Quest for the Perfect Loaf of Bread

Off on a new adventure -- the quest for the perfect loaf of bread!! I picked up Peter Reinhart's "Whole Grain Breads" book a while back, but was daunted by the seeming complexity of his method. Guess it needed to perk for awhile. Bored with my old standby recipes, I recently picked it up again looking for inspiration. And in looking at it again, I realized the methods and recipes really aren't that difficult. (In fact, they're actually easier, and less time-consuming, than traditional methods.) Made a loaf of multigrain bread yesterday, and was pleased -- I used some corn and oats, as well as the wheat, and the result was a nice, just-sweet-enough bread.

This was a good thing, because, after obtaining some whole corn recently, I milled enough for a batch of cornbread (which was an adventure in itself!!). We were both quite excited to try it -- and were sorely disappointed. Not nearly sweet enough. Ah, well -- how boring would life be, if everything was easy!! Just means I get to do a little experimenting... Read more!

"Homemade" Cantaloupes, Sugar Baby Pumpkins

Although I've been pickling cucumbers from it for a little while, we finally enjoyed our first real garden treat tonight -- a small, but very meaty, cantaloupe. Lovely!! I chose a small variety to save space. The flavor is wonderful!! When we transplanted them, we thought they were okra -- which would have worked perfectly in the space alloted. So they're a bit crowded, but are producing nicely nonetheless. Unfortunately, one of the plants is next to the cucumbers, and I could detect a little cucumber flavor, but not enough to put me off (I do not enjoy cucumbers, honeydew, watermelon, etc.).

We have some Sugar Baby pumpkins that look just about ripe, too. The Ball book tells how to pressure can it, and has what looks like a nicely spiced pickle recipe, too. Looks like we'll probably have them coming our our ears, so I'm planning to try both.

How nice to finally (literally) be enjoying the fruits of our labors!! Read more!

Much To Do, & Glad of It!!

It's probably a good thing the chicken I bought on sale ($.59 a pound!!) was still partly frozen. Otherwise, I would have felt compelled to can it tonight -- several hours' work, and I didn't arrive home until after 6:00. And there are still several pounds of apricots in the fridge, waiting to be canned (as jam or otherwise) or frozen (a good option, if you need to postpone the work for a little while). I did manage to make a batch each of nectarine jam and dill pickles last night, and a batch of peach jam this a.m.

And, in the garden, there are just about enough pickles for another batch of sweet relish, a couple dozen pint jars of which I need to make this year. It's astonishing how much work there is this time of year, for those of us who are determined feed ourselves and our families as cost effectively as possible. (Not to mention the quality...) I can appreciate how those ladies not that long ago must have felt, the first time they opened a can of peaches that hadn't cost them hours on their feet in the kitchen, arms itchy with peach fuzz (and, very likely, itching also from bug bites obtained while picking the fruit), sweat pouring down their faces, children underfoot.

I'm very grateful to have the ability, physically and mentally, to have learned the various arts (canning, dehydrating) necessary for storing food. There is a huge amount of work to be done at the moment, and I'm doing my best to do it -- even if it occasionally means dashing home at lunchtime to start a batch of pickles, as I did earlier this week. Much work, but very satisfying, too! Read more!

Asian Plum Sauce

Been meaning to try the Asian-style plum sauce recipe in the Ball book. Looks like a good one -- plums, sugar (honey, in our case), vinegar, a little ginger, garlic & chilies... Bought what I thought was enough plums to make it at a fruit stand awhile back, but when I got them home, realized I was a little short. So I halved them & put them in the freezer until I could come by a few more.

Funny, how these things sometimes work out -- when we met some relatives for lunch at a restaurant in the Bay Area recently, I was telling them about my canning adventures, and happened to mention the plum recipe & that I needed a few more plums. As we were preparing to leave, my husband walked out first. But he immediately came back, an odd expression on his face. He gestured for us to follow him, and we were astonished to find a large basket of lovely little Santa Rosa plums, free for the taking! Feeling a little funny, but giggling all the while, each of us put a few in our pockets.

I finally had a chance to try the recipe this a.m., and it turned out lovely. The recipe says it'll make 4 pints, but DH does not enjoy sweet sauces, so put it into the little 4-oz jars. Seems I always end up with more jam, sauce or whatever than canning recipes say (presumably because of the extra liquid contributed by the honey) -- I just took three half-pints and a dozen 4-oz jars out of the canner. Those will really make a nice contribution to a stir fry, or be lovely to dip chicken into, one of these days.

The Ball book has quite a number of other sauce and condiment recipes, which I intend to make as the summer progresses. As the storebought versions of them typically are expensive, and contain sugar (which I cannot have), I'm very pleased to be able to make and store a selection of them. I'm not sure which I'm looking forward to more -- the satisfaction of having made them affordably, and in such a way that I can actually eat them myself (and having adjusted the seasoning to our tastes), or the variety they will contribute to our food storage. Either way, it will be a lovely thing to see them on the shelf, and enjoy them throughout the coming year! Read more!

The Next Link in the Chain

My niece and I made dill pickles today, and, for the first time, all of the cucumbers came from our garden. We've now had several opportunities to can things together, and she really seems to be enjoying learning this new skill. I suppose this isn't necessarily all that surprising, as she loves to cook. But teaching her this art is important to me for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it will give her the option, one day, of saving a lot of money while feeding herself and the people she loves as well as possible. I find canning to be, among other things, very empowering.

Using my homemade pickle relish to make salad dressing, for example, dramatically demonstrated this for me. I decided to make my own pickles because I've noticed a flavor and odor in storebought pickles (both sweet relish and dill) lately. Planted pickling cucumbers, and in due course, made a batch of pickle relish. Used it to make salad dressing, and was astonished -- haven't had pickle relish this good since I was a kid!! All of the flavor "notes" are there, and in the right balance. I will definitely make that again -- I'll have to, as we seem to go through a couple of pints a month. At this rate, I'll need at least a couple dozen to get us through to next canning season. Hope my cucumber supply holds out!!

Got a kick out of teaching her to crack walnuts, too. Found them awhile back, while driving down a country road off the route I normally take. Harvest was last fall, but they still had their sign out. As I'd rather deal directly with the farmer any day, and assuming they were trying to get rid of the last of their crop (if they hadn't just forgotten to take their sign down), I stopped. Picked up 20 lbs, in shell, for $.40 a pound. This works out to about $.80 a pound, as it's about a 2:1 ratio -- which is still quite a bit better than the $4.95 a pound you pay for them already shelled! When she found out I had nuts to crack, she couldn't wait to try her hand. I showed her how to crack them, and DH showed her how to take the little part with the acid out. She had a ball, and ended up helping me shell 5 lbs -- taking home a quart of halves in the process. (She'll get 3 of the 6 quarts of pickles we made, too, but they weren't ready to be moved by the time I had to take her home.)

It's so cool, sending her home with things she's made herself!! And there is great comfort and satisfaction in knowing that she will remember these times, and, hopefully, be inspired to create these kinds of things herself for the people she loves, one day. These skills are too important to be lost, and the absolute best way to avoid that is to take a direct role in handing them down from one generation to the next.
Read more!

Homemade Pickle Relish

Made some sweet pickle relish recently, and tasted it last night. I'll never buy relish in the store again!!! This was a lengthy process, involving soaking the cucumbers, peppers and onions in salted ice water, then fresh ice water, and, finally, a vinegar-and-spice solution, before canning them. I was originally motivated by what I perceive as the deteriorating quality of the store-bought product, but when all was said & done, I realized there’s a nice side benefit – I’ve saved some money, too!

Over half of the cucumbers were home-grown (a little later in the season, they all will be). The rest were bought at the farmers market for less than $2. I used maybe $1.50 worth of red peppers, along with a couple of onions ($.50), 6 cups of vinegar (another $.50) and 2 cups of honey ($2). The canning jars were purchased on sale ($4.50). So, for a total investment of about $11, I have 9 jars of relish, which works out to about $1.22 each, including the jar. However, as I reuse them constantly, I prefer not to include the cost of the jars in the equation. Sooo, excluding the jars, the cost drops to $6.50 total, or $.72 per jar. Either way, a significant savings over the $2.25 I usually pay at the market – and, though it's thinner (store-bought relish is thickened slightly), the quality of the relish is definitely superior!

I’ll need to do another batch or two over the course of the summer (need a couple dozen or so, to get us through until the next cucumber crop). I make it a habit to taste things as I go along, and I thought I'd need to tinker with the recipe, as I didn't quite like the balance of flavors, even after it was heated in the vinegar solution. However, once it's canned, it comes out perfect!! It has all the complexity of flavor that commercial pickle relish used to have.

And the best thing about this recipe, unlike some pickle recipes, is that it doesn’t need to “cure” – once the jars come out of the canner, the relish is ready to use.

Also on my radar screen is dill relish, though I probably only need about a dozen half-pint jars for the year. Although I usually use it only for tuna and potato salad, I might make it a couple dozen, just for good measure. The recipe in the Ball book looks like a good one.

Another thing I’m looking forward to doing: A few jars of dainty little baby dills, if I can accumulate enough that size at the same time. Or maybe baby dills & baby carrots. Or baby dills, baby carrots & baby onions. We do have some okra coming in; that will be nice pickled, as well… Read more!