Fermentation Success

We've been getting a farm share all year from a different farm, and while there hasn't been the overabundance of produce as was the case with the previous farm, we do sometimes get a lot of things that we just can't eat in time. I had a bunch of napa cabbage and some watermelon radishes so I decided to try to make kimchi again. 

Previous attempts at kimchi were very watery. Somehow, this one wasn't. It was perfect, in fact. In 3 days after the fermentation started the taste was just right. I gave some to my friend, as I had about 3 quarts of it. Another quart went to this lovely dish:

Salmon with fried kimchi

This was from the New York Times Cooking app - Salmon cooked on a bed of fried kimchi.

Now, what to do with all the kale?

In Between

As in, I am in between jobs. After just under three years I left my most current position providing urgent care and will be starting a new job in a pediatric office, with better hours and fewer weekend shifts. (About the latter my family says, "It's about time!") It will take a little while to finish all the credentialing and get oriented, so that leaves me some time for canning. 

Today I checked the sauerkraut, and it was tasty, and the pH was <4, so it was ready. This time I hot packed it as I'm tired of cracking jars and losing product. The difference is that since the sauerkraut is already heated up, it takes less time in the canner to process. 10 minutes, instead of 20. Works for me.

The 7ish pounds of cabbage and 2 leeks made almost 6 pints of sauerkraut, once it was all packed down in jars. I even have enough that I will enter some in the fair. Maybe I can pull some more things together in the next few weeks to have a respectable entry. It would be weird to miss it!

Maybe I Have More Energy?

It's been a long, slow summer. The heat hasn't helped. Not only has there been a drought impacting the farm share and the local PYO options, but it's also made me not very excited to stand next to a stove. Or really do much of anything!

But today, since our summer travel is over, I started a batch of sauerkraut. Last year's batch didn't ferment for as long as I thought it should, so I got rid of it. Just in case. From the farm, I had four heads of cabbage and two leeks, about seven pounds worth of produce. I sliced everything thinly and mixed it all with 4 T. of salt and packed it in my crock. Tomorrow I'll see if I have to add some brine, it may be necessary. After that, as long as I keep the water seal refreshed, it should do its thing with minimal fuss. 

6 and 6

It's only been two weeks but the sauerkraut stopped fermenting, not sure why, so I decided to can it this evening. I cold packed it into 6 pint jars and it's processing for 20 minutes in the canner. 

The other project on my list lately was to make a batch of hot pepper spread, the one with the banana peppers, mustard, and vinegar. I had a bunch of banana peppers from the farm share, enough to make just about 1/3 of a batch, which worked out to 6 cups. 

Some of these will be placed in a box to send to my nephew for his birthday, hopefully he doesn't mind it arriving a little late.....

Fermentation Time

Throughout the last month or so, we've gotten a lot of cabbage and fennel from the farm share. Today I shredded five pounds of both combined and got it into my fermentation crock. I generally don't know what else to do with all that cabbage. I have put some in dumplings, and in shabu shabu, but there was still a lot left and some of us do like sauerkraut. 

Tomorrow I'll add the white wine, 1/2 cup per five pounds of vegetables. 

Last weekend I went to the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY, with friends, and bought some wool to make myself a sweater as well as some small kits to make as gifts. We went 2 years ago but, obviously, not last year. I finished one of the projects I'd purchased at that last trip, just in time to wear for this one. It was Weekend Wanderer, and I made it with two colors of a merino wool/angora rabbit mix which is just SO SOFT. I even had the experience of other fair attendees cooing over my shawl and it made me very happy. 

Currently, and slowly, I'm working on Impervious. It requires a lot of concentration.

So Much Rain

Tropical storm Elsa has hit eastern Massachusetts and it's a good thing I have no need to go outside today. 

What I have been doing is fermenting garlic scapes. I've tried various things with the garlic scapes from the farm over the years: pesto, freezing, using them in place of garlic or onion in cooking. This recipe breaks down the woodiness of them by fermenting them briefly. The kitchen has smelled of garlic for days. Today I packed the ferment into jars and will keep them in the fridge. 

For reference, half a pound of scapes works out to one 8-oz jar. 

Two Quick Updates

Yesterday I started a batch of sauerkraut, using 2 heads of cabbage and a head of fennel. I'm starting to appreciate fennel just a little bit, I've never been much of a fan, despite the fact that I like licorice and anise. But I certainly only like it in small doses and this is a very small part of the batch of sauerkraut, which is currently fermenting in my crock.

This evening, after getting the farm share, I used diced onion, green pepper and carrots to make tofu lettuce wraps. I used the sauce from this recipe, which uses peanut butter, honey, and a variety of sauces mixed together, but I used cubed tofu instead of chicken or pork. It worked well, even if the lettuce did fall apart. Served with some brown rice and chopped peanuts it was a satisfying meal. 

Oh, and elderchild, guess what? We finished the carrots. 

Autumn Roots

Several years ago I asked my sister for Jerusalem artichoke (aka sunchoke) rhizomes so I could plant some in my yard. I'd discovered these years ago, when I lived in Pennsylvania, and thought they might be fun to grow.

"Fun" led to "take over the garden." It was time to dig some up.

Two days ago I cut them back for the season and, since it had been after a frost, dug up a lot of the rhizomes for the first time. And by some, I mean five pounds! But, they apparently don't keep for long in the fridge so I needed to get some of them taken care of.

Today's project was to make these fermented sunchoke pickles. I forgot I didn't have turmeric so I used some curry powder my family gave me for my birthday which worked just fine. Tomorrow if I have time and energy I'll make a vinegar pickle, maybe this one, as well. The rest I plan to roast. 

Fermented Hot Sauce

Using this recipe, for the last week I've been fermenting various red and yellow peppers along with carrots, garlic and shallots. Today I ran it all through not just one but two blenders (the first one is the kind in which you can unscrew the bottom with the blades and this happened accidentally, so a lot of my sauce got spilled onto the counter). Ultimately I got one cute bottle full and one squeeze bottle full. It's rather mild, likely because I didn't add too many seeds and because the peppers themselves were milder. Either way, now we have some chili sauce and a way to use up all those hot peppers!

Almost Four Weeks of Fermentation

Since I had a lot of time today, I decided to see if the sauerkraut I set to fermenting last month was ready. Since the flavor didn't really change from a few days ago when I first tested it to today, it seemed ready. This is another thing I want to enter in the fair so I didn't want to wait too long and have it lose its crunch. (The crunch is from the fennel, I think.)

First, I tested its pH. I wasn't convinced it was acidic enough to can in a boiling water bath. Turns out, it is. The pH was just under 4 so that is well within range. Then I packed all that sauerkraut, which had barely fit in my crock in the beginning, into five pint jars. They'll process for 10 minutes and then that is one more project completed!

Fun with the Farm Share

The farm's cucumbers are still going strong so today I brought home just under 4 pounds and am making "Icicle Pickles." These are fermented for a week and then rinsed daily for a few days and then pickled. I'm not really sure. As I've never made them before, it'll be interesting to see how they come out. So far, I've made the brine and cut the cucumbers into spears and they are in two half-gallon jars to ferment.

I also started a batch of bread with parsley in it; when I go to make the dough into rolls (or loaves, I haven't decided yet) I will add minced garlic. The bread recipe called for bread flour and rye flour, I had neither so I used a combination of white whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, and corn flour. More experimentation, I guess.

Also in the farm share: lots of tiny little beets. I plan to make pickled beets using only these small ones. I like that better than chunks of bigger ones. Tonight for dinner we're having a big salad with blackberries, a cucumber, pepper and carrot from the share. Tomorrow I will cook and chill green beans and tiny little potatoes to dip into a cheese fondue. It's sometimes hard for me to be creative with vegetables in a way that the youngerchild might eat. I do have a large zucchini destined to become chocolate zucchini bread. That one is always a favorite.

Pulled Pork with Mole Sauce

Yesterday I cooked a pork shoulder in the slow cooker all day while I was at work. In the evening I shredded it and mixed a cup of that homemade mole sauce into the drippings. It was amazing. We made tacos with the pulled pork and, in my opinion, they were terrific with some salsa verde. There's a lot of the pork left over so we're definitely going to have to come up with something else for them. Maybe enchiladas?

Also, when I checked on the sauerkraut I needed to add more brine but the vegetables had, in fact, compressed down enough for me to adjust the weights. I added almost a quart of brine and now that will sit and ferment for a few weeks. 

Mixed Vegetable Sauerkraut

The farm share has been giving us lots of fennel bulbs and cabbage and I'd been planning on making this Fennel Sauerkraut. However, I also had a couple of bulbs of kohlrabi from a previous week. I had been saving up all the cabbage, hoping to use all three heads. My fermenter can only hold so much, and I was only able to use 1 and a half heads. I guess I need to find another use for the rest of the cabbage. Also, I only used celery seeds as I don't like caraway and I'm allergic to juniper. Here's my recipe:

1.5 large heads of cabbage, about 3.5 pounds, shredded

2 bulbs fennel, about 1 pound, sliced thinly

2 bulbs kohlrabi, about 1 pound, sliced into very thin matchsticks

50 g kosher salt

1 tsp and a little bit of celery seed

Otherwise, the process is the same. I had to really cram the weights in but I suspect that by tomorrow afternoon when the vegetables have compressed a bit I'll be able to get the weights in more easily.

I also have a plan to make more of those dill pickles I made last week, but I need more garlic. And I also grabbed a bunch of small zucchinis and will need to get onions so I can make bread and butter zucchini pickles. This is, of course, in addition to the carrots, beets, eggplant, lettuce, kale, collard greens, and blackberries I also brought home!

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.

Summer Has Begun

And the farm share is really plentiful!

Today I picked up the share: Napa cabbage, collard greens, kale, garlic scapes, daikon radishes, bok choi, Hakurei turnips, scallions, 2 heads of lettuce, 2 kohlrabi, cilantro, parsley, 1/2 pint of strawberries, "unlimited" fava beans and snow and snap peas (I only took a quart of snap peas and some favas, I'm not crazy), 1 quart of shelling peas, and rainbow chard. Some was set aside for my friend's half, and then I got to work.

I chopped the Napa cabbage, bok choi, daikon radishes and scallions and they are currently brining. Tomorrow I'll start them fermenting to make kimchee.

With the cilantro (1 large bunch) and garlic scapes (20) I made a pesto using toasted pecans (1 cup) and parmesan cheese (1/2 cup, maybe?) with salt, pepper, and some cayenne for zip. For dinner we had a salad with fresh peas, strawberries, turnips and lettuce and then cheese ravioli tossed with this pesto and some blanched fresh peas. Now I have three half-cup jars of pesto to put in the freezer for another time.

The fava beans were blanched and peeled and are now in a jar with some salt water. I didn't want to marinate them because I'm hoping to use them to make baghali polo; I'll grab some dill next week so I can make it.

Also, I picked a whole lot of mulberries off my tree, simmered them with water and ran them through the jelly bag to start getting juice for a batch of mulberry jelly. The tree is covered with berries so I hope only 2 or 3 more picking sessions will be enough. 

All Coming Together

For many years, I've dreamed of a new kitchen. We've done a lot of work on the outside of our house, most recently a new roof (last week, somewhat unexpected), but I've been planning for a new kitchen for ages, it seems. Last spring we hired an architect and started making plans. We were supposed to start construction last June, but that didn't happen. So we pushed it off to the fall, aka NOW, but that's not happening, either. At least, not quickly.

Two weeks ago, I went to the cabinet makers our architect recommended. They're coming in another few days to do a consultation in the space, so we can decide what to build and where. I knew what appliances I wanted and decided to wait to buy them until I had a better plan. But the universe decided otherwise. Exactly a week ago, our dishwasher died its final death. It'd been leaking for a while and we'd managed it, knowing we were going to get a new one eventually. Well, that eventually is now. I've been told not to cook anything that involves a colander until the new dishwasher is here.

Monday I bought a dishwasher. And a fridge. And two stoves, and a hood. I'll actually have a vent that goes outside! So exciting. We'll take delivery on the dishwasher next week (one more week of hand-washing...) and they will hold on to the rest until we're ready. Which is going to have to be soon.

It's time.

In the meantime, it's been really rainy on most of the days I've wanted to get into the hives so even though it was cold and overcast yesterday it was still a reasonable time to get in and change the feeders. I didn't do any inspecting; I decided to make it quick.

Today I went to the farm share in the rain, again. This time, instead of warm summer thunderstorm rain that pelts you like hail as you stand knee-deep in green beans and wonder if the lightning will decide you're the tallest thing around, it was that cold, raw, steady rain that chills you to your core. I skipped on some of the PYO part of the share, opting instead to get as many tomatillos as I was willing to work with. And cilantro. So I made a full batch of salsa verde.

The sauerkraut in my fermenter was finally done; after I canned the salsa verde I shoved it all into 6 pint jars and canned them as well. Lastly, I started a batch of bread.

Currently the dough is rising in the mixing bowl rather than smaller bowl, so there is one less thing to wash.

Adding Flavor

In yesterday's farm share we received more cabbage. I already had 3 heads in the fridge and had been meaning to make sauerkraut, but forgot. This cabbage reminded me about that. There were also leeks in the share. I wondered if I could add leek to the fermentation? After all, you can add garlic, or seeds (usually caraway, which I don't like), so why not a leek?

After cleaning everything up I set to slicing. The 4 heads of cabbage took up a LOT of space in my crock but I expect by this afternoon when it's time to add the wine they will have compressed a lot. I mixed the leek in as best I could. This should take a few weeks to ferment fully. And then we'll see!

In other news, the deadline to enter canned things in the fair was yesterday. I have ended up with 9 entries. I still plan to bake something but that deadline isn't for a few weeks. Saturday I will take the canned goods up to Topsfield. It'll be nice to head up there - it's very pretty up around Topsfield, particularly in September. Maybe we'll even go to the beach.

Back In Town

For the past two weeks we missed out on the farm share because we were away. In the interim, there must have been a cucumber boom because today at the share pick-up the sign said, "Unlimited Cucumbers." I grabbed a bunch of pickling cukes but they were too large for making crunchy dills or bread and butter pickles. They were not too large for half-sours, though.

Using my fermentation crock and doubling the recipe for half-sours in The Joy of Pickling, I just set up all the cucumbers with 2 T. of dill seed, 2 dried chili peppers, 1/2 tsp each of coriander seed and peppercorns, crushed, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, and 12 cups of brine (this was 4 times the recipe amount, but required so I could use the weights to sink the cucumbers). They should be ready in about a week.

The rest of the farm share included cabbage, Napa cabbage, eggplant, zucchini and summer squash, carrots, lettuce, green beans, flowers, parsley and other herbs. Lately every time I've gone to pick up the share a thunderstorm has come through and today was no exception. It started to rain after I got all the green beans but before I could get all the herbs. I decided I could skip the cilantro and dill this week (although in retrospect it'd have been nice to have a few dill heads for the pickles) and we made it back to the car just in time to watch the skies open up and drench everything and everyone except us!

Prizewinners!

We went up this morning in the rain to spend the day at the fair. In addition to all the canned goods I entered, I decided to make cupcakes to enter in the baking competition. I am on a carrot cake kick so I made carrot cake cupcakes. I had to enter a plate of 6 of them.

When we got to the fair we immediately went to drop them off and check out the canned goods section. I did quite well, with first place for: soup, sauerkraut, and sweet relish. Second place for: the collection of three jellies (the ones with the wine that I banged out in a few hours the night before I had to take everything up), other pickled vegetable, Concord grape jelly and apple jelly. Third place for the strawberry jalapeño jam. Honorable mentions for: wild blueberry jam and ginger peach jam. Only three entries did not place: salsa, mulberry jelly, and apricot ginger jam.

We wandered around the fair for a few hours while we waited for the cupcake judging. We checked out the rabbits, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. I got nose-booped by a calf named Bella. We watched a little bit of the junior cattle show and visited the beekeepers exhibits. I held a 1-2 day old chick. Ate a bunch of fair food, ran into a few people we knew and shared a table with a few we didn't (but know now!). And we got back in time to watch them judge the cupcakes. We felt it was a very good sign that one of the two judges didn't want to give up the plate with my cupcake on it! And, at then end, I'd won first place!

Now I'm home, working on a beet and goat cheese tart for dinner with friends. And there are more of those prizewinning carrot cake cupcakes for dessert!

Sweet and Sauer

This morning it was finally time to can the sauerkraut I'd been fermenting. Every once in a while I still heard a "bloop" when air escaped from the crock (there's a water seal) but it'd been a few weeks and I needed to get it into jars so I could enter it in the fair. The sauerkraut was packed into three pint and two half-pint jars and processed for 20 minutes, once I brought the water to a boil. Because you pack the sauerkraut cold, it's important to not heat it too quickly or the jars will break. When I first opened the canner I was afraid a jar had broken but I guess I got lucky.

The next thing I did was make cookies. I'd been wanting to make some for the kids and the original plan was stymied by the lack of powdered sugar and my disinterest in going back outside. So I took the recipe I have for lemon sablées and altered it.

Pistachio-Lemon Cookies

12 ounces butter at room temperature

10-1/4 ounces sugar

2 eggs

3-1/2 ounces milk

1 tsp lemon extract

1-3/4 tsp baking powder

1-1/2 ounces finely ground pistachios (be careful not to turn them into paste)

19-3/4 ounces flour

Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Add milk and extract and beat until smooth again. Add the dry ingredients and mix until dough is combined. Pipe onto a parchment-lined baking sheet in rosettes, and top each cookie with a pistachio and a piece of candied lemon peel. Bake at 350˚F for 12-13 minutes, turning the baking sheet once during baking. 

I tried playing around with the shape when I piped the dough - I was trying to make seashells but ended up with what looked like winking hedgehogs (1 pistachio, 1 piece of lemon peel). And who has ever heard of a lemony winking hedgehog?