Farm Share Mixed Radish Pickle

The farm share always has radishes and Hakurei turnips the first few weeks and, since I'm the only one who likes radishes, even with just half the share they build up. (Note to self, they are not great on pizza.) But last week also had small Daikon radishes so I thought to mix all 3 into a quick radish pickle using rice wine vinegar and ginger. This is a recipe in Preserving by the Pint which I've made before, just not with all kinds of radish/turnip at once. They made exactly 1 pint, good for sandwiches and salads.

Another thing I had in abundance was fava beans so following another recipe in Preserving by the Pint, I made a fava-parsley-walnut pesto, using foraged black walnuts instead of regular ones. This made over 2 cups of pesto; I froze one cup, and baked chicken breasts coated with some of the rest. All of us ate it, some of us liked it. The rest were just very polite. 

A Different Technique

Last year I foraged a lot of black walnuts, ran them under the car tires to get the husks off, and left them to dry in the garage. Then I forgot about them until they were rather unpleasant to deal with. I decided that this year, if I did get more black walnuts, I would be more proactive.

On Thursday I foraged about 5 dozen nuts. I was lucky to find a branch that had fallen off the tree but was loaded with nuts which, while not fully ripe, are hopefully ripe enough. I tried driving over a few and crushed the nuts entirely so I had to find a different technique to remove the husks. I found a suggestion to blanch them and then they would be more easy to slip off. I guess that is if the husks are fully ripe. However, I did blanch them and used a paring knife to remove the husks and they are now drying on the boiler in the basement. In a month I will try to crack them open and see if it was worth it.

Crabby Bees

Actually, they weren't too bad. I decided that every time I feed the hives I should alternate which one I inspect. It was time to inspect the original colony, the one that's been a little crabby whenever I try to get in there. I steeled myself for their anger and proceeded.

First, however, I installed a mouse guard on hive #2, and I should get the insulation panels in the next week. I quickly changed their feeder and peeked in on them through the window; all seems to be well. Still in a good mood.

Then I inspected the original colony and changed their feeder. I was able to see all the bars this time, despite having a bunch of angry bees climbing all over my gloves and trying to fly in my face. Thank goodness for my bee veil! I'm happy to report I saw Beeyonce today; she's rather hard to find but I found her on the second bar in from the front. There was definitely new brood, lots of worker bees, very few drones, and they're building up a lot of honey now. All very good signs.

The other thing I did today was visit a few of my black walnut spots and harvested a bunch of walnuts. It's better when I can get them straight off the tree so the bugs haven't had time to get in them from the ground. After crushing a few accidentally with the car as I got the soft outer husk off, I have a good amount (maybe 20?) drying in the garage. I also picked up some peaches today and will likely bake a few things this weekend!

Nor'easter

Welcome to March, when we in New England are subjected to back to back nor'easters. What makes them worse is that it was so warm in February we got into spring mode already. Mother Nature is laughing at us.

Regardless, what is nice is having a day when I have no place to be, and I can just bake to my heart's content. Also nice is that tomorrow is Pi Day.

I'm still working on a batch of bread, but this is what I've baked so far:

Baked apples - This was breakfast, along with bagels and lox. The apples were stuffed with some of those maple candied black walnuts, cinnamon, brown sugar and butter, and then baked. The verdict? More sugar and cinnamon. (I'd put 1 tsp sugar and 1/8 tsp cinnamon in each apple.)

Apple Pie - playing around with the crust again, I made some roses and a partial lattice. The pie filling was made and canned last fall and this pie used 2 pints. This crust was all butter because I only made enough for 1 single-crust pie and dragging the leaf lard out of the freezer for 1/4 cup seemed like a lot of work.

There is also a blueberry tart made with the leftover crust. That'll be for snack today!

Foraging Benefit

This morning we had waffles, which is exciting enough just by itself. However, I dressed them up with bananas and maple syrup that had been infused with black walnuts. These have been hiding in the fridge for a while, and they do seem to last forever! I guess maple syrup is a good preservative. Anyway, the walnuts are soaked in syrup and are very sweet but with that strong black walnut flavor. The syrup brings a more subtle amount of that black walnut flavor to the waffles. Perfect.

Now, what to do with those maple-infused black walnuts?

Guess the Decorator

Autumn baking is in full swing. We did go apple picking the other day and got a peck of Cortlands. I've used six apples so far to make two batches of apple cake and, since I have plenty of applesauce, will likely make apple pie filling in the next day or so. Today, however, was for carrot cake!

After work I got all the ingredients together to make this recipe for carrot cake. Even with splitting my farm share I have an overabundance of carrots and this recipe used about eight of them to make the three cups of shredded carrots. I mixed up the batter without any nuts and dished out three of the small loaves before adding 1/2 cup of chopped black walnuts and dishing out the other three loaves. This also uses up all my black walnuts and I probably missed the season this year to forage more, but that's OK. I'll get more next year for sure! And, for the record, they required 35 minutes at 350˚F.

When it came time to decorate the loaves, the youngerchild and I had some differing visions. First the loaves were frosted with the cream cheese frosting from the recipe for the cake. Then I made a quick buttercream with 1/2 cup shortening, 1+1/3 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and a few tablespoons of heavy cream to get the texture right and then tinted the buttercream in orange and green. I decorated the cakes containing the walnuts and the youngerchild worked on the other three.

For dessert we dug into the one with the largest glob of orange frosting, the one in the top middle of the picture. And it truly is a moist, delicious cake!

Baking with Honey

This morning I finished up the honey lemon almond cake and brought it and the bread up to the Topsfield Fairgrounds. The cake was made yesterday, and then I put it in the fridge until this morning when I could make the ganache and finish it up. Here's the final result:

For the ganache, I used honey instead of corn syrup as the invert sugar even though the rules exempt the frostings from the requirement that at least 1/4 of the sweetener be honey. I thought it would round out the flavor nicely. And the black walnuts are some of my foraged stash. They smell so lovely when they're chopped and I think the stronger flavor of the black walnuts stands out against this very dense cake.

Here's the bread from yesterday as well. I took the one that I salvaged mid-bake so it wouldn't have parchment stuck to it and entered it.

I will find out in two days how my canned goods and these baked goods did and will report back!

Brunch and Bread

This morning we hosted a little brunch with my friends and fellow canners. I wanted to make a coffee cake that I developed during my pastry classes - the honey lemon almond cake I made on butter cake day. To scale it up to bundt cake size I tripled the recipe, so it used 12 ounces of butter and a whole dozen eggs! In addition, it used 9 ounces of honey, which used up all the honey I had in the house that wasn't from my own hive. (As you might imagine, I don't really want to bake with that honey, not only is it a denser consistency but I don't have all that much of it!)

For the topping, I had some white chocolate lime ganache which I spooned it over the top and then I sprinkled the cake with chopped, toasted black walnuts. These were from last autumn's foraging out on the bike path. It was a nice way to top off this cake. We all loved the cake, and everyone had seconds, so there is less than 1/4 of the cake left.

Also this weekend I made more bread, a whole wheat with molasses instead of honey or maple syrup. I had to do it by hand again. I can't wait for the Kitchenaid mixer to come back! It should be here in about a week. From the sound of it, they are replacing almost all of its insides.

Tonight I'll make yogurt and let it grow overnight. Because I've been working so much lately I haven't had time to do a lot of things in the kitchen and I've fallen behind on the things I try to do regularly. I should be catching up things and having more time soon.

And to my friends, thanks for coming over and all your generous gifts!

A Little More Manageable

It looks like the bees are judging the drone!

This morning I used a half-peck of apples to make 3 quarts of applesauce which are in the canner. I am still deciding what to do with the Daikon radishes - what I want is those yellow radish pickles I can get at the Japanese and Korean grocery stores. But I'm not really finding recipes for those although I think they are the rice bran pickles. Not sure. What I am finding are recipes for carrot and radish pickles and I have another recipe for pickled radishes or Hakurei turnips. Maybe I can mix the two together, but I have a LOT of both and that would be way too many pickles for something I can't even put in a canner. Fortunately, they'll keep while I figure that out. The fridge is definitely more manageable now, with space to actually see what's in there.

Just now I went out to take out the feeder from the hive. The bees are more active now and I think I saw a drone get evicted. I did have bees all over my clothes and in my hair again, but they didn't seem to really care about me all that much. There is definitely honey in there, but I will be making some sort of sugar cake or fondant before Thanksgiving so I can include some when I put up the insulation panels.

Also, I decided not to put black walnut bits in with the applesauce. Now I have to think about what to do with those....

Last of the Zucchini

As the farm share is winding down for the year, there are fewer of the "summer vegetables" and more winter squash, potatoes, kale and other late greens. It's a good bet I won't be getting any more monster zucchini so I took my last two and made another double batch of chocolate zucchini bread. I think we'll have one for breakfast and I'll take one to work, leaving another 2 for the freezer. Eventually I'll move on to pumpkin bread but, for now, I have to clear out the vegetable drawer.

Also today I shelled and toasted all the black walnuts. This yielded at least a cup, if not a little more, of nuts. Last year I put them in maple syrup, we have used the walnut-infused syrup but haven't eaten the walnuts. I might put these into applesauce again, or maybe I'll find some baked good in which to toss them.

Lastly, I had lunch with Roxanne today and brought home some of her home baked goodies that she'd made for the fair. The cookies were especially wonderful! It's clear to see why they won first place. Yum!

Lovely Scents

Today was the big day:  I took my Pediatric Recertification exam. We have to do this every 10 years. And I'm tired. Afterward, I got home with enough time to do a little foraging on the bike path. Something I felt might make me feel less stressed out. The hops and black walnuts smell so lovely this time of year!

In keeping with the theme that every tree and plant (except blackberries, for some reason) has done really well this year, the hops and the black walnuts on the bike path were plentiful and easy to reach. I picked almost 50 black walnuts off the trees and didn't have to resort to picking up any off the ground. The squirrels chattered their displeasure at me the whole time but, trust me, the trees had plenty to spare. Once I ran them under the wheel of the car, only 3 were bad. They're drying in the garage.

As for the hops, I picked a bag full and I timed it just right and most were fresh and green. We had been planning on using the hops from last year, which were oasted and in the freezer, but decided instead to try the "wet hops" technique of adding them in fresh. After coming back from the Town Day Fireworks, we split the beer into 2 containers; half will stay just as the kit instructed and the other half gets the fresh hops. Next week we'll bottle them and see how they taste. I'll keep those other hops in the freezer for the next time.

Lastly, I cleaned out the basement and brought everything to my neighbor's house; we're having a neighborhood yard sale to raise money for a traffic calming study and it seemed like a good opportunity to get some things out of the house. Since I'm working tomorrow, I figured it'd be easier to drop it off today. I think it's going to be rather big.

Black Walnut and Banana

This morning the kids requested banana pancakes, which gave me an opportunity to use the maple syrup I had infused with black walnuts.  I'd been hoping to wait a month before trying it, but 2 weeks was certainly enough to give it a subtle walnutty taste.  I put more maple syrup in with the walnuts and set the jar back in the fridge for the next time.

It's snowing today, but I doubt it'll stick.  I have to head out for work at 4, so we're doing a lot of around-the-house things like cleaning.  And laundry.  And making yogurt.  And relaxing.

Black Walnuts

After letting the walnuts dry for a month, I cracked them open with a vise today.  Out of 20, only 3 were bad, which is a pretty good yield.  It definitely makes sense to get them directly off the tree when possible.  Note to self:  it also seems to be easier to crack them open if they dry longer.

Once I extracted the nuts from the shells I toasted them in the oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes.  I ended up with about 3/4 cup of walnuts.  Last year, I put them into a pear conserve.  Not sure what I should do with them this year...

Foraging Many Things

Over the past few weeks I picked a lot of wild grapes at the stables.  In addition to a small bag of mixed foraged fruits (grapes, elderberries, and blackberries so far) I got over 3 pounds of grapes to make a batch of jelly.  Today I extracted the juice from the grapes and left it to drain for a few hours while I ran a few errands.

One of those errands was to check out the foraging on the bike path.  Last year I'd found hops growing wild on the path so I went back to get more.  I must have just missed the peak of the season as many of the flowers had turned brown but I was still able to find enough to add to a batch of beer.  I'm drying them now and then I'll put them in the freezer until we're ready to brew.  The other thing I grabbed was a bunch of black walnuts.  I drove over them with the car to get the husks off and brought them home to dry.  I got about 20 but I think a few might be bad.  I won't really know until they're ready to crack open.

After I got home, I finished the batch of grape jelly - 9 cups in total.  I only canned 8 cups, though, and the rest is in the fridge.

Dropsies

Thanksgiving was wonderful, with lots of food and family and friends, and having a few days off equally wonderful.  I have turkey bones and turkey meat in the freezer for soup making but just haven't had the energy to do it yet.  What I do seem to have the energy for is breaking almost all my plates (the stack of clean dishes fell from the counter back into the dishwasher...) and, this morning, dropping the full sugar bowl on the floor.  I have decided the universe is trying to tell me something - either I have too many things in the air (literally) or not enough sleep.  Or both.  Likely both.

Anyhow, today's project was something I've been planning for a little while.  I just needed pears to go on sale.  I had a cup of black walnuts in the fridge from my little foraging expeditions, and thought the flavor would go really nicely with pears.  Today I made 2 batches of Pear-Black Walnut Conserve - 12 jars in all.  An excellent addition to the gift stash!

Pear and Black Walnut Conserve

4 cups chopped pears (I used Bartletts but I think any would do)

1 T. lemon juice

1 package powdered pectin

4.5 cups sugar

1/2 cup chopped black walnuts

Cook the pears, lemon juice and pectin until hot, then add the sugar all at once.  Bring to a boil and boil hard for 1 minute.  Turn off the heat and stir in the walnuts.  Pour into jars and process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes. 

Now I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to pretend I don't have the dropsies.  And work on getting the sugar out of the hardwood floor.

Nettle and Mascarpone Pasta

Until my bike started having issues I was having a nice bike ride today on the path.  I passed the hops and autumn olives and rode on, past the nettles and the crabapples and some grapes.  Then my bike lost a small but apparently somewhat important screw and I had to go home.  Fortunately, the bike was ridable but I couldn't risk going further in case it suddenly wasn't.

On the way back, I stopped at the nettle patch and grabbed a bag full.  I'd planned ahead, with gardening gloves and scissors, but I still got stung on my wrist above the glove because the patch was pretty dense.  Then I rode on and stopped again at the black walnut tree and picked up a few more walnuts.  All told, I biked 12 miles.

Black Walnuts after roasting

While the new walnuts were drying, I cracked the other batch with a vise, pulled out the nutmeats and roasted them for 30 minutes at 200 degrees.  These are in the fridge in a little jar, and maybe I'll add them to my oatmeal.  Then I set to work making something with those nettles.  First I blanched them and left them in a strainer while I made a sauce.

Borrowing on this recipe for spinach and mascarpone cheese sauce, I substituted nettles for the spinach and shallot for the onion.  Here's the recipe, so I have it:

2/3 cup mascarpone cheese

1/3 cup milk

1 shallot, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

salt, pepper, a pinch of nutmeg

blanched nettles

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Whisk the milk and mascarpone together.  Saute the garlic and shallot in 1 T. butter and 1 T. olive oil about a minute or two, until soft.  Add the nettles and the milk/cheese mixture and mix.  Let this boil and thicken for a minute or two.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of nutmeg.  Add the parmesan.  Toss with pasta, serve with a little extra nutmeg on top.

I tossed thin spaghetti with the sauce and served with extra parmesan cheese.  Yum.  I think this might be my favorite form of nettles yet!

Bike Path Bounty

The hops in the wild

After receiving a tip from a friend, I went looking on a bike path for wild hops.  We thought it might be fun to make beer with them and see what happens.  We went for a ride and I found nothing, but I did see grapes, and nettles, and crabapples (the grapes and crabapples were rather tasty).  So I went back on foot, thinking I must have just been going too fast.  Turns out that was the case, and I found all sorts of wild hops.

Drying the hops

Dried hops, ready to brew

I gathered about a quart, maybe more, and at home the total weight was 97g.  Then I dried them in the oven for a while and reweighed them: 27g.  While I was out on the path, however, I found autumn olives and black walnuts.  I am not sure if I'm going to go crazy over the autumn olives this year, but this shrub was plentiful, so maybe I'll go back for them.  I also snagged 28 black walnuts off the tree, so before they fell and got all nasty.  They've been husked by me driving over them with the car (there were 30 nuts, but 2 got crushed by the car) and are now drying for a few weeks.  Then I'll crack them open and see what I get.  Last year I was disappointed that the nutmeats were dried out so I am hoping that by getting them directly off the tree that won't be the case.

I checked with another homebrewing neighbor and now have a plan for these hops - we'll add them for aroma at the end of the fermentation cycle.  They smelled wonderful while they were drying in the oven!

A Walk on the Beach

Yesterday, the weather was perfect.  It was warm but not too hot, not very humid, and there was a nice breeze.  The rose hips are ready and I went out to the beach with Lisa to pick some.  It was just the thing to do on my birthday!

I saw beach peas and sea beans, too, but didn't have a whole lot of time so didn't go exploring.  I did get a bag full of rose hips, ultimately about 10 cups once they were all cleaned.  These were simmered for an hour with 2 quarts of water and drained through a jelly bag.  I got about 6 cups of rose hip juice.  I'll use a bunch for jelly in the next day or so, and then save the rest for smoothies - that rose hip mulberry smoothie was really terrific and I'll try to recreate that with some other berry.

For my birthday dinner, we had a pork roast, topped with my only jar of black walnut applesauce.  Yum.  The kids and my husband made a fabulous chocolate cake, with my raspberry jam as the filling between the layers and chocolate whipped cream for the frosting.

It was a perfect day.

I Must Be Nuts

But I think we already established that, right?

Last week I washed and hulled a bunch of black walnuts and I left the nuts to dry in the garage while I did other things.  When I thought they were dry enough I gathered them in a small plastic bin and today I shelled them.  Using a vise and a hammer.  Many of them were dried out inside so while I had enough nuts to fill the bin,

I only ended up with half a cup of walnuts that were edible.  These were roasted in the oven at 200 degrees for half an hour.  Then, what to do with them?

All roasted and ready to eat!

Yesterday in the farm share we got another half-peck of apples, mostly Macintoshes again.  I made a chunky sauce this time:  peeled and cubed, with 1 cup of sugar and a cup of water and cooked until it was the right consistency.  I took out one quart and then added the walnuts to what was left.  One quart of that is also in the canner and the rest, about 1.5 cups, will be served tonight with a pork roast.  I do like the flavor, more robust and fresh tasting compared to regular walnuts.  I think it'll go well with the roast, don't you?

Peaches and Walnuts

Over the past few days I've been getting some black walnuts from a tree I found in town.  We picked up a whole bunch of them and it's been hard for me to find some time to get them out of their green husks.  This afternoon I put them in a bucket with some gravel and water and swished them around until most of the husks were removed.  A lot of the work involved my fingernails; my gloves broke and now I have brown stains on my fingertips.  That's OK, it'll wear off eventually.  The nuts are in the garage drying out and then when I'm ready I'll crack them in a vise and hopefully will have enough to do something with.

The other project today was another bunch of peaches in syrup.  I had a little more time and energy so I managed to make 5 quarts.  I only have 7 peaches left from that big half-bushel and I'm contemplating a peach salsa.  Or maybe a pie.  Hard to say which one I'd rather have!