urbandryad

Basic veg mix:

1 part cauliflower, 1 part sweet hot peppers, 1/2 part green hot peppers, 1 part green beans, 1 part carrots, 1/4 part celery (including leaves) all cut into bite-sized pieces

Brine mix:

Giardiniera hungarian pepper: 1:1 vinegar:water plus 1/3 cup kosher salt and 1/2 cup sugar into 3.5L brine (one pot), into each 500ml jar add 2 peppercorns, 1 bay leaf, 1 clove garlic

Lightly sweet mixed pickle: 1:1 vinegar water plus 1/3 cup kosher salt and 1 cup sugar into 3.5L brine, per 750ml jar add 1/4 tsp mustard, 4-5 coriander seeds, 1 bay leaf, 3 peppercorns

Giardiniera (plain): 1:1 vinegar:water plus 1/3 cup kosher salt and 1/2 cup of sugar per pot, 1/4 tsp peppercorns & 1 clove garlic & 2 bay leaves per liter jar
Water bath 15 minutes

(Also tried a no-sugar one)


Strawberries, macerate 2L with 2 cups sugar overnight, bring to a boil, add juice and zest of 2 limes, water bath 10 minutes, fruit will float

Pulled the lacto cucumber pickles out of the crock. They're really great, not too salty, lots of flavour, not hard-sour and a little bit fizzy. The recipe was: a handful of garlic cloves, several bay leaves, some black peppercorns, and many dill heads. Brine poured hot (just not boiling) over them at (half cup canning salt to 3 quarts water, imperial measurements bother me, what % brine is this?). They were in the crock 2 weeks at fairly warm (woodstove heated) temps.

I made a brandied applesauce, just applesauce with brandy and a trace more sugar than usual.

I also made an apple muffin recipe out of applesauce:
Cream 1/2 cup butter and 3/4 cup sugar. Add an egg and vanilla. Add 1 cup applesauce. Add 1/2 tsp soda, a bit of salt, some nutmeg and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 2 cups flour (I used whole whear). 350F for 20-25 minutes. They're pretty good, even without baking powder. This is a half recipe, the whole recipe made something like 30 muffins.

Then mom came up and I canned 25 lbs of tomatoes: roast at 400 for 40 minutes, slip skins off, pack, add citric acid, pressure can @ 5lbs for 40 mins or 10 for 25. They don't seem to have separated, which is nice. There was a little siphoning.

I also was given a bunch of peeled garlic. I put a jar of it to ferment with 10% salt brine. Again brined hot, it's bubbling away.

Then I put up three jars (2 1.5L and one gallon jar) of carrots, jalapenos, and some garlic in a 5% brine (note this is a pickling 5% brine which does not factor in the weight of the veggies). Hopefully they'll start bubbling away soon.

My intention with the fermented things is to pasteurize them at 180F if I run out of fridge room.

Then I have 25 kgs of cabbage and another 6lbs of jalapenos, I'm going to mix cabbage and "some" jalapenos for my sauerkraut. I'll definitely have cabbage left over.

I also will have a bunch of carrots left over, the plan is to eventually can them as glazed carrots (2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups water, 1 cup orange juice, carrots go into the jars cold, pour the syrup over them hot, pressure can 11lbs for 30min.

Desert Hills, the farm market I've been buying from, makes me pretty happy.

Then this coming weekend will be a butcher, so I'll be canning some chili and some pork in wine sauce (adapted from beef in wine sauce) or Italian sausage and putting up more bacon, coppa, and prosciutto. I have a bit of spruce syrup to go in that. I also should do some pork jerky with the syrup from cowboy candy. That would be amazing smoked.

The jalapenos are pretty spicy, so I pickled them cut with carrots in my zesty pickle brine: 1/3 jalapenos and 2/3 carrots, hot packed in the brine consisting of 1L vinegar, 1L water, 1/3 cup (coarse) salt, 1/2 cup sugar. I pressure-canned it quickly, but water bathing would have been better.

Pickled eggplant is done too. Eggplant is lightweight and compresses quite a bit while cooking. Basically peel and french-fry the eggplant, cook for 2 mins in a brine of 500ml white wine vinegar to 2tbsp salt and some oregano and garlic. I think I added a touch of chopped jalapeno to one jar. Hot pack, then top with the vinegar, debubble, and at my altitude 15min in a water bath.

Today: chicken wing sauce, creole sauce, marinaded peppers, pickles and jalapenos into ferment.

Well.

This has been quite a weekend.

My live-in partner and I broke up on Friday, and I had 60lbs of plums and 20(of 40) lbs of beans and 20lbs of peaches sitting around to process at that point. Luckily we're settling into an amicable pre-move state at home, my neighbor is happy to help pit plums or snap beans and chat distractingly, and putting food up is good for my soul.

So I'm not sure if I mentioned the lemon bay bean pickles I was making, but the recipe is http://www.food.com/recipe/lemon-and-bay-leaf-bean-pickles-484661 and I made one batch unaltered, and another with plain white vinegar instead of wine vinegar. Unfortunately I have no idea how they turned out, because they're still hanging out before I can taste them.

I made some plain dilly bean pickles too, lots of garlic and a hot pepper per jar. It took awhile to find the dill seeds for a reasonable cost, but I ended up going to the farm's trusted source at Galloway's. I spotted juniper berries there, pretty excited, and also got a ton of dill seeds really cheap. Mom was driving, so I also got super cheap jars at Wal-Mart ($6/case, who knew?) and hauled 5 boxes of those home. I used this recipe, pretty standard no-sugar brine to offset the huge amount of sugar in the bay beans: http://www.food.com/recipe/lemon-and-bay-leaf-bean-pickles-484661

Today I dug into the plums and made rum plums (used halves, not diced, and Sailor Jerry rum) which was astonishingly good-- the vanilla/caramel notes in the rum were unbelievably good.

I should note everything plummy was a double batch today. I don't actually like hard-set jam, it feels less versatile to me, so although this stuff (not all cool yet) is pretty thick, it isn't super solid. Who knows what it will do overnight?

I also made a plum sauce, kind of from this recipe: http://mypantryshelf.com/2012/07/06/asian-plum-sauce-and-the-winner-is/ except I didn't mince the ginger bit sliced it and fished the slices out, didn't have soy sauce so put a bunch of salt (including some smoked salt) in, and used crumbled star anise so I didn't fish it out at the end. I'm not sure quite how I feel about the sauce. It could certainly have used the umami of soy sauce, but I think it will be good with pork roasts, etc.

Next up was the chocolate plum jam I'd been wanting to try from http://growitcookitcanit.com/2012/05/11/gratitude-improved-chocolate-plum-jam/ which was... fascinating. Now, I had a picture in my mind of what this would taste like, and it does not taste like that at all. I did omit the sage, but I don't think that's so much the issue is that the amount of cocoa (small) and the complexity of the other flavours really builds a fantastically dark, complex, interesting experience. Putting it beside a standard fruit jam is like putting a piece of antique mahogany beside an ikea dresser. I'm glad I only made a double batch, because it may be too much of an experience for me to have too often, but I am SO GLAD I made it. Seriously, guys, it's like a goth fruit jam.

Then, because the rum plums turned out so well and I was out of rum, I made a batch of gin plums -- less sugar (6/7 cups), more plums (9lbs), same amount of lemon juice, and half a cup Victoria gin. It's also pretty damn good, and only post-canning time can tell me if I'm sugar-and-plum overloaded from tasting, or if the rum really is a better match. I kind of want to try plums with juniper berries next year.

Those pickles are bubbling away! I put them in 1L (and one 1.9L) mason jars, the kinds with necks, and today loosened the ring on each lid for just a second-- enough to let the pickles outgas if they were pressurized. I did not lift the lids or anything. As I opened each one, bubbles rushed to the surface, and the most lovely smell filled the room.

I only just read that the blossom ends of even whole pickles should be trimmed off to prevent softening, and I didn't do that on mine, so we'll see how it goes.

I feel like more than a dozen 1L jars of whole sour pickles is silly for one person, so I picked up a bunch of narrow-necked 500ml pint jars with the intention of making fermented pickle chips. I also want to do some cooked ones with vinegar, maybe with some cayenne in with the dill. However, my last brine sat in my cooking pot just a little too long, and stripped the finish off the pot some (it was the extra brine, so it didn't then go into the pickles, thank goodness).

I made a second batch of butter peaches, and need to make SO MUCH MORE. I will, however, only buy organic butter for this, and it is expensive, so I'm now hoping the cool weather will slow the peaches ripening until payday. I will say this, though-- fresh muffins and a bowl of extra butter peaches with a mug of milk is perhaps the best lunch I have ever had. Those peaches are thus far worth every penny.

Oh my. I've been backpacking (in the middle of the canning season!) so I feel like I missed out. However, I've been busy in the few days I've been back, and right before I left.

It is not a good blackberry season this year. I think it's just been too dry. Before I left I got in a batch of blackberry-crabapple juice that was really good, and on my return I did another that wasn't as good (maybe just a little tart, I did run out of sugar, but the berries themselves aren't juicy or particularly sweet). I guess I'll make a bunch of plum juice instead.

The juices I've been making by boiling the fruit with sugar and some water, then letting them sit overnight, and running them through a plain ordinary colander and letting them drip awhile. There's a bit of sediment and the very occasional seed, which is fine with me.

Now I have 40lbs of not-quite-ripe peaches awaiting me, and the cremation of a friend this weekend; I think I'll come home and work on them, and try to let it comfort me.

I'm looking at butter-spiced nectarines (but with peaches) as one recipe for those: http://www.food.com/recipe/butter-spiced-nectarines-484182 and I think the rest I'll do as super easy skin-on preserves when they get ready: http://foodinjars.com/2013/08/lazy-peach-preserves/

As well as the fruit, I'm looking hard at pickles. I have some sauerkraut I put up awhile ago that's ripening on the counter (took a shocking length of time despite the heat). It's cabbage with a bit of carrot and... huh. One other thing is in it.

I have 15lbs of pickling cukes coming. I wasn't going to make any myself, the amazing farm crew helped me put up 11 CASES of sliced dill chips in 500ml jars (brine: 4 cups vinegar, 4 cups water, 1/3 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tbsp of dill seeds per jar, process 10min) and I'll be eating some of those this winter I bet.

Then I got to work today and got the best treat!

My Polish co-worker told me she'd just put up 30-odd jars of her pickles, so I asked for the recipe. It is as follows:

Elizabeth's Pickles
Boil water with salt, 2 heaping tablespoons salt per liter of water. Let it cool.

Put cucumbers in jars, wedging them sideways so they won't float, and using them to pin down dill weed, garlic, and a slice of horseradish (which is supposed to keep them crisp, and sounds SO TASTY).

Pour the cooled water to completely cover contents of jars. Put on lids. Put in cupboard for 3 days to 1 year. Eat.

No water bathing, anything. She says they seal themselves. I MUST TRY THIS so I ordered the cukes. Apparently with some cukes it won't work; depends on the source. The ones coming for me are certified organic, so we'll see. I really should just go down the road to the next farm over and see what they have, but with no car it's a bit of a chore.

I also am hoping to get my green beans for vodka beans soon. Maybe I need to push a bit to make that happen.

I've found a gorgeous stand of blue elderberries along one of my bus routes. They look ripe, only worry is they're in the middle of a blackberry jungle. I may be recruiting a partner in crime for that harvest if this weekend gives me enough emotional space. In turn I may be making rowanberry jam this fall, after frost when the berries are tastier. How awesome does that sound?

I also need to make more zucchini relish (both types) before the season runs out, and likely some zucchini pickles (the kind with vinegar). Beet and turnip pickles can wait awhile. I will NEED turnip pickles though. They are SO, SO GOOD. Notice all my caps? I have a 1.9L jar of them in the fridge I'm going through super slowly because I'm afraid of eating them all and running out.

At the farm there are also some truly excellent radishes I want to pickle. The variety, cheriette, so pretty damn wonderful to produce non-woody, crunchy, huge radishes in August, of all things.

I also need to pickle some greens. I'll regret it in the winter if I don't, right?