more from my kitchen

I hope you all had a great 4^th.  Today is the official “Independence Day holiday”, so we can do it all over again!  Be sure to fly your flag.  And remember you don’t have to wait for a holiday to do that.  Show your neighbors whose side you’re on.

As I was cleaning up my kitchen from yesterday’s blowout (duck hung in my Pit Barrell cooker https://pitbarrelcooker.com/blogs/food/whole-duck, creamed fresh peas and pearl onions https://spicysouthernkitchen.com/creamed-peas-and-pearl-onions/, tater tots, and a nice pinot, not to mention all the beer required during the lead up; hey, it was hot out there!), I found myself in the corner by the ovens.  That’s right by that bookshelf with 44 cookbooks, 4 binders of recipes, and the two black “lab books” into which I scribble my new concoctions, all nestled between my 2 big blue Chantal pots.  There I realized there were a couple of other things I should have included, in my last post about my kitchen https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/1682.  I hope to remedy that omission with this post.

First, how about a picture of that bookshelf?  It would take more than a thousand words to describe to you all the wonderfulness those books have helped me create.  So here ‘tis.

Those aren’t my only references.  Upstairs, I have 6 boxes of 3X5 recipe cards, one from my dear departed Aunt Dorie.  In the downstairs kitchen, I have 36 more cookbooks and 3 more recipe boxes: one 4X6 double-wide of Aunt Dorie’s, a red metal box with my mom’s favorites, and a dark wooden one of mine with two things in it, a newspaper clipped recipe for shredded wheat bread and a 1994 receipt from Boersma travel for a trip to Seattle on which I seem to have written a bread recipe.  And there’s more: 3 manila folders of loose clipped recipes and a 3-ring binder of mine in which I had pasted clipped recipes in the late 70s and early 80s.  But my favorite find was a slim spiral notebook in which I’d recorded some of my homebrewing activities ’99-’01.  I haven’t brewed anything since ’09 but might take a stab at mead again later this year, having obtained 12# of raw wildflower honey from my friend and Vicksburg classmate Dennis, fire chief turned apiarist.  But back to the notebook, it wasn’t what was on the pages, but what fell out: a whole bunch of the labels I used to use for my beer.  I’d lost the file I created to print them and feared that design was lost forever.  But here it is!

Each batch would have a clear stick on with the beer’s name, O.G., F.G. (with these two data points you can calculate alcohol content), hops used, and date of bottling.  That would all fit in that banner.

So, you see I believe in having references.  Earlier this year I stumbled on some references I’ve found immensely helpful in my cooking.  Eleven tables of different ingredient conversions, stuff you usually need to know in the middle of a recipe with the stove on.  I keep them in a page protector stuck in the back of my Julia Child.  You can find them on https://www.reluctantgourmet.com/cooking-ingredients-substitutions/

– a site with megatons of other good cooking info – and I’ve pasted them in below.

Ingredient	Approximate Equivalent Measurements
Asparagus (Fresh)	3 cups, trimmed	16 to 20 spears, about 1 pound
Broccoli (Fresh)	2 cups florets	1 pound
Brussels Sprouts (Fresh)	4 cups, cooked	1 pound
Cabbage (Fresh)	5 to 6 cups, shredded	1 medium head
Cabbage	1 cup, shredded	1/4 pound
Carrots	1 cup, julienne strips	5 medium carrots
Carrots	1 cup, shredded	2 medium carrots
Carrots	1 cup, thinly sliced	3 medium carrots
Cauliflower (Fresh)	3 cups	1 medium head, about 2 pounds
Celery	1 cup, diagonally sliced	3 medium stalks
Celery	1 cup, sliced	2 medium stalks
Chives (Fresh)	1 tablespoon	1 teaspoon, dried
Collard Greens (Fresh)	6 to 7 cups, uncooked	1 1/2 cups, cooked
Corn on the Cob	1 cup kernels	3 to 4 ears
Cucumber	1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups, peeled, sliced or chopped	1 medium
Cucumber	1 cup, diced	1 small cucumber
Eggplant (Fresh)	2 1/2 cups, diced and cooked	1 pound
Green Beans (Fresh)	2 1/2 cups, cut and cooked	1 pound
Green Onions	1 cup, chopped	about 18 stalks
Green Peas (In Pod)	1 cup, shelled	1 pound
Green Pepper	1 cup, chopped	1 medium pepper
Greens (Fresh)	3 cups, cooked	1 pound
Lettuce (Iceberg)	4 cups, shredded	1 medium head
Lettuce (Iceberg)	6 to 8 cups, torn	1 medium head
Lettuce (Leaf)	4 to 6 cups, torn	25 to 30 leaves
Lettuce (Romaine)	6 cups, torn	1 head
Mushrooms	1 6 to 8-ounce can	1 pound fresh
Mushrooms	1 pound	20 to 24 mushroom caps
Mustard Greens (Fresh)	6 to 7 cups, uncooked	1 1/2 cups, cooked
Onion Powder	1 tablespoon	1 medium onion, chopped
Onions (Dehydrated)	1/4 cup	1 cup chopped raw
Onions	1 cup, chopped	1 small onion
Parsnips	2 cups, cooked and diced	4 medium
Peppers (Sweet, Fresh)	1/2 cup, chopped	1 medium
Potatoes (White or Russet)	1 3/4 cups, mashed	3 medium
Potatoes (White or Russet)	2 1/4 cups, peeled and diced	3 medium
Potatoes	1 cup, cubed	1 small potato
Radishes	1 cup, thinly sliced	about 12 radishes
Spaghetti Squash	4 cups cooked strands	2 pounds
Spinach	4 cups torn leaves	1 1/2 cups, cooked
Summer Squash	2 cups sliced and cooked	3 medium
Sweet Potatoes	1 3/4 to 2 cups, mashed	3 medium
Sweet Potatoes	2 cups, cubed	3 medium
Swiss Chard	9 to 10 cups, raw	2 1/2 cups, cooked
Tomatoes (Fresh)	1 cup, chopped	1 large
Turnip Greens	6 to 7 cups, raw	1 cup, cooked
Wax Beans (Fresh)	3 cups	2 1/2 cups, cut and cooked
Zucchini	1 cup, cooked	3 medium