In a Pickle

Last hurrah for autumn.

One thing I love about the coming of fall is the bounty of produce available. I start plotting what to can during the summer, subject to change with the whims of the Farmer's Market. Cabbage for sauerkraut, Bok Choy for kimchi, Carrots and Cauliflower for pickled vegetables, Lemons for preserved lemons, Onions for relish, Fruits for jams, and a big favorite around our house, Cucumbers for pickles.

We generally only make two kinds of pickles, Kosher Dills, and Bread and Butter pickles. This afternoon I put up 8 quarts of bread and butter pickles. That should last us the winter. I think. Something about the sweet and sour taste, and the crispness that makes them irresistible.

Fermented foods are supposed to be good for your digestive system. I have no reason to doubt it, besides, they just taste good. We make all the pickled vegetables including the ever potent kimchi, kombucha, beer, sourdough bread, yogurt. I haven't gotten into making kefir yet, but I think that is coming. Also on my hit list is pickled beets. Anyone have a good recipe?

So what are your favorite pickle-ized things?  Anyone make Lemon Curd?  What other foody things do you have to share?

Pickles in waiting.

And still waiting. These are very patient cucumbers. I recommend them.

Super secret pickling concoction swirling in the pan.

Before and after. Ready for transformation. 

What's Cookin'

Kimchi

So what has the Periphery been doing the past month? Fermenting food! This is what started us on our fermenting adventure, Kimchi. Pickled napa cabbage with hot pepper paste, diakon radish, carrots, green onions, garlic and fish sauce. I make mine a bit milder than normal, since I don't like getting the top of my head blown off with the gochugaru - powdered red chili peppers. Fermented in the crock for a couple weeks and cold packed in Mason jars. Another batch and we'll be ready to get through the winter in style.

Pounds O'Cabbage

This is regular green cabbage, a couple of volleyball sized heads. Don't let the size of the bowl fool you, it's enormous. This cabbage was destine to be sauerkraut. Yes, again with the pickled cabbage.
This batch had cabbage, carrots, some red onions, and spices. Just the basics.

Kraut in Crock

This is the kraut nestled in my 1.6 gallon crock. No, it is not a stoneware crock. It's a newfangled plastic and clay with vacuum lid. I'd like a stone crock, but they are expensive, and really hard to lift. This crock laughed at my meager pounds of cabbage, and it fermented away nicely for a few weeks. It even has a little plug in the inner liner so you can burp your ferment when needed. 

Sauerkraut

See that lonely little jar on the left? That's cabbage brine. 'Yuck' you say, why save that? Well, it had its use. I made fermented Red Onion Relish. Onions don't ferment on their own, so they need a little help. No pictures of the relish, because it disappeared too fast. Great on burgers and sandwiches. I'm going to make a new (bigger) batch this weekend. The little bit that's left now will go on the Labor Day grill meal.

Kombucha

That lovely jar of liquid is my fermented tea - Kombucha. Kombucha is a sweetened tea that is fermented with a SCOBY (a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). It's in its second stage, I fermented it, put the scoby to rest in its hotel, then added raspberries to the jar for a short second ferment. The SCOBY consumes over 90% of the sugar during fermentation, so it's good for diabetics.  It's got beneficial probiotics and acids. And it has some of the fizz of soda without the drawbacks of soda.

Scoby taking a nap with its brethren in a Mason jar hotel. 

Bottled Kombucha

My raspberry Kombucha safely tucked into bottles. Six sixteen ounce bottles. A few days further fermenting and into the fridge they went. Popped the top on one tonight, and it was wonderful. Light and fizzy tea with hints of raspberry. The next batch is already brewing. I think it will be pomegranate tea. What's next on the fermentation hit parade? As soon as the weather cools, sourdough bread. And in the future - Kefir. (Yogurt with a tang.)

What's cookin' in your neck of the woods?

Culinary Catastrophes

Some kind of flower that was probably tastier than my dinner.

Has this ever happened to you - You go out to a restaurant, order an average meal with the rest of your friends, and when it comes, something is just... off about it. I am always the lucky one in the bunch that gets the mispackaged, wrong ingredient, somewhat out of kilter meal. There's a lot of things I can't eat, so I don't go near them. I'm not picky, really, but sometimes I just want to have an ingredient left off my food. 

Take cilantro, for example. I'm one of the people that thinks cilantro tastes like soap. But I love Mexican food. So I ask for it without cilantro. Usually if there are a few flakes of it in the food, I'm okay. I'm trying to build up a tolerance, since it seems to be integral to Mexican cooking. I got to the point where I can eat a dish with a sprinkling of cilantro on it. Good, right? 

So tonight we go out to a Mexican restaurant, I order tacos al pastor. I figure it would have some cilantro in it. No big deal. My dinner comes, and my poor tacos are covered with two fistfuls of cilantro. Man sized fistfuls. My tacos looked like a green Irish field. And it was mostly stems. I can tolerate chopped up leaves, but stems taste more like a soap dish than anything I've encountered. I spent five minutes picking my tacos reasonably clean. Ate them with a few leaves. Washed them down with a margarita I had the foresight to order. Debated a second margarita, but decided it was only a one margarita catastrophe. 

It wouldn't have been so bad, but for lunch the office ordered sandwiches from a local deli-like place. I got the red pepper hummus with cheddar, avocado mash, cukes, lettuce and tomatoes. It looked okay when I unwrapped it. After a few bites I grew suspicious and opened it up. Sure enough, my red pepper hummus sandwich had no hummus on it. And the piece of cheese was the size of a strip of jerky. I was basically eating a salad, on bread. Not what I envisioned for lunch. 

So my day is 0 for 2. Even the margarita couldn't put the day's culinary input in the win margin.  The only saving grace to the day was a wayward peanut butter cup and a strong mug of chai tea. 

How has your week been, food wise? 

Fragment Friday - Post Turkey Somnolence

Thanksgiving Day Duck, it was what was for dinner on the Periphery. Seven pounds of ducky goodness. The Corgis approved!

1.  Hoping everyone survived Thanksgiving with wits and digestion intact. The Periphery feasted on Honey Curried Duck, duck fat fried potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls, green beans, caramelized onions, assorted wines, and two offerings of pie - traditional Pumpkin and crowd favorite Caramel Whiskey Apple Pie. We also had half of a metal band over to dine with us. It may start a new tradition - Feed a starving band. How was YOUR Thanksgiving?

2.  I opted out of any Black Thursday or Friday craziness. There's nothing I need that bad. I enjoyed my day far more just sitting around, drinking wine, petting the Corgis and slipping them scraps of duck. My theory is the Internet will provide. If it can't be bought online from the comfort of my living room, I don't want it. 

3.  I'm happy with my decision to avoid NaNoWriMo and Poem A Day this November. I've accomplished a lot of writing on my own, and if I need a few days to contemplate a turn of phrase, I don't feel like a clock is ticking ominously over my shoulder. I do not subscribe to the Must Write Every Day theory of writing. Those writers can have the moral high ground, I don't need it.

4.  While filling the bird feeders for Thanksgiving, I found a little chickadee hanging upside down off a tree branch two feet from my face. He chirped and bounced and carried on the whole time. He wanted me to hurry and get the feeders and suet filled, so he could pig out. I love that chickadees have no fear, and cheer and brighten your day. Half an ounce of pure happiness. 

5.  Buying Christmas presents for the grandkids is a lot of fun. Where else do you get a chance to make someone's dreams come true? And they are such minor dreams - but still important. Don't forget in your holiday rush to perform a Random Act of Kindness. Wave someone ahead of you on the road, keep other people's children entertained while waiting in line,  let someone's boss know they did an excellent job. You have the ability to make another person's day - so why not?

 

Dessert - a Caramel Whiskey Apple Pie. Two piece limit if you were driving...

 

The Mostly Food, Camera Post

Stuff we've been eating, which all seems to have that same orange-brown veneer. Yes, there have been green stuff, vegetables even, but they aren't as photogenic as other things. Yet.

Pondering a new camera, either a newer digital point and shoot (mine is from 2004, a whopping 4 megapixels) or a leap forward into a digital SLR. Which would be a serious step up from the point and shoot and also a serious increase in price.

Anyone got any opinions on either type? Looking at a Nikon for the point and shoot, and a Pentax for the digital SLR, mainly because it comes with two lens - a wide to normal, and a zoom.

It would make pictures like these come out a lot better, that's for sure. (For the record, most of these were not cooked by me, but by someone who actually follows the written directions. Scott. I can claim only the potatoes and hens.)

Honey and Ginger Curried Duck

 Bouillabaisse from Mastering The Art of French Cooking

 A repeat picture meal, Lobster in White Sauce with Vermouth

 Generic Fried Potatoes a la Mom

 Honey-glazed Rock Cornish Game Hens

Lobster and Crab Seafood Quiche

.

Pre-Hike Cooking, non-Corgi Type

Yes, it's over 90 degrees out and I'm baking. But I wanted something to take with me on a hike this weekend and frankly, commercial granola bars are icky. Commercial power bars are worse - do they save the old chalk from elementary school to mix with the chocolate?

So I set out to make my own version of a power granola bar.

Oats, wheat flour, real butter, the last of my Montana raspberry honey, dried cranberries, chopped up nuts (cashews, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds), some shredded coconut, chocolate chips, cinnamon, dried milk. . . and probably other things I can't remember off hand.


As you may recall I'm a wing-it type of cook. I kinda sorta have a piece of paper with scrawled notes, measurements, and grease stains all over it. Hope I can resurrect my basic steps. I'm going to need them. The Corgi-Slave Energy Bars came out great, very tasty and chock full of Stuff. Wonderful, except for one thing. They didn't stick together as well as I wanted them to. I'm going to have to make another pan and tinker with the ingredients some more. Hmm, I see there's a stray box of Rice Crispies on my shelf . . . I could throw those in too.

While I was concocting, I decided to make some hummus. Yes, I know hummus and power bars really do not go together. The beans were on the counter, begging to be used. As long as I had dishes to wash I might as well make it worth my while. The hummus is another wing it recipe, but really hard to screw up. This version was roast garlic, with some extra roast sesame seeds.


Now I'm off to do some Internet shopping to replenish ingredients. You know hard hard it is to get tahini in Wyoming? I just hope I don't end up on someone's watch list for ordering garam masala, tahini, Masa paper, dioxazine purple, and a new folding knife, all at the same time. The only thing all those ingredients adds up to is a very colorful mess. - Kids, don't try this at home. -

Boy, I'm so glad I'm not a kid anymore.

When The Pizza Won't Come To Wyoming...

I get desperate and make my own. Only Anonymous can save me from baking my own pie in the scorching heat of August. I'm just saying...

Since my hometown is the only place I could find broccoli on a pizza (quit cringing - *g* thin sliced and topped with olive oil, it's great! ) I've made my own version numerous times. This one was bella mushroms and red peppers, however. Not that you can see that under the cheese. Mozzarella, asiago, and fontina. Imported cheese that a friend brought back from out of state for me. When you're in good pizza withdrawl, Kraft doesn't cut it.

Anyone else out there make their own pizza? What do you put on it? Anything odd, or just the straightforward? If you must resort to ordering out, what pizza place gets your call?