Mixed Bread and Butter Pickles

This week we have the farm share to ourselves, and there were almost enough cucumbers to make a half-batch of bread and butter pickles. But not quite. So I added one small, cucumber sized zucchini and that was perfect. With the onion and Hungarian hot wax peppers I also got at the farm today, I was able to make four half-pint jars of bread and butter pickles. Which is good, as I think we ran out about a month ago.

Pickles and More Pickles

The farm share is still offering up unlimited pickling cucumbers and now, also, unlimited zucchini (there's a surprise). I decided on the spot to make another batch of those dill pickles I made last week and also a batch of bread and butter pickles but with zucchini instead of cucumbers.

Fifteen pickling cukes made five pints of dill pickles so, for future reference, about three cucumbers per wide mouth pint jar.

I brought home about three pounds of zucchini so used one large onion and halved the recipe for "Old Fashioned Bread-and-Butters" in The Joy of Pickling. This made exactly four pints, as expected, but one pint was split into two half-pint jars for the fair. I will enter the dill pickles in to the fair as well. 

Project Completion

Today I finished a batch of sweet relish I started yesterday. First you have to salt the vegetables and let them sit overnight or, in this case, about a full day before you rinse them and boil them with the syrup. This is a variation of "Grandma's Golden Relish" from The Ball Complete Book of Canning. The changes were that I used half cucumbers (3 cups) and half zucchini (3 cups) and that all the peppers were green. This made 7.5 cups of relish.

I added the white wine to the sauerkraut and also added a little brine since there wasn't enough liquid to cover the cabbage. Now it can ferment for a few weeks in its crock and I shouldn't have to worry about it.

Lastly, I used up three eggplants making "Pickled Eggplant with Mint" from Preserving by the Pint. I didn't have red wine vinegar so I used up my tarragon and champagne vinegars and then made up the difference with cider vinegar. I hope that works - it might be a little harsh. For the mint, I harvested a bunch of stems from my pot of mint in the backyard. Supposedly this is good with some feta cheese and olive oil so I'll have to try that this winter.

After all this work, I can now see the back of the fridge again.

Success!

It's rainy and cold today, which is just the day to go to the fair if you don't like the crowds. Which is exactly how we like it! We generally avoid the midway and the rides so the rain doesn't bother us.

Salsa Verde

Part of the collection of strawberry jams

Elderberry Jelly

Strawberry Jam

First off, the canning results: First place for salsa (salsa verde), sweet relish (zucchini relish), and "other" jelly (elderberry). Second place for the collection of 3 jams (variations on strawberry), apricot jam, and "other" pickled vegetables (carrots).  Third place for strawberry jam and raspberry jam. The dill pickles and the bread and butter pickles didn't place. The judges did something different this year. There were no Honorable Mentions, and if they didn't think a category didn't have a first place entrant they just didn't fill it. Some categories only had a third place awarded. Many categories had multiple winners in each place. It was unusual; I've not seen anything like it before.

Apricot Jam

Honey Lemon Almond Coffee Cake

Next, to the bee house for the baking with honey competition! I'm quite pleased to report that the Honey Lemon Almond cake won the coffee cake class and the Honey Whole Wheat Bread placed second in the whole grain yeast bread class. And I got some suggestions for a class to take this winter that isn't far from home and covers top bar hives.

Dilled Carrots

For the rest of the day we wandered around, ate fair food, watched emus race and female lumberjacks chop up logs. We fell in love with the rabbits, as always, and watched a chick hatch. And we rode an elephant. It was an odd collection of things.

Zucchini Relish

Raspberry Jam

Midweek Update

There hasn't been a lot of canning going on, although I did get my entries up to the fairgrounds on Saturday. I had to do it in the middle of my workday because I couldn't swap shifts and my husband was out of town. Fortunately my current job is flexible so I started the day really early, left for 2 hours, and came back and stayed rather late. So. Ten entries into the fair for this year. Soon I'll be doing the baking for the other entries I've planned. The fair opens September 30 and I have set aside October 1 to get up there and see how I did!

Yesterday I fed the bees again. They seem to like their more concentrated syrup as the jar was empty. I'll have to go in a shorter time frame for the next one to see just how long it takes them to finish a quart. This interval was 5.5 days. The smoker is working nicely and the experiences have been pleasant and calm. Nice to have that back to normal.

This morning I made ratatouille with all the eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers I've accumulated from the farm share. I pick up the next distribution tomorrow and I had to make room in the fridge! Now I'm down to lots of peppers, hot peppers, carrots, patty pan squashes, leeks, beets (I'm hoping for more and then I'll pickle them), and spaghetti squashes. Basically, I'm focusing my cooking on the things that don't last as long (peppers and summer squashes) and leaving the root vegetables for later. Maybe tomorrow I'll get more tomatillos again and can make a batch of salsa.

At Least Something Grew This Year

We were walking on our street the other day and discovered that a neighbor had hops, in flower, growing in front of his house. That got me thinking about the hops on the bike path and so today I went down to take a look. Usually I miss the season by a week or two and the hops I find are wilted but not this time! They were perfectly ready. I picked a bagful and brought them home to oast. Which took about an hour at 275-300˚F. We have a beer kit we've been meaning to brew, an Irish red this time, so I can add these at the second rack. When we finally make the beer.

Also today I made three batches of chocolate zucchini bread - two batches to make four loaves of bread and one batch to make two round cakes (for these I left off the topping) and those cakes will be the basis for a birthday cake for Saturday. No reason it can't be remotely healthy, right?

Chocolate + Zucchini

How could I ever NOT make this? It's so tasty, and it has zucchini in it. And the kids love it.

Today I took the larger of the two zucchinis from the farm share and made Chocolate Zucchini Bread, but I put it into muffin form instead of a loaf. The single batch recipe makes 24 muffins. I accidentally forgot to put the topping on before baking them, so pulled them out about halfway through, when I remembered, and sprinkled it on. Seemed to work okay. We had them as a side dish for dinner. They are, after all, a vegetable.

Note to self: 18 minutes at 350. 

Zucchini Season

The farm share seems to have experienced an early abundance of zucchini and summer squash. In anticipation of getting a lot more in the next few weeks, I decided to make zucchini relish today. I won't be making the cucumber relish that, in the past two years, won first place at the fair so zucchini relish will have to do. And, I do plan to enter this in the fair instead.

Using the zucchini relish recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, I chopped all the vegetables into a medium dice and put them in salt water for three hours. Then I cooked them with vinegar, sugar, water, and spices for 10 minutes. Lastly, I put them into four 8-oz jars and five 4-oz jars. The 4-oz jars will get added to my gift stash which, now, is at 18 jars. Two will be set aside for the fair and the rest are for us!

For fair purposes: 6 cups of zucchini and summer squash, 2 cups onion, 1 cup each red and green peppers. The liquid and spice measurements are the same as in the cookbook.

Freezer Room

With the start of the farm season, it's time to clear out the freezer a bit. I brought out 3.5 gallons of tomatoes I'd frozen last fall and finally got them made into sauce. Boiled, run through the food mill, and the liquid reduced by about half to get 4 pints of sauce and a little extra. All 4 pints were flavored with Persian spices (coriander, cumin and lime) which always makes things easier when I'm cooking. I'd picked up some dried barberries (zereshk) while I was in Halifax a few weeks ago and I'm psyched to make some zereshk polo and khoresh. Having these jars of sauce ready to go will save time.

Also in the freezer are loaves of chocolate zucchini bread - we had one for dinner tonight and there are 3 left. That I can find. 

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!

Gearless!

Drinking some water off a mint leaf.

The last time I went into the hive I misplaced one of the spacer bars and I've been meaning to put it back in the right spot. However, I haven't really wanted to bother the bees, who are still transitioning through their various roles. Frequent peeks through the window have revealed that the combs are getting larger and they have been working on a new comb, although I don't see any evidence yet of honey or brood in it. Anyway, it was nice out today and I thought it might be a good time to fix that spacer but I didn't want to put on all the protective equipment. I figured, it was a small job, maybe I could go without the gear? Turns out, I could! I don't think I'd pull out a whole comb without gear or harvest honey or anything, but I can make a small tweak without too much fuss. That is nice to know.

Tonight for dinner I made the chicken tortellini with alfredo sauce but I ground up some kale in with the eggs so the sauce was green and full of kale. Even the 10 year old ate it, in small quantities. We also had sautéed zucchini, onion and garlic scapes to mix in, and the last of the carrots and most of the cucumbers from the farm share. I'm left with some turnips, one onion, 2 small cucumbers, cabbage and Napa cabbage, and a small amount of Swiss chard. The rabbit eats the chard and the regular cabbage so he's good for a few days at least!

Oh, and exciting news! We ate a few grapes off my Concord grape vine after dinner - they are ripening and we'll get at least a few more before the squirrels do, I hope.

More Baking Than Canning

In addition to our weekly farm share, sometimes our mason drops by with vegetables from his fabulous garden. Usually zucchini is one of the things he brings (along with celery, green beans, basil, tomatoes, peppers and sometimes eggplant - it's really quite wonderful) and they're generally the very big ones. Each one makes about 3 cups of shredded zucchini, which means they are perfect for chocolate zucchini bread. Since I had 2, the other day I made a double batch - 4 loaves. Do you know why this recipe is so great? Because the 10 year old asks me to make it. Knowing full well there is zucchini in it.

One loaf went to my next door neighbors who had just returned from a month away. Another went to the construction workers in front of our house. They are replacing the water main on our street with a new 3-foot diameter main, complicated by old pipes, traffic, heat, and the fact that the entire neighborhood is mostly ledge. For the past week I've had to either make a date with them to leave my driveway or get my car out really early and leave it out on a side street all day. Anyway, they've been super nice. I brought a loaf of the bread to them, and said they could leave the plate on my steps when they were done. Not TWO MINUTES later, the foreman appeared at my door with an empty plate. I was highly amused.

The other two loaves were for us, and one was finished that day - eaten for both breakfast and dinner. See, it's a vegetable, right? So it's perfectly fine for dinner!

Last night we'd stopped by the local peach farm so I bought a quart of "seconds" as well as a quart of peaches for eating. I made the seconds into a peach cobbler which we ate for dessert. (Note to self, use the 9x13 dish, not the Corningware.) We tried it with the spruce ice cream - not bad, but I think I might like to try it with the wintergreen ice cream instead. If there is any left by the time I get home from work today!

Zucchini Bread, Minus the Chocolate

Which, I'm pleased to report, was still a hit!

I doubled this recipe to make 24 muffins and a little heart-shaped zucchini cake.  The muffins on the edges of the oven got a little over-toasted so we just used forks and scooped out the middles.  This used up all my zucchini, including a little one that was growing on the zucchini plant my 9 year old brought home from a school project.  I'll take half a dozen to work and I don't think it's worth freezing any as they will likely be finished within a day!

Keep An Open Mind

As I mentioned, yesterday I started a batch of curry pickles.  I've never had curry pickles before but I wanted some variety and (basically) had all the ingredients I needed.  So I thought I'd give them a try.  My husband was doubtful, but I think they'll be great.  Especially after the kitchen smelled like curry.  And sugar.  Mmmm.

Oh, yeah, the sugar.  The recipe (from The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving) calls for white sugar but I didn't have any so I used brown sugar instead.  I ended up with 5 pints of pickles and for 2 of the jars I had to add a little extra cider vinegar to top them off. 

For dinner we had... more vegetables!  I made a skillet "ratatouille" by sautéing eggplant, zucchini, summer squash and peppers together and adding a can of diced tomatoes.  Now I'm left with a little more squash and peppers and a lot of greens.

In the Thick of It

Let's just say that a full farm share is a lot for a family of 4, even when there is canning involved.

Yesterday the share was picked up and our mason dropped off more goodies from his garden.  I came home from work around 9:30 last night to find a crazy amount of zucchini and other squashes, several pounds of cucumbers, a bulb of fennel, a lot of chard, some kale, a head of romaine lettuce, turnips, onions, snow and snap peas, an eggplant, a bunch of peppers, potatoes, and celery.  Obviously it was too late to do much last night so I started in pretty early this morning.

First, I made 4 loaves of chocolate zucchini bread.  I ran out of the sour cream the recipe calls for so I substituted chocolate yogurt.  It probably wasn't acidic enough but the bread still rose and they taste really good.

Next I sliced the cucumbers and onions and mixed them with pickling salt.  Tomorrow, after work, I will make a batch of Curry Pickle Slices - something I haven't tried before.  These are regular cukes, not pickling cukes but, considering they aren't waxed and are still relatively small, I think they will do just fine.

For dinner we ate the potatoes and some of the turnips baked in the oven with olive oil and parmesan cheese.  We also had all the snow and snap peas sautéed in a little oil.  And a big salad which finished off the Hakurei turnips and radishes.

I have a lot of squash left, plus the eggplant, peppers, kale, celery, lettuce, chard, and the fennel.  I don't really know what to do with fennel.  Even the rabbit isn't really a fan.

Random Berry Find

On Sunday, when I was walking home from the subway, I happened upon a small patch of black raspberry bushes.  These are not things I usually find in my area; blackberries are much more plentiful.  Some were ripe but a lot weren't.  So I waited a few days and yesterday I brought the kids down there and we picked 1.5 cups of tiny little black raspberries.  Last night we ate them for dessert, with a little sugar and cream.  Yum.

I also need to work through all the vegetables I've been getting - my mason dropped off some celery, a large zucchini, and swiss chard.  I took that zucchini and one I had from the farm and made 3 loaves of chocolate zucchini bread.  Tonight I'll get the farm share again and I plan to have a big stir fry with a lot of the veggies I currently have from last week:  snow peas, scallions and bok choy.  And I suspect there will be a salad as well.  Mocha seems to like chard better than bok choy so there's some help there!

Works In Progress

Generally, I like to post about completed projects but since a couple are in various stages of completion I figured I'd better write them down!

1. The blueberry season is starting, and I went the other day to my favorite spot and picked a pint of wild berries.  There are TONS waiting to ripen so we'll go back in a week and spend the morning to get more. Then I'll make a batch of jam and get some in the freezer for baking/pancakes.  I kept dovetailing with a Russian-speaking couple as we all hunted for berries on the hillside.  The weather was gorgeous for a change; it was refreshing to be out in the sun for 2 hours on a Friday afternoon!

2. My husband and I started a batch of beer last night.  This is a chocolate oatmeal stout.  The first stage of the beer-making process always takes more time than I think it will - the grain steeping took 45 minutes and the hops-boiling took an hour. The hops-cooling took even longer!  Maybe if we're going to do this more often we will need to invest in a wort chiller.  During all this we made dinner, ate dinner, and watched an episode of Sherlock.  Not a terrible way to spend a Saturday night!

3. Very soon I plan to start a batch of sauerkraut.  I have a regular cabbage and a Napa cabbage and I get to use my new crock!  I just need to get some white wine since I like that recipe best.  I might even enter this sauerkraut in the fair; if I'm going to enter some of my jams, why not other things?

4. In the past few days I also made a batch of yogurt and have been working through both the farm share and the produce from our mason's garden.  I made stuffed zucchini 2 nights ago.  The stuffing was onions and peppers sauteed with ground beef, salt and pepper, then the zucchini pulp and some parsley were added.  I stuffed these into the parboiled zucchini halves and then topped them with bechamel sauce and baked them for half an hour.  They were terrific!

When Life Gives You Zucchini

Make chocolate zucchini bread!

I've made this before, but it's worth repeating.  This chocolate zucchini bread recipe is fabulous.  And it makes two loaves!  Even better.  The bread came out of the oven an hour ago and we've already eaten half a loaf.  No guilt, either, because of the zucchini.

The zucchini came to me by way of our mason who asked us over so he could give me things from the garden.  We got 2 monster sized zucchini, some celery, peppers, swiss chard, a white eggplant, and a LOT of basil.  I'm drying most of the basil; and I have a plan to make a stuffed zucchini with the other one.  The rest we'll work through.  Soon.  The farm share pick up is tomorrow!

How Did You Make Vegetables Taste So Good?

Tonight, I made ratatouille.  It was fabulous.

My husband felt the need to re-enact the facial expressions of the restaurant critic in Ratatouille, and when that first bite went into his mouth, he legitimately made that happy face.  It was that good.

Overwhelmed by the veggies in the farm share, I used 2 summer squash, 2 zucchini, 3 eggplants, 3 onions, and all the plum tomatoes plus two from my garden to make it.  I followed Julia Child's recipe with only a few modifications:  leaving out the green peppers (used up in the pepper relish), frying the eggplant but not the squashes, and adding a can of tomatoes in thick puree because I needed more tomatoes.  I even laid out the veggies one by one, like in the movie.  This is one of those times when the vegetable dish looks as good as it tastes.

Everyone who ate it had 2 helpings, and that includes my parents and the 10 year old.  

Starting on the Gift Stash

Last week's farm share had one of those crazy big zucchinis in it, in addition to more peppers and onions.  Since the zucchini relish is such a hit, I decided to make another batch in the half-pint jars so I could give them as gifts.  I combined 6 cups of diced zucchini, 2 cups diced peppers, 2 cups diced onion, all from the farm share, with 1/3 cup kosher salt and then covered with cold water.  This sat for 3+ hours and then was drained and rinsed.  It was combined with 1.5 cups vinegar, 0.25 cup water, 1.75 cups sugar, 1 tsp each of celery seed and ground turmeric, and 1/2 tsp mustard seed.  (The recipe calls for green food coloring but I never use it.)  This simmered for 10 minutes and then was processed for 10 minutes and now I have 7 jars in my gift stash!