I am not a patient person. Time just never moves quickly enough for me. I am the person who has to sing the alphabet to herself to know how long to wash her hands. I also make sure to hum the Jeopardy theme four full times while brushing my teeth, ensuring a proper brushing duration. My sense of time is indeed slightly warped and running on the fast side. It makes sense, then, that any recipe that takes four or more weeks to come to fruition would make me absolutely BONKERS!
When a bounty of white cucumbers found their way into my refrigerator three weeks ago I knew it was time to attempt pickles. J loves pickled and fermented foods - spicy pickles from vendors at street fairs in Manhattan, kim chee, the pickled radishes I put in congee, bread and butter pickles straight out of the jar, the pickled daikon and carrot salad that comes with our favorite Japanese take out - so at some point in my life with him, I was going to have to learn to pickle stuff. That time had come.
Since J and I both have a spicy tooth (I am half Cajun, after all), I decided to make my first batches of pickles with plenty of heat. My jalapenos and habanero peppers in the garden were not ready for picking in the middle of July (they will be soon, though!), so I grabbed some jalapeno peppers at the market as well as some baby carrots (I was so not in the mood to peel and cut down carrots that weekend - cut me some slack).
Here's the plan: Stuff wide-mouth pint jars with alternating layers of jalapeno slices, thinly sliced onion, cloves of garlic, and the pickling veg of choice (I made jars with cucumber and jars with baby carrots). When the jars are packed quite tightly, pour over a boiling mixture of equal parts white vinegar and water that has been seasoned with kosher salt, all spice (whole), clove (whole), celery seed, mustard seed, and copious amounts of red chili flakes. After I filled the jars with the hot liquid to the tippy tippy top, I sealed them up and let them cool on the counter. I could have boiled them and canned them properly, but I was not about to heat up my house. These pickles would be refrigerator pickles and I had just the place for them in the little tiny refrigerator (from my first year of college - yes, it still works) in my garage. They had to go in the outside refrigerator so I would not stalk them as they did their whole pickle thing for at least four weeks. That's right, four weeks - four weeks of waiting, impatiently, to find out if these things are any good. Sigh. Not a recipe for the impatient.
I've got one week of waiting left. The suspense is killing me. Are they going to be spicy enough? Too spicy? Soggy? Crunchy? Underseasoned? Overseasoned? Delicious? Awful? Come on! I've got to know!
With only a week left, though, I find myself wishing I had a couple more weeks before I find out if I really messed up the recipe. I mean, who wants to taste something that required this much of a time investment to find out it was a failure? Aaarrrrggghhh!
Another long-term recipe pushing hard on my patience button is the Cherry Bounce I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Since then, J and I have purchased more cherries and whiskey and put up a third bottle of Bounce. This recipe requires that I wait FOUR MONTHS (heavens!) for the final product! I can hardly stand it. I've had to squirrel my three bottles of Bounce into a difficult-to-access cabinet so that I stop paying them daily visits to check on their well being. They lived on the counter for their first ten days so that they could get their daily bouncing to help dissolve the massive amounts of sugar called for in the recipe (thanks again, Merideth!), but they had to go once J caught me obsessively lifting and turning each bottle, examining the way the cherries bobbed in the liquid and checking for any crystals of undissolved sugar, on day fifteen.
Maybe these kinds of recipes are good for me. After all, bread making has forced me to slow down my time table in the kitchen, allowing me to enjoy the process as much as the final product. Maybe pickles and Cherry Bounce will help be slow things down even more. Maybe the waiting will enhance the flavor of the final product not only physically but also emotionally. I've got a lot of time invested in these recipes. Time has to taste good, right?
Showing posts with label cherries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cherries. Show all posts
26 July 2009
Produce Overload: Week 9 CSA Pickup and Green Market Shopping
We can hardly get the refrigerator door shut this week. J and I have been very busy in the kitchen after a green market shopping spree earlier this week and yesterday's CSA pickup. I can't believe we've been picking our our shares for nine weeks now. Looking back, I realize that (not counting cherries and citrus products) I've purchased less than a shopping bag full of produce from the supermarket since late May - almost everything has come from the farm share or a local green market.
What were we up to this week? J and I headed into Manhattan on Wednesday to shop at the Union Square green market, grab some goodies from Chinatown, and meet some friends from work for good company and libations. We stocked the car with a cooler, a cooler bag, and several canvas shopping bags and headed out to take advantage of all of the amazing produce in season this time of year.
I was determined to find a real, honest-to-goodness, locally grown tomato. Yeah, I've gotten some small ones from my own plants, but some local farm had to have an early tomato or two for sale this week, right? Most of the tomatoes we found were hot house tomatoes. J and I were being obnoxious (well, it was mostly me being obnoxious) and stuck to our guns, holding out for the real deal. They were hard to find, but I came home with three funky lumpy but deliciously ripe tomatoes. Mmm...tomatoes...it's difficult to believe I'll be sick of them by this time next month. Until then, I am going to savor every bite.
The first of the three lumpy beauties found its way into a delicious tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich on a fabulous baguette. Tomato sandwiches will become my daily lunch within the next couple of weeks, when I'm pulling the tomato right off the vine and slicing it, still warm from the sun, before wedging it into one of my homemade rolls. Oh my, I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
At the green market we also scooped up some fresh onions (both sweet yellow and red), leeks, dandelion greens (regular and red), escarole, cilantro, baby bok choi, some amazing scallions (two feet long), two more giant bunches of basil (can't resist its scent), a couple of kinds of bread, and some zucchini blossoms.
Aren't they pretty? They're incredibly delicate and were already getting soft by the time we got home. I battered them (I stuffed a few with some fresh mozzarella first) and lightly fried them for a crispy breakfast. I'm going to have to harvest some of my garden's blossoms to practice and perfect my recipe. They are tasty.
We ran down to Chinatown to get some noodles and a couple of cooking tools (including a new tortilla press - don't ask) and some produce one cannot get at the green market or farm stands on the North Fork. We needed some Chinese broccoli and other greens. We found even smaller baby bok choi - perfect for cooking (and eating) whole.
Fast forward to our Saturday CSA pickup and our goodies for this week:
Within seconds of snapping this photo, my wheels were spinning and I had plans for a lot of this produce.
The romaine would make lovely little lettuce cups for a spicy veggie meat stir fry during the week. The kohlrabi would add a tasty crunch to said stir fry.
The corn would be (part of - okay most of) dinner that very night (the ears were quite small - look!)
To give you a sense of perspective, the little ears in the front row were about 4 inches long. Note that there are only eight ears pictured here because we found some caterpillar friends in two of the ears (ah, the joys of organic produce!).
The kale would probably find its way into some quesadillas after being cooked down with garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes.
The basil was a beautiful purple basil, which I processed into a tasty basil-parsley pesto (right after I processed the two big bunches of basil from the green market into a couple of pints of pesto). This was the pesto on our tomato-mozzarella sandwiches. The rest of the pesto found its way into our freezer.
The cucumbers will find their way into a salad with the remaining tomatoes and some of the fresh red onion. Maybe I'll toss in some of the cilantro. Most of the cilantro and fresh onions were blitzed up into a big batch of salsa this morning. I can't wait to make salsa with fresh tomatoes.
Zucchini...zucchini...zucchini...so much zucchini and my plants have just started producing fruit. The big zucchini we picked up this week will probably find itself either pickled with lots of sweet onion and jalapeno pepper or on top of a pizza with some caramelized onion and roasted garlic and fresh parsley. Said pizza might even have a couple gorgeous free-range eggs perched on top amidst freshly shaven shards of Parmesan cheese. Okay, I'm feeling it. Pizza sounds good!
The cherries and blueberries from the fruit share will find their way into my food dehydrator. I'm preparing for those winter Sunday mornings when J wakes up craving something sweet and I'm craving some extra heat from the oven. Scones and muffins will warm his belly and the oven will warm my toes.
I forgot to mention that J scooped up twelve pounds of cherries this week. (J has a cherry problem.) A couple of pounds found their way into a big bottle of Cherry Bounce and I need to thank Merideth for this fun recipe. In a gallon container (I used an old growler that once held some stout) combine a couple of quarts of cherries with three cups of sugar (yeah, that's a lot) and a fifth of whiskey (not the expensive stuff - not necessary with all of that sugar). Every day for ten days, give the container a bounce to incorporate some of the sugar. Store the bottle away for four months and try not to obsess about it. I can't wait for this sweet cherry and whiskey liquor to be ready to mix cocktails. J loves Whiskey Sours, so how can we go wrong with a Bouncy Sour? I'm dreaming of a Bouncy boozy cherry cola. How about a blend of Bounce with some chocolate soda for a Black Forest Bounce? Oh yeah, this is going to be some good stuff in a few months.
The yellow plums were tiny and deliciously sweet-tart. I cooked them down with some simple syrup until they were soft then stirred in a generous glug of Triple Sec before chilling it down to make sorbet. This will hit the ice cream maker tomorrow morning. I know it's going to be fabulous because J and I attacked the bowl of the food processor after I poured out the sorbet mix. It's sweet and tart and orangy (from the Triple Sec) and wonderfully sunshiny.
We took the pups for an extended ride after our CSA pickup (check out Holdy in his Doggles).
Our destination? Harbe's Family Farm for another bag of their sweet corn. We ate six ears last week and they were amazingly sweet. Since we had ten ears of organic corn from our CSA already, the bag of a dozen ears from Harbe's was destined to be cut off the cob and frozen for all sorts of dreamy winter recipes - corn chowder, a lovely maque choux to serve along side my favorite Malaysian-style potato curry, corn and black bean quesadillas with black bean soup. I don't want to rush away my summer, but these winter dishes sound good. At least I have something to look forward to during the dark, cold months of winter. Maybe we'll get another big storm and a snow day (or two) to give me some quality cooking time! Before any of that can happen, though, the corn had to be de-cobbed.
Twelve ears of de-cobbing later, I had three lovely zip top bags of sweet corn nestled in my freezer, dreaming of blizzards and snow days and chowder.
Speaking of chowder, my corn cobs did not go to waste. I boiled them up with some water and salt and pepper and made a couple of quarts of homemade corn stock for a big pot of corn chowder. The stock is nestled into my freezer, next to the corn. I'm planning on using my own home grown potatoes in that recipe. But that's another blog entry for a much much later date. I've got a refrigerator full of summer goodness to cook through before the door pops off!
What were we up to this week? J and I headed into Manhattan on Wednesday to shop at the Union Square green market, grab some goodies from Chinatown, and meet some friends from work for good company and libations. We stocked the car with a cooler, a cooler bag, and several canvas shopping bags and headed out to take advantage of all of the amazing produce in season this time of year.
I was determined to find a real, honest-to-goodness, locally grown tomato. Yeah, I've gotten some small ones from my own plants, but some local farm had to have an early tomato or two for sale this week, right? Most of the tomatoes we found were hot house tomatoes. J and I were being obnoxious (well, it was mostly me being obnoxious) and stuck to our guns, holding out for the real deal. They were hard to find, but I came home with three funky lumpy but deliciously ripe tomatoes. Mmm...tomatoes...it's difficult to believe I'll be sick of them by this time next month. Until then, I am going to savor every bite.
The first of the three lumpy beauties found its way into a delicious tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich on a fabulous baguette. Tomato sandwiches will become my daily lunch within the next couple of weeks, when I'm pulling the tomato right off the vine and slicing it, still warm from the sun, before wedging it into one of my homemade rolls. Oh my, I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
At the green market we also scooped up some fresh onions (both sweet yellow and red), leeks, dandelion greens (regular and red), escarole, cilantro, baby bok choi, some amazing scallions (two feet long), two more giant bunches of basil (can't resist its scent), a couple of kinds of bread, and some zucchini blossoms.
Aren't they pretty? They're incredibly delicate and were already getting soft by the time we got home. I battered them (I stuffed a few with some fresh mozzarella first) and lightly fried them for a crispy breakfast. I'm going to have to harvest some of my garden's blossoms to practice and perfect my recipe. They are tasty.
We ran down to Chinatown to get some noodles and a couple of cooking tools (including a new tortilla press - don't ask) and some produce one cannot get at the green market or farm stands on the North Fork. We needed some Chinese broccoli and other greens. We found even smaller baby bok choi - perfect for cooking (and eating) whole.
Fast forward to our Saturday CSA pickup and our goodies for this week:
Within seconds of snapping this photo, my wheels were spinning and I had plans for a lot of this produce.
The romaine would make lovely little lettuce cups for a spicy veggie meat stir fry during the week. The kohlrabi would add a tasty crunch to said stir fry.
The corn would be (part of - okay most of) dinner that very night (the ears were quite small - look!)
To give you a sense of perspective, the little ears in the front row were about 4 inches long. Note that there are only eight ears pictured here because we found some caterpillar friends in two of the ears (ah, the joys of organic produce!).The kale would probably find its way into some quesadillas after being cooked down with garlic, olive oil, and red pepper flakes.
The basil was a beautiful purple basil, which I processed into a tasty basil-parsley pesto (right after I processed the two big bunches of basil from the green market into a couple of pints of pesto). This was the pesto on our tomato-mozzarella sandwiches. The rest of the pesto found its way into our freezer.
The cucumbers will find their way into a salad with the remaining tomatoes and some of the fresh red onion. Maybe I'll toss in some of the cilantro. Most of the cilantro and fresh onions were blitzed up into a big batch of salsa this morning. I can't wait to make salsa with fresh tomatoes.
Zucchini...zucchini...zucchini...so much zucchini and my plants have just started producing fruit. The big zucchini we picked up this week will probably find itself either pickled with lots of sweet onion and jalapeno pepper or on top of a pizza with some caramelized onion and roasted garlic and fresh parsley. Said pizza might even have a couple gorgeous free-range eggs perched on top amidst freshly shaven shards of Parmesan cheese. Okay, I'm feeling it. Pizza sounds good!
The cherries and blueberries from the fruit share will find their way into my food dehydrator. I'm preparing for those winter Sunday mornings when J wakes up craving something sweet and I'm craving some extra heat from the oven. Scones and muffins will warm his belly and the oven will warm my toes.
I forgot to mention that J scooped up twelve pounds of cherries this week. (J has a cherry problem.) A couple of pounds found their way into a big bottle of Cherry Bounce and I need to thank Merideth for this fun recipe. In a gallon container (I used an old growler that once held some stout) combine a couple of quarts of cherries with three cups of sugar (yeah, that's a lot) and a fifth of whiskey (not the expensive stuff - not necessary with all of that sugar). Every day for ten days, give the container a bounce to incorporate some of the sugar. Store the bottle away for four months and try not to obsess about it. I can't wait for this sweet cherry and whiskey liquor to be ready to mix cocktails. J loves Whiskey Sours, so how can we go wrong with a Bouncy Sour? I'm dreaming of a Bouncy boozy cherry cola. How about a blend of Bounce with some chocolate soda for a Black Forest Bounce? Oh yeah, this is going to be some good stuff in a few months.
The yellow plums were tiny and deliciously sweet-tart. I cooked them down with some simple syrup until they were soft then stirred in a generous glug of Triple Sec before chilling it down to make sorbet. This will hit the ice cream maker tomorrow morning. I know it's going to be fabulous because J and I attacked the bowl of the food processor after I poured out the sorbet mix. It's sweet and tart and orangy (from the Triple Sec) and wonderfully sunshiny.
We took the pups for an extended ride after our CSA pickup (check out Holdy in his Doggles).
Our destination? Harbe's Family Farm for another bag of their sweet corn. We ate six ears last week and they were amazingly sweet. Since we had ten ears of organic corn from our CSA already, the bag of a dozen ears from Harbe's was destined to be cut off the cob and frozen for all sorts of dreamy winter recipes - corn chowder, a lovely maque choux to serve along side my favorite Malaysian-style potato curry, corn and black bean quesadillas with black bean soup. I don't want to rush away my summer, but these winter dishes sound good. At least I have something to look forward to during the dark, cold months of winter. Maybe we'll get another big storm and a snow day (or two) to give me some quality cooking time! Before any of that can happen, though, the corn had to be de-cobbed.
Twelve ears of de-cobbing later, I had three lovely zip top bags of sweet corn nestled in my freezer, dreaming of blizzards and snow days and chowder.Speaking of chowder, my corn cobs did not go to waste. I boiled them up with some water and salt and pepper and made a couple of quarts of homemade corn stock for a big pot of corn chowder. The stock is nestled into my freezer, next to the corn. I'm planning on using my own home grown potatoes in that recipe. But that's another blog entry for a much much later date. I've got a refrigerator full of summer goodness to cook through before the door pops off!
20 July 2009
Week 8 Pickup: You Can't Make Me Eat That!
We were given ample warning that this would happen. I've made it a habit to check the Garden of Eve web site (http://www.gardenofevefarm.com) around mid-week to see if any share news has been posted. This week we got the news on Wednesday - beets would be part of our pick up on Saturday. Cue ominous sounding music here.
Beets have haunted me since childhood. They are the one vegetable that I have flat-out refused to try - ever. Many people have postulated that the canned beets that were served as part of school lunch from Kindergarten through Fifth Grade are the only beets I have known and have therefore tainted my opinion on the vegetable. True enough, but I never tasted those beets. It's something about the color and the weird bleeding thing beets do that turns me off. I have been reassured by several people that fresh beets neither look nor taste as awful as canned beets. I promised J and myself that I would give these beets a try.
Alas, the online update, which is usually wrong in some tiny way, was correct. Beets! Beets? Beets! Noooooooo! Actually, the update was correct about the beets but incorrect about the yellow squash. I ended up with an extra head of garlic and a couple of extra potatoes in exchange.
The flowers were lovely this week.
See how I can always find something positive to say? It's that good southern upbringing.
Let's stay happily positive for a minute and talk about our adventures after our farm pickup. Stop #1: Harbe's Family Farm in Mattituck, NY (http://www.harbesfamilyfarm.com/). Harbe's is our favorite stop for roasted corn and delicious baguettes. We grabbed a couple of ears of the former and shared them with the puppers.
Notice that their little fuzzy noggins make a heart shape as they lick corn kernels from J's plate.
Aren't they adorable, my little corn dogs?
As for the baguettes, they are delicious and amazing and we scooped one up along with a couple of hothouse tomatoes. Yes, Ms. I-want-to-eat-in-season-and-local succumbed to the hothouse tomatoes. The bread was talking to me. The warm weather was singing to me. The delicious tiny home grown tomatoes from last week were haunting my palate. I wanted a tomato sandwich. I needed a tomato sandwich. I would have a tomato sandwich.
I needed some mozzarella for that sandwich - good mozzarella - not that plastic stuff you get at the Stop-and-Shop. We had asked the cashier at Harbe's about the source of their bread and she told us that Scotto's Pork Store (http://www.scottosporkstore.com/home.html) in Hampton Bays delivers both the baguettes and the mozzarella they use in their sandwiches at the farm stand. Okay, the title "pork store" does bother this vegetarian, but I'm in search of cheese, not pork, so, off to Hampton Bays we went!
My BlackBerry and Google Maps made the trip an easy one. I navigated and J drove. On our way to bread-and-cheese-deliciousness, we passed a landmark we've only seen on TV and in print: the Flanders Duck!
Isn't it cute? Okay, not as cute as my pups, but cute. Please excuse the dark gray smudge on the left side of the photo. J's nose (schnoz, as I lovingly refer to it) found its way into the one shot I got of the ducky as we sped by. I tried to wipe the schnoz smudge out using Picasa, but I was less-than-successful. I've got to get some photoshop classes from Gatton.
At Scotto's we scooped up some tasty lunch and a ball of fresh mozzarella. We also grabbed a hero roll because I know how much J loves tomato mozzarella sandwiches. We'd need a lot of bread.
I forgot to mention that Harbe's finally had their own corn for sale at the farm stand, so we scooped up a bag of six ears. Later in the season, I'm sure I'll be lugging home larger sacks so that we can eat some now and freeze some for the winter.
Enough about the extra stuff - let's get back to the shares.
Mesclun mix? Easy. Salad. I figured I'd make the roasted beets with baby greens and fried goat cheese and candied pecan salad I've seen variations of on most restaurant menus recently. This covers the lettuces and the beets. Cool.
Not too cool. After roasting and peeling and slicing the beets (and turning my hands a glowing purple in the process), I mustered up the courage to taste some. Nope. Nope. Nope. Don't like them. Nope. Not gonna happen - for me, at least. J loves them; thank heavens! I'll make the salad for him!
The zucchini found itself in a tasty pair of zucchini pies. That's a recipe for another post. It requires more attention.
The white cucumbers and some carrots and jalapenos and onions found their way into some pickling jars as part of the Great Pickle Experiment of 2009. That, too, is another recipe for another post.
The potatoes, garlic, and parsley will make for a nice batch of lyonnaise potatoes for breakfast later in the week, along side of a couple of the amazing eggs we pick up with each share. These potatoes are a childhood favorite from a restaurant in New Orleans that probably no longer exists. I try to recreate this recipe a couple of times each year. I guess it's time to try again. Mmm...starchy deliciousness.
I'm sorry to say that I don't like peaches either. Don't ask. J, on the other hand loves peaches; but, I'm sorry to say, he didn't like these. Evidently they were mealy and tart and otherwise flavorless. Oh well.
The cherries ended up in J's belly when they started to get fuzzy too quickly to get them into my food dehydrator. Super ripe fruit requires quick action and I was hoping the cherries would hold out until Tuesday. They didn't, so J enjoyed a lovely dessert of fresh cherries tonight.
The blueberries are destined for the food dehydrator. The resulting dried morsels will be wonderful in scones on a very cold day when firing up the oven not only results in a delicious treat, but helps warm up the kitchen and my chilly bones.
Did I cover it all? Whew! Okay, enough writing - time to get cooking!
Beets have haunted me since childhood. They are the one vegetable that I have flat-out refused to try - ever. Many people have postulated that the canned beets that were served as part of school lunch from Kindergarten through Fifth Grade are the only beets I have known and have therefore tainted my opinion on the vegetable. True enough, but I never tasted those beets. It's something about the color and the weird bleeding thing beets do that turns me off. I have been reassured by several people that fresh beets neither look nor taste as awful as canned beets. I promised J and myself that I would give these beets a try.
Alas, the online update, which is usually wrong in some tiny way, was correct. Beets! Beets? Beets! Noooooooo! Actually, the update was correct about the beets but incorrect about the yellow squash. I ended up with an extra head of garlic and a couple of extra potatoes in exchange.
The flowers were lovely this week.
See how I can always find something positive to say? It's that good southern upbringing.
Let's stay happily positive for a minute and talk about our adventures after our farm pickup. Stop #1: Harbe's Family Farm in Mattituck, NY (http://www.harbesfamilyfarm.com/). Harbe's is our favorite stop for roasted corn and delicious baguettes. We grabbed a couple of ears of the former and shared them with the puppers.
Notice that their little fuzzy noggins make a heart shape as they lick corn kernels from J's plate.
Aren't they adorable, my little corn dogs?
As for the baguettes, they are delicious and amazing and we scooped one up along with a couple of hothouse tomatoes. Yes, Ms. I-want-to-eat-in-season-and-local succumbed to the hothouse tomatoes. The bread was talking to me. The warm weather was singing to me. The delicious tiny home grown tomatoes from last week were haunting my palate. I wanted a tomato sandwich. I needed a tomato sandwich. I would have a tomato sandwich.
I needed some mozzarella for that sandwich - good mozzarella - not that plastic stuff you get at the Stop-and-Shop. We had asked the cashier at Harbe's about the source of their bread and she told us that Scotto's Pork Store (http://www.scottosporkstore.com/home.html) in Hampton Bays delivers both the baguettes and the mozzarella they use in their sandwiches at the farm stand. Okay, the title "pork store" does bother this vegetarian, but I'm in search of cheese, not pork, so, off to Hampton Bays we went!
My BlackBerry and Google Maps made the trip an easy one. I navigated and J drove. On our way to bread-and-cheese-deliciousness, we passed a landmark we've only seen on TV and in print: the Flanders Duck!
Isn't it cute? Okay, not as cute as my pups, but cute. Please excuse the dark gray smudge on the left side of the photo. J's nose (schnoz, as I lovingly refer to it) found its way into the one shot I got of the ducky as we sped by. I tried to wipe the schnoz smudge out using Picasa, but I was less-than-successful. I've got to get some photoshop classes from Gatton.At Scotto's we scooped up some tasty lunch and a ball of fresh mozzarella. We also grabbed a hero roll because I know how much J loves tomato mozzarella sandwiches. We'd need a lot of bread.
I forgot to mention that Harbe's finally had their own corn for sale at the farm stand, so we scooped up a bag of six ears. Later in the season, I'm sure I'll be lugging home larger sacks so that we can eat some now and freeze some for the winter.
Enough about the extra stuff - let's get back to the shares.
Mesclun mix? Easy. Salad. I figured I'd make the roasted beets with baby greens and fried goat cheese and candied pecan salad I've seen variations of on most restaurant menus recently. This covers the lettuces and the beets. Cool.
Not too cool. After roasting and peeling and slicing the beets (and turning my hands a glowing purple in the process), I mustered up the courage to taste some. Nope. Nope. Nope. Don't like them. Nope. Not gonna happen - for me, at least. J loves them; thank heavens! I'll make the salad for him!
The zucchini found itself in a tasty pair of zucchini pies. That's a recipe for another post. It requires more attention.
The white cucumbers and some carrots and jalapenos and onions found their way into some pickling jars as part of the Great Pickle Experiment of 2009. That, too, is another recipe for another post.
The potatoes, garlic, and parsley will make for a nice batch of lyonnaise potatoes for breakfast later in the week, along side of a couple of the amazing eggs we pick up with each share. These potatoes are a childhood favorite from a restaurant in New Orleans that probably no longer exists. I try to recreate this recipe a couple of times each year. I guess it's time to try again. Mmm...starchy deliciousness.
I'm sorry to say that I don't like peaches either. Don't ask. J, on the other hand loves peaches; but, I'm sorry to say, he didn't like these. Evidently they were mealy and tart and otherwise flavorless. Oh well.
The cherries ended up in J's belly when they started to get fuzzy too quickly to get them into my food dehydrator. Super ripe fruit requires quick action and I was hoping the cherries would hold out until Tuesday. They didn't, so J enjoyed a lovely dessert of fresh cherries tonight.
The blueberries are destined for the food dehydrator. The resulting dried morsels will be wonderful in scones on a very cold day when firing up the oven not only results in a delicious treat, but helps warm up the kitchen and my chilly bones.
Did I cover it all? Whew! Okay, enough writing - time to get cooking!
15 July 2009
A Sorbet A Day
Anyone who knows J, knows of his weekness for frozen confections. He has a particular allegiance for ice cream and other dairy treats, but he does not discriminate against popsicles, ices, slurpees, sherbets, granitas, and sorbets. The boy likes his frozen sweet treats. Who am I to deny him?
As a belated anniversary gift, I - no J acting through me - ordered the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid. I had envisioned making batch after batch of ice cream for J and frozen yogurt for me. When faced with an over abundance of both strawberries and cherries on the verge of becoming overripe earlier this month, I decided my maiden voyage into the world of frozen desserts would be to the land of sorbet.
Some initial research through my cookbook collection and some favorite food blogs on the Internet taught me that a good fruit sorbet needs only a few basic ingredients: pureed fruit, sugar, a bit of acid, and some alcohol to keep the mixture from freezing solid. With some basic proportions in mind, I headed into the kitchen and began the Super Sorbet Spree of 2009.
All super-ripe-fruit-without-a-dedicated-use in my kitchen gets pureed with sugar, lemon or lime juice, sugar, a pinch of kosher salt (I don't make a sweet dish without salt), and a shot of something from my liquor cabinet. Before the fruit can go bad, I turn it into something delicious. The resulting mix gets chilled down until my ice cream maker is cold enough to turn it into a lovely small-crystal frozen taste sensation. Thirty minutes of mixing and I've got a soft sorbet, perfect for margaritas or daiquiris on the spot. A few hours in the freezer after the mix up and we've got honest to goodness sorbet.
With all of the fruit in the house, I've been making up lots and lots of sorbet mix lately: strawberry margarita, cherry, cherry-lime, more strawberry, more cherry, and watermelon caipirinha, Because the ice cream maker needs fifteen hours to freeze properly, I really only have time to make one batch of sorbet each day. To get the fruit out of the fridge and into the freezer, we've developed our Sorbet-A-Day routine, which involves freezing off a batch of sorbet each morning while I prepare breakfast. It goes a little something like this. I get inittial breakfast prep work done (chopping, slicing, toasting, etc...). During a break in the action, I grab the sorbet mix out of the fridge, taste it for final flavor and texture tweaks and J grabs the ice cream maker bowl out of the freezer and sets it up on the KitchenAid. We pour the mix in, I set the timer, and J occasionally monitors the sorbet-in-progress while I return to my breakfast preparations. Usually, the sorbet is just finishing up its spinning dance as we are finishing up our last bites of huevos rancheros or eggs en cocotte. Perfect timing! We spoon most of the sorbet into a freezer jar and stash it in the freezer, sample the left overs, and clean up the ice cream maker while doing the breakfast dishes. We're always sure to the the ice cream maker bowl back in the freezer to chill down for tomorrow's sorbet.
We're excited for a lot of the stone fruit to come into season so that we can try nectarine and plum and pluot sorbets. Of course, full-blown melon season will be a treat too. I'm a bit hesitant about apples and pumpkins in the fall, but you know I'm going to try it.. It's nice to freeze a bit of summer sweetness into a sorbet to enjoy when there's no fresh fruit in season later in the year.
As a belated anniversary gift, I - no J acting through me - ordered the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid. I had envisioned making batch after batch of ice cream for J and frozen yogurt for me. When faced with an over abundance of both strawberries and cherries on the verge of becoming overripe earlier this month, I decided my maiden voyage into the world of frozen desserts would be to the land of sorbet.
Some initial research through my cookbook collection and some favorite food blogs on the Internet taught me that a good fruit sorbet needs only a few basic ingredients: pureed fruit, sugar, a bit of acid, and some alcohol to keep the mixture from freezing solid. With some basic proportions in mind, I headed into the kitchen and began the Super Sorbet Spree of 2009.
All super-ripe-fruit-without-a-dedicated-use in my kitchen gets pureed with sugar, lemon or lime juice, sugar, a pinch of kosher salt (I don't make a sweet dish without salt), and a shot of something from my liquor cabinet. Before the fruit can go bad, I turn it into something delicious. The resulting mix gets chilled down until my ice cream maker is cold enough to turn it into a lovely small-crystal frozen taste sensation. Thirty minutes of mixing and I've got a soft sorbet, perfect for margaritas or daiquiris on the spot. A few hours in the freezer after the mix up and we've got honest to goodness sorbet.
With all of the fruit in the house, I've been making up lots and lots of sorbet mix lately: strawberry margarita, cherry, cherry-lime, more strawberry, more cherry, and watermelon caipirinha, Because the ice cream maker needs fifteen hours to freeze properly, I really only have time to make one batch of sorbet each day. To get the fruit out of the fridge and into the freezer, we've developed our Sorbet-A-Day routine, which involves freezing off a batch of sorbet each morning while I prepare breakfast. It goes a little something like this. I get inittial breakfast prep work done (chopping, slicing, toasting, etc...). During a break in the action, I grab the sorbet mix out of the fridge, taste it for final flavor and texture tweaks and J grabs the ice cream maker bowl out of the freezer and sets it up on the KitchenAid. We pour the mix in, I set the timer, and J occasionally monitors the sorbet-in-progress while I return to my breakfast preparations. Usually, the sorbet is just finishing up its spinning dance as we are finishing up our last bites of huevos rancheros or eggs en cocotte. Perfect timing! We spoon most of the sorbet into a freezer jar and stash it in the freezer, sample the left overs, and clean up the ice cream maker while doing the breakfast dishes. We're always sure to the the ice cream maker bowl back in the freezer to chill down for tomorrow's sorbet.
We're excited for a lot of the stone fruit to come into season so that we can try nectarine and plum and pluot sorbets. Of course, full-blown melon season will be a treat too. I'm a bit hesitant about apples and pumpkins in the fall, but you know I'm going to try it.. It's nice to freeze a bit of summer sweetness into a sorbet to enjoy when there's no fresh fruit in season later in the year.
10 July 2009
Buried in Cherries
[Note: while coming back to tag my older posts (who knew I'd write more than just a few?) I found that a significant portion of the original post was missing. Hmmm... I'll do my best to recreate it, but with my memory, who knows what you're going to get.]
Have I ever mentioned that J is obsessed with cherries? I, too, enjoy the sweet-tart squirt of a perfectly rubied ripe cherry in the summer time, but J goes way beyond enjoying cherries. He loves them. He waits (not very patiently, mind you) for June each year to get his grubby paws on as many cherries as he can. He'll even stalk the produce section of the market in January, hoping to scoop up some South American cherries. The boy has cherry issues.
Each June and July I can expect J to come home from one store or another with bags full of cherries. He's been known to bring home twelve pounds at a time. He eats them all, too! He'll plop onto the couch with a giant stainless steel bowl filled with cherries and chomp his way all the way through in one sitting. That's at least a couple of pounds of cherries at a time. I told you - issues.
Upon his return from Las Vegas, J sat on the couch and perused the shopping circulars that arrived during his trip. He discovered that, heavens above, cherries were on sale at ridiculously low prices at almost every local market. Cherry season had officially hit its peak! Further noting that that very evening was the last day of the sale prices, J grabbed his wallet and keys and rushed himself out of the house. An hour later he returned and he wasn't alone. He brought back (brace yourself) twenty-eight pounds of cherries. Yes, that twenty-eight pounds.
With very little free space in the fridge, J and I got very very busy the next day prepping cherries for the freezer, jam making, sorbet making, and more. Those cherries had to be processed fast before they went bad. Who's the brain trust who decided to handle twenty-eight pounds of cherries at one time?
A quick tip to all you cherry lovers out there. Do not give your spouse the spiffy cherry pitter and resign yourself to using a paring knife to pit a giant bowl full of juicy black-purple-red ripe cherries. Your fingers will turn purple. Your clothes will get spattered and stained in juice. You will poke your hand with the tip of the blade repeatedly. You will wonder if you poked yourself hard enough that you're bleeding, but you won't be able to tell right away because your hands are red already.
Yeah, I was a little bitter. A few burstingly sweet cherries later I got over it. These are really good. They're plump. They're firm. They're wonderfully sweet and just tart enough to be pleasing. They're perfect. Twenty-eight pounds? Not even close to enough.
So we spent the bulk of the day getting stained with cherry juice. I made sorbet mix. I froze trays of pitted cherries. I'm about to make another big batch of jam. I'll freeze more trays. The payoff for funky stained fingers and clothes and all of this hard work? We've got this lovely kiss of summer sweetness saved to enjoy during the excessively gray and cold days of February. I'll be able to blend them into tasty beverages (smoothies, margaritas, cherry mojitos) and snuggle them into baked goods (muffins, scones, clafoutis, pies) and cook them into more jam or a lovely sauce or chutney if I run out.
I'm set for cherries for the rest of the year.
Are you?
Have I ever mentioned that J is obsessed with cherries? I, too, enjoy the sweet-tart squirt of a perfectly rubied ripe cherry in the summer time, but J goes way beyond enjoying cherries. He loves them. He waits (not very patiently, mind you) for June each year to get his grubby paws on as many cherries as he can. He'll even stalk the produce section of the market in January, hoping to scoop up some South American cherries. The boy has cherry issues.
Each June and July I can expect J to come home from one store or another with bags full of cherries. He's been known to bring home twelve pounds at a time. He eats them all, too! He'll plop onto the couch with a giant stainless steel bowl filled with cherries and chomp his way all the way through in one sitting. That's at least a couple of pounds of cherries at a time. I told you - issues.
Upon his return from Las Vegas, J sat on the couch and perused the shopping circulars that arrived during his trip. He discovered that, heavens above, cherries were on sale at ridiculously low prices at almost every local market. Cherry season had officially hit its peak! Further noting that that very evening was the last day of the sale prices, J grabbed his wallet and keys and rushed himself out of the house. An hour later he returned and he wasn't alone. He brought back (brace yourself) twenty-eight pounds of cherries. Yes, that twenty-eight pounds.
With very little free space in the fridge, J and I got very very busy the next day prepping cherries for the freezer, jam making, sorbet making, and more. Those cherries had to be processed fast before they went bad. Who's the brain trust who decided to handle twenty-eight pounds of cherries at one time?
A quick tip to all you cherry lovers out there. Do not give your spouse the spiffy cherry pitter and resign yourself to using a paring knife to pit a giant bowl full of juicy black-purple-red ripe cherries. Your fingers will turn purple. Your clothes will get spattered and stained in juice. You will poke your hand with the tip of the blade repeatedly. You will wonder if you poked yourself hard enough that you're bleeding, but you won't be able to tell right away because your hands are red already.
Yeah, I was a little bitter. A few burstingly sweet cherries later I got over it. These are really good. They're plump. They're firm. They're wonderfully sweet and just tart enough to be pleasing. They're perfect. Twenty-eight pounds? Not even close to enough.
So we spent the bulk of the day getting stained with cherry juice. I made sorbet mix. I froze trays of pitted cherries. I'm about to make another big batch of jam. I'll freeze more trays. The payoff for funky stained fingers and clothes and all of this hard work? We've got this lovely kiss of summer sweetness saved to enjoy during the excessively gray and cold days of February. I'll be able to blend them into tasty beverages (smoothies, margaritas, cherry mojitos) and snuggle them into baked goods (muffins, scones, clafoutis, pies) and cook them into more jam or a lovely sauce or chutney if I run out.
I'm set for cherries for the rest of the year.
Are you?
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