life! That looks delicious!
I have a friend who grilled us some of the best garden veggie combos I've ever tasted; things I would never have thought to mix together but the flavors really complimented one another spectacularly. She grilled diced, Kennebec potatoes, with green tomatoes, yellow squash, onions, garlic, a few ripe tomatoes, sweet corn cut right off the cob, green bell peppers, blanched and peeled, green chili peppers, (Hatch chili variety) not hot ones, and lots of sliced okra.
She cooked it all outside on her grill, using a huge turkey roasting pan. She'd stir it over the coals while they were really hot, using olive oil to brown the veggies on the bottom. Then, right before serving it and after the coals had died down a little, she closed the lid to the grill to let it get that smokey flavor she wanted.
I think that was probably the best mass produced meal I've ever eaten. It's hard to cook for twenty people and still keep that small meal flavor, but she pulled it of wonderfully. Things like that are what really define Summer.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2021 12:52:14 GMT -6
Good looking batch of okra there, George. Add hot peppers and its good for the heart, too.
Ron, that's impressive!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 19, 2021 6:58:31 GMT -6
?Okra Seed Couscous? I stumbled onto this today. I don't know if it will work. I don't even know what Couscous is, but here's the idea anyway.Find large okra. The farmers will have this in abundance in the late summer, July, and August seem to be our best months for it in NC, but it can vary climate to climate obviously.
As soon as you see okra at the markets just put the word out; “you will be willing to buy any "overgrown" okra the farmers are willing to sell.” This will have the added bonus of allowing you to further your relationship with them as, you may be surprised what you are offered in the future.
Once you have the large okra, remove the top and split the pod lengthwise. Wear gloves at this point to avoid any spines the okra pods may have ending up in your hands.
Remove the seeds from the pods and reserve.
With the remaining pods, dehydrate at 160° F for 2 to 3 days until completely dry.
Powder the pods in a bar blender and sift through a fine mesh strainer. We have found this powder offers most of the same thickening properties as cornstarch.
With the remaining seeds, you have two options, we typically blanch and freeze all of them for fall and winter applications when we would be working more with legumes.
For summer applications, you can simply blanch and serve as a hot couscous substitute or cool and use for salads. They also have the bonus of being completely gluten free.
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Post by hmoosek on Dec 19, 2021 12:00:48 GMT -6
I’ve never tried it, but I’ve heard okra seeds can be roasted like coffee beans to make a type of coffee drink.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 19, 2021 18:30:20 GMT -6
George knows quite a bit about roasting okra seeds to make coffee, maybe, he'll write here later to let us know how that turned out.
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Post by macmex on Dec 19, 2021 19:25:49 GMT -6
I can't recall having made it. I tried making roselle coffee, using roselle seed, and it was not good.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 20, 2021 8:48:44 GMT -6
I haven't been able to taste anything since 2013, so I couldn't attest to the taste of the okra coffee, but I was told that the stuff we made was nasty tasting.
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Post by hedgeapple on Dec 28, 2021 13:26:53 GMT -6
Found this clipping in Grandma's recipe box. Note: Given the context, my best guess is that she got this out of a local paper in the Little Rock/North Little Rock Area from the mid-50s to early 1960s. That is when she lived there and when she was still collecting recipes to feed a big and hungry family. 😊
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 28, 2021 17:46:35 GMT -6
Hedgeapple, thank you so much for posting that. If I didn’t already have plans for leftovers tonight, I think I’d be pulling out some frozen okra and tomatoes and having at it. That just really struck my fancy when I read it.
It might just make it to the menu for tomorrow night.
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Post by macmex on Dec 28, 2021 18:01:47 GMT -6
Saved that one to my hard drive!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 28, 2021 18:35:49 GMT -6
Found this clipping in Grandma's recipe box. I thought I’d add a link here to a recipe for self-rising cornmeal mix. I hadn’t processed at first that it wasn’t just plain cornmeal, so I just checked into that and found this recipe. thesouthernladycooks.com/make-self-rising-cornmeal-mix/
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