Kate's Queen City Notes

Blundering through Cincinnati, laughing all the way

Tag Archives: cooking


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Summer’s Best

Strawberries are the bellwether that signals mad canning will commence. We have blueberries, peaches, tomatoes, and black raspberries come into season in quick succession. The reality is I will be canning jams and making pies constantly until the late fall after apples and pumpkins go out of season.

I didn’t used to have this relationship to produce. Because strawberries are only available for three weeks of the year, it makes procuring a bit of an ordeal even if you don’t pick your own. They are loved and cut and washed. They are crushed and cooked with sugar and pectin. The jam takes on a vibrant ruby color unique to fresh strawberries cooking into jam. They are sliced and placed in a crisp light pie crust. All this preparation is an investment, for which the pay off is the most delicious, fleeting strawberry pie. And a year of delicious jam.

We got our berries from Barrett’s Strawberry Farm, 11434 Fairfield Road, Leesburg 937-780-4961. I just came back from Europe and was concerned we would miss the season. Typically, strawberries come into season in May in this area. They wrap up in early June. But like the rhubarb, the berries were late this year. Most farms didn’t start their season until early June. Given that it’s early in the season, we had some difficulty getting berries. Barrett’s was about a 90 minute drive from Cincinnati, but the price of their berries was quite good, I got 6 quarts for a little over 22 bucks. Their berries looked great and tasted excellent.

Fresh from the field

Fresh from the field

We made a double batch of jam according to the instructions on the Sure Jell package. I also made strawberry pie according to this recipe. The jam and the pie turned out wonderfully. I just located this recipe for pepper balsamic strawberry jam and will have a blog in the near future about that.

The crushed berries with the pectin.

The crushed berries with the pectin.

The jam just before canning.

The jam just before canning.

Into the jars with you!

Into the jars with you!


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Vegan Reubens and Vegan Rhubarb Baking

After weeks of searching we finally found rhubarb. I talk about my hunt for it here. Our plan was to make the following recipes.

This is what ten pounds of rhubarb looks like.

This is what ten pounds of rhubarb looks like.

We started out with ten pounds of rhubarb. We probably had about three pounds left after making a double batch of jam and single batches of everything else listed above.

Rhubarb. That's what it looks like.

Rhubarb. That’s what it looks like.

I made the muffins a few days before everything else. Putting them together was pretty easy. Since I cook and bake quite a bit, I had nearly all the ingredients in my kitchen. I had to make a trip to pick-up sour cream and a fresh lemon for the zest. These muffins were spectacular. The streusel with fresh lemon zest and almond extract was outstanding. The muffins were tender and only slightly sweet, and the bits of rhubarb added just a bit of zip to each bite.

Rhubarb jam prior to cooking.

Rhubarb jam prior to cooking

We put the jam in the slow cooker to leave more space around the stove top. After some hours on high with no signs of boiling, we transferred it to the stove. I’m not sure why the slow cooker wasn’t able to bring it to a simmer. Perhaps all the fiber and pectin in the rhubarb? We don’t know. Once the jam came to boiling, it thickened right up. We sanitized lids and jars, and filled them with the jam. Then we canned them in a traditional water bath. We finished with the jam after a long day of cooking. I was too exhausted to taste it before we canned it. I will come back and comment on how well it turned out after I open the first jar.

Vegan pie, pre-baking.

Vegan pie, pre-baking

I mastered the difficult art of making pie crust. Making a vegan crust was a new challenge for me. I had two concerns about the vegan pie crust recipe that I linked to above. There are two things that I know about consistently making excellent pie crust. Rule number 1: if the dough is easy to roll out you have without question added way too much water. Rule number 2: the dough needs to be as cold as possible all the time. The vegan recipe above breaks rule number one egregiously. I know the point of adding the vodka is so that it evaporates and leaves you with less moisture in the finished crust than only water would. But my no-fail non-vegan recipe only calls for 3 tbs of water against the 1/4 cup of water in the recipe above. And then you add an additional 3 tbs of vodka. I used half as much vodka and water in my dough than what the recipe called for.

Second issue I had with the recipe was the fat to flour ratio. As compared to my usual recipe, there was about 1/2 a cup more fat. I decided to follow the recipe here. I was thinking that perhaps the vegan butter had more water in it than butter, and hence required a higher fat to flour ratio. You will have to keep reading to find out how it turned out.

Here's the rhubarb that ended up in the rhubarb upside down cake, while it was being caramelized.

Here’s the rhubarb that ended up in the rhubarb upside down cake, while it was being caramelized.

We modified the rhubarb upside down cake in the following ways to make it vegan. Where the recipe called for butter, we used vegan butter. Where the recipe called for milk, we used soy milk. Where the recipe called for eggs, we used flax eggs. You can read about flax eggs here.

Tempeh and Tofu after the marinade.

Tempeh and Tofu after the marinade.

For the reubens, we used marinated tempeh and tofu. We just sliced both of them up and let them marinade. After they soaked up some flavor, they went into the oven on a baking sheet to get a little texture to them. I also made a vegan 1000 island dressing for the reubens. I used the silken tofu recipe here. I whipped this up in the food processor. The resulting mayo was pretty good. It was a bit more runny than regular mayo, and I could taste the missing egg yolk. But I don’t think anyone would notice the difference once spread on a sandwich. I added the relish and ketchup to taste and didn’t follow any recipe.

The poorly-rhubarb upside down cake. I should have been something like rhubarb upside down scone or some such.

The poorly-named rhubarb upside down cake. I should have been something like rhubarb upside down scone or some such.

The rhubarb upside down cake was not sweet. It was more like a biscuit with caramelized rhubarb on top. In fact, it would almost be a savory dish. I was expecting something sweet so I was a little put off with it at first bite. Once I realigned my expectations, I thought we made a damn good vegan biscuit. Would I make this again? Probably not. It wasn’t bad, but plain old biscuits would have suited me just as well and are less work. The flax eggs made the biscuit taste like it was made with some whole wheat flour. I don’t know that flax eggs would work in most other sweet pastry settings, but it was excellent for this savory biscuit.

The braised rhubarb was weird. It was extremely tart. Tart, I could have lived with, but the texture of the rhubarb was not to my liking. Cooked celery keeps it’s body, unless you cook it for ages. The rhubarb managed to be completely limp and stringy all at the same time. I don’t know how else to put this, but the texture just wasn’t for me. The flavor of the spices was nice. The tartness I could live with. Limp and stringy, I cannot.

The two biggest successes were with the reubens and the vegan rhubarb pie. I’ve learned that for me, the critical reuben components are sour kraut, 1000 dressing, and excellent bread. The other ingredients don’t make or break the sandwich. The tempeh and tofu were good, but they didn’t stand out. The vegan 1000 island dressing was excellent. We ran out of the reubens. I now know that my craving for reubens can be met without out eating any animal products.

Vegan rhubarb pie.

Vegan rhubarb pie.

The pie was spectacular. The crust turned out wonderfully. It was flaky and yet held it’s shape when sliced. We were only left with three pieces for Ali and I to share. I thought I was going to have to fight Jenn for the piece and a half that I brought home.

Here’s what I learned about vegan cooking and baking. It’s not that hard. In fact, I think it would be a lot easier to cook and bake vegan at home that it would be to eat out. I liked it so much that I might start making my own vegan butter and working that in to my cooking from this point forward. This will be the first of many adventures.


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Erbinger’s Blackout Cake and Pressure Canning

So much cooking happened on Sunday. Here’s a list of what we made.

Erbinger’s Blackout Cake
Founder’s Breakfast Stout spicy mustard
Alton Brown’s Best Mustard
Vegetable stock
Canned chai spice pears and apples

Canning season is upon us. This means that many of my free weekend days will be devoted to either picking produce or canning it. In preparation for that, we decided to make a double-batch of broth, and a double-batch of mustard, as we will have no time to make either of these things until late in the fall.

The Cake

As I was planning a whole day in the kitchen, I saw this recipe. I don’t really like cake, but my curiosity was too much to resist. After reviewing the ingredients list, I realized that I had all of them except the cocoa and chocolate. The cocoa and chocolate set me back thirty bucks. That’s right three zero. When I consider what it must have cost to make this in the late 1800’s my brain explodes.

While the blogger in the NPR article complains more than I deem necessary–seriously all cake from scratch is a pain in the ass–I did spend a solid three hours preparing this cake. Given that I am not a cake expert, I was a bit concerned with getting the cakes out of the pan, and subsequently slicing them in half and constructing the layers. To my surprise, that was a cakewalk. Oh puns.

Here's one of the cake's just out of the pan. They came out of the pans with no problem.

Here’s one of the cake’s just out of the pan. They came out of the pans with no problem.

This is the melted chocolate that was used in the icing.

This is the melted chocolate that was used in the icing.

The cake turned out well. The only thing that might have gone a bit better was how the filling set-up. I think I didn’t allow the filling to boil long enough to make it set-up properly. It was just a bit runny when I spooned it on the cake layers. I invited friends to drop by and sample the cake through out the day. They all seemed pleased with it. I liked the cake despite my general dislike for cake. I thought it would be considerably richer than it was, given the ingredients list. But the cake was a really nice balance of sweet and rich. It didn’t overwhelm, and make me feel a little disgusted after bite three, which is my typical cake experience. I will gladly make this again.

Here's the cake before we cut it.

Here’s the cake before we cut it.

Here's the cake after we cut it. One thing that NPR got completely right is that this cake has almost no self-life. The icing gets really dry if refrigerated. The pudding gets runny if left out.

Here’s the cake after we cut it. One thing that NPR got completely right is that this cake has almost no self-life. The icing gets really dry if refrigerated. The pudding gets runny if left out.

The Mustards

Homemade mustard is easy to make, keeps well, and tastes light years better than store bought. If you haven’t tried to make mustard, for god’s sake do it. You have zero excuses for not trying one of these recipes. This is a nice standard yellow mustard. If you have an immersion blender, you can make this as smooth or textured as you wish. It has depth of flavor that I didn’t know was possible in mustard. I ate all of our first batch on black bean burgers in about a month. I can’t wait to try it on soy dogs this summer.

And given that I am a beer nut, I wanted to try out a beer mustard. I happened to have a couple of bottles of Founder’s Breakfast Stout on hand. Everything with this recipe worked well, except the resulting mustard was a little too thick for my personal preference. No worries, just add more beer. The mustard turned out so great that I have been searching for things to put it on. I want to buy soft pretzels to dip in this mustard. I want to smuggle my own mustard in to eateries so I don’t have to suffer through French’s.

Here's the yellow mustard in the little three oz jars. They are adorable. We didn't can this because the amount is insignificant enough to store in the refrigerator.

Here’s the yellow mustard in the little three oz jars. They are adorable. We didn’t can this because the amount is insignificant enough to store in the refrigerator.

Here's the mustard seeds and the Founder's Breakfast Stout working their magic.

Here’s the mustard seeds and the Founder’s Breakfast Stout working their magic.

The yellow mustard just after blending it.

The yellow mustard just after blending it.

The Stock

This is round three of making this stock. We made a double batch because we ran through the results of our last canning session quite quickly. We’ve used this same recipe as the base on all three efforts. Here’s my last blog on the second go at this. After the first effort, I added a step of browning the veggies and forming a nice fond on the bottom of the pot prior to adding the water and the herbs. This added a nice rich flavor to the stock. I suggest adding this step if you have a good stainless steel dutch oven.

On this attempt, we threw in some dried shiitake mushrooms. The mushrooms add a nice solid earthiness. We threw the resulting broth in the pressure canner. All the cans came out as expected. All the jars let out their chorus of pops minutes after being removed from the canner. I will use this both to make cream of mushroom soup next week. I have a special place in my heart for that not so great Campbell’s variety. I am excited to see what cream of mushroom soup is like when made with fresh ingredients.

Here's the veggies that we cooked down into stock. The last time we made this stock, we didn't add the mushrooms. Those really added a lot of flavor.

Here’s the veggies that we cooked down into stock. The last time we made this stock, we didn’t add the mushrooms. Those really added a lot of flavor.

Here's the veggie broth fresh out of the pressure canner.

Here’s the veggie broth fresh out of the pressure canner.

The Apples and Pears If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that we canned spiced peaches last summer. You can read about it here. In hindsight, we did some things well but others could use improvement. Adding teas to a few of the jars of peaches, was a stellar idea. Throwing the spices directly into the jars had some unintended consequences, that we would like to avoid. Last year, we threw about a quarter of a vanilla bean, an inch long cinnamon stick, five pepper corns, two cardamom pods, and one star anise in the jars. We pack a few jars with just cinnamon or just vanilla. Here’s what we learned.

  • Star anise or cardamom in those quantities would completely over-power the vanilla and cinnamon
  • The cinnamon stick would become a bit astringent, which of course, was only noticeable in the cinnamon only jars as the flavor was over-powered in the mixed spice jars
  • While we put roughly the same amount of spice in each jar, star anise and cardamom are natural things, so the resulting flavor varied significantly from jar to jar of the mixed spice jars
  • If the goal was to produce the over-all impression of Chai spices we forgot ginger

Given that we want to pack peaches again, we wanted to try and rectify the issues that I’ve listed above. We decided to make a spiced simple syrup. Approaching the spices in this way should enable us to have consistent flavor from jar to jar. It should also allow us to balance the spices. We decided to get some apples and pears to can as a test run. We produced about 6 pint and a half jars. We made a simple syrup that ended up being one part sugar to three parts water. The spices that went in the syrup was as follows.

  • Half a star anise
  • Three cardamom pods (which we decided could be taken back to two)
  • A whole vanilla bean
  • 1 teaspoon of ground Saigon cinnamon
  • one inch of sliced ginger root

Being able to adjust the flavors in the syrup is a huge improvement over our past approach to canning spiced peaches. We will be spicing the syrup when we can peaches this summer. I tried the apples and pears the day after we canned. They have a very nice balance of spice, and the sweetness is perfect. The taste of the apples and pears come through and the spices are a subtle addition. BOOM! Problem solved.

Ok, summer. We are ready for you.

Here's the pressure canner with the pears and apples in it. We just sealed those with a water bath as opposed to pressure, like was necessary with the broth.

Here’s the pressure canner with the pears and apples in it. We just sealed those with a water bath as opposed to pressure, like was necessary with the broth.

Here's our spiced apples and pears. The pears ended up with a perfect texture. The apples ended up a little soft. The spice levels were outstanding.

Here’s our spiced apples and pears. The pears ended up with a perfect texture. The apples ended up a little soft. The spice levels were outstanding.


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The Holy Trinity of Soup and a Pressure Canner

The beast.

The beast.

As mentioned in a previous blog, it’s canning off season, and the polar vortext has left me, a skier and winter lover, stuck inside. What do I do with time on my hands? I cook stuff.

I’ve been considering making my own veggie stock. I use it in several recipes, and I’ve noticed that the most obvious flavor that most veggie stocks impart is salt. They are salty. I don’t taste much else there.

I’ve wondered how much my recipes would improve if I had some kick-ass veggie broth instead of mega-salty water. I hunted broth recipes. I’ve not made this before, so I didn’t know what I was looking for. I was armed with one bit of knowledge. The holy trinity of veggie soup flavor is garlic, celery and onion.

I found this. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Vegetable-Broth-51212620

Garic? Check. Onion? Check. Celery? Check. Plus, thyme and coriander are wonderful additions. Bonus points for most of the ingredients already present in my fridge.

My first time making this I salted once the broth was finished. I added about 3 teaspoons. That was salty enought to accentuate the flavors, but not so much that it over powered the veggies. Otherwise I didn’t wander from the recipe. The broth didn’t have much flavor. But then, I don’t imagine broths are supposed to have much flavor. Isn’t that why you add stuff to them for soups and use them as a base for other stuff?

The real test of the broth would come the first time I used in a recipe. My first use cases were in a recipe for peanut thai noodles and then pineapple curry. Both were super, but the recipes only called for a half a cup of broth. Given this insignificant amount as compared to other ingredients, I didn’t notice an earth shattering difference. But when I used the broth in pumpkin curry soup, I noticed. It just made the soup have a little more depth. That soup is already spectacular; the homemade broth bumped it up.

My first run out with the broth was successful enough that I wanted more. On my second batch, I browned the veggies and got a nice fond on the bottom of my pot before deglazing with the 3 quarts of water. This minor step both brought a nice color to the broth and also imparted a great flavor. I will continue with this modification.

When I make my third batch of broth I will make another addition. Mushrooms. I think the earthy addition will round out the flavor and make this broth a go to for cream of mushroom soup. Yum. I can’t wait to try this.

Broth requires pressure canning. I didn’t pressure can my first batch of broth. I poured some of it into ice cube trays and the rest went into 1.5 pint jars. Broth ice cubes were a stroke of genius on my part. I have a number of recipes that call for a small amount of broth (less than a cup). My 1.5 pint jars carry too much liquid to thaw a whole jar and only use a half a cup.

We pressure canned the second batch. It was as much an experiement as it was a necessity. It simply isn’t that difficult to store 3 quarts of broth in the freezer, unless you are some sort of food hoarder. (I just thought of what it must smell like in the home of a food hoarder and grossed myself out.) The pressure canning went fine. I don’t know that I will find time to replenish my veggie stock once we hit canning season, but I am sure I will miss it when I return to using those little cubes of salt that pass for bullion.


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Homemade Peanut Butter: How I Put on Ten Pounds

As mentioned in my last blog on cooking, I discovered a recipe for Thai peanut noodles that I love. I ran out of peanut butter while making the noodles. I had some unsalted roasted peanuts on hand.

Necessity is the mother of invention? In my case, necessity is the mother of googling peanut butter recipes. I found this.

http://www.inspiredtaste.net/21318/how-to-make-peanut-butter-three-ways/

I pulled out the food processor and threw in some peanuts with a pinch of salt and a dash of peanut oil. I was thinking that I would have a pleasant adventure and return to buying peanut butter at the grocery. That thought couldn’t have been more wrong.

I went back to prepping the noodles and let the food processor do its thing. After about 5 minutes, the butter started to have a consistency that I recognized. I tasted and added some local wild flower honey. I was shocked at how much flavor the peanut butter had, sans sweetener. A tablespoon of local honey kicked it up to AMAZING.

This discovery piqued my curiosity. Did you look at the link above? Did you see the chocolate peanut butter? Obviously, I had to make some. One idea will adequately express the results of my chocolate peanut butter experiment; I was inventing things to eat with this. I would put it on bananas, strawberries, in hot breakfast cereal, and in peanut butter cookies. You understand why this caused me to gain ten pounds now, yeah?

This is basically Nutella but with peanuts instead of hazelnuts. Speaking of Nutella, I discovered a minor modification for this recipe that makes it even more irresistible. I used hazelnut oil instead of peanut oil. The results are subtle, but it adds just a touch of aromatic hazelnuts that really deepens the flavor. That’s now my standard modification to this recipe.

I struggle to explain why homemade peanut butter is so good. It’s hard to express how much better peanut butter is when you can customize it for your personal tastes. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any perservatives. Maybe it’s because that local honey imparts so many subtle flavors. Maybe it’s because the quality of peanuts that I buy are higher than those that get milled into commercial peanut butter. Maybe it’s simply that I’ve taken 15 minutes to prepare it, and I consume it more mindfully. Maybe it’s the culmination of all of these things that make my own taste so much better. I don’t know. What I do know is that I won’t be buying peanut butter ever again.


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Food Unicorn: Tasty Tofu

Ohio doesn’t have much local produce this time of year, and the polar vortex has kept me from outdoor activities like skiing and biking. Holed up in my home for weeks, I’ve been enjoying the canning off-season by making some new recipes. Here’s a couple of my favorites.

My partner is a vegetarian. She’s a vegetarian that doesn’t like vegetables. She’s been working to expand her palate though, so I’m not complaining. I’m just setting the scene. While I am a omnivore, I don’t cook with meat at home. All of these things lead to us eating many meat substitutes. I like Gardein, Quorn, MorningStar Farms, tempeh, seitan, and others. Notice, tofu is not in that list.

Tofu, without modification, achieves something unthinkable. It tastes like nothing, while simultaneously being unpleasant. I don’t know how something that lacks taste can be gross, but tofu manages it. My tofu arithmetic: no flavor + no texture = bleck.

Then I found this. http://www.daringgourmet.com/2013/02/27/thai-peanut-tofu-noodles/ This recipe has all the things that I love: fresh ginger, peanut butter, noodles, noodles, garlic, carrots, chilis, and green onions. Whip all of this up and top with Sriracha, and I am in heaven. But that tofu.

The first time I try a recipe, I always make it exactly as instructed. I like to start with a baseline before I customize it to my taste. This recipe was no different, in spite of my troubled past with tofu.

Imagine my surprise at finding this method of tofu preparation quite good. Let’s be honest, when you salt the shit out of something it will taste pretty good. This tofu treatment is a testament to that. The sherry, sesame oil, and soy combo add some nice complexity to round out the salt in the soy. The sesame oil imparts a great nuttiness, and the soy brings much needed umami to the tofu.

Pairing this salty, nutty tofu with the peanut sauce in this recipe is heaven. I’ve made this compulsively since I discovered it. If it didn’t feel too self-indulgent, I would have a bowl of these noodles in my fridge at all times.

I liked this tofu so well that I added it to this recipe too. http://www.monsoonspice.com/2009/03/tofu-pineapple-thai-yellow-curry.html

I bake the tofu separately and top the curry with it. The coconut-based sauce is sweet. The baked tofu is salty. Top this with a bit of Sriracha or some Thai chilis, and you have a the sweet, salty, spicy trifecta that Thai food nails.

These recipes led me on a couple of other food adventures that I will save for a subsequent blog. Coming up… canning homemade veggie stock, homemade mustard, and making nut butters.


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The Cushaw: My Moby Dick of Gourds

I’ve heard rumors that a gourd exists that would taste better in pumpkin pie than pumpkin. I’ve heard these rumors for some years. As described in an earlier blog post, I’ve established a fledgling relationship with a few farmers at the Lunken Farmers Market. They are crusty old men who seem to grow the food they are selling, no wholesalers here. When I picked up 9 pumpkins for canning, one of the old curmudgeons pointed to a very large green and white gourd and asked if I’ve ever made a pie with one. Pretentiousness is pointless with curmudgeon, so admitted that I’d never seen one of those before. As soon as he said that it would make a better pumpkin pie than pumpkin, I knew a new cooking adventure must happen.

The gourd in question is called a cushaw; it’s a winter squash. The internets tells me they are more common in the south. I don’t know how these turned up in Cincinnati. Geographically speaking, calling Cincinnati part of The South is nonsense. If you want to read a bit more about cushaws try this blog out.

The cushaw before I started hacking away at it.

The cushaw before I started hacking away at it.

If you have ever engaged in the laborious process of getting pumpkin puree out of a fresh pumpkin, you know that only an intense love of pumpkin can drive you to such lengths. The cushaw has one obvious and one not so obvious advantage over pumpkins in terms of getting them to an edible status. The cushaw’s shape and structure matches that of a butternut squash; so gourd for gourd the cushaw is going to yield considerably more puree than a pumpkin due to the cushaw’s seed cavity taking up considerably less volume. The not so obvious advantage is that the cushaw was much easier to cut through than pumpkin. My cushaw was about 16 inches tall and 10 inches in diameter at its widest. I had visions of getting out my Dewalt reciprocating saw to hack that thing apart. I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite easy to cut through. Cushaw FTW in prep round.

The cushaw with seeds intact.

The cushaw with seeds intact.

I split the cushaw. I scraped out the seeds. I put them cut side down on cookie sheets with a bit of olive oil to prevent sticking. I roasted them in the oven on 350 for a little over 1 hour. We scraped out the pulp and ran it through the food processor. Oops. I skipped the part where I ate forkfuls of the pulp out of the roasted gourd, still seaming from the oven. I also skipped the part where we spooned the puree into our mouths. This gourd is tasty. This gourd is tasty without additional embellishments, like pie crusts or cinnamon.

The scraped cushaw.

The scraped cushaw.

My writing skills are not quite up to the task of describing how cushaw is different from butternut squash or pumpkin. Cushaw is creamy but more neutral in flavor than pumpkin, acorn, or butternut squash. Whipping cream doesn’t so much have a flavor as it has a mouth-feel. Cushaw has a similar effect. It’s not as sweet as pumpkin, and it’s lacking that distinctive pumpkin flavor. This gourd is a little more like a blank canvas that will reflect the ingredients you pair it with. A creamy canvas.

The puree that didn’t make it to my belly went into three recipes. I used recipes that I have made many times with pumpkin. I felt like this would be the most direct comparison.

Libby’s standard pumpkin pie recipe

Pumpkin bread

Pumpkin roll

The pie was excellent. It turned out a delicate custard. It was rich without being overwhelming. It completely lacked that mealy quality that canned pumpkin pies typically have.

Here's what the pies looked like right out of the oven.

Here’s what the pies looked like right out of the oven.

The pumpkin bread was interesting. Because the cushaw lacks pumpkin flavor, the bread tasted more like chai spice bread than pumpkin bread only with the same dense, rich texture that squashes add to breads. This recipe was excellent, although, if you are jonesing for pumpkin bread, I don’t think this bread will satisfy your desire.

The pumpkin roll was tricky. I think the recipe should have been amended such that the cake stayed in the oven a bit longer. The cushaw seemed to make the cake stickier than it turns out with canned pumpkin. So, the pumpkin rolls turned out pretty ugly. But for what they lacked in beauty, they made up for in taste. Longer cooking time, and maybe draining the cushaw would have helped this recipe out a bit.

The verdict is that the pie was better. The roll and the bread were good, but I wouldn’t say they directly compete with pumpkin. I feel like they were more like new recipes with cushaw in them as opposed to subtly different forms of their pumpkin counterparts.


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Pressure Canning: Shit Just Got Real

I have been canning for a few years. I knew this day would come. I bought a pressure canner. Pumpkin is what sealed this deal. Stocks and meats just don’t excite me like pumpkin. When faced with the possibility of using that sad, metallic-tasting paste that comes out of a can for another year, I went to the internets in search of pressure canners.

The first thing you should know about this canner is that it looks like it is not to be trifled with. The second thing you should know is that after perusing the directions I became anxious that I could literally cause an explosion in my kitchen. Looks, in this case, were not deceiving.

Pressure Canner

THE BEAST!

This was our most ambitious canning session to date. We planned to can a couple of varieties of apple sauce, apple butter, pumpkin butter, and pumpkin cubes. Note that we chose to can cubes because it’s not advisable to can pumpkin puree at home. The cubes will just need to be run through my food processor before they are added to my favorite recipes.

We started off with a half bushel of apples and nine pumpkins. Here’s the recipes/instructions for what we did.

Big pot of apples.

Here’s the apples when we were cooking them down. After this we put the apples through a food mill. We brought the resulting sauce back to boiling before canning it.

Here's the apples after we processed about half of them.

Here’s the apples after we processed about half of them.

These pumpkins looked amazing.

These pumpkins looked amazing.

Pumpkin cubes: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/he266

Apple sauce: http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipe.aspx?r=126 (we made half the batch plain as instructed here except with less sugar. We got golden delicious apples, and they were pretty sweet without the sugar. We made the other half the batch with cinnamon and vanilla bean w/ seeds.

Apple butter: http://www.canningacrossamerica.com/recipes/apple-butter/

Pumpkin butter: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-butter/

Here’s the random things that we learned. I think we accidentally put 2 tsps of nutmeg in the pumpkin butter as opposed to the 1 tsp that the recipe called for. Two tsps is great if you want the nutmeg to overwhelm all the other flavors including the pumpkin. (FAIL) The pumpkin butter thickened really quickly on the stove. I don’t think we cooked it for more than 20 minutes, and in that time the concoction got much darker and thicker.

Finished jars of apple butter.

Finished jars of apple butter.

Here's a jar of apple butter coming out of the pot after processing.

Here’s a jar of apple butter coming out of the pot after processing.

The apple sauce was excellent. It was so excellent that we needed to stop ourselves from eating it before it made to the jars. If we do another fall canning session, it will be to do more apple sauce.

The pumpkin that we canned bears almost no resemblance to what comes out of store-bought cans. The color is a bright yellow and the flavor is closer to acorn or butternut squash. This made me wonder what they do to the pumpkin to get it that color and to get that mealy flavor. I don’t know if you have ever eaten a spoonful of pumpkin from the can, but it has that non-taste that commercial baby food often has. The pumpkin that we put in the jars had this slightly sweet, creamy flavor.

Image

I mentioned in a past blog that I get my produce for canning at the Lunken Airport farmers market (if you aren’t from Cincinnati just ignore that last sentence). The people who go there aren’t wholesalers; they are the actual farmers. For what they may lack in customer service skills, they more than make up for it with knowledge about the produce. The old curmudgeon farmer that I work with most often, while doubtful of my intentions at first, has now warmed to my tattooed self. It seems like I keep clearing hurdles with him. On my pumpkin purchase, he seemed pleased that I recognized the pie pumpkins from the mess of decorative gourds and pumpkins.

While we were bagging up my pumpkins he pointed to a huge green and white mottled gourd. He asked if I had ever made pie with one of those. I said no, because I had never seen this type of gourd before. He pushed his vintage (NOT RETRO) John Deere hat further back on his head and said, “Once you make pie with one of those, you’ll never want a pumpkin again.” I have heard of a gourd that is fabled to be more tasty than pumpkin. I’m pretty sure curmudgeon farmer just pointed out my gourd Moby Dick. Needless to say I will be going back next week to get one of those gourds. Be on the look out for the Moby Dick gourd blog post next week.


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Canning Tomatoes and Old Curmudgeons

I am not wholly convinced that the plastic that lines tomato cans will kill me, but why take chances when I like canning? We did two rounds of tomato canning. We canned Brandywine and other heirloom varieties in round one. We canned standard  non-heirloom tomatoes in round two. Below I will summarize how we did it.

Toms

Tomatoes from the old curmudgeon farmer.

Here’s what we used

Salt

Lemon juice (for the citric acid)

Very hot water

Tomatoes

3 cases of 1 1/2 pint wide-mouth ball jars

Thyme

Rosemary

Oregano

Curry spices

Crushed garlic cloves

Herbs

Here’s the herbs we used. They were gathered from my friend’s garden.

Like my peach canning blog, I will break this blog up into 4 functional groups. Bear in mind that at any given point in the canning process we probably had jars in all functional states.

Sanitizing the Jars

The first step in the process is making sure your jars are sanitary and ready for fruit. In our past jamming sessions we let the jars boil in water for several minutes to kill the microscopic critters. After some internet searching, we found that you can also put the glass jars in the oven for 20 minutes at 250 degrees. We used the oven technique for our tomato jars, partially because the jars a bigger would be more difficult to manage in a pot of boiling water. This also freed-up an all-important heating element on the stove. We sanitized our rings and lids in boiling water.

Processing the Tomatoes

To skin the tomatoes, we dropped them in boiling water for about 2 minutes. Then we put them in an ice bath for a minute. This allowed easy removal of the skins. This was probably the most laborious part of the process. Our tomatoes were a little large, so we quartered them to enable us to fit them in the jars.

Assembling the Jars

We put the desired herbs and spices in the jars. Then we packed the tomatoes in. We topped all the jars with one teaspoon of salt and two tablespoons of lemon juice. Then will filled the jars with boiling water leaving about a half inch breathing room at the top of each jar. We made three different varieties. We packed some with curry spices (these spices were a combo of mustard seeds, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and such that had been bloomed). We packed some with rosemary and garlic. We packed some with thyme, oregano, and garlic. We were thinking that the oregano and thyme variety would be well used in pasta sauces. The rosemary variety would be a great base for a tomato soups. They curry will be used for curry, of course.

Sealing the Jars

We put the jars in boiling water for 45 minutes. All the jars sealed perfectly.

Jars

Here’s what the processing jars looked like in the pot.

A Word about Heirloom vs Plum vs Standard Tomatoes

Since we canned a few varieties, I thought I would comment on the differences between them. The standard and Plum tomatoes skinned the easiest. They were a breeze. The heirlooms were more difficult to skin and were generally more delicate to handle. They were also considerably more expensive. Unless I taste heaven in those heirloom jars when I crack them open, I won’t be canning those again. The heirlooms were about 40 bucks for roughly 10 lbs. I got lucky with the standard tomatoes. I got a tip to try the framers market at Lunken Airport (if you aren’t a Cincinnati native this will mean nothing to you). And those folks are the real deal out there. There’s a parking lot where trucks pull up; the people selling are clearly the growers. Upon my approach I was listening to a BMW driver fussing about what bag his produce is put in. Watching this guy in loafers and seersucker shorts get cranky over the size of his brown paper bag made me miss providing customer service in no way whatsoever. I approached an old curmudgeon farmer just beyond seersucker. Now reader, you should know what I look like to fully grasp the interaction to follow. I am tattooed. My hair is buzzed off into a very short mohawk. I am 37, but people seem to guess me as younger than that. I asked the farmer how much for 25lbs of tomatoes. His eyes narrowed into a hard look. After a pause that was too long for comfort, he asked what I was using them for. I said canning. Disbelief quickly followed by a little burgeoning esteem for me flashed across his face.  He leaned back and hollered to the farmer next to him. After a brief conversation he brought out a half-bushel basket of tomatoes from the truck. He had prepared the basket for someone else who failed to show. The tomatoes had minor blemishes making them perfect for canning and at a discounted price. I paid 10 bucks for 25lbs of tomatoes. AWESOME.

Walnut the cat

This is Walnut the cat. He did his best to be underfoot while we canned. He also offered unsolicited mews at regular intervals.

Finished jar

Finished jar with thyme, oregano, and garlic

I might update this blog when I sample the tomatoes that we canned. I have some recipes coming up that will cause me to crack open some jars.


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Adventures in Cooking: Canning Peaches

Neither of my grandmothers cooked much with processed/packaged foods; this is more to do with their age than an ideology. I canned jams and jellies with my dad’s mom until I was school-aged. I grew up eating homemade breads, jellies, jams, and assorted baked goods. It made me picky. I started making my own jams because I grew dissatisfied with store-bought. This little taste of canning made me bold.

A good friend and I got a basket of South Carolina peaches, a mess of jars, and an assortment of spices. We were unsure how well any of this was going to work. Here’s what we started with.

Peaches and jars

Here’s the peaches and jars. That basket was full. We where half way done with processing them at the moment that I snapped this picture.

3-4 vanilla beans

20-20 green cardamom seed pods

15 1 inch cinnamon sticks

20-30 star anise

Several types of chai tea (this will make more sense later)

Several cups of sugar

A few tablespoons of lemon juice

A bottle of bourbon (Ancient Age)

3 cases of 1 1/2 pint wide-mouth ball jars

I’m going to break this up into 4 functional groups. Bear in mind that at any given point in the canning process we probably had jars in all functional states. This is critical to understanding how we managed to do this in about 4 hours.

Sanitizing the Jars

The first step in the process is making sure your jars are sanitary and ready for fruit. In our past jamming sessions we let the jars boil in water for several minutes to kill the microscopic critters. After some internet searching, we found that you can also put the glass jars in the oven for 20 minutes at 250 degrees. We used the oven technique for our peach jars, partially because the jars a bigger would be more difficult to manage in a pot of boiling water. This also freed-up an all-important heating element on the stove. We sanitized our rings and lids in boiling water.

Processing the Peaches

To skin the peaches, we dropped them in boiling water for about 2 minutes. Then we put them in an ice bath for a minute. This allowed easy removal of the skins. This was probably the most laborious part of the process.

Assembling the Jars

We threw the desired spices in the bottom of the jars first. We did a mix of plain vanilla, plain cinnamon, and mixed spices. The jars got roughly one quarter of a vanilla bean, a once inch cinnamon stick, a couple of slightly crushed cardamom pods, and one star anise. We hand packed the peaches in the jars over the spices. Then we poured very hot simple syrup (one quarter sugar to three quarters water) over the peaches. We added 2 tablespoons of bourbon to the jars as desired. We put Indian traditional chai tea in one of the jars, and we put green passion fruit tea in the other. Picture below.

Tea with the peaches

We aren’t sure how the peaches will do with the tea. We have already agreed that we both must be present when the peaches are sampled.

Sealing the Jars

We put the jars in boiling water for 20 minutes. About 9 out of 10 jars came out and sealed nicely. There were a handful that we need to put back in to get them to seal.

Then we waited. I didn’t wait very long. This is partially because I am impatient and partially because I wanted to taste test how we did. We had planned to do another canning session the following weekend. I wanted to know if we should make any adjustments.

I had only eaten commercially canned peaches prior to opening a jar of ours. Eating those peaches was life-altering. Not only do I not understand why no one has commercially canned peaches with some of the spices we used, but I also don’t understand why more people aren’t canning their own peaches. My god. Those were absolutely delicious. I’m ruined for peaches in heavy syrup forever. The simple syrup we used was enough to make the peaches sweet, but not overwhelming. The sugar just complements the flavor of the fruit as opposed to drowning it. I suspect one of the reasons the sweetness in our peaches wasn’t as cloying as commercially canned peaches might be that we used cane sugar as opposed to the high fructose corn syrup.

Some of my friends have offered me money for a jar of our peaches. I am typically generous with our jams. But the peaches. I don’t think I can part with the peaches. My parents will be lucky to get any of the peaches.

Update: we opened the peaches that we packed with tea. They were delicious! We ate them with some homemade vanilla custard. It was divine.