Category: canning

Pickled.

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I had quite the simple plan for Saturday – get up early, hit market, buy up a bunch of green beans and head home to pickle them.  Only by the time we got to market at 8:30 Saturday morning, I was hard pressed to find any green beans. It’s August.  I know they are in season and if I had only listened to my husband and planted pole beans like I usually do, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.  Oh well, next year.  This year, since I’m already buying tomatoes from local farmers for canning (yes, I’m complaining about the squirrels yet again, although to their credit, they have seriously chilled out, which may or may not be related the food I’ve been throwing at them out the back door they keep attacking), it wasn’t that much of a step to buy green beans for pickles.  And I’ve had a number of requests for them this year. 

At any rate, Double H farm came through with the beans and so I gladly headed home to hunker down to spend my weekend pickling and recovering from pickling by the pool.

When I took the class where I learned to can, we sampled these green bean pickles and the recipe came in the packet we took home from the class.  I liked them and since then, have made them almost every year, generally about the point where we can’t give green beans away anymore and we’re pretty tired of eating them ourselves.  Not that we eat alot of the pickled beans, but we know plenty of folks that love them and will stand there and eat the whole jar within minutes of opening it.  Last year, I experimented with Leni’s lemon basil in the beans and the response was overwhelming that I should ONLY use that basil in them.  So I planted my own this year.  Definitely put it your list of plants to consider for next summer’s garden.  As someone who is very conscious of where all our food comes from,  I love the citrus zest this plant adds to any dish and that it keeps it very local indeed.  I especially love it in my homemade tartar sauce. And in Caprese salad?  Seriously, seriously divine. 

I put up 14 jars of pickled green beans on Saturday and after soaking all night Saturday (in a punchbowl I decided could do double duty instead of buying myself a new glass mixing bowl and saving myself some cash),  and simmering all day Sunday, I yielded 13 jars of watermelon rind pickles.  The weather cooperated for pool time on Saturday, but Sunday, as I loaded the car with a gaggle of neighborhood girls, we heard the rumble of thunder and of course raindrops started falling….  which meant I ended up with a squealing basement full of little girls, their sisters and their cousins until dinner last night.  And the power didn’t go out with this rain, which is something slightly unheard of around here.  Although I’m pretty sure the gaggle of girls would have had a great time anyway.

Last year I posted my watermelon rind pickle recipe and this year I thought I’d share my green bean pickle recipe.   I know the original recipe was in an unnamed magazine article by Andrea Chesman, dated 1996.  I’m not sure if this recipe was in any of her cookbooks or not.  She suggests using tarragon or dill instead of basil as well.  I suggest lemon basil. 

Green Bean Pickles
1 tsp. pickling salt
2 cloves garlic, cut in half
1 spring fresh basil (about 8 leaves)
Green beans, cut to fit in jar
3/4 cup vinegar
Boiling water
In clean jars, place salt, garlic and basil.  Pack the beans on top of that and pour boiling vinegar over.  Top with boiling water to the rim, leaving headspace of about 1/2 inch.  Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. 
Pickles need about 6 -8 weeks to fully develop their flavor and should be stored in a cool, dry place.  Unsealed jars should be stored in the refrigerator and I’ve noticed they keep for quite a bit.

Of Tomatoes.

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Tomatoes are where the whole foodie thing started for me.  I realized back in college, some 20 years ago, that they were really only worth eating when they were in season where I lived and not trucked in.  Since then, not only have I almost always had a little spot of tomatoes growing somewhere, I’ve learned how to put them up, so I can eat my tomatoes all year long.  I started canning well over a decade ago, having scooped up a canning pot at a rummage sale for a song, then took a food preservation class up at Monticello one Saturday morning.  I’ve taught countless friends how to can over the years too.  I’m really uptight about knowing where our food comes from and how it’s packaged, so canning is essential to me. 
When Edie & I visited Pete and  Renee in June I mentioned I was in the market for a new canner – mine was starting to get some rust spots.  Renee pulled hers out of the shed and gave it to me, as well as bunch of jars. Mine was quite a bit larger, but I realized, they hold the same number of jars! (I think my big old one is meant for quart jars, while I prefer to can in pint jars.) Yesterday was the first time I used the new canner, and while there were some adjustments to it, I really liked it.  For starters, my old one was so big that it took over an hour to get it to come to a boil from the time I filled it up and set it on the stove.  I  would center it over 2 burners and crank them up and that would speed up the process, but it would make the kitchen just ungodly hot.  With the new one from Renee, it fits beautifully on one burner and takes about half the time to heat up.  Of course, canning is a hot process, especially tomatoes, because you have to process them in a hot water bath for 45 minutes. Which means, boiling them for 45 minutes.    It wasn’t quite as hot as it has been here, but it still is August and this is Virginia, so putting up 27 pounds of tomatoes wasn’t the coolest thing I could have done, but come January and February, when I open some of those jars, I’m going to sniff in the smell of August and remember how hot I was, how hot the kitchen was that day.   As someone who is always freezing during the winter, it generally raises my inner core at least 5 degrees to just smell that jar.

That’s what 27 pounds of tomatoes look like, in a box.  They were ‘scratch & dent’ tomatoes at the farmer’s market,  which is the way to go if you are buying tomatoes to put up.  Last winter we went through not quite 4 cases of tomatoes.  I yielded 18 pint jars yesterday – a case and a half, so I will need to spend at least one more afternoon in the kitchen, maybe two before the end of the growing season, just for tomatoes.  I still need to put up some peaches and I’m getting requests for more of my green bean pickles. 
I usually do supplement what we grow, as our garden is small. This year though, the squirrels have been completely & totally out of hand.  I suppose it’s how hot & dry it’s been (dry as in, no rain, not dry heat), has been a factor, although their crawling up the screen doors and yelling at me while I’m standing in my kitchen does seem a bit over the top.   They’ve stripped all my tomato plants of any fruit, leaving me pretty ticked off.  They also got everything off the peach tree and I’m sure a good portion of the cherry tree, although they did have to battle it out with some birds who kept attacking them everytime they went near the tree.  (That was pretty funny to watch too and kept us entertained for a few weeks.).  It’s man vs. nature here these days, as we curse the squirrels.  I grabbed the very last green tomato off the vine the other day for us, but it’s August, there are still blooms on the plants and I am still holding out hope we can eventually triumph over the squirrels.  Sadly, living in the city means we can’t shoot them, but I’m hoping Edie’s picked up enough archery skills at camp this summer to want to practice on them when she gets back. 

Strawberries!

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Somehow I have been too swamped the entire strawberry season to be able to pick strawberries and then have an an entire day to dedicate to putting them up.  A friend let me know the season was quickly winding down thanks to the recent heat wave, but my weekend was completely tied up with soccer.  (Oh soccer, I already have such a long list of reasons why I don’t like you,  to which this got added, but my daughter loves you, which really sort of trumps.  And we won’t get into how I resent motherhood for making me a better person and overlooking these things I hate simply because she loves them.) Monday morning, after I put Edie on the bus, I started calling around the local pick your own spots.  Turns out the season ended Saturday, of course.  The day I spent the entire day on the soccer field.  Grrrr.  I widened my search to a few places “over in the valley”.  The beauty of living 20 minutes from the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley is that they are always little bit behind the growing season from us (And a little cooler in the summer!).   Turns out, their berry picking season is still going, so I packed myself up and hit the road for Middle River Farms. 

It was, in short, the best berry picking experience.  The rows were marked where the last person had left off, so you knew exactly where to start.  They had someone in the field, directing you where to go. The prices were half of what we pay on this side of the mountain.  And all for an extra 15-20 minutes of driving time.  They were still less than 55 miles from my front door, qualifying as local.  The berries were much larger than the ones Edie & I had picked here a few weeks too.  So many things about it to make me happy.

At any rate, I picked a quick not quite 15 pounds, brought them home, sorted and dealt with them.  I froze some whole, chopped and stewed and froze some for yogurt, and kept some for a nice strawberry salad for dinner last night and strawberry shortcake for breakfast this morning. 

No, I don’t make jam.  I’ve tried, several years in a row, and it was a disaster.  I may try again one of these days, but I was not in the mood to fool with it yesterday.   And yes, we enjoy strawberry shortcake for breakfast.  Sub plain yogurt for the whipped cream, and voila, breakfast.

Although the chocolate sponge cake may have been a bit decadent.

Birthday Week, Parts Three and Four.

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Friday was Pat’s actual birthday.  Usually, when I am canning peaches every summer, I whip up a few pies while I’m at it and stash them in the freezer. I found out one year that peach pie is his favorite, so to be able to just pull one out of the freezer and call it day has been glorious.  One of those things I really love about myself, you know?   This year, for reasons that I can’t remember why now, I didn’t.  I think after spending 2 weekends back to back canning peaches and tomatoes and everything else in sight, I didn’t feel like making a pie crust.  And then Pat told me it was okay, because he wasn’t sure he wanted a peach pie this year anyway.  Phew.
However, that meant that I had nothing to pull out of my sleeve on his actual birthday.  And true to form, I was getting weary of cranking up the oven and baking a treat.  I still have a good bit of canned peaches on hand, so I knew it had to be something that used them up.  Thank you internet, for inspiring this:

Peach Pound Cake.  I cut the recipe in half, and used the other half of the jar of peaches I popped open to make a glaze.  Super easy, super good.  Even better the next morning with yogurt on top for breakfast.

Saturday night was the big slumber party.  Edie had 5 friends over.  Why do I think it’s easier to host a slumber party than to just spring for a party at the bowling alley or Bounce & Play or any of the other places around town that cater to this sort of thing?  Oh that’s right, I find paying for it harder than cleaning my house and dealing with 6 little girls for a night.  I am that cheap.

We went with cheese pizza for dinner and I outsourced it to Mona Lisa Pasta.  Well, at least the dough part.  For $2.50, you can buy a dough ball, bring it home, roll it, top it and bake it yourself.  And since all the mommies but one decided to stay and have a glass of wine (or 4), Pat stepped up and took care of making dinner.  (He’s a total keeper.)

Dessert was the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Centers from Cooks Illustrated.  So, so easy and so, so good.  And they looked divine on the pink depression glass cake stand Allison found for me.  (I need a new butter dish please, a round one.  Preferably old lady looking china.  Thanks.  Your thrifting luck has been better than mine lately.)  Moms stayed for that too.  I think we may have a reputation for serving good food.

Breakfast was chocolate waffles, topped with your choice of strawberries or cherries (canned by me last summer of course), fresh whipped cream and sausage from Tom & Michele’s pigs over at Open Gate Farm.  Last summer when we went to visit,  we got to watch some piggies being born, so when I told Edie I got some sausage from them, she asked if it was made from those pigs.  No, they’re not quite old enough yet.  “Oh, then it must be from the ones I helped feed.  That’s cool too.”
That’s my girl.  On a first name basis with her food. 
So, birthday week, with all of it’s baking and celebrating is over.   We finally get to settle into the winter doldrums. I spent a week pulling out all the stops and making sure everyone got their favorite food for their birthdays.  The chocolate waffles are by far, the most requested breakfast whenever Edie has a friend sleepover.  I came up with the recipe myself after a few experiments and I’ll share it below.  The tally of baked goods for the week?  6 dozen cupcakes, 1 cheesecake, and 1 peach pound cake.  Also made were lasagna, pizza and creamy shrimp & spinach stew.  Yum.  I think we need a week of beans & rice to recover.
And I’ll admit, after all the girls left Sunday morning, I crawled back into bed with a book and stayed there until it was time to make dinner.  I’m currently reading Life by Keith Richards.  Who knew he loved being a boy scout?
Chocolate Waffles
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar (or more, to taste). 
Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl.    Separate 2 eggs.  Beat  yolks and combine with:
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk
a heaping spoonful of yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
Add to dry mix.  Beat remaining egg whites until fluffy and fold in.  Cook according to your waffle maker’s instructions.
They are good served with fruit and whipped cream, but syrup and butter work just fine too.

Birthday Week, Part One.

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The other people who live in my house have their birthdays this week.  Edie came home from the hospital ON Pat’s birthday actually.  I’ll admit, I milked that for a few years.  I still struggle with pulling off celebrations for both of them.  After all, they are two days apart!

This year, Edie’s birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the week.  It was decided that her party would be the following weekend.  Since Pat’s birthday is actually on that weekend, I decided to have his celebration first, so it wouldn’t get swept under the rug, as it seems to be every year.  So, Saturday night, we had a few friends over for drinks and cake.

 To start off the baking, I mean, birthday week, I decided to go with a cheese cake.    I topped it with peaches I canned from our tree in the front yard.  I cooked them just a wee bit, added some corn starch to thicken it and voila.

The recipe is my treasured, handwritten copy of Mrs. Van Popple’s cheesecake.  I think I was about 8 when I declared this the best cheesecake ever and my Aunt Loretta made it for me every chance she got.  I’m not really sure who Mrs. Van Popple was, I think she may have been married to someone my Uncle Peter worked with, for?  Whomever she was, she had one incredible cheesecake recipe. Andoreda, as we kids called her, fought a long, hard battle with cancer.  The last time I saw her, she said, oh, let me get you that recipe, and I knew she knew, this was the last time I was ever going to see her.  There was no way she would just hand that recipe off.  Anytime I asked about it before, she would just bake me the cheesecake.   She had a brain tumor at that point, for years I had gotten letters from her with gibberish in the middle that I knew was caused by it, and sure enough, there is some gibberish in the recipe.  I had to learn to bake before I could decipher it.

And so, the best way I know to start my week of baking for loved ones is to start with the recipe that got me going.

Thinking Ahead.

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Last August, when it was so hot and dry, but yet the pole beans were doing fabulously production wise, I spent alot of time canning. And harvesting seeds. Yes, I was putting things away for next summer’s garden as well as for the coming winter months. While I was at it, I was thinking about Christmas gifts.

I hate the consumerism of the season. Hate buying a bunch of stuff. Hate receiving it too actually. The year I got a new crock pot for Christmas I was ecstatic, because I love getting everyday things I can use. Part of me feels old and boring with this, but I suppose that’s what happens when you are married with kids at a certain age. I got alot of handmade gifts growing up. My Aunt Loretta gave me the most wonderful handmade gifts. I still have alot of them, like the paper bead necklace, the ornaments she made me, the story she wrote for me and best of all, the recipe for the cherry cheesecake she would make me some years. She would bake gifts for everyone – there would be a pie or cake for every member of the household. I’m still in awe of the amount of baking that woman could pull off at Christmas every year. I aspire to bake like her, but even the years I do 25 dozen cookies and 3 cakes, I’m not sure I come close. That woman baked.

In that tradition, I give handmade gifts. I used to sew everything, some years I still do alot of sewing, but I have come to figure out things I can work on all year long. Which makes me feel slightly uptight and way too on top of things, but right about now, when I’m starting to get overwhelmed thinking about everything that has to happen between now and the big day……..I really start loving myself. Sort of like the years I get Pat’s January Birthday peach pie in the freezer in August, so after all that holiday and Edie birthday baking, I can pull something out of the freezer and have it be homemade and good. And last year, when I was out flat recovering from surgery, I was giddy to discover a stash of things I had already knit for Pat & Edie throughout the year, so they still got a hand-made mommy gift. I know I wasn’t that good this year (admittedly, I’ve been working on the same pair of fingerless gloves since last winter’s swim lessons), but I do have some good garden treats ready to go. If I learned anything from last Christmas, it was that my little bit of planning ahead is a very good thing.

It was good.

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Fried Sage Leaves, with goat cheese and Sea Salt.


Pickled Watermelon Rind. Crunchy and slightly sweet, with a nice savory undertone, no doubt the work of the cloves, ginger and cardamon. Definitely worth the effort and the wait. I will be making them again.


The loaded table. Turkey and all the trimmings. Many of which got sent home in a second cooler purchased just for us to bring it all home in. Our freezer is officially stocked for weeks to come….

And my dessert contributions. The pecan pie was declared perfect looking as it came out of the oven Wednesday night. The pumpkin pie came from the volunteer pumpkin from our garden. Both were quite tasty if I do say so myself.
And now to gear up for the next round…..

End of the Season.

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Since last spring, I have had the distinct pleasure in having that view right there, looking out from Leni’s front porch, while I have enjoyed the most lovely, lively and inspirational conversations every Second Wednesday of the month.

I had met Leni once, while assisting her first canning class at the cooking school, but otherwise, showed up at my first Wednesday knowing not a soul, nor what to expect. Over the months, I have met a number of lovely people, who all share a love of food, real food and alot of respect for knowing how to do things by hand, yourself. In short, I have found a world of kindred spirits. I met Rowena, who’s magazine I have picked up for years, completely inspired by her monthly meal planner. I have gotten to know Leni, my hostess.

The first time I met her, it was apparent she had this amazing knowledge of cooking and gardening that I really, really wanted to be able to tap into, but she is also charismatic as hell. I was, and still am, completely in awe that she invites me to hang out. I’m really not sure what I can offer. I like me, and I think I’m a good time, but I’m always slightly touched when other people think that about me too. Call me slightly humble.

Every second Wednesday, we have sat on the porch and discussed cooking, canning, raising children and livestock, gardening, we have toured the gardens, we have tasted each other’s treats from the garden and oven. It has been something I have looked forward to every month. Every month, I have driven home, feeling completely inspired, like anything I want to do is possible. I just need to figure out WHAT. But I also sense that will come in time. The universe has put this in my path, it will put whatever it is I’m supposed to do next in my path too. It has a habit of bonking me over the head with things.

Last night was the last Second Wednesdays of the season. They’ll resume again in May and I don’t think I can wait. Rowena mentioned she might be agreeable to some sort of winter plan….in the meantime, I will miss my Second Wednesdays. And I am already, even more than usual, anxiously awaiting the arrival of next spring already.

How to make Watermelon Rind Pickles.

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First, you consult every cookbook in the cabinet. You pull out all the ones that have a pickled watermelon rind recipe. Then you look to see what all the differences are and pick one.
Then, you take the rind of a watermelon. You peel the green outer layer off.
You chop it and soak it overnight in pickling lime. I read if you leave some of the pink on, it looks prettier. So I did.

You simmer it until translucent in a brine of sugar, vinegar and water, as well as select spices.


When it has achieved proper translucence, you pack it in jars, pouring the brine on top.

Process for 10 minutes and VOILA! Watermelon rind pickles!

I am the sort of person who hates to throw things out, I’m convinced I can get one more use out of it. I use vegetable scraps to make a broth before I put them in the compost bin. I turned a bedsheet turned shower curtain that I thrifted into matching skirts for me & Edie. If there is a way to find a new life for an object, I am all about it. So, watermelon rind pickles have appealed to me for years. I’ve never actually had one, but I love the idea. So, I finally decided to try them.

I pulled out every last cookbook I own and came up with 6 different recipes for them. Then I went on the internet and read some more about them. A friend who is a chef, who’s had them but never made them said to use pickling lime. Never used that before and only one recipe from my 6 had that. I found a recipe on a blog that used lime and it was from a New Orleans chef. The one recipe I had that used pickling lime was in one of those collections from a former college roommate’s grandmother’s church – you know the kind, the ones everyone submits a recipe for and they sell to raise money for something? I have a whole collection of them – all your best home cooking is right there in those.

Anyway, I had two seemingly credible recipes that involved the same proportions of sugar, vinegar and water, as well as similar spices. In talking to folks that have actually had these before, I made sure to ask about the spices, and the ones included in these two recipes came up time and time again.
A friend offered to come help, she’d actually eaten them before and so she had a good idea of what they needed to look like. She brought a few more recipes, one of which matched up with the two I was following, so I felt I was on the right track. Thank goodness she was here, because I probably would have jarred them up as soon as they started looking translucent. It’s a long time before they start looking that way and are totally that way.
The one deviation I made was cardamom. Betty said you needed it in there and one of the recipes called for cardamom seeds. I borrowed some ground from Betty and just threw it in, not measuring, just eyeballing. That’s the one part of the equation I’m not 100% on. Betty came by today though and looked at a jar up close and said they LOOK like the ones her grandmother made. In 6 weeks, we’ll know how close they are to TASTING like them.
The Recipe:
Take one watermelon rind. Peel the outer green layer off with a vegetable peeler. Cut into 1 inch by 1 inch pieces.
Dissolve 3 teaspoons lime in 2 quarts water. Pour over watermelon rind and soak overnight. Rinse at least 3x, or until water runs clear.
Combine:
8 cups sugar
4 cups water
4 cups white vinegar
Bring to a simmer.
Tie in spice bag and put in simmering liquid:
1 lemon, thinly sliced
1 large piece of ginger
3 sticks cinnamon
1 tablespoon whole cloves
(Generous sprinkle of cardamom)
Simmer spices in brine for 10 minutes, then add watermelon rinds. Simmer until translucent – this actually took about 2 hours. Pack in jars, cover with brine and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
I used one decent sized watermelon and got a dozen jelly jars full.