Southern Comfort

I might have lived in Minnesota for the past 11 years, but I'm a Southern girl at heart.  And summer just isn't summer without okra.  

I panicked a little bit at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market on Saturday when only a few farmers still had tomatoes.  Duh, Liz.  If your garden isn't rolling in the tomatoes right now, then their farms aren't producing them either.  Then I realized that I still hadn't gotten any okra this year.  And it was almost too late!

I think the only redeeming quality to Texas summers was that there was more okra than you could ever eat.  They were all beautiful little pods, so tender you barely had to cook them.  Here I struggle to find okra that's not overgrown.  I promise you now that I will be planting some next year.

Luckily one farmer  brought some okra and I snagged 3 baskets of it.  I should have gotten more.  I processed it into 6 pints of pickled okra and not quite a pint of sliced frozen okra.  It's taking every ounce of restraint that I have not to crack open on of these jars right now.

On the subject of Southern food, I made some rockin' biscuits with kale and black eyed pea gravy the other day.

I used the baking powder biscuits from Vegan with a Vengeance, tons of kale from the garden sautéed with  garlic and Bragg's, and almond milk cream gravy with some black-eyed peas thrown in.  Whoa.  Seriously good and comforting breakfast on a cool weekend.  You should make this.