urbandryad

My 5% carrot, jalapeno, and garlic brined pickled last year were great but got bad kahm yeast. This year I'm making a 6% mixed pepper, garlic, and tomatillo pickle that I'll blend into a pasta sauce. I made it in a 2L jar and put about 3/4 cup of vinegar in, in addition to the brine.

I did another round of Avi's dad's pickles, which was pickling cucumbers, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, hot peppers, mustard seeds. I did not have dill to put in this time, though I did last year when it was really good. Pour over 3 quarts of water mixed with 3/4 cup coarse salt, just off the boil.

I've made vanilla paste with a sugar base recipe, put 16 vanilla beans into the blender with a cup of sugar. Boil another cup of sugar with a cup of water for 2 mins, add the blended vanilla sugar, boil another 2 mins together, let sit till cool, strain it, and there's the paste. Use the bits that strain out to make some extract.

I've been dehydrating tomatoes and, surprise, zucchini. Both are tasty as is.

I made a bunch of "crack pork jerky" which was, in percentages:
Meat 100
Apple Cider 7
Salt 2
Liquid Smoke 0
Worcestershire (Lea & Perrins) 1
Brown Sugar 1.5975
Maple Sugar 1.1
Maple Syrup 1.0
Cure #1 0.3
Garlic powder 0.1
Fermented pepper solids 0.3
Fermented hot sauce 0.5

I also canned Ellen's carnitas recipe, which looks like this:
Pork Shoulder

Oranges ( ¼ for each pint )

Ground Cumin ( ½ tsp for each pint )

Oregano ( ½ tsp for each pint )

Canning Salt ( ½ tsp for each pint )

Bay Leaf ( 1” piece for each pint )


Remove bones and excess fat from pork butt or shoulder roast and cut meat into suitable sizes for the jars being used. Do not remove all the fat but leave well marbled pieces. To each pint jar add the juice of 1/4 of a medium orange, half of the squeezed quarter orange, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon leaf oregano, 1/2 teaspoon canning salt and about a 1-inch piece of bay leaf. Fill jars with raw meat pieces, leaving 1-inch headspace. Do not add liquid. 75 minutes for 500ml jars or 90mins for 1L at 12psi at my elevation.


I've also remembered to freeze slabs of pork belly and thin ramen slices of pork.