Pickling and Canning experiences

lime pickles, bread and butter pickles, pickled peaches, tomato juice (top), and tomato paste (bottom)


This summer I have been trying to pickle and can some items to keep the summer joy of local produce all year long.  Last summer I made bread and butter pickles to great success.  What I found was I didn't make enough so I made more this summer.   I use standard pickling instructions (pickyourown.org has great instructions.)     Here is my recipe:

1/2 t ginger
2 c vinegar
2 c sugar
1 T mustard seed
3/4 T celery seed
1/2 T turmeric
1/2 t red pepper
1 clove garlic
1 c water
2 onions, sliced
2 lbs pickling cucumbers, sliced.
This made about 4 pints of pickles.

Next, I tried making Lime pickles.  My sister in law shared an old family recipe.  I took a sneak taste before canning and they were good, but I haven't opened a jar yet because I want to give them time to pickle thoroughly.

Lime pickles take a lot more time.  The cucumber slices have to be soaked in lime water for 24 hours, then rinsed a number of times to get rid of the lime.  They have to soak again in cold water for an additional three hours, and rinse and drain again.  The lime is said to give the pickles crispness.

The family recipe for 7 lbs pickling cucumbers is:

2 qts vinegar
8 c sugar
2 T canning salt
2 T canning spice (I was going to make some, but ending up buying it from Penzy's)
1 t cloves
1 t celery seed

Mix everything, and pour it over the cold cucumbers and let them sit over night (again).
The next morning bring the pickles to a boil and simmer for 35 minutes.
Put the pickles and syrup in jars and boil in the canner for 45 minutes.  
(Like I said it look a lot of time)

I also pickled peaches.  The recipe I used was from a book, but I didn't like the end result.  It called for equal parts of vinegar and sugar, as well as cloves and fresh ginger.  When I opened the jar this week to try them, I was really disappointed.  The book said I would taste peaches and summer.  All I could taste was vinegar and ginger.  I poured out the jar, but I want to try it again.  I found a new recipe that used half the amount of vinegar to sugar and will post after I try it.

Last, I made tomato paste and tomato juice.

We have spent a lot of time in the car recently and pass the time listening to podcasts.  On Sunday night I was listening to Good Food from KCRW and they discussed canning homemade tomato paste.  Since I had  a dozen locally grown tomatoes on my counter I knew I had to try it.

I used the directions at pickyourown.org and and was thrilled with the result.  I can't wait to open a jar after fresh tomato season.  I'm looking forward to spreading the paste on bruschetta and using it with pasta.

Because you have to squeeze out all the juice to make the paste, I had a lot of juice sitting there that I couldn't waste.  I ended up adding a little seasoning and lemon juice to create a tomato juice.  Noone in my family drinks tomato juice, but I find it in various recipes so I know it will be used.  I canned the paste and juice in half pint jars so I won't end up wasting half of the unused portion.

I'd love to hear what you have canned and pickled.  I am in a learning mode and want to try more.  I may pickle peppers next.  I seem to be getting a bumper crop from my little garden and hate to see them go to waste.

Zucchini Blueberry Bread

It's that time of year -- abundance of zucchini and blueberries.  I found a wonderful recipe at allrecipes.com that gave me the chance to use both!
(search blueberry zucchini bread)

I made a couple of adjustments, of course.  First I used  more zucchini that it called for.  I also increased the cinnamon. And last, I added a streusel to the top made of brown sugar, butter, flour and a little cinnamon.  The crunch made it feel special and more like a blueberry muffin.

I made a few loaves of this to take to a family reunion.  People snacked on it all day and it disappeared quickly.

Fairy Tale Eggplant

Last week we got a pint of Fairy Tale Eggplants in our CCSA share.  If you've never seen them before, they are basically eggplants about the length of your pinky finger.  We got some last year, and I tried a recipe online but I didn't understand the excitement others were feeling. This year I decided to try something simpler.

First, you have to know, my husband HATES eggplant.  It is one of the food carryovers from his childhood that makes him gag.  While I, on the other hand, really love a well prepared eggplant.  One of my favorite dishes on earth is eggplant parmesan.  I order it at every new Italian restaurant we try.  When it is done well I believe it is close to heaven, but more often than not, it is just mushy with cheese and sauce.  With that in mind I knew I didn't want mushy.

Luckily our Fair Shares (my CCSA) newsletter mentioned roasting eggplants a few weeks ago.  While she wasn't discussing the fairy tale eggplant, I decided I should try her approach -- roasting.

I cut off the ends, and split the tiny eggplants in half.  Laid them on a baking pan, drizzled olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and pressed a generous amount of garlic over each piece.  I baked them for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then added shredded buffalo mozzarella over each piece and baked an additional 5 minutes.

The result was a hit it our household.  My eggplant hating husband said they looked like roasted cocoons, which I guess helped him get past the childhood memories.  He had quite a few and said he would have them again.  The girls said they reminded them of roasted potatoes.  I think that is about as high of praise as you can get from my girls.

(One final note: The younger one didn't like seeing the seeds so if I made them again I think I would cover the seeds better with the cheese. )

Grandma Neva's Cookies

My grandma Neva was famous for her cookies. She baked them often enough to have some on hand at all times, which was pretty often because many of us believe that was all she ate at some meals, which must not have been too bad since she lived to 93.

Grandma had given the recipe to various members of the family, and it was told differently each time. One of the most recent variations I heard was a teaspoon of walnut extract, rather than the vanilla in mine. Others have coconut and others have butterscotch chips. We think she made it up as she went along, depending on what she found in the kitchen. (I always thought it was some sort of wonder recipe, until I realized it is pretty much identical as to what was found on the back of the Quaker Oatmeal box. )

This afternoon I made the recipe as she gave it to me more than 20 years ago. As I was making it. I realized it is perfect for the style of cooking she used, and one I am trying to embrace -- use what you have on hand and make the best of it. The cookies I made today used locally sourced eggs and Missouri grain project whole wheat flour. I doubt my grandmother used locally milled flour, but then again I don't know where people got their flour in the 1930's in rural Missouri.

Please try this recipe and think about ways you can adapt it to what you have on hand -- raisins, dried apricots, pistachios, etc. Let me know what you come up with. I know my Grandma would be proud.

Grandma Neva's Chocolate Chip Cookies

mix: 1-cup brown sugar

1 cup while sugar

1 cup shortening

a little salt

and two eggs.

Add: 1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups flour

2 cups oatmeal

Mix thoroughly.

Add 2 teaspoons vanilla.

Mix well. Stir in 2 cps chocolate chips and 1 cup choppped pecans.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Grandma said to, "bake in a moderate oven until done." We bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Garlic Focaccia Bread and Radish Shoots

Tonight I picked up two weeks of food from Fair Shares. (Last week's pick up was postponed for a week because of the snow and ice.) There was a couple of new items, including a Garlic Focaccia Bread made by Yellow Dog Farms of Warrenton, MO. We have received fresh greens and lettuces from Yellow Dog Farms throughout the growing season so I was glad to see they are finding ways to supplement their income in the winter months.

I love focaccia bread, and this was as good as I was hoping for. I cut off a couple of slices to eat with fresh pasta and tomato sauce. I used a jar sauce that I always love, but added some Ozark Forest Mushrooms and Claverach shoots.

That is where I made my mistake. I picked up radish shoots this afternoon and didn't realize they had a strong flavor. I had thrown shoots into sauces in the past to increase the nutritional value of the sauce, but they had been mellower shoots. Tonight the radish shoots did not compliment the other ingredients.

When we started receiving shoots last spring I didn't know what to do with them, but I was willing to try. Everything I read pointed to the higher nutritional value of the shoots, than the actual vegetable. One cup of radish shoots has 28% of the daily recommended levels of vitamin C, and is high in other vitamins and potasium, too.

I sometimes throw the shoots into sauces, and once added shoots to a meatloaf, but a couple of weeks ago we used them as the main ingredient in a chef salad. As usual we were in a hurry and needed to create an easy, nutritional meal. We opened the refrigerator and started pulling out whatever we could find - which wasn't much. What we did have was a cucumber, a bag of pea shoots, a lot of cheeses and a stick or hard salami. I made a simple dressing and my husband made a salad with the other ingredients. It was quite tasty, easy and healthy.

Peach Blackberry Coffee Cake

Today I was feeling cabin fever. I broke my arm a few weeks ago and have been afraid to go out in the snow and ice so I've been in a lot.

On Friday I got my arm out of the sling so I have a little more use, and today I was looking in our basement freezer and found blackberries and peaches that I froze this summer. It seemed the perfect day to make a tasty summer dessert and break the winter blues.

I used this recipe from myrecipes.com. I had used it once in the fall when I needed to make something to take to school for my daughter's teachers, but I never really got to have it for our family. It was easy enough to make with my hurt arm, and the best part was I was able to use mainly local ingredients. The ingredient new to me this time was flour grown and milled in mid-Missouri by the Missouri Grain Project. Here is an article about the Missouri Grain Project from 2009. It explains that Missouri is #5 in wheat production, but none of it was being milled locally until 2008. The wheat is grown chemical free. I also used local butter, local eggs, and local fruit.

The best part of the whole thing is that it tastes like summer on a snowy, icy day.

Holiday Feasts

Holiday meals have a lot of tradition. In our house I've been serving turkey for thanksgiving and nice beef cuts for Christmas for a few years. The side dishes vary some, but between the two holidays there is always cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, some sort of sweet potatoes and a green vegetable. This year I was pleased to incorporate a lot of local foods into these feasts.

I have to admit, I opted not to buy a local turkey. Fair Shares had made arrangements with some local turkey growers, but my family doesn't really care for turkey very much so I try to buy a small one that won't have leftovers. Along with my non-local turkey though I had all locally sources side dishes. I was able to use a family favorite sweet potato soufle that is topped with pecans, using local sweet potatoes and locally grown pecans. In the picture above you will see it on the table next to pan roasted brussels sprouts topped with locally sourced cheese. It was a fun way to prepare the brussels sprouts, but not as good as some I had at Mazara a couple of weeks ago. They did a silimar preparation but added prosciutto. I'm going to try it again with some great berkshire bacon from Salume Beddu.

In the top pictures I feature grassfed beef tenderloin steaks from American Grassfed Beef. The beef was awesome. I tenderized it using a tool I bought from the American Grassfed Beef website, a Jaccard meat tenderizer. At $39.95 I wasn't sure if it would be worth it, but it has been a great investment. The steaks were wonderful. (but they may have been even without using the Jaccard), but I've also used it on chicken breasts and on a pork tenderloin. I also bought one for my mother. She uses hers often and believes it does make meat better.

With the beef, I served mashed potatoes and turnips. I made a mistake by trying to boil the potatoes and turnips together. The turnips take longer to cook so we had hard lumps, which turned off my kids. We also had sauteed apples, using apples from Schwarz Farms, in OFallon, Il, and a tossed salad with salad dressing made from jam from Centennial Farms, of Augusta, MO. (the salad included fresh veggies and sprouts from various farms) My mother made homemade rolls -- you can't get much more local than mom's homemade rolls.

Overall, it was nice to be able to incorporate locally produced and grown foods in our traditional holiday meals. We didn't have to give up anything we would usually have, and found even better flavors in most of the dishes.