pickle success!
July 21, 2010
My first batch of pickles had a narrow escape. Everything was going hunky dory, and then I went out of town for the weekend. Usually when I leave home with a batch of something brewing, my mom looks after it. I forgot to tell her about the pickles, and fortunately they survived the two and a half day absence. I came home and they had finished fermenting. They bright green cucumbers had turned a deep olive green, and the bubbles had stopped rising to the surface of the jar.
I was a little worried about the brine, as some of the white scum that usually forms on the surface had started sinking into the jar. I washed the pickles, and then stuck them in a clean jar filled with salt water. That was the first thing that came to mind to do. As far as I am concerned, the pickles narrowly missed being ruined…I most certainly am not going to leave home and forget my pickles again!
The finished pickles are crispy, bright and tasty. My mom and I are going to make potato salad for them, and I am already planning on making another batch of sour dills…
roasted vegetable tart
July 13, 2010
A customer has been telling me about this tart for a while. She was in the store this morning, and we talked about it again. The basic directions are to make a tart with a cheese layer, then top it with roasted vegetables.
On the way home from work I picked up a package of feta cheese, a tub of ricotta cheese, and a box of butter.
I raided my fridge, my mom’s fridge, and the garden for fresh vegetables and herbs. Beets, basil, eggplant, zucchini, leeks, thyme, corn, and tomatoes. All from the garden, market, or csa. We were loaded with stuff. I washed and chopped up the beets and leeks and put them in my cast iron casserole and started roasting them. Then I made the dough for the crust. It needed to chill in the fridge for a while, so meanwhile, I peeled and chopped the eggplant and zucchini, and added them to the roasting vegetables, one at a time.
Next I mixed up the base layer of the tart. A package of feta cheese, 3/4 of a tub of ricotta cheese, and a little bit of prairie breeze cheese. To this mixture I added some chopped pickled pimentos, a handful of chopped basil, and some black pepper.
Time to roll out the dough and prebake the crusts.
I made two crusts, and put them in the oven for a little while first to bake so that they were nice and crispy when I was finished. While they were baking, I chopped some tomatoes, and cut the kernels off of a few ears of corn. I sauteed this in butter, with fresh basil and salt.
When the crusts were finished baking, I took them out and layered the filling. The cheese mixture first, then the roasted vegetables, finishing with the corn and tomatoes for color.
I put the tarts back in the oven, and baked them for about an hour (I think..). I took them out and served them right away..they probably should have sat for a few minutes to settle first, but I was a little behind schedule…
Just a little note: I had a few pieces of tart left and put them in the fridge overnight. They tasted way better cold and the next day!!
pickles for jeanne
July 10, 2010
My friend Jeanne and I were talking about pickles the other day, and she told me about a recipe that her mother used to make. Mustard pickles. 2 quarts cucumber, 2 quarts cauliflower, 2 quarts pearl onions. Covered with a mess of vinegar, sugar, mustard, turmeric, and flour. The recipe calls for a gallon of vinegar! (I cut the recipe in half…)
When I told my mom about the recipe, she said that my grampa used to make the same pickles, or a slight variation. We looked in Joy of Cooking, and they were right there, too, again slightly different.
I followed Jeanne’s recipe pretty much exactly. I went to the market this morning, bright and early, and picked up some small onions, pickling cucumbers, and cauliflower. I took them home and cut, cleaned, and blanched them in boiling salted water. Then I strained and cooled them, and they sat in the fridge for the rest of the day, draining off any excess juices. (The recipe calls for cooking them and then letting them drain over night. I looked at several different recipes, and each is a little different, cooking some things more than others, etc.)
When I got home this afternoon, I started the canning pot going and made the paste of sorts to pour over the vegetables. Vinegar with sugar, mustard, turmeric and flour. I mixed the dry ingredients together and then added some vinegar to form a thick paste. Then I added this to the rest of the vinegar in the pot and heated it until boiling.
Meanwhile, I took the drained vegetables out of the fridge and divided them between 8 pint jars. When the vinegar mixture was just to boiling, I poured it over the vegetables, sealed the jars and processed them as usual.
a very large jar of soon-to-be-pickles
July 6, 2010
This is my first attempt at making sour pickles. I have made sweet bread and butter pickles, and pickled other things, but never have I fermented cucumbers for pickles. A friend dropped off a bag of pickling cucumbers to the store a few days ago, and today I remembered them in my fridge and set out to make something with them!
I found a recipe in my pickling cookbook (The Joy of Pickling) for a brined dill pickle using horseradish and mustard seeds. I love horseradish, and tried to find some fresh in town. I had no luck, and then called my friend Bob in East Pleasant Plain and he pulled up several plants for me. I have way more than I needed for the recipe, so I am going to preserve the rest in sugar and vinegar, and then plant the tops of the roots so that I can start a patch of my own!
The recipe also called for a handful of grape leaves. I picked some from my dad’s vine, and laid them in the bottom of the jar. I then layered the cucumbers, dill sprigs, chopped horseradish, onion slices, mustard seeds, and celery leaves in a 3 liter glass jar.
I am excited to watch the fermentation process through the glass.
After I had added all the ingredients to the jar I added the brine, and covered the entire thing with another batch of grape leaves. Then on top of that I placed a ziplock bag filled with brine to weight the ingredients down. It is very important that the vegetables remain submerged at all times!
The pickles will ferment for 2 to 3 weeks. After they have fermented fully, they are ready to eat, and should last in the fridge for about 4 months. I could also jar them, but don’t think that will be necessary…
green tomato tart
May 30, 2010
What to do when you get paid in green tomatoes?
At the end of a morning of playing music at the farmer’s market, we received a collection of treats from many of the different vendors! Among the items was a bag of green tomatoes, and I took them home to try to make a green tomato tart. I had a recipe in mind that I wanted to try from Lee Bailey’s Country Desserts, one of my favorite cookbooks.
The crust was very simple, a mixture of flour, powdered sugar, and butter, pressed into the bottom of the tart pan. No rolling out, and it tasted delicious! I am going to remember this for other recipes…
Then I arranged apple and green tomato slices around, covered with lemon juice and dusted with a sugar and flour mixture. (You are supposed to use corn starch, but I didn’t have any.)
The recipe only called for three tablespoons of sugar in the tart. At the end you are supposed to add 1/2 a cup of blackberry jam. I didn’t have any blackberry jam, and wanting to use up something that I had in my cupboard I substituted a jar of spicy jalapeno pepper jelly. I wasn’t sure if it would go…green tomato, apple, vinegar, and the sharp bite of pepper, but it ended up tasting pretty good.
tired, fresh and vegetables
May 21, 2010
I can’t help but be inspired by beautiful vegetables. Tired, hungry, and trundling inside through the rainy mist tonight with a box from my CSA. Unpack chard and basil, and beet greens, zucchini, carrots (straight into my mouth), delicate kale, letuce, cucumber, and three almost ripe, blushing mangoes!?
There is something about combining chard with basil that makes me happy. Especially when I add olive oil, and zucchini. And a few grains of salt.
Mix with pasta, and top with freshly grated cheese.
more asparagus, more sourdough, enter grill pan
May 4, 2010
I have continued to make the sourdough bread. The starter, which lives in my fridge, continues to sour more and more flour and water. And supply me with tasty bread! Each time I make a loaf, I change a few things here and there, and of course manage to forget what I have changed in the meantime. But I have a pretty good system going. On cold days I let the dough rise in a very slightly warmed oven, and this speeds things up a bit. And I make sure to let the starter have a good amount of time one the counter, open to fresh air, as this is what carries the naturally occurring yeasts! I love that the starter is tailored to my climate, to my kitchen!
Today I got home, grabbed some asparagus, grabbed some bread, grabbed a grill pan, and made a grilled cheese sandwich.
I preheated the pan first (with the lid on so that it would heat as well). Then I grilled the asparagus, basting it from time to time with olive oil and salt.
Then I sliced the bread, brushed with olive oil, and pressed in the pan. I wanted to cook both sides of the bread a little before I added cheese. Which I did. Then I pressed the sandwich with the heavy top, and got nice little burn marks across the sandwich! (I might have heated the pan up a little too hot, but fortunately I like crispy things..)
Asparagus finished, sandwich finished, a simple salad finished, and I ate lunch. With peppermint tea.
The whole event was soundtracked with loud and boisterous Hungarian folk music!
a very simple soup
May 1, 2010
This soup was inspired partly by the very seasonal delicious veggies available, and also by a soup that I had in Japan a few years ago while visiting my brother, who was living there at the time. The noodles and broth were served at a temple that traditionally made the dish every spring when a specific green was available. I think that the noodles were actually made out of the plant, and I really can’t remember what it was. The soup that I made was mostly inspired by the idea of the Japanese soup.
I gathered a bag of nettles, and picked a batch of asparagus from the patch. Remembering the Japanese noodle soup, and wanting to make something simple and nutritious, I steamed the nettles, and set the broth and greens aside. Meanwhile, I boiled some buckwheat soba noodles, and on the other burner, I sauteed the sliced asparagus.
For the simple soup, I cooked the nettle broth down a little, finely chopped the nettle greens, and arranged the soba noodles in a bowl. I set the greens on top, and then poured the boiling hot broth over the whole thing. I seasoned the soup with a little soy sauce, and that was it. Very very simple, but delicious.
sunday eating
April 18, 2010
Asparagus Crepes with Smokey Pink Sauce
Warm Quinoa Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Olives
Spiced Banana Pear Crepes with Star Anise and Vanilla
Lemon Lime Water
I have been in a banana mode recently, so after the crepe batter was mixed and in the fridge to wait, I prepared a crepe filling of spiced bananas and pears.
I put some butter in a tagine on the stove top, and added star anise and vanilla. Then bananas, pears, and pear butter for sweetener. And a dash of cinnamon! For extra liquid, I added a little juice from the pears. Oh, and a little lime zest and juice. I stirred the mixture on the stove top for a few minutes, and then placed it in a low oven (325 degrees) for about an hour.
Meanwhile….asparagus time!
I picked what we had in the garden, and washed the ends and sliced them for crepe filling number two. I sauteed the asparagus in a little butter and a tiny bit of water, until they were a vivid green. Then I set them in a dish in the warm oven.
Skye made the crepes, which had a little cornmeal and whole wheat flour (one third of the total flour used). The mixture was a little different, but turned out well. We were having issues with the burner heating unevenly, but by the end of the project, after all the crepes were made, we seemed to figure things out.
To top the asparagus, we made a white sauce with tomato paste (a pink sauce I guess), to which I added a dash of smoked paprika and some cheese. We also added some fresh chopped parsley.
In addition to the crepes, I made a warm quinoa salad, with cilantro, lime, olive oil, olives, and cubed cheese. Simple, quick and slightly warm. I served the salad on lettuce leaves, which we used to scoop up the salad and make little bundles.
For dessert, we had sweet crepes. The bananas and pears cooked down, and were warm and mildly sweet, and the star anise was delicious! The flavors brightened with a little squirt of fresh lime.
Because it was such a beautiful day, we set up a table outside in a sunny section of the yard. The table was made out of one of my plant shelves (now empty as the plants have moved outdoors) and the chairs were logs.
After lunch we went for an adventure in the woods, looking for mushrooms (which we still didn’t see…), and other things. We did see a coyote, the bluebells, and other interesting things…
spring hunting season
April 12, 2010
Today I went out for a hunt with my friend Heather. We were a little late last year, looking for mushrooms, and so wanted to be ahead of the game this year. We were a little too ahead for morels, but we did find a whole bunch of stinging nettles.
I wanted to make nettle pies, so I collected a good sized plastic bag full. Nettles are tricky little plants. If you touch them with your bare skin, it will sting for a few minutes.
In order to pick them, I placed my hand in a plastic bag, pinched off the tender tips of the plants, and placed them in another plastic bag.
To wash the nettles, I filled my sink with water, and stirred the leaves around with a pair of chopsticks.
The spines are still prickly after the nettles have been washed. To remove the prickles, I steamed the nettles in a bit of water, with a little salt. I poured off the nettle broth and drank it. It tasted like the woods, warm, sweet, and full of earth!
To make nettle pies, I chopped an onion and sautéed it in olive oil.
As it was cooking, I added a little of the nettle broth, and then some chopped chard and beet greens.
When these had finished cooking, I added the cooked and chopped nettles.
I set the vegetable mixture aside and made the crust. I made a basic pie crust, using 1/2 whole wheat flour, to give it a little more substance.
To fill out the filling, I mixed one package tofu, one package organic valley feta cheese, and half a package prairie breeze cheese. I crumbled the tofu and feta with my hands, and grated the prairie breeze. To bind the whole mixture together, I added a sprinkle of whole wheat flour. I mixed the cheeses with the vegetables, and blended them a little with my stick blender. When the pie crusts were chilled, I spooned the batter into them, and baked the pies in a 400 degree oven for ten minutes, and then in a 350 degree oven for an additional 45 (approximately), until they were firm.
And now I have two nettle chard pies, and lunch food until I get sick of them…
living in the woods and making stuff 