The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Tomatillo Salsa

I’ve made a few batches of this salsa, first in 8 oz jars, and, later, after we realized how good it is, in pint jars.  It doesn’t have quite the same flavor as the Roasted Tomatillo Salsa I wrote about a while back, but it’s pretty similar and very, very good.

A Look at My Morning, So Far

This was my dining room table at 6:55 this morning.

Please ignore the bags of potato chips.  In this house we only eat homemade potato chips, of course.  Those were…for………the neighbors.

Anyway. 

On the table I’ve got some canned crushed tomatoes, other canned stuff that’s buried and you can’t see it.  Bowls of basil, sage, and kale, a little plastic container of cookes, a bowl of tomatillows, some apples, peaches, garlic, tomatoes, a few jalapenos somewhere, 6 ears of corn, that bag of shredded coconut…which is also……for the neighbors, because of course we only travel to tropical islands, climb up trees, harvest our own coconuts, and shred the flesh ourselves….

Hunkering Down

The post title is solely for my sister, with whom I had this IM conversation this morning (we were each watching the news on Irene in our respective homes):

Her:  did you hear that doom and gloom Today show music?  geeeeez

Me:  noooooo.  didn't hear it, or i just wasn't paying attention

Her:  good god.
that was enough to scare anybody

Me:  they are all talking like they're at a funeral

Her:  i know..
i hate the term "hunker down"

Me:  hahahahahaha
i actually like it.

Her:  figures
hunker?

Me:  makes me think of not having to go anywhere and being snug with plenty of food and something good to read.

Her:  what does it mean?

Me:  i don't know.
i think it means "don't go anywhere and be snug with plenty of food and something good to read."
along the lines of "batten down the hatches"

Her:
hunk·erVerb/ˈhəNGkər/
    1. Squat or crouch down low: "he hunkered down beside her".
    2. Take shelter in a defensive position: "hunker down and let it blow over".

Me:
well there you go.

Her:
but can you use the word "hunker" alone?  or does it have to be with "down"

Me:
i don't know.
you should give it a try today and see if people look at you funny.

Her:
what if I hunker up?

Me:
hahahaha
brb, i have to cook bill some eggs

Her:
ok

Me:
i'm back.  just before i went upstairs, some reporter said "everyone is hunkering down" and i burst out laughing and everyone just looked at me.

Her:
hahaha i heard that
not you, him

Me:
hahaha

~~~~~~~

Well, in terms of hunkering down, yesterday we picked up the yard and put potential flying missiles in the garage.  We also picked a ton of tomatoes – red and green – because we don’t want them getting smashed by the heavy wind and rain tomorrow.

Then we did a bunch of cooking.

I prepped tomatoes and onions for a relish I’ll be canning later today.

So pretty!  And we grew EVERYTHING in that bowl.  Tomatoes (red, green, and white), and onions (white and red/purple). 

I salted all of that, covered it with plastic and put it aside to sit overnight.

Bill worked on a HUGE batch of veggie burgers.  We picked up some zucchini and yellow squash at the farmers’ market in the morning; enough for 7 batches, which will give us about 35-40 burgers to pack away.

 

After sauteeing everything, Bill added in some shredded cheese, eggs, and oatmeal.  The whole mess is in a huge bowl in the fridge.  Today he’ll shape it into patties and cook them all.  Then we’ll freeze them, and we’ll have a whole bunch of future meals ready to go.

I love the fact that my kids LOVE veggie burgers – especially the ones Bill makes. 

Another cool thing is that this summer their tolerance for heat has increased.

We love hot and spicy food, Bill and I.  Julia likes to occasionally show how tough she is by eating something we’re eating, but only when she’s sort of competing with Alex.  (Never mind sports, we compete with chili peppers here.)

But a few weeks ago Bill made a red Thai curry and both kids LOVED it.  We’ve been making fresh salsa with the tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos from the garden, and both kids love that, too. 

This is AWESOME.

Yesterday Bill picked some ripe tomatillos, and I made a fabulous salsa with them.

And – again – both kids LOVED it.

Oh, and we also got two huge, beautiful eggplants at the farmers’ market:

The one on the left weighed over two pounds.

I made a double batch of eggplant parmesan with them and a vat of tomato sauce I’d simmered for most of the day.  The kids loved that, too.

~~~~~

I’ve come to the conclusion that our kids can pretty much do whatever they want in life – teach, play instruments, become professional athletes, rob banks, run for office – anything, and as long as they continue to be adventurous about eating, we’ll always be proud of them.

~~~~~

And that’s where we are at this moment. 

The calm before the storm, in whatever form Irene takes by the time she arrives.

OH – one more thing.  Yesterday I invented a term:

Hurricaniacs:  The people who go crazy buying up all the water, bread and milk and batteries in preparation for a hurricane, leaving nothing behind for people who have actually and legitimately run out of something.

Gotta go now.  I want to finish the laundry, just in case we lose power for more than a day.

Are you in Irene’s path?  How have you fared (if you’ve already been hit), and how are you hunkering down, if you’re still, like me, waiting.

Bread and Butter Chips

Yay, pickles!

I canned ten pints of bread and butter pickles the other day, along with a quart and a pint of tomato sauce.  (Subsequent batches of sauce will be larger as the tomatoes are now ripening at an alarming rate….)

But never mind the tomatoes.  This post is about pickles.

Not Just for Clothing Any More

We pulled most of the remaining coriander (cilantro) the other day and needed a place to put it until we could pick all the little seeds off.

Pressure Canning Beef and Chicken Stock

Way back in May, as a combination Mother’s Day, Birthday, Christmas, and any other gift-receiving holiday you can think of, I got a pressure canner.  And I’ve been waiting to use it.  I knew that the first thing I wanted to can was homemade stock.  I make a lot of stock, chicken especially, and I’d wanted the pressure canner especially so I could put the stock in jars and give us more room in the freezer. 

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, the pressure canner made its canning debut….

Firewood Camp – or – What Mom and Dad Forced Us To Do On Our Summer Vacation

While Mommy slacked off inside pretending to make beef stock and other nourishing foods, plus do laundry and dishes – OR SO SHE SAID – Julia and Alex were pressed into service as Firewood Transportation Specialists.

A Wee Sma’ Batch of Pickled Beets

Three 8 oz jars of pickled beets.

I’ve written before that as a child I was not a fan of beets.  I didn’t like how their pink juice bled into my mashed potatoes.  As an adult, though, I love them.  And if I don’t want pink food, I can just put my beets in a dish by themselves.  My favorite way to eat them – oven roasted and then tossed in a warm pasta salad with goat cheese and arugula, olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic, and salt and pepper.  Yum.

My grandfather loved pickled beets.  AND he liked to eat them in sandwich form, alongside thick slices of cheddar cheese.  Pickled beets were okay…but I didn’t want them in my sandwich.

But.  Again.  Now that I’m an adult…the thought of actually making my own pickled beets is definitely appealing.

So the other day Bill and I brought a bowl outside and started harvesting.

From above ground, it looked like we had larger beets than we really did.

Oh well.  That’s what math is for – to adjust recipes!

First, though, I had to prep the beets so that I’d know how to adjust the recipe.

I left about two inches of stalk on the beet, and left the roots alone. 

The book (Ball’s Complete Book of Home Canning) recommends doing that to keep the color from bleeding out of the beets. 

Next, I cleaned the beets, making sure to get all the bits of dirt out of the roots.

Hooray – clean beets.

I put them in a pot and added enough water to cover the beets completely.

Then I set the pot on the stove to boil.

While that was going on, I cleaned the leaves and sorted them, putting the worst ones in the compost bin and setting the nicest ones aside to use for something else.

The book says the beets will take between 20 and 40 minutes to cook, depending on the size, so you have to check each beet with a sharp knife in order to see if they’re tender.

When the beets are cooked through, rinse them under cold water (or drop them in an ice bath), and then peel off the outer skin and roots.  Trim off the stem and the tap root, and then slice or quarter.  The book said to leave the small ones whole, but I sliced those, too.

Pretty, aren’t they?

Oh, and the other thing I did (well, I probably did lots of things, but I’m just sharing the relevant stuff) was to chop up a few onions.  One of the recipes included onions, and that sounded like a lovely idea to me.  Especially since we didn’t have enough beets to make a full (10 cups of sliced beets) recipe.

These all came from our garden.  Top to bottom, there’s a red onion that never really…onionized.  A Cippolini, and a regular white onion.

I ended up getting another white onion as well.

So.  After all the slicing, I ended up with about 2 cups of beets. 

And after a bit of pencil chewing and counting on my fingers (which did no good, as this problem involved division) I calculated how much I’d need of all the other ingredients.

Time to pickle.

I chopped up onions…

I tied some pickling spices in a bit of cheesecloth…

And I washed my canning jars and lids and set them in pots of water to simmer.  I also put a large pot of water on the stove for the filled jars. 

And, in a fourth pot, I combined water, vinegar, sugar, the spices, and the onions. 

Brought them to a boil, let them simmer a while, and then removed the spice bag.

Next, I spooned the beets into the jars (I’d prepped 5 jars but only needed 3), layering them with some of the onions.  Then I poured the rest of the liquid from the pot into the jars, leaving 1/2” of head space.

I wiped off the jar rims, put the lids and bands on, and placed the jars in the large pot of water.

I brought the water to a rolling boil, covered the pot, and boiled the pickles – as directed – for 30 minutes.  Then I shut off the heat, removed the pot lid, and let the jars rest for five minutes before taking them out of the liquid.

Now, normally I hover over jars like a new mother, waiting for the lids to make that lovely little popping sound as the pressure inside the jars pulls the metal lids tight.  But I think Alex and Bill were both talking, and I missed the pops.  So I pressed on the lids, in the center, to see if there was any give, which would indicate improper sealing. 

No give.  Good seal.  Success.

Once the jars had cooled completely, I stuck one in the fridge to chill the beets before we tried them. 

The onions have absorbed the pink beet color, as you can see. 

The taste?  Very good, though I think I’ll increase the amount of spice for the next batch.  Maybe a little more vinegar, too.

But overall, pretty tasty.  Sweet and tangy, with an earthy but not overpowering hint of beet.

I don’t even mind the pink juice. 

Now I need to make some cheddar, so I can revisit that sandwich, now that I’m all grown up with mature taste buds….

For my tiny-batch recipe, see below.

Tiny Batch Pickled Beets and Onions

(makes about 3 8-ounce jars)

Ingredients:

2 cups prepared, sliced beets

3/4 cup sliced onion

1 tablespoon pickling spice

1 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

What to do:

1.  To prepare the beets, cut the stalks so about 2” remain on the beet, and leave the roots intact.  Scrub beets clean in cool water.  Place beets in a pot, largest on the bottom, smaller beets above, and fill with cold water until the beets are just covered.  Bring to a boil and cook anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes.  Smaller beets will cook faster than the bigger ones, so at the twenty minute mark, start checking beets by inserting a thin knife into the beet.  If the knife goes in easily, the beet is done.  Remove beets as they become tender.  Rinse in cold water and slip off the outer skin.  Trim off root and stalks, and slice about 1/4” thick.  Alternately, you could leave the small ones whole and quarter the larger beets.  The choice is yours.

2.  Prepare jars, lids and bands.  (If you’re new to canning, read here to see what you need to do.  It’s a jam recipe, but preparation of jars is the same.  Or buy a good canning book (Ball puts out a few of them) and follow their directions.)

3.  Make a spice bag for the pickling spices with a small, doubled square of cheesecloth and some string.

4.  Place the onions, vinegar, water, sugar, and spice bag in a small pot and bring to a boil.  Simmer for about 15 minutes, to infuse liquid with the spices.  Discard the bag when done.

5.  Spoon sliced beets into jars, layering with some of the onions, leaving a bit more than a 1/2” of head space.  Then pour the pickling liquid in to cover the beets and onions, leaving 1/2” of head space per jar.  Make sure there are no air pockets by tilting jars or gently inserting a knife into the jar along the side and pressing the vegetables back a bit to allow the liquid to redistribute.  Wipe the rims of the jars with damp paper towel, place lids on jars, then bands.  Tighten bands to “fingertip tight” (just tight, not so tight that your muscles bulge and your face goes red with effort.

6.  Place jars in canning pot, put the lid on the pot and bring to a rolling boil.  Starting when the water reaches the rolling boil, process the jars for 30 minutes.  Yes, 30.  When that’s done, shut off the heat, remove the lid, and leave jars in water for another 5 minutes.  Then remove jars, let them cool, and store.  You’ll want to listen for the little “pop” sound as the lids complete their seal, but if you don’t hear it, you can check by pressing on the center of the lid with your finger.  It should be slightly concave, and there shouldn’t be any give when you press.  If the jar hasn’t sealed properly, store in the fridge and consume within a couple weeks.  If the jar has sealed properly, label the jars and add them to your pantry.

Enjoy!

Mixed Hot Pepper Jelly

I was thinking ahead to Christmas with this one.  Thinking of making festively-colored jelly to give (if we can bear to part with any) to some family and friends.

I’d already made two batches of Habanero Gold, which is a very pretty gold (of course) color with flecks of red pepper in it.

There was also a recipe for Jalapeno jelly, which would be pretty with the flecks of green…but I’d used up a lot of our jalapenos when I made hot sauce.

What to do?

Habanero Gold

Hot Paper Lantern Habanero Peppers, ripening in our garden.

We grew a variety of hot peppers this year and, amazingly, they’ve all done really well.  We’ve made fresh salsa with them, and recently I canned some Jalapeno salsa and will probably make another batch of that when more of the peppers have reached maturity.

A couple of years ago our friend, John, made some sort of hot pepper jam or marmalade and gave us a jar.  I don’t remember all the details, just that it was hot and sweet and completely addictive. 

With our lovely selection of peppers this year, I really wanted to make a jam or jelly myself.  Over the winter I’d gone through various canning books and recipes, and marked the pages of the jellies I wanted to try.  And finally, with our peppers ripening, and some of them turning brilliant shades of red, it was time.

Jalapeño Salsa

This recipe comes from Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving.  The book says you'll get about six 8-ounce jars or three pints.  I got five 8-ounce jars plus a little (maybe a quarter cup) left over, which was nice because I got to taste it.  The rest of the jars will sit for at least 3 more weeks, as the book recommends letting the salsa mature "to mellow and round out the outstanding flavor."

Here are the ingredients (and some pictures and my commentary):

48 Ears of Corn

When my sister and I were kids, my mom used to put us to work at various points throughout the summer helping her prep vegetables for freezing.  She used to do a lot of canning, originally.  Probably before we came along, or before we were big enough to help.  Or before she and my father bought that really big stand-up freezer and put it in the basement.  I think it maybe just became easier to pack things in the freezer in plastic containers than to can them.  I don’t know.

All I know is, my sister, me, and our friend, Dolores, if she was at the house, became extremely cheap labor. 

Blueberry Lime Jam

Oh, how I love blueberries.

My Kind of Gold

No, it's not jewelry or coins or highlights in my hair.

No, it's not the sun, which is finally out after days and days of "should we be building an ark?" weather.

It's stock.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

If you've never made jam, and are feeling hesitant about going through the whole cooking and canning process, and you just want to maybe dip your toe into the jam-making pool and see what temperature the water is, then this is the way to do that.

Rhubarb Ginger Jam

It's thick and rhubarb- tart and cooked-sugar-sweet and has a little heat from the fresh ginger and a little something friendly from the vanilla.

It's terrific.  I'm already thinking of ways to use this, and I'm also already thinking I should have made more.

Guess I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed when I go to the Farmers' Market on Friday.

But back to the beginning....

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam - The First Two Batches

Alex - the jam afficianado in our house - has pronounced this jam "Not bad...it's actually pretty good."  With two approving nods of his head.  So I'm thinking I got about an A-.

As I'd mentioned after my trip to the Farmers' Market on Friday, I bought a total of 4 quarts of strawberries:  6 individual pints of berries from one farm, one quart from another farm.  All were gorgeously ripe and red all the way through.  I also bought 2 lbs of rhubarb from the Honey Stick Man.  So I figured I'd have enough for a batch of jam and a pie.  Happily, I was wrong - I got two batches of jam and a pie out of the deal.  Well, nearly two batches.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Roasting Garlic

Two weeks ago I bought about twelve heads of garlic, intending to roast them in olive oil at the same time as some of the batches of tomatoes I'd been doing, but I didn't get to them until today.

Fresh Corn and Soybeans

I'm making dinner...fish tacos and roasted diced sweet potatoes and a cold bowl of shelled edamame and corn sliced off the cob.  Sort of a succotash, only cold.  Not exactly a salad.  It doesn't need anything else. 

As I stood slicing cooked corn off the cobs a few minutes ago, I was whisked back to when I wasn't tall enough to wield a knife or work at the counter.

When we were little kids, my sister and I (and whatever friends happened to be at the house that day) were pressed into labor in August to shell peas or snap beans or shuck corn. 

My mother was one to can things in tall mason jars that were stored upstairs in the glass-front cupboards of the "back kitchen."  The kitchen had once been a functional kitchen but eventually it became the laundry room and storage room and gateway to the place to hide the Christmas presents  (the hiding place - at least one year - was in what we called "the back bathroom" - a room mostly used to bathe the dogs - in a glorious free-standing claw-foot tub.  I wish I could have taken that tub before the house was sold, but, of course, where would I put it here?) 

Anyway, I remember rows of canned peaches and tomatoes up on the shelves - high up where my sister and I couldn't reach them. 

My mother was also one for blanching and freezing things.  That's what I remember her doing with the peas and beans and corn.  Especially the corn.  I wasn't nuts about the green things...but I liked it when she did the corn.  We'd shuck the corn and pile it onto platters for her, and she'd drop a few ears into a big pot of boiling water, just for a minute or two, I imagine, and then once they'd cooled, she'd stand an ear on end on the cutting board and slice off the kernels in long bands.

I loved those.  I'm sure my sister did too.  We'd probably hang around hoping to either steal or be given a little section of kernels before being shooed out of the kitchen.  Then after all the corn was sliced off the cobs, Mom would pack freezer bags full of broken sections of kernels, twist the tops of the bags and tie them (back in the days before ziploc bags...when we lived out on the prairie...heh heh heh) with the little twist tie things...and Dad or one of us would bring them down to the big freezer in the basement and place them on the shelves with all the other frozen produce.

We didn't grow all these - Mom would go to one of the local farms and buy things in bushels.  We groaned about the work at the time - the shucking and the snapping and the shelling...but I think back to how good that corn tasted when she opened up a bag of it in January, and I tell my complaining younger self to shut up.  It's worth a little effort in August.

And so, to a lesser degree, I'm doing the same thing.  I've roasted tomatoes in olive oil, salt and pepper until most of the water is gone and all the fresh tomatoey sweetness is condensed and mixed with the oil...and I've frozen these in batches to make sauce with this winter.  We've roasted beets as well, and they are frozen too.  Eggplant as well - I sliced it up and baked it, and now I can throw together some eggplant parmigiana pretty fast too. 

I figure each year we'll put away more...and when the kids are older, I'll probably go buy a bushel of corn for them to shuck, and I'll blanch it and pack it away for the winter too. 

Stocking Up

I've had a pretty happy day for myself.  We went grocery shopping this morning and got stuff to have on hand so we can throw meals together quickly during the week...especially the days when Bill works late and I'm throwing food around and juggling children at the same time.  It's like Iron Chef only there's no competition and I'd really like to see Bobby Flay try to do much of anything carrying a baby in one arm and trying to keep the older child from touching the stovetop. ("That very, VERY hot, Mommy" he says, pointing at the burner not in use and coming within a milimeter of touching it.)  (Oh, and why is he even that close to the burner to begin with?  Because we're STILL waiting for our stovetop to be fixed, so we're using the two electric burners in the basement...and so while I'm making dinner with one hand and holding Julia (who longs to dive into pasta sauce, apparently), Alex pushes a chair over and decides he's going to help me.  That's why.)

Anyway...where was I going?  Oh, yeah, stocking up.  So what I most wanted to accomplish today was to roast a whole bunch of garlic and have that on hand to add to things here and there.  So I cut 12 heads of garlic in half, dumped some olive oil on them, and wrapped them in foil and baked them at about 350 degrees or so for around an hour.  After they'd cooled a little, I squeezed out all the garlic into the food processor, poured in a little olive oil, and pureed it all.  It's stored in a little ceramic container with an airtight lid and I am so pleased about it that I'd sound like a crazy person if I continued to go on about it.

I also diced 4 big green peppers and froze them.  And julienned 5 big red peppers and froze them too.  And sliced 5 pounds of onions (in the food processor, otherwise I'd still be weeping) and froze them.  That's what I wanted to do, and it's done.  Dinner is in progress - I've got a tray of cut up beets roasting away, and also a pan of cut up potatoes roasting too.  Bill will be grilling salmon steaks in a little while, and I'll also saute the beet greens and my newest favorite vegetable - broccoli rabe - in a little olive oil with a little salt and pepper and a grating of romano cheese at the end.

So my day has been all about food, which is fine with me. 

It's also been about the garden...seeds for the early crops (HA - like we'll have acres and acres...) have been planted - Bill is in charge of the garden, pretty much, though I participate in planning what we'll grow every year.  Still, he is the master gardener.  I just pick stuff and cook it when it's ripe.  He's planted arugula, swiss chard, broccoli rabe, peas...and other things - I don't remember what his chart said.  But he's very organized about it.

And now I must go, because Julia has just realized that being in a playpen isn't half as much fun as crawling all around the living room...and she's sobbing brokenheartedly about it, which I can't ignore.

No - wait...oh, here is why I am happily married even though I will occasionally need to vent about little things about my husband...there is silence now, because he and Alex are in the living room building things with blocks, and Bill took Julia out of the playpen and Alex gave her a wooden block to gnaw on, and so there is peace.

Wow.