Allyson

I have always loved green goddess dressing. It’s creamy and refreshing, and so garlicky! This recipe teaches you how to make it yourself, and then uses it to make some delicious meatballs. I hope you like this as much as I do.

Ingredients:

• 1 small garlic clove, peeled and smashed
• ½ cup Greek or cashew yogurt
• ½ cup mayonnaise
• ½ cup packed fresh parsley, coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup fresh tarragon, coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup thinly sliced chives
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• ½ tsp fish sauce or 1 anchovy fillet
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup panko or breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 lb ground chicken or turkey
• cooking spray
• cooked orzo, for serving (optional)

In a blender or food processor, add the garlic, yogurt, mayonnaise, parsley, tarragon, chives, lemon zest, lemon juice, fish sauce, 1/2 tsp of salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Blend or pulse the ingredients together until smooth. Season with more salt and pepper, if needed. Transfer 1/4 cup sauce to a large bowl (for the meatballs). Transfer remaining sauce to a medium bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.

In the large bowl with the sauce, add your egg, panko or breadcrumbs, salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Stir to combine, then add the ground chicken and gently mix to combine (do not over-mix). You want to use your hands for this, rather than a fork or spoon. Make sure you have the panko and spices well integrated. Refrigerate until mixture firms up, about 10 minutes.

Arrange a rack in center of oven, and pre-heat it to 450*F. Lightly grease a lipped baking sheet with cooking spray or cover it with parchment paper. Roll the meat mixture into 20 balls and arrange them on prepared baking sheet.

Bake the meatballs, watching closely, until cooked through and browned on top, 6 to 8 minutes. Turn the meatballs over and continue to cook for 5 to 8 minutes, checking for doneness. Divide the orzo (if you are using it) among plates. Top the orzo with meatballs, then drizzle with the refrigerated green goddess sauce.

Notes:

This recipe originally called for broiling the meatballs, but I find you get much better results if you bake them instead. It takes a bit longer, but it’s worth it. You can check your meatballs for readiness by cutting one in half to see if it’s cooked through, or you can use a meat thermometer to check if the internal temperature has reached 165*F.

I made a double batch of the dressing, and I’m glad I did. This stuff is delicious! Beware; you will not have to worry about vampires for a couple of days after eating this.

I use cashew yogurt in this because I’m allergic to dairy. There’s barely any difference in the end result. You can make the dressing vegan by using a vegan mayo, such as Nayanaise, or just leaving that out entirely and using the cashew (or other non-dairy) yogurt. The herbs are the star of this dressing, so feel free to experiment with it a bit. I’ll be doing some experimenting this week, when I add winter savory to mine!

Allyson sticking her nose in here. I’m taking over Tuesday Tunes to provide you with the following joyous music:

Why “I Will Survive”? Let me tell you why.

For years I have been telling women in my friend circle and beyond that they are in charge of their rights. We’re all taught that when we drive a car, we must look where we want the car to go. Our focus will generally make the car go in that direction. That is not just true of cars; it’s true of pretty much everything. I have flat out told women, if you want to avoid a future that involves being used as a hired womb, then stop acting like it.

I might wear the red robes as a chuckle for Halloween. You won’t find me being fitted into them for anything else, though. I stand up for myself. I stand up to my man when he’s wrong. I stand up and admit when I’m wrong. I own my successes and my failures.

Anyone can be chained. Only you yourself can make you a *slave* though. I refuse to be a slave to anything other than my own passions.

No matter what, I will survive.

So there’s a lot going on right now. Politically speaking, here in America we’re preparing for the “no kings day” bullshit. There are the usual California summer riots (pick your flavor), though it should be noted they’re only taking up a tiny portion of Los Angeles despite what the media would like you to believe. There’s the other protests and riots about immigration. On top of that, you have people who are boycotting the Fourth of July because of the bad orange man, and are instead planning funerals or some such. Israel just bombed Iran, which could get dicey. Ireland is having its own violent protests about immigration. On and on.

The shit may not hit the fan this weekend. It might not do so this year. Hell, it’s entirely possible it may never happen. That’s my favorite option, though I don’t ever count on it. I plan for “it goes down today” and hope for “never happens and you’re left with food in the basement for any other kind of emergency.”

I’m not doing anything special to prep for tomorrow. I’m over at my partner’s place, and we’re going to sit quietly at home. We might go for a walk in the local forest, but that’s about it. There aren’t any things planned for either his area or mine (btw, this is one of the reasons why I still have friends on the Left… so I know where and when shit goes down), but we don’t want to chance it. Sunday we have to go out of town to pick up a wall tent for 18th century and medieval events, but we’re going from one small town to another small town, all in one state in which he has a carry permit for. While he’s nominally Left(ish), he’s hella 2A positive, and he’s also not afraid to drive over someone to protect me or us. So I feel relatively safe. I know he won’t slow down if people are doing stupid stuff on one of the side roads we have to drive on.

No, I don’t carry. There are reasons, but frankly it’s nunya*. I fully support 2A, and I pick partners who are both 2A positive, and like to carry on the regular. I arm myself in other ways. Also, frankly… having boobs helps. Don’t ask, just accept. Anyhow…

My house has food. If the worst happened and martial law was called for, we’d just stay home with the doors closed and our ears open. We have eyes outside the house, so we don’t need to go out to check on things. We’re well armed, well stocked, and there’s no reason to leave. If it got bad, my partner would join us here, because we’re just better prepared than he is. That would leave us in a very comfortable position regarding keeping zombies at bay.

In all likelihood, nothing would happen near me. We live in the middle of nowhere (on purpose), BECAUSE of stuff like this. As a youngster, I longed for the bustle of a city. Today, I just want those damn kids to stay off my goddamn lawn. I’m glad of that, because it’s safer here. Safer, not safe, though. I have to always keep that in mind. There are always quiet people local to you, even in the middle of nowhere, that could be agitators or rioters in the right situation. So we stay ready, and we remember that we’re only as safe as we’re prepared to be.

We’re pretty safe, though.

If you haven’t figured out a way to batten down your hatches, spend time tonight doing so. If you live in a suburban or urban area, or god forbid a big city like NYC or Boston, make sure you are READY for tomorrow. It might be a big nothing burger, in which case you can laugh at me on Monday and I’ll gladly accept chiding. On the other hand, it might be a big something, and I’d like to know you’re all as ready as you can be. Go pick up some rice and beans, and a few cans of tuna and spam. Grab some bottled water. Just in case. It’s summer, and none of it will go to waste. You can have a bbq on July 4th and use it all up, if that’s what you want. But go get some extras. NOW.

I hope you all have a very quiet weekend. I hope it contains nothing more than mowing the lawn, having some steaks on the bbq, and yelling at the kids to stop letting mosquitoes in the house.

*nunya – nunya biznez, aka none of your business.

There are currently riots happening in Los Angeles and other California towns. I’ve so far watched a reporter FAFO and get shot in the leg with a rubber bullet, seen rioters dump rocks off an overpass onto cars below (police and non-police vehicles), witnessed “peaceful” folk set fire to cars, and heard about those self same “peaceful” folk ordering up driverless cars just so they could torch them.

Someone on Facebook posted this, and I decided to go and find out if it was true. At this point, if “someone posts something” (be it person, so-called legacy media, or new media) I simply don’t trust it and I research and verify. It took me a while. I had to go through an article by the Times of India, and a handful of other places before I finally found the article at the Blaze (which I recommend reading and watching). They posted the actual video in their article, so I can now verify that yes, ABC did actually say this on actual television/video. I am at a complete loss.

On Facebook, I carefully laid it out. If you said January 6th was a riot, and applauded the people being arrested, held without bail for unreasonable time, and given outrageously egregious sentences… but you say throwing rocks on moving vehicles is “peaceful protest,” just leave. I literally said, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out. M’kay, byeeeeee.

I assumed most people would just delete me, if there were any left who’d bother to comment. I expected that. I didn’t expect to hear people coming in and saying that it was Trump’s fault for “…illegal use of the National Guard and deployment of the Marines,” or that “…it isn’t rioting for the sake of rioting,” or “I agree dropping …(rocks)… on citizens is not right. Dropping them on Humvees, Bearcats, is fair game. The military are illegally there.” I also didn’t think I’d hear, “I’ve seen a couple of articles that stated that at least some of the car fire were started due to the flash bangs that were deployed.” Oh, and, “…that some of the images and videos were from 2020 and not this past weekend.”

I have informed those people that I am not interested in excuses. Having been lectured for four years about January 6th, which included very little destruction of property (and the proper, imo, charging of those who engaged in vandalism) and only one death (on “our” side, FFS), I am not interested in excuses about why it’s okay to drop rocks on moving vehicles. It’s not.

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When the deep heat of summer hits, and the idea of cooking anything makes you queasy, this is the perfect meal for any time of the day. I adore gazpacho soup because it’s all the deliciousness of a salsa but in a soup. There are layers of delicate flavor that combine to make something incredibly special. Just don’t be like Rimmer on Red Dwarf and ask for it piping hot. 😉

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ pounds ripe red tomatoes (about 4 large or 9 small)
• 1 small Vidalia, sweet yellow onion, or red onion (½ pound), peeled
• 1 small cucumber (½ pound), peeled and seeded
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cored and seeded
• ¼ cup fresh basil leaves, plus extra for garnish
• 1 large garlic clove, peeled
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
• ¾ teaspoon fine salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• V8 juice OR tomato juice (optional)
• curly parsley, Italian parsley, cilantro, green onion (optional, garnish)

First, prepare your vegetables. You’ll need a blender or food processor bowl, a medium serving bowl, and a small bowl for mixing, all ready to use. Core your tomatoes and cut half of them up into about one inch chunks. The chunks go into your blender. The other half of the tomatoes should be chopped fine and added to the serving bowl. All of the juice and seeds can be tossed in the blender. Do the same with your onion, the cucumber, and the bell pepper, though discard the pepper seeds.

Add the basil, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and a half teaspoon or so of black pepper, preferably fresh ground. Put the lid on your blender and blend the contents, starting on the pulse and then gradually increasing the speed to high. You want the mixture to be completely smooth, and it will take about two minutes. If there isn’t enough liquid, you can add in a little V8 or tomato juice, a tablespoon at a time until it’s the right consistency and thickness for you.

Add the liquid to the fine chopped vegetables, and stir well. Again, if there isn’t enough liquid, feel free to add more V8 or tomato juice to make it “correctly soupy” for you. Add in a pinch of salt and pepper, to taste, and set in the fridge to chill. The gazpacho needs at least two hours and up to 24 hours to rest.

Before serving, give it another taste. It may need a bit more salt. If you like, you can top the gazpacho with finely minced parsley and/or cilantro, or sprinkle it with thinly sliced green onion or chives. Small basil leaves are also a nice addition.

Notes:

I usually serve this soup with a side of salad that includes a good protein such as chicken or shrimp. As a fun alternative, you can switch out the V8 and add in Clamato and a splash of hot sauce, and top the soup itself with shrimp for a “shrimp salad soup” that is really tasty. You can also consider adding miniature croutons, tiny shrimp, or even other summer vegetables such as corn, finely chopped zucchini, etc.

On Wednesday, I went to the Fort to do some interpreting for a home schooling group. I always love when I have homeschoolers in, because they ask the BEST questions. This group was a fantastic one, and it included a bunch of kids who were very obviously not normal students but who nonetheless were engaged and engaging. I loved their questions, their interest, and their sharing of their own successes and failures.

This particular week, I decided I was going to try a new to me bread recipe. This is a 1750s “receipt” that came to me from the internet, and the original poster received it by way of people in Illinois, who got it from French settlers, who were originally from the New France area during the Fort’s era. With such an illustrious ancestry, I decided this was THE recipe to work with. Also, the recipe only makes a single loaf instead of two, which is nice because I’m rather afloat in bread right now.

It’s an easy loaf, very simple to pull together, with half the kneading required of my other bread. I was excited to give it a try! I got into the Fort, started up the fires to warm the oven and hearth, and pulled out all the items I needed to make my bread: flour, yeast, water (very warm to the touch), and honey. Like I said, simple recipe. To that, I added my big mixing bowl (a shiny wooden bowl with such a fine grain that the dough barely sticks to it) and a wooden spoon for stirring.

As the kids and their accompanying adults trickled in, I started the process of mixing together my ingredients. As a baker with a bit more experience, I started with my water and yeast, rather than the flour (it’s much easier to add flour if your dough is too wet, but much more difficult to add water if it’s too dry). I put 1.5 cups of water into the bowl, and sprinkled it with about a tablespoon of dry active yeast. I explained to the kids that they didn’t have dry active yeast in the 1750s, and most likely would have used either a bit of salt rising (a golf ball sized bit of the last bread dough you made, saved in a bowl of milk and kept in the salt barrel until needed) or the barm off the top of the beer vat as the source of their yeast. Once the yeast started bubbling, I added in a dollop of honey (about 1.5 tbsp) and stirred until it was dissolved.

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I belong to several writer’s groups on Facebook, partly because I like to connect with other authors and partly to hear about new opportunities when they come by. One of the groups I belong to is run by a very successful cookbook author (who I’m not at liberty to talk about in public, as the group is private and very bougie). The owner posted this video, and then left us to comment on it before coming back. I’ll skip to the good part: if you watch about five minutes of it, you’ll get the whole gist.

Basically, what she says is cookbooks are training you to think you’re bad.

That’s right folks, the recipes you’ve been enjoying in your family for the last umpteen years, the ones you’ve snatched off the internet? They’re apparently actively attempting to strip you of your abilities. I can’t make this shit up. Here’s a quote:

“I want to show you that your cookbooks are more than just lists of instructions for how to cook your next meal. Your cookbooks are in fact deeply judgmental stories telling you that you are not already good enough at doing mundane household tasks.”

What I got from the half of this travesty that I managed to watch is that because a cookbook usually contains a story, it’s only a vehicle for the author to tell you that you’re a failure, because if you weren’t a failure, you wouldn’t need to read the cookbook. As a secondary message, apparently we’re also being told that if we cook like Rachel Ray, we’ll look like her and be rich like her. As near as I can tell, the only thing cookbooks aren’t communicating to you, is how to cook. She’s adamant that people cannot possibly learn to cook from a book, and that it must be transmitted from person to person.

I’m aghast that this woman, Dr. Rachel Rich. She’s a doctorate, so that means she has a PhD in this stuff. Per her own words, “…I’m a historian at Leed Becket University and co-editor of the journal Food And History. I’ve been researching and writing about cookbooks for over 20 years…”

So, is there enough information out there to keep a food historian busy for over 20 years? Absolutely. It’s a fascinating subject, and one which has important connections with today’s world. Not only are food historians bringing the past to life in a way that no other historian can, they’re also behind the revival of several old types of food, plants that were popular in the middle ages or earlier but that had faded into obscurity in modern times. That’s important because we can learn about plant genetics, and how to better feed our growing population by studying those plants and the recipes that they were used in. So yes, there’s a ton of information out there, and a solid researcher could spend a lifetime tapping it.

Instead, this Dr. Rich is handing out this pap.

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When I prep, I store a variety of types of meals. I have a lot of rice and beans, as I can make those into dozens of different meals with very different spice pallets. There’s one type of meal that I do store at least a few of, for emergencies. That’s RTE, or Ready To Eat meals. These require either no prep at all, or just water and heat.

RTE meals are an important part of any prep for any situation. There are simply going to be times when you do not have the time or energy to cook, but you still need to eat. Having meals that require little to no preparation time will save you, time and again. I don’t mean for zombie apocalypse, either, though they work for that too. I mean for that moment when the power goes out right after you’ve finished 3 hours of snow blowing, and you’re exhausted and starving and now can’t use your stove. Or for when you’re backpacking, you get caught in a storm, and you’re stuck under a rock for a few hours for safety’s sake, and you need to eat.

While you can certainly go out and buy WiseFoods or any of the other “emergency bucket” type emergency meal kits, it’s very easy to assemble your own. Job Lots, Walmart, and even Amazon carry many very good options. It used to be that you’d save your cans of tuna for those emergencies, but now the tuna comes as part of an entire meal.

Starkist Tuna Snacks are the gold standard around here. We keep them in our go-bags, eat them as evening snacks, and they always go with me when I am camping away from the house. It’s fast and easy, and requires no heating. Simply slap the tuna on the cracker, and you’re ready to go.

Bumblebee Tuna Bowls are really yummy, and again, require no heating. There are three different kinds available on Amazon, but I’m told you can find a few more if you go looking. These include pasta, rice, and/or beans, and include vegetables as well. You’re getting a whole meal here. At 190 calories each, they’re a quick fix for a hungry person. They also do not contain any added sugars, so they can be eaten by diabetics. They are NOT good for people with Celiac though.

Starkist Smart Bowls are rice and beans with tuna, in a variety of flavors. These are the soft packs, so they stack easily in a backpack or go bag. They’re lower in fat and higher in carbs than the Bumblebee bowls, but neither of those are likely to be an issue when you’re dealing with an emergency situation.

At the slightly more bougie level, we have Cole’s Open and Eat Meals. These are a bit more expensive, but the quality is also higher. You get a larger meal, with more calories (250), and a variety of flavors. The reviews of them are pretty good, with the main sticking point being price. This is definitely one of those “you get what you pay for” moments.

And then there’s the ones I like best: Freshe Gourmet Canned Tuna. They have tuna and they have salmon, four flavors of each. You can buy them in bulk, and the price is a bit less than Cole’s. Each style has a different calorie amount listed, so you have to look at each of the flavors separately. Having eaten these both cold and warmed, I can say they are VERY yummy. I went out and bought a bunch of these at my earliest convenience after a friend introduced me to them.

There are chicken versions and salmon versions of all of the above. I would guess you can probably find ham and Spam ones, as well. I prefer to have the cans in my camping bin, because they can safely rattle around in the bottom of the bin and not be harmed. They will still be good to eat next summer, if I don’t get to them. The flat pack ones are best for backpacks and go bags. I usually slip mine into the front pouch of my backpack or in the interior flat area of my go bag, where they won’t be punctured.  Read More

So I’ve just gotten home from the Fort, where I stayed for a whole week. One week with minimal running water (cold only, from a single slow tap in the staff kitchen, which I had to then carry to where I was cooking/cleaning/etc). One week with minimal electricity (I could charge my phone at night, and there was a light in the kitchen, and a fridge because I do cooking demos and we don’t want to poison people). One week with almost no social media, news, television, and all the rest of the modern stuff. One week of walking from place to place, interacting in person, baking and cooking over a fire. One week without a shower (that one was difficult lol).

While I was there, the Fort was hosting “The Original” which is the name of a 40+ year old Rendezvous. This is for folks who portray anything from French and Indian War up to War of 1812 and a bit beyond (basically 1740 to 1840). They have some very specific rules that are required of those attending. You must be dressed in period correct clothing (including footwear and eyeglasses unless medically required otherwise) during the entire event, including during set up and tear down. You must have all modern items covered at all times, so if you have a cooler it needs to have something over it or be stashed in an unseen part of your tent. Same with propane stoves, though most people just dug fire pits and cooked that way. It’s rather intense just how serious they take it, though they’re also not rude to people who are just starting out and might not be “quite right.” A good, honest attempt is worth more than perfection, in most cases.

During the event, I was one of the Fort “liaison” people, meaning folks at the Rendezvous could reach out to me to get in touch with the director. I didn’t get called on much, which was nice, but it meant I could visit and participate in Rendezvous stuff without having to pay to get in (which I could not afford). I baked a bunch of bread on the second day of the event, and then loaded it all (still warm) into a huge basket and hefted it onto my shoulder. I went down to the lower field, calling as I went: “Bread for sale! Fresh, warm bread for sale!”

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