Strawberry Jam

When I have time I like to read other locavore and farm blogs and today I had tome to go check out Val Taylor's Cincinnati Locavore blog and to my delight found a recipe for no-pectin strawberry preserves (click on the title of this post and you will be taken there).

We grow strawberries and at some point I will have a need to make strawberry preserves. Usually I am lazy (or because we grow day neutral berries I am making preserves in late summer or fall so have no natural pectin sources like green apples) and use commercial pectin but it has chemicals that I don't really want to ingest and I agree with Val that the commercial pectin makes the preserves rather solid. I was planning on making preserves using apple pectin though I will have to wait another week or so until the green apples are big enough to fuss with. I even went to the liquor store in Richmond, IN to get some pure grain alcohol (which they don't sell in Ohio for some reason) for the preserve making process. I need the moonshine to check the pectin, it does not go into the preserves themselves. No, I am not making high octane jam. I don't think alcohol and pectin will work together, than again... What I use the alcohol for is to check to see that the sugar to pectin ratio is correct. When I am prepping the apple pectin I have to mix ground apples with sugar and cook that for a bit, if I am remembering this correctly (I will consult with the Joy of Cooking before doing this so I do it correctly). Than I put a bit of the apple/sugar goo into an ounce of 100 proof alcohol and it will either jell or not. When it is correct than it is put with the strawberries and cooked and put into hot sterile jars and sealed.

But Val has a recipe that uses under ripe strawberries that she claims have enough pectin in them to set up the preserves. So check out her recipe. I know I'm going to try it when I have enough strawberries to make 6 to 8 pints of jam.

Bread and Granola

Today I did something I have not done in a couple of years, I made bread and granola. For about 12 years I made all the bread we ate. Usually it was a honey wheat but occasionally I would make more elaborate breads like challah , Italian bread (the kind that needs a sponge made 12 hours before the bread is made and there are several rises involved) or pita. But than the Aunt Millie's bread outlet started offering certified organic breads for under 75¢ a loaf and I decided the bread was decent, had no HFCS or hydrogenated crap and I could not make my own bread as cheaply. the organic breads from Aunt Millie's were never as good as mine but they saved time and money. But over the past 6 months or so the price of that bread went above a buck and gas, as we all know, is getting ever more expensive and our vehicle is a not so green cargo van with a V-8 engine. We also have been buying some pretty decent granola at Aunt Millie's bread outlet store for around $2 a pound bag.

And yesterday upon scanning the freezer for more bread so we could have an extra sloppy joe (made with 95% local ingredients, tomato sauce I made last year and the Streit's grass fed beef, an organic onion from Jungle Jim's and our peppers from the freezer) we discovered we were out of bread and would not have the time to go to Richmond, IN to visit the bread store until Monday. At the Tuesday farmers market I considered buying a loaf of Pia's honey wheat bread but $5.50 is out of my price range.

So this morning I got up and decided I should do something about the bread and granola situation. So I got out the oat meal, some maple syrup (the real stuff, not the HFCS maple flavored crap that is death in a bottle as far as I am concerned), butter and walnuts. I put some syrup and butter in a sauce pan and heated the two until the butter melted. Than I added some vanilla powder, cardamom and cinnamon and poured that over the big stainless steel bowl that had 6 cups of rolled oats and walnuts broken into pieces (I have no idea the amount on the nuts, lets say around a cup). Mixed everything together than put into a 300˚F oven for 15 minutes that stirred, put it back for another 15 minutes, stirred it again and back in the oven for the final 15 minutes. When it was done I poured the content of the cookie sheet into another large stainless steel bowl (I used to work in restuarant kitchens and picked up some commercial cookware over the years-most of it honestly) to cool. At that point I added dried cranberries, raisins and apples along with puffed wheat and rice cereal. Let it cool et voila! granola. And far far better granola than anything we could buy and I got a huge container of the stuff for under $3.00.

About mid way into the granola cooking I started a loaf of bread by warming up some water and pouring that into a big ceramic mixing bowl along with a tablespoon of honey. Mixed the honey into the water and added a teaspoon of yeast and let that grow for about 10 minutes. When the yeast sponge was nice and puffy I added 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup white along with a tsp of salt and a TBL of olive oil. Mixed it all together and than kneaded the dough for 5 minutes or so (how ever long the NPR newscast between non news shows lasts) and put that into a well oiled bowl to rise for several hours and went into Eaton to do errands. came home, opened the store, checked on the dough and saw it was about ready to shape into a loaf. Did that, let it rise again and let it over rise by about 20 minutes because a customer came to the store and I got to talking to him for a while. Got the bread into a 350˚F oven (which had been pre-heating for several hours as it took a lot longer than I thought for that second rise to happen) and about 1/2 hour ago it was done and out of the oven. It turned out better than I expected despite it trying to fall when I started baking it.

It will be wonderful to have fresh bread with dinner and I suspect most of it will be gone by tomorrow. I t was fun and very satisfying making these items and I will get back into making bread and cereal from scratch as I can make it better and cheaper than buying these things./ That, and I have about 3 pounds of yeast in a freezer that I bought years ago (it's still very lively stuff). I may even start offering the granola at the store if I can can find rolled oats in bulk (organic would be best but I'll take not organic as oats do not have a GMO variety...yet)

Thanksgiving Brew

It's thanksgiving and we at Boulder Belt are not eating a turkey dinner (mainly because I did not hop to it and order a pastured turkey from the Filbruns a month ago and when I asked 2 weeks ago if they had any left they said no, they were sold out) this year. nor are we going to anyone's home to feast upon their turkey and trimmings.

No, we are staying in and the plan is to brew beer all afternoon. We shall consume the first of this beer on New Years Day. So truly a holiday brew.

Our friend Wyatt says he is coming over with home made bread and a wort chiller. Eugene made a green tomato chutney yesterday so I am thinking making a vegetarian curry for dinner. We have a lot of greens left over from last Saturday's Winter market that need using as well as peppers, onions, snow peas and leeks. I could also throw together a salad (we have a lot of salad greens too).

This is the first Thanksgiving I have not celebrated in my life. Usually I am cooking at least one meal. Some years when I was working in food service by Thanksgiving day I had cooked over 10 different Turkey day feasts. This year nothing and I gotta say it is nice not to be responsible for dinner for many.

My sister quit celebrating years ago (20 years?) when her infant daughter suddenly died of meningitis the day before Thanksgiving (nothing thankful about that!). Go forward about 16 years and the Owsleys are in Detroit dealing with our mother dying of a stroke. She died 2 days after Thanksgiving that year. The T-day dinner that year was leg of lamb, a big salad and lots of wine and beer. Not very joyous but we made the best of it. At least we were all together (except Mom who was dying in a hospital) for the first time in decades for a Thanksgiving.

So today will be about watching Parades on the TeeVee, drinking home brews and craft beers while making beer and curry.

Tomorrow will be all about Buy Nothing Day

Pastured Turkey Tips

Okay so you have decide this is gonna be your first locavore Thanksgiving. You have ordered your locally raised pastured heritage turkey. You will go to the farmers market this weekend to buy the trimmings such as butternut squash celery, parsnips, rutabagas, carrots, rosemary, sage, garlic, onions, taters, apples, leeks, peppers, salad greens, kale, etc.. You will spend much of next week cutting and chopping your local bounty in preparation for your feast.

Congratulations. You are getting closer and closer to having one of the best meals you have ever cooked. it is almost impossible to mess up a meal made from exquisite ingredients but it can be done so a few tips about using whole foods.

Storage- Things like squashes, garlic, onions do not need to go in your fridge (this will give you more room for things that do need cold storage). they do need a cool spot to rest but that can be on the floor of your kitchen or out in the garage. Greens, fruits, herbs do need to go into the fridge.
Give yourself time. Start a few days early. I have been watching Martha Stewart this week and she sez she has been working on Thanksgiving for the past 2 weeks. I think that is going too far but than I am not Ms Stewart and I am not cooking at all this year (which really bums me out. I love doing Thanksgiving). Still, starting this weekend would be a good thing.

The Turkey. If you did not get a fresh turkey, start thawing the frozen bird at least 3 days in advance of cooking. It takes a 20 pound bird over 56 to thaw in a fridge. It would be totally irresponsible of me to suggest taking that clean locally raised and butchered bird and thawing it out in warm water in a cooler the day before you need to cook it. But that is what I would do. I would never ever do this with a factory farmed bird. Do not attempt to cook a frozen or partially frozen bird at 450F. This was been done in my family back in the 1960's. The results, while inedible, were hilarious. One day I will write about the Black and Serve™ rolls and the blackened and raw turkey dinner.

Okay, you got the bird thawed and it is sitting on the kitchen table. Now What? I suggest putting it in a roasting pan. All the grocery stores have aluminum pans to roast a big bird, though I find these to be quite dangerous. They are floppy affairs and can drop hot grease on your legs/feet. OUCH!. But in a pinch they are better than nothing. A proper roasting pan is best. If you do not own one go get one. Now, not next Thursday.

once you have the proper equipment and you have ascertained the bird will fit in your oven (I have been known to buy birdzillas that only fit in my oven with some creative finagling. One year we got a 42 pounder (it was local, organic, pastured and cheap-1/2 off. I could not resist) you are ready to cook the thing. I have found brining the turkey is a great way to go. Simply fill a cooler (that you have sanitized) with 5+ gallons of water (enough to mostly cover the bird). A cup of sugar and a 1/2 cup Kosher or sea salt (if you you table salt cut to 1/4 cup). Place the raw and thawed turkey into the brine and let sit refrigerated for 5 to 8 hours. If it is below 45F outside use the great outdoors as your fridge. Otherwise, add some ice to the brine to keep things cold. I can guarantee you that you will not have fridge space for this unless you have some commercial fridges at your house. Once the bird is brined, remove from the solution, pat dry and let the turkey sit for about 2 hours before roasting. Brining will guarantee a moist tasty bird

If you do not want to brine than one thing you can do is simply rub the bird inside and out with a mix of kosher salt, rubbed sage, chopped rosemary and garlic powder than roast./

I preheat the oven to 450F and place the covered prepared bird in the hot oven. After 30 minutes I turn the oven down to 350F and let it cook. For cooking I time I use the general 15 minutes a pound rule (20 minutes for a stuffed bird). Around 2 hours into cooking I will remove the cover and start basting

Now here is the biggest tip I can give you, o' eater of pastured turkey. Pastured turkeys have been allowed to roam around and that means they are full of nutritious collagen, this is a good thing. But collagen tends to make meats tough if not cooked to a high enough temp. I find pastured poultry needs to be cooked to at least 180 (190 to 200 is even better) in order to cook that collagen down to tenderness. I use a cooking thermometer to check but you can also use a wing or drumstick. If the wing/drum stick falls off or nearly falls off when wiggled your pastured bird is ready to be taken out of the over, placed on the serving platter (remove the stuffing if you stuffed the bird) and allowed to rest for 20 minutes or so before it is carved.

Bon apitite

Boulder Belt in a Book

I post this becuse Boulder Belt Eco-Farm is one of the local farms profiled in the book. This would make someone a nice holiday gift

Local Author Highlights Family Farms

• By Ron Vidika
  The Morning Journal, October 28, 2007
  Straight to the Source
  
  

Marilou Suszko wants to get the public interested in homegrown produce and the farmers who grow it.

In her first book, ''Farms and Foods of Ohio: From Garden Gate to Dinner Plate,'' Suszko, a culinary instructor at Laurel Run in Amherst and a free-lance food writer, said there is a growing trend among consumers to support the local farmer in their community.

"What this book is showing is that there is a return to supporting the farmer in your community who feeds us. As (noted chef) Emeril Lagasse said, '(Today's) farmers are really hot.' People love to hear stories about farmers. They've become very popular,'' said Suszko, a Vermilion resident.

''It focuses on produce you can get close to home. When you look at the book, it's representative of all of Ohio. Not every single thing grown in Ohio is in this book. We're one of the leading agricultural states in the nation,'' said Suszko.

''It gets you thinking about locally grown food, who your farmer is and what they're doing for you,'' said Suszko.

Suszko calls Richard Aufdenkampe of Amherst, ''my local farmer of choice.''

Aufdenkampe's family-owned farm on North Ridge Road uses 32 acres to grow an abundance of vegetables, including winter squash, pumpkins, corn, cabbage, white cauliflower, beets, turnips and hearty beefsteak tomatoes.

The farm was begun by his father and his uncle in 1946. ''My motto is everything at my roadside stand I raise myself. The major advantage is freshness and getting it ripe,'' said Aufdenkampe.

The difference between a supermarket tomato and one grown on a local farm is like day and night, said Aufdenkampe.

''About 80 percent of grocery tomatoes are picked green and shipped to a warehouse where they are 'gassed' to hasten the ripening process,'' said Aufdenkampe.

''That's why, when you go to the supermarket, most tomatoes don't have much flavor to them. Typically, farm markets, where you're buying locally, don't pick the tomatoes off the vine until they're red,'' said Aufdenkampe.

The question, said Aufdenkampe, that consumers should ask of those operating farmer's markets and roadside stands, is ''Where's it coming from?''

In her book, Suszko estimated there are about 77,000 farms in Ohio.

''Some of the smaller farms are growing specialty items, like heirloom tomatoes. These are the farmers that bring specialty items to our table. These are the farmers that feed us,'' said Suszko.

Specialty items like heirloom tomatoes require diligence and care on the part of the farmer growing them.

''They're fragile and harder to grow,'' said Suszko. ''They take dedication on the part of the farmer wanting to grow them.

''There's lots of care involved. The old world varieties are not as disease and pest-resistant and require more attention,'' said Suszko.

''I'm primarily a food writer; an independent contractor,'' said Suszko.

''In the book, there are stories of more than 40 family farms and chefs throughout the state who support locally grown food and feature them in their menus. There are 123 recipes as well,'' said Suszko.

She said many of today's farms function as a full time farm but often, the farmer has a second job to make ends meet.

''There's no such thing as a part-time farm. You can garden part time, but you can't farm part time,'' said Suszko.

One satisfying moment for Suszko occurred when she was at Aufdenkampe's farm and overheard people talking about her book.

''I stood there for a minute or two. Three people pulled in to the driveway. All of whom were there because they had read my book and were thinking about buying locally,'' said Suszko.

The book is available at Brummer's in Vermilion, at Barnes and Noble and at www.amazon.com.

Up North for 36 Hours

Our one full day at my Dad's began with a walk to the beach with Eugene than coffee and breakfast. Than another walk up the beach with Dad and Maggie. On this walk we bumped into Judy Kane and sat and talked with her for maybe 15-20 minutes. It was nice to see one of the Kanes. Would not be a proper visit without that. We have been neighbors of the Kanes for decades.

After sitting and talking with Judy we continued on our walk to the point and before long Dad suggested we do not walk to the point but rather go into the woods. So we did.
We took a public access road out to the main road, crossed the street and went into the woods via the tennis courts. I love walking in the woods behind the cottage. They are some very nice woods, full of oaks, boletus mushrooms, blueberries, turkeys, etc.. Simply a cornucopia of wildlife. For years and years the woods was abused by all sorts of people but over time many have realized what a resource they have in the woods and now for some time the woods have been protected by the people of the Point Lookout.

So the 4 of us took a walk in the woods and saw a couple of blue jays, some sort of woodpecker, black capped chickadees. lots of moss, oak trees, red pines, sand, various vegetation of the understory, etc., etc..

After a while we meandered back to the cottage and saw that Scott had shown up but without Speranza. She had decided to go back to Sterling Heights. Okay. It was lunch time so lamb sandwiches were made and consumed and soon enough it was time to get in the car and go to Standish to attend a dulcimer concert in which Rebecca was participating. I took one picture of the concert, it sucks so will not be posted.

Around 20 people played in the concert. Mainly bluegrass/mountain tunes/gospel. Rebecca sang at least 4 songs. The event was well attended I thought and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I did. Eugene bought several selections from the bake sale. Some sort of toffee bar concoction, peanut butter cookies and popcorn. I entered a quilt raffle but did not win.

Concert ended, we got in the car and went home via Jay's Farm Market. Eugene and I looked at the pumpkins and apples and were amazed at the low prices. About half what they are around here. I guess because Michigan got a lot more rain and did not lose their fruit crops this spring. That, and the fact Michigan seems to be in a depression economically.

Got home and dinner making ensued. Dad made us all "Chicken Guillaume" a dish I created when I ran the Alexander House Kitchen back in the early 1990's. It's a boneless chicken breast sauteed than topped with pesto and mozzarella cheese and put under broiler for a couple of minutes. Dinner was good, and unlike the night before, I was able to stay up past 8:30pm and did. Maggie, Rebecca and I sat at the dinner table and talked about life, religion, current events, family until almost 10pm when Scott joined us. It was good. At midnight we all went to bed in order to not be exhausted for the drive back to Ohio the next day.

The next following morning we got coffeed up. Did the last beach walk, ate breakfast, talked and around 11am began to make serious moves towards the rental car and the trip home.

The good byes took a while but were not particularly sad. After a couple of pictures of the Owsley's was shot by Eugene we finally got ourselves into the car and headed south.

Dinner From the Garden

Tonight's supper is a work in progress. So far I have in a big saute pan 3 kinds of heirloom tomatoes (Crnkovic Yugoslavian-dark pink with almost black seed cavities, nice acidity, sweet taste, Boulder Belt striped-red with yellow stripes, inside yellow with a Bright red heart-low acid, very sweet and Dr Wyche's Yellow-huge orange fruit, low acid sweet), 2 heads of shivlisi garlic (aka chesnok red), a head of cauliflower, 2 yellow onions, a green patty pan squash that is coming up in the delicata beds (from seed we saved) Oregon giant snow peas and a Chinese giant pepper (or maybe it's a Marconi). I think I will add a can or black beans and some cumin, chili powder and cheddar cheese and let it simmer a while. Than eat it with tortilla chips. The salad is a skinned and sliced telegraph cuke, a couple of Siskyou sweet onions, sliced, chunks of charentais melon, halved strawberries, several kinds of tomatoes (mainly yellow and orange), chopped coarsely, olive oil, kosher salt and balsamic vinegar. Fresh Italian parsley is good in this too.

Should be good, few things more satisfying in oh, so many ways than eating from your garden.

Harvesting for Winter

I am waiting for rain that is not coming. A cold front is moving through the region this morning and it was supposed to bring a lot of rain our way but it seems that the rain has fizzled out. C'est la vie. The market garden will have to continue to depend on well water irrigation for now.

It is Wednesday and we have no markets to deal with today and we did not sell many strawberries yesterday at the Tuesday market so today I am going to make strawberry jam, something I have not done in years. I think I will also freeze some green beans and can the apple sauce Eugene made last night since it is going to be reasonably cool today and tonight.

A big part of gardening is being able to put food up for winter. This seems to be a foreign concept to most Americans and that is a huge shame. When I had a CSA, early on I would purposely give members a lot of food and instructions on how to freeze, dry or can the extra food so they would have pure local food in winter time, thus stretching their food dollars. In the ten years I ran a CSA I had maybe 3 members who got that idea. Wot a shame.

I take great joy in putting food by. Yes, it takes time and is often hot sweaty labor but come winter when we are feasting on beans, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, corn, pesto, dried herbs, garlic powder, peas, jams and jellies, applesauce, etc., it is well worth the work done in the heat of summer. It saves us boat loads of money in winter when money is always in short supply for us and we do not have to worry about where our food came from or with what it has been adulterated. That and it is very satisfying to have shelves full of beautiful jars of homemade food and freezers full of produce and chicken that we raised.

If you raise a garden and do not already can dry freeze and otherwise preserve your harvest you should start because otherwise you are not taking full advantage of what your garden is producing. If you buy at farmers markets buy extra and freeze or can it. If you belong o a CSA and cannot eat all the food each week, instead of giving it away or trashing it, put it up for winter. It takes just a few hours per week to do this. Your co-operative extension office will have loads of information on putting food by.

A Busy Monday

A busy Monday.

We had a woman named Lauren come out and helped us weed out the raspberry patch this morning/early afternoon. I met Lauren at the march Winter market in Oxford. She had just moved to town and needed a place to play in the dirt and asked if she could help us out. I said yes. And she works for food. She was an interesting person, secular and politically left of center and because she teaches Medieval Lit at a college in PA she is fluent in middle and old English. I think that's way cool. She's here to be with her SIO while on sabbatical. And she seems to be a careful gardener which is good. We have lots of work for her to do this spring.

When she arrived I was folier feeding garlic, spinach and the strawberry plants in a hoophouse (that are already in flower!). Eugene and I had already made 2" soil blocks and transferred some basil and pac choy to those and he was getting ready to plant more seed. he stopped his seed planting and worked with Lauren weeding out the raspberries for about an hour and when I was finished feeding fish emulsion to plants I got in on the action.

I noticed the raspberries are beginning to leaf out. This is early for them but considering we have had temperatures about 25 degrees above normal who can blame them. They probably think that it is far later in the spring than it is. They are hardy plants as long as they are not producing flowers and fruit so if they leaf out and the weather decides to go to 25 degrees below normal next week they should be alright.

Lauren had to leave around 2pm. She got a nice big bag of lettuce and a couple of garlic bulbs and a bag of dried basil. It's like having a CSA again only this time the member is engaged with the farm and I do not write a newsletter. Of course no money is changing hands, but that is okay with me. Right now we can use help more than cash.

After she left I read email and than ordered the first of the planned 600 meat birds. I ordered a straight run of 50 rock cornish cross day old chicks to be picked up this coming Sunday and a second batch of 100 cornish hen chicks to be picked up Easter Sunday. It sure will be fun to have baby chicks again. They are entertaining and a good source of meat, manure and income for us. Hopefully Danny boy and Nate will not think of them as snacks. Last year Nate was quite bad about wanting to kill the chicks but we managed to keep most alive other than the first day we stupidly put them on pasture and than left the farm to do a farmers market and also left the dogs out to "guard" the chicks. When we got home, Nate had pushed their fence down and had killed a couple of the chicks and was mouthing a couple of others when we arrived. We had to punish Nate and gather up about 25 peeps that had run into tall grass and weeds to hide from the huge predator and put their fence back together all before unpacking from the market. It was a bad scene, one that will not be repeated.

As I write this blog entry I am making a chicken and vegetable soup for dinner. I have been having cooking problems for the past week, ever since the element in the oven burned up. I find I am oven dependant and not having one has taken me out of my cooking comfort zone. Granted, I know how to make literally hundreds of dishes on the stove top but complete meals here often include baked squash, biscuits, a cake, roasted potatoes, roasted chicken, etc.. And at the moment I cannot embellish meals not make dessert from scratch (which is a good thing health-wise but a bad thing enjoyment-wise)

Spring is Here

It's over 70 degrees so I have the windows open and my shoes off!

The buzzards and red winged blackbirds are back so I think the whistle pig was correct in predicting an early spring.

Did some work in the garden this morning. Pulled all the cabbages and put them on a new compost pile. Weeded out the spring mix so it will be pickable this Friday for the Winter market on Saturday. Transplanted a few heads of lettuce that were growing too close to other heads of lettuce so they would all have room to grow to full size. helped Eugene weed out a bed of spinach than thinned/transplanted a lot of spinach to fill out the bed. Need to do this to 6 more beds, transplanting/thinning, that is, not weeding/hoeing as that has been done.

Since I am out of shape I quit the garden after 3 hours of work. Hung out the laundry on the line and made some lunch. Than I made up 6 bags of catnip and 16 bags of roasted squash seeds. I will likely do more bags of squash seeds. They are so good. I coat them lightly in virgin olive oil than lightly season them with our garlic powder and a salt and roast them. Yum!

Now I am blogging and baking chocolate chip cookies.

Dinner Tonight is Local

For dinner tonight I will be making pastured raised pork chops that I bought this past Saturday at the farmers' market in Oxford, OH raised by the Filbrun family. I believe I will sautè them and serve them with homemade applesauce, some cabbage sautèed with onion and garlic and perhaps some roasted butternut squash (all raised here on the farm) Dessert will be Brownies with walnuts that will be served with locally raised raw milk from the Streits.

The day before winter and we are easily eating mostly locally raised food. Eating in season does not have to boring and is far safer and tastier than buying possibly tainted meats and veggies from the industrial food stream. I do a lot of canning and freezing of things that hate cold weather and will not store for more than a few weeks like zucchini, tomatoes, melons, bell peppers, green beans, peas, etc.. As well as growing storage items such as garlic, onions, squash, carrots, taters, etc.. And let us not forget the winter garden under plastic that gives us leafy greens such as kale and spring mix most of the winter. You can see we have done a great deal of prep to have food available all winter. It is a lot of work but well worth the effort in my opinion.

The Victorio

It's almost fall and that means tomato canning time. I have already written about catsup and the wonderful victorio and here is a picture of the victorio with tomatoes that were made into plain tomato sauce.

Today I am canning up probably the last sauce I will make this year, the sauce tomatoes did not yield well at all and many of the plants were crossed with other things so did not produce decent sauce tomatoes at all. I should get 18 or so quarts of sauce in the end and along with a couple of jars from last year plus the frozen sauce we ought to be all right for the winter/spring.

My Victorio strainer is an old model. A 200 that seems to have been replaced by a new and improved 200. I am hoping the parts I need are still around. Mendinghouse.com seems to have the things I need but not all are in stock. And there seem to be a couple of parts I have never possessed (but than I go this from my Father, lightly used, so perhaps they were there at one point back in the mists of time). So I may be looking at not being able to get all the parts I need to get the thing back up to almost new condition. Since I have been using it hard in less than almost new condition I suppose I could continue to do so. It still works quite well.

Homemade Catsup

Every year I try to do a new canning project. Last year it was pickle relish made from lemon cukes (golden relish) and this year it is catsup. I have this book with a lot of pickling recipes in it and it has two catsup recipes. One is for catsup that taste just like Heinz™/Hunts™ catsup so I used that for the familiarity of the taste and because it used more tomatoes than the other recipe as well as a lot of onions which I have an abundance of including several pounds of semi rotten ones that need using ASAP.

So I get out the Victorio Strainer set up (the kitchen tool I can not live without this time of year) and bring in a crate of various tomatoes (red, yellow, pink, striped) that are beginning to go. Than Eugene brings me a bucket of maters that need using before I hit the ones in the crate. Than I find several pounds of green peppers and 5 large onions (actually 8 or 9 medium onions). I prep the onions and peppers for the catsup first by cleaning them and than putting them into the Cuisinart and pureeing them into a frothy green substance. Added a bit of vinegar and let that sit while I put 25 pounds of tomatoes of various colors and flavors through the Victorio Strainer. Added the maters to the green froth and than added the sugar some salt and the rest of the vinegar and put the whole mess (which was by this time in the largest roasting pan I have, one that can hold a 30 pound turkey, aka birdzilla) into a 200˚F oven. The directions said to cook this for 10 hours but I gave it 14 hours and turned up the heat the next morning to 250˚F and the stuff was not a thick and rich catsup but rather a runny sweet and tart tomato sauce. So I took the roasting pan full of sweet and tangy tomato sauce out of the oven and tried to thicken it with corn starch (Rumsford GMO fee corn starch!). This did not work very effectively, it thickened a bit but not much. Probably did not use enough to get the job done. Or maybe I should have used a flour paste...

Any hoo after attempting to thicken the catsup I gave up on that idea and got the canning jars out of the boil canner and proceeded to fill them up with the sweet and tangy tomato sauce, put the lids and rings on and canned up 7 quarts leaving 1 quart extra.

The extra quart I put in a sauce pan and cooked it down on low heat for 3 or 4 hours to see if I could get it thick enuff to call catsup. Nope, could not. So than I decided to try thickening it this time with a flour paste (a couple of table spoons of white flour with water added to it than stirred well into a thin paste or slurry). This worked very well and I had before a substance that tasted a lot like commercial catsup.

So if I do this again I will be changing the recipe quite a bit. I will toss out the corn syrup (don't want no GMO's in my catsup if I can avoid this) and replace with brown sugar (did this in the first batch with good results). I will for go the several days of slow cooking in a low over (will cook over night) and instead use a the flour paste thickener to get the right consistency. I will use a cup more of vinegar (I used rice vinegar rather than the cider vinegar called for because that is what I have in abundance) and perhaps use a bit of balsamic. I will add either garlic powder or fresh pureed garlic and a tablespoon more salt. Than I think I will have an excellent catsup.

I am quite excited to learn how to make my own catsup. It is a condiment we use a lot around here and I have never liked the fact that when eating this I am eating High Fructose Corn syrup, a food additive I try to avoid like the plague but because I use a lot of commercial catsup I do eat. Not to mention we will no longer be spending a couple of dollars a month on the stuff.

Next will be BBQ sauce. I will use roasted ripe peppers, some OJ and bacon in the catsup recipe, maybe some molasses too.

Oh yeah, the catsup I fooled around with on the stove became Sloppy Joe base and it was excellent and that is probably what the first batch will end up being as it is not really catsup.

Raw Milk; What can't it Do? (and a Yogurt Recipe)

As I have mentioned in the past I use raw milk and because of that I now make many dairy products that I used to buy from the store. The other day I made my own butter from the cream I poured off the top of a gallon. It is great butter, creamy and bight butter yellow, far brighter than factory farmed butter. This surprised me and I don't know why. Grass fed hens lay eggs with deep yellow/orange yolks while factory farmed hens lay an egg with an incipid, pale yellow yolk. So it stands to reason that raw milk from pastured cows would make a fabulous deep yellow butter. To make the butter I take cream and put it in the blender and run it for about 10 minutes. Than I pour the liquid and butter chunks into a sieve and squeeze out the remaining liquid from the butter et voilà! home made butter and butter milk.

I also make yogurt from the raw milk (which I will be doing later this morning) and it is very good yogurt. For yogurt the milk needs to be heated to around 160˚F than allowed to cool to 110˚F before adding a teaspoon of yogurt to the warm milk. Don't worry about getting the milk too hot it will still work even if it is heated to 230˚F- been there done that courtesy of my Husband starting a batch of yogurt and not telling me there was milk heating on the stove and discovering rapidly boiling/burning milk. The yogurt is stirred in well (I stir for about 1 minute) than I transfer the the milk and yogurt culture to as many clean quart yogurt containers as I need (I usually make 1/2 gallon at a time). I suppose I could use glass canning jars also, which would be better than using plastic containers. The last step is to put the containers of liquid yogurt somewhere warm (around 95˚F to 105˚F) to set up for 18 to 24 hours. Do not disturb the containers while this is happening. It is done when it is a semi solid.

I also make 1/2 & 1/2 by pouring off the cream and than adding milk to that. I shake it before adding to my (fair trade organic) coffee.

I have not tried my hand at cheese yet but I am seriously thinking about it. Nor have I done any sour cream, though yogurt is close enough for me not to use the cream in this manner.

At first, I though at $4.50 a gallon this stuff was pricey but we no longer buy half and half or yogurt from the store which was costing about $8 a week for industrial pasteurized/homogenized dairy (organic would have been double that, if I could have even found it at the local Kroger's and still pasteurized/homogenized). So for $9 a week I get my coffee creamer, a half pound of butter, 2 quarts of yogurt and 1.25+ gallons of milk and all of it with a lot more nutrients than what I could buy at the store.

Wot a Deal!

The Silicone Pan

I bought one of those silicone pans a couple of weeks ago and really like it. It replaces a pan that was rusting out and would transfer that rust to anything that was baked in it making the brownie, biscuit, cake, etc. Taste really weird and look even stranger on the bottom.

I got an 8" x 8" brownie pan because I bake a lot of brownies (Eugene is quite partial to chocolate things and especially brownies) and I did not have an 8" x 8" brownie pan and the rusting pan I was replacing (an 8" x 13") was more often than not used for brownies. Plus I wanted to see if I even liked this kind of pan so I bought the cheapest (smallest) one they had at K-Mart for under $9.00.

On the good side the pan is the correct size and cannot rust. It is really a non stick pan and it is a nice blue color. And it turns out some killer brownies.

On the bad side it is very very floppy so it must be supported by a cookie sheet so when you remove the full pan from the oven you do not crack the baked item. I will put up with this not to have a nonstick coating that is Teflon™ based or a rusty pan.

I can see these silicone pans as being great for camping because they are light and can be rolled up and put in a pack.

I just hope they do not find that these are carcinogenic. So many modern wonders turn out to be deadly.

Fresh Food, it's What's for Dinner

A shot of zucchini (on right) and basil (on left) in one of our hoophouses

We are finally able to eat fresh from the garden and not the freezer. We have lots of lettuce, arugula, kale and other greens coming in now as well as zucchinis, squash blossoms, radishes, cilantro, fresh basil, chives & tarragon. We took a trip to the old farm to see if there was any asparagus there and there was some that had not gone into its' fronding stage and it is very good. We also got some rhubarb too.

Tonight's dinner is almost all grown by us. I am roasting a 5.25 pound chicken we raised last year. I put a rub of kosher salt, rubbed sage, garlic powder and rosemary all over the outside and in the cavity and now it is in a 400˚F oven. Along with the chicken I will make squash lyonaise from a costata Romanesque zuke Eugene harvested 2 days ago and some of our onions from last year. I will probably also make a salad from a left over bag of spring mix and put some radishes and feta cheese on the greens oh and may some organic vidalia onion I bought at Jungle Jim's. made some brownies for dessert which have nothing local in them but will be yummy none the less.

Soon enough we will also have snow peas, garlic scapes, spinach (unless it gets too warm which is pretty likely), cukes, cherry tomatoes (the cukes and maters are being grown in a hoophouse so will be about 6 to 8 weeks earlier than the main crop of these items), small sweet onions.

We have been quite busy getting things ready for the peppers and eggplant to go out. We have had to burn holes into landscaping fabric for the above mentioned crops as well as the winter squash and melons we will be planting in another 10 to 15 days and the tomatoes that will be going out in about 5 to 7 days. Eugene was burning holes in some landscape fabric before lunch and when we came back out after lunch we saw that one sectioned had burned completely up leaving a 3' x 50' burned area. So when we got started again we were VERY careful about starting another fire. He was doing two layers at a time to save time and the under layer must have caught fire and smoldered hidden from view for a while than caught and burned up 100' of mulch. I wish I had seen this happen, it was likely a cool fire. We managed to get the other 12 or so pieces prepared and put away with no further mishaps. The next step is to put down the irrigation tapes and than put down the fabric and dig the edges in than plant the seedlings.

It's just that simple (not).

Lettuce Soup

When life gives you too much lettuce it is time to make soup and that is what happened to me yesterday. I had way too much lettuce. It has not been selling briskly enough at market so after the Tuesday market I decided it was time to do something with all the Simpson leaf and Rouge d'Hiver red romaine lettuce that was too old to sell (though it was still miles above the lettuce at Wal-Mart in quality. Why, to get it to Wal-Mart quality I'd have to leave it in the fridge another 5 to 7 days).

So I figured I'd stew a hen and make chicken stock and add lots o' lettuce to that. I started the hen about 7am and let her cook for 6 hours. Removed her from the stock pot and skimmed most of the fat off the broth and than added 5 pounds of lettuce that I had cleaned and roughly chopped to the chicken stock. Plus about 5 small chopped onions and some kosher salt to taste. Let that cook about 30 minutes than put everything in a blender and pureed it all. Than I added cream and milk to half the puree and adjusted the salt and it was done. The other half of the puree I froze (3 quarts) and that is why I did not add any dairy products (they do not do well in frozen foods). And now I will have some lettuce food for the future.

It was an okay soup, I have made better lettuce soup before. The red romaine was a bit bitter (which probably made it super healthy, bitter foods are generally wonderful things for humans to eat). Eugene suggested adding some sort of nuts to it so today when I reheated leftovers I added about 1/4 cup of cashew butter and it did improve the soup quite a bit.

The hen was turned into a yummy chicken salad.

WTF? Cook's Illustrated Recycles Old Articles Now?

My father got me a subscription to Cook's Illustrated, a nice magazine full of recipes, hints, equipment and food recomendations and no ads. It is a well done periodical that I used to have a subscription to about 3 years ago. I think I subscribed for about 7 years and I have not thrown away any issues because they are full of recipes I may use some time in life.

Okay. So my dad gets me a subscription for christmas and I get the first issue this week. At first I did not notice anything awry with the magazine until I got out several old issues to find a couple of recipes for dinner last night (ended up using a recipe for chocolate pudding cake YUM!)and noticed one of the old issues not only had the same cover but also the exact same review about bittersweet chocolate.

WTF!??

So the next thing I do is get out more old copies of Cook's and find a Creme Brulee recipe in one of the old issues that is in this current issue (but with different titles). I did not get into my main stash of Cook's Illustrated to see if all the articles and reviews in this newest issue are from the past but it would not surprise me at all.

I also noticed that this new issue did not have any date on the cover nor the inside page so maybe this is a "best of" promo issue. though why would I be getting a promo issue when I have a paid subscription.

I guess it is time to contact Cook's Illustrated and find out what is going on. I really don't need the magazine at all, if all it is doing now is recycling from old issues which I already possess

The Day Plus 2 Recipes

It is dark and damp but not very cold. Yesterday it was down right warm for Jan 2nd and we got two rounds of thunder storms too boot-one at dawn and one at dusk. Strange weather to be sure but at least we are not getting the storms the west coast is getting nor the fires the Tex/Okla/N Mex are is getting YIKES! Of course we could easily get something just as devastating. No telling in these days of rapid climate change.

Farming is very slow this time of year. Sent out our first seed order (Fedco) and will get others in the mail the next few days and weeks. It was a reasonably small order, under $75. Some years our seed bill will be hundreds of dollars and we are not all that big and we save a lot of our own seed. Seeds are not cheap.

Eugene has been getting areas ready for seed starting. The barn has a south facing room with good heat and light that was full of boxes of craft items, bushel baskets of squash, onions, etc. So the past two days he has been moving and rearranging things so two big light tables could fit in the room and fit they do.

I have been processing squash that has decided to start to rot. pretty simple process. preheat the oven to 400F, halve the squashes, scoop out the seeds and roast in the hot oven for 30 minutes or so. Take out of the oven, let cool and scoop out the squash, leaving the rind behind. Now you have squash pulp good for pies, breads, soups, soufflés, cookies, jam, etc.

I used a potpourri of squash including Lakota, acorn and butternut and now I am making squash cookies with the puree

1/2 c butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup squash pulp
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 c white flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground allspice
1/8 tsp ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350F. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add eggs and combine thoroughly. Add the squash and mix well. In another bowl mix the flours, leavenings salt and spices together. Pour the dry mixture into the wet mix and mix well. drop 1TBL onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 13 to 14 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
©Lucy Goodman 2006, use with permission only

Oh the other thing I made a lot of was roasted squash seeds. Easy to do though time consuming because it takes a bit of time to get the goop off of the seeds in order to roast them. You do not want to roast seeds with squash goop, it tastes wierd. But once the seeds are cleaned up you simply put them in a baking pan or sheet, sprinkle them with kosher or sea salt and put them in a 400F oven for 20 to 30 minutes (they should start to pop in the oven and turn a light brown). Remove from oven, let cool and enjoy.

Bu-Bye 2005

It's the last day of 2005.

I am making a complicated Italian bread for a party later on today and Eugene is turning compost piles.

the weather is damp grey and cool, above freezing but not by much. there is a stiff SW breeze making it rather raw outside unless you are moving.

The pond is melting. I tossed a 2 pound rock through the ice this morning. It caused some air bubbles to cruise to the edge of the ice than disappear. Tried tossing smaller rocks through the ice but they were not heavy enough and sat on top.

Bu-bye 2005