Fruit Season Has Begun!

Whoa. It's been a long time! I wasn't really thinking about it until my friend Michael politely pointed out that he's a little tired of seeing little red cranberries in a pot (see: last post, or don't, it's been up so long!) A friendly nudge is always what I need. I've been doing a bit of traveling and preparing for my third season making jams as Half-Pint Preserves. It's a busy time of year when the fruit starts happening! Rhubarb has been on my cutting table as of late, and soon strawberries will be firmly in my grasp.

In my garden, the strawberries are ripe, but it's a small patch just for snacking. We can't wait to hit the bigger farms, in our case either Greig Farm, Fishkill Farms or Thompson-Finch Farm. I've been baking up a storm: strawberry rhubarb pie, and rhubarb jam quick bread (using this recipe for marmalade quick bread). I think tomorrow I will make this custardy rhubarb pie that I've been making for years. It's amazing.

Another exciting thing is new vegetables and herbs! My favorite herb in the garden these days is salad burnet. Have you tried it? It's very cucumber-y tasting. It's delicious on eggs with some chive blossoms. 

And I finally roasted some radishes, in particular these local long reds that were rumored to be very spicy. A slow roast with their greens were the perfect foil to some roasted homemade sausages and chicken.

And don't forget other things that are growing! This guy is almost five! And trying to figure out his bicycle. Good times in the Hudson Valley these days. How about you? I'd love to hear from my friends out there, what are you making these days?

Cranberry Molasses and a Giveaway: Put 'em Up! Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton

Cranberry molasses! Is this a great idea, or what? I absolutely love pomegranate molasses and use it all the time. Mostly drizzled on salads. So vibrant, so tangy! When I saw this recipe in Sherri Brooks Vinton's newest canning book, Put 'em Up! Fruit, I knew I had to try it. Especially since I had some cranberries languishing in the freezer. And it's a little more local than pomegranates for us easterners.

If you are a canner, you've probably read Brooks Vinton's first book, Put 'em Up, which was structured by the fruit or vegetable to preserve. This book moves in a similar way, but focuses on fruit, and for each recipe of a preserve there is a companion recipe to "Use It Up!" There's a chunk of preserving information in the beginning of the book, and then the fruits start alphabetically, with apples, of course, and everything has a color-coded tab at the top of the page, so you can quickly thumb to a section. The book is colorful and easy to dive into, with beautiful pictures by Hudson Valley photographer, Jennifer May.

It's very obvious that Brooks Vinton has been at this for a while, and her enthusiasm for local produce and making eating well accessible to everyone is immediately evident. She's bubbly about cool things like gastriques and making cider vinegar, but still includes stalwart recipes for applesauce and classic jams. This book truly is for beginners and pros alike.

The cranberry molasses that I tried from the book is so simple! Next time I would probably try lowering the sugar because that's my thing these days, and it might help the ability to cook it longer without it jelling. The only thing I'll take Brooks Vinton to task for is not giving you an idea for the left over cranberry pulp. The book is chock full of little tips like this, so I'll let it pass! I used a cup  in some muffins, and I put the rest in a smoothie. I hope to try the molasses with the companion Use It Up! recipe: duck confit salad with cranberry molasses. Could that sound ANY better? No, it can't!

Cranberry Molasses

adapted from Put 'em Up Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton

Yield: 2 cups

4 cups of water

1/2 pound of cranberries

2 cups dark brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)

Bring the water and cranberries to a boil, and let them simmer for about 15 minutes, letting the berries pop and soften. Strain the juice through a fine sieve to get all that gelatinous pulp and seeds out. The juice is brilliant red!

Bring the juice (it will be about 2 cups worth) and sugar to a boil in your jam pan. Let it simmer until it coats the back of the spoon. Brooks Vinton recommends 10 to 15 minutes, but I went longer, about 30 neglecting to notice the comment: "the molasses will thicken as it cools." Mine was thick and lovely, but did jell slightly upon cooling. It is so soft though, that a few stirs with a fork turns it back into syrup. You can process this in a boiling water bath for ten minutes, or stash in the fridge for up to three weeks.

 

Please visit the book's webpage where you'll find a trailer, and videos to some of the recipes in the book. There are other chances to win a copy of the book! Some are over already, but some haven't even started yet. Check out this list of folks on the book blog tour:

April 8: Food In Jars

April 9: Punk Domestics

April 10: Autumn Makes & Does

April 11: Local Kitchen

April 12: Mission: Food

April 16: Tigress in a Jam

April 17: Daily Dish Recipes

April 18: Shockingly Delicious

April 19: The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

April 22: From Scratch Club

Congratulations to the winner: Deborah Rosen. Many thanks to all who entered! There's still time to win at The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and From Scratch Club!

Thanks to Storey Publishing, I have one copy of Put 'em Up! Fruit to give away. To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment on this post. Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, April 19, 2013. The winner will be chosen at random and be posted to the blog the next day. With Blogger it seems I can't email commenters directly (your email address remains anonymous to everyone, even me), so if you are not linked to a blog please leave a way for me to reach you, or check back to see if you won. And my sincere apologies, but only U.S. residents are eligible.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of Put ‘em Up! Fruit free for the purposes of review and participation in the blog tour. One copy will be provided to the giveaway winner, courtesy of Storey Publishing. I received no monetary compensation and all opinions are my own.

Eight Lunches

What do you eat for lunch? It's something I think about every day. I'm know I'm not the only one! This is what I think: How can I eat healthily and inexpensively? And mostly: quickly. I'm always curious what the heck people actually eat. I mean, we all have our ambitious ideas--big recipes that are usually meant for dinner. Lunch is sort of forgotten territory. I wish I didn't neglect it as much as I do, and I'd love to get more of a system going on. When I make a good lunch, I take a picture so I can remember it. Sometimes, it's a little too late, like the above picture.  A few pickled beets chopped up, some crumbled feta, salad greens, olive oil and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds make a great salad.

Of course, leftovers. I made a lot of squash dumplings for dinner and sauteed them with onions and a hearty handful of chopped parsley. They were great fried up the next day. I don't understand people who don't like leftovers. I love them!!

 A toasted baguette, a can of sardines in olive oil spread with a fork, topped with chopped dill and parsley, salt and pepper, more olive oil. Perfection. Always keep tinned small fish on hand: sustainable, good for you, inexpensive, tasty.

My favorite. Smoked salmon, capers, two fried eggs, salad, pita. I'd eat this even without the salmon. Eggs are a mainstay of my lunches.

Leftover turkey and gravy on toast with capers. Hot open faced sandwich. So. Good. You might have noticed that I put capers on just about anything. They are a must in my kitchen.

Summer rolls. They are pretty easy. Really!! These are sort of on the ugly side, but they still tasted great. Looks aren't everything, as they say. Shrimp are bonus, but not necessary. Another way to get a good bunch of veg in you. Lately, I've been buying Maine shrimp, sold frozen in a local grocery store. They come in handy to throw into something like this, or a salad, or something more ambitious, like dumplings. (Pictured are not those shrimp, though.)

Leftover pancakes rolled with smoked salmon, salad, Greek yogurt (and some capers, I'll bet). You can see I like smoked salmon on everything, too. A little bit goes a long way.

More eggs, capers, and salad. And I am a big fan of Ak Mak. This is a perfect lunch, in my opinion.

What about you? What do you eat for lunch? What staples give it flair or substance? When I had a full-time office job, I usually made my lunch the night before. It actually took a lot of the guesswork out of lunch-making. I might even consider doing it again, but I know I'd look at my lunch and think: oh, I could make something more yummy. One of the problems of working near your kitchen!

Orzo and Chickpea Soup and Buttermilk Crackling Cornbread

I wanted to just write about this soup, which is very good, but the pictures I took were pretty bad. To be fair, the cornbread was a revelation, but it was a recipe from Joy of Cooking that I didn't change a bit.  I put the soup photos here just to illustrate what it looked like, but I'm aware that they are not pretty shots. I would like to absolve myself here by saying I'm not a photographer! I don't practice it, and I don't try to get better at it; not proud of that fact, rather just stating it. I never stage shots, I just take them when it seems right. At most I take about ten photos of a thing, usually it's just a few. I wish I were more focused (ha, ha) but I'm not. I really admire all my friends who take photography seriously and get better at it every day. I am trying to learn how to practice things and get better at them. It's a fault of mine that I don't. I fly into things with good intentions, and end up being a little sloppy about them because I've got twenty things like it going on.

I do, however, enjoy practicing cooking every day, and I'd say I always get better at it. (That doesn't mean I don't still make lots of mistakes!) Yesterday, I was working in the yard---finally!! I transplanted some trees, chopped some gnarly poison ivy vines, and cleared the perennial garden--and something obvious dawned on me, as I thought about all the things I like to do. In my life, I've gotten sidetracked by enjoying doing so many different things. There were so many things I wanted to be and to do! A musician, songwriter, photographer, writer, photo editor, film maker, actor--the list goes on. There were things in that list that I got good at, and worked really hard at, but they didn't seem to really take off. I was thinking yesterday as I raked--such good meditation--that in order to be good at something, you must not only put the work in, but really, you should enjoy the work involved. Obvious, right? Isn't it funny how something so obvious can suddenly seem so clear to you? Forcing yourself to put in the work that you don't truly enjoy to get to an end that you desire, well, that's just not going to work. At least not for me. 

Recently, I started to unclutter my life: getting rid of things that have been piling up, not being used. Another facet of this de-cluttering is to remove the doing of activities that might be better left to others. I'm trying very hard at streamlining my life, and to not desire to do things that might dilute the other things in my life. For example, I recently gave my chickens to my neighbor. I miss the chickens, but they took up brain space (and money) that perhaps gave me less time to spend on my garden and fruit trees. I still get great eggs, but now I am focusing on treating my trees a little better. I also sold my serger (a finishing sewing machine). I decided: you know what? I'm not a sewer! I like the idea of making something I dream up, but I'm not good at it!! I don't want to put in the work. So I retired the idea of being a sewer. I kept my old Singer for small jobs--hemming and the like--but I allowed myself to let go of making ambitious quilts or a clothing line. 

You catch my drift here? It doesn't mean that I'm putting down my guitar or camera, but you know the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none?" 

What I'm focusing on these days: the freezer and the larder. Using things up, although we still have a few months before true bounty is upon us, is one of my priorities. A couple of true gems I made this year were pesto, oven roasted tomatoes and salt pork. Pesto and oven roasted tomatoes have been standbys for years, the salt pork is new. Instead of freezing all the back fat I got from our half-hog for sausages, I made it into salt pork, cubed it, and froze it in ziploc bags. It has proven indispensable. But the best thing I have made with it is this buttermilk crackling cornbread. Oh, my. This fresh out of the oven with syrup and (redundant) butter was heaven. It was equally good the next morning, and aside this soup. (The recipe for the cornbread is in a link below, if you don't have Joy of Cooking. Let me know if it doesn't come up; it was a preview of the book.)

 Orzo and Chickpea Soup

Can you tell me when people started thinking that soup had to be the consistency of pudding? Whenever I stop in a diner and have soup, it's gloppy and horrible. Why?? This is a hearty soup with a nice broth. The way it should be. Soup, to me, isn't a science but an amalgamation of some good things in the fridge. It always starts with good stock. The ingredients here are just a guideline. Soup loves creativity and turning leftovers into gold.

A few cloves of garlic
1 onion
6 or so white mushrooms
2 carrots
Salt, Pepper, dried Italian herbs
6 cups of stock, chicken or vegetable
1 cup of roasted tomatoes
1 tablespoon of pesto
1 can of chickpeas
1/3 cup of orzo
About a 1/2 cup of chopped fresh parsley

1. Saute one medium onion and a few cloves of garlic, diced up, in good olive oil.

2. Add some veggies, here I finely diced some mushrooms and added a few carrots, peeled and left in big spears.

3. Add salt, pepper, some dried Italian herbs.

4. Slowly add about six cups of room temperature chicken stock, letting it heat up before you add more.

5. Add about a cup of oven roasted tomatoes. It doesn't matter if they are frozen or not. I chose to leave them whole, but you can coarsely chop them too.

6. A heaping spoonful of pesto. Mix it in.

7. A can of chickpeas. (I like keeping a can or two of beans around to put together a quick meal.)

8. Have the soup simmering for about fifteen minutes to let everything mingle. Then add about a 1/3 cup of orzo. Let it continue to simmer on low to cook the pasta.

9. Add a bunch of chopped fresh parsley.

10. Serve with this cornbread. (Joy of Cooking, Buttermilk Crackling Cornbread, page 778.) And have any leftovers toasted with butter and maple syrup!

Citrus Cleaner

The only large parcel of citrus I ordered this year were two big boxes of sour oranges from my mother's neighbor's tree. After juicing them all, I froze the juice for later use in the summer when porch-side cocktails are in order. I find that this method keeps the citrus flavor a little fresher, but I still stand by my sour mix! After making more candied citrus peels than should be normal, I still had a large amount of peels left over. Rather than compost them right away, I squished them into two half-gallon jars and covered them with white vinegar. They sat for a month, and just the other day I drained the bright gold liquid off into one of the jars. It was very concentrated, so I then filled the jar with more white vinegar. Now I have sour orange vinegar, which I certainly could use for some interesting pickles or dressings, but what I intended for them was household cleaner. There's a strange sort of pride in making a cleaner that you could cook with!

I usually fill a spray bottle halfway with vinegar, then add water and a drop or two with dishwashing soap. That's it. But now when I'm cleaning, it will smell slightly of Florida, which is just what you need in the tail-end of winter.

Do you use homemade cleaners in your home? What do you make/use?