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Backyardnotes

~ All things botanical in photos and words—in my West Seattle garden and elsewhere; seeing and creating art and assorted musings.

Backyardnotes

Category Archives: Cooking & Eating

A GIFT OF WINTER APPLES

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Cooking & Eating, Jellies & Preserves

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Apple Chutney, Apple-cranberry, Apple-Cranberry Jelly, Apple-Cranberry sauce, apples, Applesauce, canning, cranberries, Winter Banana Apples

Winter Banana apples

Winter Banana apples

MY MOTHER’S NEIGHBORS HAVE AN ORCHARD in Sequim, Washington. Apples, plums, pears. 2013 yielded a bounty of Shiro plums and lots of plum jelly and plum butter. In 2014 they picked a bumper crop of apples and I was a lucky recipient of Golden Delicious and Winter Banana apples, a variety new to me. I brought home my first five or so, pounds at the end of October and I still had few pounds of our homegrown Spartan apples (after making Kevin West’s Apple Jam with Honey and dates—my addition, from Saving the Season—and Apple Chutney). I combined the remaining bounty of apples with some beautiful Oregon cranberries, for Cranberry-Apple Jelly.

Apple-cranberry pulp draining for juice

Straining Apple-cranberry pulp for juice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I washed and quartered (no peeling or coring needed) five pounds of apples and placed them in a large pot with 12 ounces of cranberries, three clementines, 2 cups white wine (rosé will work nicely here), four cups of water, three, three inch cinnamon stick, three bay leaves and one tablespoon of black peppercorns (in a spice bag). Bring to a boil, partially cover and simmer 45 minutes or so until the apples are very soft and falling apart. Remove the spices and bay leaves and transfer to a fine sieve/strainer lined with cheesecloth or a chinois (pictured above) and allow to drain up to 8 hours; do not push on the solids or you will have cloudy juice. This yielded seven cups of juice and three half-pints of jelly—the big drawback to making jelly—a small yield for the effort expended, but it tastes great!

I liked the jelly so much that I asked my mom if her neighbors had more apples. Yes, they did!  How about twenty pounds of Winter Bananas? Please take them! Half of them went into a small fridge and the rest sat in their box in the garage. In early December I made a second batch of apple-cranberry jelly. Ten pounds of winter Banana apples, three pounds of Oregon cranberries, two large pots and two cups of water; this time I ended up with four and a half quarts of juice so I made two batches of jelly. One batch was straight forward and the second included the addition of port and star anise. Yield: 8 half-pints of jelly.

Ten pounds of apples and three pounds of cranberries yielded a fair amount of apple-cranberry pulp that tasted too good to toss out. I put the pulp through the trusty old Foley food mill and I had instant apple-cranberry sauce. These apples were so sweet that even with tart cranberries, no sugar was needed (to suit our taste). For each four cups of pulp, I added back three cups of juice and two tablespoons of lemon juice. I canned 10 pints of it. It is delicious stirred into thick yogurt. Mom’s neighbors received jelly and applesauce and family received apple-cranberry jelly at Christmas.

Apple-Cranberry jelly

Apple-Cranberry jelly

Apple-Cranberry jelly and cran-applesauce

Apple-Cranberry jelly and cran-applesauce

10+ pounds of apples

10+ pounds of apples

January rolled around and we getting ready to take off for the desert. There were still lots of apples in the box and mini-fridge that kept staring at me every time I walked into the garage. I couldn’t bear to toss them so I broke down and made applesauce–16 pints of it to be exact. The apples were still pretty firm, only a few soft or unusable. And by sitting around for a few months, the sugar had concentrated and they were very sweet. This batch of applesauce did not need the addition of sugar either.

Vanilla bean flecked applesauce

Vanilla bean flecked applesauce

Applesaucejars_2

Hmmm…only two of us in the household and a lot of applesauce. Naturally, mom’s neighbors got more applesauce. Mom took a few pints. My neighbors with a baby/toddler received their share too. And two neighboring households. And my two sisters. And there is still plenty to get us through until next fall. I won’t even think about canning until asparagus season begins sometime in April and May here.

 

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A SCHOOL BUS & RADISH TOPS

20 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by backyardnotes in Cooking & Eating, Creative, EAT!, Flowers, Harvest, Inspriation, Vegetable garden

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Asparagus, pesto, Radish tops, Radishes, school bus, school bus planter, Sockeye salmon, toy school bus

LindaBus_4

A FRIEND OF OURS IS RETIRING FROM SCHOOL BUS DRIVING TODAY. I wanted to find a little toy school bus at Goodwill. What the groundskeeper found instead was a BIG school bus toy with an open top that I immediately saw as a planter! After a few holes were drilled in the bottom for drainage, I added window screen mesh on the inside to keep the soil in. I added a few homemade stickers and plants and here it is. I think it’s adorable and I think our friend will too.

LindaBus_5

 

Our friend is a dog lover who fosters dogs.

Our friend is a dog lover who fosters dogs.

ABOUT THE RADISH TOPS. I had intended to make this post yesterday after a prolonged hiatus of from the blog (too many other projects to deal with), but that bus planter was just too darn cute to leave out.

I picked some very nice radishes on Wednesday and the tops were too nice to toss into the compost. They had a slightly tart flavor and I thought they would make a nice ‘pesto’ type sauce.

grwingradishes

I combined the radish tops with some aspargus spears and four or five garlic scapes in the food processor.

Garlic scapes and aparagus

Garlic scapes and aparagus

Ready to purée

Ready to purée

radishpesto_1

Add some olive oil and a little salt, pepper, and purée until smooth. Taste for seasoning. At this point it can be put up in small jars, topped with a little  olive oil and frozen for later use or top with oil and store in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Cheese can be added just before using if you plan to use it on pasta in a more traditional pesto style.

I managed to fill a pint jar

I managed to fill a pint jar

We cooked a piece of Alaska sockeye salmon on the grill adding some of the sauce near the end of cooking.

Sockeye salmon with radish top pesto

Sockeye salmon with radish top pesto

Radish greens

Radish greens

Using radish tops was new for me. I knew they were not much different from most mustard greens other than the leaves being a bit fuzzy, so I thought: Why Not? It’s nice to figure out ways to get the maximum out of what I harvest from the garden. Maybe carrot tops will be next! How do you maximize your harvest?

 

 

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BRIGHTEN UP WINTER WITH FRUIT INFUSED VINEGARS

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Cooking & Eating

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Tags

cranberry vinegar, fruit vinegar, infused vinegar, peach-basil vinegar, plum vinegar, shiro plum, vinegar, white wine vinegar

Fruit infused vinegar

Fruit infused vinegar

PART OF THE PLEASURE OF PRESERVING is in the creation, being able to savor flavors you love throughout the year. I like infusing vinegar and vodka with fruit and herbs to capture those favorite flavors of summer. Depending on the fruit or fresh herbs, I use rice, white wine or red wine vinegars as my infusion base. Chile peppers and many herbs seem to pair better with rice wine vinegar. I generally infuse about a quart  of vinegar at a time; enough to cover the fruit in a large jar (those marinated artichoke jars from Costco are pretty handy for this). Salads are of course the most obvious use for these infused vinegars, but sautéed or steamed vegetables are also perked up with them. I prefer to make dressings for salad as I need it, so I can be flexible and tailor the dressing to the salad.

Shiro Plum vinegar

Shiro Plum vinegar

PLUMS: In 2013 I had plenty of Shiro plums donated by my mother’s neighbors. I made plum jelly, plum butter and infused white wine vinegar; I made two versions of the plum vinegar, one with hot chile peppers and another with white peppercorns and corriander seeds. I left the fruit whole and slit the plums from ‘pole-to-pole’.

Peach infused vinegar

Peach infused vinegar

PEACHES: I made Peach-Basil vinegar since I bought a 20 pound box of peaches and had some to spare after making peach-basil preserves and brandied peaches. I cut the peaches into big chunks and included the pits.

CRANBERRIES: One of my sisters lives in cranberry country on the Long Beach, WA peninsula and she brought me several pounds of them at the end of October. After making (and canning) cranberry sauce there were cranberries left to infuse vinegar. I used equal parts red and white wine vinegar and added corriander seeds, black peppercorns and cinnamon stick. And since there were so many cranberries I infused vodka too (with a cinnamon stick).

I find that six-to-eight weeks is about right for infusing the flavors; start tasting at about four weeks, the minimum. When it is time to strain the vinegar from the fruit I use a super fine strainer like a chinoise for the first straining. I do not press on the fruit to release any liquid left in the fruit as it tends to make the vinegar cloudy. Second and subsequent straining is done using paper coffee filters (rinse and compost) or a super-fine mesh coffee filter, until it is clear to my liking. Decanted into small bottles, infused vinegars make nice gifts for people who like to cook. (I save a lot of small, nice looking bottles.)

In past years I have also made cherry, blackberry with black peppercorns, raspberry, and apricot. I tend to go a bit heavy on the fruit so that those flavors are pronounced against the vinegar. Plums, peaches, and apricots tend to have have more subtle flavors than raspberries and blackberries, so you could use a heavier ratio of fruit to vinegar.

Since pomegranates are still in the markets, I think I’ll give them a try. At the beginning of last month I started a batch of pomegranate and cardamom infused vodka. That seems to be a good pairing of flavors.

Happy infusing!

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FORAGING THE DECEMBER VEGETABLE GARDEN

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Cooking & Eating, December, EAT!, Fun in the Garden, Winter

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Foraging, lacianto kale, mixed greens, mustard greens, radicchio, Rubine brussels sprouts, salad dressing, treviso, Winter salads, winter vegetable garden

The vegetable garden at partial rest on the last day of 2013

The vegetable garden at partial rest on the last day of 2013

EARLIER THIS MONTH we had some decidedly cold weather for these parts–a week of temperatures in the low-to-mid 20’s overnight and not much above freezing during the daytime. Some of the more winter hardy vegetables are rebounding and shedding leaves that have turned to mush. Often at this time of year there are slim pickings for salads, but who doesn’t love a challenge?

Treviso type raddichio

Treviso type radicchio

Late yesterday I went foraging for salad material. I was able to collect some small, barely heading radicchio, lots of parsley, some Mibuna type mustard greens, cilantro, lacinato kale, small leaves from Rosalind broccoli, and some Rubine brussels sprouts; all hardy, hearty and strong greens.

Mixed, washed greens

Mixed, washed greens

Small lacinato kale leaves

Small lacinato kale leaves

Shaved Rubine brussels sprouts

Shaved Rubine brussels sprouts

Now, to put together the right dressing, equally hearty with flavors to stand up to and compliment the bitterness and ‘greeness’ of some of the greens.

The salad dressing

The salad dressing

My favorite salad bowl was probably made for proofing bread dough once-upon-a-time. My grandma Aggie always had it filled with unshelled nuts, especially from Thanksgiving to Christmas and I never saw bread dough in it. I have owned it for 40 plus years and it is well seasoned by now. I mashed 2 cloves of garlic with some coarse salt into a paste; mashed 2 anchovy filets into a paste as well. To the garlic and anchovies, I whisked in 1 1⁄2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice, two teaspoons Dijon mustard and three tablespoons of grassy olive oil. About a tablespoon or so of capers added some extra punch.

The dressed greens

The dressed greens

I added the greens, a little sliced celery and sweet slices of pear, the last one from our tree; tossed all together, sprinkled on some pomegranate seeds and a few grinds of pepper.

dressedgreens_2

It was a fantastic salad, with bright and biting flavors. It may be on the menu tonight too!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has stumbled upon this blog and paused to read one of my posts, and to those of you who subscribe. This is my 151st post since I began the blog in 2009. This year posts were kind of sporadic and I took a two month break; I might still have something left to say in 2014.

May you all have a HAPPY NEW YEAR IN 2014!

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SEATTLE REVERTS TO TYPICAL WEATHER

06 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by backyardnotes in Canning & Preserving, Cooking & Eating, Food, Harvest, Pickling, Vegetable garden, Weather

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Tags

brandied peaches, fruit vinegars, infusing vinegar, peach preserves, pickling, plum butter, seattle rain, shiro plum, tomaotes

Today's weather

Today’s weather

AFTER A FANTASTIC SUMMER THAT BEGAN IN MAY we are easing back into typical northwest weather. Last night we had quite a light show with 5,600+ lightning strikes! Very unusual for this part of the country. No complaints really. Day after day of sunshine and temperatures of 80°+ has produced some wonderful results in the vegetable garden and loads of pears, beans, tomatoes and more.

A few rainy day photos:

Jaune Flamée tomatoes in the rain

Jaune Flamée tomatoes in the rain

Fucschia “Dark Eyes”

Fucschia “Dark Eyes”

whitebegoniaAUGUST WAS REPLETE WITH CANNING AND PRESERVING PROJECTS. I accepted 22 pounds of Shiro plums from my mom’s neighbor.

Shiro plums

Shiro plums

Those 22 pounds yielded plum butter, 12 cups of plum juice; half of that became plum jelly, and

Plum vinegar

Plum infused white wine vinegar; one of two versions

We took a trip to north east Washington to our favorite little lake and on the return home stopped in Okonogan at Smallwood Farms where I bought a box of beautiful, just ripe and sweet Diamond Princess peaches.

Peach infused vinegar

Peach infused vinegar

Peach Basil preserves & brandied peaches

Peach Basil preserves & brandied peaches

Danspickles

I have had exceptional pole and bush bean crops this year; lots to put in the freezer and plenty to make pickled beans too. Nice heads of cabbage. My late spring planting of carrots came up nicely and then quickly eaten by little critters. My second planting last month is looking promising The cucumbers were doing well until we left them on their own for a week when they succumbed to the heat. But I did manage to get a big jar of my favorite refrigerator pickles. Now it’s time to tackle the pears coming on.

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