Emily Bennett's Bread & Butter Zucchini Pickles

1 quart vinegar

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup salt

2 tsp. celery seed

2 tsp. tumeric or dill seed

1 tsp. dry mustard

4 quarts sliced zucchini squash

1 quart sliced onions

Bring vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices to a boil. Pour over the vegetables and let stand for 1 hour. Bring to a boil and cook 3 minutes. Pack in sterilized, hot jars. Seal at once. Keep chilled.

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From Rob Deason: My father was the captain of the Service Patrol of the Automobile Club. Practically every day he was patrolling and assisting motorists on the Southern California roads. Once, outside of Corona, he stopped to help a trucker with a load of spiced olives. The Club's service was free, and patrolmen didn't accept tips, but now and then a gift was offered that they couldn't turn down. Home came a gallon of highly spiced olives and so began my life-long search for the same, until in desperation, I tried to make my own. It worked! And if you like green olives, you won't believe how good these are and how easy to prepare, and they'll be fully ready after a week's wait.

Recipe: Buy at COSTCO: 1/2 gallon jars of Spanish green stuffed olives (lately they're sold as a pair of 32 oz. mammoth stuffed olives). If you buy regular olives (with seed) this will still work but you'll have to wait about two weeks before they're ready. The following is for one jar, double it for both. • In a food processor, chop: • Garlic (at least 4 big cloves – seriously). •Fresh oregano (strip the leaves from two 10" stalks, or use a rounded TBs of dry) •Dill weed (dry) 1 TBs. • Jalepeno's to taste, or about five good shakes of tobasco • 1/4 cup white vinegar • a few drops of liquid smoke.

Do This: pour the olives and juice in a bowl to the side. Process the ingredients with some of the juice (no water). Put the mix in the empty jar, top with olives, then pour in as much juice as it will take. This works out if you eat about five olive while you're working.

The spices will separate, some sink, some float, so have the jar in a place where you can shake it three times a day for about three days, then once a day up to a week. After only one day they will take on a considerable amount of flavor (try one), and after a week (if you haven't eaten them all) they will be 90% done. Refrigerate.

Salad dressing: when the olives are gone, keep the remaining juice to mix with plain yoghurt, a little cottage cheese (for texture), and a dab of Dijon mustard for a good, no-fat salad dressing.

By the way, the juice they're sold in is adequately salty and you don't need to worry about the olives turning bad or developing some deadly mutation. They'll last as long as if they were new.

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Baked Potato Soup & Skins

From Susie Norton

STORY: Would you like to begin the recipe page with two I adapted a couple of years ago? I made this soup to serve at the fire station after the Red Cross stopped sending food. I wrote the recipe to share with a few friends, and thought others might enjoy it as well. The potato skins are left when you make the soup, so this is how I serve them.

BAKED POTATO SOUP, serves 8: Sauté onion in margarine while potatoes bake. Add chicken broth;bring to boil. Stir in instant mashed potatoes. Add sour cream and corn. Break up potato while adding to pot. Add water if needed for thinning. Serve with cheese and bacon on top.

SOUP: [see potato skins below] 4 lg Baked Potatoes (5 lbs)

2 onions, sliced

1 lg can chicken broth

1 pkg instant potatoes

2 T margarine

1 pint sour cream

Shredded cheddar

Add sliced green onion if desired.

Crumbled bacon

I can corn

• BAKED POTATO SKINS, serves 8: Quarter and use all but 1/4” pulp for soup [ above ] . Place skins on greased baking sheet. Combine oil, cheese, salt, garlic powder,brush over both, sides of skins. Bake at 475 for 7 minutes; Sprinkle the bacon and cheddar cheese turn. Bake until crisp, about 7 minutes. until cheese is melted. Top with sour creamServe immediately.

   

  SKINS:4 lg Baked Potatoes

  3 T vegetable oil

  1 T grated Parmesan

  ¼ tsp salt

  ¼ tsp garlic powder

  ¼ tsp paprika

  1/8 tsp pepper

  8 strips bacon in bits

  1 ½ C cheddar shreds

  4 sliced green onions

Rob and Kim - I just wanted to say that the Potato Skins from Susie Norton‘s recipe are the best in town. Sarah, Alyssa and I all agree. As vegetarians we have ordered plenty of potato skins when we go out to eat. And Susie’s recipe is the best. “Yahoo Deerhorn recipes!” Thanks to Susie, and Thanks to you for making the recipe available. Anne Evosevich

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HOME SMOKE-COOKING:

All you need is a BBQ, or best, a smoke cooker (smoker), True Value, $150 or so. Buy a bag of hardwood charcoal also T. Val.. AND, lying all around is the best smoking wood you'll find – dead and dry Deerhorn Valley oak. It's bolder and faster than hickory.

Bacon to die for: Get a good, small charcoal fire in the smoker's side chamber. You can do this in a regular BBQ but make the fire off to the side, not under the meat yet. after the coals are going well, gather an armful of thumb size oak fingerlings and put them on the charcoal. They'll burn up quickly, that's why the charcoal is there – so you can always add more.

lay out a pound of thick-sliced bacon, ham, steaks, salmon filets, lamb, on the grill, not directly over the coals . . . first we're going to smoke the meat, later cooking it to temperature. When the oak is burning well and the meat is on, close the smoker down about 98% smothering the fire and creating a thick smoke. Peek inside qand see that the fire is out but the smoke is billowing. Sometimes it takes a squirt from a spray bottle to douse the fire – That's always good because it adds steam to the whole inside and you won't dry out the meat. You aren't cooking the bacon, ham , steak, lamb, you're only baking it in smoke it at lower-than-cooking temperature. Let in just enough air to nurse the smoldering along, add more wood when the smoke goes away. if the smoke stops suddenly, it may be that the oak has caught on fire and it will over cook the meat – another spray from the bottle is needed. Bacon is thin and will take about half an hour. A thick steak will take an hour. A salmon filet is oily and tolerates a long smoking (doesn't dry out) . . . the longer the better. beef turns dark redbefore it's cooked, don't let the color worry you.

After smoking, I put in a good handfull of oak branches on and finishing sizzling the meat directly over the flames. It's already baked so it won't take a long time.

Always make more than you want, your guests will beg for more, and the extra, kept overnight in the refer, will be twice as good the second day. Don't fry bacon to a crisp, it takes out a lot of smoke flavor.

"Really" smoked almonds, put a tray of dish of almonds over the swmoke. Don't use a good dish, it will become discolored and a real chore to clean. Stir often – don't worry about the temperature, they just get better if they go through some extra roasting. – Rob Deason

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A DEERHORN VALLEY CLASSIC RECIPE:

The Payne family has been our "Secret" for the last twenty-five BBQ's. We thumbed through a the old DV Cookbook and found this Don Payne recipe:

DON PAYNE'S BRAISED SHORT RIBS

3 lbs lean short ribs

2 (no. 303) cans tomato sauce

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup red wine

Flour

Shortening

Dredge ribs in flour and brown in shortening. Sauté onion in small amount of shortening until tender; add tomato sauce, vinegar, wine, and ribs. Simmer, covered, for2 hours or until tender. Serve over rice.