What did you put up this summer?

This is the last batch of jam for the summer.  It’s spiced peach jam, based on a recipe from the University of Georgia extension.  I made a half-batch, or four half-pints, from the peaches I picked last week or so ago at Dondero Orchards in South Glastonbury, Connecticut.  And that’s all she wrote.

So all told, here’s what I put up this summer:

4 half-pints of spiced peach jam

3 pints blueberry jam (one of which was lost when a seal didn’t hold.  I’ve never seen that happen before).

4 pints (I think) “strawberry jam

1 quart frozen strawberries

1 quart frozen blueberries

2 loaves blueberry bread

3 loaves strawberry bread (already gone!)

2 loaves zucchini bread (also gone.  We like quick breads in this house)

1 quart frozen pesto ice cubes, made with basil from the garden

a few jars of pickles, which were a bust, as noted.  I might make some more, lest the fresh garden cukes go soft.  That’d be a tragedy of my own making!

Did you can anything this summer?  I’d hoped for tomatoes, but let’s not talk about that.  Instead, I’m pretty pleased with the bounty I was able to put by, even if the breads are already largely eaten.  It’s the most preserving I’ve ever done in a summer.  Now I’m looking forward to autumn’s apples and putting by a massive quantity of applesauce.  I could eat applesauce every day.  Maybe I will.

Pickle Update

We busted out a jar of the processed pickles (the one that lost all the brine in the waterbath–I stuck it in the fridge for safety’s sake) today.  They’re….ok.  I don’t think they’ll get much better with time.  They are crispy, which I was thrilled about, but they have a metallic under- and after-taste.  Each jar had an enormous amount of herbs and spices–2 T of mustard seed alone, per pint, in addition to dill seed and others.  I think that’s my issue.  The amount of spices–their depth–was what made it hard to pack the pickles in the first place, and my fluid is also very cloudy and dark from them; and I think they provide a little too much flavor.  I’m hoping to get enough cukes to do a different batch, with a different recipe.  Maybe  someday we’ll find the perfect pickle!

I’m not much of a pickler

Last week I picked up a fun little book at the library–Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It by Karen Solomon is a great stash of ‘kitchen projects’–including pickles, bacon, and marshmallows, oh my.  The photos are enticing and the instructions, while they could sometimes be a little fuller, are preceded by interesting anecdotes.  But today I tried the pickle recipe, and frankly, I’m not sure it went well.  And I don’t think it’s the book’s fault–I suspect it’s me.

I should tell you that this isn’t the first time I’ve tried to make pickles, and that last time, it did not go well, either.  Mr. Pea and I made pickles several years ago and the process left us mostly with burns and rather un-tasty specimens.  As such, my hopes weren’t especially high for these pickles, even though my canning experience has increased.

The pickle recipe from Jam It includes a lot of herbs.  A lot.  They fill up about 1/2-1″ of the pint jar, which made it then really hard for me to get my pickle spears and slices in comfortably.  According to the recipe, 3 pounds of veggies=3 pints of pickles.  But I had lots and lots of cucumbers left–I think I only used 1 1/2 to two pounds and ultimately ended up with 4 jars.  At any rate, the spears didn’t fit well, and then when I poured a vinegar, salt and water solution over them, they still poked out the top.  I’m not sure what impact this will have on the shelf life of the pickles.  But I pressed on and processed them–I think a minute or two too long–and so I might have also doomed my pickles to squishiness.  Plus, the rim of one jar was not tight enough, and it actually *lost* brine in the processing.  What gives?

Oh well.  I did have enough pickles and spices to assemble a jar of fridge pickles.  The whole project cost about $2.50 and a few–maybe 4?–little garden pickles.  And maybe if I toss the processed jars in the fridge, they will turn out ok.

TV Shows Search for Cheap Eats

Ten Dollar Dinners-Food Network photo

Today, while eating lunch (incidentally, a version of the Shanghai-ish Noodles from Cheap Eats I talked about not long ago), Mr. Pea and I watched Ten Dollar Dinners on the Food Network.  It comes on right after scary Sandra Lee’s new show, Sandra’s Money-Saving Meals.  (We find Lee’s show hilarious, as her previous show, Semi-Homemade, features her cooking with as many convenience foods as she can find and laying out elaborate ‘tablescapes’–neither of which are cost-effective.)  Both shows clearly have the same focus:  feeding a family of four inexpensively.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why these shows have appeared in the last few months.  Every day we’re beaten over the heads with economic news (usually bad or less bad than it usually is) and, at the very least, being aware of where your money goes is suddenly more popular than it used to be.

What’s interesting about these shows (and you can interpret ‘interesting’ however you want), as Mr. Pea pointed out, is that they prorate ingredients to make their dinners.  This makes sense, so long as you have a pantry.  We had a chuckle imagining our neighbors, who eat mainly frozen meals and take-out, following one of these recipes to find out it’s at least a $20 meal for them.  Spices, oils, condiments, the items I take for granted as part of the pantry, surely have initial costs.

The other thing I find interesting is that $10 bar.  Man, if I spent $10 on every meal in our house (even if we had two more members), excepting breakfast, we’d be chubbier and broker, and likely eating a lot more meat.   I think they should create a new show, with a catchy title like “Cooking as cheaply as possible but without using nasty ingredients.”  I know that’s something you’d watch.  Or maybe, “I can do better than ten dollars for dinner.”  Sort of like in Wayne’s World, when Wayne runs into the guy who is working on a video called Six Minute Abs, to one-up the then-popular Seven Minute Abs tapes.  Ha!  My $9 Dinners will creep up on $10 Dinners’ Melissa d’Arabian’s ground…

For the record, our lunch–linguine (1/3 box), homemade peanut sauce, garden cucumber (counting it as free, since we picked it and paid for the seeds, etc., long ago), half-block of tofu, carrot, handful of frozen corn, clocked in at about $2.50 for both of us, and I’m still full a couple hours later.

Also for the record, I’m not knocking Ten Dollar Dinners or the new Sandra Lee show.  I’m definitely knocking the tablescapes.  Yikes.  It’s like we all should have an antique store in our basements.  Maybe it’s the daily cocktails Lee assembles slowly getting to her…

Strike 2 (in 9 years)

Last night I learned, to my horror, that Mr. Pea is not wild over gorgonzola cheese.  I learned this because he did not like dinner.  What?  How can this be?  This is only the second time in the nearly 9 years we’ve lived together that he hasn’t liked what I’ve made for dinner, so I was a little surprised.  Strike one–back, oh, in 2002, I’d guess–was when I first started really cooking on my own and made chicken piccatta but forgot to strain the capers, making the whole dish ridiculously briny.  But this is strike 2–pasta with gorgonzola and zucchini, via Serious Eats.

Now I did make one mistake when putting this dish together that might be responsible for Mr. Pea’s reaction (though, for the record, I liked it, which is good since there are a looot of leftovers I will have to eat.  No tossing–gorgonzola’s too expensive!).  I was supposed to add 4 oz of cheese.  I had a 6 oz container and got a little overzealous with it.  I put at least 5 oz in there.  This certainly would make some difference and the dish was likely more pungent than it was supposed to be.  But really, it’s a lesson learned.  Mr. Pea said, as he ate his peanut butter sandwich, that he’s never been that crazy over gorgonzola, especially in quantity–a little goes a long way for him.  Now I know.  Nice to know there’s still stuff to learn about a person after 15 years together!

For those of you who do like some pungent cheesy pasta, here’s the recipe:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/seriously-italian-farfalle-with-zucchini-and-gorgonzola-recipe.html

Definitely, keep an eye on your cheese amount.  As the author notes, the pungency of the cheese should mellow.  In my case, it didn’t quite mellow enough!

Wheat Batter Bread

When I woke up this morning I realized we didn’t have much for breakfast.  Frankly, we didn’t have much for food–there are veggies from the garden, but little else.  No milk, no half-and-half, no bread.  I thought a batter bread–the kind of bread you mix and bake rather than mix, knead and bake–would be the solution.  And it was, sort of.  Wheat batter bread takes longer than white batter bread to put together–you mix, you let rise, you mix relentlessly (the recipe I’ll point you to called for 250 strokes–I stopped at 200 with a tired arm), you put in pans, let rise, and bake.  It was definitely less time and work than a traditional bread, white or wheat, and I was able to bake a loaf (two, actually) before the day began to heat up, but still, even though I started about 7:30 or so, it wasn’t out of the oven until 9:30, and at that point we had to run.  But at any rate, the loaves are delicious and tender and when I got home from errand-running, I enjoyed a slice with peanut butter.  Recipes like this are great for novice bakers or those who want to begin experimenting with yeast and bread baking without getting into kneading and really precise risings.  These loaves have a great crust and even had a nice dose of oven spring–that lovely crack along the side where the bread expands in the early baking.

Here’s the recipe:  http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/breads/whole-wheat-batter-bread/  I tweaked it a hair–I cut the amount of salt in half.

Incidentally, I’m almost out of yeast.  Hard to believe, since I once had two pounds.  It took a while to use up, but I now have to find another massive quantity of the stuff.  Here’s the photo from when it arrived:

I’m back!

We went to Maine for a few days.  I meant to take beach photos, but never actually brought the camera to the ocean.  Then I went to stay with dad a few days–mom is away.  Now I’m home.  Check out the harvest Mr. Pea picked yesterday, after the garden went untended for several days:

The Coin Quilt

This here is the last row to be stitched for my coin quilt.  A coin quilt features long strips of pieced rectangles, separated by solid colors, and bound on all sides by the solid.  Some have coin borders, as well.  I’m keeping mine pretty simple–it has nine rows (I enlarged the pattern to fit my queen-sized bed), based on blue, and with a rainbow pattern.

Here’s the basic pattern:  http://maryquilts.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/easy-chinese-coins.pdf

I’ve also lengthened the rows for my bed.

Here are some finished rows.  The color pattern I’m using goes like this:

2 brown/3 blue/3 red/3 blue/3 orange/3 blue–and so on, til a rainbow is completed.  The next row shifts, so

2 brown/3 blue/3 orange/3 blue–etc.  Once blue is the starting color, it goes back the other way so that the quilt has a V of rainbow colors.  Does that make sense?  I’m terrible at explaining things.  Well, when it’s sewn up, I’ll show you, and you’ll see what I mean.

The solid fabric I’m using is a linen/cotton blend, which should give it interesting texture and weight.  It came in today, and it’s a chocolate brown.  The idea is that the quilt can remain either folded at the foot of our bed, or open, and provide a punch of color to the room.  Not long ago I complained about my inability to make the bedroom cozy and colorful.  This was my (slow-moving) solution.

Explanations…

On Monday, after a slew of hot days and no substantial or new cooking, I thought it was high time to take some new garden photos and post about the things that actually *are* growing in there.  Chard.  Endless lettuce.  Carrots (I pulled a 3-incher today).  Basil.  Cucumbers (ate the first today–so much tastier than the supermarket!).  I got in our old Metro (a 2000 we bought in 2001), the one that lost the radio in the spring (jerks), and which I fondly call the gardenmobile.  I got gas (figures).  I went to the post office.  I pulled next to the garden….and “snap.”  The column shift has been feeling tight lately, and something gave way.  It wouldn’t park.  It wouldn’t restart.  And that was that.  I was even going to go to the park down the road and photograph some farm animals.  Um, no.  Thankfully, though, I’d thought to bring my cell phone and was able to call Mr. Pea, and the neighbor, who then found us a towing company, which got the ol’ girl home.  Our landlord is a mechanic and he worked on it so it was functional.  So today, i took it to work.  Then to the garden. And she felt reaallllly tight–I didn’t have a good feeling.  ”Come on, old girl, just get us home,”  I said.  And she did.  And as I put it in park–or tried–there was the snap again.  Whatever the problem is, it’s in the transmission, and the repair is likely more costly than the car is worth.  Our trip home–with the cucumber, the tiny carrot, a zucchini, some chard and some basil–was probably her last.

And that’s where I have been.