Hot sweet chile-garlic sauce - the new ketchup...

I cannot believe I haven't posted this recipe yet.  Made this sauce last fall with some of the last hot peppers from the garden and after opening the first jar, we decided to ration it so we wouldn't run out before we could make more this summer.  We're using it as a dipping sauce, like ketchup, for fried potatoes, meats and wraps like spring rolls (fresh or fried) plus brushing it on grilled vegetables and meats and any other way we might use a sauce with a little kick. 

My niece posted a FB photo of their homegrown chicken wings (photo above) prepared with this sauce. She wrote "decided we need the recipe. They were perfect." So here it is.

Hot Sweet Chile-Garlic Sauce
1 cup vinegar (5% acidity for canning - I use white or apple cider vinegar)
1 cup water (or fruit juice -- see note*)
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup minced garlic
1-1/2 cups hot red peppers, stemmed and seeded (save the seeds)

Briefly blend peppers in a food processor or blender so peppers are reduced to small bits but not liquified.  Drop seeds in and blend for a short burst or two at the end, just till seed clumps are broken into individual seeds.  Seeds should remain whole.

In a large, heavy saucepan, bring vinegar, water (or juice/fruit, if using), sugar and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt.  Reduce the heat and boil gently until the mixture thickens slightly, about 30 minutes.

Stir in the peppers and garlic.  Increase heat to medium-high and bring the sauce to a rolling boil.  Let it boil for several minutes, until temperature on a candy thermometer reads 230º or a drop of sauce in cold water forms a short thread.

Pour into canning jars (pints or smaller) and process 10 minutes in a BWB or store cooled jars in refrigerator where the sauce should keep well for at least a year.

*Note:  Excellent with pureed peaches or nectarines.  Maybe applesauce or plums?

Notes from 2011-09-29 batch:
Pureed nectarines left from batch of nectarine vinegar (made with 2 quarts white vinegar, 1 quart chopped nectarines, 1/2 cup sugar - let sit in cool, dark cabinet for 6-8 weeks, strain off fruit) subbed puree for water in recipe above.  Yield was 4 cups of pureed fruit so all ingredients, except sugar, were quadrupled.  To offset sweetness of fruit (even though vinegar-soaked), sugar used was closer to 6-3/4 cups than the 8 cups called for when recipe X4.  Peppers were a mix of hot red peppers including hot banana, cayenne, jalapeno and cherry peppers.

Yield for X4 was 5-1/4 pints so as recipe is written above it should yield around 2-1/4 cups sauce.

Adapted from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich

A savory bread saver

I went to a homeschool convention earlier this month and stayed at a hotel where I could take advantage of the in-suite mini-kitchen to prepare my solo meals.  I brought some favorite homemade foods like thick yogurt, nutty granola cereal and nectarine kombucha along in a cooler but stopped at the C'ville Great Harvest Bread Co. on my way over the mountain to pick up a loaf of their sliced honey-whole wheat bread since I didn't have enough time to make bread before I left.  Of course, as soon as you enter the bakery, someone offers a slice of just-baked bread -- this time it was a crusty slice of  a savory spinach feta bread.  Since it was a little heartier than plain, I picked up a round loaf to take with me for my dinner.

When I got back home a few days later, I still had about half a loaf of the spinach feta bread.  Cubed and dried in the dehydrator for several hours, it went into a jar on the pantry shelf.  Then yesterday, I had a package of pork chops and a can of apple pie filling (recently found at the back of a pantry shelf...) which I wanted to turn into several freezer meals DH could take to work, the dried bread cubes became the basis for homemade stovetop stuffing that was out of this world!

I used a very simple recipe from Kraft which called for browning chops in a little oil and then putting apple pie filling in an ovenproof casserole, topped with the pork chops and prepared stuffing.  The spinach feta bread made this recipe.  I'm going to have to remember to make savory breads like that just for the purpose of using as a base in the stuffing!

Pork Chops with Apples and Stuffing

• 4 pork chops
• tablespoon or so of vegetable oil for browning the chops
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 (20-oz.) can apple pie filling
• 3 cups dried, cubed bread (I used the spinach feta bread from Great Harvest)
• pinch each of sage, thyme and celery salt
• 2 tablespoons minced onion or 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 3/4 cup chicken broth or water
• 2 tablespoons butter

Brown pork chops in a little oil in a heavy skillet.  Season with salt and pepper.  Spread apple pie filling in the bottom of an ovenproof casserole dish which is large enough to hold the four chops in a single layer. 

Bring broth, butter, and onions to a boil in a saucepan.  Pour in seasonings and bread cubes and toss to moisten.  Put the lid on the pan and let it stand for a few minutes till bread's completely absorbed the liquid.

Put chops on top of apples and mound stuffing evenly on each chop.  Cover casserole with a lid or aluminum foil and bake at 350ºF. for 45 minutes.  If desired, remove lid for last 5 minutes of baking time to allow stuffing to dry slightly.

Note:  I'm unlikely to have a can of apple pie filling the next time I want to make this so I plan to either substitute fresh apples or canned tart cherries packed in water which I'll quickly stew with a little sugar and maybe a dash of cinnamon before spreading in the bottom of the baking dish.

Cleaning out the freezer. . . again.

I love the way food keeps without developing freezer burn in our manual-defrost freezers.  But I'm not too fond of the day, and it always comes, when they must be defrosted.

This weekend it was the big chest freezer that had to be turned off, then quickly unloaded, blow-dried out and re-packed.  We're getting better, though, as I only found two fruit juice popsicles and a lone mini-muffin (where did its packaging get to I wonder?) which had to be discarded.  But there were a couple packages of chicken, a package of pork chops and one chuck roast which needed to be used soon so I cooked a pot roast with vegetables for Sunday's dinner and thawed the chicken and chops in the refrigerator in covered containers of buttermilk.

Buttermilk seems to refresh even the oldest frozen chicken.  (And it's not too bad as a marinade for frozen pork either.)  One package of chicken was boneless, skinless chicken breasts and those went straight on the grill when they'd thawed.  I'll use them sliced on a garden salad and in quesadillas for lunches later this week.  The other package was bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts which I turned into seven pints of spicy pineapple chicken.  (The recipe, found on the Canning2 list a couple of years ago, is supposed to be a PF Chang copycat but I've never tried the original so can't vouch for that -- just that it's easy to make and tastes good when we need a meal in a hurry.)  I cut the meat from the bone and used the bones and skin to make the quart of broth called for in the recipe.  (Because I thawed the meat in buttermilk, I rinsed it before throwing the scraps in the pot for the broth.)

The photo below shows the jars right before I added the liquid to fill.  Pints like this are perfect for two but don't quite stretch when we're all three home.  But since I had the canner out I did a fast soak of 5 pounds of pinto beans and put up 7 quarts of beans when I'd finished the chicken.  (Sort beans and add to enough boiling water to cover by several inches, boil for 2 minutes, cover and let soak for 2 hours.  Drain and reserve soaking liquid, fill jars half-full with soaked beans.  Top with reserved soaking liquid, brought back to a boil, and process for 75 minutes at 10-lbs pressure. Altitude adjustment, if necessary)

The last couple of years I've made more meal-in-a-jar batches than my old freezer-style oamc.  There are still things I make ahead and freeze, of course, but for space-savings and ease of use, a meal-in-a-jar can rarely be beat.


PF Chang Spicy Pineapple Chicken

• Chicken breasts cut into bite sized pieces (I started with 3-lbs of bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts)
• 2 (20-oz.) cans crushed pineapple
• 1 (8-oz.) can pineapple tidbits, drained and juice reserved (optional)
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion per jar
• 1 teaspoon chili-garlic sauce per jar
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic per jar
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce per jar
• 1 teaspoon sugar per jar
• 1 teaspoon vinegar per jar (I used apple cider vinegar)

Stir fry the chicken.  Meanwhile, divide the crushed pineapple and pineapple tidbits among the jars.  Add seasonings. 

Divide cooked chicken pieces among jars.  Combine chicken broth and reserved pineapple juice, use to fill jars.  Leave 1" headspace.  Process for 75 minutes at 10 lb pressure. Adjust pressure for altitude if necessary.  (Refer to NCHFP website for directions.)

To serve: Add thickener such as cornstarch or arrowroot to sauce while heating and serve over rice.

One lost turkey yields quite a few current and future meals

Trying to clear out the chest freezer before we defrost it later this month and found a turkey. Yes, a 22-lb turkey, in fact. I don't know where it's been hiding but I spotted it under bags of frozen nectarines and strawberries intended for smoothies.

What's worse than admitting I lost a turkey in a large chest freezer? Admitting I haven't bought a frozen turkey in at least 2 years, maybe longer.

The turkey didn't show any signs of freezer burn but our manual-defrost chest freezer will hold well-wrapped meats and most produce in good condition for a long time. Drawbacks? It needs to be defrosted every 12- to 18-months and, if you're short like me, plan on standing on your head to retrieve anything that falls to the very bottom.

Because the outside temperature stayed in the 30s during the day (lower at night), I let the turkey thaw outside for several days. Instead of taking up (a LOT of!) space in the refrigerator, it sat (still sealed in plastic) on the deck in a large enamelware dishpan covered by a laundry tub. When it had thawed enough to allow the giblets and turkey neck to be retrieved from the cavities, DH plunged the turkey into a 5-gal (food-grade) bucket of brine (recipe here), enough to cover the turkey completely and set the covered bucket outside in the cold. Overnight temp was well below freezing but the high concentration of salt and sugar in the brine keeps it from freezing. I swear by brining -- it does wonders for a turkey, especially an aged one.

After brining overnight, I drained the turkey and soaked it in buttermilk for several hours. I did this because I've found with this step the skin will turn the most gorgeous perfectly-roasted brown color, even in a roaster oven, and, perhaps more importantly, the buttermilk soak lessens the saltiness of the pan drippings. Before I started taking this extra step, I didn't like using the pan drippings to make gravy or add to stock.

Rather than use a rack, I put carrots, onion wedges and celery stalks on the bottom of the pan under the turkey. They add good flavor. When the drippings are cooled in the refrigerator, it's easy to lift off the solidified fat that rises to the top. The gelled liquid goes back in the roaster along with the bones, skin and other bits and pieces plus water to make rich turkey stock.

This time, I cut up the roast turkey immediately, while still hot, and readied about half of it for canning immediately. I heated (home-canned) seasoned chicken broth in a pot and added the turkey to it as I carved. Then transferred the hot chunks of turkey to pint jars (ended up with 8) and added the hot broth to cover. Processed for 75 minutes while we had dinner: turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy, butternut squash and peas. The rest of the meat went in the refrigerator destined for several days worth of hot turkey sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy, cold turkey sandwiches, turkey hash and, one of DS's favorites, turkey vegetable soup.

As soon as it was stripped, the turkey carcass went into the roaster oven which still contained the warm drippings and roasted vegetables. I added the roasted skin, the still-raw turkey neck and the gizzard from the giblet pack along with some fresh thyme, rosemary and sage leaves and about 3 gallons of water. The turkey stock simmered on a low setting (200ºF.?) for several hours while the canner was going and I cleaned up the kitchen. By then it was nighttime and I was ready to call it quits for the day. So DH helped me strain out the bones, skin and vegetables and set the covered roaster oven outside under the laundry tub till morning.

It was definitely cold enough overnight to chill the turkey stock thoroughly and I lifted off almost 3 cups of white turkey fat the next day. It's great for making pastry or biscuits to top a pot pie. The turkey stock I brought to a simmer, still in the roaster oven, and then jarred and processed in the pressure canner for 25 minutes. I really love the tall AA canner we have as it lets me stack jars so I could do all 11 quarts of turkey stock in one batch -- a definite time-saver.

I used part of the turkey fat to make potpie crackers which we ate with, naturally enough, turkey pot pie made from part of the leftover turkey. DH and DS also like the potpie crackers in their turkey vegetable soup instead of oyster crackers or crushed saltines but I've never been one to put crackers in my soup (served alongside, yes!) so I can't recommend that personally but even plain, as a snack, they're pretty good...

Potpie Crackers
(adapted from Doris Janzen Longacre's More-with-Less Cookbook and attributed to Doris Brubaker, Mt. Joy, PA)

3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup turkey fat, other shortening or lard, or butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk, kefir, yogurt or buttermilk

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in fat. Add eggs and milk, stir lightly and form into a ball. Divide dough into 3 or 4 parts. Roll each out on a lightly floured board, as for thin pie crust.

Either cut and transfer each 1" square or lift dough and lay in cookie sheet before cutting into small squares. Bake at 375ºF. for 10 minutes or until crackers are lightly browned. In my oven, the bottoms brown long before the tops -- check carefully.

Crackers keep well in tightly-covered container so can be made in advance. Except at my house the fact that they will keep is no guarantee that I can keep them. See note above regarding snacking...

Serve with creamed turkey or chicken, soups, anywhere you might think to serve dumplings or saltines.

Creamed turkey or chicken (like a potpie filling)
(adapted from Doris Janzen Longacre's More-with-Less Cookbook)

1/4 cup turkey or chicken fat or butter
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup celery, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup flour
2 cups turkey stock or chicken broth
1 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
2-to-3 cups diced, cooked turkey or chicken
1 cup frozen peas or peas and carrots (optional)

Melt fat in heavy saucepan. Add onion, and celery if using, and sauté until translucent. Sprinkle flour over all, stir, and cook until bubbly.

Add liquids. Cook, stirring constantly, until smooth and thickened. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add frozen peas and turkey. Heat through and serve with potpie crackers.

Instead of peas, try adding a cup or two of any favorite leftover cooked vegetable you have on hand -- chopped broccoli, diced potatoes, or green beans are ones we like to add.

One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

Bushels of potatoes. Mostly Kennebecs, some Yukon Golds and some Red Pontiacs. All neatly sorted and stacked in (thrifted) bread racks, ready for cool, dark and humid winter storage.

That just leaves the culls.  A few were culled because they were small.  Past experience says that if we store the smallest potatoes, there'll be nothing left when/if they sprout.  (Mid-winter we sort through the stored potatoes, breaking off any sprouts and removing rotten ones.  Helps keep them through till spring -- or till we eat them all, whichever comes first.)

This was a good year for potatoes so we have only a small dishpan of itty bitty potatoes to deal with.  Those won't last two weeks as I'll scrub a potful at a time, boil in their jackets and put them in the refrigerator for use in a baked dish like Doris' Golden Potatoes or make our favorite late morning breakfast -- home fries (cold boiled potatoes, sliced and fried) paired with garden tomatoes, cucumbers and onions in vinegar, plus farm fresh scrambled eggs with just-picked chives.  Yum!

The other culls are potatoes injured while digging or showing damage from wire worms or other pests.  A few more of those but still not a bad year. 

Some will be used over the next few weeks in the usual manner -- mashed, scalloped, roasted or perhaps as oven fries.  But today I'm filling the Excalibur with 10+ pounds of grated potatoes so we'll have dehydrated hash browns ready to prepare when needed.

Peeling, shredding and blanching that many potatoes is a tedious job but it's pouring rain outside and the heat from the stove burner and the dehydrator are welcome. DS's helping by running the Salad Shooter and even set up one of Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World audiobooks for us to listen to as we work. Wish Alex Bellos' Here's Looking at Euclid was available as an audiobook, too, since we're using that as a math read-aloud this month but Jim Weiss' narration of Bauer's works are surprisingly soothing on this rainy day.

The difference between the white-fleshed Kennebec and Pontiac Red potatoes as compared to the buttery yellow Yukon Gold potatoes makes for some pretty hash browns when laid out on the dehydrator trays but once they're dried the difference will fade to almost nothing. When I'm ready to use, I'll pour boiling water over top, let them rehydrate for 20 minutes or so then prepare according to whatever recipe I'm following. If I'm following a recipe -- these are really good simply tossed on a hot greased griddle and quickly grilled. Maybe with a few onions added...

Doris' Golden Potatoes

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, divided
2 cups sour cream (*see note)
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
6 large potatoes, cooked -- approx. 6 cups diced

Cut cooked potatoes into a medium dice.

Combine cheese and 1/4 cup butter in medium saucepan; stir over low heat until cheese is melted. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream, onion, salt and pepper. Add potatoes, mixing gently.

Pour into a greased 2-quart casserole; dot with remaining butter. Bake at 350°F. for 30 minutes.

*Note:
I like to sub lightly drained kefir for the sour cream and when I'm short on cheddar, I use almost any hard cheese or blend of cheeses including Monterey jack, colby, or Swiss that's on hand.  And leftover ham, diced and tossed with potatoes, and toasted breadcrumbs sprinkled on top before baking make nice additions.

Bierrocks for now and for the freezer or another idea for an extra head of cabbage...

DH brought in a couple of heads of savoy cabbage from the garden when I'd asked for one.  He does that a lot.  Sometimes it's a push to use up what's ready in the garden.  One extra head doesn't seem like enough to run through the dehydrator and what with all the other garden produce flowing through the kitchen, it can get lost in the chaos.

So I decided to make a batch of bierrocks for the freezer.  Sort of kills two birds with one stone as we always need quick meals when the garden's growing and the outdoors is calling.

I took three pounds of ground beef from the freezer and a couple of red onions from the garden, and started them to cooking in a big skillet.  I never bother thawing the ground beef first.  Just put a teaspoon or so of oil (our beef is really lean) in the pan, add the frozen meat and put a lid on the pan over low heat.  I check it every few minutes and break off the cooked meat, stirring everything together.  Then put the lid on and let it cook a few more minutes.  In a half hour or less, the meat's cooked and broken apart, while I've been able to work on the rest of the dish.

Homemade dough came together pretty fast, though I use the sponge method to get it off to a good start.  And one could always use frozen bread or pizza dough if need be.  The fresh-ground whole wheat dough I used this time is pretty light and the same one I use to make sandwich buns but a good pizza dough would make a great bierrocks' bread, too.

Once the meat and onions were done, I added the whole head of cabbage, shredded, to the pan and let it cook for another 8-10 minutes or so, until the cabbage was tender but still slightly crisp.  Rolling out a piece of dough, a little smaller than a tennis ball, into an oval was the next step.  I mounded a tablespoon or two of shredded cheese on each oval of dough and topped that with 2-3 tablespoons of the meat-cabbage mixture.

I like to fold half the oval over and leave enough of an edge on the bottom section of dough that I can overlap the bottom over the top edge and crimp them together with a fork.  That's the best method I've found to contain the filling so little to none will leak out while baking.  I do have a neat little plastic pocket-looking thing that supposedly lets you prepare the works in one step, then folds over to crimp the edges together.  It works about half the time.  Doing it by hand works all the time plus I don't have to worry about extra filling poking out the open hinge area of the plastic thing when folded.  Overall, that kitchen tool is a good idea but not truly effective.  Still can't bring myself to toss it, though.

So one extra head of savoy cabbage, three pounds of lean ground beef, two red onions and a batch of fresh ground whole wheat bread dough yielded three dozen small-hand-sized bierrocks or 33 for the freezer.  (After all the hard work, we each had to have one for supper...)

Bierrocks for now or for the freezer

3 pounds ground beef
1  head cabbage, chopped or shredded
2 onions, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
12 ounces shredded cheese or sliced American cheese
1 batch of  Wholegrain Hamburger Bun dough
   OR 3 pounds frozen bread dough
1 egg, beaten (optional)
                  
Brown ground beef in a large skillet with the onion.  Drain grease, if necessary.  Add cabbage and continue cooking 5-8 minutes or until onion is soft and cabbage is tender but still slightly crisp.  Season with salt and pepper.  Let cool while preparing dough.

After dough has risen the first time, roll out balls of dough into thin ovals about the size of your hand.  Place a couple tablespoons of shredded cheese or half a slice of American cheese on one end of dough oval and top with meat-cabbage filling.  Fold over and seal like a turnover.  I like to use a large meat fork to press the edges together and fold the bottom edge over the top edge, then crimp to make a good seal.

Place on a baking sheet and brush with egg.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve immediately or cool and freeze.  To reheat frozen, simply bake until hot.  May also be frozen before baking and baked from frozen state.  Will require longer baking time.  Plan on at least 30 minutes.

Yield: about 30

Hamburger bun heaven

Nothing beats a good hamburger.  But the bun can make a good thing even better.  I've been on a quest for a good wholegrain hamburger bun for a couple of years now and think I've finally found it using a variation on a recipe from a Bosch mixer cookbook, Healthy Recipes from the Heart of Our Homes by Phyllis Stanley and Shirley Heinmets.  The buns even keep well in the freezer -- for the short-term, at least, and the prepared dough, shaped into rolls, then frozen before baking was a success, too.  I haven't had time to test it for more than a few weeks on either method, tho.  We keep wanting to thaw and eat them -- with a hamburger or just on their own.  They're good!

Wholegrain Hamburger Buns

4 cups warm water
2 tablespoons sugar
7 cups fresh ground hard white wheat flour
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons wheat gluten
2 tablespoons powdered milk
4 tablespoons Saf yeast
1 tablespoon salt
additional water, 2-3 tablespoons
additional fresh ground hard white wheat flour as needed

Using the dough hook, mix water, sugar, 7 cups flour, vinegar, oil, gluten, powdered milk and yeast together in the Bosch bowl until moistened.  Let rise until it doubles.

Add salt and enough additional flour so the dough pulls away slightly from the sides of the bowl while on setting 1.  Add another 2-3 tablespoons water and knead for 5 minutes.

Cut off dough pieces and shape lightly into rolls.  My baking sheets are not full-size cookie sheets (9x12-inches) and I put 6 rolls on each.  Let dough rise until doubled.

Bake for 20 minutes at 400ºF. until golden brown.  Remove from oven and brush with butter while still hot.

One variation I've tried is using real buttermilk (left from churning butter) in lieu of the 4 cups of water.  That made a great dough for bierrocks...

Bistro Salad with homemade creamy Italian dressing

Using up garden produce is sometimes a challenge.  When faced with a bountiful harvest of sugar snap peas again, I find myself wondering how to prepare them.  So far we've had them steamed, stir-fried, included in fried rice, as an ingredient in a green salad, tossed in a light chicken soup just before serving, and raw with dip.  Some of those have appeared on the menu more than once -- not so much that I couldn't squeeze another one by the family but often enough I want to try something different.

So I rummaged in the fridge and found some cold roast chicken plus, thanks to a trip to the newly-opened Friendly City Food Co-op, there were a couple of tomatoes, a bell pepper and a cucumber.  Since it's the Year of the Onion here, the garden could provide an onion, too. But our lettuce has started to turn bitter and bolt (go to seed) so if we were going to have a salad it would have to take a slightly different form from the usual lettuce-tomato-cucumber one.  Green sugar snap peas could be the basis instead of lettuce.  And the dressing would have to be homemade as that's one thing I've cut from my grocery list -- homemade dressing tastes better and I control the ingredients.  This is what I came up with -- and we all loved it.  Can't beat that kind of meal.

Bistro Salad with Creamy Italian Dressing

Makes 4 main dish servings

2 cups cooked cannellini or great northern beans, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup cooked chicken, chopped
1 small bell pepper, seeded and diced
1 small cucumber, diced
1/3 cup diced sweet onion
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 cup creamy Italian dressing (recipe follows)
12 oz. sugar snap peas, optional
3 small tomatoes, optional

Combine first five ingredients in a large bowl and toss to combine.  Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat.  (I start with a 1/4 cup, add more if needed, then serve extra on the side for those who really like to drown a salad.)  Taste and add salt and pepper if desired.  Serve on a bed of raw sugar snap peas and sliced tomatoes.  Crusty bread makes a good partner.

Creamy Italian Dressing
(adapted from Jim Long's excellent book, The Best Dressed Salad: World Famous Salad Dressings & Their Origins)
Makes about 1-1/4 cups

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dry marjoram
1 teaspoons dry parsley
1/4 teaspoon dry basil
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon liquid lecithin, optional

Combine all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.  Recipe may be halved or doubled.  Will keep several weeks in refrigerator.

Menu plan, week of 2011-03-14, plus scalloped potatoes from our dehydrated potatoes and kefir

Monday, March 14, 2011
Scalloped potatoes (recipe below)
Deviled eggs
Applesauce

Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Pork potstickers with dipping sauce
Harvey House slaw

Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Egg salad
Potato wheat bread
Strawberry-banana yogurt


Thursday, March 17, 2011
Green beans
Butternut squash
Sticky chicken
Homemade egg noodles


Friday, March 18, 2011
Homemade pizza
Carrots and celery with ranch dressing made w/ kefir
Sliced apples

Saturday, March 19, 2011
Cilantro-lime brown rice topped with taco-seasoned ground beef
Corn salsa
Tortilla chips
Fruit salad

Sunday, March 20, 2011
Vegetable-beef soup
Soda crackers
Ice cream and brownies 

Scalloped Potatoes (from dehydrated potatoes)

2 - 3 cups dried potato slices
enough boiling water to cover potatoes
1 cup kefir or light cream
1 egg, beaten (optional)
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt or celery salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
1/4 - 1/2 cup cheese, grated (optional)

In medium bowl, pour boiling water over dried potatoes and set aside for 10 minutes.  Grease a shallow 2-quart baking dish.  Lift potatoes from water and spread in bottom of baking dish.  Don't worry if a little water clings to potatoes.

Discard (or save for other use) all but 1 cup of the potato water.  Add all remaining ingredients, except cheese, to the cup of water and whisk to blend well.  Pour the mixture over potatoes, cover and bake in 375ºF. oven for 40 minutes or until sauce is bubbling and starting to thicken.  Then dot potatoes with butter and grated cheese and continue to bake, uncovered, for another 20 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender, sauce is thickened and top is golden brown.  Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Notes: I decide how many potatoes to use by pouring the dried slices into the baking dish I want to use to get a measure then moving them to another bowl for soaking.  This is very good layered with onion slices -- 1/2 cup fresh or 1/4 cup dried.  Or sprinkle chives in with the potatoes. If using dried onions, I don't bother soaking them first.  The egg may be omitted but I like the way it adds to the sauce -- similar to a very creamy mac-and-cheese.  When I want to make this more substantial, I add diced cooked ham or sausage to the potatoes.

Menu plan, week of 2011-02-14 plus ranch dressing made w/ kefir

We got a bag of produce from my mother this week.  She decided on the spur of the moment to take advantage of the warmer weather and go visit my cousin in Ohio for a week or so.  When I went to help her pack Monday night, we also cleaned out her fridge and I came home with cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and more.  Altered our menu plan a bit but mainly it created a need for some salad dressing -- something we don't use a lot of over the winter.

Monday, February 14
CORD at Mom's

Tuesday, February 15

Tuna loaf
Oven fries (spicy)
Green beans

Wednesday, February 16

Curried chicken thighs
Basmati rice
Tossed salad w/ Ranch dressing made with kefir (recipe below)

Thursday, February 17

Country-style steak w/ potatoes and onions
Harvey House slaw

Friday, February 18

Homemade pizza
Tossed salad

Saturday, February 19
Cheese and black bean quesadillas, topped with lettuce, diced tomatoes and cucumbers
Corn salsa

Orange wedges


Sunday, February 20
Bbq on buns
Pumpkin Seed salad dressing over salad of green peppers, bean sprouts, corn, and sweet onion
Chocolate cake
Kefir ice cream
-----

I can't believe how much I like this kefir made from the grains.  We made ice cream with it this weekend and I've even been drinking a cup of it plain every day.  It's soothing and refreshing at the same time.

And it makes a good ranch dressing -- thick and tangy. Like ranch dressing should taste but rarely does.

Ranch Dressing with Kefir

2 heaping tablespoons dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups mayonnaise
2 cups kefir

Blend mayonnaise and kefir together till smooth.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Refrigerate for at least 12 hours before using to allow flavors to blend.  Makes 4 cups.  Recipe can be halved.

Some make-a-mix recipes for ranch dressing call for a thickener such as crushed saltines.  Using kefir keeps the dressing thick yet pourable, without need for any thickener.  Buttermilk or thinned yogurt can be substituted but dressing may be thinner.

Baked oatmeal made with blackstrap molasses

DS likes to eat breakfast as soon as he gets up.  DH prefers to wait at least an hour or two.  In hot weather he even wants to get in a few hours working outside while it's still cool then sit down to breakfast at 10 or so.  And I'm somewhere in-between.  So we tend to eat breakfast in shifts.

To keep breakfast quick and easy, I try to keep breakfast staples like sausage-egg burritos and blender oatmeal pancakes on-hand in the freezer.  Eggs are always in the refrigerator thanks to the chickens and ham, sausage and bacon are readily available in the freezer or canned on the pantry shelf.  AJ's Pumpkin Bread or something similar will sneak into the breakfast rotation occasionally.  And there's always hot cereal like oatmeal or rice.

Every so often I make baked oatmeal (aka Amish baked oatmeal) which I think of as a cross between plain oatmeal and a sweet quick bread or bar cookie.  What DS calls the mom-friendly version I make these days (less sweetener and oil) means we can have it more often and without guilt.  It's a not-too-sweet dish with an almost cake-like texture which when eaten for breakfast is usually served warm in a bowl with milk but late afternoon is a good time for a piece eaten out-of-hand and accompanied by a cup of tea or hot chocolate.  I prefer to soak grains whenever possible so I mix this up part way the night before and then add the remaining ingredients the next morning and bake.

Baked Oatmeal with Blackstrap Molasses

6 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups water
1/3 cup kefir, yogurt or whey
1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
1/2 cup applesauce or pumpkin puree (pumpkin is good but will impart a pumpkin flavor)
1/2 cup blackstrap or regular molasses
8-10 large eggs
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup raisins or other dried diced fruit, optional
1/2 cup nuts, optional

12- to 24-hours before you want to bake this, combine oats, water, kefir, oil, applesauce or pumpkin puree and molasses in a large bowl and stir well to mix.  Let sit on the counter, covered with a tea towel, till you're ready to bake.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. and grease a 9x13-inch pan or two 8-inch square pans.  Break eggs into a bowl and stir in cinnamon, vanilla, salt and baking soda.  Then pour this mixture into the soaking oatmeal.  Stir well to break up oatmeal and combine ingredients, adding dried fruit and nuts as you're stirring.  Pour into prepared pan(s) and bake for 30- to 35-minutes till a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

The baked oatmeal will keep in the refrigerator for several days or can be frozen in individual portions. If you prefer a sweeter taste, add 1/4- to 1/2-cup honey with the molasses and you can use regular molasses instead of the stronger-flavored blackstrap molasses if you want.  If using pumpkin puree, add 1 teaspoon each nutmeg and ginger for a light pumpkin pie flavor.  Serve warm covered with milk or at room temperature for eating out-of-hand.

Yield: 12 servings

Menu plan, week of 2011-02-07 plus Kefir-Honey dressing for fruit salad

Except for the marshmallows, I've always loved what my mother calls 5-cup salad.  It's made with a cup of each ingredient: pineapple chunks, shredded coconut, mandarin oranges, sour cream and the dreaded marshmallows, usually mini-.  (I like homemade marshmallows and toasted marshmallows but I haven't found a dish yet where I like intact marshmallows as an ingredient.  Weird?  Probably.)

This Kefir-Honey dressing, while it has a touch of orange from the juice, makes a similar salad when tossed with fruit.  If you don't have kefir, see the note following the recipe for suggestions on substituting sour cream or yogurt.  This makes a nice winter fruit salad but is very refreshing in the heat of summer, too.

Kefir-Honey Dressing for fruit salad

1/2 cup kefir (drained to thicken, if you prefer)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon orange juice

In a large bowl, mix kefir, honey and orange juice till smooth.  Add 4 or 5 cups of fresh or drained, canned fruit to the bowl and toss lightly to coat.

I use orange sections (clementines are nice), sliced bananas, grapes (cut in half), pineapple chunks, strawberries, sliced peaches and blueberries, depending on the season.  Mandarin oranges, pineapple and shredded coconut will make a salad similar to 5-cup salad (a southern specialty?) and, if you like nuts, chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds are nice to sprinkle on top.  (But I like nuts with almost everything...)

If you don't have kefir, you may substitute sour cream or a good whole-milk plain or vanilla yogurt. If using low-fat or non-fat yogurt, I'd use half sour cream and half yogurt to keep it rich-tasting. YMMV

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Menu planning that's actually written down (and even better, made public) holds me accountable and makes for a smoother week.  And I'm all in favor of the latter, if not always the former.  So here's this week's plan:


Monday, February 7
(Super Bowl party leftovers)
Chili
Crackers and cheese spread
Carrots and celery sticks
Chocolate cake

Tuesday, February 8
Chicken roasted with potato and onion wedges
Bean sprout salad w/Outrageous Dressing

Wednesday, February 9
Frittata (eggs, ham and leftover roasted potatoes and onions)
Fruit salad with Kefir-Honey dressing (recipe above)
Rye 5-minute artisan bread

Thursday, February 10
Baja-style fish tacos w/Chipotle White taco sauce (made with kefir instead of sour cream or yogurt)
Shredded cabbage, bean sprouts and onion for topping tacos
Orange sections

Friday, February 11
Chicken sandwiches on rye w/nectarine mustard
Applesauce
Preserved bean sprouts

Saturday, February 12
(Family dinner for 15 -- I'm responsible for cobbler and ice cream...)
Tenderloin and gravy
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Corn
Cole slaw
Macaroni and cheese
Apple salad
Rolls
Blackberry cobbler
Homemade ice cream

Sunday, February 13
Crockpot tortellini vegetable soup
Crackers
Apple slices

Making kefir

I've been making kefir with kefir grains for a few weeks now.  I find it very easy to make, less fuss than yogurt, and I've learned I like it plain.  Which came as a big surprise to me!

Previously, I'd had kefir purchased in a bottle and generally fruit-flavored, like strawberry.  Sort of like a thin shake.  Then I found a package of kefir-starter at Cranberry's.  That's a simple process, too, but it's not self-perpetuating.  Each packet made a batch of kefir and I could save a bit to make another batch.  But that only works for a few times.  Then I had to go back to mixing up another packet.  When I ran out of packets in the box, I would have to buy another.  Or switch to using kefir grains.

Switching to the grains made the most sense.  So now I have a small wide-mouthed jar with creamline milk and kefir grains working away all the time.  As soon as a batch of kefir is ready, 36- to 48-hours what with the cooler indoor temps, I strain out the grains and store the liquid in the fridge till I'm ready to use it.  The grains go back in the small jar with another cup or so of creamline milk.   

There are slightly differing views on how to make kefir.  Because the milk's already pasteurized I haven't found it necessary to scald the milk prior to pouring over the grains.  And I don't rinse the grains before plopping them back into the jar with more milk.  Some kefir-makers recommend both those things; others don't.  And some kefir-makers insist on only using raw milk.   If I had raw milk available, I'd use it instead.  As it is, Virginia doesn't allow the sale of raw milk and I don't have dairy animals (yet!) nor a cow share, so I rely on a local creamery's pasteurized milk.

I'm finding that kefir makes an excellent substitute for buttermilk in recipes -- blender oatmeal pancakes are equally good made with kefir, buttermilk or thinned yogurt.  I like kefir as a buttermilk sub in ranch dressing and as a sub for sour cream in our favorite macaroni and cheese recipe.  Makes a good, not-too-sweet, dessert when topping lightly sweetened fruit. Alternatively, the kefir can be sweetened with a teaspoon or so of honey and then poured over fruit or cereal.  It works great for soaking grains prior to bread-baking.  I have yet to try using it as the sole yeast source when making a sourdough-type bread but that's on my list. 

Smoothies made with kefir are great but I have learned that, since it's not quite as thick as the yogurt I previously used, I need to include a frozen banana or something similar so the drink remains thick as we prefer it. If made with kefir and only fresh, non-frozen fruits, it's still tasty but thinner, more like the kefir beverages from the store.  Not what we think of when imagining a thick fruit smoothie sucked up through  a straw or scooped with a spoon. YMMV
 
Kefir, like yogurt, is supposed to be a good-for-you, easily-digested food.  But it doesn't matter how good something is for me, if I don't like it, it's hard getting it down.  Especially on a regular basis.  So I'm very happy to learn that not only will my kefir grains continue to grow and steadily produce kefir into the future with just the addition of milk, but we like it.  And I even like it plain -- it's refreshing and, this is important, doesn't greatly remind me of cultured buttermilk.  An irrational fear I've had ever since I bought the first bottle of flavored kefir years ago.

Canning ham or smoked picnic shoulder plus making ham salad with or without puff shells

Earlier this month I canned ham I bought on sale prior to Christmas.  Hams are often on sale before the Christmas and Easter holidays so that's a good time for me to can a few jars.  We don't eat a lot of ham so a couple of hams each year go a long way -- a little diced ham in a frittata, in scalloped potatoes or macaroni and cheese can make the meal.  And, as I mentioned before, ham salad is another great way to use up ham.  When I make ham salad, my mom always expects me to send a little bit over for her, too.  It makes a quick meal with crackers, stuffed in a garden tomato or as a sandwich.

I can western ham and sometimes smoked picnic shoulder (picnic ham).  Sometimes it says semi-boneless.  And even though the ham I buy these days is always labeled Ready-to-Eat, which means it's already cooked,  I like to cook it in the roaster oven (regular oven would work, too).  That way it's hot and ready to go straight into the canning jars as fast as I can get it cut off the bone.  How long I cook it depends on the size of the ham -- the package has directions as to temperature and how many minutes per pound as well as recommended internal temp.

Once the ham is cooked, I lift it out onto a cutting board and trim away all skin and fat.  That goes into a stock pot along with the bone when I'm done.  Makes great ham stock for canning beans or cooking potatoes for potato soup.  The ham gets cut into chunks.  I try to cut the meat into even-sized pieces about an inch thick.  Since I'm never sure just what I'll want the ham for when the jar's opened, I go with large pieces overall -- I can always slice, cube or dice it as needed later. 

Hot jars are packed with  hot ham to within an inch of the rim.  Wipe rim of jar clean.  (I use a clean cloth dipped in vinegar as it seems to help cut any grease that may be on the glass jar.)  Place lid on jar and tighten ring.  Using a pressure canner, process pints and half-pints for 75 minutes and quarts for 90 minutes at the appropriate pressure for your altitude.  If you've never canned before check out the latest Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving or the USDA-funded website, National Center for Home Food Preserving, for detailed directions. The ham will yield a little juice so when you remove the jars from the canner you'll often see an inch or two of liquid in the tightly-packed jars.  That's normal.  If you don't take care to trim away all fat, there will be a bit of that in there, too.  It will harden as the jar cools and form a white layer on top of the liquid or ham.

When I told DH I was going to post my recipe for ham salad, he just rolled his eyes and said "what recipe?  You just throw it together and taste as you go!"  And he's right.  I have four ingredients that I combine to make ham salad but I don't measure any of them.  One reason is because I rarely have the exact same amount of ham each time because ham salad is a favorite way I use up leftover ham -- after we've eaten it hot from the oven and in cold slices on a sandwich we have it ground up with mayonnaise, mustard and sweet pickles added to make ham salad.  But I can give you what I start with and then suggest you let your taste buds lead you on.

Ham Salad

2 cups cold, cooked ham
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sweet pickles or 1/3 cup sweet pickle relish
1 to 2 tablespoons yellow mustard

Using a food processor or meat grinder, process ham and pickles.  You want them to be finely chopped but not pasty. 

I scrape the ham and pickles into another bowl before adding the mayo and mustard as I don't want to risk processing to much.  Texture is important here. 

Add mayonnaise and the smaller amount of mustard, then taste and adjust mayo or mustard till you have the right combination for you.  I don't want to add so much mustard that the salad turns yellow but I definitely like to have a little tang to the salad -- it offsets the sweetness of the pickles, I think. 

This is ready to eat at this point but it's even better if you can give it an hour or so in the fridge to chill and let the flavors meld.

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If you're tired of sandwiches or crackers, try making little puff pastries to fill.  They're pretty easy and they look impressive on a plate. They're also good filled with chicken salad.

Puffs for Filling
(adapted from Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book, 1976)

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup flour
dash salt
1 egg
1/4 shredded Swiss or Cheddar cheese (optional)

Melt butter in 1/4 boiling water.  Add flour and dash salt; stir vigorously.  Cook and stir till mixture forms a ball that doesn't separate.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.  Add egg and beat vigorously until smooth.  Stir in cheese.  Drop dough onto greased baking sheet, using 1 level teaspoon dough for each puff.  Bake at 400ºF. about 20 minutes.  Remove puffs from oven; cool and split.  Fill each puff with 2 teaspoons of ham or chicken salad.  Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 4 hours.  (They are actually still tasty the next day but will eventually soften in storage so best not to plan on storing too long.)

Pizza burgers for the freezer

A couple times each year I make pizza burgers, a DH favorite, for the freezer.  They're quick to put together and I usually double or triple the recipe because they're very handy to have for a quick lunch at home or for DH's lunch bag.  This week I put together 4 dozen pizza burgers but only 45 made it into the freezer. 

We all needed lunch and they were so handy...

I thought I'd posted about these OAMC staples several years ago but when I told a friend the recipe was on my blog, she couldn't find it.  I couldn't either.  So here it is.

Pizza Burgers

1 pound lean ground beef or venison
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 quart spaghetti sauce, or substitute pizza sauce
3 ounces pepperoni sausage, finely chopped (optional)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
18 regular hamburger buns

Brown meat with onion in a large skillet.  Drain, if necessary.  Stir in spaghetti or pizza sauce, chopped pepperoni and cheese.  Fill the buns with meat mixture. 

Wrap each bun for the freezer.  Originally I used aluminum foil but DH has to use a microwave when he takes these to work so I now wrap the burgers in wax paper.  I fold the paper in what's called a drugstore wrap.

To freeze for later: Put the wrapped buns in a plastic bag and freeze. If I'm using store-bought buns, I re-use the plastic bag they come in but any bag that will hold the buns close together so they don't tumble around is good.

If desired, thaw the buns, still wrapped, for no more than 1 hour before re-heating.  Bake foil-wrapped buns at 350ºF. for 15-20 min. or microwave wax paper-wrapped buns for 45 seconds to heat through.

Cajun Cowboy Candy Pickles

Is that a mouthful to say or what?  But they taste good and are a sort of by-product of another session of canning.

A few months ago I posted about a tasty hot and dill pickle recipe a friend had shared called Cajun Pickles.   Then, last weekend in anticipation of our first frost, DH pulled up all the pepper plants in the garden.  So I've been busy putting up serrano, jalapeno, thai dragon and Fooled You peppers.  Some went into a ristra, some were spread on trays for drying, some were canned for later use in salsa or crockpot Italian beef, some went into more hot sauce and some went to another friend because I'd run out of ideas.

But I still had about 8 pounds of jalapeno peppers.  And peppers are like anything else we produce, I hate to waste any.

Earlier this summer I had filed away a hot pepper relish-type recipe (attributed to Galen Gann) from the Canning2 list as it sounded like something we would like -- Cowboy Candy.  Hot jalapeno peppers, sliced, and onions, diced, simmered together till just tender in a vinegar brine which is then drained off.  Sugar and spices are added and the result was billed as a "tasty and spicy addition to almost any meal."

 So I used the recipe (posted below) to make 9 pints of Cowboy Candy.  One of the reasons I like the Canning2 list is most posters hate to waste anything, too.  So the original recipe recommended saving the vinegar-water brine to make hot pepper jelly.  But nothing was suggested for the heavy syrup that remained after canning the peppers.

Luckily DH had been asking when we were going to have another batch of Cajun Pickles which made me consider that while they start with a jar of dill pickles, the additional sugar and vinegar called for seemed a possible solution for what to do with the leftover sweet syrup from Cowboy Candy.  So I made a batch of cajun pickles using some of the leftover syrup and an additional two cups of sugar which I estimated would approximate the original sweetness called for in the cajun pickle recipe.  Instead of adding hot sauce, I relied on the heat left in the syrup after simmering the jalapenos plus the jalapeno seeds and almost 1/2 cup of jalapeno and onion bits left after bottling the cowboy candy.  And since the cowboy candy recipe included garlic, mustard seeds and other spices I didn't worry about not using tarragon vinegar or the other seasoning called for in the cajun pickle recipe.

Yes, this makes something slightly different from the original cajun pickle recipe.  Is it very new and different?  No.  It's just a little tweaking, no different than I do on a sometimes daily basis to modify recipes in order to use what's on hand.  Do we like this version?  Yes!  The sweet hot dill flavor is still predominant.  Can't tell too much difference from the original version -- tho the addition of mustard seeds gives it a slightly more "sweet pickle" flavor, if that makes sense.  We like them so much I'm saving the rest of the pickling syrup left from the cowboy candy to make another batch of cajun pickles when these are done.  I love a happy ending.

Candied Jalapenos (Cowboy Candy)
Recipe by: Galen Gann

This makes a very tasty and spicy addition to almost any meal.

First process
4 lb. fresh jalapeno peppers, sliced
2 lb. onions diced
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup water
Second process
6 to 8 cups sugar
2 Tbs. mustard seed
1 tsp. turmeric
2 tsp. celery seed
1 Tbs. garlic powder
1 tsp. ginger

Slice Jalapenos into thin slices and dice onions.  Place in pan with water and vinegar, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat & simmer about 10 min or until tender. [Note: You could start with canned pickled sliced jalapenos and skip this step.]

Pour off most of the water-vinegar mixture (reserve for making hot pepper jelly, if desired), add the sugar and spices bring to soft candy temperature to completely dissolve sugar (about another 10 min.).  Place boiling mixture into pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. (Reserve extra sugar syrup for making Cajun Pickles, if desired.)  Put on 2-piece lids.  Process 10 minutes in boiling water bath.

If you've never canned before check out the latest Ball Blue Book of Preserving or the USDA-funded website, National Center for Home Food Preserving, for detailed directions.

This year's hot pepper sauce

Is a blend of Thai dragon and serrano peppers. 

Why?  Because those are the main hot peppers, along with cayenne, which DH planted.  And, when it came time to make a batch of hot pepper sauce, those were the two that were ready to harvest.  The cayenne peppers aren't ripening as fast for some reason.

I make hot pepper sauce that's vinegar-based so it can set on the pantry shelf after opening.  Because I make enough to last a year, I process pints or quarts for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.  Then when it's ready to use or we need to open another batch, I can decant into a recycled glass bottle more appropriate for dispensing dashes of hot sauce.

Like pickles, this hot pepper sauce benefits from some time just sitting in the jar before using.  The flavors will meld and the vinegar will lose some of its overpowering strength.  Which improves the overall flavor and lets the peppers shine.  I do add a bit of salt and, if I remember, I add a few cloves of garlic -- we were so busy processing tomatoes for juice and ketchup, canning another 18 quarts of chicken broth from chicken backs and necks stockpiled in the freezer, and putting up the pimiento peppers from my brother-in-law's garden that I didn't think of pulling garlic to add this time till I was pureeing the sauce.  Thus this batch is garlic-free.

This recipe doesn't require precise measurements but I've learned that it's a good idea to weigh the peppers and measure the amount of vinegar I use so I can come close to duplicating a batch if it turns out to be a very good year.  Even with precise amounts, tho, the batches may not be the same year-to-year as the peppers themselves can vary depending on growing conditions.  Some years just yield better flavor than others.  Lucky for us, drier years seem to be particularly good.

For this year's Thai Dragon-Serrano Pepper Sauce, I used 12 ounces Thai dragon peppers and 26 ounces serrano peppers.  Weighed before cutting off the short stems and little caps.  I put the peppers in a large dutch oven and added 8 cups distilled white vinegar and 1 tablespoon salt to the pan.  I loosely covered the pan and simmered the peppers in the vinegar-salt mixture for about 30 minutes, until they were softened for pureeing.

The peppers and liquid went into the blender in two batches as it was too much to process in one.  I put a lid over the opening in the blender lid to try to hold back the splashing.  Plus, I put the blender outside on the back deck instead of doing this in the kitchen.  The wafting pepper steam will burn eyes and sinuses so fresh moving air is a good idea.  Don't do the blending in a small enclosed space!

Even tho using the blender, it's a good idea to strain the mixture through a wire mesh.  I processed it in our well-loved and tough-working vitamix and still had over a cup of seeds and pepper bits left to strain out.  (The remaining pulp can make a good pest deterrent in the garden but ours went into the compost this time.)

I was left with 2 quarts and almost 1 pint of hot pepper sauce.  It was too thick to sprinkle easily from a bottle so I thinned it slightly by adding almost 2 more cups of white vinegar.  The hot pepper sauce went into canning jars which I processed for 10 minutes in a BWB.  Yield of 6 pints.

If you've never canned before check out the latest Ball Blue Book of Preserving or the USDA-funded website, National Center for Home Food Preserving, for detailed directions.

Something old and something new

Well, maybe familiar would be a better choice than old...

After canning 16 pints of a spicy plum dipping sauce I've made for years, we tried something different with a few pounds of the damsons picked earlier in the week.  I've read of fruit cheeses in novels and English cookbooks and finally the time seemed right to try making some myself.

Fruit cheese is made from fruit and sugar and will hold its shape; it can be made in a straight-sided crock or jar and turned out for slicing when ready to serve rather than being spooned out like a softer preserve.  Tart fruits such as damsons and gooseberries seem most common but there may be other fruits that would work as well.  And fruit cheese will keep for months, too, thanks to all the sugar.

It's a pretty basic recipe.  For each pound of damson pulp left after sieving to remove the pits and break up the skins, you use 2 cups of sugar.  Here's a link to a page on the neat site, The Cottage Smallholder, with the easy directions.

The spicy plum dipping sauce is my adaptation of Helen Witty's "Chinese-style Plum Sauce" recipe included in her wonderful Better Than Store-Bought: A Cookbook. I modified it to include crushed pineapple and exclude the corn syrup and whole mustard seeds.  I previously posted the original version on Farm Bell Recipes at Chickens in the Road in case you want to compare the two.  Either one is great for dipping egg rolls, chicken strips, etc. 

The original recipe makes about 4 pints and the version below makes about 15 pints though it could be halved without a problem.  I found we liked this so well it's better to make enough to last till the next year's fruit harvest and still have a little to give away.  I hate it when friends or family beg, don't you?

Remember that this is a sauce for canning.  It's meant to be made and then held on the shelf for a minimum of a couple of weeks before serving -- better yet, make it this summer than wait till Thanksgiving to enjoy.  Almost any recipe for a preserve like this, or for pickles or relish -- similar dishes, really -- will benefit from a waiting period to allow the flavors to meld.  If you taste this as you're preparing it (and I always do and think you should, too) it will likely taste too vinegary and the flavor of the peppers may be too strong, too.  That's normal.  Give it a few weeks, preferably a couple of months if you can wait that long, and the flavors will meld into a wonderful dipping sauce you'll certainly prefer over that orangey-pink stuff in the little plastic packets.

Spicy Plum Dipping Sauce

8 cups plum pulp, *See note
8 cups peach or nectarine pulp, *See note
2 (20 ounce) cans crushed pineapple in juice
2 large onions, diced
2 sweet bell peppers, seeded and diced
5 jalapeno peppers, seeded and membrane removed, finely diced
3-inch knob of gingerroot, peeled and finely diced or shredded
1 head garlic, peeled and minced
6-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar, 5% acidity
3 cups water
1/4 cup dry mustard
3 tablespoons kosher salt
2 cups granulated sugar
2 pounds brown sugar (approximately 4-1/3 cups)

Combine the fruit pulp, pineapple, onions, peppers, gingerroot, garlic, and vinegar in a very large non-reactive kettle.  Bring to a simmer over low heat.  In a bowl, combine remaining ingredients and whisk to blend.  Add to the fruit mixture and allow to simmer for an additional 45 minutes.

If you prefer a smoother sauce, press mixture through a chinoise or food mill. Return to the kettle and boil gently, stirring, until the sauce has thickened, about 15 minutes longer (it will thicken a little more while cooling).

Process in BWB in half-pint (10 minutes) or pint (15 minutes) jars, leaving 1/2″ headspace.

Allow the flavors to meld in the jars for at least 2 weeks, better a month, before serving. This one definitely improves with a month or two of waiting — it’s worth it.

Notes:
I use a steam juicer to prepare the damsons and nectarines or peaches.  It lets me obtain juice from the fruit than run the remaining pulp through a chinoise or food mill to yield stoned, sieved fruit ready to turn into a smooth sauce. (The juice I either can or use for another purpose.)

Alternatively, coarsely chop fruit and place in a large pot.  Heat fruit till softened sufficiently to run through a food mill, removing pits and skins, then measure out the amount of pureed fruit called for in recipe. Repeat for other type of fruit indicated in recipe.

Optional but good:
Roast the sweet red peppers over a flame or under the broiler till the skin is burned almost black. Let stand 5 minutes, then wrap in a plastic bag and let stand for 15 minutes. Quarter lengthwise, scrape off the skin and remove the seeds then set the peppers aside till called for in recipe.

Damsons!

We picked about 4 gallons of damsons yesterday. I put together one jar each gin- and vodka-infused damsons with sugar. Both will take several months to work their magic and then damson liqueur for everyone! 

For each 1/2-gallon jar I used 2 lbs of damsons, each pricked several times with a fork, plus 12 ounces of granulated sugar and enough vodka or gin to cover the fruit -- about .65L each. Put a lid on the jars and covered them with brown paper to keep out the light. I'll shake them once every day or so till the sugar's dissolved. Then they'll sit on an out-of-the-way shelf in the kitchen for at least three months when we'll taste and decide if it's time to strain and bottle or wait another couple of months.

The other damsons are on their way to becoming damson cheese, spicy plum sauce, damson preserves and juice for syrup or drinking.  More recipes to come...