♪ They say ye'are what you eat, so I don't eat chicken feet ♪ ♪ But I love me summa' Grandma's pickled beets ♪ ♪ Well, cut it up, put it'na pan ♪ ♪ Throw it on these sholders see where it lands ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Maters, taters, beans and corn ♪ ♪ The cow's in the barn and the sheep's been shorn ♪ ♪ Kids in the barnyard ♪ ♪ Chasin' Grandpa's chickens, chickens, chickens ♪ ♪ Spices, slices, cuts and dices ♪ ♪ Gonna slash your grocery prices ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ Help you grow your garden good ♪ ♪ With recipes to suit your mood ♪ ♪ Try some grub you've never tried before ♪ ♪ 'Fore, 'fore ♪ ♪ Smash it with a wooden mallet ♪ ♪ Gonna educate yer palette ♪ ♪ Right here in Farmer's Kitchen ♪ ♪ In Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen ♪ ♪ We gonna cook some good now ♪ Hello and welcome to the Farmer's Kitchen.

We're the farmers and this is our kitchen.

And we're about to eat dinner.

Yay.

We're not cooking just to be cooking to make a TV show.

Although, that's a byproduct.

Yes, it is.

So, tonight, look at the pans we have in front of us.

We're gonna use every one of these and more.

That's right.

I'm washing dishes, right?

Just like last time.

Okay.

All right, why do we have frying utensils out?

Why do we have temperature gauges?

Because it's so important when you're frying.

Yes, it is.

Now, I don't want to talk too much, but something really interesting has happened in the last couple of years.

The advent of air fryers.

That's right.

They are everywhere.

They're good for some things, I've found, and not so good for others.

Sometimes you need to deep fry something in oil to get the taste and the texture.

And it involves getting the right temperature.

The smoke point for extra virgin olive oil is about 400 degrees.

In 2020, they started doing experiments all over the world.

They come to find out the USDA now recommends olive oil as an oil that you deep fry with.

So, if you cook between 258 degrees Fahrenheit and 338, you don't lose all of your antioxidants.

Which are important for olive oil.

So, you're thinking, okay, every show that you see, everybody that you talk to, you've got to cook between 350 and 375.

I've been deep frying stuff for almost 50 years.

How can that be when I'm 38?

I don't know.

That's amazing.

It's a miracle.

It is a miracle.

But I have been experimenting and experimenting and experimenting and used a lot of oil.

Yes, we have.

And I've come to find out that I hardly ever go above 340 degrees.

Tonight, we've got the oil out.

Lots of oil.

Did you ever just fire up your pans of oil and have the kids stand around and just wait for whatever fried thing might fall on their plate?

Whether it be onion rings, french fries, and so on and so forth.

Oh, yeah.

We're going to find out tonight that we're going to keep our temperature right around 300.

You can go up a little bit, 325.

That's as high as we'll go for this.

So, last night, we had to pick somebody up, and we had a little time on our hands, so we went to the store.

We're shopping.

And there's a problem.

We were hungry.

And you like to, when you get shopping, you fill the cart.

Sometimes I like to go to the store, even if we don't do anything, just to walk around.

Late in the evening, before they close, and walk around and look and think, "Okay, ooh, this would be good with this."

So, tonight, we're doing some things that you might have heard of or you might not.

As far as I know, some of these things are maybe cooked for the first time.

Yeah.

You might do it a million times up there.

We just don't know.

But we were thinking about meatballs.

We were thinking about Italian.

We were also thinking about Mexican.

We were also thinking about Chinese.

We were also thinking about American food, and we just got lost, so we bought a bunch of stuff.

And I thought... I'm gonna fry it off.

[laughs] Why couldn't we cross cultures?

So, here's what we're going to do.

First of all, we're going to have some meatballs.

Now, let's keep our oil around 300 degrees, and I know that was a lot of conversation, but think about the fact of extra virgin olive oil.

We find the cheap stuff in bite and bulk in the past because we do food stuff and we have food events.

We buy it up when we see it, just like we do everything else.

We have three or four freezers full of stuff.

We have to because we raise animals, and we butcher when we have to.

So, when things are for sale, we buy them.

Meatballs.

Okay, let's think about our meatball recipe.

This is more of an Italian meatball recipe.

We basically took a pound of hamburger.

I think we start off with like a half a cup of Italian breadcrumbs, some garlic, some basil, oregano, rosemary.

What else?

We put an egg in there to keep everything together.

Salt and pepper, of course.

Salt and pepper.

And here they are.

We're going to take these.

We're not going to put anything on them, and we're going to put them in just to give them a nice exterior with just a little bit of crunch on the outside.

Italian breadcrumbs.

Yummy.

I don't want to dirty my oil up too bad, so I'm not putting that much on.

I'm shaking it off, but that gives it such a nice little crunch when it comes out.

What are we going to do with these meatballs?

I can't tell you.

I'm excited.

It's a secret.

But you know where we're going.

I do.

They're delicious.

This is something you might not have thought of because I didn't think of it until last night when I was starving to death.

Right after dinner.

Right after dinner.

It was a little bit after dinner.

Yeah, it was.

They actually ran us out of the store.

They did.

We were there too late.

All right, now you look at our oil and say, "Ooh, that's pretty dark oil."

Well, that's olive oil.

This study that they have been doing to find out if we can use olive oil and not lose the beneficial effects, they're finding out that you can do that.

That's interesting.

We don't have to cook at 350 degrees.

We don't have to cook at 400 degrees.

So, look what we've got.

What I have found out is these meatballs, they'll tell you when they're done.

They'll come up to the top, but it takes about 10 minutes at 300 degrees.

What a great way to do meatballs.

I like this.

And they're done all the way through.

And the crunch.

And you get that wonderful taste.

Everything's going to look a little bit funny because it's in that dark-colored oil, but the taste was phenomenal.

A lot of people also say, "Well, what's the taste going to be when you deep fry in olive oil?"

It's actually delicious.

It is delicious.

So, on our show over the years, you have seen us cook a lot of things.

And I just found some footage.

I have been cooking on television for almost 28 years.

I want to show you the last part of this goofy little thing I did with the girls when they were tiny.

So, we went out and we caught crawdads.

And we caught so many that I was going to use for bait.

So, we made a little Cajun dish, and we boiled the crawdads up.

This is one of the first cooking shows we did.

And this is not the cooking side of it.

But take a look at this.

How old were you?

Like, 30?

I was like 12.

You were a baby.

Okay.

Like, 12.

[music playing] And now look what happens when they come floating up.

They look good.

Don't they look good?

Yes.

And remember they got that little bit of brown on the outside.

We're just going to give them just a little bit of a kind of crunchy thing going on.

And these are doing just fine.

They're about 280.

Now, you think about when your grandmother fried chicken.

Do you remember when your grandmother fried chicken in an electric skillet?

Yes.

Or a cast iron skillet?

It wasn't going crazy.

It wouldn't set off your smoke detector.

It was low and slow.

So, many of us have been told for so long, "Well, you got to cook them at 350 for four minutes."

And then you pop it in there.

It's done on the outside, way too done on the outside.

And it's just totally not cooked on the inside.

Low and slow.

My grandma spent hours.

I mean, she spent about an hour just flipping it and turning it, and she made everything else.

We've been experimenting for years to get things right, and I found out.

Now look at that.

Those are perfect.

Look what the little bit of breadcrumbs does to that.

It's got a nice brown color to it.

Those look really good.

That's going to be good in our little surprise that we're doing here.

And they tell you when you're done.

They just pop right up off the bottom.

And it smells like heaven in here.

Yes, it does.

So, there's no adverse effects or taste with this olive oil when you're doing around 300 degrees.

In fact, it tastes good, and you still get the benefits.

So, doing this, you get 500 times more antioxidants than you do if you're cooking with avocado or coconut oil.

Really?

Interesting.

500 times.

So, look.

I don't know.

That's just beautiful to me.

So, look what we've got.

We've got a taco.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Italian, Mexican.

I like it.

It's all good.

I don't want all that bread when I have a meatball sub.

Think about how much bread there is.

So, I'm thinking, "Okay, what if we did this?

What if we did one?"

It looks like three is going to work about right.

Don't you think?

Yes, that's perfect.

Right there in the middle.

[laughs] So, this is a meatball sandwich without all the bread.

I like that.

On a tortilla, you eat it with your hands.

Very good.

I like that.

So, we're going to take some marinara sauce.

Now, if you haven't seen our marinara recipe, and we change it up sometimes.

Check it out on TimFarmersCountryKitchen.com.

We also showed you not too long ago how to make homemade tortillas.

That's right.

Can't beat it.

And we're going to put some cheese.

A little Parmigiano-Reggiano and some mozzarella.

And we're going to do a couple banana peppers just because there's no law against it.

Now, that's a good-looking sandwich.

Now, look at that.

I like that.

Wow.

Now, we fold it over just slightly.

Can you smell that?

I can.

I can't wait to try it.

I can't wait.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm just telling you.

And look, you just fold that over.

I get the first bite.

You can have all that bread if you'd like it.

I would like the first bite because I'm hungry.

I'll give you the first bite.

Can you dig it?

Now, think about that.

What's the not like?

I like that better because there's not all the bread, like you said.

It's thinner.

You get more of the meatball.

Look at it dripping all over the place.

Yum.

Yum, Papa.

You outdid yourself.

Temperature.

Time.

Temperature.

Time.

A lot of these little fryers that you get are preset to 350.

You don't have a choice.

That was between 280 and 300 the whole time.

And look what we've got.

Look what we've got.

That's a cute little appetizer even.

You could just dip those in something.

Okay.

I like it.

Being that this is not only a television show, but it's our kitchen.

That's right.

Kelly has been eyeballing this and wants it bad, so we're going to shut down the cameras for just a minute, have a bite, then on to the next item.

Make some more stuff.

Next entree.

I want some more of this.

[music playing] [music playing] Now, we're not going to use our pasta machine tonight, because you're going to manually roll these out and use our pasta material for a ravioli of sorts.

So, if I was going to do a crab ravioli, what would I put in it?

I would take our crab meat, ricotta cheese, coarse ground black pepper, Parmesan cheese, and some green onions.

Okay.

So, we're using Italian pasta, like you would use for your linguine, and we've made several recipes with it.

You know what's nice about this?

You can eat just flour and egg.

That's why you can make it so simple.

That's it.

The flour is to it.

Right.

Anytime you want.

So, you kind of got some Italian over here, and a little bit of Asian thing going on here, and then we'll dip it in sweet and sour sauce.

Yummy.

I mean, we're fried, so why not?

Let's do it.

So, let me mix my stuff up over here, and right here, don't know how much crab we've got.

We've probably got a half cup.

Let's make it three-quarters of a cup.

Leave me a little to eat later.

I know.

You're going to want to eat that.

So, ricotta cheese.

I love ricotta.

I would say, what, is that a half a cup?

Probably.

I love that.

It's so good.

About a half a cup of ricotta.

Some fresh ground, kind of coarsely ground black pepper.

A little Parmigiano Reggiano.

And a little salt, a little pepper, and then some fresh green onions.

We'll just turn the ravioli recipe into something a little bit different.

So, we're going to mix that up.

No cream cheese?

Yes, we'll do some cream.

I love cream cheese.

I know you want some cream cheese.

Yes, please.

And this is probably a couple ounces of cream cheese.

Now, let's take our lemon.

Let's put just a little bit of lemon zest in there.

I kind of roll these out myself.

You know, when you roll them out yourself, they're not perfect squares.

But I'm going to build these, cut around them with my pizza cutter, and then seal them and try to make them look like perfect squares.

For uniformity.

Yeah.

Now, I'll leave my oil, while we're not cooking, at around 250.

That way, I can rather quickly get it right back up around the 300 mark.

I try to pick the ones that match.

Like I said, I'm going to cut around these two and make them a little better.

Now, these are going to only go for about five minutes.

Because think about it.

Our crab is cooked.

Our cheese.

All we have to do is melt that.

Just get a little bit of brown on these.

And oh, my.

We snuck one here a minute ago, and it was absolutely delicious.

I'm going to do this on both sides, because I want to make sure all the stuff stays in.

We're going to plop them in our olive oil.

Is it ready?

It's ready.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Are you excited?

I am excited.

How many do you want in there?

Let's do four, if we can.

Do you want four of them?

Now, the thing.

I really always make sure I can see mine with a thermometer.

I want to know exactly what we're doing temperature-wise.

[music playing] Deep-fried ravioli.

What do you think?

Delicious.

It's my favorite way to have it.

It's crunchy, as opposed to when you have ravioli.

It's either baked or boiled or whatever.

Look at this.

I want you to look at that.

I want you to look at the texture of that.

Deep-fried.

Those are good.

What can go wrong?

First bite.

I have to try.

Actually, not the first bite.

I love it.

Do you love it?

Love it?

Oh, I do.

It's really good.

Can you hear that crunch?

Yes.

It's really good.

Now, when you think ravioli, you don't think about a crunch.

Get some of that cheese.

I feel as though just one of those would.

That's really good.

That's really, really good.

Okay.

How could it not be?

Because it's deep-fried.

That's right.

In all of the world.

So, we're going to take a break.

We're going to get cleaned up.

And we've got one more thing we're going to throw your way.

I think you're really going to like this night of frying in the kitchen.

[music playing] Now, it looks like we just went seamlessly from one recipe to having two pots out of here to one.

It looks like we just cleaned up.

Yeah.

Well, between the last time you saw us and now, that two days ago.

We had a farm emergency.

Now, I'm not going to say specifically what it is because we're going to save that for later.

But it has something to do with something that goes like this... meh!

[laughs] It's a long story.

Some of you already know what's going on, but we're going to address that in a little bit.

But first of all, let's get back to our frying.

Now, let's remember that we're doing extra virgin olive oil.

That being said, I'm reheating my oil here.

And it's almost at 300.

So, I'm going to start backing off just a little bit because the hottest I want to go here is 325.

We talked about things, crossing cultures.

All kinds of good stuff.

And I'm sure somebody else has done this before, probably.

We have corned beef.

What's that over there, Mrs.

Farmer?

That is egg rolls.

Egg roll wrappers.

Swiss cheese, sauerkraut.

Corned beef, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese.

Is that the hazelnut dressing?

It is.

This is my favorite sandwich.

Here's another side note.

We bought this corned beef up in Cincinnati at an old established market.

You walk through and see all kinds of cool stuff.

It was a while ago.

It was a while ago.

You can freeze it.

Let's show them how we do that to maintain it being fresh.

So, we found that this freezes really great.

It did.

By doing what?

We froze this.

And what I did, you can use either parchment paper or wax paper.

I put it between each sheet, which makes it turn out perfect.

It doesn't freeze together.

No, so look at this.

You have a barrier there.

It's been in there a month.

And look at these perfect pieces.

And it smells great.

Yes.

And it is actually very fresh tasting.

Now, you're wondering if we're using olive oil.

You would think there might be a taste.

The taste is fantastic.

We've tried everything in it.

There's no off taste.

There's no bitter taste.

It tastes wonderful.

So, from here on out, this is what I'm using.

You can do what you want.

I'm not a scientist, but this is recommended by the USDA.

Four pieces here.

I love my little old-fashioned chopper.

I'm just going to cut this up a little bit.

This cuts really well.

Just so it's a little bit more manageable.

Mom's chow-chow chopper.

Yes, I love this.

It's good for chopping anything.

We're going to get these more manageable to fit in.

And you don't have to cut this up into tiny pieces.

Think about what you would do if you're making a Reuben sandwich.

Just chop it up just enough to have it in little segments where you can munch up on it heavily.

Speaking of ready to go.

Swiss cheese.

We're just going to cut these in half and lay those in there.

What do you think?

And this is a fascinating little process and a recipe that's just absolutely wonderful.

Now sauerkraut, you can have it prepared as much as you want.

I like mine with caraway seeds.

Apples.

Onions.

Apples.

Onions.

Beer.

And my golly, you're about to go.

We're just building us a Reuben.

So, just think three layers here.

Normally you'd have - some restaurants have huge pieces of bread with that.

You know, it's good with little thin pieces of rye bread as well.

It is the way I prefer it.

We can eat more.

Until I tried it this way.

I know.

Swiss cheese.

Swiss cheese.

Now watch how she rolls this.

We don't do a complete low-carb diet, but we do kind of try to watch our carbs.

When she's not making apple cake or oatmeal cookies that she knows I can't resist.

Sometimes I'll be innocently watching TV, minding my own business.

And guess what she does?

Do you want some oatmeal cookies?

So that way you can make me peanut butter.

That's a good excuse.

How can I say no?

And then I eat, what, 60 of them?

Yeah, you could.

You eat 60.

Good thing we live on a farm and work.

Checking my oil.

325, exactly.

There's four.

Dropping these in.

These are so good.

Now again, that oil looks a little bit darker.

It's not burnt.

It's not overused.

It is simply olive oil.

What color are olives?

Green.

Some are.

Oh, those are good.

And so, as these cook, they are going to want to be on one side.

And then we'll just continuously move them around, roll them around, because they will want to get stuck on one side.

These generally take about six minutes at 325 to get good and brown and blister up real good just like you want them.

[music playing] All right, 325.

Oh, my goodness.

I'm going to let these drain a little bit.

Those are beautiful.

Look at that.

Those are beautiful.

325.

What are you going to call these?

Olive oil.

What do you call these?

Reuben rolls?

What?

Yeah.

I like a Reuben roll.

These are so good.

Sometimes your genius.

It just shuts me down.

[laughs] And then all the other times.

It pops out like one time a year.

Okay, let's let those cool.

And then we'll come back and we'll professionally sample those.

Good idea.

Can you dig it?

I can.

[music playing] Are you hungry?

I can't wait.

They have sufficiently cooled.

Look at that.

That's a little Reuben in there.

We've got the cheese melted.

We've got this sauerkraut that we cooked special.

That's right.

And then we have our corned beef.

Go ahead.

I'm dipping it in Thousand Island.

It's got to be Thousand Island.

You hear the crunch?

I like that better than bread.

That's the best Reuben I've ever had.

Oh, wow.

Well, something that you don't normally get with a Reuben.

It is a deep-fried crunch.

So, you know, there's less carbs here if you're thinking about that sort of thing.

But let me just tell you, I can eat about 20 of these.

I could too.

These are really good.

And, you know, I'm not saying guilt free here, but olive oil.

Are you kidding me?

Delicious.

Yes, delicious.

[music playing] So, why is the water running?

That's my bottle warmer back there.

So, our emergency came in the form of a little guy with eye patches, a mustache, and a goatee.

He's so cute.

His name is Montana Mustache.

That's right.

[laughs] He is the cutest little thing, but his mother rejected him.

So, right after we finish this, we're going to go outside and talk about all this.

What do you call them?

Reuben Rolls.

Reuben Rolls.

Yummy.

[music playing] So, our emergency was the other day.

He wants this.

He hits my leg.

It's lambing season.

So many things can happen.

And we've been doing this for quite a while, over a decade now.

So, we kind of know what to look for.

On the occasion, we don't know why, there are many thought processes there, but a ewe will reject one of their babies.

Now, she did this.

She had two rams, one white one and this one.

And she absolutely, no matter what we tried, every old wives' tale, nothing worked, and this happens.

And if you don't separate that baby from her, she will physically hurt this and maybe kill this baby.

So, we're going to show you this video, a little bit disturbing.

You don't think about this in nature, but it happens.

So, let's show you what happened and why this baby is with us instead of its mother.

[music playing] So, that was disturbing, but that happens sometimes.

And there's no rhyme or reason we can't get inside of that ewe's head.

She's taking care of her other baby beautifully, as you'll see right here.

So, this little fella has to be fed four or five times a day.

And he loves Nicki, and he loves us, and Boo loves him.

Where's Boo?

Boo likes him.

Boo just walked by her somewhere.

There she is.

She absolutely loves this baby.

Usually, she won't get around another animal, but she likes the baby.

So, this just means that we're going to be on alert for a while.

It's time to feed the baby.

Now, as you're out and about, you hear birds in the background, we see trees, we see nature all around us.

Aren't you much more a part of nature while you're out and about looking?

If you hear a bird and can identify that, you know without even seeing it what it is.

For example, if you hear this [mimics bird whistling], you ever heard that?

I have.

[whistles] What is that?

I don't know.

It's a robin.

Robin.

I don't know my birds.

Something you hear a lot this time of year.

This is a fun time of year.

Everybody's out and about.

We're having fun on the farm.

But we're going to keep having new ideas and good stuff to eat.

And if somebody would come up to you, Mrs.

Farmer, and ask very politely, Mrs.

Farmer, where in the world would I get your recipes?

What would you say to them?

I'd tell them TimFarmersCountryKitchen.com.

I've been there.

I know.

And if they said, "Hey, we see your Facebook page, but we have no idea how to get on that page," if they said it very politely like that.

They do.

They say it politely.

And you would say?

You hit like.

Wait a minute.

It's just that simple?

It is that simple.

Look at this baby.

Look at this baby.

I think he's looking for some more food.

Yes, he is.

Well, our half hour is up.

That being said, Mrs.

Farmer, what's it all about?

Good times.

Good friends.

Good eats.

And we'll see you next week.

Brand new Farmer's Kitchen.

And precious babies.

[music playing] Funding for Tim Farmer's Country Kitchen is brought to you by Amerson Farms Country Store.

Something for every member of the family.

[music playing] Ephraim McDowell Medical Center in Danville, Kentucky.

[music playing] Gulf Coast Connection, seafood straight from the Gulf to you.

The Spine Center of Central Kentucky.

[music playing] Wilderness Road Hospitality, Stanford, Kentucky.

Visit Frankfort, Kentucky's spirited capital city.

[music playing] [music playing] To order a cookbook, email TimFarmerCK@gmail.com.