quince part three
September 28, 2009
I processed another batch of quince this weekend. I think this was my favorite so far. I think that this is for two reasons. Firstly, the quinces have been ripening in my kitchen. Every time I walk into my house there is a delicate, sweet smell of quince. As they ripen, the color of the fruits turns a deep yellow, and the fur on the skin becomes easier to remove. Secondly, I made quince paste (from one of my favorite preserving books, “The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves” by Linda Ziedrich). Quince paste is like the essence of quince. The tang, the sweetness, and the gritty and firm texture (at least in mine) are what remind me of quince.
The general idea behind quince paste is that the quince fruit is cooked, pureed, added to sugar, and cooked some more. The result is a fruit gel of sorts that I am thoroughly addicted to. All the pectin in quince (particularly in the peels, seeds, and cores) helps to gel the fruit, creating almost a cake. I am trying not to eat it every time I get near the kitchen…which is pretty much all the time that I am in my house.
Witherspoon Quince Family Trivia
After talking with my dad, I learned that my great grandmother had a huge quince tree, and that my dad and a friend used to own 20% of the quince fruit tree crop in California! This turns out to have been 12 trees, and because there was so little demand for the fruits, they ended up giving them away!
one berry pies
September 24, 2009
I have been wanting to do this for a long time. Kathy brought me some berries from the market, and I promptly ate most of them, and had to re pick some berries from the back garden. Not sure that I need to say more. Except that my mom came over half way through the baking process and the results were more perfect pies and a teddy bear picnic on my counter.
pears, pie and aprons
September 23, 2009
Pears, and more pears. My friend Clint planted this tree in 5th grade, and now look at it! We spent all day picking pears and apples, wandering through the fields, peeling pears, and baking pies. And wearing aprons!
This has to be the best way to pick pears! At least the lower ones. The tree is absolutely loaded. There are so many pears everywhere. We filled our entire bucket, but barely made a dent in the pear population.
Here is a general recipe for pear pie. I am not the most precise cook, so hopefully the directions are clear enough..
Pear Pie
Filling
8 large pears, or a mixture of pears and apples (The pears were a little unripe so we decided to add apples to them when we were baking.)
1 teaspoon vanilla, or a snip of a vanilla bean
3/4 cup sugar (more or less depending on the tartness of fruit)
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup flour
several dots of butter
Pie Dough
1 1/2 cups flour
1 stick unsalted butter
a little salt (I use salted butter and a bit of salt, and so does my mom..)
1/2 cup ice water
Mix flour, salt and butter with a pastry cutter until texture resembles cornmeal. Add ice water a bit at a time until mixture comes together to form a ball. Divide dough into two balls and chill at least 1/2 hr in fridge.
Meanwhile, peel, core and slice apples and pears. Place in pot, with a little water and vanilla bean. Cook until pears are soft. This step allows you to fit more fruit in the pie! Add sugar, salt, and flour. You can let the pears cool a little before you put them in the pie shell (we didn’t, but it is probably a good idea..).
Roll out pie dough, place one in pie pan, fill with filling, and place top on. Seal the edges, and poke the top with a fork.
Bake in a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes, and then bring temp down to 350. Bake for an additional 35-45 minutes, until top is nicely golden. You might need to cover the pie with some parchment paper if it gets too brown on the top early on. Remove, and cool as long as you can wait.
Yummy with vanilla ice cream!
monkey socks
September 22, 2009
These are inspired by some monkey socks that I used to have. They are made from Koigu KPPPM, a super soft, hand dyed 100% merino wool. I am attempting to write a pattern for them…will try to post it soon.
canning season
September 22, 2009
I usually don’t like to buy things, with the exception of vegetables. I love to fill my shelves with bottles and jars full of preserved things. Right now tomatoes are particularly abundant, and I have been making lots of sauce. And peppers. My favorite is hot pepper jelly. I found a good recipe and have made a whole bunch. If you keep the seeds in I think that the jelly ends up with a bit more of a kick.
The jalapenos (green) are from the farmer’s market, and the red ones are from my friend Bob Keefer, in East Pleasant Plane. He has the most magical garden, built of raised bed(113 total). The beds have everything in them, and are surrounded by a beautiful lawn. Easy to plant, weed, and harvest.
Heli, Skye, Mom and I built and planted 3 beds this spring. It took us a while to get everything in order but once we did, there wasn’t much for us to do other than weed a little and pick vegetables.
The garden is currently winding down, except for our arugula, basil, thyme, rosemary, kale and beets. And marigolds… The marigolds were amazing for protecting the garden from rabbits and deer (mostly the rabbits though). They grew a lot more than we expected and they are now dwarfing the raised bed. But we were able to grow beans, peas, and lettuce!
Here is my canning setup. The kitchen alternates from being clean and pretty to massively messy… Right now it is somewhere in between. But it is definitely easier to can with a clean kitchen!
Tomorrow will be a pear gathering/processing day. My friend has a tree, and I am really excited. I spent a good portion of the afternoon looking at cookbooks for pear recipes. Poached pears, pear butter, pears in vanilla syrup, etc, etc.. It is also the perfect time of year to make pear and raspberry desserts. (Both are ripe) I have a recipe for a pear and raspberry cobbler. Or pear tart with raspberry sauce.
Also I have heard that dehydrated pears are yummy, so I am going to try those too! Hopefully a good report on pears to come! (I have definetaly counted my pears before they hatched.)
the yummiest squash.
September 17, 2009
These winter squash are my favorite so far this season. They are from Cypress Villages, and have been available at the Farmer’s Market for a few weeks.
A way to cook the squash.
Slice squash in half, top to bottom and scoop out seeds and gunk. Flavor with apple butter, marmalade, or maple syrup, and salt, and butter. Place in a casserole dish or pie pan, with a few inches of water in it. (Use hot water to speed up the cooking time.)
Bake in a 350 or 400 degree oven for about an hour, or until tender when tested with a fork. Carefully remove squash halves to bowls, making sure not to lose any of the liquid inside the squash. Stir up and top with freshly ground black pepper!!
quince part 2 (and vanilla sugar)
September 15, 2009
So, I finished the quince jelly, which turned into lightly quince flavored vanilla syrup…
I ran out of sugar, and my mom had a pretty jar of vanilla sugar. So… I decided to use the vanilla sugar for the quince and I ended up not cooking the mixture long enough (I think) and the result was that the jelly didn’t gel as much as it is supposed to.
When I had my mom sample it she was trying really hard to tell me that it tasted like quince, but since she wasn’t particularly familiar with quince, she had a hard time detecting it. So now I have three jars of quince vanilla syrup that I am planning to use to sweeten poached pears in the winter… the jars look pretty anyway, the vanilla seeds are suspended in the mixture.
Vanilla Sugar
My mom had some really fresh organic vanilla beans from a family farm in Costa Rica. She puts several beans in for 3 or 4 cups (or more) of sugar. You can leave the bean whole, or scrape out the seeds, which mix nicely with the sugar.
This sugar works really well for lots of things! To flavor hot milk, jams, pies, spiced fruits, etc!!
quince
September 14, 2009
I am kind of obsessed with canning things. I get giddy when I find a new source for fruits or vegetables. Excited and can’t stop talking about it. Yesterday was a grape day. Today is a quince day.
Quinces are hard to find around here. Their skins and cores are full of pectin (a substance that helps “gel” jams and jellies), and make a lovely jelly. The fruit is wonderful when made into paste, jam, and sauce. My friend Jeanne from Oskaloosa has a quince tree and she is going to let me stop by and pick a bucket of quinces.
Later… Jeanne and I went out and collected some quinces. They are a smaller variety, which I think are called flowering quince. I have a recipe for flowering quince jelly which i have started.
The quinces are washed (to remove the fur on the skin) and then quartered. Their seeds are tightly clustered in the center of the fruit and are surrounded by a gel like substance (pectin?). The fruit is very hard and needs to be cooked before eating.
My jelly recipe uses about 3 lbs quince. I simmered the quince in my cauldron for about 1 hr until soft. They smell lovely when cooking-sweet, almost like honey. When the fruit was soft, I put them in a piece of linen cheesecloth and tied it to my cabinet. The pectin rich juice is draining into a bowl on my counter for the next 12 hrs or so..
Once all the juice is collected, it will be added to lots and lots of sugar and transformed into jelly for the fall and winter!
living in the woods and making stuff 