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. 

Potato Leek Explosion

Since we're obvious not cooking a lot right now, the potatoes, squash, and other fall vegetables from the farm share are patiently waiting to be consumed. I have been trying to figure out how to manage this and decided to see if I could make potato leek soup in an instant pot. Turns out, it is not hard.

I chopped up my 3 large leeks and sautéed them in the pot with butter and oil. I added 2 cloves of garlic and then some flour. Once this was all cooked, I added 2 pints of stock (I had Ducken on hand) plus a cup of water, salt, pepper, and about a pound of potatoes. This was pressure cooked for 7 minutes and then naturally vented for 10 minutes. After that, I put some in my blender (one of the few things I didn't pack up and put away) and tried to blend it. 

Hot liquids always take me by surprise, I guess. That's the only explanation. I was holding down the lid but I guess the pressure from the steam was stronger, and of course it went everywhere. Thick, viscous potato leek soup. I was reminded why I have an immersion blender. I don't exactly know where it is at the moment. It could be in the foyer. Or the guest bedroom. Maybe the living room? My stuff is spread out all over the place; some of it is even at a different house right now. Finding anything that I didn't see in the last 5 minutes is basically impossible. 

Now the "kitchen" in my dining room is cleaned up and the I'm pleased to say the soup was excellent.

Batch #2

Using every spare moment I had today, between picking up the farm share, running to the store twice, and driving around for both the children, I managed to make another batch of applesauce, this time with brown sugar because I don't yet want to open the new bag of white sugar. Plus I am making this Sicilian-Style Fish Stew with fish my brother-in-law gave me that he caught, and changing pretty much everything else. No golden raisins? How about barberries? No onion? Use a leek! Add escarole!

Mixed Fowl Stock and Soup

Winter season canning has begun!

I needed to get all the bones of chickens and ducks out of the freezer so the other day I threw them ALL (3 ducks and 3-4 chickens) into my lobster pot and added 12 quarts of water. Once the stock was made I set it aside and took all the residual meat off the bones and saved that as well. Today the stock was skimmed, warmed back up, and 14 pints were canned in the pressure canner. I was running fairly low on stock so it's good that I made so much. This way, since it's duck and chicken together, it'll add a richer taste to whatever I'm making.

The rest of the stock, all the meat, and some vegetables from the fridge were combined to make a variation of Turducken Soup. This time, I added about a cup of turkey stock which was still in the fridge so I can technically call it Turducken but just barely. I added 2 small leeks, 2 parsnips, 7 small carrots, 1 rib of celery, 1/2 red onion, and half of a small can of tomato paste, plus wild rice, salt, pepper and bay. I may or may not can this as I'm running out of pint jars. If we don't eat most of it today, maybe I will just save the rest for when I'm working this week. 

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.

Gooduckey Soup

Finally, I had all the ingredients amassed to make this soup! Usually it's turducken but this year we also had a goose, so I could play around a bit. Yesterday I made the turkey stock - two gallons of stock. Don't judge.

Here's the ingredients for this year's batch of poultry wonderfulness:

2 leeks, sliced

6 ribs celery, chopped

1 package each of portabella and shitake mushrooms, sliced

12 ounces oyster mushrooms, sliced

4 cups turkey meat

2 cups each duck meat and goose meat

1 cup wild rice

1/2 cup farro

4 quarts turkey stock

2 quarts duck stock

2 quarts goose stock

salt, pepper and tarragon to taste

Once the vegetables are sautéed, the meat and stock were added to the pot. This was brought to a boil and then simmered for at least 30 minutes. After that, the rice and farro were added and continued to simmer until done, about another 30 minutes. Super easy, as long as you have everything ready to go.

Now I have 14 pints of soup in the canner, and at least 3 more quarts in various containers in the fridge and the freezer. I can use the non-canned stuff for lunches at work over the next week and gradually start to dip into the canned ones later. 

Once these are done, I will can the rest of the turkey stock. Eight Nine(!) pints worth. 

Holiday Preparations

And giving!

I've managed to give out at least two dozen jars already, to my coworkers, various friends and teachers. I have another two dozen to get to my neighbors which will happen in the next day or so.

Today, however, I took that chicken stock I made a week ago and made another batch of chicken soup; this one was for canning. I wanted quarts this time, so 1 full gallon of stock plus chicken meat, turkey meat, 2 leeks, some celery and carrots were simmered for about an hour. I added egg noodles but then didn't let them cook. Instead, I immediately canned the soup. Normally, when you add something starchy like noodles or rice to a soup you're going to can, they absorb all the liquid during the canning process and you're left with a big gelatinous mass. This time, by canning the soup with uncooked noodles, they cooked the right amount without getting too oversoaked. What I am left with is chicken noodle soup that looks rather appetizing instead of condensed!

Another Full Day

After spending a large part of the day at the Museum of Fine Arts to see the Dutch Painting Exhibition (Rembrandt,Vermeer and contemporaries) we got home around 4 pm or so. At that point, I made the turducken soup. Here's this year's recipe:

2 quarts each duck, turkey and chicken stocks

3 leeks, sliced

2 ribs celery, diced

1 cup diced carrots

12 oz. each oyster, portabella and shitake mushrooms

duck and turkey meat

1 package wild rice

salt, pepper and thyme

While this simmered, I canned 14 pints of duck stock and 3 pints of turkey stock. Since I can only fit 14 jars in my canner, that took roughly two hours as I had to do two batches. Now I have 11 pints of turducken soup in the canner which will take about another two hours all by itself. We ate more of the soup for dinner and I have about 3 quarts left in the fridge for this week. It's already 9:30 pm; the kids don't have school tomorrow but I do. At least I got a chance to study while the stock was getting canned.

Turducken, Revisited

It's becoming something of an annual tradition, even if I don't manage to make a batch of this soup at exactly the same time.  First, I need turkey stock, which I make after Thanksgiving.  Then I need some ducks, of which we've had a lot recently.  And some chicken stock and meat, which I tend to have year round.

Yesterday, after making a batch of yogurt, I started the process to make duck stock.  I roasted the bones from 3 ducks at 350 for a little over an hour, and then simmered them with 7-8 quarts of water (I lost count), some vegetable scraps, salt, pepper, and bay.  I set aside what I thought was 4 pints of stock for canning, but turned out to be 3, and then made soup with the rest:

3 quarts (roughly) duck stock

1 quart chicken stock

2 quarts turkey stock

diced chicken meat

diced duck meat (from 2 ducks)

2 cups chopped leeks

3 carrots, diced

5 ribs celery, diced

1 box (about 2/3 cup) wild rice

1/2 cup farro

24 ounces of gourmet mushrooms

salt to taste

As usual, the vegetables were sauteed prior to adding the stock and the meat.  The whole thing simmered for the better part of a day, although I turned it off for a few hours while I was out of the house.  We ate some for dinner last night and the rest was set aside to can today.  First I canned the 3 pints of stock, at 10 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes, and now I'm canning 6 quarts of soup, at 10 pounds of pressure for 90 minutes.  

Spring is finally here, with slightly warmer weather.  Most of the snow is gone, at least in the areas that get a lot of sun.  I'll be keeping an eye out for spring greens, as they should be showing up soon.  I can't wait!

Digging Out

The finally tally is 24 inches of snow at my house, and more expected on Friday (hopefully, not that much).   My husband spent the morning getting the driveway and the sidewalks cleared.  I used this day to haul out the pressure canner and get various things canned, getting more things out of my freezer in the process.  First I made a batch of vegetable stock using the frozen vegetable scraps in my freezer.  This made 8 pints of vegetable stock, which were processed for 30 minutes in the canner.  Then I moved on to the beef and barley soup I made yesterday.  After taking some out for lunches, I canned 5 pints (75 minutes at 10 pounds).

Lastly, I made a batch of chicken noodle soup from the chicken I roasted yesterday.  First I made the chicken stock with the chicken bones and some frozen onion/celery/carrot scraps and a bay leaf.  Then I strained it, sauteed carrots, celery and leeks (from the farm, which had been chopped and frozen) and added the stock back in.  I chopped up about 3 cups of chicken meat and put that in the soup.  Just before I serve it for dinner tonight, I'll add a package of egg noodles.

The bread I made yesterday is gone, and there are very few cookies left!

Soup, Pie, and More Soup

Today started out rainy and cold.  It felt like a good day for soup, and I had two soup projects waiting for just such a day!

First I made a batch of that escarole soup, using a head of escarole from the farm.  Saute a package of sweet Italian sausages with minced garlic (2-4 cloves), then add 2 pints of stock and the escarole.  Let that simmer for about 10 minutes or so and add a can of cannellini beans.  Flavor the broth with parmesan cheese and serve with good bread.  That was lunch.  For three of us.  The 9 year old asked for homemade chicken noodle soup instead.  I just happened to have a quart in the freezer so I heated that up as well.

After lunch, I made a triple batch of Icelandic Lamb Soup using up a lot of farm share vegetables:  all the turnips, 4 potatoes, 3 leeks and a head of cabbage.  After removing the bones and returning the lamb to the pot, it's sitting overnight in the fridge.  Tomorrow I'll skim off the fat and can some and the rest will be dinner.

Very tall pie. I also made a strawberry jam tart.

Lastly, I made an apple pie, finally, with some of the apples from when we went picking a few weeks ago.  The apples must have been much larger than usual because although I used the same number of apples (9) the pie is so tremendously tall.  It looks like one of the pies we used to get a restaurant called Gregg's in Rhode Island - they were at least a foot tall!

There's more to do:  I need to make a batch of chicken stock, and can the juice I made the other day (some of which went into this morning's smoothies, which were wild blueberries +/- banana, homemade yogurt, local honey, and foraged mixed juice (grape, autumn olive, elderberry, crabapple)).  And, someday, I'll do tomato sauce again.  I have 5.5 gallons of tomatoes taking up space in my freezer.

Welcome Back, Turducken Soup!

Nothing like a blizzard to get you in the soup-making mood!

I'd been planning this soup for a while, as I always do after Thanksgiving as it's the only time I roast a turkey.  However, with all the ducks we've been roasting (we're up to 3 so far) I decided to do the soup a little differently this year.  All the bones from 3 ducks, 1 turkey and 1 chicken went into my lobster pot with 4 gallons of water, 2 bay leaves, salt and pepper, to make stock.  The bones were then strained out and chopped turkey, chicken and duck meat added, plus all the additional meat I got off the bones.

Ultimately, I ended up with a tremendous amount of soup, so I'm canning 7 quarts right now.  Five of us ate some for dinner, and there is still plenty in the fridge.  Maybe I'll can some pints tomorrow.  This is enough for today!

Turducken Soup

Turducken stock (see above)

chopped turkey, duck and chicken meat

3 large leeks

6 carrots

2 ribs celery (more if you have it, I ran out)

2 packages mixed gourmet mushrooms (baby bellas, shiitake, and oyster)

2 cups wild rice

salt and pepper to taste

winter savory to taste

thyme to taste

Saute the leeks, carrots and celery in a little duck fat.  Toss into the stock with the meat, mushrooms, rice and spices.  Simmer away!

Best wishes to everyone for a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous 2014!

Arugula and Bresaola Quiche

My parents were coming for brunch and I improvised a quiche for the occasion...

Arugula and Bresaola Quiche

1 leek, sliced thinly

2 cups arugula, chopped finely

2 tsp. balsamic vinegar

about an ounce of mocetta bresaola (pancetta or cooked bacon will do), cut into bite sized pieces

3 eggs

1 cup half and half

shredded cheese, about 1 cup

salt, pepper and nutmeg

First I made a pie crust for a single-crust pie, tossed my pie weights in and baked it for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  While that was baking, I sautéed the leeks in a little oil, then added the arugula and stirred it until the arugula was wilted.  I took it off the heat, added the vinegar and the bresaola and tossed.  In a bowl I beat the eggs, added the half and half, cheese, and spices.  When the pie crust was ready, I put the leek-arugula-bresaola mixture in and poured the egg mixture over the top.  This was baked at 375 degrees for 35 minutes and it was terrific!