Friday, June 5, 2009

Hooray for Farm Shares!

While this entry is not about canning, it IS about cooking, and anticipation of canning! As I mentioned in my previous post, my sister-in-law and I are splitting a farm share. This our first year and we didn't really know what to expect. Yesterday we met at the farm and picked up our first share: 1 head of lettuce (which she kept), 9 bunches of bok choi, a bunch of HUGE radishes and a bunch of scallions (all of which we split). Since it wasn't really enough to preserve in any way, but it was enough to make a very fresh dinner, I set to work finding a recipe or something.

I pulled Everything You Want to Know About Chinese Cooking off the shelf. I have had this book since college, but it's so labor intensive I haven't made anything since the Velvet Chicken attempt (VERY yummy, took ALL day - really). Thumbing through it I found a recipe for braised oysters with scallions and ginger. I decided I could add the bok choi to this and come up with a single dish. It was a little labor intensive but not nearly as bad as the 4-6 hour prep time recipes! And, even better, it cooked up in about 5 minutes. All the bok choi and scallions used up in one meal (I ate the radishes as I'm the only one in the house who likes them) and no leftovers!
Posted by at 1:38 PM
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3 comments:

  1. hi donna--i just came across your blog while reseaching canning tools. i run kitchenarts.biz (the store kitchenarts in boston) and have had a bunch of customer questions recently. i'm putting together an order of canning supplies and i'd love to know your short list of canning tools--what works, what doesn't. i know it's pretty basic, but any tips you have i'd appreciate! seems like canning (and food preservation in general) is a hot topic these days.
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  2. Hi Donna, I have a question for you if you don't mind (I've googled for the answer to no avail). I see you have made the Ball company's recipe for Strawberry Lemonade Concentrate. I was wondering if you could tell me what your actual yield was. I know the recipe calls for 6 cups hulled strawberries, 4 cups lemon juice, and 4 cups sugar, and it claims that yields 7 pints (i.e. 14 cups), but I don't see how that it is possible. Once the strawberries are pureed the amount should be quite a bit smaller than 6 cups, and 4 cups liquid plus four cups sugar do not equal 8 cups stuff.
    I made the recipe myself, cutting it down by a quarter (I ran out of lemons), so I used 4.5 cups strawberries, 3 cups lemon juice, and 3 cups sugar, and my yield was not quite 3 pints. I just want to make sure I did not screw up somehow. If you like, you can email me at janalynmarie at mac dot com.
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  3. Good question - I'm about to make more today so I'll have a more definitive answer. But as I recall, I ended up with 4 quarts of the concentrate and I'm pretty sure I made 2 batches. So, really, 2 quarts per batch. I'll post a blog entry today about the strawberries and be able to give you more input soon!
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