Category Archives: Preserving Food

Does Your Pickle Glow?

Posted on August 1, 2010 by | 15 Comments

The other night we had an informal barbecue in the neighbor’s back yard.  One of the kids had an electricity generating kit and a dad suggested they try to light up a pickle.  Excuse me?  After making sure there was nothing illegal going on we set about hunting for the largest dill pickle possible.

Pickle man excitedly ran back home to grab our pickle jar because I had made kosher-style dills with the largest of the garden cucumbers at the end of the season last year.  Some of those jars had just a few pickles in each because they were so big!

He came back, primed with pickle and they eagerly set about putting the right wires in the right places, there was a dramatic moment when the electricity was turned on and then…nothing.  They tried it again…nothing. And just as they were dejectedly putting away the tools of their scientific flop I suggested they get a commercial pickle.

A few minutes later someone appeared with a jar of unnamed dill pickles and they went about hooking up the new substitute pickle.  Expecting nothing they milled around unexcitedly.  The electricity was again turned on and the pickle did indeed come to life.  It glowed and sparked like the fourth of July.

Commercial picklers use alum in order to achieve that classic “crunch”.  That’s right, readers.  Those were the sparks of metal rescued from the mouths of babes.  Now who’s planning to make pickles from now on instead of buying them?  Hopefully YOU.

note:  On doing more research I read that this may work because of the salt levels and not just the metal factor.  Either way I’m happy to be making a less toxic version of my oldest child’s favorite snack.

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Processing Your Own Tea

Posted on June 30, 2010 by | 7 Comments

Last week I called the winner of the tea giveaway (although I have yet to hear back from her) so it’s time to talk about what to do with it.

The tea plant camellia sinensis grows up to zone 8 which means it’s well suited for Seattle’s maritime climate. It’s an evergreen shrub with nice foliage so it makes an attractive and highly useful landscaping plant. It wants well drained, slightly acidic soil although I have mine in clay but I’ve made it a little hill to help keep it’s feet out of standing water and it seems to have fared just fine this soggy spring.

To make white tea simply steam the leaves for about 30 minutes then dry them. You can do this in a rice steamer and then dry them on a cookie sheet in an oven that has been preheated to 250 and then turned off for a few hours for a few hours. Repeat heating the oven and turning it off for about 4 cycles.

To make green tea follow the drying instructions but don’t steam them first.

To make black tea you will ferment and then dry the leaves. Put fresh tea leaves in a pan with sides such as a lasagna pan and add water to cover. Leave it out on the counter overnight. According to Judy of Rockridge Orchards you need to “WATCH IT CLOSELY, there’s a fine line between fermenting (bubbly) and rotting (moldy) … very frustrating over night or mid-day to lose that carefully horded batch. If in doubt sooner, not later, is the best call…Once you’re satisfied it’s bubbled long enough (smells alot like black tea), you simply drain off the water, pat as dry as you can get with a paper towel, then follow the oven-drying method.

Now, how to get the winner to collect her tea pot and plant…

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Posted in Growing and Preserving Tea, Preserving Food

May Can Jam: Rhubarb

Posted on May 21, 2010 by | 13 Comments

Thanks to Meg at Grow and Resist fame I didn’t miss the can jam this month (whew!) Here’s to facebook. If only it had been around when I was in college so friends could have reminded me of deadlines…

This month’s Can Jam is either rhubarb or asparagus. I plan to do both many times as soon as Sunday’s garden tour is over but for now I had to bang out a quickie by the deadline to stay in the challenge. When I opened my google reader the other day I saw this. If you haven’t visited Tom’s blog you need to. A master gardener gardening in my zone who knows how to live in style, if only I could be a dog in his house…I have a feeling those dogs get some amazing eats and plenty of belly scratching which sounds perfect to me about now. I’m ordering the Mes Confitures cookbook through his amazon link as a way to thank him for sharing it with me.

His recipe calls for strawberries and rhubarb and since my strawberries aren’t quite ripe yet (plus I’m a rhubarb purist) I thought I’d make it without strawberry’s cloying ways. I followed his recipe with the following exceptions: No strawberries, second day brought the juice to 220, added the rhubarb and cooked until thick which took about 20 minutes longer, added 2 sprigs of rosemary during the fruit boil.

Can I just say divine? The hint of rosemary is suggestive without being overpowering, the rhubarb is fresh despite being cooked with just a hint of toothiness, the flavors have all the brightness of strawberry freezer jam with a touch of tart, plenty of sweet and all wrapped up in shelf stable jars.

I tried it immediately on a peanut butter sandwich and it was divine. It will be equally divine with roast duck or on camembert and crackers. And you can bet your bottom dollar it will be great on scones tomorrow morning.

What I’m most excited for though, is my daddy to come soon so I can combine it with fresh strawberries into a no-bake pie since he’s a strawberry rhubarb kind of guy. I think he’s actually timing his visit so that my strawberries are ripe when he’s here.

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Posted in Preserving Food, Rhubarb, Tigress Can Jam Challenge

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April Can Jam – Herbs in Jars

Posted on April 14, 2010 by | 10 Comments

This month’s can jam challenge was herbs that must be water bath processed. We’re still sitting on a lot of pickles and I don’t really have any seasonal veggies right for pickling right now but I do have a monster rosemary bush (honestly, it’s devious) and a huge box of rotting apples in the garage that I need to get off my butt and process. I made up some apple jelly to preserve my rosemary for posterity’s sake. Or for a nice pork loin, whichever comes first.

I’ve always wanted to make apple jelly and still have it on my list of things to do from last October that had somehow slipped behind the espresso maker and lay there out of sight until last week. Kizmet, no?

I thought my friend Joshua was brilliant last fall bringing lavender plum jam to the canning barter party so I can’t wait to pull this out in October. “Oh, just a little something I whipped up.” I’ll say nonchalantly.

Here’s the incredibly cool thing about apples – they are super high in pectin. Boy do I feel dumb sitting on a 1# bag of Pomona’s pectin that I bought when I first had this wild hair to grow or put up all our food. I thought I was so smart buying it in bulk for all the preserves I make. But then after rhubarb and strawberry season were over I realized I could make old fashioned preserves by either cooking stone fruit sufficiently to gel or by making my own pectin from apples. I made tomato, blackberry, apricot, plum, peach and jalapeno jams and jellies plus the orange and lemon rosemary marmalade for can jam in January all without pectin.

At least I can use my Pomona’s pectin to make homemade jello.

As apples come back into season I’ll be posting on how to make pectin from apples that you can use to make other preserves. I planted an early crab apple tree just for cider and pectin. Am I nutty or what? But on to this recipe.

Making apple jelly is simple but it does take a longer boil than you might be used to if you’ve only ever used store-bought pectin.

I’m basing these measurements loosely on those from The Herbfarm Cookbook which is a personal favorite of mine.

Herbed Apple Jelly

4 pounds organic unripe or tart apples, washed with skins on
8 cups filtered water

Cook the apples in the water at a simmer for about 45 minutes until they begin to fall apart. Line a colander with a porous tea towel or cheesecloth. Place the colander over a deep pot. Pour in the apples and let them drain for about 6-8 hours without pressuring it.

Discard the apples and place the pan with the apple liquid on the stove. Add 3 cups of sugar and bring it to a boil. Boil it until you hit the gel stage.

The gel stage is essentially that mysterious point where you’ve managed to boil out enough of the water to allow your mixture to set up, although it’s not exactly that simple. It’s not as simple as reaching a certain temperature because you might hit it before you reach that temperature depending on altitude and weather, all related to the boiling point of water. More on that here for you geeky types.

To test the gel stage you’ll want to have a cooled plate in the fridge waiting. I usually start checking for gel around 205 degrees Fahrenheit and then check every 5 or 10 minutes thereafter. When making this apple jelly my thermometer never registered above 205 yet at some point it hit gel stage regardless of the temperature not climbing.

Remove your chilled plate from the fridge and pour a small amount of liquid onto it then return the plate to the refrigerator. After 1 or 2 minutes remove it. If you can wipe a line through the liquid with your finger that remains you are there. If the liquid runs right into your newly made line and fills it up then you need to cook the jelly longer.

There are several other ways to tell you’ve hit gel stage as well, including pouring liquid off the spoon and gauging the shape it makes as it pours (it’s ready when it “sheets”) but the plate method is the easiest for you to replicate without seeing pictures of sheeting liquid.

Once you’ve hit gel stage pour your hot jelly into sterilized half pint jars and insert a sprig of your herb of choice, then water bath process for 5 minutes.

Note: inserting the sprig works great with woody herbs such as lavender, rosemary or thyme. If you are using a tender herb you may want to steep it in the jelly for 15 minutes before removing it and canning the jelly. A more tender herb would likely break down in the jelly over time, making it unattractive.

How will I use this jelly? I’ll probably use it as a glaze for pork, chicken or winter squash. It would also be great spread on crackers with Camembert.

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Posted in Apples, Preserving Food, Rosemary, Tigress Can Jam Challenge

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Guest Post – Rejuvelac, the easy-to-make probiotic

Posted on April 2, 2010 by | 14 Comments

This guest post is by Auburn in Southern New Hampshire.

Thanks to Wardeh I learned about the benefits of water kefir. I tried to find water kefir grains locally but couldn’t so I wound up ordering fresh grains online from the kefirlady with great results – the grains are growing fast, healthy and produce a nice soda-like drink but I’ll have to wait a few more weeks for the grains to yield a half a gallon per brew.

Two weeks ago, a nice lady from New Mexico introduced me to rejuvelac. She has a history of malabsorption leading to underweight, and went through an anti-candida treatment about a year ago. After adopting a traditional diet and adding daily raw live non-dairy fermented probiotic drinks like kombucha and rejuvelac, her digestion has improved markedly.

I don’t keep my house warm enough during the winter to brew kombucha successfully. It does well in the summer but it just takes forever the rest of the year so water kefir and rejuvelac are the easiest fermented drinks for me to make.

So what’s rejuvelac? It’s a very healthy drink you can make from grains. Rye and wheat berries, and quinoa produce the best results.

From Wiki: Rejuvelac contains eight of the B vitamins, vitamins E and K, and a variety of proteins, dextrines, carbohydrates, phosphates and amylases. It is rich in enzymes that assist in digestion.

I’ve been making it as per these basic instructions I found online:

- Soak a 1/2 cup of rye berries for 8 hours in filtered water in a glass jar.

- Drain, rinse, drain again and let the berries sprout.

- Then rinse again and fill the jar with two quarts of filtered water.

- Cap securely with a piece of cheesecloth and leave on the counter, away from direct sunlight, for a day or two.

- Strain (I suppose fruit juice could be added for flavour at this point, haven’t tried that) and refrigerate.

I find the resulting drink quite nice. It looks like lemonade and tastes kind of plain, can’t describe it – it’s an OK taste, though.

However, soaking with water doesn’t address the phytic acid problem so now I’m adding whey to the first step and letting the rye berries soak for a full day, after that I rinse them and let them sprout.

The rye berries can be reused a couple of times.

All sites I checked say to discard the “spent” berries or feed them to chickens. I don’t have chickens and hate to throw food away so I just cooked the berries in a little water until tender, about 5 minutes, I think. Added butter, some raisins, a bit of raw cream, pecans, walnuts, banana slices, and raw honey off the heat.

The hubby and I liked the new breakfast concoction a lot.

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Posted in I'm Looking for You, Lacto-fermenting, Local Grains - Where to Get Them and What to do with Them, Recipes for Seasonal and Local Foods, Rejuvelac

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