♪ 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 bee 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 all cook some good night y'all ♪ Hello and welcome to the Farmer's Kitchen, we're the Farmer's that's our kitchen.

-Yes.

-This is really our kitchen.

You know, a lot of people have been asking a lot of questions.

We got a lot of new viewers.

One of them is, is that your real name?

It is.

It's been my real name since I was born.

And the really weird thing about it.

-What?

-My dad has the same last name.

-You are kidding me?

-And this gets really weird.

-Okay.

-His dad before him, same name.

Really?

That's amazing.

I've never heard of that.

That's the only reason you married me.

That's right I like the name.

Another question we get quite frequently and a lot of times they're statements or questions and they're really bizarre.

So, we have to address this because we get it so much.

What happened to your hand?

What's wrong with you?

Why are you hiding your hand?

First of all, I'm not hiding my hand.

I am not able to bring my hand up.

Why do you wear a glove?

Why do you cover your hand?

Well, I have to because I have RSD.

So, if temperature changes, it hurts really bad.

Now, for those of you who have been with us way back to the Kentucky field days, 1990s, you know what's going on.

But for the new viewers, I feel like I have to say something because we had so many questions.

1984 United States Marine Corp, I was a young marine.

I was on an off ramp and there was some little cold, some dust and gravel.

I hit that on my motorcycle.

So, on my way back to Millington, Tennessee under the guard rail, 30 miles an hour wasn't doing anything silly.

Boom arm almost completely cut off.

Now, there was extensive nerve damage.

I'm lucky to have an arm.

I'm lucky to be alive because I just about bled to death.

I found myself in a situation 20 years old and I had limited use of an arm.

So, how am I going to hunt and fish and do all the things I love.

Guitar picking like I like to do was kind of done.

So, over the years I learned to do things reeling in fish with my teeth, shooting the bow with my teeth, shooting a rifle across my shoulder.

Nicki: And you're good at it.

Tim: In 1989 moved to Frankfort began my career with the Department of Fish in my life.

That led to being around a bunch of people who like to hunt fish.

And a lot of these people were involved in archery competitions.

I like the sound of that, but I couldn't shoot a bow.

How am I going to do this?

So, I figured out with the help of a buddy of mine, Billy Bob Mitchell, he figured out, he saw out west there was a guy shooting a bow with his teeth, had a leather strap on his bow.

Well, I haven't shot a bow my whole life.

So, all I did was put that strap on it and pull it back, released.

I was in business.

So, I liked it so much that I practice all the time.

Next thing you know, I'm winning tournaments, a lot of tournaments.

And as the host of Kentucky Field left for greener pastures, they looked at me and decided maybe I should try for that.

I did, the last day they're putting in resumes.

I put it in and was lucky enough to have that job and was host for Kentucky Field for 21 years.

-Wow.

-That being said, that's what happened to my hand.

I thought it was a clogging accident.

I'll tell you that story someday.

Now, we talked about the fact that I use my teeth to shoot a bow.

Now, you saw our show last year where we cooked on the ground.

We made a bully base - and we used fresh fish.

-Nicki: We had fun.

Now, down in Florida, tilapia are everywhere.

They're not supposed to be there.

They're not a native species but they can over winter because of the warmer water temperatures.

Here's me with my bow Nicki was laughing and carrying on and here's me with my bow shooting some tilapia.

- Big tilapia up to 8, 9 lbs.

-Nicki: They were huge.

Tim: So, we cleaned massive amounts of fish.

Nicki: Yes, we did.

Tim: And we found in our freezer some tilapia.

Nicki: We still have a couple bags.

Tim: Now, that's really good tilapia.

You want to cut that red meat out because it's a little strong.

But tonight, we're going to make a very simple recipe.

A very country recipe.

You could use catfish for this.

You could use just about any kind of fish for this blue gill, bass, large mouth bass would be really good with this.

Now, this is Tim Farmer's country kitchen.

That's right, you like my apron?

-I do, I like it a lot.

-Thank you.

Last week, we cooked - Chinese food.

-Nicki: That's right.

The week before that we cooked German food.

We're going full southern cooking today.

So, we got some simple stuff that we do but you know what it changes every time we do it.

Now, this is going to be different from the last time we did it but here's a little secret.

When you're making your navy beans.

I love navy beans.

Use your pressure cooker, your counter-top pressure cooker that everybody's using nowadays.

Put your beans in a pan, rinse them off, get the shells and everything off.

When you do that, just put them in the pressure cooker, cover them with water enough water two hours to make sure they're good and done.

I've already taken these out.

So what happens with a process that used to take four or five hours?

You got it done in almost no time.

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

We're going to take some yellow sweet onion.

Here's our tilapia.

What I'm going to do is put some black and seasoning on there.

Probably got, I've never measured this, but I have probably got, I probably got two teaspoons in there.

So, I'm going to come back with my buttermilk make a little marinade I guess you could say.

I like to soak my fish, frog legs, critters like that.

Sometimes tilapia can be a little strong.

So, I'm going to let that soak for at least an hour and a half.

So, if you don't have buttermilk, what would you do?

I don't know.

What do you do?

You could take you a cup of milk Tim: and put a tablespoon of vinegar in there.

Stir it up, let it set for about five minutes.

- It'll curdle it -Nicki: Yeah.

and it's a very good substitute for buttermilk.

Really, I heard lemon too.

-Could you do with lemon?

-You could use lemon too and then you can just drink it.

Really, you drink that then.

Four or five gallons at a time.

-Yum.

-Yeah.

Now, as far as my beans, seasoning my beans when I cook them, I cook them in chicken broth.

Even though I use pork for seasoning, I like the chicken broth.

Much better than a beef broth.

You can do a pork broth as well.

Now, I cook them with onions too when I cook them in a pressure cooker and a lot of times the onions will almost disappear.

-You can't have too much onions -I agree.

-in soup beans and you know what?

How many of these do you want?

Let's put at least half of those.

We'll put the rest in the greens.

What do you think?

A little more?

A little more.

So, seasoning the beans.

So, what we're doing here is really taking away a lot of your time from having to let your beans set and cook.

Typically I'll take my dry beans and I'll rinse them, put them in a pot, cover them, bring them to a boil and let them set for an hour -Nicki: Yeah.

- and that water will go down and then you pour that off.

Then you have to cook them for another three or four hours.

- This really lowers your time.

-Nicki: Right.

So, at that point, another important flavor we want to import is smoked ham hocks.

So, if you cut me some of those ham hocks up.

-I will.

-Just in a little chunks.

Tim: You can cut each one of those in three or four pieces and then I'll do... Let me see how much that is.

Oh, that's beautiful.

So, that's going to cook down rather quickly.

And that flavor, that smoked ham hock flavor, it makes your beans.

So, we got some salt that's going to come off of that.

I want to put some chicken bouillon cube in there and we'll taste this as we go along.

We don't want it to get too salty.

I'm going to put at least one in there.

See where that takes us.

Obviously some black pepper.

You like a lot of black pepper.

Nicki: I like pepper.

And let's let that go for a while and see where we end up.

Now, something else we just happen to have some collard greens, some mustard greens and some kale.

- Yum.

-Nicki: Yes.

So, here's where we're going to start that.

So, how do I start my greens?

Nicki: Bacon grease.

Bacon grease.

Now, a lot of that is out of our bacon.

So, with our greens and this recipe may change tomorrow, it depends on what we have around.

Nicki, if you'll drop those beautiful yellow sweet onions in here.

Oh, listen to the sizzle.

So, that's a little over a half of a yellow sweet onion.

We're going to saute it and they let those flavors get going.

That's a pretty good start to any recipe right there.

Oh, yeah, perfect.

Tim: Now, watch your beans.

You don't want them to lose their juice.

And as they cook as it heats up, we may add a little bit more.

Now, a lot of people like a really thick bean soup.

Some people put corn starch in there.

I just like to cook them until your spoon can almost stand up.

Now, I had a friend who we've talked about before.

His name is Harry used to have a restaurant -Nicki: Remember that.

- downtown Frankfurt.

He was amazing with his greens.

Nicki: Everything was good in there.

Tim: And I said, man, can you give me a secret to your greens?

Because I was going in there, you know, sometimes he had rabbit.

If I knew he had rabbit, you know, I'd call down there to see if he had a rabbit.

And he had the best catfish anywhere.

And I would say what's in your greens?

He says not what's in it.

It is what can.

I said come on, Eric.

I said, just let me know and he'd smile at me.

He'd say it's vinegar, but he wouldn't tell me what kind.

And it also had just a little taste of sweet in there.

-Nicki: You figured it out?

-Tim: He finally told me.

Nicki: Okay.

He told you.

I think it was after the restaurant shut down.

So, as I do this, Nicki's going to break down our greens over again.

Mustard collard and Kale.

-I love me some mixed greens.

-We are using all of this?

We are using all of it.

-It cooks down so much.

-Yeah it'll cook down already.

But think about this balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar.

That combination with just a little bit of brown sugar.

-I'm telling you what it's?

-Delicious.

It's unreal.

So, I'll probably put three quarters of a cup o f chicken broth in there.

And I'm going to go ahead and put a couple of red pepper flakes, probably half a teaspoon.

Nicki: You just want these cut up, right?

To bite size pieces more.

Tim: Yeah, and just a tad brown sugar.

So, now once this gets bowling, these are going to cook down really quickly and it's just us tonight.

Nicki: That's about half of it.

With a little bit more chicken broth in there.

Tim: So, we've taken about, I would guess four or five cups of greens and that really cooks down as you know.

So, all told we're probably going to use two cups of broth here.

Bring that to a boil and we'll start to cook down.

I got one last little pet.

You'd be surprised how much this cooks down.

Nicki: That's the end of it.

That's all that in one pan.

All right, now, I have left over just a little bit to get my brothy flavor and I'm going to go ahead and put a little bit of chicken bouillon cube in there just because it's sitting there looking at me and there's a few more red peppers in there.

Nicki: Be careful.

All right, now we've got those ham hawks just sitting there.

So, we're going to take that and we're going to cut it -in even smaller pieces.

-Small pieces?

Okay.

Tim: Yeah.

Ham Hocks for beans.

Ham Hocks for greens.

Oh, that rhymes.

-That's perfect.

-I think we're ready for.

Now, we're going to take a handful a Nicki handful of Ham Hocks and put in there because I can't get enough Ham Hocks.

Now, watch our greens here, watch the color change into deep dark beautiful.

That's about half way down already.

It's about halfway down.

So, I'm going to turn it down now because it's violently boiling.

Now I'm going to come in with probably a tablespoon and a half of Balsamic Vinegar.

Then I'm going to come in with just a little bit of red wine vinegar.

You can use white vinegar or you can use apple cider vinegar it'll work.

Now, something I'm going to get right now so I don't forget it.

Last year we did a green tomato relish.

What did you say?

-Yum papa that was delicious.

-Let me get some.

Now, if you watch our show, you've seen those sitting up here for a long time.

The numbers are going down though.

So, I'm going to set those so I won't forget.

Now you can use charcha, you can use green tomato relish.

That's what we're going to use in these beans.

So, our beans are cooking down nicely.

Nicki: I took a taste.

They're delicious.

Tim: They're not bad, aren't they?

Nicki: They're really good, yes.

Tim: Now, you could put your Ham Hock in your counter-top pressure cooker, -Right.

-but I prefer to bring them out and then pull all the flavors in so you can adjust accordingly as you go along and we're almost there on these.

Greens are cooking down nicely.

Now, let's talk about fish batter.

Every time you see me do a recipe, -it's going to be different -Right.

because that's one of these things that change and it just so happens maybe we'll have white bolted cornmeal.

Maybe we'll have yellow and bolted.

You just don't know.

Right now we have yellow bolted.

Bolted means it's sifted to a fine mix.

I am going to take a third of a cup of flour, all purpose flour any time that we do a recipe and we have flour and it does anything different.

-It will be all purpose.

-Right all purpose.

We'll specify if it's something different.

But for the most part, it's all purpose flour.

All right, I'm going to start to heat this up slowly.

-Our peanut oil.

-Okay.

I've got just enough oil in there to where it comes up on the sides a little bit.

Think about having a fish filet in there.

When you make a fish batter have you noticed that you got to season it a lot to get any benefit from that when you have this.

So, this may seem like a lot.

But one of the things I want in my flavor profile for a fish batter and this is a Cajun-ish batter and a lot of garlic.

Tim: I'm going to put in on the front end.

- I'm talking- -Nicki: That's a lot of garlic.

-Tablespoon and a half.

-Yeah.

You really need to bring that out.

-To have a good flavor.

-To bring that flavor out.

Tim: Now, something else is you can do a Cajun mix.

And I'm going to use about a tablespoon half -to two tablespoons of that.

-Making it hot?

And it's not going to be that hot.

-I think you'll like it.

-I like it.

Now, you can smell that.

It smells pretty good.

Now, there's something you can do if you choose to do so.

Now obviously we got to put some salt in here.

Tim: I'm going to do about a half teaspoon of salt.

Maybe a teaspoon, depending on what you are able to do on the salt end.

Tim: Mix that up.

If you like it, take you some smoked paprika.

Oh yeah, I like smoked paprika.

It gives you a nice flavor in there as well.

That's probably about half a teaspoon.

Tim: And if you want to step it up a batch ... you want it really hot?

No, but you do, don't you?

You can put some more cayenne in there.

Tim: One more thing I'm going to put in here is probably half a teaspoon of onion powder.

-Let me smell that.

-See what you think.

That smells good.

That smell good.

A lot of people say 350, 375 I don't go that high.

-I've said this a million times.

-Right -You don't want to go past 375 you can burn your oil and you just have a terrible taste to it.

So, you got to keep a close eye on it.

All right, last minute here, I'm going to put just a little more Cajun seasoning in here because I want to make sure that flavor comes out Yeah.

Tim: And we got a lot of garlic in here.

Now, when you were catching the tilapia- -Shooting the tilapia.

-Shooting the tilapia I have a favorite picture of you that I love.

Tim: At this point, I might have needed a haircut, I think.

Nicki: No, I liked it.

And I love that picture of you with the fish.

- That's my favorite picture.

-Tim: These were big tilapia.

-Nicki: Yes.

-I was holding this out in front of the camera obviously.

He was still attached to the arrow.

Right, I made it into a puzzle for mom because I thought it was so funny.

I love it.

Tim: Oh, the beans are looking good.

The beans are cooking down, thickening up.

Tim: So, the fish... -Nicki: You're marinating?

-Tim: ...it's beautiful.

- Ready to go.

-Nicki: Yes it is.

Tim: Now, the one thing about this tilapia when you clean it, it tends to want to separate into two pieces.

So, keep that in mind when you turn it over.

What I'm going to do is just take it directly out of that buttermilk and seasoning.

Make sure it's got a good little coating on it.

All right, so, take our fish plop it in there.

Nicki: Yumm.

That looks beautiful.

Tim: And that buttermilk is a nice little agent to keep the batter on.

We might have to go back and get some more tilapia.

-Yeah.

You know what?

-I think this is god stuff.

I tell you what, I've never had so much fun in my life.

We need more of this.

This is so good.

You know the good thing about these tilapia?

they're not farm raised somewhere in questionable circumstances.

These are absolutely organic.

Nicki: I couldn't get you out of the boat.

I was in the boat for like 12 hours.

- You wouldn't leave.

-Tim: It was tough to stop.

Nicki: I know you couldn't stop.

Tim: When you see them them moving through the water and you know that you've got that much good eating right there in front of you.

-You slept good.

-I did.

Tim: Total cooking time on this ought to be about five minutes or less.

Just going to make sure it gets cooked all the way through obviously.

That's handy guys.

Nicki: Kelly, thank you.

That's perfect.

Now look at this little fish grabber.

Nicki: I love that.

Kelly, gets you great gifts.

Kelly got me that.

-And it works perfectly... -Yes, it does.

because you got to hold your fish together.

-Tim: These are beautiful.

-Nicki: Yeah, they are.

Tim: You walk away, you can get a 20 degree difference - in just a matter of seconds.

-Nicki: Bring a fish, yeah.

This is getting close.

Golden brown.

-Nicki: That looks super good.

-Tim: Beautiful.

This was swimming around in Florida -and I see long ago.

-That's right.

Tim: Again, total cooking time about four or five minutes.

-Nicki: Those look so good.

-Tim: When you notice the bubbles start to die down you know you're getting there.

Now, this recipe too is awful good with catfish.

Just saying.

Tim: It is exactly what I had hoped for.

Nicki: Can I put that in the oven?

You can just put that on warm because we got one more thing.

We can't take this oil and not take advantage of it and do something with it.

Now, our beans are cooking now and you see how they're thickening up .

-Tim: Oh, my, you kidding me?

-Nicki: That looks so good.

All right, you have taken some potatoes, you cooked some potatoes earlier and you shredded them.

Nicki: I shredded them, I cooked them for about 10 minutes and then chilled it so I could shred them or you could buy your own.

-You could just buy shredded.

-Or you can just froze them -like that.

-Right Now what is it?

That's about two cups of potatoes.

-I've got a tablespoon of flour -All right.

Nicki: I'm going to Sprinkle that in.

And I have got some chives.

And I'd say... how much you say that is?

Tim: I'd say that's almost a tablespoon.

Nicki: It's a tablespoon.

And what would you like in it for seasoning?

Salt and pepper.

I'm going to put a little bit of garlic powder.

-Nicki: Perfect.

-You know what?

Let's put two pinches of garlic powder in there.

Let's put a little more.

You can't do enough on the onions.

Tim: Let's just do a little more onion powder.

We're actually making tater tots.

We didn't even say we're making tater tots.

Trying to make a tater tot-ish thing and we still got some, what do you think?

Tim: We still got some smoked paprika left.

-Nicki: Okay.

Wonderful.

-Tim: That won't hurt anything.

Tim: Uh-huh.

Nicki: I'm kind of jamming these in here to make it into a little... this is a little melon ball.

This is how I do my melon balls in the summer and it's making perfect little... What do we call these little tater tots?

Tim: Yeah, they're close enough to tater tots.

These are our little tater balls.

You got to have taters with your fish.

-Nicki, Nicki tater balls.

-There you go.

We did Tim Tim shrimps so this is Nicki Nicki Tater balls.

Okay.

Nicki: You know, this is helping by me jamming this in here like this.

It's making it kind of come together a little better.

-Tim: Stick together.

-Nicki: Yeah, Nicki: keeping it together the best we can.

Nobody likes fried potatoes though.

-No.

-Nobody would eat that.

Nicki: I'll eat these.

You guys eat the fish.

Tim: All right, we're going to take just a minute to clean up here.

We're going to come back with what I think is just a classic, beautiful Southern Kentucky plate of food.

-Ready?

-Yes.

[music playing] All right, we're going to take our green tomato relish.

Stir that up on our beans.

That's good relish.

I had a little bite of that.

It is good.

We just made that last year.

-Tim: All right.

-Nicki: Ready.

So what you think?

-Is that country or what?

-That's really good.

-Try your greens there.

-So I get to try everything?

We don't have to put any vinegar on our greens and it's subtle, it's not overwhelming.

It's not too tart.

You got to try it.

That's good.

-Which one?

-Both of them are delicious.

Those are delicious sides.

You out did yourself on those.

Is that good?

You know what?

It's weird how you taste something that throws you and right, no doubt about it.

-My grandfather.

-Made that?

No, no, no.

Just the relish I thought about it I borrow on.

-Make sure might be... -I don't know what.

Tim: It's funny how food... Nicki: Reminds you of something like the smells.

You can do it.

Isn't that good?

That's some good greens.

Delicious.

That's as close to Harry's as you can get.

That's delicious.

Tim: All right.

Can I try one of these?

You've already eaten four of them.

Nicki: They're almost all gone.

Kelly ate them all.

Kelly is Nicky's Tater tumbleweed.

It is like a little tumble weed isn't it?

You know what it is.

It's like a bunch of shoestring French fries that you can grab in your hand and eat all at one time.

It's got a good flavor though.

All the different flavors in it.

-Tim: Now the star of the show.

-Nicki: A little bit of fish.

Tim: Look how white and flaky that is.

Nicki: That looks so good.

Tim: I'm going to use my fingers because I'm going to dip that in our tartar sauce.

Now, our tartar sauce is simply mayonnaise and our green tomato relish.

Oh, that's good.

Your coating is amazing.

Nicki: I like that.

I don't even want to dip.

I just want to taste that fish.

Yeah, I believe I'll eat most of this.

-Oh my goodness.

-Look at that.

I think we need to go fishing.

-Tim: I didn't overcook it?

-Nicki: No.

But it's perfect.

Nicki: Look how perfectly white too.

Believe it or not our half hour is almost over.

If somebody was to come up to you and say, Mrs Farmer, "where would I get your recipes?"

I'd say TimFarmersCountryKitchen.com.

Tim: And if you go there, you will find 20 gazillion recipes.

Nicki: That's a lot of recipes.

Tim: Entree, soups, salads the whole deal.

And we do have a Facebook page.

Oddly enough, it's called Tim Farmers Country Kitchen, but it's extremely difficult.

-How would you get on there?

-You hit like.

Nicki: I know it's really hard.

Tim: You know what?

This is not that we're ringing our own bell, but it's really good, I don't want it to get any colder.

so we're going to say it's all about?

-Good times.

-Good friends.

And good eats, we got to eat.

We'll see you next week with the brand new -Tim Farmers Country Kitchen.

-Your fish is good.

Tim: You want to go back to Florida?

-Nicki: We should.

-Tim: I think we should.

[music playing] Narrator: Funding for Tim Farmers Country kitchen is brought to you by Amerson Farms Country Store.

Something for every member of the family.

Jim's Express Car Wash a Kentucky family owned business.

Ephraim McDowell Regional Medical Center in Danville putting patients and families at the center of our attention.

Gulf Coast Connection, seafood straight from the Gulf to you.

Wilderness Road Hospitality, Stanford Kentucky.

The Spine Center of Central Kentucky.

Beef, it's what's for dinner Kentucky's beef producers.

To order a cookbook, email timfarmerck@gmail.com.