catching up on the things that made it home…
Home From The Market | Pershing SQ 1Sept10
catching up on the things that made it home…
Tigress’ Can Jam | Ohhh, Peaches (Sept)
summer summer fruit… it wouldn’t be summer without ’em*
Have you ever had a conversation that really would be thought of as inappropriate if overheard? Man, these peaches could’ve gotten me into lots of trouble.
September’s TCJ produce: Stone Fruit. I picked peaches and lost my mind fairly quickly. Umm, yeah. Sorry, I only put up a super tiny batch because I couldn’t stop eating them.
Seriously, I went to the farmers’ market near work twice. I went to two different grocery stores. All had good local peaches. All got EATEN.
They were these big, beautiful, ripe and juicy things that wanted to be spoken of in lush, seductive terms. Smelling so light and sweet. All that peachy-ness dancing on air, tempting me. My guilty hands covered in nectar.
See what i mean? They were the best kind of trouble. So. Damn. Good.
At the office, they were so enticing that I wasn’t surprised only a few made it home. When I tried to explain to a co-worker how amazing they were, he started looking around for HR.
They really were the perfect example of why eating seasonally and locally is so important, at least where taste is concerned. I decided the few peaches I had left should get the simplest treatment possible.
Gently Gingered Peaches
Adapted from the basic peach recipe in Linda J Amendt’s Blue Ribbon Preserves
Makes 2 Pints or 1 quart
2-3 lbs of firm, ripe, unblemished peaches
2 cups of water
¾ cup of sugar
4 cups of cold water
1 tablespoon of antioxidant crystals or ascorbic acid crystals (hey there fruit fresh)
Fresh ginger coin slice (1/8th in thick) (if using pints cut in half)
Rinse peaches in cool water.
Sterilize jars and lids.
In a 4 quart pan, combine the 2 cups of water and ginger with the sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved over med-high heat. Once dissolved, turn the heat up and bring it to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low, cover and keep syrup hot until needed.
In a large bowl, combine the 4 cups of cold water and antioxidant crystals. Stir until the crystals are completely dissolved.
Peeling that peach: fill a pan about half full of water and bring it to a simmer. Fill another large bowl with ice water. Carefully lower the peaches a few at a time into the water for about 30 seconds. Remove the peaches and get them into the ice bath for a minute or two. Repeat the whole thing with the rest of your peaches.
Using a sharp paring knife, carefully skin them peaches. Cut each peach in half and remove the pit. Using a spoon, carefully remove the red stuff from the center of the peaches. Umm, this might take practice or a pitting spoon. Mine didn’t look super pretty, more gutted. But, whatever.
Place the halved fruit in the antioxidant solution. Don’t leave longer than 20 minutes. Remove the peaches from their “please-don’t-turn-mangy-colors” bath. Rinse thoroughly and drain well.
Add peaches to the hot syrup. Over medium heat, let the peaches cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat.
Add ¼ cup of hot syrup into each jar. Pack the peaches, cut side down, into the jars, leaving a ½ inch headspace.
So, ummm, I, apparently, stopped here thinking that was, you know, it. I covered the peaches and added the ginger to the jar. Checked for air bubbles and processed in the hot water bath.
Well, that wasn’t it. Here are the rest of Linda’s directions. I’m about to eat my peaches that I put up and start over.
Place a sieve over a medium saucepan and line the sieve with 3-4 layers of clean, damp cheesecloth. Strain the syrup through the cheesecloth. Over med-high heat, quickly bring the syrup to a boil. Remove the pan from the heat.
Ladle the hot syrup in to the jars, covering the peaches and leaving ½ inch headspace. Using a bubble freer or a plastic knife, remove any trapped air bubbles. Hold the jar up and check from the bottom for any air bubbles trapped under the fruit. If necessary, add more syrup to maintain headspace. Wipe the jar rims and triads with a clean, damp cloth. Cover with hot lids and apply screw rings. Process pint jars in water bath for 20 minutes, quart jars for 25 minutes.
I think the last step will stick now that I’ve typed it for you. Woo-hoo.
TheNikkiBits: Well, you saw the reading comprehension part isn’t really my strong suit when it comes to recipes. I kinda just want to finish. Looks like I know what I’m having for brekkie in the am. Wait, why did I just envision a bit of good vanilla ice cream volunteering to be the bed for that peach dream? Oh, and I’ve already sipped a little of the syrup that was left over. I can’t wait to get a little licka to go with it. I might even try to rock a ginger peach soju cocktail this evening. Mmmm…. Yeahh…
What’sNext: Back to the Farmers’ Market on Sunday to see if there are more yellow beauties to behold and be canned.
Nikki♥
*does anyone remember that commercial?
Oh, My | Where The Weck Lives
i can hear connie francis* right now…
I longed aloud today for a simple carafe. Someone heard me.
Did you read the newsletter? Did you see the announcement? Have you been to the website? What? No? Heath Ceramics has gone Uber-Weck. I think I♥Heath Ceramics, even more hardcore.
The range Heath now carries online is, umm, just stoopid. Seriously, they’ve got Weck sets. Love. Wait, did I say that again? Love. Fine. Umm, silly happy. How about that? Better?
See for yourself.
…Hold on. I just looked at the prices. Why does it feel like it’s cheaper than when I got my first taste of Weck goodness last year? It just might be. I won’t argue.
Nikki♥
*you know, she sung “Where The Boys Are,” the theme song to the 1960 Spring Break comedy. No? I guess that’s what I get for faking sick/ditching school and watching lots of old movies on the telly.
Ummm, Yeah | Updated…
Just a wee bit of housekeeping for a late Sunday night.
I came across another spot to pick up Weck jars. I’ve updated the Weck Resource Guide post with the Canoe link. They carry the asparagus/tall jar!!!
I’ve also updated the Nigella Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake post from earlier this year. I realized that I, umm, hadn’t included the recipe. I, also, made the cake for an office shower/pot-luck thingy. Added ginger and changed the world. Okay. Changed my world. Heaven on, well, you know. It was good.
Have a great week!
Nikki♥
Tigress’ Can Jam | My First Tomato (August)
oh, i like this…
I’m canning on the road this month. I packed up some *new* jars, the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving from LAPL, a small bottle of commercial lemon juice and headed to West Hollywood.
I was really excited that this month’s produce coincided with my trip across town to Chez P+K. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a chance to put up something homegrown from the backyard. The backyard on the other side of the kitchen window. Pam’s plants were producing aplenty. I was all giddy knowing that she was setting aside some freshly plucked off the vine for me. And my goodness, they were beautiful .
Oh, yeah. I have new jars. Non-Weck jars. Surprise. I knew that I wanted to can some of Pam’s tomatoes and leave them as a gift. So, just to be super safe, I thought it might be a good move on my part to expand my jar-i-sphere.
I’d been looking through lots of canning books for recipes. Simple, easy, SIMPLE recipes. I really got into the Ball section on tomatoes. I appreciated that the hefty section had the recipes separated by process, water-bath and pressure canner. Thoughtfully explaining the use of commercial lemon juice to ensure proper acidity for water-bath canning, as well as, talking about all that separation anxiety. It made me feel really confident and comfortable about what has probably been my easiest canning experience to date.
By now, you should know my middle name is “Can’t-Leave-Well-Enough-Alone.” I did go off-book adding a fresh herb instead of the dried used in the Herbed Tomato recipes a few pages later.
Tomatoes Packed in Water
Umm, from the Ball Book…
Tomatoes
Commercial Lemon Juice
Kosher Salt
Prep your canner and sterilize your jars.
Wash those pretty tomatoes.
Set a pot of water to boil. Set up a bowl of ice water.
Working in small batches, make a small X in the bottom of the tomatoes. Put them in the boiling water for 30-60 seconds or until the skin starts to crack.
Place the tomatoes in the ice bath and peel off the skin.
Core the tomatoes. You can leave them whole, halve or quarter them.
In a non-reactive pot/saucepan, add a layer of tomatoes. Just cover with water.
Bring to a boil over medium-ish high heat.
When it begins to boil, lower temperature and cook for 5 minutes.
In the quart jars, place 2 tablespoons of commercial lemon juice. 1 teaspoon of salt.
In pint jars, add 1 tablespoon of commercial lemon juice and ½ teaspoon of salt.
Fill jars. Use cooking water to top off tomatoes. Leave a ½ inch of headspace.
Process 40 minutes for pints, 45 for quarts.
TheNikkiBits: So, yeah. CLWEA added fresh basil and crushed red pepper to one quart of the tomatoes with the lemon juice and salt. The other quart got ½ teaspoon of both ground cumin and coriander. From a bottle. Not my first choice, but hey I wasn’t at home and I was feeling inspired. I threw in a few black peppercorns, as well. I had some left over cooking water. By itself, it was AMAzing. Fragrant, with a surprising depth. Used it to fill out my go-to tomato and goat cheese pasta sauce.
What’sNext: Okay. I really want it to be winter. But, wait. I need put up lots more jars of tomatoes, first. I can’t wait to get home and put cumin seeds in the mortar and pestle. I want to make chili and curries and MMMmmm… Wow. I’m hungry and excited. First, though, I’m going to put up a couple of quarts of tomatoes for Pam. Simple and Plain. CLWEA is going to be locked in a room somewhere.
While everything else we’ve done, during Tigress’ Can Jam this year, has been a fun and tasty learning experience, this really has been the month that makes better something I already do as opposed to hipping me to something new. Ummm, Tinned Tomatoes. See Ya!
My birthday is quickly approaching. I think I need a food mill. Hmmmm. Mommy!
Nikki♥
LAPL – Los Angeles Public Library… I ♥ that place, hardcore.
Tigress’ Can Jam | Linda’s Gingery Watermelon Pickles (July)
yeah… this has been a weird one…
As always, I was soooo excited to do this month’s canning. When I first read that we were entering the cucurbit world, I got all goofy about it. It wasn’t even hot enough in LA to fully enjoy the refreshing goodness of watermelons, but I was buying and eating. And the canning of the rind was what I wanted to do.
I liked both Linda Ziedrich’s The Joy of Pickling and Bryant Terry’s Vegan Soul Kitchen recipes for the rind, but couldn’t decide between them. Then, things got complicated. Well, the discussion of race in the country and under my window took over.
I started avoiding my rind and avoiding this post. I’m not sure if I’ve ever shied away from eating watermelon in diverse company, but I wasn’t finding the nuanced, fun way to talk about watermelon, race and my canning of the lovely rind. The week started getting heavier than I expected. Then, it just got away from me.
I’ll come back and update over the weekend with more. I think I’ll be on the other side of this.
Gingery Watermelon Pickles
adapted from Linda Ziedrich’s The Joy of Pickling
1/8 cup pickling salt
2 cups of water
3 cups of rind
syrup
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon whole cardamom seeds
1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger sliced
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
1 cup of sugar
Hellllllo! Eat your watermelon down to the rind. Pink, be gone. Removed the green skin. I used a veg peeler. Cut up your rind into bite size pieces. In a bowl, dissolve the salt in 2cups of water. Add the rind and let it soak for 6 to 12 hours. I let it soak overnight.
Drain and rinse the rind a few times. Then, in a non-reactive pot, cover the rind with cold water. Bring the water to a boil, then let it simmer for 5 min. Drain the rind and set it aside.
Make a goody pouch from cheesecloth. Tie up the spices, ginger and lemon. Add it, along with the water, vinegar and sugar to the pot. Bring it to a boil, then lower the temp to let the syrup simmer for 5 minutes. Now, don’t forget to stir, stir, stir. When the syrup is ready, take it off the heat and add the rind. Let it sit in the syrup for 12 to 24 hours at room temp.
Prep and sterilize 3 .25L or 1/2 pint jars. Bring the rind and syrup to a boil. Then, turn down the heat and simmer until the rind is translucent. Remove the goody pouch. Fill jars and water bath process for 10 minutes.
NikkiBits: Linda’s recipe calls for a whole lot more watermelon than I’ve got space for or will carry. So I’ve tweaked it with my old math skills, but kept it a little heavy on the lemon.
What’s Next: I’m in love. That’s good, right? Okay, I’m always in love, but whatever. Next, I need to make Bryant’s Citrus & Spice Pickled Watermelon Rind.
So. Right. This weekend. Let’s maybe revisit this thing.
Nikki♥
Market.Watch | Golden Opportunities Missed
i miss going to the market…
Okay. Let me be specific. I miss going to the farmers’ market around the corner from my house on Friday afternoons.
I’m planning on going to Hollywood tomorrow morning. But, well, that’s tomorrow. And that’s always the plan.
Nikki♥
Mmmm Hmmm | That Jerk Chicken
it’s been a week since we met…
I WANT MOOOOOORRREEEEEE! Oh, and the watermelon soaked in soju. Ummm, yeah. Nice.
As you can see, I’m back on the bird. Kinda scary cause I was on the bone, too. I have never, evah, sucked on a chicken bone in my life. Lawd, the jerk seasoning was kinda worth the awkward moments after.
Nikki♥
Tigress’ Can Jam | Whole Churry Preserves (June)
ummm, that’s the way it’s supposed to be spelled.
Okay. So I’ve been missing the Mid-Atlantic States a bit lately. With Pressure Cooker out on dvd and the new season of Top Chef in DC, I was thinking about what makes the whole area from VA to PA feel like home.
In many ways, it’s just hearing people speak. It amazes me how happy I get when I hear people with the super regional accents or the ones where the smallest thing will give them away. I kind of even watch old episodes of Homicide and The Wire just to get a little taste of a place not far from where I grew up.
One of the mainstays of Go-Go, Little Benny, passed away recently. Along with hip-hop, it was the music I heard in the halls and lunch rooms during school. My eyes may have rolled a bit growing up, now it just makes me smile.
Watching old interviews and a Go-Go doc from the 80s made me cringe and wistful at the same time. All these really super specific DC things come to the fore. There is a way of saying words that end in -ry that is SOoooo home to me. Really, it’s r and vowels, but whatever. It’s like very becomes vuurry like in snow flurry, with a heavy emphasis on the urr.
So in honor of the DC Metro area (urrreeeuhhh), I made Whole Churry Preserves.
Whole Churry Preserves
Adapted from Georgeanne Brennan’s The Glass Pantry
2 lbs of ripe sweet cherries
3/12 c of sugar
2 c water
Clean cherries. Remove stems. Pit by gently squeezing each cherry until the pit pops out. {My fingers were stained such a lovely color last night. Ahhh, but the red tint was all gone by morning.} Add the sugar and water to a heavy bottomed non-reactive pot. Stir occasionally for 5 or so minutes to allow sugar to dissolve.
Add cherries and bring to a boil. Then, reduce to low heat and let simmer for 1 ¾ hours. After 1 ½ hours, raise the temp to med-low.
Since cherries are low low low on the natural pectin totem pole, Georgeanne suggests a long slow cooking time to get them to the jell point. She suggests starting to test after 45minutes.
Wash and sterilize jars. When cherries are ready, remove from heat. Skim and discard any foamy bits from the surface. Ladle into jar. Process for 10 minutes.
The NikkiBits: The recipe yields 4 pints. I got ummm 2. But that probably has more to do with my nibbling tendencies. Mmmm, churries. If I had any of that Amarretto from last month left, I’d have used a little of that, too.
What’sNext: You know I’ve been avoiding the pectin purchase. That’s going to have to stop. Hello. What were my preserves like this morning? Can you say loosey-goosey still sloshy? Seriously, I’m heading to the store and we’ll tighten things up tonight.
It’s interesting to see my appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables develop even more as our canning challenge continues. It also makes me think more about growing up on the east coast and the obvious nature of eating seasonally. I’ve got a fridge full of berries that I want to enjoy fresh and that I want to enjoy in different ways come fall.
Nikki♥