Lauren

Canapolooza 2013

My friend Ann can can.

She might be able to can can too, but trust me, Ann can definitely can.

When I picked up my 40 pounds of tomatoes from Midnight Sun last Sunday for her Labor Day canning party (thinking, “wow, this is a s*#$ ton of tomatoes“), Ann said, “I think we may have different expectations about canning day.”

When two crafty ladies get together with cocktails and 100 pounds of tomatoes, it’s kind of amazing. Aside from the 19 jars of marinara sauce now sit in my pantry ready for the pizza I might make next February, here are some photographic highlights of the day:

Salsa! and, Ann’s extremely enormous pot.

Tomatoes without their skins, waiting to be squished for sauce

Ann makes a brontosaurus out of tomato paste

A Lovely Evening

It’s taken me a long time to learn how to spend time by myself.

I guess I’m still learning, really.

After a year of working 60-80 hours a week, followed by a surprisingly hectic summer, followed by the hit to the face that comes with the first week of school, I was surprised to find myself with three days on my calendar that were actually…. blank.

Huh? What is this strange feeling of time off? The GF is traveling, which means football is off my radar, and I can’t figure out what people do with themselves when this phenomenon called days off occur for every 5 days. Um, well, I guess I’ll, well, polish up seven weeks of upcoming lectures and watch an equivalent 7 hours of Law and Order: SVU on Hulu.

And that’s exactly what happened yesterday.

tumblr_msh3mcTeVw1qmywbko1_500 — wine, jazz, and freezing string beans

I wanted today to be different. I wanted Sunday to be this productive day where I do this that I claim to be doing on my blog and Pinterest while I’m really sitting on the couch with Detective Tutuola. After a somewhat thorough cleaning of the kitchen and laundry-doing earlier today, I put on some jazz music, opened the windows and a bottle of wine, and got a bit crafty. It’s about time I lived up to my name.

So, I repurposed my mother’s old kitchen curtains into a sassy new apron, baked a pan of chicken for my lunches this week, and froze most of the vegetables that arrived in my CSA this morning – while wearing the new apron (naturally).

I’m sure you find this all very interesting, but now as I sit at my desk, listening to the sounds of the city out the window and rumbles of thunder as a storm approaches, Ella Fitzgerald humming softly on the stereo, sipping my glass of wine, feeling accomplished, I couldn’t ask for a more perfect evening. With all due respect, Detectives, you’ve been replaced (for now).

tumblr_msh5h2upkZ1qmywbko1_500 — A new apron, fashioned from Mother’s drapes.

Tomatillo Overload!

The canning begins…

Just as I’m preparing to go back to school for another semester we are reaching a critical point in the season in which Lauren buys a ridiculous amount of produce in an effort to overstock her pantry with Ball jars full of food for the winter.

It’s about to get crazy in that little kitchen in the city.

On a whim, I bought six quarts of tomatillos at the Andersonville Farmers Market from my friends at Midnight Sun and decided it would be a good idea to have enough salsa verde around to withstand the apocalypse…. this is how I did it:

Tomatillo Salsa

(recipe courtesy of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)

Ingredients:

5-1/2 cups chopped, cored, husked tomatillos
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped seeded green peppers (your choice of heat… I used a bunch of banana peppers and one jalapeno with a few of the seeds for the whole batch, because I’m not a “burn your face off salsa” kind of girl.
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 tsp lime juice
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 TB finely chopped cilantro
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes

Prepare your canner, jars and lids.*

In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium-low and boil gently, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender or food processor and puree until semi-smooth.

Ladle or pour hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/2″ headspace in the jars. Gently remove air bubbles by poking into the jar with a knife and adding salsa as needed. Wipe rim, center seal on jar, and screw band down until fingertip-tight.

Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid, wait 5 min, then remove jars, cool, and store.

*You’ll need a big soup pot that’s deep enough to submerge your jars in water. Place empty jars in pot and fill with water until jars are covered. Heat over med-high heat while you prepare salsa. This will sterilize the jars and heat them (hot salsa into hot jars to process). Bands and seals should be gently heated in a small saucepan until ready to use.

Makes about two pint jars. I, of course, quadrupled the recipe to get the haul you see here…

Starbucks Around the World: Beloit, WI Again

What do you call rolling around in the mud with a few hundred people you’ve never met before? You call it the Warrior Dash; I call it a heck of a weekend. For the second year in a row I made a pilgrimage to Johnson Creek, Wisconsin to jump over fire, swim through a murky lake, climb cargo nets and traverse a few muddy mountains. I couldn’t think of a much better way to celebrate than a Warrior Misto from the Starbucks in Beloit just over the state line. This is my second stop in Beloit, and a different store. And this time, I’m wearing this awesome t-shirt.

You Can Can Cranberry Juice!

On the road toward self-sufficiency in the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I’ve managed to can and preserve tomatoes, beets, and cucumbers, but I imagine no apocalypse is complete without a Vodka cocktail.

This is one of three reasons I decided to try my hand at making cranberry juice on the 4th or July.

The other two reasons? I had three bags of cranberries in the freezer leftover from a 10 for $10 sale at the grocery store about 10 years ago, and, they’re red. You know… 4th of July. I can be patriotic sometimes too.

This recipe comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which has become a dog-earred crusty staple in my household. The description even mentions the inevitability of adding this juice to cocktails, and after this I may never see another bottle of Ocean Spray.

Cranberry Juice

Cranberries (fresh of frozen)
Water
Granulated Sugar (to taste*, optional)

Directions:

In a large, deep saucepan, combine equal parts cranberries and water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to boil gently for about 5 minutes (the berries will burst open… don’t be alarmed).

Transfer to a strainer lined with a few layers of damp cheesecloth. Let drip, undisturbed, for about two hours.**

In a clean pan, combine juice with sugar, if desired.* Heat to 190-F and hold at 190 for 5 minutes, without letting it boil.

Ladle hot juice into hot, sterilized jars leaving 1/4″ headspace (2.5 bags of cranberries made about 2 quarts of juice). Center the lid and screw band down fingertip-tight. Place in canner completely covered by water and bring to a boil. Process for 15 minutes. Remove lid and turn heat off, and wait 5 minutes before removing from the canner. Cool on the counter and store.

* To put your portions into perspective, I used about 1 C. of sugar for my 2.5 bags of cranberries, and it’s a little too sweet for my taste.

** This is Ball talking and I didn’t have 2 hours to let the juice drain naturally. Though it’s probably the best practice and I’d never dispute the canning Bible, let’s face it, I let it sit about 30 minutes, squeezed a bunch out manually, and everything seemed to turn out fine.

The Beautiful Garden that I Only Sort of Grew…

I am fulfilled.

$75 and some prompt attention to the Vedgewater registration deadline landed me a little plot of earth to play with for the summer. I love apartment living, but really miss digging in the dirt. With less availability for farming this summer, this little 4′ x 8′ raised bed is all I need to get my gardening fix. Shortly before leaving for Wyoming we planted a bunch of stuff before it really should have been planted, and then there was a cold snap that killed some peas and onions and nearly zapped the overly-expensive tomato plants from Gethsemane Garden Center. So even though I left a note on the community board and gave friends free reign to play in our garden I fully anticipated returning home after three weeks to a wooden frame of dead plants.

Instead, there was this:

Beans, carrots (hidden under a mountain of squash), cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries. Along the perimeter of the bed are marigolds from recycled seeds and three heads of lettuce that were harvested for dinner that night. It’s still rather astounding to me that I can put a few little pellets in the ground and grow my dinner, but deserting a garden that sits on top of a concrete slab in Chicago for three weeks and returning to a fully grown dinner is pretty frickin’ mind-blowing.

Apparently a hands off approach + three weeks of rain = Bountiful Urban Garden.

Yeah. Mind-blowing.

I think the abundance of worm poo added to the bed had a lot to do with it, and I’m pretty sure I used up every morsel of good gardening karma I had left, but for the bowl of lettuce alone I’ll take it.

Pride, Organized Chaos, and a Crafty Lady

At times the chaos was only somewhat organized, but when a group of strong, resilient motorcycle chicks work together to get a non-profit organization up and running in six months, put on a major fundraising event and secure participation in the Chicago Pride Parade, there are bound to be a few moments of contention.

But in the end, everything got done, the fundraiser was successful, and nearly 50 bikes lined up two by two to take Pride by storm.

What do I have to do with motorcycles? Not much, but over the past year I’ve come to really appreciate the culture and solidarity these women give so much of their time and money to. There really isn’t a valid comparison to being out on the open road with the wind in your face, and the loyalty that comes from being a part of a community of riders.

Plus, it goes really well with the vintage image…

The view in the rear view mirror at Chicago Pride 2013

I kid…

…not really.

But seriously, I’ve had the pleasure of working on media relations and social media for these women for the past 3 months and it’s been such a joy to become involved with the newly born, philanthropic 501(c)3 Organized Chaos – Chicago. As an Associate Member of the club (which basically means I get to hang out with them and ride on the back of my gf’s motorcycle…) OC took me under their wing and helped me to meet my fundraising goal for the Ride for AIDS Chicago with a smashing event at Spyner’s. I thought about their generosity a lot this past Saturday while I was peddling 80 miles in my last big training ride before riding 200 miles in 2 days, and I thought about it again yesterday as we proudly rocked the crowds on Halsted Street.

Here are a few pictures from Pride, and be sure to check out Organized Chaos if you ride, want to ride, or just want to be a part of an incredible group of women (like me). Photos (except for my mugshot) courtesy of chicago.gopride.com

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