♪ 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 dining room.

Kitchen's right back there.

If she turned the camera around, which she'll do in a while, you'll see our kitchen's back there.

This is where we have our family and friends, and we put the leaf in the table.

That's right.

Get a lot of people here.

For Christmas time.

That's right.

All right, let's get to some questions.

We asked you last week if you wanted to ask some questions, we tried to answer some on the show.

Celebrating our 10 years.

Wow.

And I started this show 10 years ago when I was 28.

That's right.

Remember, I was 27.

That's right.

Or something like that.

So, let's get right to it.

Leigh and Isaac says, "How are the animals?"

Now, you know what?

The weather's been horrible here lately.

Yes, it is.

So, we haven't been outside much, but the animals are doing good.

Mm-hmm, they are.

We're gonna have baby lambs.

Coming in, what is it, end of April?

End of April, unless he got loose on the other side and we didn't know that.

I hope not, because April's a good time to have babies.

Now, we have Great Pyrenees, and they're the beautiful, big, white dogs.

A lot of people don't know, too, they can have colorations.

They can have dark circles around their eyes.

They can have that panda look, which Maggie does.

That is a Great Pyrenees.

Right, or they can get brown spots.

They can get brown.

Or if they're solid black, they say that's very unusual.

You don't get those very often.

That can happen.

Sometimes you can get a lot of ticking in them.

But we had a bunch of puppies here not too long ago.

Yes, we did.

And they went to wonderful homes.

We'll show you some pictures of these puppies.

Because Great Pyrenees are the most sweet, loving animals, and they really do guard your flock.

Oh, they do.

They take it personally.

And we're out in the yard.

It's funny, they wanna show you how loyal they are.

So, we'll feed them, and then Maggie will run up in the field and just start barking like -- She will.

-- "You fed me, now I'm gonna chase away all the coyotes."

That's right.

Let me tell you what, we don't see coyotes around here, do we?

We do not.

And you know what?

And we have a puppy, too, Maria, ourselves.

She's adorable.

Maggie's getting older, and we like to have a couple ourselves for different flocks and different places.

So, in the future, little Maria will hopefully have puppies for us as well.

Those people came up with great names, too, didn't they, for the puppies?

Some of the names of these dogs, the people named them King Louie, Fantastic Frank.

And one was Moses, named after Moses.

Moses, yeah.

And then, the girls were Massey and Ma.

They're so cute.

They went together, so they still hang out together.

They're so cute.

Those are the cutest puppies.

They look like little polar bears.

They do.

They're adorable.

Love them all.

Ashley Rodgers lives in Georgia, and she says, "You use currant jelly in some of your recipes.

I can't find it.

Is there an equal substitute?

Thanks.

Love your show."

Well, thank you.

And my thing is, no.

We've tried grape.

We've tried everything.

It has something very particular, and maybe my olfactory is just a little too intense.

But I looked online for you, and I looked immediately and found several, from $6 to $35.

You don't have to spend $35.

So, look online if you don't mind doing that sort of thing, and you can find it in a lot of places.

This is from Tim Boggs in Whites Creek, Tennessee.

He said, "Do you and your wife ever enter cook-offs, and do you visit Nashville?"

We do visit Nashville.

As far as cook-offs, you know me.

Yeah.

When I did a hunting and fishing show for 27 years, Kentucky Afield, I love to wake up in the morning and know that the fish are waiting for me, and I get so excited.

But one thing that I never did like, and to each his own, but I don't like to take something I love and turn it into a competition.

You see television shows, and we don't watch cooking shows because we don't wanna clad up our brain with other personalities.

But one thing that I've noticed is they take these situations, and they pit these people against each other, and they're chopping, and they're throwing, and they're sweating, and they're cussing, and everything's on fire, and it's just -- that doesn't look like -- does that look like fun to you?

No, but I have won some chili contests using your recipe.

That's where you can go and cook it and take it in.

So, people have won with your chili recipe.

Wait a minute.

You took my secret recipe?

I did, and I actually won.

I got a day off work that day for that.

So, did you get millions of dollars or new truck or anything?

You got a day off work?

I did get a day off work.

Oh my golly!

But your chili recipe, people have used it and has won some contests.

Thank you so much.

That's right.

You forgot about that.

Very nice of you to say that.

Sherry Hughes Ahrmann is from Hillsboro, Ohio.

"Do you have any recipes for homemade dressings or dips?"

She likes to put vegetables in it.

You know what?

You do.

You can make a ranch dressing in your own home.

Now, I love -- I could drink ranch dressing.

I am sorry.

That doesn't mean that you have lost your sophistication card.

I love ranch dressing.

You dip everything in it.

I just don't care.

That's right.

So, yes, we did one and here it is right now.

Something else we're gonna share is our ranch dipping recipe.

This is good.

I was thinking about marketing this.

So, this is top secret.

Shhhh, don't tell anybody.

Start off with sour cream.

Let's go a cup and a half on that.

All right, we're gonna come back with three quarters of a cup of mayonnaise, half a teaspoon of salt and pepper.

We're gonna put some dry minced onions in here.

And let's go a half a teaspoon of that.

Go ahead and let's put some of that dill weed in there.

Now let's come back with some chives.

I'm gonna go a tablespoon.

I'm gonna also go with just a little bit of garlic powder.

And then, I'm gonna come back with our onion powder.

We're gonna come back with three quarters of a teaspoon parsley.

Then, I'm gonna finish it off with some sweet basil.

Half a teaspoon.

Ooh, that really added.

I'm gonna use a half teaspoon of bacon grease.

Can you smell that?

It smells.

I need to taste it.

I know you do.

So do I. Let's get a chip.

All right, you taste and then I'll taste.

Let's see what you think.

Oh, my goodness.

This is one of my favorite snacks.

Oh, that's so good.

I like some ranch dip right now.

I know.

I like to dip my pizza in it.

That sounds so good.

Deborah Wallace is from Campbellsville, Kentucky.

"Do you render your own lard?"

Yes, we do.

Yes.

If we can find somebody, and we have, who raises a pasture-raised pig with no hormones, no antibiotics or anything like that, and we can find that person and give us that leaf lard.

Now, the leaf lard is backed by the kidneys.

That's the white stuff, the best stuff to use for lard.

We will render that down, and we'll show you how to do that right now.

[music playing] The whole time we've been working today, you've been cutting up fat.

I have.

Been cutting meat off of it.

We're using the meat and a little bit of the fat for sausage, but the good-looking pieces of fat that we have, it goes in the crock pot.

Normally, we do this outside in a big black kettle, but it's raining again for the 76th day.

So, we're gonna pop this in a crock pot.

You can do this in your own home, and again, you can go to the butcher and do this to yourself and make your own lard.

I bought some lard in the store not too long ago.

Wasn't impressed with it.

It doesn't taste like our lard.

It doesn't taste like ours.

So, Mrs.

Farmer, if you'll pop this in.

I will.

[music playing] And this will need to go 8 or 10 hours.

Now, the smaller you cut the pieces, now, it's a lot more work.

It is a lot of work.

But the smaller you cut the pieces, the quicker it cooks down.

Right.

So, we put our pig fat in here to render it down.

We'll also -- For this batch, it's gonna be a pretty decent-sized batch.

I'm gonna take about a half a cup of water and put it in here.

After that cooks for several hours, 6, 8, 10 hours, that water will all cook out.

You don't wanna put the top on, because what happens when you put the top on?

All that condensation water just keeps going in, keeps going in, keeps going in.

Once this cooks down, you'll know it.

Start to smell good.

You know what?

Something smells really good.

I think it's pig feet.

You're gonna love those.

Oh, yum.

You're gonna love those.

It's gonna be your favorite thing.

Pickled pig's feet.

This is Farmer's new favorite.

So, we're gonna get this started.

[music playing] You excited?

I really am.

I need lard.

I haven't had it in a while.

Our lard.

You know, you think about how precious this was to the old-timers.

Pig killing was a big time.

And the lard, they thought so much about it that they actually had lard presses.

They'd squeeze every bit of that out that they could.

Now, the great thing about this is we render it down once.

The first pouring, which we're about to do right now, we'll filter through cheesecloth.

That'll be nice and white-ish.

The second one will be a little more savory, I guess you could say.

A little more color to it, because we're gonna keep rendering this down, rendering it down.

On the third rendering, second or third, when you know you're kinda done, what do you have, Mrs.

Farmer?

Crackling.

Crackling.

That's what we got.

Yes, I ate too many.

Then we'll make crackling cornbread and cheese until she gets sick.

That's right.

So, Mrs.

Farmer, if you'd like, we'll pour that off.

All right, into here?

Into there.

[music playing] This is the first rendering.

[music playing] I am excited about the lard.

Look at that.

That's apple pie, cherry pie, calling my name.

Oh, cookies.

Calling my name because I get to eat them.

That's a perfect jar.

It is a perfect jar.

Let's leave it at that.

Okay, so, Mrs.

Farmer, I'm gonna put this on here and lightly seal it.

You don't know how happy this makes me.

Oh, I know how happy it makes you.

It makes me happy because I get to buy popcorn.

Ta-da.

I'm gonna set this right over here, away from the heat, we can watch that in real time.

All right, we have our first beautiful jar of lard.

I'm excited.

And we have this fat that we put back in there already producing more lard.

Good.

Now, the second time around, as you know, it's a little bit darker.

It's got a little more piggy flavor.

Yeah, that's all right.

And that's great for frying stuff.

It's great for seasoning skillets with.

Absolutely wonderful.

[music playing] James Purkshiser is from West Baden Springs, Indiana.

We like it up there.

Oh, I like it there.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

You know, they used to go up there and people would take the baths and they would drink the water from the hot springs.

Now, this is a story that I was told.

Now, I've even seen some of the Bibles.

So, these people would come up there, it was a very fancy spa back in the 1800s, and they would go visit this thing.

They'd come on a train, they'd get off, and they'd be all hooty-tooty.

And they'd get off and they would take the water.

And they would just be so happy.

That's right.

[laughs] Because it was full of lithium.

[laughs] That's right.

So, everybody was tripping on lithium and they couldn't wait to get back.

We don't drink the water when we're up there.

That's right.

We do eat at some of the restaurants because they're awful good.

So, James wants to know, "Do you ever can chicken?"

Yes, we do.

We did a thing on canning chicken, canning beef, canning venison.

We've done several things over the years.

Fish has to cook a little longer.

Here's a quick little bit of us canning chicken up in the cabin years and years and years ago.

Be careful.

Check with your county extension offices.

Also, check online canning sites.

If you're on a certain elevation, your actual pounds of pressure that you have to use differ.

So, make sure you do your homework.

We can't do it for you.

We can show you the basics of canning, but make sure if you're gonna do it that you do it right.

Clean off the top of your jar.

Make sure you have a good seal.

Boil your jars.

It's a whole process, but it's fun.

It's worth it.

And when your chicken's for sale and you wanna can it -- That's right.

-- and you wanna use it in a soup and it's already ready -- It's perfect.

That's right.

-- it's beautiful.

Now, here's one thing you have to keep in mind about canning meat.

No hot packing.

Pressure cooking.

Pressure cooking only.

You've got to kill all the germs.

When you're putting this stuff up, you have to sterilize your jars and lids.

We sterilize those too.

And you have to have a clean, disinfected working area.

And we've done the best we can to do that.

Now, you are responsible for your kitchen and your cleanliness.

This is what we do.

And we found a boneless breasts on sale.

What you're gonna to do, you're gonna pack this in here.

Leave about an inch head space here because the juices will come off out of this.

We're just gonna put a little salt and a little pepper.

And I'm heating some water up to put in our canner.

We're gonna have to start with three quarts.

Now, this is the Presto.

Look up your particular canner and see what it needs.

We've got the rack in the bottom and we're getting ready to get it rolling.

[music playing] You wanna make sure the tops of your jars right around here don't have anything on them that would make it less than a good seal.

[music playing] Peel open the top of this.

[music playing] Now, you get the top on.

You get your water hot.

When you see steam starting to come out the top, let it do that for about 10 minutes before you put the jiggler on.

When you put the jiggler on, when it starts the jiggling process, that's when you start your timing.

Pints for meat.

Here in Kentucky, it's 75 minutes per pint.

If you wanna do quarts, it's 90 minutes.

Set your timer.

When it's done, turn your heat off.

Let that heat come down.

Let it come down for a long time until your jiggler stops jigging and your little pressure cap goes down and boom, you know you're done.

At that point, you can start thinking about taking the jiggler off.

Pick them out.

Set them down.

Let them cool.

Put them in your storage space.

And then, whenever you want them, they're there.

Now, one thing you do wanna do once you get them out, so you can rotate them.

If you know you've got some that you need to eat now, mark on the top the date and exactly what it is because it can be confusing.

They look close a little bit, don't they?

They do.

This is a wonderful way to have a pre-made meal for the most part.

Your meat is done.

I love it.

And it's flavorful and it's delicious and you know where it came from.

It's so simple.

There's nothing to it.

Beth Hood Wood wants to know, "What's the story behind calling Nicki 'Mrs.

Farmer'?

I love your shows."

Thank you.

Because I'm older and you respect me.

No.

[laughs] That's exactly right.

That's right.

There's a story there.

When we go to my parents' house, I don't know why, but I started calling Dad "Mr.

Farmer."

Then you started calling Mom "Mrs.

Farmer."

Dad started calling me "Mr.

Farmer."

So, it was Mr.

Farmer, Mrs.

Farmer, and it just stuck.

We just had fun with it.

Now you call me Mr.

Farmer -- That's right.

-- quite a bit, but usually not on shows.

Usually when I've done something wrong, "Mr.

Farmer, you get your socks and put them in the laundry."

That's right.

Yeah, whatever.

[laughs] [laughs] All right, next.

Let's see.

Tim G. Cunningham has a question.

He says, "Do you have a good recipe for cabbage?"

He's from Paducah.

I love cabbage.

I like your buffalo cabbage soup.

I mean, you can use burger, but I really like the buffalo in it.

Oh, yeah.

It's delicious.

You can use venison.

You can use whatever you want.

The meat is not the issue there, it's the cabbage.

And you know, there's so many ways you can do it.

Your cabbage soup, a lot of people do a cabbage soup diet.

If you eat just that for several amount of days, you'll lose weight.

We do that a lot.

We get on a ket.

[crosstalk] We try to keep a little five pound.

If we get up to the high point, we'll kind of say, "Okay, it's time to turn back down."

Time for cabbage soup.

That's right.

Time for cabbage soup.

So, what we're gonna do, Mrs.

Farmer, as usual, is cut an onion up.

Those onions are wonderful.

A yellow sweet onion.

And I'm gonna find some olive oil, which I found right here.

I'm gonna go ahead and warm that pan up for you.

[music playing] All right, dump those onions.

Ready?

Yum.

Cabbage, it's got some fiber in it.

But the vitamin C, what a great source for vitamin C. A cup has 48% of the amount of vitamin C you'll need in a day.

Really?

Yes.

I look these things up.

I'm fascinated by food.

All right, let's pop in our pound and a half of bison, not buffalo.

That's right, bison.

So, now, you could use less meat if you wanted to do so.

We like a lot of meat in it.

I like a lot of meat in it.

And again, there's no carbs.

What we're gonna do here is we're gonna take about five cups of diced tomatoes.

I'm gonna use a head of cabbage.

And we're gonna start off with about four cups of chicken broth.

And if you want, you can go ahead and start cutting this guy up.

All right, so, now, I'm gonna come back with some tomatoes.

Yum, yum, yum.

What did you say?

You had a little over five cups here?

Roughly.

Roughly, okay.

Then we're gonna come back with our stock.

And beef would be just fine.

We just happen to have more chicken than we have beef at the moment.

Now, Mrs.

Farmer, if you'd like, let's go ahead and start putting that cabbage in there.

It's hard to believe this all goes in, but it kind of cooks into it, doesn't it?

It really -- So good.

-- makes something nice.

Now, what I'll do most of the time is I'll let this cook for a good solid 45 minutes or so until the cabbage really starts getting wilty before I even spice it up.

[music playing] All right, so, when we fix our soup and our chili, we like a lot of cumin.

I like that almost as much as the chili powder.

We're gonna go here, we're gonna start off with a tablespoon of chili powder.

Equal parts cumin.

That seems like a lot, but yum.

We've got about a tablespoon and a half there.

And we'll keep adding as we go along.

Salt to your taste.

We also have cayenne.

Go easy.

I'm going easy.

You like it hot.

Because of that, we had a really happy surprise the other night.

Then smoked paprika.

I'm gonna go at least, say, a teaspoon and a half of that.

Isn't it paprika?

Paprika.

Paprika.

That's right.

Paprika.

Paprika.

And coriander.

As much of that as you want.

I'm gonna do like a half a teaspoon of that.

And if you want some black pepper.

Can I have pepper?

A little black pepper.

And if you want some onion powder.

I know we already got onions in there, but I like that.

It's a good flavor.

It's a different flavor.

If you wanted to add a little bit of beef stock, bouillon.

We'll put a little bit of that in there.

And then, we're gonna see where that gets us.

As we move along, if we don't have enough salt, we'll put a little salt in there.

And that's just gonna cook and cook and cook.

Better and better.

Barbara Peters Ruby says, "I wanna know where Nicki's from because she doesn't have a Kentucky accent."

I talk normal.

[laughs] Oh, zing!

She is from Michigan.

And she also says, "What year did you get married?"

2005.

How many kids do we have?

Five between us.

That's right.

And they're all wonderful.

I saved you... You did.

..from those horrible winters.

You did.

I mean, we've been outside all day today.

It's cold out there.

But compared to Michigan, this is tropical.

That's exactly right.

That's right.

You're looking for palm trees, aren't you?

I am.

I'm looking for palm trees.

John Cade says, "How much longer do you all plan on doing the show?

It's sure nice to watch a good old-fashioned type show."

Well, you know what?

You would think that if you're doing a cooking show, that you would run out of ideas.

Not you.

I really do feel like, and I mean this sincerely, that we've just gotten started.

We go out, we learn.

We bring things back.

We reverse engineer and say, "Okay, that's got this, but if we put this," and we're mad scientists in the kitchen.

[laughs] Yes, you are.

And we're really not trying to do anything complicated.

Most of the things that we do are something that you can do as well.

How much longer do we plan on doing this?

I'm 25.

She's 38.

So, we could do this a long time.

I'm a lot older than you.

Wow.

She is actually older than me.

You'd never know it then.

No, you wouldn't.

So, the answer is, you know, when I was a kid and I did watch cooking shows, Justin Wilson, he had to be up in his 70s.

So, as long as we have good health and as long as you wanna do it, I really do think that us working together in our real kitchen right back there is a natural thing.

Nothing scripted.

And even though she was not comfortable with coming on the show, she did it for me.

And she's so sweet.

And I think you're, like, amazing.

Aw, that's sweet.

You make it easy though.

Give me a kiss for that.

Thank you very much.

Dave Drury, another soup question.

"What is your go-to soup for comfort food?"

He's from Danville, Indiana.

What do you think?

What do you love?

What do you -- I know what you like the best.

What?

Hot and sour.

Hot and sour.

I do like hot and sour.

It's good.

So, you know what?

It's hard to get that perfect flavor.

So, we tried to reverse engineer some of that in our house the way we like it.

And I think we came up with a pretty good version.

What do you think?

It's my favorite.

I can't eat it anywhere but when you make it.

So, what we're gonna do is gonna start out with 28 ounces of chicken broth.

Now one thing I'll do is I'm gonna add just a little bit of bouillon.

A little chicken bouillon.

That just adds a little salt, a little flavoring to stock it up a bit.

I'm gonna go ahead and put my green peppers in.

I've just got them cut up in smaller pieces.

You want your onion?

Yeah, let's cut some smaller pieces of onion.

And what else do you want in your hot and sour soup?

Well, there's a lot of things you can do.

I'm gonna put some little pieces of bamboo shoot in there.

Just cut some strips.

I always like that consistency and a little bit of flavor that they have.

Just gonna cut some of that up.

So, I want that onion flavor.

And consistency wise, I like some bamboo shoots.

I do, too.

Which you can get anywhere.

Usually in a can.

Now I'm gonna put -- I'm gonna start out -- You're going five, aren't you?

No, I don't know.

That's only about -- That's not even a whole teaspoon.

We're gonna taste as we go along.

I don't want it to get too hot for you.

I want you to like it.

I know you like it.

I always like it.

So, I don't wanna get it too hot.

And then, we need some soy.

Let's put about two tablespoons in there.

One other thing I'm gonna put -- this is half shiitake and half oyster.

Now, I didn't have any wood mushrooms.

I would like to have some of those.

I don't have them.

Got to have some mushrooms.

Now, if you will just julienne me some carrots there.

See what you've got going on.

Let's just cut those in pieces.

Beautiful.

Now, those, being that they're so small -- Want them in?

-- those will cook up fairly quickly.

I'm not gonna bring that to a huge rolling bowl.

You like a bunch of them, don't you?

Mm-hmm.

Now, we've already got the look going.

Now, since we have to put rice wine vinegar, that's where we get our tang, and we wanna put some corn starch in for the thickness.

May as well put those together and mix them up.

We don't want those -- We don't wanna overcook any of those ingredients.

I want the onions, carrots, and even the green pepper to have just a little bit of crunch left.

At this point, we're gonna take our corn starch and our vinegar and add that in.

And that will thicken that nicely.

Now, we're gonna take our -- And I like the firm tofu.

And I'm gonna take this and cut it into -- Bite sized.

-- bite sized pieces.

So, we're gonna take -- This is one of the last steps, Mrs.

Farmer.

I tell you what.

While I'm cutting this tofu, Mrs.

Farmer, if you will take -- just shave me just a little bit of ginger, just a tad more.

That's good.

That's perfect.

You don't need much.

Now, if you will beat this egg up a little bit, Nicki.

I will.

Pop that in one of these little bowls here.

And I'll tell you what, Mrs.

Farmer, the last thing we're gonna do is I want you to slowly pour that.

Now, think about egg drop soup.

Just a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time.

That's good.

What do we have, Mrs.

Farmer?

Yummy soup.

We have hot and sour soup.

[music playing] So, now, I'm gonna have to hush because, again, I'm talking too much.

But it is all about -- [laughs] Good times.

-- good friends.

Really good eats.

Are you starved?

I am starving.

All right, let's eat.

[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.