urbandryad

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.

Candied jalapenos:

Half a case of jalapenos, sliced.
8 cups sugar
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water

Put it in a pot, bring to a heavy simmer. Cook until jalapenos have mostly turned "cooked" colour.

Water bath.

Edit: super delicious but remove seeds and pith next time. Spicy.

Yesterday was the applejuice buy from Vanbrewers. I came home with 22 gallons of mixed granny smith/jonagold/honeycrisp juice. It's got a little bit of acid tang but is still pretty sweet. We didn't get the juice till 8 or 9 at night, so it was a long night. Here's what i did.

Spiced Apple Wine.

5 kg sugar.
yeast nutrient, yeast energiser, pectic enzymes as per package directions
3/4 tsp wine tannin (according to minimum package directions)
2tsp acid blend (according to minimum package directions)
375g sultanas
Top up to 6 gallons with apple juice

Stir till mixed, didn't heat it or sanitize it on anything since my stove was full of other things and I was gonna be pitching right away.

I was sleepy when I was pitching, so I pitched the wrong yeast. I had meant to pitch Cote des blancs, but accidentally pitched Wyeast Cider smack-pack 4766. On later research I learned that maybe that was fortuitous. Some folks have said that yeast doesn't hold aroma and I really, really don't wanna lose the aroma on the quince. Hopefully it holds arome, but I am gonna add a bunch of spice in the secondary, so there'll be supporting flavours. I'll be adding

Sassafrass
Rose petals
Cinnamon
Star anise

in the secondary, maybe with a little oak and williamette hops. I pitched the yeast into (pretty cold) must last night, and maybe 20 hours later I've just had to put it in a primary bucket because it was blowing the top off the carboy.

16.5% potential alcohol.

Strong sweet cyser.

Redo of the one I did last year that is now starting to taste pretty amazing but would probably be even better in another year or two:

~8 kg honey (I may have poured a little heavily)
tannin, acid, pectic enzyme, yeast energiser, yeast nutrient as per lowest package directions
apple juice to fill (about 4.5 gallons)

I heated the honey briefly on the stove till it was liquid enough to pour through a funnel into the carboy, topped it up with the (very cold) apple juice, stirred a lot, then pitched the same yeast I used last year, the Wyeast smack-pack sweet mead yeast 4184.

Last year I hadn't added the tannin or acid, but I really liked its effect on the juice.

18-19% (!) potential alcohol.

Apple quince wine.

Half a shopping bag of frozen quinces.
5kg sugar
tannin, acid, energiser, enzymes, nutrient
fill to 6gallons apple juice (about 5 gallons)

Stir till mixed. Pitched Red Star Cotes des blancs because I had accidentally pitched the cider yeast into the spiced apple. The quinces were still frozen solid so I didn't break them up much or anything, so I 'll be poking them when I stir it from time to time.

Potential alcohol 17% (measured quite cold).

Candy apple graff.

Steep in 1.5 gallons water at 150-160:

0.75 lb Crystal 60L
0.65 lb Special B
1 lb Carapils
1.5 lb Acidulated malt

Pull the grains out, rinse them in a little hot water. Put that hot water in there too. Toss the grains. Add

3 lb pale dry malt extract

Start boiling. Add

0.5 oz Williamette hops.

Boil for half an hour. The Williamette hops smelled so good I added

0.5 oz Williamette hops

right at the end, then chilled the whole thing down a little and poured it into 18L apple juice to make up the six gallons. Pitched Safale - 04 yeast to keep some sweet in. I really liked the taste the acidulated malt lent the wort. I'm considering adding some tannins and acids in here too.



I just pitched some nottingham yeast directly into the last cider, I am making another graff out of it but ran out of time and figured that was the best way of preserving the juice, so that's what I'll go do now.

Apple juice info: Tank A: Brix = 10.8 PH = 4.6 EC = 1.7
Tank B: Brix = 11.0 PH = 4.3 EC = 1.6
Mix of Apples : 4 parts Honeycrisp; 5 parts Jonagold; 1 part Granny smith

Well, we're overdue a booze update and I have a bunch more stuff on the go now.

Problem is, brew days are pretty tiring/demanding for me, they use up my store of enthusiasm for the topic (which feels really good, to drain that all the way dry for a bit) and then I don't want to write it up for awhile. I expect as I get more experience and have to concentrate less hard on all the steps it'll be less demanding of me.

I'll start with the fun stuff.

So I went out to Abbotsford to Taves Family Farm and filled up 2 6gallon sanitized carboys with fresh-pressed Jonagold apple juice. I did some sciency stuff with it and determined it had 6g/L acid and was at 1.04 specific gravity (though again I'm taking this measurement a little warm) or 5% potential alcohol. It also tasted lovely, much tarter than I was expecting.

I did a bunch of stuff all at once with it, so:

Juniper Apple Wine

4kg table sugar, heated in some of the apple juice with 1gm grains of paradise and 1oz juniper berries till it dissolved well then finished filling carboy with apple juice (it was pasteurized on the farm). I popped in 1/8 tsp potassium metasulphite and yeast nutrient and pectic enzymes as per package instructions. 12 hours later I pitched some Red Star Cotes Des Blancs yeast. It smells amazing, I love my idea. 12 hours later the yeast isn't doing much, but there's a tiny bit of activity. That's the same yeast I used for the kousa wine, and it worked great there, so we'll see.

Started at 1.1 specific gravity on the nose, or 14% potential alcohol.

Apple Sweet Mead

6L of honey was melted into some of the apple juice on the stovetop till it was pretty warm, then poured in and topped up till the 6 gallon point. I then added a double dose of yeast nutrient because this yeast is gonna be working really hard, some pectic enzyme, and a 1/8 dose of potassium meta as per above. Again I let it sit for 12 hours or so. I pitched a pack of Wyeast sweet mead yeast, one of those smack-pack things which poofed up well. 12 hours later it's showing tiny tiny bubbles but the airlock isn't doing much.

Started at something close to 1.35 specific gravity (it was hard to get a reading with honey-bubbles and sticky and being so low on the hydrometer. That's 18% potential alcohol, but this yeast will not take it that far. I am making a dessert candy here, folks.

Graff Take II

There was a remaining 2.5-3lbs apple juice, so this is where I went with it. First I gave it 1/16 tsp potassium meta, then left it the same 12 hours as everything else.

When that wait was done I steeped 1/2lb organic crystal 60L cracked malt with 3oz cracked carapils in 3L 155-165 degree water (I have so much trouble holding the temp even on my stove), atrained, then the grains sparged (rinsed) with 170 degree water (The rats loved the used-up grains). Added 1.5lbs light liquid malt extract and 1.25lbs amber liquid malt extract, brought it to a low boil, added 0.5 oz wakatu hop pellets. Boiled for 1/2 hour, poured it into the carboy on top of the remaining maybe 2.5-3 gallons of apple juice, then pitched Nottingham dry yeast after a good swirl. The carboy (I'm not using a primary bucket, that story later) was somewhat over half full and I was out of juice, so I figured I'd pitch the yeast and get it started fighting it out, then come home with store apple juice to top it up today. The yeast is just bubbling along with now, I haven't added more apple juice yet.

I didn't get a specific gravity because I wasn't done adding apple juice when I pitched the yeast. We'll see how it goes.

I pitched the yeast and did the boil for the graff this morning before work.

Morning seems to be when I have energy for doing things, so the daylight savings thing is great, it gives me extra time at the good part of the day. I just need to get to bed on time still.

Now I'll go back and update my kousa wine and graff: batch 1 stories.

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.

Cabbage roll casserole: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cabbage-roll-casserole

Ground lamb and lentil chili: http://www.food.com/recipe/ground-lamb-and-lentil-chili-217574

Eggplant and ground lamb timbale (

potlucky): http://greek.food.com/recipe/timbale-of-eggplant-and-ground-lamb-170718

Lamb or beef stuffed eggplant: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/turkish_style_stuffed_eggplant.php

Kalimoxto, the coke-and-lemon sangria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9DBz7AySLw

Kugel (now there's something I haven't had in awhile!): http://theshiksa.com/2012/05/18/sweet-lokshen-kugel/

Molten chocolate cake, easy recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLnJGA_XtXQ&feature=share&list=PL46674FCE1A264176

Missed yellow plum season, because the weather was so hot it was about five minutes long. That's fine with me given my love affair with italian prune plums, though.

Here are some prune plum recipes I want to try:

http://growitcookitcanit.com/2012/05/11/gratitude-improved-chocolate-plum-jam/

http://foodinjars.com/2011/09/urban-preserving-italian-plum-jam-with-star-anise/

Um... can't find a recipe, but I want to do a plum preserves with gin in 'em.

Well.

I was going to get ten pounds of these really lovely organic blueberries. Then I lucked into 25lbs instead, but they are super, super ripe.

PRocessing for the farm, I ended up trying this blueberry basil jam recipe: http://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2011/08/blueberry-basil-preserves.html . I didn't follow procedure (dumped it all in a pot except pectin, boiled the hell out of it for about 5 mins, added pectin, 1 min boil, canned it) and it was super, super tasty but set really hard. Like, the lids popped off some jars in the canner and the jam just sat there, super jars. I mean, it was nice and jammy, not like a jello-texture, but still.

So I came home and did it minus pectin. It turned into a lovely thick syrupy stuff. It'll be pancakes/oatmeal/gin'n'tonic fodder come winter.

So at the moment I'm just short of 5 cases into my goal of one jar per winter day. I'm doing some blackberry picking later this week, I'm only halfway through the blueberries, and I need to do a bunch of green bean pickles, zucchini relish, and turnip pickles. Oh, and later on, sauerkraut.

In other news, it's so humid here the basil just will. Not. Dry. Argh! I go through about a 1L jar of dried basil per winter, and if I can't get it to go, I'm in trouble.

Sooo.... I forgot to add the turnip/beet pickled I made awhile ago, chilling in my fridge, but I didn't track the recipe! Bad me.

Turns out the relish I made was lovely ON hamburgers, though too sweet off them. Last night I made an industrial-sized batch of the other one: http://www.rurallyscrewed.com/12558/2012/07/20/the-best-zucchini-relish-you-will-ever-have/ . It was definitely less sweet, with a tendancy to be a little too vinegary, but not bad by any stretch. Used mustard powder instead of whole seeds.

For myself I made a ton of apricot goo, apricots in a slow cooker with honey or sugar and a little bit of lemon. When they get mushy, can. Works great as apricot nectar, just dilute with water. I bet there are some other uses I have yet to think of.

Not a canning thing, but I made an amazing zucchini/bacon... thing. Fried 500g bacon, chopped, added a few sage leaves and some oregano and olive oil and 6 cups chopped zucchini. Left on med-low in a wide pan till it reduced to 2 cups' worth. Amazing.

Now to put some apricots in the slow cooker with a few sage leaves and some honey and see what happens. The apricot season has been short because it's been so hot here; I'm trying to get more but I'm afraid this might be the last.

Too many awesome plant things have happened to list. I'm super busy, because I've started working pretty seriously with a local urban farm on top of my regular, rent-paying work. In addition to mothering their tomato/basil greenhouse and general plant work and working with their rabbitry(!) I've been doing some preserving for them. To date I've done:

*Pickled eggs (gallon of vinegar, 1 square pkg brown sugar, pickling spices)
A lemon verbena/cherry preserve. Not the biggest fan. Too sweet-lemony for me; I like my lemon sour.
*An AMAZING cherry-almond jam. 5/5, would make again. http://cookingwithkaryn.blogspot.ca/2011/07/homemade-cherry-almond-jam.html?m=1

Tonight I'm trial-testing
Zucchini relish, Canadian Living, with alterations: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/zippy_zucchini_relish.php (removed tumeric, ginger, one onion. Used white vinegar. Doubled chilis and then a bit). It's a little sweet for me as it stands, but it's in the water bath now, and it might mellow a little. Nice and spicy!
I'd like to try http://www.rurallyscrewed.com/12558/2012/07/20/the-best-zucchini-relish-you-will-ever-have/ as a less-sweet version, hopefully.

And I made apricots in a honey: water 1:2.5 syrup.

I also stuck a bunch of apricots in the slow cooker. I got them early this week, 30 lbs worth, but sadly they weren't super ripe and still aren't, and I'm going away for a long weekend tomorrow. Gotta figure out what to do with them (though they're ripening slowly enough I might just leave 'em and expect they'll be nectar-ripeness when I get home)