bread-n-butter

Thank you, Marisa McClellan, for your obsession with things in jars.  Small batch canning is really the way to go for would be canners on the go.  This recipe is from her Food In Jars, a book I highly recommend to anyone wanting to dabble in putting up.

My local farmer's market had a "last chance" batch of pickling cucumbers, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to make up some pickles or relish or whatever struck me once I got home.  I missed the sweet tang of a bread and butter pickle so I sliced and salted and stuck a bowl (with lid, not pictured) in the refrigerator to wait.

6 cups of pickling cucumbers, 2 cups sliced red peppers, 2 cups sliced onions, 1/4 cup pickling salt

The following afternoon, I rinsed and drained my vegetables and let them sit while I boiled up 2 cups of apple cider vinegar and 1 1/2 cups of sugar.  When the sugar was dissolved, I added my seasonings:  2 tbsp of mustard seed, 2 tsp of celery seed, 1 tsp of red pepper flakes, and 1/2 tsp of ground cloves.  Once the mixture boiled, I dumped in the vegetables, using the 5 minute cook time to set up my sterilized jars and other canning equipment.  Stir occasionally, then remove from heat to fill your jars.

Look how far above the brine this is.  Give it a minute!

And this is 5 minutes later.

At this point, you use your tongs to fill your clean, hot jars with the cucumber mixture.  Carefully fill the jars with the brine, leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.

Marisa's recipe says 5 pints but I don't end up with more than 3 and a snack bowl

Tap your jars on a towel covered counter (you do NOT want hot, sticky pickle juice and broken glass all over!) or use a de-bubbling tool to remove all the air pockets.  Check that headspace and adjust the brine levels accordingly.  Wipe your rims, place your lids and rings on to finger tight, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

I remove the lid and let it sit, burner off, for 5 minutes just as a matter of habit after a bad, bad experience with canning tomatoes.  Take your jars out of the canner and let them cool on the counter.

Try really hard to not get into them for 48 hours.  I know, it's difficult, but it will be worth the wait!

For a more detailed, official write up, I refer you to Food in Jars:  Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round by Marisa McClellan

with relish!

Hot dogs get a bad rap as being filled with leftovers and rejected parts of a multitude of animals but there are some good ones out there - Nathan's and Hebrew National spring to mind as easily-acquired brand names, and any butcher worth their salt will stock a tasty local-style dog.   But as a friend once said to me, the main function of a hot dog is as a vehicle for condiments.

With that in mind, I made Cucumber Relish.  I have plans for ketchup and mustards at a later date!  Fortunately, I read the entire recipe ahead of time, not always something I do but I am getting better, because not only was there a 3-4 hour soak time but there was also a 12-18 hour overnight soak!  There is also an overwhelming amount of dicing and chopping that I was able to make short work of with my cute little Manual Food Processor.

from this...

to this...in only a matter of strokes!

A bit of mixing to show off the colors of the red and green peppers, red onions, and pickling cucumbers used, and voila...

from the old Ball Blue Book of Canning

Speaking of colors, turmeric stains everything.  Oh my word, does anyone have any useful ways to take it off my rubber spatulas (scrapers for those of you in other parts of the country)?  I had to use stainless cleaner to get it out of my giant stainless steel bowl and eventually, it will stop making me look like I have nicotine-stained fingernails!

Aside from inadvertent dying of everything it came into contact with, the relish canned up easily, no major missteps, which is more than I can say about my first venture with tomatoes.  But that is for another post!

You can vary the taste by changing up the type of vinegar (white or apple cider) and sugar (white granulated or brown) and onions (white, yellow, red...).

From Ball Blue Book

2 quarts chopped cucumbers (about 8 medium)
2 cups chopped sweet green peppers (4 small)
2 cups chopped sweet red peppers (4 small)
1 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
1 tbsp turmeric
1/2 cup salt
2 quarts cold water
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 quart vinegar
2 sticks cinnamon
1 tbsp whole mustard seed
2 tsp whole allspice
2 tsp whole cloves

Combine vegetables in a large bowl; sprinkle with turmeric.  Dissolve salt in 2 quarts cold water and pour over vegetables; let stand 3 to 4 hours.  Drain; cover vegetables with cold water and let stand 1 hour.  Drain thoroughly.  Combine sugar  and vinegar in a large saucepot.  Tie spices in a spice bag; add to sugar mixture.

Bring to a boil; pour over vegetables.  Cover; let stand 12 to 18 hours in a cool place.  Bring vegetables to a boil;  reduce heat and simmer until hot.  Pack hot relish into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace.  Adjust two-piece caps.  process 10 minutes in a boiling-water canner

Yield:  about 6 pints

a pretty pickle

sliced thin, salted and about to be iced

At long last, I brave the true Bread and Butter Pickles (with onions!) from scratch, no cheater packet of spices.  Before breakfast, I sliced all 4lbs of them, with 2 lbs of red onions, and hit 'em up with salt and ice.  And there they sat, shedding excess water so they could make me up a crunchy little pickle.

rinsed and drained

add pickles to stuff I already boiled

It was a sticky but satisfying experience and I am the happy holder of 5 pints and 2 half pints of pickles.  And I still forgot to do the "let the air out" trick...one of these days, I'll remember that. At least these pickles are not floating!

Traditional Bread and Butter Pickles
The Ball Complete Book of Home Preservation

The branzini fish from the other night cooked up fabulously on the grill with some red onions and sliced lemon inside, salt and pepper and olive oil on the outside.  Nothing like the afternoon high Colorado winds to act as bellows for your charcoal grill.  The kids were not as impressed but that was ok as the fish itself did not yield as much filet as I'd have initially thought after my trout experiences.  The taste was somewhere between trout and mackerel, both of which are pictured below, losing their skin in my little Aussie grill.  All in all, I'd have it again.  The fact that the internet touts it as a "green fish" is just a bonus.  Thankfully, my fishmonger scales them all for me.

can it

Canning!  There is something magical about opening up the cabinet and finding last spring's strawberries in a jar, waiting to join up with a bit of peanut butter on fresh bread.  It brings back not only the season, but in my case, my childhood.  My family has always preserved the harvest and I have fond memories of my grandmother's garden with the strangely colored and shaped tomatoes.  Of course, I have less fond memories from my teenage years of standing in a warm kitchen, working the food moule to get the seeds out of stewed tomatoes prior to freezing, but I blame that on being a teenager more than the activity itself.

Harvest has begun here in Colorado and I have made several fun trips to the farmer's markets, making friends with the various vendors.  I am furiously scouring canning cookbooks from my collection and from the stack of library books I have acquired over the last week.

First up, unexpectedly, were figs.  Decidedly not a farmers market, or even a purveyor of local foods, Costco had a flat of the loveliest looking fresh figs.  In my quest to educate the palates of my sons (8 and 10), I snagged them without hesitation.  Tasty, exotic, and good for you, I could overlook their far flung origin.  The boys liked them, but not enough to consume the lot before they deteriorated!

Fig Preserves in under 3 hours

Alas, I was so disorganized with my canning supplies - we've moved since I last canned (20+lbs of sour cherries, much more than that of peaches) - that I could not find lids so the fig preserves had to go to the refrigerator.  They are delicious and pathetically easy.  Of course, I cannot find the exact recipe online but I have it jotted down, er, somewhere.  Until then, know that it involved cutting the washed figs in half, tossing with some sugar (ok, a lot of sugar) in a stockpot, and cooking down for a couple hours.  In the last 30 minutes, you add sliced lemons that, believe me, you do not want to pull out later.  The candied tart taste of the thin lemon slices adds additional class to an already decadent breakfast treat.

Then came the farmer's market with the boys, they had yummy tamales and tasted local honey, where I picked up some beets on a whim.  Things One and Two do love beets, I'm not so fond of giving them to Thing Two because, let's face it, he is Pig-Pen when he eats and I have yet to find a laundry solution to beet juice.  To prolong the inevitable...

And finally, I have tried my hand at pickles.  I've made many a jam, but clearly, pickles are going to require a packing talent I do not have as yet!  Look at that space at the bottom!  *hangs head*

As I survey my counter full of veg and my very messy house, I wonder what my house guest tonight would prefer...a clean bathroom or some Red Onion Jam?