I don’t like to see good food go to waste.

So whenever I buy some from my local farmer’s market or get a delivery from our farmshare, I’m always hyper aware of the imaginary ticking timer that hovers above all of our food.  Each and every time I open the fridge is a reminder to use it or lose it, which is probably as much a holdover from my hungry years as a desire not to be flippant with my finances.

Recently while shelling a few quarts of peas I thought it seemed like such a shame to throw away close to 80% of the veg (the pod) and thus decided to explore ways to repurpose them.

But the bag full of cleaned empty pods sat in the crisper of our fridge for a few days while I tried to work something out, taunting me with the possibility of spoilage daily.

And then it hit me… if I just steamed the empty pods a little, their fibrousness would break down enough to make friends with my high powered blender.

So that’s just what I did.

Once the pods were soft and bright green, it was an easy mental hop, skip and jump to turning them into a light and nutless pesto.

Not bad for something that would have been compost fodder otherwise, don’t you think?

Foodie’s Pea Pod Pesto

Clean, empty pods from 1 quart of shell peas, strings and stems removed

1 oz parmagiano reggiano

3 cloves garlic

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Steam the empty pea pods for 3-5 minutes over simmering water until softened and bright green, set aside.  In the bowl of a blender or food processor, combine steamed pods, cheese, garlic and olive oil and pulverize until a smooth and paste-like consistency has been achieved.  Add olive oil or water as necessary to thin the pesto if desired.  Season with salt and pepper to taste and use anywhere you would use traditional pesto, or freeze in ice cube trays for a fresh and welcome blast of spring come wintertime.

Makes approximately 1 cup of pesto.

Until next time…

It occurred to me the other day that despite the fact that I’ve spent several years perfecting my doubles technique, I’ve never really given much thought to the condiment that fits so naturally with a double; the chutney.

For a long time, chutney was just a saccharine sauce to compliment curries, top a roast or become a sticky compote on which to rest a chunk of cheese.  So, after my most recent dinner of double-y goodness, I began to consider the idea of crafting my own chutney.  Not being a huge fan of mangoes though, I knew it would not be a chutney in the traditional sense, but rather a more interpretive version.

After much thought, what I came up with was a melding of the exotic and the everyday, combining the traditional mangoes with some spring rhubarb, a spare banana and several hibiscus flowers in syrup.

It might be light years away from what any self respecting Indian would consider chutney, but I think it suits my purposes perfectly.

Foodie’s Kitchen Sink Chutney

2 c. rhubarb, chopped

1.5 c. mango, peeled and chopped

1 banana, chopped

0.5 c. raisins

1 lime, peeled and chopped

1 lemon, peeled and chopped

0.5 c. shallots, chopped

1 c. cider vinegar

1 c. brown sugar

4 cloves garlic, chopped

0.25 c. candied ginger, chopped

1 chili pepper, chopped

0.5 c. water

3-4 hibiscus flowers

0.25 tsp cloves

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp pepper flakes

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized pot and gently boil for 20-25 minutes, or until fruit has softened and thickened to a jam-like consistency.  Spoon into sterilized canners and process for 10 minutes.

Makes 5 cups.

And now, to take it home, let’s all enjoy a little bit of Weebl’s chutney!

Until next time…

Ever since I made ‘nduja back at the beginning of May I’ve been playing the waiting game while it fermented, cured and hung in my kitchen window, taunting me.

During that time my friends Larbo and Scott of This Little Piggy and The Sausage Debauchery (respectively) have been churning out all kinds of wondrous delights made with their versions of the piquant spread while I’ve been quietly biding my time.  In fact, Larbo’s probably been the most prolific, creating ‘nduja di bufala, ‘nduja pate and most recently an ‘nduja mortadella to make us all jealous and drooling.  Once I work through some of my own ‘nduja reserves I fully intend to build on his pate idea, but for now I’m holding those cards close to the chest.  Lest you think that Scott’s some sort of slouch, let me tip my hat to him for single-handedly starting up a mail order business to bring ‘nduja-making supplies (and other imported Italian goodies) to the masses.  As you can see, our combined aim is to completely blanket the planet in ‘nduja fever!

In an attempt to keep mine somewhat traditional, I’d let the ‘nduja hang for as close to the year I’d originally intended as I could possibly wait.  Some of it will surely see a 1 year anniversary since my first attempt was a double batch, leaving me with close to 6 kg of ‘nduja hanging around waiting for inconspicuous consumption and culinary inspiration to strike.

This very weekend was the first time since I stuffed the ‘nduja that I’d had an occasion to cut down a finished link and give a taste, and words cannot express how truly excited I was.

From the look of the casing, which was dried, brittle and shrivelled, I wasn’t expecting much, but once I sliced it open the hot Calabrian peppers immediately began their assault on my senses.  Prodding gently with my paring knife, I found the ‘nduja had indeed retained it’s semi-moist spreadability, and a tiny raw taste confirmed the assertively pleasant fire emanating from within.  10 minutes later I still wasn’t dead, so I ascertained that the folklore I’d been told about all of the salt and chilis warding off any chance of bacterial spoilage actually seemed to be true.

But, now that I had this wicked bounty to play with, what ever would I do with it?

For whatever strange reason, the first thing that popped into my mind was to make an ‘nduja burger.  I’ve heard tales of Larbo melting his into its own pasta sauce, or spreading it on the thin crust of a pizza, but I wanted to go somewhere a little bit different.  Given my extreme love of burger cuisine, I suppose it’s not much of a stretch.  In the future I’m thinking something with eggs might be fun, but as to what shape that might eventually take, I’m not quite sure yet.  So, for now a burger my ‘nduja would be.

To 8 ounces of organic grass-fed ground beef I added several heaping tablespoons of ‘nduja, erring slightly on the side of caution (just in case).

Next, I put on some disposable plastic gloves (recalling how burnt my palms had been the last time I mixed the moist Calabrian chillies by hand) and gently coaxed the spread and ground into a beefy suspension.  After heating a skillet to absolute blazing, I quickly seared both sides of the patties to a perfectly browned and crispy crust.  7 minutes in a 250* oven (occupied by the ever-melting lard project) was all it took to cook the burger the rest of the way to edible (because I wasn’t taking any chances on this one yet and shied away from my usual medium rare).

The finished burger got some love in the form of a homemade Red Fife infused burger bun I’d whipped up the other day, plus a side of my delicious gherkin pickles.

The first bite sung with the subtly increasing ‘nduja heat, and I commented to the Everyman that next time I’d probably be a little more generous with the ‘nduja.  By the end of the burger I felt my assessment was still correct, but the problem with ‘nduja is that the more you have it, the more you want it, so I doubt I’d ever truly have “enough” anyway.

At the very least, after my inaugural experiment with this incomparable spread, I’m looking forward to many other flights of fancy.  As soon as spot prawn season comes around (though to be honest I have no idea when that is) I’ll definitely be attempting something similar to Grant’s smoked spot prawn and ‘nduja dish that I enjoyed so much.  Yum!

Until next time…

As some of you may recall, late last year I embarked on an attempt to cure my own prosciutto.

And now, as the first stage of that nearly 2 year process draws to a close, we’ve come to one of the more time-consuming and arduous tasks.

Having been rested in a salt and herb coat for quite some time now, the prosciutto is nearly ready to be smeared with a mixture of lard and black pepper and hung to be aged until it’s magically delicious.

Of course, to get to that point, one has to have a fair amount of lard.

Lucky for me I bought half a pig last summer, which came with its own lion’s share of fat.  As you may know, fat can eventually be rendered down into lard.

Which is exactly why I spent most of my Saturday cooking down 10 (of approximately 30) pounds of pork fat I had in the freezer.  The prosciutto won’t require nearly that much, but if I’m going to the trouble, I might as well render some down for myself, too.

But, instead of using the stovetop approach recommended by our organic grocer Bob, I consulted Jennifer McLagan’s Fat and found that it suggested rendering large quantities with the consistent heat of an oven, which is a decidedly more laid back, hands-off approach that I could wholeheartedly get behind.

So, after nearly an hour spent cubing semi-frozen pork fat with a cleaver, I boffed the whole lot into the biggest oven-safe pot I have (my lovely ginormous stainless steel stockpot from Udeal) and settled in for a long afternoon, checking on the fat approximately once per hour and giving it a stir.

Nearly 5 hours later this is all the action that’s happened at 250*:

Now, because it’s all fat, there is a little bit of water in there (McLagan recommends about 1/3 cup per pound) that will evaporate as the fat slowly melts, and at the same time prevents it from burning.

Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.

Until next time…

For close to a month now, I’ve been patiently waiting for Indian summer to set in.

I’ve optimistically/delusionally put off closing up the garden in the hopes that some unseasonably warm weather would drop by and bring the masses of tomatoes on my vines to fruition.

But, with the Everyman and I leaving for a week’s vacation at the cottage, it appeared I would have no such luck, so rather than hoping for the best while we were away and potentially losing all of the tomatoes to frost, I sucked it up and stripped the plants bare over the weekend.

The damage?

2 pounds 12 ounces green cherry tomatoes;

1 pound 12 ounces unripened heirloom tomatoes;

And a measly 4 ounces ripened cherry tomatoes.

Now I hear that wrapping tomatoes in newsprint can help them ripen some, but there was no way I was going to try that with a 3 pound bowl of (mostly currant-sized) cherry tomatoes.

Last year I was lucky if I had even a handful of unripened fruit at the end of the season, so this wasted potential hurt, big time.  I had no intention of throwing this much produce out, but I knew if I’d left it on the vines any longer and a real frost had set in, all we’d have was a whole lot of rot on our hands.

So, I started searching for ideas to use the nearly 5 pounds of unripened tomatoes, from green catsup, to salsa, to chutney, etc, but in the end I settled on salsa verde.

As an added bonus it also managed to use up a few of my other rooftop harvests (earlier in the week I’d plucked all of the carrots, beets, celery, jalapeno and poblano peppers).  Plus, it was a recipe that I could tailor to my tastes but would produce a relatively small yield.

After washing and stemming and chopping (and chopping and chopping), I had a pot brimming with numerous shades of green slop that I admittedly didn’t find all that visually appetizing.  But, I had faith.  And the worst case scenario; even if I didn’t like it, I could always give it away or throw it out.

Once I cooked it down a little, I found it didn’t taste half bad, so I bottled it up for a chilly winter day.  It certainly wasn’t what I would call my ideal use for 5 pounds of tomatoes, but it averted the potential waste of a lot of organic, homegrown food, so that’s got to count for something.

Now if only I could figure out what I did wrong to only grow one of these…

Foodie’s Rooftop Salsa Verde

7 c. green tomatoes

2 c. red onions, chopped

5 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped and seeded

3 poblano peppers, finely chopped and seeded

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 c. parsley, finely chopped

0.5 c. lime juice

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp epazote

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Sterilize 7-1 cup canning jars.  Wash tomatoes and chop roughly with a stick blender.  Combine all ingredients in a heavy bottomed pot and simmer over low heat until onions are nearly translucent, 10-15 minutes.  Once cooked, ladle hot salsa into jars, knocking out any air bubbles.  Seal with canning lids and screw closed until fingertip tight.  Process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 cups.

The Everyman and I will be back some time next weekend.  Later, all you working suckers!

Until next time…

Day by day, it’s getting colder and colder, and becoming more and more apparent that summer is long gone.  With that shift in seasons, we spend a little less time cooking outside on the grill, and a little more time indoors baking, braising and stewing, etc.

One of the indicators that typically signals the arrival of fall for me is my willingness to spend time making homemade stock.  Such a steamy, sweaty endeavour would be out of the question during the dog days of summer, but in the fall when days are brisker and nights hold a chill, warming the air with rich, meaty scents sounds like a wonderful, reflective idea.  It also happens to appeal to my waste-not-want-not mentality.  Each time I make stock, I continually marvel at the amount of flavour you can extract from little more than kitchen scraps.  And with such a small amount of effort, you can improve just about every dish you add it to.  Bored of rice?  Simmer it in stock.  Making mashed potatoes?  Boil those in stock first, too.  Deglazing pan juices?  Stock can do that.  In just about any cooking application where you would use water or wine, stock makes a flavourful stand-in.

But, before we get to the meat of the matter, a few “suggestions” about making stock that will make life a little easier.

1) Be organic – I try to buy as much organic food as possible, mostly because I think it tastes better, but also because it’s better for me and the environment.  I usually try not to preach to others about why they should too, because I understand that some things about food are very personal matters.  In this case I’m breaking my rule, though.  If at all possible, try to use organic food to make your stock.  With something as simple and elemental as boiled bones and veg, imperfections easily come through, so starting with the best product possible will automatically put you ahead.

2) Save, save, save – If you roasted a chicken, save that cleaned carcass in a ziploc bag in the freezer.  Once you’ve amassed a few, you’ll be well on your way to a flavourful stock.  And don’t hesitate to add vegetable trimmings to the bag either, as long as they’re cleaned first.  Carrot peels, onion skins and celery leaves all make great additions to a stock base.

3) Roast – Yes, you can make stock without roasting the veg or bones first, but why would you want to?  Roasting is a really easy way to add another layer of flavour, and only takes about an hour (most of which is inactive, anyway).  Plus, it imparts a richer hue to the finished stock.

4) Season lightly – It makes sense not to season stock too heavily, especially at the beginning.  Stock is a liquid that reduces over several hours, so what might have tasted perfectly seasoned at first, will probably taste overly salty 3 hours later.  Leaving stock as a blank canvas also leaves you with more options once it comes time to use it, allowing you to season to taste then.

By keeping those rules in mind, it’s really quite easy to make stock.  I’ll leave you with my foolproof method, which has been adapted over the years from The Joy Of Cooking and Food Matters.  Once it’s finished, you can use it immediately, keep some in the fridge, or do as I do, and freeze it into manageable portions (in my case, silicone muffin liners) for ease of use later.  Enjoy!

Foodie’s Roasted Chicken Or Beef Stock

4-5.5 lbs of meaty beef or chicken bones

1 chopped skin-on onion, or equivalent trimmings (about 1 c.)

1-2 chopped carrots, or equivalent trimmings (about 1 c.)

2 chopped celery stalks, or equivalent trimmings (about 1 c.)

cheesecloth and kitchen twine for bouquet garni

small bunch of parsley stems

6-8 sprigs of fresh thyme, or 1 tsp dried

1 bay leaf

2-3 celery leaves (optional if using in the trimmings already)

10 peppercorns

16 c. cold water

Preheat oven to 425*.  In a large roasting pan, distribute meaty bones and veggie trimmings or roughly chopped vegetables and roast for an hour to hour and a half, shaking pan occasionally to evenly brown contents.  Once roasted, remove roasted bones and vegetables to an extra large heavy-bottomed pot with a slotted spoon.  Pour 2 of the 16 cups of water into the empty roasting pan and using a wooden spoon scrape any roasted brown bits up with the water.  Pour roasting water into the stock pot, and top bones and vegetables with 14 more cups of cold water, or enough to cover.  Assemble the bouquet garni by folding a small square of cheesecloth in half and filling with parsley, thyme, bay, celery leaves and peppercorns; tied closed.  Toss bouquet garni into stockpot, submerging under water.  Bring stock to a boil, then reduce heat and cover slightly, simmering on very low heat for 3-4 hours.  While simmering, occasionally skim foamy scum from the top of the pot with a slotted spoon.  Once finished, carefully strain bones and vegetables out of the stock and transfer stock to a clean bowl or pot.  If desired, reduce further to intensify the flavours, about an hour, or leave as-is and store.

Reduced stock makes about 48-60 stock muffin cubes (12-15 c. worth).

Foodie’s Roasted Veggie Stock

4 chopped carrots, or equivalent trimmings (about 2 c.)

2 chopped skin-on medium onions, or equivalent trimmings (about 2 c.)

2 chopped skin-on potatoes, or equivalent trimmings (about 2 c.)

4 chopped celery stalks, or equivalent trimmings (about 2 c.)

3-4 cloves garlic, smashed

cheesecloth and kitchen twine for bouquet garni

small bunch of parsley stems

6-8 sprigs of fresh thyme, or 1 tsp dried

1 bay leaf

2-3 celery leaves (optional if using in the trimmings already)

10 peppercorns

12 c. cold water

Preheat oven to 425*.  In a large roasting pan, distribute veggie trimmings or roughly chopped vegetables and garlic and roast for an hour to hour and a half, shaking pan occasionally to evenly brown contents.  Once roasted, remove roasted vegetables to an extra large heavy-bottomed pot with a slotted spoon.  Pour 2 of the 12 cups of water into the empty roasting pan and using a wooden spoon scrape any roasted brown bits up with the water.  Pour roasting water into the stock pot, and top vegetables with 10 more cups of cold water, or enough to cover.  Assemble the bouquet garni by folding a small square of cheesecloth in half and filling with parsley, thyme, bay, celery leaves and peppercorns; tied closed.  Toss bouquet garni into stockpot, submerging under water.  Bring stock to a boil, then reduce heat and cover slightly, simmering on very low heat for 3-4 hours.  While simmering, occasionally skim foamy scum from the top of the pot with a slotted spoon.  Once finished, carefully strain vegetables out of the stock and transfer stock to a clean bowl or pot.  If desired, reduce further to intensify the flavours, about an hour, or leave as-is and store.

Reduced stock makes about 32-40 stock muffin cubes (8-10 c. worth).

Until next time…

I’ll be the first to admit that my family does have some rather odd traditions.

For instance, when my sister and I each left the proverbial nest, we’d invariably guilt my mom (a now-retired professional chef) into making our favourite Trinidadian delicacies whenever she’d pop by for a visit, which in my case meant the labour-intensive but delicious dhalpouri roti.  Or on my dad’s side of the family, there’s a yearly Kris Kringle exchange that is more like ultimate gift fighting, with the intent being to steal as many gifts from the people who want them as possible.

Of course, this is nothing in comparison to the Everyman’s family’s tradition of celebrating Festivus “feats of strength” more often than I care to remember.

But, there are no traditions that hold stronger in my family than the yearly batch of Perreault mincemeat, earmarked for Christmas pies. For those of you not in the know, mincemeat is a sweet ground fruit pie filling that’s usually comprised of a mixture of raisins, minced peels, apples, etc and cooked down until thick and syrupy.  As a foodstuff it’s full of various components that I can’t individually stand, but somehow, when you put them together, it just seems to work.

My grandmother, Antoinette Perreault, prepared her homemade mincemeat filling for close to 50 years, always making mammoth batches in the early fall and then fermenting them for a few months before packaging it up to be shipped across the country to her dozen far-flung children.  Because of this, when I was a child it wasn’t considered Christmas until grandma’s batch of mincemeat arrived in the mail and my had dad picked up a few Tenderflake crusts from the grocery store.

But, times have changed.  Grandma lives in an old folks home now, and no longer has the capacity to produce anything on such a grand scale.  As for me, I’ve all but outgrown my taste for mincemeat, but my father hasn’t, so every year without fail, I whip up a batch to send to him at Christmas, for nostalgia’s sake.

Honestly, I really didn’t think our mincemeat was all that different from the way anyone else made mincemeat, until the day an old coworker of mine enquired about the contents of the package I was taking to the post office to ship to my dad.  In something akin to the Friends episode where Rachel accidentally combines trifle and shepherd’s pie recipes, I went through the list of ingredients and she seemed intrigued.  Until I got to the meat.  Yes, meat.  Not just suet either, but actual boiled, minced beef.  At which point my friend started retching and backing away from my desk rather quickly.  Which was around the time that I realized that perhaps our version of mincemeat wasn’t quite so normal after all.  Since then, I’ve often wondered whether our recipe was somehow mistakenly combined with one for tortiere, but my dad insists that this is a traditional method somewhere.

Since then, I’ve made the mincemeat many times.  And in general, it’s pretty much the Everyman’s least favourite time of year.  Every year I say I’m going to start a little earlier, but it seems that my preparation has gotten consecutively later over the last 5 or so years.  It’s always a combination of disgusting tasks (boiling ground beef) and hard manual labour (grinding dried fruits and candied peels).  For the most part, I’ve typically soldiered on using the aforementioned food mill, but this year it occurred to me that the meat grinding attachment on my stand mixer would be just the ticket.  5 minutes into the process, I was mentally kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner, but hindsight, as they say, is 20/20.

After making short work of the grinding process, the melange of meats and fruits were combined in a heavy-bottomed pot with some sugar, vinegar and spices, and the long, slow simmer began.  After what felt like an eternity, the mincemeat came together and formed that slightly gelatinous paste that is the mark of a well made batch.  Removed from the heat, it is scooped into reusable containers (depending on your shipping method, either glass canners or tupperware tubs are fine options).  It ferments and settles in the back of the fridge for a few months, then come Christmastime, it’ll be spooned into pie shells or tart forms for a sweet and savoury taste of home.  Enjoy!

Grandmere Perreault’s Famous Mincemeat Pie Filling

1 c. boiled minced beef

0.5 c. suet (beef fat)

1 c. sugar

4 c. apples, chopped (about 5 to 7)

2 c. raisins

1 c. minced candied peels

0.5 tsp salt

1 tbsp allspice

1 tbsp cinnamon

0.33 c. vinegar

0.66 c. water

Boil beef in a small pot of water until cooked through, remove from liquid and set aside.  Run all fruit and meat through a food mill or meat grinder until a mostly smooth consistency is achieved (2 passes of the mill vs 1 for the grinder).  Combine all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.  Continue to cook until mixture becomes thick and jammy.  Remove from heat and put in sterilized sealers if canning, or reusable plastic containers if not.  Refrigerate and allow to ripen for 6 to 8 weeks.  May be frozen after ripening until ready to use.

Makes enough to fill 2 pies.  Best served in a full lard crust.

Until next time…

That niggling chill in the air meant that yesterday morning I pulled the final mini slab of vanilla pink peppercorn bacon out of the freezer after I’d used the last thawed bits in a crockpot of fall-appropriate baked beans.

Thus, it seemed like as good a time as any to get started on my next batch of bacon.  Since bacon requires a 7 to 10 day lead time before you have finished product, it was imperative that I get it curing, lest I run out of delectable home-cured porkiness.

While considering the next methods of flavouring, it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet gotten on Scott and Larbo’s choco-bacon train (though I’ve been meaning to).  Being a rabid consumer of my chocolate-covered guanciale toffee, I knew there was serious potential in the choco-bacon combo, but I wanted something more.  Leave it to me to prove that nothing exceeds like excess.  Recalling a dessert that I love at one of our favourite local haunts (Czehoski) formed the basis for this inspiration.  The chef there makes a rich and melty chocolate ganache flavoured with rosemary that is out of this world, so my mind immediately thought chocolate + bacon = good and chocolate + rosemary = also good, therefore chocolate + rosemary + bacon must = out of this world good.  And of course because I never do anything by half measures, it also occurred to me that a little pure Ontarian maple syrup might not be a bad idea either.

Which is how I ended up at my current juncture.  With another 2.5 pound slab of belly kicking around in the fridge, it was (as the French say) a fait accompli.

In 7 to 10 days I’ll have a better idea of how this turned out, but as of right now, my expectations are running pretty high.

Foodie’s Choco-Rosemary Maple Bacon

2.25 lb slab pork belly

28 g salt

19.5 g maple syrup

28 g cacao nibs, crushed or roughly ground

8 g fresh rosemary, chopped

Mix the last 4 ingredients into a sticky paste and massage into the slab of pork belly.  Place in a non-reactive dish, cover and refrigerate for 7 to 10 days, turning and basting daily.  At the end of 7 to 10 days, remove from cure, lightly rinse and pat dry and return to fridge for another 24 hours on an elevated rack to allow a pellicle to form on the meat.  Once dry and slightly tacky to the touch, smoke in a cold smoker for 1.5 to 2 hours.  Remove rind, cool and wrap tightly in heavy duty plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks or freeze immediately.

Until next time…

As nothing more than an honorary Italian, I decided some time over the course of the summer that this year I wasn’t going to “do the tomatoes”.

We still had plenty of canned whole romas and sauce from last year, and the bruschetta recipe I’d canned turned out to be one big, mushy failure, so it didn’t seem necessary to go through all of that dirty, steamy work again this fall.  But, as with all of my best laid plans, more exuberant intentions got firmly in the way.

And so, that was how on the 1st of October I found myself reaching out to every resource I could for advice on where to procure a few bushels of roma tomatoes.  The time of year coupled with our supremely awful growing season left me with some pretty slim pickins’.  Even my old standby, Fiesta Farms was completely sold out of their cache of bushels, with every grocery store I contacted between here and Mississauga all but laughing at me.  One gentleman from Highland Farms was particularly morose, simply stating the the tomatoes were all done, in a manner similar to one used to inform someone of a death in the family.

But, nobody can ever say I do things by half measures.

Wracking my brain for alternatives, I remembered the many organic grocers we’d tested out prior to settling on Bob a few years back.  After a few more calls, I found that Front Door Organics had two bushels of organic local tomatoes left, and in that moment I decided I was taking all of them.  Last year I processed close to 150 pounds of tomatoes.  This year, I was going to have to make due with 40.  Of course, the one catch to the situation was that in order to buy the bushels, I had to order one of their weekly “fresh boxes”, because you can add to an order, but a fresh box is mandatory.  Total cost for 2 bushels of tomatoes plus a fresh box?  Just slightly above $100.  However, I was only personally using 32 of the 40 pounds of tomatoes, and the fresh box replaced my weekly jaunt to the farmer’s market, so the actual cost for 32 pounds was $55.  Still steeper than last year’s $15/bushel, but these were organic tomatoes, and it was the end of the season, so I’m sure the price was reflective of supply and demand.

What, (you might ask) did I possibly want to do with 40 pounds of tomatoes?

Well, there was conserva, a heavy-duty super concentrated tomato paste similar to that doppia stuff you can get in little tubes at Italian delis.  I’d wanted to make some last year, but after 3 days spent processing 150 pounds, I was too tired of tomatoes to even think about doing anything else with them.  It’d pretty much slipped my mind this year, too until I saw this picture on Foodgawker recently.  It’s pretty much just passata cooked in a really low oven for a very long time until it becomes viscous and brick coloured.  Appealing, I know.  If you’re looking for a recipe, Paul Bertolli has a really good one in his book Cooking By Hand, but it doesn’t get much simpler than cooking 5 pounds of tomatoes quickly in a pot, passing them through a mill to make passata, and then pouring that onto a sheet pan and cooking it for about 6 hours at 250-300*.  Once it’s cooked, you scoop the stuff into a clean jar and top with olive oil; it keeps indefinitely as long as you keep it confited.

I’d also wanted to try a catsup recipe, and after catching 20 seconds of a Jamie At Home episode where he was making some, I decided I needed to step up my search for appropriate catsup vessels, too.

Coincidentally, I came across a case of beautiful Italian-made Quattro Staggione 1 litre canning bottles at Golda’s Kitchen, which were slightly larger than I’d normally like my catsup, but I wasn’t going to argue in any case.  A dozen of those beauties set me back another $54, as apparently Italian-made canning supplies don’t come cheap.  I had to buy the whole case, but I only ended up using 2 bottles for my catsup recipe, so we’ll consider it a $9 investment in bottles.

20 pounds of tomatoes were earmarked for conserva, while another 12 were set aside for the batch of catsup.  Though I could’ve easily used the remaining 8 pounds to make more catsup or conserva, the Everyman had plans of his own, having successfully experimented with a prior basket of tomatoes to produce something he wanted to contribute to our Thanksgiving dinner (and since his brother occasionally reads the site, I’m not going to spoil the surprise).  Suffice it to say that the other 8 pounds of tomatoes were thoroughly spoken for.

That left me alone in the kitchen for the better part of a day, toiling away at washing, coring, slicing, grinding, pureeing, etc.  One thing that I keep forgetting to do each year is get a better food mill.  Since I only use the thing once or twice a year (albeit vigorously) I’ve procrastinated from purchasing anything better, and obstinately continue to use the 2 cup stainless steel version that I bought several years ago for another soon to be disclosed fall project.  It’s not bad for small, quick uses, but for prolonged grinding, it can give you a claw.

After much sweat equity was expended, and hours of uncomfortably steamy rooms endured, I was left with 3 cups of conserva, and 2 litres plus 1 cup of catsup.

Was it worth it?  Well, as with last year, only time will tell, when in the dead of winter I pop open these heady, sun-soaked jars.  From a sheer cost perspective, it breaks down like this;

Conserva

20 pounds of tomatoes @ $34.40 +

3 mason jars @ $0.75/each =

$36.65

Cost of equivalent doppia tomato paste = 4 ounces @ $3.39 x 6 = $20.34

So, probably not winning any awards for frugality with this one, though if I had been able to harvest enough of my own tomatoes to make this (as was the original plan) the cost would’ve been deferred slightly to make this more sensible.

Catsup

12 pounds of tomatoes @ $20.64 +

2 mason bottles @ $4.50/each +

1.5 c. vinegar @ $1.34 +

1 onion @ $0.89 +

0.75 c. sugar @$1.25 +

0.125 c. salt @ $0.11 +

miscellaneous spices =

$33.23

Cost of equivalent catsup = 500 mL @ $6.99 x 4.5 = $31.46

So, aside from the cost of my time, the catsup recipe is pretty comparable to that viscous corn syrup-laden crap that you can buy at the grocery store.

A surprising outcome indeed, though I should skew for the fact that commercially produced organics would increase the cost of the comparable items even more.

Foodie’s Tomato Catsup

12 pounds tomatoes, cored and quartered

1.5 c. chopped onion

1 tsp cayenne

2 tsp whole cloves

4 inches of cinnamon stick, broken

0.75 tsp whole allspice

1.5 tsp celery seeds

1.5 c. cider vinegar

0.75 c. sugar

0.125 c. salt

1 bay leaf

Combine cloves, cinnamon, allspice and celery seeds in a piece of cheesecloth and tie off to create a spice bag.  Warm vinegar in a small saucepan until boiling, remove from heat and steep spice bag for half an hour.  In the meantime, combine tomatoes, onion and cayenne pepper in a large heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil, cooking down until soft, about 20 minutes.  Puree tomato mixture using a stick blender, then push through a strainer using the back of a spoon over another heavy-bottomed pot.  Once all seeds and pulp have been removed from the puree, add bay leaf, sugar and salt and return to heat, continuing to boil until the mixture has reduced by at least half, or achieved commercial ketchup consistency.  Pour the hot mixture into sterilized bottles, sealing tightly.  Process bottles in a hot water canner for 15 minutes.

Makes 2 litres plus 1 cup.

Until next time…

A few days ago, I kindly coerced the Everyman into taking me over to Fiesta Farms after work.

Aside from being a really beautiful, locally-focused grocery store, it’s invariably the place I turn to when I’m in need of large quantities of foods that Italians tend to be passionate about.  For instance, a few of the bushels of tomatoes that I canned and sauced last year were procured from their garden centre.

On this particular visit, I was in search of a flat of figs.  You see, this past weekend I was standing in front of my shelf full of canned edibles in the sunroom, admiring my handiwork when I realized I was down to my last two 4 ounce jars of fig jam.  Horrors!  I’ve been making fig jam for several years now, but the Everyman’s relatives are such fans of it (being the lovers of cheese that they are) that inevitably I end up gifting at least half a batch to them each time it’s made.

After spending 45 minutes touring the aisles at Fiesta Farms (while the Everyman sat in the car playing with his iPhone) I found just about everything I was looking for, and headed toward the cash to pick up the aforementioned figs.  Initially I only grabbed one flat ($7.99), which held 24 plump and juicy green Kadotas.  But after waiting in line for 20 minutes while they tried to  price-check something else I was buying, I caved in and went back for a second flat, convincing myself that one couldn’t possibly be enough.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, since I so rarely go to the grocery store (what with using an organic grocery delivery service) when I do get in there, I am their dream customer – a completely captive audience.

When I arrived home with my prize, I took a flat and began weighing figs.  As usual, I completely overshot the mark, since each flat weighed approximately 3 pounds.  One batch of my jam only calls for 2 pounds, mind you that’s after they’ve been peeled.  I intended to increase the yield by 50% so that I could play around with a new flavour combination, but that would still leave me with close to half a flat left over.  Oh, such a terrible problem to have!

While I was pondering figs earlier that day, I began brainstorming around what new and wonderful blends I could try.  One such idea was a fig and goji berry spread, which seemed fantastic because it would encapsulate both my love of figs and allow me to create something else with gojis (which I haven’t worked with since I made that pate).  Satisfied, I planned to make half a batch of plain fig jam, and half a batch enriched with gojis, which would leave me with approximately 4 jars per jam.

But then… as the Everyman listened to me griping about peeling figs (which is a horrible job because they leech milky finger-numbing liquid after a while) he said a few magical words in answer to my question of what else (if anything) I should mix into the figs.  I wonder why nobody has ever made chocolate jam? he says.  What?! Genius!  And with that, the batch of jam was split into thirds, and an hour and a half later when I finished peeling figs, I portioned them out into several heavy pots on the stove.

The plain and goji jams started with the same base of figs, sugar, water, lemons and an empty vanilla pod, to imbue the jam with a faint essence of vanilla.  Once the fruit cooked down a bit, I split the batch into 2 separate pots.

The plain variety was left to continued cooking down until the soft, white membranes disintegrated and the jam exhibited a thick, sticky consistency.  A small fortification of candied ginger provided a subtly spicy counterpoint.

But, at the last minute I couldn’t help myself and decided to amp up the flavour profile in this batch too, by adding a few pinches of lavender.

Meanwhile, in the goji pot, a handful were thrown in and cooked until the berries had plumped and the jam was noticeably thicker.  At this point, if you wanted to, you could quickly process the mixture with a stick blender, but it’s not necessary.  The last addition was another so-called “superfood”, the chia seed, but since I don’t put much stock in the latest new food trend, these were primarily added for texture.

In the third pot, the figs were cooked with sugar, water, and in lieu of the acidity of lemon juice, a splash of balsamic vinegar.  The vanilla seeds that had been scraped from the empty bean were also added, as were a handful of cacao nibs and cocoa powder.  The aroma that came off this concoction as it quietly bubbled was absolutely heavenly.  Eventually, everything softened and incorporated into a rich, velvety mass that tasted leaps and bounds better than any other chocolate-infused spread I’ve ever sampled  (i.e. Nutella and that weird choco-peanut butter blend).

Before long everything was ladled into jars, sealed and cooked in the canner for 15 minutes for preservation purposes.  These may just be my best inventions, yet.  Or really, I should give credit where credit is due and say it’s been the Everyman’s greatest invention, though he’d be the first one to tell you that it was truly a collaborative effort.

Each blend turned out to be absolutely unique in it’s own way.  The ginger lavender was subtly spicy, floral and golden with beautiful vanilla seed flecks.  The chia goji was caramelized and slightly tart with a sesame seed-esque popping from the chia seeds.  The cacao nib version was exquisite; the balsamic and cocoa powder complemented each other wonderfully, and the nibs offered a greater depth of flavour along with a welcome softened crunch.  Now all I need is some cheese!

Foodie’s Fig And Goji Jam

1.25-1.5 lbs figs, peeled, stemmed and quartered

0.75 c. sugar

0.5 lemon, ends and seeds removed, thinly sliced

0.25 c. water

0.25 c. goji berries

1 tbsp chia seeds

0.5 empty vanilla pod

Sterilize 4-6 half cup jam jars and lids and set aside.  In a heavy-bottomed pot, combine all the ingredients and stir well.  Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching until the jam has reached a thick and sticky consistency, approximately 45 minutes to an hour.  Remove vanilla pod and discard.  Ladle jam into cleaned jars, seal with rings and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes.  Let jars stand overnight, then check seal in the morning by pressing down on the lid; it should not pop back when pressed.

Makes 3 to 4 125mL jars.

Until next time…

Just when I’d all but given up on ever finding a real live elderberry in the flesh, wouldn’t you know my favourite stand at the farmer’s market started selling them by the tubful?

Of course, since I intentionally go to the farmer’s market each Saturday with only a specified amount of cash on hand, (usually $40-$50) thus ensuring I don’t purchase more than we can possibly eat in a week, I would have to slightly alter my plans if I wanted those berries.

I couldn’t possibly forgo the succulent yellow watermelons ($4) we’ve become so accustomed to eating for breakfast, nor could I deny myself the joys of heirloom cherry tomatoes ($10).  The melon lady suckered me into buying some of her corn ($4), but the Everyman had told me he didn’t care for the mixed greens ($7) and sunflower sprouts ($5) from the the salad ladies, so they were cut out.  With the tomatoes came a basket of beans ($4), which left me with exactly $21.  2 litres of elderberries ($11) and one pint of strawberries ($6) later, my carry bag and purse were filled to the brim and I only had $4 left.  I knew I didn’t have quite enough strawberries to round out my breakfasts for the week, but it did not occur to me until I was on the way home to trade up to the 2 for $10 berry baskets rather than taking the one for $6.

Once I got the berries home, there was the question of what to do with them.  I’d purchased 2 litres without so much as a plan, and having already produced plentiful amounts of cordial with the elderflowers, an elderberry jam seemed like the next logical point in the process.  Flipping through the pages of my encyclopedic canning tome, I was amazed to find not one, but four separate recipes for the elusive elderberries.  While the peach and elderberry preserves did sound awfully tempting, I had no peaches in the house, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to commit to having 8 jars of it lying around the house.

Instead I chose the old fashioned elderberry preserves, which contain no pectin at all, but rather assume that proper jelling will occur from mixing berries, sugar and vinegar with a hot stove.  One of the strawberry jams I made last year was prepared using the no pectin method, and though it has a deeper, more caramelized flavour, it did manage to set up nicely after a couple of days on the shelf.

I have no doubt that the elderberry jam will do just the same, and once I was finished, I was left with 9 jars of the chunky, seeded jam.

I suppose it’s just like the old adage; be careful what you wish for, some day you just might get it!

Until next time…

For weeks now I’ve been plotting, planning, calculating, formulating my next meaty project.

From the get-go I knew it would have to be a bacon.

The hard part was determining what sort of bacon it would be. The belly from my pig was around 15 pounds, and once I divided it up, I figured I could get around 6 batches of bacon out of it if I didn’t resort to roasting any for dinner.

Scott over at The Sausage Debauchery had turned me on to the possibility of a cocoa-laced bacon (and really, haven’t we combined chocolate and bacon enough to know that this would be really good?) but I hadn’t gotten around to procuring the necessary supplies that I thought would improve on his original attempt, so it was out.

I’d also been toying with the idea of incorporating fennel pollen or lavender somehow, but I hadn’t quite figured out a plan of attack on that one, either.

There was the possibility of chili’d bacon, but I changed my mind when I saw how much frozen jalapeño guanciale was still left in the freezer.

Then, last weekend at the farmer’s market everything suddenly started falling into place.

A chance sighting out of the corner of my eye unearthed an intriguing variety of honey from our local honey man.  The so-called “campfire honey” was a blend of both the honey and the comb that has been heated and concentrated until it was a nice, rich amber colour.  I knew that it would make the perfect honey for my first batch of bacon, so I picked up a small jar along with my regular purchases.

During the course of the next 7 days I defrosted the belly and portioned it out into more manageable-for-curing-sized pieces.  I was amazed at how accurate my portions turned out to be, running the gamut from 2.25 pounds to 2.75 pounds each, though I had been hoping for an even 2.5 per.  Once the slabs were sized, they were tightly wrapped and returned to the freezer, with the exception of one, which was left in the fridge to finish defrosting overnight.

After much deliberation (plus burning through the first of 2 spice grinders in the process), I settled on a cure comprised of the campfire honey, a bay leaf. some pink and Szechuan peppercorns, a tiny pinch of vanilla powder and a little salt.  Combining it together in a small bowl proved to be a challenge with honey that was so viscous and thick.  It was a cakewalk compared to the disaster I made of trying to rub the honey into the pork belly.  Apparently warm honey + cold pork = one sticky, wax-like mess.  Once my hands heated it up finally, the cure was applied and the easy part began.  You just let the meat sit for a week, flipping occasionally to distribute the cure.  At the end of next week we will rinse, smoke over wood and call it a day.

This is going to be some of the best bacon in the universe.  I can tell the Everyman is a little hesitant about my flavour profile, but I know it’s going to be absolutely amazing.

Until next time…

For a while now I’ve been meaning to get around to doing this.

Several of you have not let me forget that, either.

Thank you.

If it weren’t for your regular prodding reminders, this project would not have seen the light of day for several more weeks, at least.

And surprisingly enough, last night everything finally came together to begin day 1 of my 547 day homemade prosciutto adventure.

The impetus for kickstarting this project actually surfaced on Wednesday morning, when a trip to drop my kitten off at the vet persuaded me to pick up the mass quantities of salt required on my way home.  20 minutes later, I crossed the street and slowly made my way up the half a block to our house, painfully hauling 24 kg of sea salt in thin plastic bags that were mere moments away from bursting.  When I arrived at home, I dropped the bags in our front hallway and ran down to the basement to extract the coveted pork from our overstuffed freezer.  Selecting what I thought was the correct one of the two massive hunks of flesh, I carried it up to the kitchen and set it into a cool basin of water in the sink to begin defrosting.  12 hours later, I thought it was done so I drained away the water and ripped open the package.

Shit.

I’d just spent the day defrosting a giant bag of pork shoulder and trim that the butcher had assembled for miscellaneous sausage projects.  Fortunately, the meat was still frozen halfway through, so I hacked it into smaller portions and repackaged it for another day.

By process of elimination, that meant that the other gigantic bag of pig in the freezer was the piece waiting to become a prosciutto, so once again I set a cool basin of water out for defrosting, then went to bed.  When I awoke in the morning, I could tell the meat still hadn’t completely thawed, but I had no intention of leaving it out for another full day so I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.  Thursday evening found me too tired to do much of anything, so on Friday morning I promised myself I would close the loop.

After work on Friday night, I began grinding coarse sea salt into fine powder in my Cuisinart mini prep, mashing up my fingers grating garlic on a ceramic rasp, pulverizing peppercorns in a tea towel with a mallet, and stripping fresh herbs off of all of my tiny trees.  Once the mixture was assembled, I added enough water to form a moistened paste, then began vigorously applying it to the meat’s supple flesh.  Every square inch was coated and massaged until the salty mess completely adhered. It should rest for a few more days in this manner and then be repeated before sealing the whole thing up in a bin full of sea salt for a month.

Even looking at the prosciutto in its raw state is intoxicating, and I can already see the Everyman greedily plotting all the wonderful things he intends to eat with it.

Though it isn’t so much a steadfast recipe that I’m using rather than a collection of general instructions, I am fairly confident that I know enough about the matter to prevent any possible illness.  As I’ve mentioned before, the larger issue will be trying to find some place to hang the thing once the time comes.  For now, I’m just going to bask in the glow of a potentially fantastic project getting underway, and generally just hope for the best.

By December 2010 we should know whether this homemade prosciutto is worth its weight in gold or not even fit for the dogs.

I’ll continue to keep you posted as the months progress.

Until next time…

I’m not a vain person.  (No, really!)

…Except when it comes to my cooking.  Like most everything I do, I take a great deal of pride in putting out delicious, appetizing, tantalizing food.  I mean, if you’re not going to do something full-bore, what the hell is the point, you know?

I will readily admit that I am not the best cook in the world, but amongst the people I know, I’m pretty damn fantastic.  With the exception of my brother in law, I don’t think I know anyone else who personally invests so much of their time in the craft of cooking at home.  Of course, constantly having your friends and relatives heap praise on your gustatory delights comes with it’s own inherent pressures.  Not only are they always expecting culinary fireworks, but whenever someone has a question even remotely related to food, they inevitably come to ask me.

Upholding my “foodie” status is not always easy, either.  Last summer, one of my crowning achievements was a rather well-received batch of sweet gherkin pickles.  Well, gherkin-esque, that is.  My organic grocer and I searched high and low for several weeks last year for actual gherkins, but came up with sheer bupkiss.  Instead, I begrudgingly settled on a case of the smallest cukes we could find.  At 3-4 inches long a piece, they were still gigantic by gherkin standards.  If anyone is commercially growing gherkins in Ontario (I know that such a thing exists, I’ve seen Gayla mention it on her blog!) they must be selling them to the pickle processing companies only; I don’t imagine there is much demand for tiny cukes, anyway.

Despite the difficulties involved, I knew there was no way I’d be able to close out our shoddy summer without preparing another batch.  The Everyman had indicated as much when he pointedly suggested that perhaps this year I should double the batch, since between gifting them out and our own consumption, we had to resort to rationing the last few bottles this spring.  And just like that, my food-based vanity managed to get me into a pickle once again.

Day 1 of the arduous process began on Wednesday evening, when just before 10pm our organic grocer dropped off our weekly order, plus a half bushel of mini cucumbers ready to be pickled.  In case you were wondering how much half a bushel would be, in cucumber-speak that amounts to 20 pounds.  My initial recipe yield of 7 pint jars only called for 8 pounds, so this year we will have a double and a half sized batch.  My quick and dirty math estimated that based on the size of the cucumbers we would end up with 18 pints, which is definitely nothing to sneeze at.

That night before bed, we trimmed, scrubbed and salted the case and divided them amongst several large stockpots and vats.  My original plan for the oversized undertaking had been to procure a large Rubbermaid trug tub with lid and prep the whole batch in it, but the Everyman’s inference that such tubs were not made of food grade plastic eventually kiboshed that idea.  The thought that all of my hard work could be tainted by shitty isomers and chemicals overruled convenience this time, and I was left to try and juggle proportions between multiple vessels instead.  The sheer magnitude of the undertaking required me to purchase another massive canning pot to supplement the ginormous stainless stockpot that had worked fine for one batch last year.

At 5am, prior to leaving for work the next morning, the vat of pickles in salted water was rinsed, cleansed, and re-salted again.  My recollection of the process from last year was slightly skewed, and while I remembered it being a 7 day ordeal, the book proclaimed that it should only take 4 days.  Perhaps my inexperience last year drew the process out longer than was necessary.  The beauty (or downfall depending on your viewpoint) of this recipe is that all steps are meant to conclude in 8 to 12 hours.  Of course, Thursday night we happened to be babysitting for my brother in law, which meant that the next available action time for the pickles would be at 5am the following (Friday) morning.  There was nothing I could do about the situation at that point, and had been fully aware of my limitations when I began (having opted to start on the Wednesday night and oversoak the pickles rather than try and store them until the weekend).  I really didn’t see there being much of a downside to an extra 12 hours…

The next morning, I once again drained the vats and rinsed the pickles.  Pickles in salt water tend to form a really gross foamy scum on the surface, so it took a few rinses before I was satisfied.  As I began mixing up the gherkin brine (vinegar, sugar, spices and a hefty pinch of tumeric) I realized that I didn’t have enough sugar on hand to prepare the full 2.5x portion of first stage brine that was required.  This led to a hurried attempt to separate 8 pounds of pickles so that I could at least get 1 of the 2.5 batches going.  Cursing my inaccuracy, I refilled the other, larger vat with water and covered the single batch with brine, weighting the whole thing heavily so that the pickles were submerged.

My slight oversight ended up working to my advantage; splitting the batch into 2 portions would make the whole process more manageable come canning time.  After buying up a ridiculous amount of sugar (the sight of which sent me into a diabetic coma) I returned home to continue on my pickle-making saga.  As a point of contention when using larger pickles, you must slice them lengthwise to approximate gherkins and properly infuse with brine.  It takes a ridiculously long time to halve 20 pounds of cucumbers!

Friday evening on a long weekend, and I was standing in my kitchen, fishing pickles out of brine.  Once you get to the vinegar-based steps, every 8 to 12 hour rest period closes with straining out the pickles, re-heating and fortifying the brine with additional vinegar and sugar, and another chance at weighted submersion.  Step 1 requires vinegar and sugar in an equal ratio of 3:3 cups, while step 2 reduces that to 2:2, and the final brining before canning is a 1:2.  Gherkins are, after all, quite a sweet pickle.  Once you are ready to pack them into jars, the brine is bolstered again with an additional 2 cups of sugar, bringing the grand total for a batch to a whopping 8 cups of sugar and 6 cups of vinegar.  When you consider it from that point, it’s really quite revolting, but luckily these pickles are actually quite addictive.  The catch-up batch at this point was only just entering its first stage of vinegar brine.

Saturday morning, 9am.  After allowing myself the comfort of sleeping in a little, I am back in the kitchen fishing more pickles out of brine.  While it seems at the time like I’ve been doing this forever (perhaps it was all the steps that made it feel like it took a week last year), glancing over the recipe confirms that after soaking for another 12 hours until the evening, I would be ready to process the first batch into cans.  Having thought ahead for at least one part of the project, I had prepped 15 canning jars in the dishwasher while I was at work on Friday, so once the pickles were ready, I would be too.

Saturday evening, and while most people were out doing fun things like attending Caribana parties or enjoying their long weekend, I was hunkered down in the kitchen fishing pickles from brine once again.  The disadvantage of splitting off into two batches meant that I had to constantly refer back to the two and a half page recipe to determine which step I should be applying to each vat.  After sorting out my marching orders, the lone batch of pickles was stuffed into pre-heated jars, brine was warmed and sugar was scooped in, then the hot chartreuse liquid was funnelled in before being sealed with lids and rings.  After rinsing out the pot that had previously held said pickles (the massive enamelled canner recently purchased with this project in mind) I filled it with enough water to cover the jars, and set it to heat.  Once a rolling boil was achieved, the 8 jars went into their steaming hottub bath for 10 minutes of processing into tangy deliciousness.

And thus concludes phase 1 of my pickle-making adventure.  The larger of the two vats (containing 1.5 batches) must still be jarred and processed, but that will be taken care of by the time you read this.  Considering that my single batch turned out 8 pint jars, I am going to overshoot and say that the larger batch will produce another 12.  Unfortunately, since I was expecting to have more of last year’s jars returned to me by now, I only have 7 more empty pint jars available.  The rest will have to settle for the larger 1 litre jars, which I have in abundance.

I won’t know how these have turned out for at least another month, as it is always a smart idea to let your pickles ferment for a long time before popping a seal.  If the brine’s aroma is any indication, these pickles will be fabulous; being both pungent and crunchy, with a vinegar-based liquid that will tickle the nose hairs for a long time to come.

After all of this hard work, I can’t hardly wait.

Until next time…

But, let me back up a second.  For several years now I’ve been having increasingly severe reactions to various types of shellfish.  Something as innocuous as crab, which I used to catch and eat frequently as a child in British Columbia now causes my throat to swell closed and is completely off limits.  A few years later, lobster came to the party and shouted out an enthusiastic allergic ditto.  While I can still eat shrimp and scallops (for now) without any ill effects, for the most part I try to avoid shellfish altogether, because I just don’t feel like taking the risk.  Plus, the one I really loved was crab, and ironically that’s the one I react to the most.

I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding shellfish too, until an intriguing note from Grant over at The Black Hoof coaxed us into returning.  It’d been almost 5 months since our last visit; since the Everyman accuses the place of giving him protein poisoning pretty much every time we go there, we’ve kind of been avoiding it for the last little bit.  That note this week changed all of that…

You see, months ago when I was in the midst of my ‘nduja experimentation, the first person I went to for advice was Grant.  Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to know anything about it, other than the Len Poli resource I’d already been studying.  In fact, I think I may have been responsible for turning him on to the ‘nduja trend (I’ve never asked; perhaps he also admires Chris Cosentino as I do, and heard of it that way).  At any rate, we both ended up making some, and his email this week was to let me know that he’d finally taken it out of the curing room and was ready to start serving it.  I decided to be a little more hardcore with mine, and instead am curing it for at least 6 months, but possibly as long as 12 depending on its consistency at the halfway point.  Regardless, I stll had a foodie’s interest in testing out Grant’s version, so away to The Hoof we’d go.

When we sat down for dinner, the first thing we both noticed was that the ‘nduja dish on the chalkboard was marked as $1.  We both spent some time speculating over whether it was such a risky dish that they were trying to give it away, or whether he just wanted to get people to order it (incidentally, it turned out to be neither – the 3 just happened to rub off beside it)  After consuming a deluxe-sized platter covered in all of our favourite meats between us (guanciale, cheek rilettes, duck mousse, chorizo, lonzino, clove sausage and more) plus a massive bowl of bread, my ‘nduja arrived in the form of a quenelle, sided by smoked spot prawns, (this is where we connect back to my shellfish allergy) halved cherry tomatoes, olive oil and some nice crusty bread.  When I’d seen that it was served with spot prawns on the menu, I spent a good few minutes debating with the Everyman the likelihood of said prawns sending me into anaphylactic shock; I’d eaten them before, but it had been years.  Obviously the lust for ‘nduja won (and luckily no shock was had).  The prawns were heavenly, lusciously smoky, but not overly so, and provided a cooling burst to combat the ‘nduja’s heat.  The strange thing about ‘nduja is that the first bite (which was tiny) was literally so hot I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but the more I ate it, the more addicted I became to it, because it wasn’t a lingering heat.  It flared up fast, but dissipated quickly.  Captivating.  By the end I was wantonly slathering toasted bread with it and mounding prawns and tomatoes on board.  There’s only one word for food this good; stupendous.

Let’s just say I’m looking forward to throwing open my ‘nduja all the more now.  October just can’t come fast enough over here.

Until next time…

That right there is a little tribute to a friend (who we’ll just call Squinty) and one of his favourite songs by a lady named Michelle Shocked called Makin’ Jam.

Coincidentally, I decided to make some jam of my own yesterday evening.

I haven’t done much preserving yet this year in comparison to last year, but that’s just because I made so many jams, jellies, preserves, conserves and syrups that I haven’t needed to replenish much of my supply just yet.  And while I love jam so much that I can eat it unadulterated by the spoonful, I don’t have too many opportunities to use it in my day to day life, so it really lasts around our household.  The only thing we’ve practically run out of were those fabulously tangy gherkins; we’re down to the last pint jar and are severely rationing them until I can make another batch.  I’ll be making a double batch this year just in case.

This recent jam session came about because I wanted to use up the rhubarb I received in our farmshare box last week.  Having grown up in Winnipeg where rhubarb is plentiful, I can wax poetic about the stuff, but I’m not a big fan of it when it’s cut with strawberries, as is common when adding rhubarb to jams.  I started thinking that a pure rhubarb jam might be an interesting iteration, so I began planning my attack and gathering tools in the kitchen.

I combined the chopped up farmshare bundle with some sugar, chopped candied ginger, and a split vanilla pod and let it simmer on the stovetop for about 45 minutes on low.  Toward the end when it began to reach that perfect sticky consistency, I checked the flavour and added a splash of lemon juice for good measure.  Funnelled into a jar it made just enough for 1 cup of jam.  Voila!

Foodie’s Rhubarb Jam

1/2 lb rhubarb, washed and chopped into half inch chunks

0.66 c. sugar

1.5 tbsp candied ginger, chopped

1 vanilla pod, split and scraped

lemon juice to taste

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a medium saucepot and simmer over low heat until thick and jamlike, about 45 minutes.  Taste and add lemon juice to taste, or omit if you prefer a sweeter compote.  Stir to combine, then funnel the jam into a clean, dry 1 cup mason jar.  Seal and process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes for longer term storage, or refrigerate for up to 1 month.

Makes 1 cup of jam.

Until next time…

Update: I just tried some of this jam on my ciabatta for breakfast; in a word, heavenly.  Upon popping the lid I was assaulted with the sweet perfume of vanilla seeds, and my first bite gave way to a pleasant warmth from the candied ginger.  It was a little sweeter than I wanted, so next time I may ratchet up the rhubarb quotient to accommodate that.  Delish!

According to the news media, sales in the canning sector (who knew it had it’s own sector?) increased by almost 25% over last year.  The article extrapolates this jump to be connected to the local food movement, but if anything, it probably has more to do with the recession.  Buying up produce while it’s in season (thus, relatively cheap) and then preserving it was a method commonplace among the octogenarian set back in the day and is slowly but surely regaining ground. Preservation is a basic, primitive form of guaranteeing a local diet, too.  If you’re not keen on foregoing your favourite fruits and vegetables over the long winter, you find a way to preserve them somehow (canned, dried, jammed, etc) so that you can enjoy them year round.

Today it’s almost unheard of for my generation to devote time and effort to such a (perceived to be useless) pursuit.  Most people in my age bracket see a jar of jam sitting on the supermarket shelf and think, if I can buy that for $2.50, why on earth would I pay for jars, fruit, other ingredients and my own time instead?  Or they purchase the gourmet, fancy $10 jam to assuage the guilt of not doing it themselves.  Those people are part of the lackadaisical, spoiled, me-me-me, self-centred generation I am so ashamed to be lumped together with.  As any true jamfiend knows, you don’t just do it for the cost effectiveness (though it is comparable to store costs once you’ve made the investment in jars).  You do it for the taste.  For that fleeting moment when the sun beat down on a strawberry bush and warmed those blistery, bursting orbs of succulent sweetness.  That is what we go to all that trouble to capture.  So that in the dead of winter you can open up a jar of preserves and reminisce about a summer that is now long gone.

Amongst my friends I am the only one I know who bothers to preserve food each year.  The irony is that there’s always a line full of those same people wanting to partake in my latest batch of goodness.  They recognize a quality product, but are too lazy to prepare it themselves.  A select group have access to my preservation pantry, on the caveat that they get nothing more until they return my empty jars.  Not returning jars is a sure way to get yourself on the blacklist, believe me.  Just consider it a sign of respect or gratitude, or an investment in future jars of edibles and you’ll do just fine.

Thinking back to my youth, I am unable to pinpoint any memories, moments, people or places that connected me to a desire to extend the harvest beyond it’s natural season.  As far as I recall nobody in my family (immediate or extended) was ever big on canning or any other form of preservation.  If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that my predilection stems from a childhood spent having a little less than enough.  A recent inventory of our sunroom found a bookshelf laden with more jars of preserves than I will possibly ever eat or need.  The urge to ensure I’ve not wasted a crumb and will always have food has led me to concoct jar upon jar of jams, pickles, chutneys and sauces that I may never realistically use.

Case in point?  The multiple jars of lemon pickle that I accidentally scorched into more of a lemon marmalade.  Or the limequat jam that I still haven’t found a standout use for.  Or we could even talk about the 4 more jars of stout-laced whole mustard that I thought would make an excellent condiment (it did, but it will take me eons to get through 5 jars).  Having a pantry full of options like that is the best security of all.  Because no matter what happens, there will always be some form of food to nourish myself in case of an emergency.  And that on it’s own is nothing to balk at.

Until next time…