IN A PICKLE OF A JAM.

I am not sure why it is considered a bad thing to be in a jam.  I can understand why one would not want to be in a pickle, given the connotations of cannibalism and whatnot, but jam?  Jam is sweet and tasty and good on toast and scones.  Yes, it is sticky and a bit messy and viscous, but that's never killed anyone (oh wait, yes it has).  Though jelly is suspect, as it's just so...unnatural.  Fruit is not smooth and shiny, people.  It is seedy and pulpy and complicated; let's keep it that way.

Anyway, idioms and jellyrants aside, I have gotten it into my head that maybe I should be canning things.  After reading through a few different canning/preserving books, I came to the conclusion that the general attitude towards canning is:  OH MY GOD IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THESE RECIPES EXACTLY YOU WILL CONTRACT BOTULISM AND DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH ALONE AND FULL OF BITTER RECRIMINATION OH AND YOU'RE UGLY TOO.  Nevermind that each book has different recipes for the exact same things – there can be only one.  That won't kill you.

So I said bupkus to all that and decided to forge my own path into this Brave New World of food in jars.  I also decided to forgo a stop at Long-Term Canning Corners and instead get off this I-guess-my-metaphor-is-a-train-now at Just Put It In A Jar Junction.  There are two reasons for this:  (1) I am lazy, and (B) it isn't like I need more things to put into my already overstuffed pantry.

To start off on my quest (wait – quest?  I need to work on keeping these metaphors straight...) to the land of food self-sufficiency, a friend and I staged a little canning party (even though nothing was officially canned).  We each brought two recipes to the table:  I planned on making dilly beans and pomegranate jam, and she would do apple butter and ginger beer.

(Ed. note: While writing this post, I was suddenly seized by the need for scones, which are now in the oven.   And now we return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.)

Dilly beans, for the uninitiated, are green beans that have been pickled like your standard dill cucumber pickle, plus lots of garlic.  They seemed like a nice beginner's pickle, mostly because green beans, unlike all but the babiest of cucumbers, fit easily into a regular pint jar, and neither of us were keen on buying several large jars for a single project.  Also, cucumber pickles, at least some of them, require fermentation to reach peak flavor, whereas dilly beans just need to sit overnight in the brine.

To start, top and tail some nice green beans, then pack them into jars (somewhat snugly), along with garlic, dill, and black peppercorns (it is easiest to put in the garlic and dill first, or at least in-between batches of beans).  Just pour over some boiling brine (about two parts vinegar to one part water, with sugar and salt added – BUT READ THE BOOK OR ELSE THE BEANS WILL GIVE YOU DROPSY OR SOMETHING).  The book also said that the beans needed to be processed via boiling to tenderize them, as they were cold-pack vegetables.  This is a lie, as boiling beans, even if they are in jars, for 15 minutes will clearly overcook them.

I. AM. A. HUMAN. BEAN.

The pomegranate jam was a trickier customer, and not only because they are tedious to de-seed.

Pictured: an hour's worth of seed removal.

Pomegranates are also low in pectin, which is the fiber in fruits that makes a jam set into a jiggly pseudosolid.  Because we weren't adding any additional pectin to the pomegranates, we would have to cook the pomegranates long enough for the sugars (both in the fruit and added to the mix) to do the work instead (if you've ever made fudge or candy, you'll understand; if you haven't, that's a shame because it's a lot of fun).  I got the recipe from here, but since I wasn't spending the money for five pounds of poms, I used pomegranate juice instead.

I can't comment directly on making ginger beer or apple butter, because I was caught up in my own food problems.  However, I did learn the following:

• Apples will dry out if you bake them in the oven
• Peeling and pureeing 2 lbs. of ginger is tedious and noisy
• Wringing the juice out of 2 lbs. of ginger will make your hands tingly
• Dry apples do not work well in a food processor
• Tasting ginger beer that only has half the recommended sugar will make your face hurt

In the end, this is what we had:

at least it's pretty.

I cracked open my jar of dilly beans today, and I'm really pleased.  It has a nice crunch, and a good bite from the all the dill.  The pom jam, sadly, did not set, even though the plate test told me it would.  However, it makes a tasty pom sauce, which will potentially be used in an ice cream at some point in the near future.  The ginger beer, once it was corrected for sugar and you add a little club soda and mint, was tasty, though super gingery – it's good, but only in small doses (though if you have clogged sinuses, it will clear them good and fast).  I still haven't had a reason to use the apple butter yet, so I cannot give a review; perhaps its creator reads this blog and will comment?  (Oh, and the large jar in the middle is spiced brandy.  It takes a couple of weeks to mull.)

Overall, I'd say I came out 1.75-for-two on my part of the grand experiment – I'm quite happy with the dilly beans, and the pom jam just needs to set to be a total success.

Oh, but I am not done yet!

Remember the shameful bronze of my Dairy Olympics competition-with-myself?  I am what you might call a sore loser, so armed with more cream, I tried it again, this time using the proper technique of letting it sit on low heat for hours upon hours upon hours.

Success (mostly)!

There is really no way to make this look very appetizing, I apologize.

This is what two cups of cream looks like after sitting on a low burner for seven hours.  The wrinkly yellow skin is called the clout, and need to be removed (that's what I'm doing in the photo, and you can sort of see the fork peeling off a bit).  The thick stuff immediately underneath the clout is the clotted cream; under that is regular cream (though not full-fat, because most of that differentiated out into the clotted variety).  I say that this version is a qualified success because, while the clotted cream definitely coagulated out, the pan I used was too wide, which made the cream shallow and complicated separating the clotted cream from the thinner cream.  It all tastes good, but I wasn't able to skim just the clotted cream off the top; some of the regular cream got in with the clotted when I was spooning it out, so the whole thing is much thinner than it should be (proper clotted cream should be spreadable like butter).  It's really quite tasty spooned onto a scone with some pom jamsauce (though it is very messy, since all the toppings have the propensity to dribble off the scone). 

This might explain why I felt the need to make more scones at 9:30pm.

While on my pickling kick, I also wrangled up some pickled onions and peppers, which I enjoyed on a grilled cheese sandwich today.  I used red onions and yellow hot peppers, and the kick that both give off (though the onion only when raw) is tempered by the pickling process.

peter piper picked a peck of picked peppers and onions and liberty cabbage.

The large purple jar is red cabbage I am trying to transform into sauerkraut (the sour cream cup is just filled with water and is being used to keep the cabbage submerged).  Traditional sauerkraut is just sliced cabbage and salt; the salt draws out the cabbage's moisture, then mixes in to make the brine.  Sauerkraut is actually a made by lactic acid fermentation, in which various lactobacteria, which are naturally present on cabbage leaves, ferment the sugars into lactic acid, which both provides the sour taste and preserves the cabbage.  Once it has stopped bubbling, it should be all set; it takes about two weeks for sauerkraut to fully ferment, so here's hoping my wait will not be in vain (it also gives me some time to finish up the sauerkraut in my fridge).

IMPORTANT-TYPE ANNOUNCEMENTS!
In my constant attempts to keep this blog fresh and new, as well as trying to come up with a gimmick that will finally net me that book deal, I am hoping to start a few new series that will maybe get me to post a bit more frequently and help me maintain some focus so that not every post is a me prattling on? 

The first will be titled, "Hooray for Capitalism," where I will take you, the reader, along to some of my favorite food-related stores (as food-based shopping is my second-favorite kind of shopping) in the PHX and its environs.  The second, "Around the World in 80 Dishes," will feature me attempting to make vegetarian foods from all around the globe; I'm also trying to get The Husband to contribute suggestions for good music from each place to listen to while cooking and/or eating.  Hell, while I'm at it, I may even go back and tag and label some of my previous posts, in an attempt to maybe make sense of this place.  Who knows?  The possibilities are ENDLESS, except that they really aren't, as while the potential for the human mind may be infinite (though I doubt that it is), human life and our current levels of understanding are very much definite and bounded, which keeps our possibilities within defined limits.

So let's just say that the possibilities are MANY to keep us all from an existential crisis.

(Also, if you have any comments or suggestions of things you'd like to see here, let me know and I'll maybe take them under advisement.)

The Dairy Olympics

Way back when, when the world and this blog were young, I told a tale of leaving cream to sit out overnight and somehow not contracting food poisoning.  The story ended tragically:  not with E. coli (thank kittens), but with a wasted batch of cream.

This past weekend, I issued myself a Dairy Challenge and decided to try my hand once again at making some fancy dairy things, specifically lemon curd*, clotted cream, yogurt, and creme fraiche.  A little bold?  Perhaps.  And as the title of this post suggests, one of these did not work out.  But which one?§

Before I get into all that, though, let me tell you a story.  It's about a girl and a boy and a quest for local milk.

Back in the Time Before PHX, The Husband and I lived in New England, in a much beleaguered city affectionately known as The Woo.  Now, some people don't like The Woo, mostly because it isn't Boston.  I cannot argue this point; The Woo ≠ Boston.  But!  The Woo did have some nice things going for it, like a bar that serves the best pizza I've ever had, a farm that sold unpasteurized cider and duck eggs, and a professor who would let me play with bird bones just because I asked nicely.

It also had a family-run dairy¥ that sold things like milk and cream, which was really quite helpful as The Husband and I try our darnedest to source as many of our animal products from local farms where we can confirm for ourselves that the animals in question are raised humanely.  We gave up meat to remove ourselves from the industrial cattle/pork/poultry system, but battery hens and commercial dairy cows still lead sad lives (if you can call them that) and we try not to support big agribusiness where possible.  That was actually my biggest worry upon moving to PHX: from where would I get my eggs and milk?  I had considered going vegan, but man, I do love milk.  And eggs for baking.  It would have been tough.

Enter Superstition Farm.  It's a local dairy farm run by the nicest people on Earth who are big into keeping their cows (and chickens, and horses, and everything) as happy and healthy as possible.  The Husband and I are members of their dairy CSA, where every two weeks we get milk, butter, cheese, ice cream, and other goodies, all made at the dairy (or their sister ice cream store) with milk from the family cows.  They also sell eggs from their free-range chickens, which are so free range they sometimes come into the store.  Also also, they let me hold said chickens.

cheep cheep!

So, armed with a lot of cream and milk from the SuperFarm, I set off on my adventures in dairy-based products.

First up, lemon curd.  Making lemon curd is a lot like making custard, in that you need to keep the temperature low and make sure that the eggs do not scramble; I like using a modified double-boiler to keep the heat under control.  Otherwise, it's pretty simple: just butter, eggs, sugar, and lemon juice.

And a peanut butter jar.

The triumvirate of clotted cream, yogurt, and creme fraiche came next, as they all had to sit out overnight before they'd be ready.  Here, a shot of the magic in progress.

dairylicious.

From left to right we have clotted cream, yogurt, creme fraiche.  Creme fraiche is the easiest: take cream, mix in cultured buttermilk (like we learned before, only cultured buttermilk will work∞), cover, and leave it out overnight to thicken up and culture.

Yogurt requires a bit more attention, in that you have to reduce milk without letting it scorch and also acquire live active yogurt cultures.  I simmered some whole milk with a vanilla bean pod, then added a bit of cream after I removed the pan from the heat.  Once the milk cooled (it has to be below 145ºF, and optimally between 104º and 108ºF), I added a dollop of SuperYogurt (full of lively flora) from the SuperFarm and stirred it up.  Yogurt also has to sit out in a warmish environment for the bacteria to kick in; using a bowl that retains heat is a good idea, as is wrapping the bowl in towels.

Clotted cream is essentially heavy cream (or a cream-whole milk blend) that has been slow cooked on low heat for hours until the cream separates and clots at the top.  The yellowish bit that formed on the bowl in the photo is the "clout" (as they say in Cornwall), the crust that sits on top of the thickened cream.

So, you've seen the picture; which one didn't work out?  Well...

The creme fraiche...seems to have turned out all right.  It might be a little thinner than the exorbitantly-priced stuff at the grocery store, but the flavor seems spot-on.  Given how it's not really eaten on its own, I think the slightly-off texture won't be much of a problem.  I consider myself redeemed!

The yogurt...also seems OK.  It is definitely not as thick as your store-bought variety, but I am blaming that on the lack of pectin and locust bean gum (so, really, it's Trader Joe's that can't make a proper yogurt without cheat ingredients).  The vanilla flavor is (very) subtle, and it's not nearly as tangy as your standard plain yogurt; I think it would go really well with some berries or other fruit.

Which leaves the clotted cream as the shameful bronze of these Dairy Games.  Since I didn't have the six or seven hours necessary to cook the cream, and am too impatient to wait for a time when I did, I tried a shortcut method that involved keeping the cream at a very specific temperature for an hour and then letting it cool.  However, given that electric stovetops are evil, and our specific stove hand-forged by the devil himself, I think I either over- or under-heated (or both) the cream and it went all hemophiliac on me and wouldn't clot.

Oh, well.  I guess I'll just have to console myself with creme fraiche scones topped with lemon curd and/or any of the homemade jams in the pantry.  Don't worry about me; I'll manage.  Somehow.
__________________________________________________________
*Lemon curd is sort of the outlier here, in that it's not really a dairy product.  It has butter, sure, but that's the only cow-based ingredient, and there's not much of it.  But let's not nitpick; let's leave that to our fellow primates for their communal grooming.
§DRAMATIC CLIFFHANGER!
¥ It also did things like sell milk in glass bottles, which is awesome.  Less awesome is when someone packs the bottles too closely together in the car, and then one shatters and gets milk all over the floor of your car and then your car smells like sour milk for months and people STILL ask you about it.
∞Creme fraiche is so elitist.

WHEREIN I CHEEZ MY DAIRY (ALSO, SHARDS OF GLASS)

You know how, when you're doing research, you're supposed to use primary sources more than secondary sources, because that way you get to formulate your own conclusions and sound brilliant instead of citing lots of footnotes and having your thesis advisor repeatedly ask you why you're not doing close readings of the poems?*

Well, lately I've been enchanted with the idea of doing the same thing with my food and trying to make various simple things from scratch.  This is mostly for the sheer novelty of it all, but I've also been on this self-sufficient/survivalist bent where I'm trying to prepare myself for the downfall of civilization and build up a skill set so I can barter my way into one of the better post-apocalyptic societies.  Of course, there are flaws in this plan, since I can't keep cows in downtown PHX and there's a world of difference between a butter churn and a Kitchenaid mixer; as such, my plans rely heavily on (A) my local dairy also surviving the apocalypse and (B) there being a reliable source of electricity in our dystopian futureworld.

But I digress.

So far, my excursions into the wonderful world of dairy-making include butter (pour cream into mixer, turn on, forget about until it starts sloshing) and ice cream (pour batter into mixer attachment, turn on, forget about until it starts clicking).  Both have been successful, but since our dairy CSA gives us copious amounts of butter and ice cream every week, I needed a new challenge.

Enter creme fraiche.

For the uninitiated, creme fraiche is a lot like sour cream, only a bit thicker and with a more restrained tang.  It can be used just like sour cream, and is also found in pasta sauces and in some baked goods.  More importantly, it is right expensive, so it's not something I can just toss into my basket while I'm roaming around the local Fresh and Easy trying to figure out what the cut-off number is between "acceptable" and "besotted lush" in regards to buying cheap wine.

ANYWAYS, I picked up a pint of cream and a pint of buttermilk and decided to try to make some magic.  Essentially, all creme fraiche is is cream plus buttermilk, left to sit at room temperature until the bacteria get feisty and it thickens up.  I am normally of the opinion that dairy left out over night = horrible stomach ache, but I had eaten some sourdough starter (not recommended) and didn't die, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  I mixed one cup cream with half a tablespoon of buttermilk, gave it a stir, and set it on the counter.  In theory, I would wake up to creme fraiche, which would then lead to figgy chocolate scones, which would lead to joy.

In actuality, I woke up to cream that had resisted all efforts to change, save for the addition of a slightly sour smell.  "Perhaps it hasn't sat long enough," I thought.  "Maybe it wasn't warm enough to kickstart the bacteria."  (This is FALSE, given how it is summer in the desert and it is never not warm enough for anything, except maybe for nuclear fusion.)  So I left it out all day.

When night fell, I gave the bowl a stir, and I discovered that while a thick skin had formed on the top, the rest was still just plain cream that smelled a little funny.  I had cheezed the creme fraiche.

this lolcat will never stop being funny

So, there were no scones in guhlersville, for mighty Heather had struck out; or, more accurately, she hadn't paid close enough attention to the recipe to realize she needed cultured buttermilk, not just the leftovers from making butter.  Fortunately, I also have recipes for scones made with cream and buttermilk, of which we are in great supply.  Tomorrow I will drown my sorrows for my lost creme fraiche in sweet sconey goodness, and will start on plans to make cheese (which I will hopefully not cheez).

ALSO!  I started my glass fusion class tonight.  Here is what I have learned so far:

1.  Glasswork is an expensive hobby.
2.  Over the next 10 weeks, I will cut myself.  Probably frequently.
3.  Apart from me, no one under the age of 50 takes art classes.
4.  The softening point for glass is 1100º F.

Next week we will actually start playing with glass, so I'll let you know how that goes (assuming I don't slice off a finger/limb in the process).


*FYI, the appropriate response is "Because I don't actually like poetry, and I especially don't like overanalyzing word choice in poetry, and besides Robert Burns is pretty straightforward about how much he loves the ladies and Scotland and more ladies and the simplicity of farm life and OH DID I MENTION THE LADIES and the point of my thesis is to examine the various ways his entire body of work can and has been co-opted, so if I were to focus on every line of every poem, I would never graduate."