What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)

kayb · January 28, 2022

16 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

From what I’ve read, yes. I hate to peel large amounts of garlic so I’m unlikely to try it.

Sam’s is your friend (likely Costco as well). One-pound bags of peeled garlic cloves.

heidih · January 28, 2022

2 minutes ago, kayb said:

Sam’s is your friend (likely Costco as well). One-pound bags of peeled garlic cloves.

I think they sell Christopher Ranch which is a huge California producer. I usually get a bag from Korean market with huge turnover - probably from China. I like covering the cloves in olive oil and baking at low temp until brownish and creamy. Nice to have in the fridge.

kayb · January 29, 2022

On 1/28/2022 at 10:10 AM, heidih said:

I think they sell Christopher Ranch which is a huge California producer. I usually get a bag from Korean market with huge turnover - probably from China. I like covering the cloves in olive oil and baking at low temp until brownish and creamy. Nice to have in the fridge.

I do the same but I just poach them stovetop in oil.

RWood · April 23, 2022

Some quick pickled asparagus. My mom will wipe out a jar on her own. I prefer this kinda thing in a Bloody Mary. I don’t like celery.

rotuts · April 23, 2022

@RWood

looks terrific !

Im keen to learn how you do this

inc. jars , etc

thanks

RWood · April 23, 2022

17 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@RWood

looks terrific !

Im keen to learn how you do this

inc. jars , etc

thanks

The jars came from an Amazon returns kinda place (I think they are actually boba tea related). I liked them because they were tall.
The pickling is brine is 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup water, 2 Tbs sugar, 1 Tbs salt. You’ll have to determine how much you need for the about of asparagus you have. Then pack asparagus in jars with sliced shallot, garlic clove and dill. I added a pinch of chili flakes and black peppercorns. Pour hot brine over and then refrigerate overnight. These are just refrigerator type, not processed.

Edited April 23, 2022 by RWood (log)

**Smithy** · April 23, 2022

3 hours ago, RWood said:

The jars came from an Amazon returns kinda place

Please tell more about this?

RWood · April 23, 2022

4 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Please tell more about this?

I’m Kennesaw, outside Atlanta, there is a store called The Last Dig. They have big boxes of returns, I think mostly from Amazon. You go in, and dig. Most days everything is $4, sometimes $3. I’ve gotten things like kitchen scales, bathing suits, a stainless steel coffee mug and warmer, a Breville espresso knock box I had been wanting. Just never know what you will find. I’m always looking for cooking related stuff, so jars, storage containers, etc. I got 4 silpat mats for $4 this past weekend. I’m sure there are other stores like it, we just found it one day by accident.

RWood · May 1, 2022

Pickled onions, bread and butter squash pickles and arugula-basil pesto for the freezer. Along with more pickled asparagus since the previous got given out to my moms sisters.

haresfur · May 2, 2022

On 4/24/2022 at 2:46 AM, RWood said:

Some quick pickled asparagus. My mom will wipe out a jar on her own. I prefer this kinda thing in a Bloody Mary. I don’t like celery.

Very nice. Haven't done it since I moved away from the land of cheap asparagus. When my nieces were young, I gave a jar to my brother's family and my sister in law was complaining because the girls were eating it all. I was like, "Heaven forbid kids should eat their vegetables!" So the next year I had to give them each a jar.

haresfur · May 20, 2022

TL/DR; I will never touch rose hips again

I was out mowing our neighbour's paddock and noticed how lovely the rose hips looked on a couple of wild rose bushes

So I foolishly thought, "I should pick some and do something with them."

Went back and picked about a kilo, trying not to disturb this sweet girl, although I ened up carrying a fair number of her offspring back to the house.

The haul after trimming off most of the woody bits.

I first started some rose hip vinegar, which only involved trimming then scraping off the worst of the little thorns, poking each one a bunch of times with a needle, and putting in a bottle with white wine vinegar.

Then I started on some syrup. There was a difference of opinion on whether to remove the seeds which have hairs that used to be used in itching powder and apparently can be nasty to your insides. Didn't sound like fun so I got out a knife and started cutting them in half and scraping out seeds with a spoon. Never had a knife get dull so fast. I could hear the scraping against the seeds. The cut open halves were very sticky and the seed removal didn't work well.

Gave up before I got very far and put what I had in a ziplock with water to go into the sous vide at 55 C to try to preserve the vitamin C. Got a couple of hundred ml of reddish looking product which I filtered through a coffee filter since I really didn't want itchy insides. Then tried the technique recommended on another site and just blitzed the trimmed hips in a blender. This also didn't work very well since the hips were too sticky to blend well. Took the resulting mass of gooey seeds and simmered in water and strained out the seeds. Made 1:1 simple syrup with the hippy juice, which I then strained and filtered through coffee filters. Took 3 filters to get most of the syrup through.

This took me a few days as I pondered my next steps when things were going wrong. During this time the ring finger on my right hand (I'm left handed) started to turn into a red, painful, swollen mess. I figured it must be spider bites but now think that wasn't the case at all. Yesterday I went to my Tai Chi club and a young woman who hadn't been for a while showed up with a bandaged up hand. She had been helping a friend make rose wreaths for a wedding and got a deep staph infection that went septic. Hospital in Melbourne misdiagnosed it and sent her home. On her way being driven back to Bendigo, she literally passed out from the pain. Was in the hospital for 8 days with them doing nasty things to get rid of the infection and damaged tissue but didn't loose the finger or more. They told her that every time they have seen this it was someone who was gardening roses.

I now think I had a luckily shallow version of the same infection from the tiny rose thorns. Don't know for sure. Lesson is to wear gloves whenever mucking about with rose bits. And better yet, avoid trying to preserve rose hips.

**ElsieD** · May 20, 2022

What is that "sweet girl"?

heidih · May 20, 2022

20 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

What is that "sweet girl"?

I assumed it was the lovely spider.

heidih · May 20, 2022

@haresfur Wow you were persistent! Glad no lasting trauma. I've never worked with wild rose hips. I had a large garden once with 40 roses - cultivated/hybrid. I think I didn't let them hip so as to preserve energy. I know I tried to use some hips that escaped my pruning once but do not call drama - also do not recall any huge success. I was going to do a rose petal jelly once but it is so subtle a flavor I just left the petals for the tortoises and for potpourri. Oh I worked for a lauded rosarian once tnding her beds. Long sleeves, thick pants, gloves, do not scratch if you feel itch.

Edited May 20, 2022 by heidih (log)

haresfur · May 20, 2022

1 hour ago, ElsieD said:

What is that "sweet girl"?

A golden orb-weaver, Trichonephila edulis. According to wikipedia they are edible.

**ElsieD** · May 20, 2022

12 hours ago, haresfur said:

A golden orb-weaver, Trichonephila edulis. According to wikipedia they are edible.

Thank you. I learned something today. What did you do with the offspring?

haresfur · May 20, 2022

2 hours ago, ElsieD said:

Thank you. I learned something today. What did you do with the offspring?

I confess a few got squished. Normally have a live and let live policy for spiders except redbacks which are like N. American black widows. Catch and release outside for the monster-size huntsman spider which are harmless. The house isn't quite mosquito-proof and I need the help keeping that one mosquito from keeping me awake at night.

**MaryIsobel** · May 22, 2022

Weekly (I hope they last a week) quick pickled red onions. My husband has become a pickled onion maniac. I make at least a litre a week - he eats them as a snack. I love them with Mexican food (of course) but also like them with Indian food or on sandwiches or a cheese plate or with scrambled eggs...

**Smithy** · May 25, 2022

On 5/22/2022 at 5:04 PM, MaryIsobel said:

Weekly (I hope they last a week) quick pickled red onions. My husband has become a pickled onion maniac. I make at least a litre a week - he eats them as a snack. I love them with Mexican food (of course) but also like them with Indian food or on sandwiches or a cheese plate or with scrambled eggs...

Please forgive me if this has already been asked and answered: got a recipe and/or technique?

**MaryIsobel** · May 25, 2022

12 hours ago, Smithy said:

Please forgive me if this has already been asked and answered: got a recipe and/or technique?

This https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/quick-pickled-red-onions/

is the "recipe" I use. I never use more than a tablespoon of sweetener.

Annie_H · June 10, 2022

I made my annual rhubarb hot sauce for the early summer last night. Freezing another 5 pounds rhubarb chopped to make another batch mid-summer. And some for a winter batch I'll make early fall. Fall batch for the winter months will have smoked tomatillos and hatch chilies.

It is rich and concentrated so I can thaw two or three half pints and add vinegar or roasted garlic or palm sugar for a few different sauces for bbq. Some like a bit sweet but we like a vinegar based garlic side sauce. It is spicy but not too much. This batch made a dozen 1/2 pints.

Rhubarb adds so much vegetable natural thickener with a zippy citrus note.

SLB · June 21, 2022

@Annie_H, I might need that full recipe.

haresfur · June 23, 2022

I posted in the gardening thread about my limes which refuse to fill out to a reasonable size

The only thing I could figure out to do with them was to make lime marmalade, which I have never tried before. I cut the limes, squeezed out what little juice they had, and got rid of the tiny seeds. Sliced the peel in about 0.5-1.0 mm slices because it looked better for the small size and because my new gyuto was awesome for it. Did a mind-meld of a couple of recipes. Had a bit of trouble hitting the pectin setting temperature because my digital thermometer was bouncing around a lot, even with continuous stirring. Went ahead and boiling water processed three pints and had a little left to go into the fridge. The flavour doesn't seem quite right, I think because there was so little juice. Probably could have added some lemon juice. Or maybe the Rose's marmalade we have been eating contains weird shit. I think it will be nice enough to eat, anyway, although Jazzy was not too impressed.