urbandryad: image of a city growing out of the branches of a tree (Default)
Okay, let's see. Last I had done canned carrots.

I canned a lot of the tomatoes as just tomatoes: roasted at 400 for long enough to get the skin to come off, fill jars, pressure can.

I also worked on ready-to-eat meals:

Chili con carne:

3kg ground pork, 1kg dried beans, 300g chopped onion, 400g chopped jalapeno, 4L tomatoes (mostly ones I'd canned but also a can of store bought whole), 1/4 cup lime juice, some cilantro (more next year), some berbere powder, a trace of cocoa powder, and some salt

Soak beans overnight, rinse, cover with fresh water, simmer for half an hour until firm but not crunchy, discard water.

Brown pork and add veggies till soft.

Mix everything into a (very large) pot, bring to a boil then simmer 5min. I added 2L of pork stock.

500ml jars, 1" headspace, 11lbs for 75min.

This needs a hit of... sugar? Umami? Cilantro? But it's perfectly servicable.

Bean soup Edit: I don't like this, it's too dense and beany and not soupy or bacon-y
1kg dry beans, soaked ovenight
2 ham hocks
2 small carrots
1 onion
Bay leaves

Put in a pot wih fresh water or water/stock covering the beans by 2" (should be 3-4"). Cook everything together until the beans are soft (should be relatively firm). Cut meat off bones and put back into soup. Boil, then into jars: 500ml jars, 1" headspace, 15(?)lbs pressure for 75 min. This is a bernardin recipe and the pressure is missing. The beans ended up being a little too soft in the jars, they should be more firm when canned.

Salted caramel pears

Cook the pears in a little water until they are soft and can go through the food mill or chinois. Add some brown sugar and a little salt to the sauce. Mine was pretty liquid and needed to be cooked down by 2/3. Water bath.

Really really tasty.
urbandryad: image of a city growing out of the branches of a tree (Default)
That ended up less amicable than expected, but I guess that much food is still a relatively benign sacrifice. I'm living on my own now, which means-- more time to make things. And I (thank goodness) don't look like I need to move my canned goods yet.

Even so, I think aside from a bunch of apple/pear sauce and a few more rounds of pickled eggs, putting things in jars might be over for the year.

That might mean it's time to start brewing. I helped with a batch of pumpkin beer last weekend (pretty good date activity, to be honest). I'm feeling much more confident in the beermaking process having walked through the steps.

It's kousa dogwood time, and then soon rowan berry time. I think both of those might make interesting ferments. I have a stupendously huge bucket of honey waiting to make mead (rowan mead?!)

I also (think I still?) have access to large amounts of frozen unpasteurized apple cider/juice. I've learned about graff ( http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/graff-malty-slightly-hopped-cider-117117/ ) which seems pretty delightful even if it was created based on a Stephen King book. There are a bunch of different ways to do it, and of course I'm interested in the sweeter end of those, or the sour ones.

I haven't been out scouting too many alleys lately, which is sad. Apples are falling all over the place; we had a huge storm on the weekend and I bet that brought a ton more down. It's just a matter of permission or stealth to get 'em home.

Apparently there's a cider press festival in Vancouver, which might be an interesting way to both network with cider-press folks and to get a little more apple juice. Looks fun, anyhow. http://www.villagevancouver.ca/events/frog-hollow-press-fest

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