Getting Pickled

I planted the cucumbers and string beans later than the veggie starts, but they are producing quite well now...well enough to pickle some of the harvest.

Pickled Cucumber Spears are delicious and mine have kept their crunch in the past. Haven't tried the ones that I pickled about 5 days ago, but hope to try them this weekend. The Dilly Beans that I made this year use the same brine as the cucumber spears and should be equally delicious. The brine is pretty simple; water, apple cider vinegar, sea salt and a bit of sugar, boiled together until the salt and sugar dissolve. Probably the most difficult part is picking all those beans, and a little difficult is dipping the glass jars and the lids in boiling water and then draining them, before adding the produce, dill and peppercorns. This time the most difficult thing was finding the right sized jars and their lids! Pint sized canning jars with a wide mouth work best, but you can use other sizes, too. I had a jar I'd save that was just as tall, but thinner. It held fewer beans, but will make a nice gift. 

Remember, these are refrigerator pickles, so they don't last forever. If you're gifting them, give them after you have shaken them daily for about 5-7 days.

If you can harvest or purchase really fresh pickling cucumbers and long, thin string beans, do try this recipe. It's a great way to add some nice pickles to your meals, plus it keeps the harvest. That's a good thing when your veggies produce a lot, all at once!

Dill Pickle Spears

Fresh pickling cucumbers, washed under cold water and drained
fresh dill
a few black peppercorns, whole
brine

For the brine:
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar 

Trim the ends off the cucumbers and cut into spears by cutting in half lengthwise, then cutting each half in half lengthwise.

In a clean quart jar place the quartered cucumbers, standing on a cut end, packing them in tight. I used three fairly long cucumbers. Push pieces of the fresh dill down among the quarters and add a few black whole peppercorns to the jar. They will end up at the bottom. That's OK.

In a small pot bring the apple cider vinegar, water, sea salt and sugar to a boil and stir until mixture is boiling and the salt and sugar are dissolved. Pour over the cucumbers in the jar. If liquid doesn't come up to cover the tops of the cucumbers, add enough boiling water to do so.

Let mixture cool. Tap the jar lightly on the counter to dislodge any air bubbles. Once almost room temperature, Seal jar with a tight lid and put into the refrigerator. Every day shake the jar. Keep in the fridge for six or seven days, then open the jar and taste to see if it's pickled enough for you. Jar can be kept in the fridge, tightly closed, for up to three months.

Dilly Beans

The pickled beans are fairly easy to make, but canning is one of those activities where keeping everything clean is essential. I washed the jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinsed them, then put them into boiling water, too, before draining them and then filling the jars with the trimmed beans, dill, and whole peppercorns. The vinegar solution was boiling so I used a metal cup measure to fill the jars with that mixture, then dipped the lids in the boiling water before putting them on top of the jars.

Per Jar: 
3 dill sprigs or 1 dill head
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon black peppercorns
fresh green beans, young ones preferred

Bring the vinegars, water and salt to a boil in a medium nonreactive pot. Stir to dissolve the salt.

Place dill, garlic, mustard seeds, and peppercorns in each hot jar. (I dipped each clean jar into the boiling water & then drained it right before filling it. Pint canning jars with a two part wide mouth lid is the best.) Trim the ends off the beans and rinse them. Pack the beans into the jars tightly. Make sure there is a half inch headroom and trim the beans so that they will be covered with the brining solution.

Pour boiling brine over the beans. Tap a few times on the counter to dislodge air bubbles, wipe the rims, and seal with the screw bands. Let cool to room temperature, then put in the refrigerator. Shake the jars daily for about a week. Then enjoy. Store in the fridge.

Potatoes

 

When Sweetie had his birthday in March one of the unusual gifts was a seed potato for a Bodega Red potato, an heirloom variety that was grown in the pioneer days at Bodega Bay.

I'd never grown potatoes before so I waited until when I usually plant things, with the warmer soil, to plant the  Bodega Red potatoes and a Idaho that had started sprouting vigorously in the potato bin. I looked up how to prep them for planting on You Tube and just followed what they said to do. I planted them in a very large grow bag I got on sale at the end of the season last year. It's about the size of a small kids wading pool. My neighbor who has animals gave me some straw to top the bed with and as the leaves came up I added more soil, which I think is called 'hilling up'.

A few weeks ago the Idaho variety started having yellow leaves and basically dying back, so Sweetie and I dug up those spuds. Exciting harvest for someone who wasn't at all sure that the potatoes would grow well. We had some of the potatoes cut into chunks and boiled, then topped with butter, salt and pepper. Yum!

Now the Bodega Red plants are dying back so we are beginning to harvest them, too. Thank you Jan for your great gift!

Happy Birthday Max

On the 12th day of August in the early 1980s our son Max was born. We were lucky to have had a great many fun birthdays before he passed. Yesterday we decided that pie was just as good as cake for a birthday celebration, so Raine and I made a coconut cream pie from scratch. Raine had never had that flavor before, so it was great to see him enjoy his piece when we served it up. Sweetie, of course, really enjoyed his because it was his request that it be a cream pie. The recipe can be found HERE.

Happy Birthday Max!

Must Be Time For Berry Pie

We are enjoying the time with Raine and he seems to be enjoying the conversations, being on our 'farm' and the cooking and baking I'm doing with him, plus the woodworking that Sweetie is doing with him.

Yesterday he picked some more blackberries so that we could make a pie for dinner using the Food Processor Pie Crust dough we made the day before. To those blackberries we added some frozen raspberries and a few blueberries for a three berry delight.

Raine and I have baked freeform pies like galettes before, but this was our first pie in a pie pan together. He easily rolled out the dough for the pie bottom, seeming to know instinctively to keep the thickness even across the circle. He used a small knife to even out the overhang after I showed him how to fold the circle into quarters and then unfold that in the pie pan. Then, forgetting that we were planning to do a two crust pie, I showed him how to form the edge by folding the excess under, sort of rolling it, then fixing it to the edge and making it decorative with his fingers. By that time I remembered the two crust notion, so we changed course and decided to top it with streusel instead. Fortunately the book we're using for the pie recipe also has one for streusel.

The pie turned out pretty well. Because the frozen raspberries had a lot of juice, the filling was a bit loose, even with both flour and cornstarch added before baking, but it was still delicious and the pastry was excellent. I liked the streusel crunch as an contrast to the soft filling. We all agreed that the filling was nicely tart, even with the sweet streusel.

Triple Berry Pie with Streusel Top Crust

based on recipe from Art of the Pie by Kate McDermott

1 recipe Food Processor Pie Dough (see below), using half the recipe - reserve the other half for another use

6 cups (680-900 grams), about one and a half pounds, equal parts blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, fresh picked or unthawed-frozen (We used about 3 3/4 cups frozen raspberries,1/4 cup fresh blueberries and 2 cups fresh blackberries)

3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar

Small grating fresh nutmeg (OK to use a pinch of ground nutmeg instead)

1 teaspoon (5 grams) fresh lemon juice and a few gratings of lemon zest

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (73 grams) all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch 

1 recipe Streusel topping for pie (see below)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Roll out the half recipe of pie dough, fit it in the pie pan (9-inch, deep dish), fold under excess dough to create a raised edge, then flute. Place pie pan in the freezer while you make the filling.

Put the berries, sugar, nutmeg, lemon juice, zest, salt, flour and cornstarch into a bowl and mix just to combine. If there are few juices, mash slightly with a wooden spoon to create a small amount of juices.

If not already done, make the Streusel to top the pie with.

Pour the filling into the chilled pie dough lined pan. Gently smooth with the back of the wooden spoon to make level. Filling should come up to about 1/2 inch BELOW the edge of the pie.

Top the filling evenly with the Streusel (Crumble Topping).

Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake for another 25-35 minutes. Check after 15 minutes and cover streusel with aluminum foil, loosely, if topping is looking too brown. Pie is done when the filling at the edges of the streusel is bubbling and the pie crust is golden brown.

Set the pie on a cooling rack and cool to room temperature before serving so that the fruit filling can set up.

Food Processor Pie Crust from Martha Stewart Test Kitchen

makes 2 disks

2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces, divided
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup ice water

Freeze 3/4 of the butter pieces in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet until hard, at least 30 minutes. Refrigerate the other 1/4 of the pieces. The frozen pieces stay chunky after being pulsed, creating steam pockets when baked (the key to flakiness) and the refrigerated bits get worked into the pastry, giving it a tender texture.

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor work bowl. Add refrigerated butter (the smaller amount of the butter bits). Pulse to combine, about 10 times. Add frozen butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some blueberry-sized clumps.

With the processor off, add the ice water. Immediately pulse until water is just incorporated, about 10 times. Squeeze a small amount of dough to make sure it holds together. Pulse a few times more if needed. When you squeeze the dough it should remain crumbly, but come together. Don't pulse it so long that it forms a ball. Adding water while the processor is running  and over-pulsing are bad ideas... could lead to tough dough.

Lay out 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Empty half the dough onto each piece. Bring edges of wrap together to gather dough and form a round mass. Press the dough this way to form a rough round mass, and press on top of the wrap to form a disk. The processed dough should resemble uneven crumbs. When you empty the mixture from the processor bowl out onto the plastic wrap, some pieces will be tiny, others will be in clumps. That is perfect! The gathered plastic wrap method of forming the disk simultaneously has you gathering the crumbs into a cohesive dough and shaping it.

Roll out disks, still wrapped in plastic, to 1/2 inch thick rounds, about 8 inches in diameter. Rounds this size will chill more quickly that hockey-puck sized ones and will soften more uniformly when removed from the refrigerator.

Refrigerate at least 45 minutes and up to 2 days. Dough can be frozen up to 1 month. 

Streusel (Crumble Topping)

1/2 cup (110 grams) brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon salt (a pinch)

1/2 cup (73 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups (144 grams) whole oats, rolled

8 tablespoons (112 grams) unsalted butter

1/2 cup (60 grams) chopped nuts, optional - We used walnuts, but pecans are great, too

Put the brown sugar, salt, flour, and oats in a bowl and stir to mix.

Dice the chilled butter into small dice and scatter in the bowl. Cut the butter in with a pastry tool or two crossed knives, or use you fingers to smear the butter into the dry ingredients.  When you are done, the mixture should look crumbly. Take about a 1/4 cup in a clean hand and squeeze - it should stick together. If that works, add the nuts and mix in. If it doesn't stick together when squeezed, add another tablespoon or so of butter and work that in, then add the nuts.

Pour the mixture into a bowl or plastic bag and chill in the freezer while you make the filling.

Garden Update

Even though we had a relatively cool July, There wasn't a whole lot of baking going on. There was, however, a fair amount going on in the garden. I planted green beans and cucumbers and more beets and those plants are all getting bigger. Started to see the beans start to flower a few days ago since they have climbed to the top of their supports, and then some!

The cucumbers and beet plants get bigger every day and are thriving. I planted a few zinnia seeds, too, so there should be a bit of color in a few weeks in that planter barrel. In the last few days I've seen some yellow flowers in the cucumbers patch, too, so they should set some fruit soon.

We've been getting zucchini for a few weeks and this week had enough to give away a few. There are actually people who welcome the gift. The baby butternut squash have set fruit, too, about three so far. I had to help pollinate some of them. You can't really see them, but they are at the bottom of the planter box in the photo below, near the orange plastic front of the watering can. The bees seem to be more drawn to the flowering sage than to the squash. Ants actually help pollinate the zucchini.

The potatoes are starting to turn yellow, a sure sign that I'll be able to dig them up soon! It's probably just one variety with the second one still pretty green, but I won't know until I dig - Sweetie moved the planter after I planted, so the plants are not arranged as I planted them.

The big news for August will be the tomatoes. I  harvested the first grape tomatoes today (see photo at the top) and there should be some larger ones a few days. After a slow start, the tomato plants have set a lot of fruit and are still doing that, so the harvest will likely go on into October. Yum! Here is a photo showing the almost done poppies, the tomatoes with underplanting of marigolds, and some of the squash plants. 

Have also been picking blackberries down the driveway and managed to step on a windfall Gravenstein apple hidden by leaves and almost fall. Caught myself, but managed to roll my right foot. Off the the doctor late last week. X-rays taken and PT ordered. Sigh. This is going to cut back on both garden and baking time since both require some standing, which is not a great look for me right now.

On the cooking front I did use some zucchini and ground turkey for chili (first time using zucchini and it was great!) which is gone and no photos taken, and for some spaghetti sauce like the recipe HERE.

Had some calzone last night that used some of the spaghetti sauce. Our grandson Raine is visiting and he helped make the dough for the calzone and the calzone too. He's a natural in the kitchen.

Welcome to August! Will be as busy as my foot allows with visiting grandson. Hope to have some new posts for you. Probably one on a pie Raine and I made today, 

plus one on some croissants we are making together.