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. 

Mixed Vegetable Kimchi

Some of the greens we get from the farm are greens we're not too excited to eat. Some go straight to our rabbit (looking at you, mustard greens). Some clearly want to be made into something more interesting. Like kimchi.

Usually once I get a Napa cabbage and some scallions I'll make a batch. I have to say that in the past I've been disappointed in my kimchi but I think it's because I use too much liquid and so it's soggy. I'm going to try to remedy that this time. Also, I had four different vegetables I could use in the batch, so I did:  Napa cabbage, bok choi, scallions and daikon radish. For proportions of the salt and water and the spices, I used the cabbage and radish kimchi recipe on page 182 of The Joy of Pickling.

These have been brining since yesterday and, after a quick purchase of fresh ginger, I mixed up the drained vegetables with minced ginger, Korean red pepper, salt and sugar. Now this will ferment in its brine for a few days. And then I plan to make sure I remove most of the extra liquid so my finished product isn't so disappointing. I guess we'll find out next week.

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....

Quick Radish Pickles

The other day I was at a local bookstore and found a new canning book:  Preserving by the Pint.  It's nice because it's full of recipes that are for very small amounts of produce, the kind one gets from a CSA or farmer's market.  One of the recipes that sold me on the book was a recipe for pickled Hakurei turnips which, in turn, was based on Japanese pickled radish.

And I had a lot of Daikon radish in my fridge.  Why not reverse the recipe back to radishes?

Last night I peeled and then sliced the radishes with my mandolin and then salted them and let them sit for an hour.  Then I made the brine with rice vinegar, ginger, pepper and sugar and poured it over the radishes and put them in the fridge.  Today we ate some.  And ate some more.  And some more.  They were so good, I couldn't stop!

They are particularly good wrapped with arugula for even more bite. 

Ralish?

What else would you name a radish relish?

One night, over a year ago, I was websurfing and came across this recipe for Pickled Radish Relish. I printed out the recipe and tucked it into my cookbook just in case I ever had 3 cups worth of radish. Well, the farm share has had Daikon radishes and I discovered that trying to eat them grated into salad was just too much for our mouths to handle. By chance I rediscovered the printout of this recipe and thought maybe it was worth trying.

Absolutely, yes!

For this batch I used Daikon radish, which is fairly sweet once pickled. Instead of celery I used celeriac stems, which added almost a fennel-like flavor. I used white vinegar. It's festive looking: white radish, purple onion and green celeriac. The recipe makes 2 pints, which is good to know because it doesn't specify on their web page.

That website had a few other interesting recipes but this is the first I've tried. Perhaps I'll have to go try some more!

My Pot Runneth Over

It seems to be a theme. Tonight's batch of grape jelly spilled over the sides during the all-important minute when the pectin boils. There was nothing I could do but let it boil over and burn. While I like the smell of burnt sugar, I'm not so fond of the cleaning up part. But let's back up...

Yesterday...no, wait, further back...

2 years ago, I found a notice on our town email list that someone was giving away grapes which grow in her backyard. I connected with her, got 3 pounds of concord grapes, made jelly and gave her a few jars in return. Last year, for whatever reason, we didn't connect, but I made another batch from *gasp* store-bought grapes.

Yesterday, I noticed that she was posting on the email list again with more grapes. I immediately called my friend, since I was stuck at work, and asked if she could pick some up for me. I came home to a bag full of grapes, just enough to make the 4 cups of juice required for the jelly. (Thank you!) I washed and boiled the grapes, let them drain through a cheesecloth, and put the juice in the fridge because I was too tired to make the jelly.

Tonight, after everyone was asleep, I made the jelly, and had the above-mentioned boiling over incident. I still got 7 half-pint jars plus a little more which is in tupperware. But I still had a little time on my hands, and had just picked up today's farm share, so I set about to find something else to do. Hmmm. Maybe the daikon radish?

Actually, I know people use daikon in cooking, but I was looking forward to making those little yellow radish pickles you get at Japanese restaurants. I found this recipe, and the only difference was that I processed the pickles in boiling water for 10 minutes and let them sit for 5 before I took them out. I'm so excited to try them!