Recipe List: “August 1, 2
To faithful Neighbors readers, Kim Slay is no stranger. Indeed, her face has smiled out at you from many an issue over the past decade, whether with her husband, Phil, in the Federation’s Outstanding Young Farm Family competition, as a cooking contest winner, or as a participant in any number of state or county Farmers Federation events.
This time, the Chambers County mother of two (Zac, 4, and Hannah, 2) comes to you bearing gifts, in the form of some simply wonderful recipes.
Kim is one of those folks who seems to have been born knowing how to cook. She’s got the knack. Whether she’s cooking for family, friends or one of those covered-dish dinners so common in the Slays’ neck of the woods, Kim’s dishes always have the flavor of a seasoned, down-home, country-cooking pro.
Although Kim enjoys cooking and baking most any time, she spends more time than usual in the kitchen of her Five Points home each summer, canning and freezing everything from squash and purple-hulls to salsa and apple butter. If you know much about the Slay family, you aren’t surprised that there’s an apple-something on that list. With orchards that produce abundant supplies of sweet, crunchy Red and Golden Delicious varieties each year, apples are common fare for the Slays. In fact, Kim could have filled this “Country Kitchen” column with apple recipes, but she showed restraint and shared only her number one pick: marvelous Apple Dumplings.
As much as they love sweets, both Phil and Kim suffer from high blood sugar, so they try to limit their sugary sweet and high-starch foods. Instead of lots of desserts, they load up on protein dishes.
With a herd of 175 Angus brood cows on their farm, the Slays eat their share of beef, in every form and fashion.
“Beef is so common around our house, it doesn’t even count,” Kim says.
Then again, they also raise sheep, but don’t look to find lamb on their dinner table.
“We sell our sheep primarily for show lambs, to cash-paying customers,” Kim says. “We don’t have any lamb in our freezer. It’s filled with beef, deer—we have an over-abundance of those—and wild turkey, our favorite meat of all.”
One of her wild turkey recipes follows, in fact. It’s her original Wild Turkey Quesadillas, featuring a flavorful Mexican filling.
If you aren’t wild about wild turkey, never fear: You’ll find plenty of dishes to suit your fancy among the other great recipes that come to you from Kim’s country kitchen. These recipes are outstanding.