What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2006 - 2016)

[rotuts]

that's good news !  I like tart  ( vinegar ) .

 

Ill look more closely in some books from the library.

 

many thanks

[Tere]

Foraged a washing up bowl full of jack in the hedge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliaria_petiolata) a couple of weeks ago. Chopped some finely and layered it in local rapeseed oil with the pungent flowers for a fridge based condiment. Great in a pseudo caprese sandwich. The other common name is garlic mustard around here and it is hot and spicy like mustard.

 

 

 

 

 

Also made a "pesto" with ground hazelnuts, local cheese and more of the oil with the rest of it. Good times. 

 

[kayb]

@rotuts, look for the Ball Big Book of Canning and Preserving. Should be lots of pickle recipes.

 

 

[Jacksoup]

I have a friend with a kumquat so made preserves/jam

[heidih]

Snap - I was gifted a huge bag of large juicy kumquats today. Jacksoup - can you share your recipe or proportions. I won;t can them - just a jar or two in the fridge, I usually just remove seeds, slice thin and simmer with white sugar and sometimes add in honey.

[Tere]

Candied / glace kumquats are also amazing. I've never made them, but savoured the heck out of the bag I picked up in the south of France a few years back

[shain]

Our grape vine had plentiful yield this year, but it's not the most flavorful variant, it's slightly tart and boring to eat. So I made conserve.

 

The grapes:

 

Before cooking and canned. The cooking causes the grapes to develop a red tint.
It is going to be kept refrigerated, so I didn't bothered with real canning, just poured it hot into mostly sterilized jars.

The smaller jar in the front has some added cognac to it, I wonder how it will taste. I'll probably get to it in a month or so.

 

And on a toast. It tastes quite good, bright and nicely tart. I always liked whole-preserved grapes, they like juicy pearls that burst when you bite them. Those green grapes look somewhat like green peas in a sauce...

I usually prefer to eat jam with cheese (either fresh cottage cheese, aged cheese or a moldy one), but I wanted to taste it as is.

[Jacksoup]

 @heidih it was  2 cups chopped kumquats, 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 cup water.  Added some star anise. Mir was the simplest version I could find by googling. But it was very good.  You're lucky to have been gifted.  Kumquats are pricey buggers

[heidih]

Thanks Jacksoup - I did it on Saturday and used similar proportions. No added flavor as these were so fragrant and I'd used star anise in my little plum jam  bit ago. I did add a touch of salt which I think rounded out the flavor and a bit less water. I also eliminated some of the pulp so mine was mostly rind. It thickened beautifully, has a lovely clear color and tastes like the best distillation of kumquat flavors I could imagine

[Shelby]

On June 18, 2016 at 0:10 PM, shain said:

Our grape vine had plentiful yield this year, but it's not the most flavorful variant, it's slightly tart and boring to eat. So I made conserve.

 

The grapes:

 

Before cooking and canned. The cooking causes the grapes to develop a red tint.
It is going to be kept refrigerated, so I didn't bothered with real canning, just poured it hot into mostly sterilized jars.

The smaller jar in the front has some added cognac to it, I wonder how it will taste. I'll probably get to it in a month or so.

 

And on a toast. It tastes quite good, bright and nicely tart. I always liked whole-preserved grapes, they like juicy pearls that burst when you bite them. Those green grapes look somewhat like green peas in a sauce...

I usually prefer to eat jam with cheese (either fresh cottage cheese, aged cheese or a moldy one), but I wanted to taste it as is.

Gorgeous!  

[shain]

17 hours ago, Shelby said:

Gorgeous!  

Thank you very much! I personally find the color slightly odd, but the taste is what sets the bottom line  

[HungryChris]

Pickled roasted beets, asparagus, zucchini ribbons, marinated hearts of palm, pickled eggs, chicken liver pate  that had been frozen and store bought olives.

I have read that chicken liver pate can be frozen for a month or two. The flavor was still good, but the texture left something behind for my taste. I will not bother freezing it any more. The beets, asparagus and zucchini are my favorites.

HC

[Naftal]

Question-I know cabbage can be pickled, but can spinach be pickled? I want to do spinach in a basic vinegar/salt brine, Can leafy greens be done?

[Anna N]

45 minutes ago, Naftal said:

Question-I know cabbage can be pickled, but can spinach be pickled? I want to do spinach in a basic vinegar/salt brine, Can leafy greens be done?

 Just pickling  some romaine lettuce. 

[Naftal]

38 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 Just pickling  some romaine lettuce. 

Thanks!

[Thanks for the Crepes]

14 hours ago, Naftal said:

Question-I know cabbage can be pickled, but can spinach be pickled? I want to do spinach in a basic vinegar/salt brine, Can leafy greens be done?

 

In my experience, Naftal, acid will turn spinach a rather nasty dull, almost grey color with time. It still might taste okay to you, but it's bright green appeal won't be there. I love spinach in a vinaigrette, even a hot one with bacon fat, but I do not like it if it sits in acid for very long. My favorite for spinach salad is the thicker, sweeter, almost succulent curly leaf spinach. That might work better for your plans as it isn't as delicate as flat leaf spinach.

[Wayne]

 

Although I'm still waiting for tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and hot peppers I've had a few things going:

 

 

Starting from the left:

 

A lacto-fermentation of jalapenos, red and orange bell peppers, garlic, garlic scapes, cucumbers, and white onions with dill and mustard seeds. Only the onions, garlic scapes, garlic and dill are from the garden.

 

The middle is a lacto-fermentation of bok choy stems with garlic, coriander seed and a dried hot pepper.

 

On the right are hot water bath canned pickled garlic scapes. Half flavoured with dill, coriander and mustard seed and the other half with tarragon, coriander and mustard seed.

 

 

[Wayne]

On ‎21‎/‎06‎/‎2016 at 0:21 PM, HungryChris said:

Pickled roasted beets, asparagus, zucchini ribbons, marinated hearts of palm, pickled eggs, chicken liver pate  that had been frozen and store bought olives.

I have read that chicken liver pate can be frozen for a month or two. The flavor was still good, but the texture left something behind for my taste. I will not bother freezing it any more. The beets, asparagus and zucchini are my favorites.

HC

 

 

When I make zucchini pickles I have always cut them in sticks but I really like the look of the zucchini ribbons so I'll have to try that.

 

 

[HungryChris]

1 hour ago, Wayne said:

 

 

When I make zucchini pickles I have always cut them in sticks but I really like the look of the zucchini ribbons so I'll have to try that.

 

 

I like them in sandwiches which is why I started cutting them like that, but they make a nice addition to a salad too.

HC

[kayb]

After four weeks of fermentation, 10 pounds of cabbage turned into a surprisingly small amount of kraut -- two quarts and three pints. Will be watching for more cabbage from the market to do this again. It's crunchy, it's crisp,  it's salty, it's sour. It's pretty wonderful. I'm calling it a success, particularly for a first effort.

 

Reubens later this week.

 

[Smithy]

Lovely, @kayb! Did you keep to the 3T salt: 5lbs cabbage recipe you mentioned above?  Any vinegar or spices added?

[kayb]

Straight 3T:5 pounds as mentioned. I added maybe a half-cup of water to be sure I had enough brine for fermentation, and didn't need to add that. When I canned it, I dumped it in the colander first and rinsed it, as there was a good bid of scum on top of the brine, and it was quite salty. I made up some more brine (a quart of water, 1 tablespoon of salt) in a saucepan, and used it to top off the jars where needed. I might have used a half-cup of it.

 

I can't bring myself to put it away. I still have it out on the counter so I can admire it. Reubens tonight.

 

 

[Shelby]

10 minutes ago, kayb said:

Straight 3T:5 pounds as mentioned. I added maybe a half-cup of water to be sure I had enough brine for fermentation, and didn't need to add that. When I canned it, I dumped it in the colander first and rinsed it, as there was a good bid of scum on top of the brine, and it was quite salty. I made up some more brine (a quart of water, 1 tablespoon of salt) in a saucepan, and used it to top off the jars where needed. I might have used a half-cup of it.

 

I can't bring myself to put it away. I still have it out on the counter so I can admire it. Reubens tonight.

 

 

Looks so good, Kay.  I've been meaning to do this forever now.  I even had a couple heads of cabbage.  It's just never happened.

 

I think you should get a shelf in the kitchen so that you can see your canned goods all the time.  They do make the prettiest decorations  

[ElainaA]

The result of the pesto marathon #1 - ready to go into the freezer for a few hours until solid and then popped out and put into freezer bags.

 Two batches of jam- strawberry with raspberry juice and balsamic vinegar. ( Raspberry juice frozen from last year's fall bearing raspberries) and sweet cherry with cabernet sauvignon. Both from Christine Ferber's  Mes Confitures. Both the strawbery and cherry crops have been seriously impacted by weather here - very cold/snow in April and drought through June and July.  The local 'pick your own' said no cherries and closed very quickly for strawberries. So the strawberries are local but not the cherries. This is act I of my preparation for next Christmas -I send my large extended family, and give many friends,
packages of preserves and home made candy (that I make in a marathon in early December.) The two jams look pretty much alike in the picture but, I assure you, they taste radically different.

 

[Shelby]

Elaina, your pesto has me drooling.  I wish my husband liked it.....I don't know how one doesn't like it, but he's one of them lol.

 

First crock of pickles started today   No pictures because you've seen it a million times from me.