Recipes Requested

There were requests in the comments for the Okra, Tomatoes & Meatballs, and the Taco Meat that I canned.

Okra, Tomatoes & Meatballs:

In this post a couple of years ago, I talked about how I made Okra & Tomatoes with Meatballs. Basically, you make okra and tomatoes just like you always would, and make meatballs any way you want them and combine the two. Serve it over rice.

To make it a bit more step by step . . . let’s say this is going to be a recipe for four

Meatballs:

Mix 1 – 1-1/2 pounds of ground beef and make meatballs any way you like them. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. Using a heavy pot, add a bit of olive oil, butter, bacon grease – whatever you want to use . . brown the meatballs. Remove from the pot.

Veggies:

Chop the following: a large bell pepper, 2 jalapeno peppers, 1 onion, 2 stalks of celery, 3 – 4 cloves of garlic. Saute those in the pot where the meatballs were cooked.

Okra:

Just before the veggies are tender and brown, add about 1 pound of sliced okra (more if you love okra). Cook, stirring, til the onions and peppers are looking done. Add a couple of cups of water, along with salt and pepper, simmer til the okra loses some of it’s slime. Add about 2 pounds peeled, chopped tomatoes. Add more water if there wasn’t a lot of liquid in the tomatoes. Simmer on low, stirring often to make sure nothing sticks or scorches. Add more water if needed.

Test for spices. I add a good bit of Cajun Redhead seasoning. It has way less salt than most cajun mixes. I always have to add more salt.

Simmer til everything is well blended and there’s no slime in the okra. Serve over rice.

Taco Meat:

For canning the taco meat, I did not use an approved/tested canning method but all you do is choose your favorite way of canning beef. I counted on two pounds of beef per quart. To each quart, I added 1-1/2 T. of taco seasoning. It was seasonings I mixed up – basically this recipe but I leave out the red pepper flakes and use ground cayenne pepper.