New Way of Life

It's been nearly 3 years since my last post and I am back with a new name and a new way of life.
I changed up the Chicago life for a Colorado life and am a first-time homeowner!  I love my little 1910 Victorian house and all the possibilities it comes with.  

The front yard is surprising me on a daily basis with the leftover landscaping of homeowners past.  So far, in order, I have be delighted with Forsythia bushes, Grape Hyacinth, Japanese Iris, Poppies, Violets and today Tiger Lilies bloomed!  There is still another bush yet to bloom what I am told will be pink flowers.  That's just the front yard!  

The backyard leaves some work to be done but has amazing potential.  I just completed a transplant of what Japanese Iris and Tiger Lily existed back there.  There is an existing garden bed in the back that I am focusing my efforts on preparing the soil for next season.  Later this summer I have a project in mind to build small greenhouses out of old reclaimed windows.  

In the meanwhile I am still itching to grow food so I repurposed an over-the-door shoe organizer to plant various herbs and veggies.  I also scored on a wooden cranberry crate that is now my lettuce bed.  

In other news I have successfully brewed my first batch of kombucha tea, grape flavored, and though the process is quite simple and rewarding I just can't drink that much kombucha....  

I also had a hankering for some English muffins and decided to make them instead of buy them.  The first round, whole wheat, turned out quite delicious but a bit dense.  I am looking forward to the second round with some tweaks.  

I have so many ideas I don't know where to start!  I'm coming up on 2 months of home-ownership and I know that there will be plenty of time for this new way of living!

Behind the Seals

The final installment of the stories behind the preserved items from the summer of 2010. Summer of 2011 will be here before we realize it!

Mixed-Berry Currant Jam was a late edition to the recipe roster and fun to make. I couldn't resist the array of currants at the farmer's market so I got some black currants and some white currants. Every recipe I had called for a significant amount more of currants that just wasn't feasible so I sought a way to mix other fruits. At the next farmer's market I bought 1 of every berry they had. I learned the difference between black raspberries and blackberries - but guess what, both of them are in this jam! All I need to say about this jam is that it is classy.

White Currants

Black Currants

Raspberries

Blackberries

Black Raspberries

Summer Solstice Preserves turned out better than anticipated and make one of the THE BEST peanut butter and jelly sandwiches around. It took a little time to pit the cherries but the blueberries required no prep so it came together fast. Cherries and blueberries happen to be my favorite fruits so I definitely kept a jar of this for myself.

Summer Solstice Preserves

Cherry-Berry Fruit spread was an experiment in using apple as the thickener. It was kind of the one I came to hate and wanted nothing to do with. It probably started when I decided to start making it at 8pm on a night I needed to be in bed at 10pm. It required apples to be peeled and cored and chopped and pounds upon pounds of cherries to be pitted. Once that was finally done it had to cook for 40 minutes before adding the rest of the fruit! Since apples contain natural pectin the spread is supposed to thicken as they cook down. This was taking way longer than anticipated and I great quite impatient and in hindsight, removed it from the stove before it was done. A fruit spread is made with less sugar than conventional jams, etc. and people who prefer things not too sweet really liked this one.

Cherry-Berry Fruit Spread

I blogged earlier in the season about making relish with the limited time red corn. Sadly, I missed my window; however, I will not miss the opportunity next year! This recipe is actually a "throw-back" to my Missouri heritage. It came from the Kitchen Klatter cookbook that my grandmother bought for her husband more than 30 years ago. Kitchen Klatter is a household name where I come from but haven't found a single person outside of Missouri who's familiar with the brand. http://crackediceandchrome.com/?p=1029 Here's someone else's blog about that cookbook. Since all of the books I own are currently packed away for the move I cannot reference the book as detailed as I'd like.

The first time I made corn relish using this recipe I was missing some ingredients so I made a couple substitutions. It came out great. The second time I made it I followed the recipe exactly with all the proper ingredients and found it didn't pack as much flavor.

Watch out for the red corn relish next summer!

Corn Relish

This is not my first time at the mustard rodeo, and it certainly won't be my last. Mustard is so incredibly easy to make and is the what makes me want to make all ready-made foods from scratch. It starts with mustard but before long I know I'll be making my own cheese.

Spicy German Mustard

It was interesting to pickle cherries this summer and I'll definitely do it again with a little bit of tweaking. The recipe said to keep the stems on, so I inferred that I should also keep the pits in. I regret doing this and in the next attempt I will carefully pit the cherries while trying to keep the stems attached. Their flavor is not expected, thanks to the cloves and allspice, and they make a great compliment alongside a smoky, grilled meat.

Pickled Cherries

The Jars Are in the Mail

This morning I went to the post office with a dozen packages packed in my collapsible shopping cart. Some may have also heard me refer to this as my "Old Lady Shopping Cart". It was quite the sight to see me get this down 3 flights of stairs but I did it none-the-less. As I was walking down Southport, known for its sidewalks laden with women pushing strollers, I passed a women with a stroller then spotted across the street another woman with a baby on her torso. I laughed as I looked down at my "stroller" filled my summer of pickling and preserving.

All of my jars have left the nest.

Not-So-Urban

This week I'm on a break from my urban preserving with a much more rural setting surrounding me. Every morning I sit outside drinking my coffee and eating breakfast while a menagerie of geese, ducks, chickens, cats and dogs co-mingle around me. It is quite relaxing and quite picturesque; hopefully one day I can shift gears and be the Rural Preserver.

What I Use the "Fancy" Jars For

Everything I preserve is done in the jar best suited for it. I already tested a few batches of both pickled green beans and pickled asparagus and when I found extra tall jars I just KNEW what they had to be used for.

I'm particularly pleased with the results of the pickled asparagus. The biggest revelation with this batch was packing the spears in the jars with the tips pointing downward. In previous batches I found that the tips poke up to the top and donn't stay submerged in the brine. An interesting note about when I made these is that while they were cooling the vinegar caused a reaction and all of the petals turned a bright red.

Here are my 'lemon spiced bean pickles'; I used both green and yellow wax beans and there is lemon rind tucked in. I kept the pigeon-deterring spikes in the shot because I felt they reinforced the URBAN in Urban Preserver. I'm also proud to say that these were a huge success with children. Well, OK, one child.

I think the shape and size of a jar adds character to what's inside and ultimately what gives something that extra personal touch. Consider the Jar.

The Making of... The 2nd Installment

To balance out the 2 sweet items we started with I'm going to keep it fair by writing about 2 of the sour items.

Mixed Vegetable Mustard Pickles. I'd been reading about 'mustard pickles' and was intrigued by the use of flour. They also typically call for a fair amount of sugar. At first I wondered if they were another name for 'bread and butter pickles' but recipes for those had slight omissions. In doing my research I discovered that mustard pickles were actually the first form of chow-chow. I was determined to make something with cauliflower and consequently found that the flour-thickened, sweet-but-still-tangy syrup was delicious right off a spoon.

Dilled Baby Carrots. These puppies are simplicity at it's best. The most difficult part about making these was picking the most perfect heads of dill to pack into the jars.

A Corny Idea!

So I'm trimming my corn off the cob, just making my dinner. This isn't just any corn on the cob though, this is RED sweet corn. It's pretty special stuff. I only needed 1 tonight but bought 3 and didn't know how I was going to use the other 2. Then it dawned on me like the biggest idea ever. EVER. I'll make corn relish with RED corn. Won't that just be the CRAZIEST thing anyone has ever seen in the world of canning?