Well, That's...Um...Different...

See that tiny little hole?

Violet season is upon us and I had gathered 2 cups of violets and infused them in 2 cups of hot water, then set aside this pint of dark blue infusion until I could make jelly.  This morning I added 1/4 cup of lemon juice, half a package of powdered pectin, and 2.5 cups of sugar and made 6 4-ounce jars of violet jelly for my gift stash.  That isn't the different part.

My canning pot has sprung a leak.

Really.  I have never worn out a pot before.  That's just crazy!

I guess I'll be making a trip to the hardware store today for another one...

Nettle...Something.

While it is still nettle season I have been trying to get some when I'm at the stables and have time.  Yesterday the patch I usually frequent looked like it had been mowed so I found another, taller patch with more mature plants.  I had read on a foraging forum about making nettle chips and thought that I could try that.

Since I don't have a dehydrator, I used the oven's warm setting.  The nettles, once blanched and drained, were laid out on a rack.  This was really, really fiddly.  Most of the nettle leaves were all bunched up, with the resulting chips being more like sticks.  After drying them, I sprinkled them with Himalayan pink salt and put them in a jar.  Most likely I will be the only one who eats them and, even with that, I suspect it will be more likely that I will be sprinkling things with nettle powder.  

Springtime, Finally.

This winter certainly felt like it went on forever.  It's still not all that warm, but at least all the flowers are blooming and the spring greens have emerged.  Two days ago I picked a bag full of nettle tips at the farm and today I blanched them and made nettle pasta.

After blanching the nettles, I blended them with one egg and set it aside.  When I was ready, I made the pasta:  1 pound of flour, 3 more eggs, the nettle mixture, and some water.  I rolled out the sheets of pasta and put them in a damp tea towel to rest until I made the filling.

That...was a mistake.

In the interim, I went to Wolf Meadow Farm and bought some really wonderful ricotta, very fresh mozzarella, and a few other cheeses.  I came home ready to make ravioli with mozzarella and ricotta and parmesan filling.  Things did not go exactly as planned.

First of all, do not store pasta sheets on waxed paper.  Just don't.  Unless you plan to freeze them.

Second, you don't need to use damp tea towels.  I think I would have been better off just letting them sit in the fridge and drying out a little.  I ended up having to peel the pasta off the waxed paper and rerolling it.  There was a lot of cursing but at least most of it was in my head.  My first batch of ravioli, the ones for which I attempted to use my press, fell apart, so I put them inside more pasta and made thicker ravioli.  Ones that were cut by hand.  Which ended up being the right choice.

Each raviolo pillow had a small piece of fresh mozzarella plus a little ricotta mixed with parmesan, salt and pepper.  We ate just under two dozen for dinner and have about two dozen more in the freezer for later.  These were served with a tomato and eggplant sauce I picked up at the farm as well.  And, with the leftover pasta dough, I made a little bit of a spaetzle-like pasta.  We all had a taste.  The mozzarella provided a nice stringy melted texture and the ravioli, while a little thick, worked out well in the end.

Tropical Flavors

When I bought that case of mangos the other day, the sales clerk said, "What are you going to do with all of those?"  I smiled and said, "Oh, they'll be gone in 3 days."  And they are!  Although, only half of them went to jam.  The rest just got eaten.  Even Mocha, our rabbit, gets to have some - we give him a pit and he vacuums it clean.  He doesn't get all of them; that would be too much fruit for our little bunny!

I finished up the last 4 today by making Mango-Pineapple jam.  Since I didn't have a lot of sugar in the house and I was concerned about all the reports about this particular combination needing extra pectin, I decided to use the low sugar pectin instead.  I think it worked out perfectly.

4 champagne mangos diced

1.5 cups pineapple chunks

1/4 cup lime juice

4.5 cups sugar

1 package powdered low sugar pectin

Blend the mangos and pineapple with an immersion blender but leave a few chunky pieces for texture. Mix with the pectin and lime juice, bring to a boil.  Add the sugar all at once and boil the usual way.  This made 6 cups and a little bit more.

Well, that's it for the mangos.  Maybe we can start in on some violets soon?  They should be blooming in the next week or so.

Something Exciting!

Finally I found time and fruit and energy all at the same time, and have made my first batch of jam in 2014!

The local Whole Foods had crates of champagne mangos on sale - 16 mangos in a case.  Yay!  Not only do we love those mangos, I was looking for something to do over the next few days.  So I picked up a case, 2 boxes of strawberries, and a pineapple.  In 2 hours we've already used 5 mangos.  Today's batch is strawberry-mango jam.

3.5 champagne mangos, crushed

2 cups crushed strawberries

1 box powdered pectin

6 cups sugar

This makes 8 cups of jam.

In other news, the 8 year old became 9 recently and we had a party based upon a favorite video game (Skyrim).  We had a scavenger hunt, a shield-decorating station, foam swords and even magic spells which were confetti-filled colored eggs.  It was quite the success.  Here's the cake (it's the Skyrim logo, a big dragon):

Nothing Exciting

Really, nothing exciting.  Just made a batch of chicken stock as I was all out.  Also, I've got a batch of yogurt doing its thing.  My last batch didn't work again, not sure if there wasn't enough yogurt left to start the next batch or if it was too old.  Regardless, I bought new starter so this one should be just fine. I'm just itching for spring to really settle in and the plants to start growing again!

Minestrone, now with Orca Beans!

Soaked and cooked, before going in the soup

Calypso, aka Orca, beans are just so beautiful.  I can never resist buying them when I see them, but then I end up not using them because I so rarely cook beans.  I must be experiencing a form of spring cleaning because I'm feeling like I need to clean out my pantry and my freezer to make room for new foods.  Last night I set a pound of the beans to soak and today made a double batch of minestrone soup.  I used 3 pints of vegetable stock and 1 of chicken stock, and all of the bean broth, and am canning 7 pints of soup.  There's still plenty in the pot for eating over the next day or so.

Mise en place

I'm now out of chicken stock and down to my last 2 pints of turkey stock; I guess I will need to make more chicken stock very soon.  There is also another pound of Orca beans to play with!

Yum!