Pickled Eggs and a Kimchee State of Mind

Firstly, I must apologize for not posting these past few weekends. It has been project crunch time around the homestead: the hubby prepping and crafting his beautiful gourds, me working on decadent body product for my upcoming event. If you'll be in Austin this wednesday, come by and check it out. Some great jewelry by Schatzelein and bent on design, as well as $1 Lonestar beer at Thunderbird Coffee. I'd love to meet you.

Anyhoo, Sunday was a full day of farmers market patronage, cooking, and finishing up the last touches on my portion of the Mother's Day event. My kitchen tinkering included a first for me:  pickled eggs. Strange sounding, I know. Pickled eggs came to be when folks needed to travel with their protein and lacked sufficient storage to keep eggs fresh and unjostled. When pickled, the eggs can be kept for a few months unrefrigerated. I found a recipe on my local poultry meetup group and will experiment with it using only 4 or so eggs. No idea if i'll like them, so i'd rather not waste The Ladies' hard work.

Fresh eggs are hard to peel!

My other decision today relates to sustainability, seasonal eating, and my enjoyment of kimchee. I've posted my recipe here a few times, and still plan on trying the marinating method (versus the pound it to death method). But today i will only mention my new approach:

Kimchee is a condiment of versatility and self expression. You can use just about any vegetables and spices you like. I have decided that from this point forward, i will be preparing my kimchee with entirely seasonal produce. I stopped by the Hope Farmers Market today and purchase a locally grown cabbage (i tried to grow cabbage, but the snails beat me to the harvest) and then wandered my garden to pick some spring onions and garlic whips (which i dutifully followed by planting some basil seeds in their stead, it's about time!) Today's kimchee will be made with:

• Local cabbage
• Homegrown spring onions
• Homegrown garlic whips
• Homegrown carrots
• Homegrown dried chillies
• Homegrown coriander seeds
• Homegrown nasturtium leaves
• Homemade whey from local raw milk
• Salt - sourced from far away, i'm sure

Pickled eggs (very reduced recipe to serve 5 eggs):

• Malt and cider vinegar
• water
• 1 whole clove
• Small cinnamon stick
• 1/4 teaspoon or so of pickling spice
• Dash mustard
• Some hot peppers and cayenne powder
• 1/2 T rapadura
• pinch sugar
• 1/2 T pickling salt
• Garlic cloves

Bring to boil, simmer 15 minutes, cool and pour over the eggs. I know this is supposed to be non refrigerated, but it wierds me out, so into the fridge it goes.  I'll test them out next weekend and see what i think!

Great productive weekend for us, onward to a new week, and hopefully a successful (or at least informative) market event on Wednesday.

Coleslaw

My mother has coined this "southwestern coleslaw" but i'm not sure why. (she is a yankee. she has very sensitive  mouthbuds to heat. i'm talking regular pepper, here)

I just whipped this together with ideas in my head of what i thought would make coleslaw that i would like, as i don't like coleslaw.
This is what i ended up with.

• about a half a head of Napa Cabbage, shredded very thinly and chopped
• about 2 heaping tablespoons each of low fat mayo and miracle whip
• one thawed ice cube of meyer lemon juice
• several dashes crushed red pepper
• about 5 small leaves lime basil, a front fresh dill and parsely, all chopped finely - total about 1 tablespoon fresh herbs
• salt and pepper
• a quarter sweet onion, chopped finely
• a quarter apple, shredded

Toss all veg and herb ingredients together then add wet ingredients and stir thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.