I bought beets at market last Saturday. I roasted them in a foil packet in just a wee bit of water at 375 for just over an hour. I let them cool, peeled them, tossed with with salad greens, goat’s milk feta cheese, salt & pepper, olive oil & red wine vinegar. We liked them. So much so I bought more beets at market this Saturday and when I suggested making that salad again today, Edie said okay. Which means she likes them I think. Dare I say we are starting to like beets? Continue reading
Category: cooking classes
Down at Market.
I totally meant to write this post earlier in the week, but one thing after another popped up and next thing you know, it’s a week later and one realizes oh, that never happened. And then, because I’m one of those people who believes that if you do something and you’re going to blog about it, you should do it in a timely manner, ie, just after it happens, I started debating whether to do it at all. Sitting here on a Sunday morning where the sun can’t quite decide if it’s coming out or not, realizing that until this stinking dining room gets done, getting this house clean and decluttered is just not an option and I really should get myself geared up just a little bit more before jumping back into that dining room project, it seemed like I should write about it. Continue reading
It’s Canning Season.
Sarah Cramer Shields for Beyond the Flavor
I kicked off the season of canning classes at The Happy Cook last night. Thanks everyone who came out – I had a blast, I hope you did too while learning something. I’m happy to report that the jam I rushed into jars last night that hadn’t quite set was good and firm when I got up this morning. Hooray. A jam success story!
I popped open a few jars of pickles in last night’s class and when asked for the recipes, I promised to get them up on here. My friend Justin was there with his camera last night, capturing the class for an upcoming blog post for The Happy Cook and I’m going to let him sum up the class for everyone while I post the requested recipes and links.
And for everyone who didn’t make it to last night’s class, there will be plenty more as the season progresses. Keep an eye on my Events page, for others. I’ll be at The Happy Cook again on May 28 with more hot water bath canning and on June 11 with pressure canning. Onto the recipes…..
An Evening of Culture.
A few weeks ago, my friend Susan called and asked if I would help her put together an evening for her culture club. She explained that the culture club sprung out of her book club – at some point, they realized that they really weren’t reading or discussing the books, but they still enjoyed getting together and doing things. And thus, their culture club began.
A Cooking Lesson.
In this week’s adventures with my Girl Scouts, we went on a field trip to the Charlottesville Cooking School where they earned their cooking badge. They have been looking forward to this for months, having asked for a lesson at the school back when we planned the year together back in September. Continue reading
Projects and pizza.
When answering the question “What are you up to” over the last few weeks, my answer has been a curt “busy”. Busy is a gross understatement. I’ve had a number of projects on back burners that all seemingly reached a boiling point at once while having several fantastic opportunities fall into my lap, with everything needing my attention these last two weeks. It’s been a juggling act like I’ve never had.
Today’s Experiment.
I’d been kicking around the idea of putting together some cooking classes that weren’t just canning & pickling focused. For starters, it’s a very seasonable topic, sort of a one and done class done at various venues around town, but also because I do more than just preserve food. I preserve food because I like to cook it, because I’m passionate about knowing exactly where our food comes from and I want to ensure that my family eats local all year long. Really, canning & pickling is just the first step, one small part of my cooking puzzle.
So there I was, kicking this idea around, trying to find a focus (why oh why does everything seem to require a freaking focus already?!?!?!) when I got an email from a friend, asking if I was interested in leading a cooking class for his department as their staff retreat. Would I? I love when the universe sends me signs like this, I really do. Dave’s a regular reader, so he had a few ideas of what he wanted me to teach them, but after a few suggestions, he left it up to me.
The hardest part was finding a space in which to do this. Budget was key, which ruled out a number of places. If only my kitchen wasn’t so small and dark, perhaps I could teach more than one person at a time out of here. One of his coworkers was able to get a church kitchen, which actually could not have worked out better. It was fairly well appointed and was made for a small group to cook together.
As this was an all-day class and Dave requested we do several dishes together, I had them start with lunch, which was pizza. Once that prepwork was done, including making the dough, from scratch, by hand, we moved on to the big attraction. Gumbo.
I’m really not sure there is anything as well suited to team work as gumbo is. There is plenty of chopping to go around, there is roux to be made as well as broth. I walked them through how I like to do it – using as many burners as I can. At one point, we had the broth simmering, sauce for the pizza cooking, roux browning and the holy trinity sauteing to start the gumbo.
If you take it step by step, you could spend all day making a pot of gumbo. As much as I think it’s worth it, I also love doing as much as possible all at once. Even that though, takes prepwork, and teamwork.
Although Dave did try to do a big chunk of it on his own.
Lunch was absolutely delish if I say so myself. We did a roasted butternut squash, sage and goat cheese pizza (which Dave had requested after reading that post) as well as a plain cheese pizza. Just yesterday I read a piece on Beyond the Flavor about Michael McCarthy of Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie making pizza at home and couldn’t help but notice his oven was much hotter than I set mine – 550 vs. 450. Inspired, I decided to experiment with that temperature and honestly, I have to say that that cheese pizza tasted just like one you’d get a pizza shop. I’m still patting myself on the back for using that bit of knowledge – so much so that I came home and have already started the dough for dinner.
Thankfully, no one else in this house had pizza for lunch, so there will be no lectures on their part about how pizza twice a day might not be healthy, not to mention boring. At least she got over the whole no cold pizza for breakfast thing.
I digress. After we feasted on our pizza lunch, we headed back into the kitchen. There, I showed them how to make the easiest and most divine chocolate cake ever. I love sharing that secret – that a handful of ingredients, assembled in 5 minutes and baked for 30, can fool everyone you know into thinking you are a baking genius.
One of the downsides of cooking around your camera, is that sometimes you get stuff on the lens. It does, however, lend a dreamy quality to the picture, doesn’t it?
We finished the day with biscuits. I got to expound on a bit about my biscuit theory and shared with them my whole grain version, even throwing a little bit of lard into the equation. After putting a few of our biscuits in the oven to be sampled, the rest were divided and packed up, to be baked later in the day at home. After all, who wants to spend a day cooking only to have to go home and do it all over again? Not only did everyone take home biscuits, they had been instructed to bring along tupperware and so everyone took home gumbo after sampling the finished product. It was declared a success and while I am still mentally critiquing myself as to what I can do better, I also changed some things on the fly that turned out pretty good. That’s the secret to good cooking (and life really), is being able to adapt without flinching. It’s all in the instincts. Can you convey that in a cooking class? I sort of think I did.
Scenes from a weekend.
Hot air balloons overhead, market, soccer, the Fiber Festival and Sheepdog trials (where I left the camera with Edie, only to find yet more photos of her toes), an unwilling photo subject, inspiration for new projects, a fermenting class at the cooking school, visit with grandparents and a grown up field trip on a dreary Monday to one of the nearby wineries.
Not pictured – new orange yarn that’s already being knit up into a yummy scarf, a home run on a homemade pizza crust, a sublime batch of sourdough bread served with the last of the bacon jam & melon jam, and confirmation that the okra pickles need a few more weeks before they are prime for eating.
At it again.
I’m teaching one last pickling class for the season. Sunday, September 30, 1-4 at EAT! over in Belmont.
Sign up here.
I’ve got my Cville Swaps partner, Vikki lined up to assist, so you’ll get lots of canning how-to’s in this hands on class, as well as some of our favorite recipes. Spread the word!
Catching up.
Since I last visited this space, we have had a few adventures.
Going to pick up Edie from camp was the first.
After last year’s camp closing ceremonies, Edie announced that her goal for this year was to be recognized for archery at the closing ceremony. Which she was. Her face as her name was called for that was absolutely beaming. She was quite proud of herself, as were we. Is there anything better than seeing the satisfaction of your child’s face when they hit a goal they set for themselves? She was also recognized for Dance & Lacrosse. She was surprised by the lacrosse recognition as she doesn’t care for the sport. I told her she didn’t have to like it to be good at it, but wasn’t it nice to know that if she wanted to play it she’d be good at it? She was only slightly sold.
There was a dirt road involved on the way home.
We are fans of detours that include dirt roads, especially when they include ice cream as well, which this one did.
When we got home, I had her dump her trunk down the laundry chute so I could wash everything. My basement smelled like someone had been bathing in a pond for 3 weeks and then left all her towels out in a rainstorm. Which pretty much was her story.
While I was switching out the loads from the washer to the dryer Saturday night, I happened to glance over and see something wriggling in a spider web that didn’t look like it belonged there.
Turns out, it didn’t. It was a baby Eastern Ringneck snake. The tiniest little snake you’ve ever seen.
Edie really wanted to keep it, but Pat wasn’t sure if it was eating the tiny worms we brought him/her. Also, when all of Edie’s pals came by to see her the one day she was home between adventures, the little bug catcher the snake was in didn’t get properly closed and we woke up to find Ringo gone.
Hopefully it’s made it’s way out of my house. But if it eats bugs, then hopefully it will stay out of my eyesight.
As soon as I got Edie’s camp laundry done and my basement smelling like a basement again (a big improvement over pond water believe it or not), we took off for our last family adventure of the summer.
We headed down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to visit our friends the Dorbads.
19 month old Lincoln is cute as can be. He also had a nasty cold he was more than generous with. His poor mum came down with it while we were there and while Edie complained of a sore throat for a few days, I think I managed to zinc her up enough to head it off.
I had totally forgotten that when you have a 19 month old, that’s pretty much all you do all day.
Although they are awfully cute and entertaining.
We had some great beach weather. It was in the 80’s and thanks to some offshore winds, the water was ICE cold. After sitting in the sun and ‘getting warm’ as my mother used to say, it was refreshing.
Also, how nice is it to get in the ocean in August and have goosebumps from the water temperature?
We wandered down to Jennette’s pier one day so Pat could fish.
While he was up there on the pier, Edie girl & I sat on the beach nearby. We had a most fabulous chat over a coke (her) and a beer (me).
Daddy got to fish, Edie got chocolate ice cream AND a coke and I got to sit on the beach and read not quite an entire book all day, which we all considered perfect. How to top a day like that?
By heading even farther south to Cape Hatteras National Seashore the next day.
That was the view to the left of us down the beach.
How sweet is that? I adore Hattaras island and that particular stretch of coastline for just that reason.
The umbrella in the distance marked the set up of a young couple near us for the day. It was so deserted she chose to sunbathe topless. (One of us was horrified, one of us was amused and one of us thought good for her because I’d surely burn in a most unpleasant way in some uncomfortable spots if I did that.)
We went for a stroll to collect shells and to get away from all the people.
I couldn’t help but notice that Sandy McSandster, my daughter’s beach alter ego, lives on.
That child has some sort of magnetic attraction to sand. When she was smaller and would come in from the beach completely coated in sand, I chalked it up to her being a baby, a toddler, three, four, etc. But now she’s 10. And still leaves a heavy trail. I’m surprised there’s any sand left on Hatteras Island, because the inside of my car is completely coated, as is my beach bag, the cooler and I have no doubt her entire suitcase.
At one point, we let her go into the cooler for something, where she proceeded to coat everything in there with sand as well. Seriously. One hand in to grab and everything after was coated. That beer is fresh from the cooler, after she was in it. You should have seen the one she handed her father. He took it into the ocean to clean it off.
I guess she’ll never outgrow it.
Which is okay, because I happen to know 40-somethings that have similar traits. She’s in most excellent company.
Despite the fact that my child coated everything in sight in sand and our hosts were under the weather, it was a great trip. The day we spent at Hatteras was one of the most perfect beach days I’ve ever had. It was 80, barely a cloud in the sky, the water temp and the breeze just right. And I got to spend a day with those two with no outside distractions besides my book. (I’ve been plowing through “Game of Thrones”, having watched the entire show the first week Edie was at camp, I picked up the books and am now on the fourth one.)
We spent the week without television and internet. That was week two for me, unplugged and for Edie, week four. (She was completely unplugged while at camp.). It might be habit forming.
We came back Friday afternoon. Saturday I taught a pickling class for Market Central.
We pickled peaches, green beans and cucumbers.
It was a good class if I do say so myself.
I had planned on using the Ball Pickling Mix that is all over the market this season for dill pickles. However, due to a small oversight, there was no pickle mix on hand for the class. A quick flip through the stack of canning & pickling cookbooks I had brought along and we selected a new one – from my trusty Food in Jars Cookbook. We just so happened to have everything it called for on hand and so we went with it.
I’ll let you know how they turned out in a week or so when I open the jar I carried home. I’ve yet to make anything out of that cookbook or from her websites that isn’t good, so I felt safe trying that out in a class, untested.
I do need to brag that I completely guesstimated on the amount of brine to make for those pickles and turns out my guesstimate was just enough. Not only did I pull it out, I pulled it out perfectly.
I’m good like that.
I can’t say the same for the amount of peach brine I made, there were several quart jars left over that students took home with them. No one seemed to be too upset about that, as the pickled peaches were a huge hit just on the smell alone and as I pointed out, when you have leftover brine, you can use it to do another batch. I shared the recipe I came up with as a happy discovery to much rave reviews, which felt pretty darn tooting good as well.
So now we are home for a good while – school starts Wednesday and we need to settle back into that routine. The weather today – grey, drizzly and cool – was slightly conducive towards that end. I cleaned out the fridge and found a forgotten jar of bread & butter brine, but I also happened to have a few cukes on hand and some jalapenos from the garden that I threw in, so there was a batch of pickles made today while I was baking bread with the sourdough starter Leni shared with me. None of us have unpacked from the beach yet – heck, Edie still has bags sitting around with camp gear all over the house, thanks to the fact that she’s slept in her own bed exactly 2 nights since we picked her up over a week ago. It’s good to have her home, it’s good to be home and it’s good to have a few more days to collect ourselves before it all starts back up again.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 