Showing posts with label food preservation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food preservation. Show all posts
gifts from the freezer
I've been in the mood to post here lately, after a long break. Maybe it's the as-always frustration of early spring, when I'd like to be outside but it's raining/snowing/sleeting/blowing 40 mph winds. Maybe it's the excellent posts I've been reading elsewhere lately. That's how I got started writing here, inspired by other folks.
So it's been a while! I could go into all sorts of reasons, like a huge (ongoing) kitchen remodel for one, but I thought I'd just start back here with a recipe. This is the time of year of pulling hopefully awesome stuff out of the pantry and freezer that I put away last fall. I got in the habit of writing on my freezer bags suggested uses besides just quantities, and when my spouse was rooting around to make a batch of wine last month we found a bunch of bags of cherries marked "2 cups, for clafoutis" Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten!
Clafoutis has become a go-to treat for us the last couple of years. It started with our first harvest of tart cherries, but I now use it for all sorts of fruit. It's faster than a pie or cake, uses one bowl and the the simplest of ingredients you always have around, and is relatively low in sweetness which to me makes it a perfect breakfast with a cup of coffee.
Cherry Clafoutis
There are a lot of versions of this, Julia Child uses even less flour, but while I like the custardy-ness of the texture I wanted a little more density. My version, after noodling around online, was originally found here).
Ingredients
- 2 cups sour cherries
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 tsp almond extract (or more to taste, see notes)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- optional: 1-2 Tbsp. cherry or almond liquor
Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 400 F. Melt the butter and let cool slightly while you get started. Beat the sugar and the eggs with a whisk until they turn light in color and increase in volume. I like a stand mixer for this, but it's not required. Slowly add the butter, beating to incorporate. Tip the salt into your cup of flour and add all at once, continuing to whisk until incorporated. Slowly pour in the milk a little at a time. Add the vanilla and almond extracts, and the liquor if you are using it, mixing well. The batter should be very smooth and shiny.Place the cherries in a 9 or 10 inch buttered dish (a cake or pie pan, or even a skillet will work). Pour the batter over the fruit. Bake in the pre-heated oven for approximately 40 minutes, until puffed, moderately browned and almost completely set in the middle. Once it's close, I gently jiggle the pan every five minutes until the center no longer moves--this is a very moist dessert so it's unlikely to hurt if you go a little longer here; under-cooked can be a bit runny, especially in warm weather.
Allow to set up for 15 minutes or so before serving, it will collapse slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature. I store in the refrigerator for several days, but it doesn't last long around here.
Notes
Last summer I made my own lazy cherry "almond" extract by covering a jar's worth of cherry pits with vodka and steeping them for several weeks before straining. The result is a rosy-colored concoction which is lovely in baked goods. I use this in place of the liquor here, using a tablespoon or two--I have had this turn my batter a wee bit grainy, I suppose from the alcohol, but it didn't seem to affect the outcome at all.
As mentioned any fruit (fresh, or from the freezer) works fine here. I've used apples, rhubarb, raspberries/blueberries. Frozen fruit tends to stay at the bottom, while fresh will sometimes float up a bit, but either way tastes delicious. While in-season or home preserved fruit is great, this would work equally (well, almost) as well with a pint of berries from the grocery, or from a bag of frozen (unsweetened) store-bought fruit.
I usually use a glass pie pan, because you can see the pretty fruit better. I'll set it on a sheet pan just for ease of loading it into the oven without sloshing.
10 weeks to last frost (give or take) - how much to plant?
Depending on your variety and seed packet, eggplants and some hot peppers are sowed between 8-10 weeks. Last year these were slow starters for me, and although I have fresh seed for several of them I went ahead and started most of them on the early side of the range.
As these are heat-loving plants, and our house is at a chilly 60-something degrees, I wrestled my heat mat away from my home-brewing husband and put it under the flats to help with germination. As I'm cheap and only have one small mat, I stack flats, and rotate plants out as they sprout. Our bathroom is also for some reason the warmest room in the house (plus bonus humidity!) so I've used that in the past-- there are lots of other low-tech options for boosting heat.
While it can be a little torturous to start thinking about preserving before your seeds have even sprouted, I find this is a good, realistic time of year to assess what you've been eating. At the beginning of winter, you are using up fresh stores, and possibly hoarding some of your more precious preserves. But by March, I think you have a better sense of what's left on your pantry shelves, and if those high summer ideas for meal plans are holding up in reality. Are you craving green vegetables on your plate, or are you happy with the starchy, rooty, carb-laden comfort foods of winter? Is your tomato shelf surprisingly full, or are you already skimping on opening jars of salsa?
So, back to the numbers game: how many seeds to start? My rule of thumb is 50-100% more than you want. For example, if I want 2 tomato plants of a specific variety, I start 3 or 4. That allows for a dud germination, plus a spare plant in case of calamity (death by frost/hail, or a being stepped on by a dog). I usually end up with a flat's worth of spare plants at the end of the planting season, but there are always friends/neighbors to share with, or a food pantry or community garden that would love to take them. It also lets you select the best/healthiest specimens to plant. If I have a notoriously poor germinator (for me, parsley) or older seeds, I will double-up on the seeding to make sure I have enough starts, you can always thin out your pots later.
And, just because it's freezing cold and snowy out, one last summertime photo to remind me what this is all about:
in pursuit of generalism
I keep meaning to post final pantry pictures, but I've had a run of annoying lower-back issues that made sitting for long periods quite uncomfortable, and I saved that for work. So at home there was short, drive-by internet browsing (hello twitter), and things that involved standing--which meant, more canning! Well, and fall cooking, yoga, dishes, and some mild yardwork. |
| The entire spread (sans freezer): we had to add an extra shelf for fruits and wines! |
I almost titled this post "in praise of mediocrity" because it isn't lost on me, even when I take pictures of my annual triumphs, that preserving food isn't anything new or special: it's just what people have done since the beginning of civilization. There's nothing more humbling that hitting a garage sale full of awesome canning or fermenting gear and being told by the former owners of how they used to do that years ago (and often how they grew tired of it). It makes for some lovely neighborhood camaraderie, but it reminds me that my generation of gardeners and preservers are not pioneers, just very late adaptors.
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| homegrown dry beans and peppers/spices |
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| D's wine: all sorts including dandelion, rhubarb, mulberry, and elderberry, and grape. He started a batch of raspberry today. |
Call me crazy, but I like doing math, using tools, hacking away at dry earth, engaging in a little chemistry, exchanging information, and using my imagination. Too bad you can't making a living doing those things...hey wait: You can make a life.
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| The first stone wall we ever built, still sturdy going on winter 2 |
The preservation report 2013
Not every day canning is a zen session, but today it was.
For certain this doesn't happen every time, there has been scrambling for lids and missing ingredients, days when I was hot and grouchy, days when I had great plans for multiple projects and was lucky to finish one of them. But all in all this has been a smoothly-running preservation season. I think it may be a matter of volume: I have canned WAY more than previous years, and after a while you get into a nice routine. I'm also still completely sold on preserving in small batches. Partially it's because my size garden yields quantities conducive to batches of 4-6 pints, but also because everything from prep to cleanup is a manageable time frame to squeeze in after work or on a weekend morning.
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| tomato triage: sorting/weighing fruit to decide the next project. |
Someone* (ahem) has filled up our small chest freezer with hops and both foraged and cultivated fruit to facilitate a new
Then there was the year of the cucumber: remember the last time I had a bumper crop and accidentally had 35 jars of pickles in my basement? It's been another excellent year for cucumbers and this time we have over 40 pints on the shelf--not including relish! I had plenty to get in some good practice with fermented dills, so we now have several half-gallons of those babies in the fridge as well.
Now the fruit is coming in: we had a decent apple year and since we don't spray-- a good half of our fruit is use-it-or-lose-it quality. I've made plenty of apple sauce and happily discovered the caramel apple jam from Linda Ziedrich's The Joy of Jam, Jellies, and other Sweet Preserves. Next up is apple chutney, I think. And now....the pears are ready for picking. We are completely amazed and overwhelmed by our one tree's harvest. We have a second asian pear mostly for pollination purposes, but the big guy (Karl's Favorite) was spectacular this year. I have no idea what we are going to do with them all!
So it all
snuck up on me, starting with buying a few more cases of jars, and a
constant adding of lids to the grocery list without realizing what
that meant. Suddenly we had overflowing shelves and I woke up in the
night, not with insomnia over how much work there was to do, but just
how much food there was in the pantry, ha! I do have pretty
established goals for tomato products: I know how much we use and
with a little cushion in case of a poor season, we do really use it
all up. Fruit/pickles are a little more nebulous for me, but our
trees generally yield every other season, so I'm fine with a little
extra—also pickles, jams and jellies work well for gifting. I love adding
new “products” to our repertoire, such as ketchup and other condiments,
and I usually try a few new chutneys or relishes to see if they make
the cut. This year, though, I think I'm going to really meal-plan
around those shelves, and I'm pretty happy about it.
So now I'll finish this up, the first draft at least, just as the timer runs out on my processing tomatoes. Ahhh.
And then go pick some more pears.
*I should add the same someone has been a huge help with salsa prep, loads of dishes, and garden upkeep—plus the aforementioned fruit foraging--so it all works out. Plus beer and wine, bonus!
on optimism
Sorry for delinquency of posting...such a busy time of year (for everyone). Also we've been a bit demoralized here in Wisconsin (sigh). After getting personally involved in politics for the first time in my life, I have been thoroughly reminded that the cynicism I had for our campaign system (and heck, my overall view of humanity) was not unfounded. But what can you do? In gardening there's balance--a bad year for apples may turn into a bumper year for tomatoes--and so I have to hope things will correct themselves in the end. I just hope the damage done to our state (by, say, a DNR with declining enforcement and inspections) is not irreparable. |
| Garden 2, all mulched up and neat before the growth spurts. |
Meanwhile, the grass grows, as do the veggies.
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| optimism is the belief that these tomatoes will be six feet tall in two months... |
One of my goals from last year was improving my support structures. After adding posts to reinforce tomato cages etc, last year we resorted to some 8 foot conduit found in the rafters of the garage. It worked great, so this year we are starting with the big guns. Also added were a bunch of heavy-duty tent poles found at the Habitat Re-Store (10 feet long, 50 cents each!). I'm using a weaving method for tomato trellises, twine is stretched between poles and around plants. It worked well last season.
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| favas and garlic scapes on the grill, a revelation. |
So we're keeping busy here, looking ahead. The day after the election we went to the U-pick and loaded up on strawberries, so the week was spent (instead of sulking) with freezing berries and making jam (and ice cream, yum!). Scapes were pickled and frozen as pesto. Beer was bottled. There is optimism in the season ahead after all.
roasted tomato soup (a non-recipe)
I think I first made this at a job I had years ago, it might have been from a Williams-Sonoma cookbook they had laying around. At any rate, it needs no recipe. Every season I try to make more of this for the freezer, but the nature of the recipe is that you don't make it until the very end, the dregs of the veggies, so I always worry we won't have enough, until suddenly we do!Roast a sheet pan or two of tomatoes. And a pan or two of miscellaneous veggies. Use your favorite method for toms, I like to roast then puree/strain mine (a la henbogle's version). For the veggies, I try to get them roughly the same size, and toss them with olive oil and salt/pepper before spreading them out. No rules here--except that garlic and leeks or onions are probably important. Carrots are great for sweetness, and this time I added a couple of potatoes for creaminess. I roast until they look caramelized and lovely. It doesn't even matter if they are slightly underdone as they'll finish up in the soup later.
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| this batch has carrots, garlic, peppers, zucchini, onions, and potato |
I freeze this in fairly small containers (2-3 cups) for two people. When reheating I add milk or cream, which makes it grow a bit. Also the smaller portions thaw pretty fast, even for an last-minute weeknight dinner. Perfect with a grilled cheese sandwich on a cold winter night!
another project
This idea has been in the works since before we even purchased the side lot. But you know how it is...
It's not fancy home & garden magazine material, but we can now safely hike up that hill to the new garden with ease!
In other news. Apples. More Grapes. Tomatoes. Zucchini. Eggplant.
I am, as always, awed by the amount of produce that comes out of this little city lot. I get a little overwhelmed, and a bit cornball about it--but it's a privilege to have this abundance every August. I try to do it justice.
the zucchini crisis has been downgraded
All week, I struggled to keep up with produce. It's not exactly that we're swimming in tomatoes (not at all, yet); more of an battle of motivation and other parts-of-life-busyness. There's been some pickling, canning, baking, and some great meals, but still a feeling like I wasn't keeping up. |
| no matter how busy I feel, I am never as busy as these guys... |
And all week, I kept thinking if I could JUST MAKE ZUCCHINI BREAD, it would somehow indicate that I was catching up, and in that way would SAVE THE WORLD. But it never happened. Zucchini bread is just never a priority, no matter what you tell yourself.
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| Did I mention the 20 pounds of grapes from the neighbor's vines? |
So today, I tackled the nagging chores in my head, the ones that appear first thing in the morning when you hit the alarm clock and try to doze for another 7 minutes. I picked the greens that need picking in the wee hours before it gets hot. I made yogurt, scraping the last 2 tablespoons from the old jar for the new batch (as always just-in-time production, sigh). Pizza dough was prepped for dinner; dishes were done, scum was skimmed from the pickle crocks; I cleaned the damn house. I picked more tomatoes and cucumbers. I purged the fridge of old leftovers, and composted last year's horseradish roots that for some reason I kept saving in the chill drawer, despite their sad condition. I did the semi-weekly countertop tomato prioritization, and started a batch of sauce with the most-ripe, and have a colander ready for the dehydrator later.
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| not-very-impressive but notable: my first batch of pressure canning! Check that off the "things that I am afraid to do" list. |
When all was said and done, the 4 zucchinis left in the fridge were the least of my worries, and I put off the bread for another day. I'm sure there's a moral to this tale somewhere, if you find it, let me know!
