This quarantine seems to be getting to everyone at this point. One of my friends had to lay off all of his workers which broke his heart. He's worked so hard to build up his business which was really breaking out and then pow....totally shut down. There's not much I can do to help anyone right now except to send them some food. I am having a lot of trouble getting groceries. I've been ordering online but items are limited and I can't shop anywhere near the way I usually do. I am running low on things like butter, flour and sugar. So, what to cook for everyone and be able to make a lot of it? Appalachian food! The people of the mountains know how to prepare delicious soul healing food from what they have in their pantry. And in this part of the country, most people have some roots in Appalachia. This type of food is the ultimate comfort food.
I made a big crock of soup beans. This is a staple of Appalachian cooking. I added ham and kielbasa to make them even heartier.
I had a head of cabbage so I made chow chow. Soup beans are always served with raw diced onions and chow chow on top of them.
I wanted to make salt rise bread which I hadn't made in 4 months. This is a pick of the failed raisin'. This bread is so tricky because you are creating a bacteria which substitutes for the yeast to make the bread rise. This process takes 12 hours and I was sorely disappointed to find this dead, dirty looking potato mess when I woke up. Time to start over.
The next day and doesn't this look healthier? And the key to this bread is the smell. It smells like stinky feet! I think it smells like Parmesan cheese but stinky feet is a funnier way to describe it.
See how happy it looks after the first rise. Good salt rise bread is on the way.
And here it is. This makes the world's best toast.
The days that I had the raisin' fail, I made whole wheat bread instead so I threw it into the lot.
I made everyone some old fashioned date and nut bars.
And Appalachian Sweet Breads.
These cakes don't look like much but they are absolutely wonderful. Everything was boxed up and dropped off on porches. There was a shaky moment when one of the boxes was left on the wrong porch but fortunately, it was retrieved and delivered to the intended person. Someone almost got a lucky surprise delivery!
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Yesterday was a real downer. David, my husband, was let go from his job at Hexcel after 39 years. He has worked in the office and knows no other job. So we are restructuring our household to make do until I can collect social security. That will help a great deal. The main problem is looking for affordable health insurance because ours will run out at the end of the month. So now I am looking for ways to cut down which isn't hard because I've done this before when I was single.
Stay safe and stay healthy and keep your loved ones closely around you in your heart.
We keep the distance from each other when we do our grocery shopping, they have marked trhe floors with big red dots so we know ehere to stand and not being to close to each other. They also deliver to the stores like normal so we don't lack anything thankfully.
Have a great day despite the corona!
Christer.
In my online delivery there was no chicken or potatoes available this week.