Mmmmm...Raspberry Sauce

I can't remember if it was an experiment or a mistake, but last summer I made and canned raspberry sauce for the first time. When I make jam, I don't use pectin, just sugar and a longer boiling time, so it could be that I'd set out to make jam and just didn't boil the fruit down for long enough. I honestly don't know. But, experiment or mistake, I loved the raspberry sauce I made, it was delicious over waffles, french toast, ice cream, chocolate cake and brownies, and most of all, over creme brulee. I was on the look out this summer for when the raspberries would show up at the farm stands. While out in the La Conner area about two weeks ago I found a stand selling half flats for just $6, so I bought two. The berries sat in our extra 'fridge for about a week, partially due to procrastination, but mostly due to work obligations and the short get-a-way trip the husband and I took to Victoria. I did finally get around to turning those lovely berries into sauce and canning it. I ended up with 11 half pint jars of sauce and one partial jar that I refrigerated instead of canning. I had a jar from last summer open, and decided to do a side by side taste test. It reminded me of a part-time job I used to have at a winery when I lived in California, in our staff meetings, we sometimes did side-by-side tastings of the same wine but different vintages. So I'm going to give it my best "wine-speak" review, here goes: The 2009 vintage raspberry sauce was tart and short to start, it was reminiscent of meyer lemons and jasmine. It's finish was smooth, sweet, and light. The 2010 vintage raspberry sauce is sweet and more full bodied from start to finish, it reminds me of honey, and nectarines with the slight spice of nutmeg. Neither sauce had strong tannins, even though the seeds were left in the sauce (I like them and don't strain them out). The 2009 is a developed sauce whose flavors have had time to mingle, the 2010, though young, drinks well now and will only continue to improve.Now, don't you think I need to be a dessert sauce sommelier and get paid lots of money to tell people what they are tasting and what it would be good with? New career direction maybe? Naw, I'll just stick with spending my days in a classroom teaching math and in my free time I'll enjoy my homemade raspberry sauce.Speaking of which, only a few more days until I'm back to work full-time. I think having an untraditional year this last school year has made me feel a bit anxious about going back to full-time brick and mortar work. I'm excited and looking forward to the year, I just don't always adjust to change as gracefully as I could. I need to work on that.

Vintage Food Preserving Poster

There's a reason I feel connected to the past when I preserve food through canning and freezing...another poster from here.

Salsa Making

There was a plethora (great word huh?) of tomatoes in my kitchen, all needing to be used before they went bad, so I made some salsa this morning. I'm trying to keep busy right now, to keep from being too lonely...so after Bambino and I went for a nice long walk this morning, this chore was next on my list. I obviously used tomatoes, also some Walla-Walla onions from the garden, cilantro, lime juice, a few chilis, and a bit of salt. Last I checked, the jars were cooling and popping their seals in on the kitchen counter. I'm not sure when the first jar will be opened for use, but I'm curious to see how it turned out. There was lots of chopping involved, but I'm hoping the finished product will make it worth it...The next couple of days will look a little different than normal around here...instead of my usual "Fresh Cut Flower Friday", I'm working on a post for the husband's birthday. He's going to be busy diving and such on the first leg of his trip, but maybe he'll get time to take a look...if not then there's always later one, it's the thought that counts right? He reads my blog, but not religiously.

Also, I've come up with a fun (to me) idea to keep me occupied in the evenings while I'm alone...it came to me actually last night as I was getting my dinner together. More on that probably on Saturday.

Overwhelmed

I'm overwhelmed today...lots to do and it seems there's never enough time to do it all. I need to take a deep breath...to be honest I know I can finish everything, just not in the amount of time I want to finish it in.

I walked into our pantry this morning and inhaled the delicously sweet scent of ripe pears...nice right? Well to show you how stressed I feel today, my first thought when I smelled those lovely pears was "Crap, now I've got to figure out when to do the canning, I thought I could hold off until Saturday, guess not"...again, deep breath!

I'm working on finishing up the training for my new job, I still have some nursing covers to finish up, the garden could use some attention, the chicken coop needs to be cleaned out by tomorrow - Friday at the latest, I still need to come up with some aprons to show to a gal who owns a local wine shop, and I need to go by Bungalow Bay and give Michelle some new stuff (and pick up the $$ I've made - yay!). To top it off I've watched a few of the episodes of the A&E show "Hoarders", which brings up some of the horrible habits that my maternal grandmother had when she was alive (definitely a long story there). The show gives me these OCD impulses to clean our house, organize things and purge things. In the end probably not a bad thing, but still, it doesn't help with the stressed out feeling I'm having.

On a bright note, I'm wearing my DMB Toms shoes which make me happy, and I am going to meet up for coffee with the friend whose baby I made the quilt for, even better, I get to meet the baby too.

One thing at a time, one thing at a time!

Can, Can, Can You Do The Can-Can?

I spent a long day in the kitchen, we're talking from 9 am until 8 pm. Admitedly, some of that time was spent eating breakfast and lunch and getting dinner ready, but the rest of the time I was canning food. The pantry is pretty full at this point and I still plan to can pears in a couple of weeks. So here's the canning totals for the summer so far:

saur kraut 12 quarts

marinara sauce 16 pints

pickles 4 quarts

blueberry jam 7 half-pints

strawberry/blackberry jam 4 half-pints

strawberry/nectarine sauce 6 half-pints

raspberry sauce 6 half-pints

nectarines 6 quarts, 2 pints, 27 half-pints

Not bad if I do say so myself. All of that is paid-for, preservative/additive-free food, made from produce that was in picked ripe and in-season. The nice part is that so far the majority of my canning jars are second generation (purchased last year), so the cost to can food has been lower. I've still had to purchase new lids and a couple of cases of quart sized jars, but that's very manageable. Last year was the expensive year, purchasing all of the equipment to make the canning process easy.

All-in-all, with the canned food and the food I've frozen, it seems that we're making progress towards eating in a more local and healthy way than we have in the past. Woooo-hooooo!

Marinara Sauce

Last Saturday I spent many, many hours turning 25 pounds of locally grown tomatoes into 16 pints of marinara sauce (plus enough for Saturday night's dinner). I followed (loosely) the recipe for tomato sauce given in Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The reason it took so many hours was that the stock pot I used to make the sauce only held about half of the tomatoes pureed...so two batches were necessary. Each batch has to boil down from a juice consistency to a sauce.

So was it worth it?? I had this discussion with the husband right before we fell asleep at 1 am, exhausted. It was a quick conversation, but essentially I shared with him that it had been worth it...purchased, a jar of sauce that was made from scratch of this quality would go for $3-6, easily. But it is about more than just money...we are trying to be more aware of what we are eating, for the past several years, the husband has suffered migraines when he eats food with preservatives and additives. Since I've known him I have been carefully reading labels. But by making it myself, I know exactly what went into it, sure of the fact that it is good for us. Even more, it feels good to know that I am able to do take whole foods and turn them into something that will nourish us in the months to come. Yes, it was worth it.

Canning Cabbage into Saur Kraut

I made sour kraut with the cabbage that grew in my garden...this was my first time attempting to can a vegetable, I've just tried fruits and chutneys at this point.
I started by sanitizing twelve quart-sized regular mouth canning jars and lid rings.

I used the sani-rinse cycle on my dishwasher...the alternative would be boiling the jars in a water bath.Then I cut my cabbage into small pieces. To start, I had four large purple cabbage heads and two small green heads (I forgot to take a picture before this step - oops).Once the cabbage was cut I put the lids into a kettle of water - the water doesn't need to be boiling, just hot.

This is also a good time to fill up the canning kettle and get it onto the stove, it's quite a bit of water so it will take a while to boil.

Then the cabbage was stuffed into the jars. I pushed it down to make sure it was tightly packed in.

The next step was to put a teaspoon of salt (I use sea salt) and a teaspoon of sugar into each jar. It is okay just to dump it on the top, it will dissolve in when the water is added.After this, I put a teaspoon of vinegar into each jar - I used half each of white vinegar and apple cider vinegar, but using either one alone would work also.

An optional step is to put pickling spice into the jars as well - I happen to like it quite well. I also put about 5-7 peppercorns into each jar.

Water is the next step, pour hot water into each jar up to it's neck.

Place each lid on a jar then screw on the lid rings.

Put the jars into the canning kettle and boil with the lid on for 25 minutes (about 5 minutes longer if you live at a high elevation).

Remove the jars from the canning kettle and listen for the pop they make as each jar seals.
This sour kraut is supposed to sit for at least 8 weeks before it can be used to get a proper fermentation,...this should be just in time for Octoberfest! My inner German girl is definately excited!