Zowie!

The mustard greens I've been fermenting for about 12 days are done.  I suppose they could have fermented longer, but they were plenty salty and spicy and I think that's enough.  I had a taste 10 minutes ago and my tongue is still tingling!

To stop the fermentation I drained off the brine and boiled it, then poured it back over the greens which had been stuffed into a pint jar.  Now I can add it to stir fry, but not tonight.  I'm getting the farm share today and I expect I will be working through that for a while.

Mulberry-Rose Hip Smoothies

Remember way back when I foraged a whole bunch of rose hips off a beach and made jelly?  I froze the leftover rose hip infusion, with an intention of making a lassi or smoothie out of it.  Well, I'm cleaning a few things out of the freezer and found it, and tonight made an excellent smoothie.  Even the 8 year old loved it.  And had seconds.

I put about a cup of homemade yogurt (yep, I'm still making yogurt fairly regularly) in a blender with about 1 cup of rose hip infusion, a handful of mulberries from MY tree, 2 cups of milk and some sugar (didn't measure it, maybe 3/4 cup?) and blended away.  Really tasty and vitamin C enriched!

Triple Berry Jam

This is a good year for mulberries.  I have discovered there is a mulberry tree in my backyard, and this year it really is producing!  Yesterday I picked a cup off that tree for us to eat - they're super sweet - and we went to the tree on the corner armed with a towel to get more.  The ones on the corner aren't as sweet as the ones in the yard, so they're for jam.

My husband and I stood under the tree and held the towel while we shook the branches and got pelted with berries.  A lot of unripe ones fell but after picking through them I had 3 cups for jam.  Today I added a pint of blueberries and the better part of a quart of strawberries, mashed them all up, and made triple berry jam.  When all those berries were mashed it made 5 cups to which I added 7 cups of sugar and a package of powdered pectin.

This made 9 cups of jam which I put into a variety of 4, 8 and 12 ounce sized jars, to add to the gift stash as well as keep some for ourselves!

Out of Strawberries Already

That didn't take long!

Friday night I made strawberry shortcake for a little dinner party.  Again, I forgot to take pictures!  Later we finished up the shortcakes and whipped cream with canned peaches and I can tell you that it just isn't the same.

Yesterday morning I made a strawberry rhubarb pie.  I finally had an opportunity to use the leaf lard I'd been given for Christmas.  I had remembered to thaw the lard for a few days in the fridge so it was easy to work with.  I used the same proportions as I would have with shortening: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 cup plus 2 tbsp. of lard, and 6 tsp. water.  The filling was 1 quart strawberries and 12 oz. frozen rhubarb (the latter squeezed to remove the extra liquid), 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup cornstarch. Super simple!

I brought the pie to my parents' house where everyone raved about that crust.  It was pretty amazing. So so so worth it!

Making It Up as I Go Along

This is generally my cooking motto, and it was in full force today.  I needed to make some kind of starch for dinner with friends and didn't want to go back out to the store.  (I'd worked overnight last night so I was feeling a little tired...) So I looked in my pantry, spent a little time on line, and came up with this:

Chick Pea and Amaranth Salad

1 cup amaranth

2 cups vegetable stock

1 can chick peas

1 can artichoke hearts

1 can diced tomatoes (with the liquid)

1/3 cup chopped pecans

2 large sprigs of fresh mint

3 scallions

1 garlic scape

balsamic vinegar

pepper

The amaranth was cooked in the stock by bringing it to a boil, covering it and letting it simmer until done, about 20-25 minutes.  I chopped the artichoke hearts, mixed them with the tomatoes and chick peas, then added minced garlic scape and sliced scallions.  I added the mint, all chopped up, and the pecans and the pepper.  When the amaranth was cool enough I stirred it in and drizzled the top with balsamic vinegar.  

And you know what?  It tastes great!

Strawberry Everything!

The farm where I pick strawberries has been open for a week but it's been so wet and cool that the strawberries were slow in ripening.  I figured by now there would be enough ripe ones to pick as I like to get a lot for canning.  It was slower going than usual because the ripe berries weren't all that plentiful but with some persistance I came home with 11 and a half pounds of berries.

First I made strawberry jam - using the powdered pectin recipe I got 10 cups of jam.  One of the jars didn't pop so it's in the fridge and we'll just eat that first.  (Never a problem....)  Then I made a single batch of the strawberry lemonade concentrate.  I still have a few jars left over from last year that I'll finish up before dipping into this year's batch.  Then I made myself a smoothie with a few berries, some homemade yogurt, the foam from the lemonade concentrate, and a little honey.  After a trip to the grocery store to get jalapeños, I made strawberry jalapeño jam.  The website where I found the recipe originally seems to be gone, so I'll write down what I did from another website so I'll have it.  4 cups crushed berries, 1 cup minced jalapeños  1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 package of powdered pectin and 7 cups of sugar.  I got 9 cups of jam from that batch.

Tomorrow I'm making strawberry shortcake for dessert so I set aside 1.5 pounds of berries with a little sugar for that, and I put aside another quart of berries to make a pie on Saturday.  That leaves a little more than a quart for eating, and all the berries are accounted for!

Tall Order

One of the last things left from the farm share was a bunch of swiss chard.  I mentioned that we would be eating it tonight and my husband said, "Can you make it taste good?"

Challenge accepted!

I made this:  Quick Caramelized Onion Swiss Chard.

He says, "I enjoyed the onion."

Whatever.  I thought it tasted really good.  Everyone ate it.  The 8 yo had a bite.  Just one.  You can't please everyone, I guess!