Monthly Archives: March 2015

Southern Pecan Pie

Recipes, , , , , , ,

This pecan pie was great, so delicious. A classic southern recipe, nothing beats the richness and flavor profile of a pecan pie. A little goes a long way as it is a rich dessert.

Ingredients

3 eggs slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
1 cup light or dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon corn oil margarine, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pecans
1 unbaked ( 9 inch ) pie shell

Process

  1.  In medium bowl stir eggs, sugar, corn syrup, margarine and vanilla until well blended.
  2. Stir in pecans.
  3.  Pour into pie shell.
  4. Bake in 350 Deg. F. oven 50 to 55 minutes, or until a knife inserted between center and edge comes out clean.
  5. Cool on rack

Makes 8 servings

References

The recipe came off of the back of a bag of pecans produced by the South Georgia Pecan Co. www.georgiapecan.com
Very good pecans. They are great in pancakes as they soften a bit as they get cook in the pancake. I’ve enjoyed them as a quick snack alone, or throw in a bowl drizzled with maple syrup and a dash of salt.

Nuts also taste good mixed with coconut oil, really brings out the flavor. Put a few nuts in you mouth and then a little bit of coconut oil and you will see how this works. A great nut butter can be made by grinding nuts with coconut oil.

Veal Meatloaf

Recipes, , , , , , , , , , ,

I had some leftover veal, about a pound of ground veal. So as an experiment I tried out veal meatloaf and played around with making bread crumbs from scratch, I was out of actual bread crumbs from the store, so it was time to do it from scratch. Plus I had some refried beans hanging around too that could be used up.

Bread Crumbs

For the bread crumbs, I happened to have 2 slices of Heidelburg bread and a  fist sized end stub of Italian bread,  plus 2 pieces of flat bread. I put them in the oven on warm, 170 Deg F. for 2 hours on a cookie sheet, flipping them halfway through. I’m sure any bread crumbs would work fine in this recipe. But in a pinch, they are easy to make.

Next I ran the dried and cooled off bread cubes through the food processor on grind. It produced approximately a cup and a half of bread crumbs.

Other Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground veal
  • Half of a Chipolte pepper chopped finely ( The kind you get in Adobe sauce )
  • 1 cup refried beans
  • 2 tbsp Ketchup
  • 1 stalk of celery
  • 1 small onion
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 2 chives
  • 1 tbsp Old Bay
  • 1 tbsp Paprika
  • Several tsp Worcestershire ( to taste )

The Rest of the Process

Next I ran a celery stalk, small onion, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 chives through the food processor.

Then I put a decent wad of refried beans in a bowl, probably a cup. Into this I mixed, about a tbsp of paprika, about the same amount of Old Bay, a few tsp of Worcestershire sauce and a half of a Chipolte pepper chopped finely. It was the kind that comes in the Adobe sauce, about 1 tsp of the Adobe sauce went into the mix as well. Into this goes about 2 tbsp Ketchup. Add one egg and stirs until it forms good slurry.

I mixed all of the bread crumbs into the meat, mixing well adding small amounts of bread crumbs at a time to fully incorporate.

Next I mixed in the refried bean and spice slurry.

I greased the loaf pan with bacon fat and then filled it with the meat mixture, topped it with sesame seeds and covered with foil.

Cook

It goes into a preheated 375 Deg F. Oven. Reduce to 325 after 15 minutes, rotate the loaf pan periodically and cook for about 1.5 hours. There should be plenty of bubbling and boiling action around the sides.

Next I pulled off the foil from the top and broiled the top for a few minutes, enhancing the crust.

Allow to rest and cool, for at least 20 minutes. Otherwise it will crumble.

Final Thoughts

I would like to incorporate some ground pork into this meat loaf as I think it would give an added dimension. Other than that it was very moist and probably the best meat loaf, I can remember having.

Kielbasa with Sauerkraut and Green Apples

Recipes, Television, , ,

This is a good Eastern European dish, I saw a variant of it on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. It was easy enough to remember and when I tried it, I was impressed.

Kielbasa with Sauerkraut
Kielbasa with Sauerkraut

Ingredients

  • One  length Kielbasa, approximately 16 inches long. I used fresh Kielbasa.
  • One green apple
  • Sauerkraut, approximately the same volume as the amount of Kielbasa

 

Kielbasa,Apple,Sauerkraut
Kielbasa,Apple,Sauerkraut

Process

I bought a approximately 16 inch long fresh Kielbasa, cooked it at 275 F in the oven for an hour, flipping over once.

Cooked Kielbasa
Cooked Kielbasa

Then in a big pan or a pot that has a cover, place about the same volume of sauerkraut as the size of the Kielbasa, I used some homemade kraut that was fairly fresh ( fermented 7 days ) and had some tooth feel to it still, al dente. Cut up one green apple into eight pieces, you can leave the skins on.

Cut Kielbasa into 1/2 inch slices and add to pan/pot and gently warm on the lowest setting, occasionally stirring for about 30 minutes or until thoroughly warmed.

Combines well with egg noodles or over rye bread.

Alternatives to FTP

Linux, Server, , , , , ,

One server I have is fairly low on resources, so I opted not to run FTP. It would just mean yet another service that would have to run on a low RAM unit. So to move files to and from this server I use scp or sftp from Linux and WinSCP from Windows.

SCP Example

These examples assumes you can SSH into your server!

Using a FQDN

The following example shows downloading a directories content from a remote server using a fully qualified domain name.

 scp -r username@serverlocation.com:/home/username/dir /home/username/dir

Using a IP address

On the local network in this example using an ip address, copying remote to local.

 scp -r user@192.168.1.101:/home/user/fswebcam /home/user/fswebcam

Example of uploading a single file to a remote server from the home directory of the user to a specific location under the users home directory tree on a remote computer, note the tilde (~) means home directory of user.

scp ~/fswebcam/timelapse/dusk.avi user@12.34.56.78:/home/user/files/public/timelapse-video/dusk.avi

SFTP

To connect using sftp, a ftp tunnel using SSH, typically you can use the “Connect to Server” found for instance in Ubuntu under Places.

  • Set connection type to SSH
  • Set the server
  • IP address or FQDN
  • Port is set to 22, the standard SSH port
  • Folder is set to any folder that the user has permission to get into, /home/user is a safe bet.
  • Username is set
Connect to Server in Ubuntu, Place Menu
Connect to Server in Ubuntu, Place Menu

 

  • You can add a bookmark to keep getting in to this connection
  • It will ask for your login password upon connecting

SFTP via Browser

Also from a Firefox browser, Haven’t tried this on others! you can simply put sftp://user@serveraddress in the address bar. This will connect you to your home folder after you give the password at the prompt. I noticed that in Ubuntu, it will do the same thing that the “Connect to Server” option will do. It will show a folder on the desktop
after connecting with the browser that it the sftp connection

WinSCP

From Windows I have used the tool WinSCP for years as it supports FTP, SFTP and SCP. http://winscp.net/eng/index.php
It also loads support, by editing the registry perhaps for using the sftp:// type of connection via Windows Explorer.

rsync

For Linux there is also the command rsync, remotely synchronize directories. I haven’t used this but once or twice so I don’t have much to say about it yet.

One more comment on SSH. Typically I leave SSH (Port 22) closed and open it up only when needed on this server. I do this by remotely logging into a my router and opening it and closing it. Alternatively you could configure a firewall to only allow certain IP numbers a connection to SSH and denying all others. This can be done using the direct method of editing the iptables ( I will write more on this, TBD) or using a tool such as UFW or the graphical version of it called GUFW to  handle this.