Pickles and Peaches and Pancakes! Oh My.

Finally got to go to the PHX Farmers' Market yesterday [This was actually several days ago at this point, but bear with me. --Ed.] [Who is this Ed person and why is he commenting on my blog? --Heather], which was one of the things I had missed the most during our extended stay in the TUX (along with sleeping in my own bed and not having to furiously disinfect my hands all the time).  It was a strange sensation to be shopping when the giant industrial air conditioners weren't completely necessary, and the Market is even starting to get interesting again, having moved beyond the point where all greens spontaneously combust and the only things that properly grow are chiles and sadness berries.

I'd been itching for some time now to attempt some pickles.  Not just any pickles:  lacto-fermented pickles.  I've become entranced with the idea of idle wild yeasts being harnessed to make my food for me, even if my last two attempts at employing the lazy buggers (for sauerkraut) failed miserably and less-miserably, though saltier, respectively.  However, while strolling through the misters, I happened upon some absolutely darling little cucumbers—all short and squat and knobbly, they were just crying out to be purchased and experimented upon and changed from humble cucumbers into Herculean specimens of pickled perfection.  (Or explode.  Something.)

The first rule of pickling is that you do not talk about pickling you need the right equipment.  I am fortunate enough to have borrowed (stolen) a small earthenware crock from my parents' attic, because I am also fortunate enough to have a stepfather whose first wife collected things like earthenware crocks.  If you do not have an earthenware crock, I would suggest checking your attic; if you don't have a stepfather whose first wife collected such things, I would suggest asking your mother to get cracking and informing her that there is no dishonor in marrying for pickles.

I rinsed off my cucumbers and popped them into the crock, along with a few dill fronds and some bashed-up cloves of garlic.  Cover with a brine made from 2 T. salt per quart of water, then use a weight to ensure that everything stays submerged.  If you have concerns that small creatures (such as an incredibly dim kitten) will fall in and drown and ruin your pickles, you can tie some cloth around the crock for safety's sake.

Ms. H's home for wayward gherkins.

According to my Lost Art of Real Cooking, these little beauties need to sit for about 25 days to reach their full pickle potential.  They also shouldn't be exposed to temperatures much above 80º for too long, else they will catch pickle Ebola and melt from the inside out.  Hopefully a dark corner of the pantry and a marginally-functioning air-conditioner will keep the wee yeasties in line.

[NOTE: The following peach section is dedicated to The Husband.  I'm pretty sure he'll figure out why.]

Also, on my wanderings through the Market, I kept getting distracted by the abundance of peaches.  One peachmonger told me a tale of a lady from Georgia who doubted the ambrosial qualities of his peaches, but once she sampled his wares, she was so smitten that she promptly bought up a couple dozen.  Of course, I had to purchase some—she was from GEORGIA, people!  Those folks know peaches.

But here's the thing—I don't even like peaches.  I mean, I like them well enough, I suppose, but I'm firmly on Team Nectarine (playing mostly in the underripe division, much to the mocking delight of The Husband).  Anyway, they somehow ended up in my bag, and while I can usually rely on The Husband to deal with things like this, he is still learning how to eat again, which leaves me with millions of six ripe-right-now-I-mean-REALLY-ripe peaches and a total lack of interest in traditional methods of peach consumption (i.e., taking a bite and making an ungodly mess with all the juice going all over the place or having them put into a can by a man in a factory downtown).

Racking my magnificent brain, I came up with a solution (at least until I am tricked into buying the damn things again next week): peach salsa!  I chopped up a couple of peaches, along with several itty-bitty grape tomatoes and half a red onion, then mixed it all up with some salt, lemon juice, and aleppo pepper.

If I had my little way, I'd eat peaches everyday.  (No.)

I think it all would have worked a little better with slightly less-ripe peaches, but it's bright and summery and now I have fewer peaches taunting me (though their voices, I can hear them still), so all is well.

As for Pancakes, he is very happy to have us home and is thoroughly enjoying sleeping on my laptop while I try to do work.  Here he is looking vacant, per usual:

and here he's being a VERY HELPFUL CAT while I'm trying to crochet.

SO. HELPFUL.  Thank goodness he was around, or else that yarn might have caused quite the ruckus.

PEACHES UPDATE: I've apparently decided that right now would be a fantastic time to come down with my first illness since moving to the desert, which is turning out to be a poor decision on my part.  Anyway, given that The Husband is in no position to take care of me, and that actually cooking something for reals seemed way too much effort, I ended up making myself a wee fried egg sandwich to tide me over between bouts of ice cream (which is about the only thing I feel like eating when my head feels like it is chock full of damp sheep).  I toasted up some fancy bread, and while the egg was frying, spread on some goat cheese and smashed avocado and added some arugula.  Next went my horribly-misshapen sunny-side-up egg (I am no good with eggs), a sprinkle of smoked sea salt, a crack or two of fresh black pepper, and a few heaping dollops of peach salsa.  The Husband called me bourgeois, but I was content to control the means of production for this sandwich because at least I was well-fed.

PICKLE UPDATE: My kitchen smells like dill and garlic.  Good sign?

Project Figgy Figgy Fig Fig

I've decided that, since I have expended more than enough energy complaining about phx summers, I should start trying to look on the bright side and appreciate all those things about months of triple-digit temperatures that are not terrible and utterly soul-destroying.  These things include a renewed appreciation for seasonality; mighty haboobs; the fact that a cold beer never tastes as good as it does on a hot, summer day; monsoon season and the awesome thunderstorms that come with it; and figs.

Yes, even in the depths of summer, when it seems more likely that fruits would spontaneously combust than ripen, figs manage to survive.  Of course, fig season lasts all of a week, and given that we were in and out of town over the course of June and July, I was sure I had missed it.  Imagine my surprise and glee when I saw some figs at the grocery store.  There weren't the figs I had been dreaming of, being from California and not totally at the peak of ripeness, but nonetheless I snapped up a couple of packages, visions of figgy delights dancing through my head.

The figgy gods must have been smiling upon me, because when I went to the farmers' market the following day, what did I see?  More figs!  I obviously bought a dozen and, given the bounty of figs I had received, declared the (smaller, sweeter, riper) phx figs to be for mostly-unadulterated consumption only.  These little figgy jewels, along with some fresh nectarines, were coated with a wee bit of olive oil and grilled (on my decade-plus old George Foreman grill, because that's how we roll in city apartments sans balcony) and served on little baguette crostinis of goat cheese and the briefest of sprinkles of black Hawaiian salt (for the figs) and strawberry balsamic vinegar (for the nectarines).

There were more.  They were eaten before the camera could get to them.

As for the other figs, they became part of Project Figgy Figgy Fig Fig, which was my attempt at making balsamic figgy jam.  I have written about the only other time I tried (and failed) to make jam; even with my less-than-stellar record of jam production, I figured that a figgy sauce would be an acceptable outcome.  To be perfectly honest, as long as I did not set the figs on fire, I was pretty sure I'd be happy.

To start, stem and quarter 2 lbs. of figs.  In a large, heavy pot, bring the 1 c. water and the figs to a boil, then let simmer for 5 minutes or so, until the figs get soft.  Using a potato masher, crush the figs to whatever consistency you desire.  Add 1 c. sugar, 1/2 c. balsamic vinegar, and 1/4 c. lemon juice, then return to a boil.  Reduce the heat and let the figs simmer until they thicken up, but aren't dry.

Now, the recipe suggested that this thickening process would take 20 minutes.  This is a blatant falsehood.  Perhaps the original author had magical figs, or was a wizard, or something, but I had to simmer those figs for at least an hour to get the sugars working.  See, figs are a low-pectin food, and if you are like me and stubborn and impatient and not about to waste precious figgy time with tracking down packets of pectin,  you just have to persevere and TRUST THE FIGS.  Rather than go by cooking time, the best way to check for the doneness of your jam is to do the gel test.  My method is to pop a small plate into the freezer when you start the simmer; when you think the figs are properly thickened, get your plate and spoon a small dollop of the jam onto it.  When the jam cools (you can use the refrigerator to speed up the process), tilt the plate—if the jam doesn't move, it's good to go.  If the jam is still runny, leave it to simmer for another couple of minutes and try again.  I promise: it will set.  Eventually.

After much testing and cursing and fretting, you should end up with this:

Project Figgy Figgy Fig Fig is GO.

Dark, sticky, unctuous figgy jam.  The sweetness is subtle, undercut by the pleasant tanginess of the balsamic.  With a little less sugar and the addition of some rosemary, it could make a fine savory jam.  As it is, it's delicious on toast points with goat cheese, alone on toast, with a little almond butter for a twist on the old pb&j (I call it the Elitist Breakfast), on (or in) scones...basically, it's just good.  And it's a nice little reminder of the good life during a desert summer (if you don't melt first).

AW80D - Preserved Lemons

I will be honest:  I'm not sure how I feel about this installment of AW80D.  Maybe it's because preserved lemons aren't something that you enjoy out-of-hand — they're a condiment, and thus really only come into their own when combined with something more substantial.  It's like a recipe for ketchup (which, admittedly, I've also already discussed), and as such, using this as one of the recipes almost feels like cheating; it's not really a dish, which is what the title of this series suggests I am promising.  Also, I'm posting about it before I can even confirm that the preserved lemons are a success, and that seems a little risky.  These things take at least three weeks to ferment; what if, at the end of the process, it turns out that I made some horrible mistake and the lemons become sentient and attempt a hostile coup?  That's clearly something I should warn you all about, lest you make the same mistakes; I can always update as time goes on, but by then, it might be too late.  And I certainly don't want this humble blog to be Patient Zero, infecting you with binary zombie lemon disease, resulting in some terrible dystopian futureworld.

However, I finally decided to do a little write-up, because 80 dishes is a lot and I shouldn't be too picky and should fill up the recipes slots with whatever is available, and besides, the possibility of my creating a new life form seems negligible (though I am not good at statistics, so don't ask to see my data on this matter).  Also, preserved lemons are an integral part of North African cooking, something I will almost certainly need for other dishes, and I like the idea of attempting to make all parts of the food I discuss be as from-scratch as possible (one of the many benefits of my privileged life of leisure as the trophy wife of a...grad student?).  Also also, preserved lemons seem pricey, and regular lemons are dirt cheap during the Arizona citrus season (which is coming to a close), and this seems like a nice, relatively inexpensive way to keep a little bit of the phx winter with me as the blazing summer months approach.

OK, so, to begin, gather ye lemons while ye may, along with a cinnamon stick, a bay leaf, a few whole cloves, kosher salt, and a suitable boy jar.  As you can see, I am using an old sauerkraut jar, because we (I) are essentially packrats who do not part with anything that could potentially be used as part of a grand storage scheme.

If any of the Frank's people are reading, I am open to endorsement deals.

You should always be sure to sterilize your jar before use, because even though the vast quantities of salt should be enough to keep any critters at bay, you don't want to risk contamination with any food that you'll be leaving to sit out for weeks.  I filled the jar with boiling water, covered the jar lid (sitting next to the jar in the plastic dish) with additional boiling water, and let them both sit while I prepared the lemons; this admittedly seems like a half-assed sterilization method, but it's worked for me so far.  (You can also use a dishwasher, or submerge everything in boiling water, or use a low heat setting on your oven [though I would be careful of this last option if the jar lids are not fully metallic]).  Once the jar seems acceptably germ-free, drain and dry, and then add the spices.

On to the lemons.  First, slice off the ends of the lemon.

Cutco people!  I will totally shill for you if you send me a new knife block.  (Corey:  this means you.)

Next, you want to slice the lemons into wedges, but leave the base intact. 

Like this.

The lemon should be cut into six wedges, then gently pulled apart to facilitate salting.  For six or seven lemons, you'll want about 1/2 cup salt (sea or kosher seem to be the preferred varieties; I used kosher salt that may very well have made the trip out when we moved cross-country).

Pre-salting.  Tip:  Do NOT salt the lemons if you have a paper cut.  Ouch.

Rub the salt into the wedges, covering as much of the flesh as possible.  Once sufficiently salted, add the lemons to your jar, pushing and squeezing them to extract the juice and pack as many in as possible.  Juice any extra lemons and use the juice (or bottled lemon juice) to cover the jarred lemons.  Any leftover salt can also be added now.  Use the rind from one of the juiced lemons to help push down the lemons (they should all be completely submerged), then screw on the lid.

Ready for the pantry, or perhaps the citrus rebellion.

And there you have it.  Pop these bad boys into a cool, dark place and let the salts and acids do their thing.  The lemons should be ready to go in three to four weeks; in the meantime, you'll want to give the jar a good shake every day or so to help re-dissolve any salts that precipitate out.

Expect to see these little balls of sunshine-in-a-jar in a near(ish) future post, at which point I will let you know how they've turned out.  That, or my fears will be realized and I will be welcoming our new citrus overlords; just in case, I would like to point out now that, as a trusted blog personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

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.)