More canning: Pumpkins and turkey broth

Thanksgiving dinner for 15? It's a cinch.

45 pie pumpkins? Help!

Thanks to a friend who had too many pie pumpkins DH and I spent Friday canning pumpkin. And, as always, I saved the turkey carcass from Thanksgiving to make turkey broth for canning so Friday's kitchen output included 39 quarts of pumpkin plus 7 quarts of turkey broth.

DS claimed one pumpkin for carving. Why restrict jack o'lanterns to Halloween? After all, that would leave us with only 44 pumpkins. Every little bit helps, you know.

DH began cutting up pumpkins by 11 a.m. He started out cheerful and slightly goofy. In other words, normal.

He continued carving pumpkins for canning till mid-afternoon when he took DS roller skating, fulfilling a long-promised treat and leaving me with the first batch of pumpkin in the pressure canner plus several pumpkins seeded and sliced and waiting to be peeled, chopped and par-boiled.

All the pumpkin guts and peels went to the animals. The chickens scratched through the stringy seeds and the sheep and Andy found some of the peels palatable. Pumpkin seeds are a natural wormer so I'm saving some of them to grind and add to feed later in the winter, too. I'm wondering if they'd be useful in treating roundworms in T-cat. We can't keep him from indulging in small rodents and sometimes wild birds so he often shows signs of worms as often as once a year.

I used our new All-American pressure canner which is tall enough to allow a double-stack of quart jars. The first batch only had 12 quarts, though, as I misjudged how much pumpkin to heat for jarring.

The second canner held a full 14 quarts. And the last canner of pumpkin for the evening held 13 quarts. It was short one quart because we stopped after prepping 23 pumpkins so I'd still have time to process the turkey broth which had simmered in the roaster oven for most of the afternoon.

Turkey broth only requires 25 minutes for processing in the pressure canner but pumpkin takes 90 minutes and what with bringing the canner up to pressure each time, processing for the required time and then allowing for cool down till the pressure subsides, only to start the process over again, we were up till after midnight.
But I love knowing I have all those jars of pumpkin and broth ready to go into the pantry.

Since DH and DS had their monthly wargaming gathering at the county library Saturday afternoon, I decided to take the afternoon off from canning, too. I spent the time writing out a draft and winding the warp for some kitchen towels I want to weave. The 21 remaining pumpkins will keep till Monday.

We like pumpkin pie all year 'round but I don't make it with the crust. And my sister adapted a traditional pumpkin pie recipe to use half the amount of sugar and milk so DH can argue, somewhat successfully, that pumpkin pie is even suitable for breakfast.

Pumpkin Pie W/O Crust

1 quart home-canned pumpkin, drained and mashed
-OR-
29 ounces commercially-canned pumpkin
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
-OR-
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk AND 3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly oil two 7x11-inch baking dishes.

Whisk ingredients together in order listed. Pour into prepared pans.

Place in oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Note: Substitute up to 1 cup honey or maple syrup for sugar, if desired. Make require slightly longer baking with either of those substitutions.

Thanksgiving dinner

As usual we hosted family and friends for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday afternoon. Ever year we try to streamline the job and this year was one of the easiest feasts we've managed.

I brined the turkey Wednesday night and, in keeping with our goal to get as much as possible done before guests arrive, went on to put green beans and a cayenne pepper pod into a slow cooker, added garden-fresh red cabbage with apples to another crock, and steamed just-picked spinach for a bowl of dip. DH made wholegrain bread and make-ahead mashed potatoes, then pared carrots and celery and the ingredients for a fruit salad. I also brewed a gallon of tea and squeezed lemons for another gallon of lemonade so they would have time to chill before serving. DS spent Wednesday afternoon at his grandmother's baking pumpkin pies, Japanese fruit pies (recipe follows) and a batch of sugar cookies.

On Thursday I roasted the turkey along with a pan of dressing while DH opened a jar of the pickled beets canned earlier this year and packages of the few items we couldn't grow and/or prepare ourselves: pimiento-stuffed green olives, black olives and a bag of potato chips. My sister brought a pan of cheese-y corn pudding and Mom showed up early to make the gravy.

By mid-morning early arrivals were snacking on crudites and dip and we all sat down to dinner, right on schedule, at one o'clock. We set butter and fruit preserves on the dining tables DH set up in the living room but, to save space, served the food buffet-style in the kitchen.

With so much of the food prep done in advance, the only thing we could think of to improve on this year's dinner would be to raise our own turkey. Maybe that's what my mother envisioned years ago when she made this wall-hanging for me?


Who knows where the name for Japanese Fruit pie originated? It certainly doesn't have any identifiably Japanese ingredients. But it's been a family favorite for over 35 years.

My mom got the recipe from a friend when I was a kid and one nephew still asks for it for his birthday. He refers to it as "Japanese Fruit Fly Pie," the name he thought we all called it when he was little. Sounds great, doesn't it?

Well, it is.

Japanese Fruit Pie

1 stick (4 oz.) butter, melted
4 whole eggs, beaten
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 cup raisins, seedless
1 cup pecans, chopped
1 cup coconut, flaked
2 9-inch pie shells

Stir ingredients together in order given. Pour into formed 9" pie shells. Bake at 325° for 40 minutes. To halve the recipe, halve all ingredients except butter.

November and the garden's still going

If this were a commercial, our garden would be powered by Energizer.

Thanks to DH's gardening, Andy-the-guardian-llama's manure and those busy grub-scratching chickens, we're eating beautiful cauliflower and sweet turnips and Savoy cabbage this week. Also available are garden beds filled with Swiss chard (green and rainbow), beets, spinach, cos and buttercrunch lettuces, kale, cilantro (who said that stuff is a summer crop?) and another type of cabbage -- Early Jersey Wakefield, I think. Plus I'll be using the usual fresh herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary and even bay) from the garden to brine our turkey next week. There's really something for everyone growing in the garden as the chickens are enjoying freshly-sprouted greens which DH planted where the potatoes were earlier and Andy and the sheep get a share of turnip tops or other greens when picked.

This the first year we've planted Savoy cabbage. Usually DH plants Flat Dutch cabbage (early or late varieties) as our green cabbage and those are very good, too. The heads are large, heavy and excellent keepers. I've eaten that type of cabbage all my life and used it for everything from fried cabbage or soup to coleslaw and sauerkraut. But, oh man, those half-dozen heads of sweet Savoy cabbage that we've had this fall have knocked me for a loop. Who knew there was such a difference? I'm sure we'll still plant plenty of Flat Dutch but I'm holding out for at least a dozen Savoy cabbages, too. They are so sweet and tender we can eat a whole head of cabbage at one meal and all I did was saute it in a little garlic olive oil. My mother said the only way she could improve on it would be to fry a couple slices of bacon, use the grease to cook the cabbage and crumble the bacon over top. But then some people think everything tastes better with a little bacon...

Grape wine, step 2

When I went to check the water for the air lock on the carboy of grape wine last week, I realized it wasn't bubbling very much. Means it's time to siphon the in-process wine out and throw away the grapes and any sediment that remaining in the carboy.

Saturday morning DH set the carboy on the kitchen worktable and I set a large stainless steel pot on the floor beside the table. DH removed the airlock cap and ran one end of a piece of 1/2-inch tubing into the carboy, below the level of the floating grapes, with the other end hanging off the table into the pot. It's like siphoning gas except it's okay if you get a little in your mouth. Matter of fact, it's a good thing because it's an excuse to taste the wine and see if it's coming along as it should.

In this case, the answer was yes! It's robust and fruity. If nothing happens to alter its progress, I think it will be pretty good when it's ready to bottle in a few more months. For now, though, DH hefted the carboy upside down and poured (shook?) the grapes out, then I rinsed the carboy and we returned the wine to the jug and put the airlock back in place.

I'd been afraid that making it from the whole grapes instead of using juice would mean a real mess when it came time to do this step -- removing the grapes through the small neck opening on the carboy. But the grapes were mostly firm, solid globes and poured out without a fuss.

I almost felt wasteful throwing them in the compost as the chickens love grapes but the alcohol level in one grape (all I tasted) would have knocked a little red hen on her butt. Maybe pigs would be okay with a small batch like this but we won't have any till early next year. The dregs of the next wine fruit can go to them as DH is already talking about what we should try next because, unlike with the beer we usually make, we can grow and/or pick all the base ourselves.

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." -- Isaac Asimov

Fifi, the white Silkie hen, went missing this week. All we've found are clumps of fluffy white feathers in a long trail leading away from her favorite egg-laying spot towards the fence. She had taken to laying her eggs near the old apple tree in a little leafy spot she created just for that purpose instead of in the chicken house. It was off to one corner of our field-fenced backyard, away from where the other backyard girls and chicks typically hang out.

Our neighbor's farm pond hosts a fox den. He can watch the kits play there every spring. We've heard the local band of coyotes howl on the other side of the field behind us -- maybe 1/2 mile away. DH surprised what he thinks was a speedy coyote in the fenced backyard late one evening. Andy, the guardian llama, makes sure the sheep are up near the open barn when it's time to turn in at night. He positions the sheep between the barn and himself so he's always on guard. DS and I found a young skunk in the chick pen and, on another occasion, a full-sized skunk inside the electric poultry netting when we went out to close the houses up earlier this summer. We had a feral orange cat this summer who tried to catch the small chicks on occasion. There are predators all around us.

But secretly I've always believed they wouldn't kill any of our animals. You know, I suffered from a variation of the NIMBY or not-in-my-backyard syndrome even though earlier this summer, Petrock Trelawney's hatchmate, a little cockerel who wasn't around long enough even to secure a name such as Stewpot or Potpie went missing, too. We never found feathers or any sign of what happened to him but he and Petrock (photo on left) had developed the bad habit of hanging back instead of going straight into the house at night. DS and I would have to shoo the two of them in, sometimes resorting to waiting till they had settled into a bush or low-hanging tree branch then plucking them off their perch and stuffing them in the house. One night we couldn't find the cockerel. Either he was well-hidden (to us, at least) or he'd already been nabbed. Whichever way, he was still missing come morning so we concluded he had been devoured by some hungry animal.

Fifi will be much missed. She was the best mama hen we've had. Regularly setting on a hatch even in the coldest weather. Always shepherded her fledglings with the stereotypical "mother hen" approach. She stood up to the "big girls" and kept them from bothering her chicks. Even taking on Turkey, the naked neck hen and backyard leader, for their sake. Fifi's sometimes feisty attitude towards other chickens, her blue bill and earlobes (typical of Silkies) and her general cocky yet friendly stance towards us, her people, made her stand out amongst the other backyard girls.

At not quite 6 months old, her daughter, Snowball, hasn't yet shown any indication of broodiness or the strong personality Fifi exhibited but I hope she grows to fill the space her mother left not only in our hatching scheme but in my heart. I miss Fifi. We all do.

Garden: Still going

Mid-week, while picking more tomatoes, I spotted a perfect little bok choy bunch in the garden and told DH we'd have that for supper on Friday. So last evening when he went out in the rain to harvest it, I thought I'd just make a quick side dish to go with the defrosting chicken breasts. But when he came in with a handful of tender young green beans and a couple of yellow squash, too, I quickly chopped up the chicken and threw it in a bowl with some seasonings to marinate while I sliced a few Egyptian onions and scrubbed the potatoes. A meat and veg stir fry seemed like the best use of the available produce.

It took me about 20 minutes to get the vegetables prepped and the potatoes cooking. In less than 40 minutes from the time he walked in the door with the fresh garden produce it was on the table and we were sitting down to eat. We had crushed new potatoes instead of rice along with the chicken-bok choy-squash-green beans-and-onion stir fry. And sliced tomatoes, because we always have sliced tomatoes on the table when they're ripe from the garden.

With the rain still coming down today, we'll have more tomatoes, tomatillos, squash and green beans right up till frost. And the lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, beets, turnips and cabbage should continue till the real cold weather sets in or beyond. Our potato onions from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange arrived this week and they'll go in the ground soon. Though the Egyptian or walking onions stay in the garden year-round, I'm looking forward to trying the potato onions as they're more like a globe onion than a green onion and with careful stewardship will multiply and be able to provide for most of our onion needs within a few years.

The marinade I mixed up was a blend of soy sauce, cornstarch, gingerroot, garlic, sesame oil, oyster sauce, balsamic vinegar and sugar that I use for chicken or pork.

Stir fry sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 to 2 teaspoons gingerroot, grated
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 to 2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/8 to 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar

Mix all ingredients together and add meat. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes or up to 30 minutes. Drain before cooking.

If I don't have fresh ginger I use refrigerated gingerroot I've preserved in sherry. And sometimes I use sherry instead of balsamic vinegar but I first started using the vinegar because it's a pantry staple here and sherry isn't always at hand.

Chicken update

Here's a picture taken September 1 of Fifi's latest brood of 4 chicks which hatched August 11. Mr. Fluff and Valentine, a pullet Fifi managed to hatch in 0°F. weather this past February, are also featured. At least one of the chicks, the silvery one, is a cockerel but we're hopeful the other three are pullets.

This photo was taken this morning and shows the chicks out-growing Fifi. She still takes them under her wing (literally!) and shelters them from the rain, tho. And when we had a hawk scare on Tuesday, she sounded the alarm and the chicks stayed put, hunkered under the sweet annie and peonies around the deck, until the still-hungry hawk left the area.

Fifi and family live in the backyard rather than in the portable electric netting we use for the 2 full-size roosters and their hens. She shares the small backyard coop with another of her hatchlings, a green egg layer now almost a year old, known as Bronwyn. Bronwyn is well-known to our closest neighbor as she enjoys going on walk-about regularly. Every time we spot her out of the fenced backyard, she quickly heads home without any fuss on our part but she's determined to check out the surrounding green space at least a couple of times each week.

Dolly and Turkey are two more of the backyard girls. Turkey is an extra-large Turken who sees herself as a pet instead of a laying hen. Oh, she comes up with an egg regularly but apparently believes her main purpose in life is to set on one's knee and be petted and fed tidbits. Sort of like Holly-dog with feathers. Dolly makes a very distinctive coo-ing sound and sometimes finds herself being trailed by Mr. Fluff. He usually leaves the larger hens alone but has decided Dolly's the hen for him.

Grapes - juice, jelly and wine

The grapes came in three batches this year -- most of what we picked were concords and all were growing within a 2-mile circle but they ripened over several weeks instead of all at once. A change from the last few years.

The first batch, picked from my mom's two grape vines, we turned into grape juice just like last year. We put up a little over 40 quarts. The next batch, a little over three 5-gallon buckets full, came from vines at my sister's old house. No one wanted the grapes so we picked them, used one bucketful to make grape jelly and gave the rest to some friends for making grape juice.

While we were picking my sister's grapes we exchanged greetings with a neighboring friend and got to talking about what we'd do with the grapes. She's a winemaker and before we knew it we decided to take the carboy we use for beer-making out of storage and try our hand at a batch of grape wine, too. Since we'd already promised those grapes to some other friends, we waited till the last vines we usually pick were ready and used them to mix up a small batch of concord grape wine.

The recipe is very straightforward. After rinsing and stemming, we measured grapes by the quart and added the same number of quarts of water to the carboy as we did grapes. The sugar was calculated by cup with a measure of one cup to each quart of grapes used. We were advised if we wanted a slightly sweet wine to increase the sugar by roughly a scant 1/4-cup per quart or no more than four cups to 5-gallons of combined water and grapes. The wine yeast we used, Red Star's Montrachet, was what I already had on hand from an earlier field trip to Dinosaurland.

After combining the grapes, sugar, yeast, and water (mixing the yeast with a little of the water first), DH moved the carboy from the kitchen worktable to an empty corner in the home office. It's far enough from the woodstove to stay relatively cool come cold weather yet in a spot where I see it every day so can monitor the water level in the jar in order to maintain the necessary airlock. The first day or two, I found myself talking to the dog only to discover she wasn't in the room. The sound of the air escaping from the tube into the jar of water is the same sound Holly-dog makes when she's asleep and dreaming -- little ruff, ruff, ruffs emanate from that corner all the time now.

So the fruit and sugar went into the carboy on September 19. It wasn't particularly difficult to prepare though none of my funnels were the right size to channel the grapes into the narrow opening on the carboy. I did that slow but steady job by picking up grapes by the handful and letting them roll into the jar using my other hand as a shield. When DH tried it grapes bounced everywhere but into the carboy so I did the grapes then he handled the sugar and water with yeast. I've been assured that it will look terrible, what with fermenting grapes and all, before we get to the next step in roughly three months but our adviser promised to come help with that...

Here's what it looked like today, the fourth day of fermentation. And below are a couple pictures of DH and DS from last week, picking the last of the summer (wine) grapes.

Fresh blackberries

Today's featured home-grown food was blackberries. DS's been picking them every morning for breakfast but today we each had a bowl of berries with some top cream and a couple of honey wafers for dessert with our lunch. The honey wafers are similar to a sugar cookie or thin shortbread. They only take 4 ingredients and are good keepers -- if you can keep them hidden, that is.

I kept the rest of the meal simple, too. DH grilled our garden-fresh squash (green and yellow zucchini), onions and potatoes over the gas grill. Prior to grilling I par-boiled the potatoes and drizzled a little olive oil and soy sauce over the squash and onions. Also made a tomato and mozzarella salad using our yellow pear tomatoes and Genovese basil plus cheese I'd picked up Saturday at the farmer's market. When the grilled veg was ready I sprinkled chopped chives over the potatoes and passed butter, as desired, at the table.

Honey Wafers

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2 cups all-purpose flour (I use fresh-ground soft wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream together butter and honey, warming them carefully for a minute or two, if desired, for easier blending. Combine dry ingredients and add to (cooled) creamed mixture.

Chill dough 1 hour or until firm enough to roll easily. Roll out 1/8" to 1/4"-thick on lightly floured surface. Cut with floured cookie or biscuit cutter. Can also be chilled in log shape and then sliced 1/8" to 1/4" and baked as needed.

Bake on greased cookie sheet in 350°F. for 8-10 minutes if 1/8"-thick or 12-15 minutes for 1/4"-thick cookies.

I usually prefer a mild honey in these but orange-flower honey with bits of orange zest added is a wonderful variation. Try adding 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon each ground cloves and allspice to make a spice-scented version.

Yield: 36 2" cookies

How does my garden grow?

Yellow pear tomatoes plus blackberries. Green beans, potatoes, red and yellow onions and more.

The last few weeks it's felt like the dam broke. We put up over 50 quarts of green beans from one short (15'?) double row and that's not counting the many pickings we ate and gave away. The two rows of potatoes DH's dug so far yielded 2 bushel baskets plus another 20 pounds we ate or gave away. I have a half-bushel of yellow onions and almost that many red (purple) onions lying on newspaper in the shed. Haven't done anything with the garlic except pull some to eat -- still have to harvest and lay it out to dry before storing. Squash, cucumbers and now Sugar Baby watermelons are coming in daily, too.

And blackberries! This past week, DS has been picking blackberries every morning for our breakfast. Today he's over at my mom's and they're planning to pick her blackberries before he comes home. It's anyone's guess how many will make it in the bucket vs. how many get eaten but I'm sure we'll have enough to freeze a few bags for use this winter in smoothies or maybe in a cobbler.

Tomatoes started ripening in mid-July but it wasn't till this past week we had many worth eating. The first all had blossom-end rot, the curse of well-dependent gardeners, I think. Now we have them coming in by the dishpan and I'll be canning tomorrow -- probably ketchup as we're on the last jar from last year.

This year we planted some new-to-us yellow pear tomatoes. I've had them from friends' gardens but never tried growing our own till early this spring when I started about a dozen peat pots with seeds. They're so small and perfectly pear-shaped. The taste is sweet but with just enough tang it keeps them from being bland. And the color's lovely in salads or chopped for salsa. When we get overrun with them, I'll just toss the extras in with the other tomatoes for canning but I'm thinking some yellow tomato preserves would be pretty on the shelf and tasty, too.

The county fair's coming up and I always like to have a few entries in the canning classes. I'm wondering how the yellow pear tomatoes would look in a canned salsa, maybe using red onions, too. I know I'll like them dried and can already picture them as bruschetta -- they'll be darker dried than they are fresh but the yellow color stays true enough to add a nice dash of color to the table in the winter months.

Another marinated summer salad -- this time with homemade Catalina dressing

The days of the week blur together lately. I put up 19 quarts of green beans, 15 quarts of pickled beets, dried 8 pounds of beets, 16 pounds of various types of summer squash, 9 pounds of cucumbers and more this past week. I swear the corner of the kitchen in this photo is never empty. As soon as I take care of one dishpan of vegetables, another seems to magically fill and take its place.

To get us through busy weeks like this, I rely on make-ahead dishes and "twice is nice" menus. The latest addition to my cookery repertoire is a marinated salad that can be made in advance, uses up lots of garden produce and makes a great side dish or topping for use with a tortilla roll-up and which, with the addition of chopped cooked chicken, sliced hard-boiled eggs or a can of rinsed and drained beans, can serve as a main dish.
For one of our completely local meals this week I included this salad, topped with hard-boiled eggs and accompanied by zucchini chips and a glass of mint tea. All but the tomatoes came from our homestead and those came from the local farmers' market. Next week when I make another bowl, I'll add a couple of our just-ready peppers, either bell or sweet banana.

The dressing I use is a homemade Catalina. You could use a bottle from the store but I don't because the homemade is so easy to make and it has the spicy tang I can't find in a bottled version these days.

The recipe allows for a lot of variation. Just be sure to use fresh vegetables that won't go limp sitting in the dressing. For that reason, I prefer to use a meaty plum tomato and remove the seeds before chopping. Chop as much of each vegetable as you want to include. I don't measure but just use a bowl that will hold a little more than I want to make. That way I have room to toss the salad in the dressing without spilling it. When I have enough veg chopped, I pour on the dressing, toss to coat then cover and refrigerate till serving time. It needs at least an hour or two to blend flavors before serving. Leftovers will keep 3 days or so in the fridge.

Catalina Dressing

2/3 cup mild-tasting vegetable oil
1/4 cup ketchup*
2 tablespoons honey (or 1/4 cup sugar)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon grated onion
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

Combine all ingredients in a jar with tight-fitting lid. Shake to blend and then let sit for an hour or so before using. Shake thoroughly or use wire whip each time before serving.

Makes about 1-1/2 cups.

*I use Farm Journal's "Western Gourmet Ketchup" which I can every year using our garden tomatoes. (Recipe available here.) It has a sweet tangy flavor and works well in this recipe but probably any flavorful bottled ketchup would serve.

Making apple cider vinegar

It's a little early in the year here to be thinking of making cider but we're using a lot of apple cider vinegar for pickling and salads these days so now's as good a time as any to explain the process for turning non-pasteurized apple cider into vinegar.

First thing to know about making your own vinegar is that you shouldn't use it for canning unless it has an acidity level of at least 4.5% and some canning recipes call for 5%, which is what many store-bought jug vinegars say they have. However, there's no need to test the acidity level if you just want to use it for salad dressings, regular recipes or other general household use.

Next thing is, the directions I've included here are how I do it. There are lots of variations that will yield similar results. And there are vinegar connoisseurs just like with wine. So try my method if you want but look around and you'll find other ideas on how to do it and what to use. Vinegar can be made from almost any liquid that contains enough sugar so don't stop with apples -- experiment with grapes (how about making wine vinegar?), peaches, beets, berries or what have you.

If you press your own apple cider, you're well on your way to making vinegar but if you buy it, be sure to choose non-pasteurized cider. Also, check the label to be sure it's preservative-free. Many cider mills add sodium benzoate as a preservative and that can make it less likely that your cider will ferment or turn into hard cider which is the first step in making apple cider vinegar.

When I make vinegar, I set aside a couple gallons of cider in crocks. I make sure to leave lots of headroom in the crock as the cider will be frothy and may foam over the top during the first fermentation stage. There's nothing wrong if it does this -- just wipe the crock off and let it continue to sit -- but it can be messy and draw fruit flies. So I use a 2-gallon crock to hold 1-1/2 gallons of cider. I cover the container with a clean cotton tea towel, tying it with a piece of string so dust and bugs can't get into the crock over the next few months.

As the sugar in the cider changes to alcohol, it becomes hard cider. That can take anywhere from 1 week to 6 weeks, depending on the temperature and the sugar content of the apples used to make the cider. Some people choose to hurry this stage along by adding yeast but I prefer the easy path and just set the crock in a corner of the pantry for several months.
If I have a mother-of-vinegar (pictured above) from a previous batch of vinegar I may carefully pour that into the crock, on top of the vinegar, to help the process along but wild spores floating in the air will start the fermenting process, too. Check the cider after a few months to see if it's strong enough. The process usually takes from 4 to 6 months, start to finish. And that's all there is to it.

If you do want to use homemade vinegar for canning, this link offers a good description of the steps for vinegar titration. The process is similar to testing the acidity level of wine. But, again, if you don't plan to use your vinegar for canning you don't have to bother with this. Just go with vinegar that tastes and smells good to you.

Sweet pickles or how to use up a few cucumbers

My mom always made 14-day pickles and I still make them but they take so long I try to can enough to last a couple of years. So on the "off" years I've been making Helen Witty's bread-and-butter pickles with onions from her "Fancy Pantry" cookbook. We really like their sweet crunch and any extra pickling juice goes over a jarful of sliced onions that I stash in the fridge for use in salads or on sandwiches.

This weekend I put up 25 pints of bread-and-butter pickles minus the onions as these jars are intended for my mother's pantry instead of ours. She doesn't do much canning anymore but likes to keep her pantry shelves full of good things my sister or I have put up.

The recipe is easy and though timing plays a part, it doesn't require a do-or-die schedule. Also, I use Witty's ingredient list as written but I play fast and loose with the directions because I rarely have ONLY a dozen cucumbers ready for pickling at one time. I most often prepare my cucumbers by washing, slicing and putting into a clean food-safe 5-gallon plastic bucket. Pour clean water by measured gallon over the cucumbers and then pour the water off and mix up lime and water as needed to cover cucumbers using Witty's proportions of 1 cup pickling lime to 1 gallon cool water. And add the sliced cucumbers to the lime-water mixture. This way I'm sure to have enough water to cover any amount of cucumbers I have on hand.When it comes time to mix up the pickling liquid, I multiply the ingredient amounts so the yield will be about two-thirds of the amount of water required to cover pickles in the first step. If I have any liquid left over after canning, I pour it over onion slices and store the mixture in the fridge to use fresh.

Extra-Crisp Bread and Butter Pickle Slices
from "Fancy Pantry" by Helen Witty

12 firm, fresh pickling cucumbers (6-inches long)
1 gallon cool water
1 cup pickling lime
64 ounces apple cider vinegar
5 cups sugar
1 tablespoon fine non-iodized salt
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1-1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 quart of sliced onions, cut 1/4-inch thick

Wash cucumbers. Cut off and discard both ends, then cut cucumbers into 1/4-inch thick slices.

Measure cool water into a ceramic, stainless steel or other non-reactive container (do not use an aluminum container) and stir in the pickling lime very thoroughly. It will not dissolve completely. Add sliced cucumbers, stir, cover, and set aside overnight or for up to 24 hours. Stir them once or twice.

Drain the cucumbers into a colander. Return them to the rinsed out container and rinse them in three more batches of cool water, stirring them well as you do so. Drain them again and add cool water to cover them by an inch or two. Set them aside for three hours.

Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt and other seasonings in a non-reactive saucepan. Heat the mixture to boiling, stirring until the sugar dissolves, then boil it, uncovered, for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, drain the cucumbers well and return them to the first container along with the sliced onions. When the syrup has boiled 5 minutes, pour it over the slices. Stir the slices gently, then push them under the surface, cover the bowl with a towel, and set it aside overnight.

Transfer the cucumbers and syrup to a large preserving pan and cook the whole business, covered, over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally (be careful not to break the brittle slices), until the cucumbers are translucent, 20 to 30 minutes.

Using a funnel, spoon, long fork or tongs, arrange the pickle slices in 8 hot, clean pint canning jars, leaving about 1/2-inch of headspace. Divide the spices from the syrup among the jars, then add boiling-hot syrup to reach 1/4-inch from rims. Remove any bubbles and add more syrup, if necessary. Seal the jars with two-piece canning lids and process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath. Cool, label and store the jars. Be sure to let the pickles mellow for 4-6 weeks, then chill before opening.

If you're new to canning or using the water bath method, please refer to the latest Ball Blue Book of Preserving or the USDA-funded website, National Center for Home Food Preserving, for detailed directions.

Besides pickles, I put up cucumbers by drying them. They make a tasty vegetable cracker substitute similar to zucchini chips -- DS even prefers the cucumber chips to the zucchini chips. And they are wonderful to use for making cucumber dip. Just grind up a couple tablespoons of dried cucumber slices and add the powder to sour cream, yogurt, cream cheese or your favorite blend of the same. It also makes a delicious cucumber spread for sandwiches in the middle of winter.

Lunch in a hurry, as usual

The garden's doing great this year and that means when we're home we're usually working out there or in the kitchen putting up produce. Strange as it seems, amongst all this food, it can be hard to get a meal on the table some days.

Saturday's meal, put together on the run between garden chores and a little holiday merry-making, was meatloaf made with local, grass-fed beef from the freezer, red cabbage and summer squash from our garden, grain from down the road in Raphine (Wade's Mill) and a few new potatoes I couldn't resist picking up at the farmers market that morning. The squash casserole and rolls included eggs from our backyard hens, plus butter and a bit of top cream from a dairy at Burnt Chimneys. The meatloaf and squash also included onions from the garden and the meatloaf utilized a few tablespoons of the wonderful tomato powder I made earlier this spring with what was left of last year's dried tomatoes. Red cabbage required a dash of homemade apple cider vinegar and local honey, too.

Too get it on the table fast, I prepared the squash casserole in the morning and refrigerated it, unbaked, till close to lunch time. The red cabbage went in the oven with the meatloaf a little over an hour before lunch. And the rolls were made with refrigerator dough I try to keep on hand so we can enjoy fresh hot bread with most meals. They spent most of the morning rising in their baking pan on the counter and then went into the hot oven as the meatloaf and squash casserole came out.

We had ice-cold apple cider we made and froze late last fall. I often can cider, too, but then it just becomes apple juice, in my book. This stuff was still the real thing and a perfect sweet yet refreshing drink to go with the rest of our local meal.

Do you brown bag it?

Well, DH does. Though his employer provides a large break room complete with sandwich and snack machines, he prefers to pack his lunch every day. One reason is he's a thrifty guy and would rather not fork out a minimum of 5 bucks a day to eat a day-old sandwich, a handful of chips and a soda plus the closest restaurant is almost 4 miles away. But the main reason is he's envious of me and DS.

Yes, that's right. He's driven by jealousy. He thinks of us, at home, doing our usual chores, homeschooling, stretching out with a book and then enjoying home-cooked meals without him. He can handle it all right up to the point when DS describes some great tasting dish we cobbled together for dinner. Then, especially if the meal included fresh garden produce, he turns green.

Now for me, having to cook and preserve almost all our food, I sometimes dream of being served a meal I didn't have to prepare. Just goes to show, one man's bane is another's pleasure. And it's not even that DS and I dine on exotic dishes or seek out little known recipes to enjoy when DH is at work. I think it's just the idea that we're enjoying the fruits of his labor without him.

So what does he pack for lunch? Usually leftovers. Yep, all this fuss and the man eats leftovers. But since I usually cook extra chicken with the idea of making tortilla soup from the remains or turn a few slices of ham and boiled potatoes into a fritta with the addition of eggs and onions, it's not always traditional leftovers. More of the cook once, eat twice or plan-ahead cooking style.

One day this past week, I realized he'd packed a totally local meal to take to work. Here's what he packaged up: ruby red beets, steamed and sliced, zucchini and yellow squash in browned butter, sugar snap peas with garlic-soy sauce, Harvey House slaw, sliced cucumbers in vinegar and a slice of locally raised and smoked ham.Except for the ham slice (the last of a fellow homesteader's delicious Christmas basket), DH grew everything from beets, cabbage, cucumbers, garlic, onion, sugar snap peas, yellow squash to zucchini. The dried and crushed hot red pepper on the peas came from last year's garden.

The butter came from Burnt Chimneys, the soy sauce from Richmond, and the honey in the slaw came from an apiary on the next county road over. The apple cider vinegar was more of the batch we made last fall from (non-pasturized) local cider. Non-local ingredients included in the meal were celery seed, dry mustard, kosher salt, a teaspoon of brown sugar and salad oil.

Sugar Snap Peas in Garlic-Soy Sauce

1 pound sugar snap peas, ends clipped, strings removed
2 tablespoons garlic-infused olive oil (OR sub plain olive oil and 1 minced garlic clove)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon brown sugar
dash of crushed cayenne pepper

Toss olive oil with peas to coat. Broil 2"-3" from heat for 5 minutes. Mix soy sauce and brown sugar together and pour over peas in broiler pan. Toss to coat. Season lightly with pepper. Serve.

These are good hot or cold.

Cornbread

In my house cornbread is never sweet and is always made in an iron skillet. Just the way my mama made it.

Now, if you want to add sugar, corn, peppers, sausage, onion or cheese, I still may eat it but it's strayed from being cornbread and started taking on airs. Oh, and if there's any buttermilk or yogurt in the house, that's always used in the batter in preference to any other liquid such as milk. Though, if it's a poor month, water will work in a pinch.

Around here cornbread often serves as a kid-friendly extra or as a meal extender, stretching a few leftovers into a full meal. Plus everyone's always happy to see it on the table when they sit down to eat. Combine it with homemade preserves and it can serve as a between-meal snack, too.

Because corn grows in so many areas of the country, local cornmeal often can be found more readily than wheat flour. Besides nearby Wade's Mill, we have a couple of local folks who set up during the year to grind and sell cornmeal at local events such as the Virginia Fall Foliage Festival or sometimes under a tent on the fringe of a large parking lot sort of like the ubiquitous chicken barbeques -- serving as a fund-raiser or simply a way to make extra money. Since we have a grinder, I can prepare our cornmeal fresh as we need it. I like to use popcorn as it makes a hearty, good tasting cornmeal and is something we can grow ourselves.

Cornbread came to my menu-deprived mind again yesterday as I planned a late dinner that was more of the same garden fare we usually enjoy this time of year. We'd been on the go since early morning and wanted something quick and easy for supper. Preferably something that could cook as we showered and changed after the hot, tiring day. So I fixed a quick two-skillet meal that's one of DS's favorites: sweet salsa cabbage with ground venison and cornbread.

First I mixed up the cornbread and put it in the toaster oven to bake. My small iron skillet just fits in the little oven and lets me bake in the hot summer without heating up the house with the larger gas oven. The cornbread takes about 20 minutes to bake which is just enough time to get the main dish prepped and cooked.

The cabbage and venison dish is another variation on combining available vegetables with ground meat and adding a sauce. In this case I chopped onions and green cabbage from our garden as I browned the frozen ground venison in a tablespoon of oil. The venison was from a deer put in the freezer last fall. When we grind it for the freezer, it's all lean meat so needs just a bit of oil for cooking like this. And I package it in flattened three-quarter pound packages so it can be cooked right from the frozen state, no waiting for it to thaw.

I tossed the onions on top of the cooking meat and covered the pan with a lid while I finished chopping cabbage. The sauce was 2 cups hot salsa we'd put up out of the garden last year and 1/2 cup home-canned peach preserves made last year with fruit and honey from an orchard just over the mountain from us. I added a bit of salt and black pepper, stirring all the sauce ingredients together before pouring it over the now-combined cabbage, onions and venison in the pan. Put the lid back on and let it simmer on low while I grabbed a quick shower.

No real dessert necessary with this meal but we all enjoyed an extra slice of cornbread with some more of the peach preserves as a sweet finish to dinner. Another successful OLS meal and another meal elevated to something special by a pan of cornbread.

Cornbread

2 cups cornmeal
2 eggs
1-1/4 cups buttermilk or thinned yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or butter

Add the oil or butter to an 8-inch or 10-inch iron skillet and set in preheated 450ºF. oven while preparing rest of recipe.

Combine remaining ingredients in medium mixing bowl. Pour hot oil or melted butter from iron skillet into batter, stir quickly to blend then transfer to hot skillet for baking.

Bake 20 minutes at 450ºF.

Packed lunch the OLS way

This was a busy week and it ended with us taking a day trip on Saturday to attend a homeschooling convention. There was a scheduled break for lunch between workshops but from past experience we've learned to pack a lunch to enjoy at the car instead of relying on the pre-packaged sandwiches available on site. Since the garden harvest is continuing to gain momentum, it seemed a good idea to build the menu around local, even homegrown food.

So today's lunch easily turned into our weekly all-local meal in the One Local Summer challenge. We just ate it in a parking garage in Richmond instead of at home. A few folding lawn chairs, a cooler serving as table and, in DS's case, a book purchased at the convention's used book sale, and we were all set.
In preparation for Saturday's meal I'd boiled eggs from our hens on Friday and used just-made mayonnaise to bind the resultant egg salad. Kept cold in the cooler with our frozen water bottles it was perfect with homemade crackers made from local wheat and Sugar Snap peas and peeled turnips, both from our own garden.

I liked dipping the peas in the egg salad but DH preferred scooping the egg salad onto crackers then sprinkling minced chives (again from the garden) over top. The last of our strawberries made a perfect sweet finish to the meal. And I appreciated that because it was all finger food we didn't need silverware beyond a butter knife for getting the egg salad out of the glass jar I packed it in.

As in years past, we weren't the only family tailgating in the parking garage but I bet we were the only one eating all locally-produced foods.

Garden harvest update

Welcome rains this spring are fueling our garden's explosion. I've been trying to weigh all the produce as it comes in but some days it's a hit-or-miss proposition what with the regular chores plus preparing or preserving all the veg. Here's what I've recorded so far this spring:

17.5 pounds - Sugar snap peas
5 pounds - Green cabbage
13 pounds - Beets
6 pounds - Turnips
7 pounds - Swiss chard (Ruby red and regular, combined)
16 pounds - Lettuce (Cos and Buttercrunch, combined)
12.5 pounds - Spinach
3 pounds - Daikon radishes
6 pounds - Bok choy
1.5 pounds - Cauliflower
8 pounds - Egyptian onions
8 pounds - Strawberries
18 pounds - Rhubarb

The list isn't complete but I'm pleased with my count so far -- over 120 pounds of produce so far. Most of the spring harvest went straight onto our table or the table of friends or family but I've frozen several pounds of sugar snap peas, rhubarb and greens, dried a few pounds of beets, and canned eight quarts of rhubarb punch for later use.

DH is still setting out hillbilly tomatoes and second plantings of summer squash among other things so the garden's shaping up to have a great year. Now if only I can hold up my end of the bargain by staying on top of the harvest, thinking of tasty ways to serve it up and preserve the extra for the winter months. Some days those seem like daunting tasks but when I can see the results totaled here, it motivates me to keep plugging away.

Daikon radishes - 2nd planting

Daikon radishes make great fresh pickles but before I could get a picture of our first crop, we ate them plain. Just peeled and sliced which left none for pickling.

Last week, DH started pulling radishes from the second planting so I gathered a handful to make pickles. They aren't too hot this year, probably due to the wonderful spring rains we've had. Some years they bring tears to my eyes and I pickle them in self-defense. A day or two in vinegar may make them sharp but it tones down the heat.

The idea for this recipe came from a Vietnamese restaurant in a nearby town. The restaurant's been gone for years but we still miss it and the founders. They served an appetizer comprised of thinly sliced, marinated beef rolled in grape leaves then grilled. It was accompanied by lettuce leaves and a daikon-carrot pickle. I loved the grape leaf skewers but would often ask for additional pickle to go with the main course, too.

The pickle's great on cold sandwiches, served with crackers and cheese or alongside a main dish. DS likes to cut the vegetables with a wavy knife but matchstick pieces look good jumbled together on a lettuce leaf, too.

The recipe's very simple. Use a 2-to-1 ratio of unseasoned rice vinegar and sugar (or about half as much honey, if desired) and add a dash of salt. Make enough liquid mixture to cover whatever amount of sliced radishes and carrots you have on hand. I put the veg in a quart jar then I can judge the amount of liquid by covering them with water and then pouring it off into a glass measuring cup if I'm unsure how much liquid mixture to make.

So the recipe looks like this:

Daikon-Carrot Pickle

1/2 pound daikon radish, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1/2 cup sugar or 1/4 cup honey
1/8 teaspoon salt

Stir vinegar, sugar (or honey) and salt together till blended. Pour over sliced veg to cover and chill several hours before serving. Will keep a week or more in the fridge.

One Local Summer 2009

As usual for this time of year, we're eating primarily out of our garden but this week I made a point of planning one whole meal comprised entirely of foods produced within a 100-mile radius (excepting oils, salt, pepper and spices) in order to celebrate the return of One Local Summer. I still relied on our garden's produce for the vegetables and berries but sourced the pork, cornmeal, wheat, honey, and dairy products locally.

It started with a huge dishpan of Swiss chard and bok choy which DH cut along with a couple heads of garlic and a few Egyptian onions pulled on the way to the house. I sent DS out to pick the sugar snap peas and strawberries and as usual a lot went directly into the picker before the rest were delivered to the kitchen. Fortunately this is shaping up to be the best year ever for peas and strawberries -- lots of rain has made a big difference in production amounts for both so DS's been able to eat his fill at each picking without causing any problem for the cook's supper plans.

The pork came from Staunton's BackDoor Butcher, a shop located one street over from the Staunton/Augusta Farmers Market. They don't seem to have their own website but the link will take you to their listing on the Eat Well Guide site. I cubed 12 ounces of meat and set it aside to marinate in a mixture of 1/2 cup soy sauce, 3 tablespoons sherry, and 2 teaspoons honey while I prepped the vegetables. The honey came from an apiary only a mile away as the crow flies -- who knows? Maybe the bees who produced the jars I have gathered pollen around our homestead...

I came close to exceeding the 100-mile radius with the soy sauce. It's brewed in Richmond, Virginia and I buy it locally but depending on the company's exact location in Richmond (I didn't look that up), it may exceed the desired distance by a mile or so. I decided to include it in the meal anyway for several reasons. We like soy sauce and I often use it to marinate meat destined for a stir fry plus I already had it on hand and one reason I like to participate in the OLS meal planning is to expand my knowledge of what I can find locally and then continue to buy those local foods as available year-round. So for the last couple of years I've started keeping a large bottle of San-J Organic Shoyu Naturally Brewed soy sauce on the pantry shelf in addition to my stand-by gallon-sized can of Kikkomann. I like San-J's slightly lighter, and I think, vinegary taste in lots of recipes.

So, if the soy sauce most likely falls within the allowed radius for OLS, I know the sherry I used doesn't. Again, it was from a bottle I had on the shelf but it hails from California as, tho Virginia vineyards almost always can provide me with great wines for drinking or cooking, I haven't been able to locate one that makes anything close to a sherry. If anyone knows of a Virginia winery that does, please let me know.

After washing the Swiss chard I chopped the stems and the first inch or two of each leaf for the stir fry. The bok choy leaves showed some insect (probably slug) damage so I treated it similarly. The garlic and onions were cleaned and chopped and I snapped the stem ends and pulled any tough strings from the peas. The rest of the chard leaves went into a pot for eating as cooked greens.At DH's request, I also scrambled three eggs from our hens and made a thin egg pancake to shred and toss with the stir fry before serving.

Before I started the stir fry I mixed up a batch of cornbread to go with the meal. Usually I would rely on brown rice as an accompaniment but I don't know of any rice still being grown on the East Coast, much less within 100 miles. Cornbread's always welcome here in any case and I even think some days DS would eat cornbread as the MAIN dish if he could get by with it. As always I used my mom's recipe which makes a hearty, non-sweet cornbread and uses more cornmeal than wheat flour. I soured the batter's milk (sourced from Homestead Creamery, Burnt Chimney, VA by way of a local market) with a few teaspoons of apple cider vinegar I made from last year's cider. Generally I can just transfer the vinegar mother from one jar over to a new jug of cider and let it sit till it's turned to vinegar, too.

The cornbread takes about 15 minutes to bake so once it was poured into the hot skillet and went into the toaster oven, I heated the wok for the stir fry. With everything chopped and ready, it didn't take long to drain the marinade from the meat, pour a tablespoon of peanut oil into the almost-smoking wok and quickly cook the pork, removing it from the pan as it cooked. I wiped the pan out after cooking the meat as the marinade leaves a slightly sticky residue which, with the high heat, often burns before I can stir fry the rest of the ingredients. So next in another tablespoon of oil and then the peas quickly followed by the garlic, onions, bok choy and chard. I'd also covered the separate pan of still-damp chard leaves and set it on the burner to steam for a couple of minutes. I tossed the meat back in with the veg, added the egg strips and called it ready. We served ourselves straight from the wok with a separate bowl for the cooked greens topped with a splash of cider vinegar. With a side plate of cornbread, the table was loaded and it was all produced within a 100-miles. (See note below for final breakdown of local vs. non-local.)

For dessert I whipped almost a cup of top cream with a few tablespoons of honey to sweeten and served it on top of the hulled strawberries DS had picked. The cream for the berries and butter for the cornbread both came from Homestead Creamery, too. And the corn and wheat I ground for the cornbread both came from Wade's Mill in Raphine, VA. They more normally sell the local grain already ground but will accommodate a home grinder if they have the whole grain on hand.

Locally sourced ingredients (H-produced at home, LP-local producer):

Garlic (H)
Walking onions (H)
Swiss chard (H)
Bok choy (H)
Sugar snap peas (H)
Pork (LP)
Eggs (H)
Honey (H)
Cornmeal (LP)
Wheat (LP)
Butter (LP)
Milk (LP)
Strawberries (H)
Cream (LP)
Vinegar (H)

Non-local ingredients:

Peanut oil (2 tablespoons)
Sherry (3 tablespoons)
Baking soda (1 teaspoon)
Salt (1 teaspoon)

Honey-sweetened Whipping Cream

1 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoons light-flavored honey
1 teaspoon vanilla, optional

Beat cream till soft peaks form. Slowly add honey and vanilla. Continue beating till stiff peaks form. Makes about 2 cups.