Tag: cooking

Cool as a cucumber

Who am I kidding?

Life has gotten a little overwhelming these days, and so has my cucumber patch.  Back in July I planted two cute little cucumber plants, that have proceeded to take over the rock in front of them (meant to divert them from growing into the grass, the fence, the neighbor’s side of the fence, and a big lady statue that came with the house.  As a result, we’ve been eating cucumbers every day since late July and making lots, and lots, and lots of pickles.  Basically, friends and family can expect pickles as  Solstichristmakwanzukah gifts and we will still have enough to get us through the winter.

I’d love to say that I’m thriving in the excitement of the 58 hours of work, home renovations (we plastered and painted BOTH bedrooms last weekend), and part-time freelance dance gigs.  Generally speaking, I crave a busy schedule and function better when I have plenty of things to occupy my head space. 

But I think last week I realized what my limits are.  When you can’t find the time to go to the dentist, brush your hair, or feed your cats, maybe it’s become a bit too much. 

If I’m to be my best self, all the time, I’m going to have to figure out what the balance is between busy and TOO busy.

I guess you have to experience the extremes before you can find that sweet spot where you have enough things on your plate to feel important, but also enough time and energy to putts around at home and pick cucumbers.

Pass the syrup

I get a hankering for pancakes about every other week. A peculiar pancake craving came over me yesterday morning and, alas, there was no syrup in the pantry. Channeling my inner Better Crocker I converted the logic of a simple syrup to brown sugar. I could not tell the difference, and in fact, I may save myself $7 for a 12 oz. bottle of maple syrup and make it this way all of the time…
Brown Sugar Pancake Syrup
1/2 cup of pressed brown sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup hot water (not boiling)
Directions:
  1. Pour hot water into a small sauce pan containing brown sugar and cornstarch. Set heat to medium-high and whisk until sugar dissolves.
  2. Stir constantly until boiling.
  3. Continue to boil for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly
  4. Pour into serving pitcher and enjoy hot or cooled.

WWLID: What would Laura Ingalls Do?

I’m still on a bit of a pioneer kick and as the wind whips against the window panes and the air turns colder, my thoughts are turning to winter, using up what precious fresh market produce I have left and making it last.
While I won’t have the burden of hiking through 6 feet of snow to shoot jack rabbits, I’d like to eat an apple in the middle of the winter and not pay $2.39 a pound for a mealy, squishy, overall bad apple. At times like this, I ask myself, “What would Laura Ingalls do?” How would Laura eat an apple in February without one of those big box stores that now roam the high prairie in greater numbers than jack rabbits?
Thus, today was my first attempt at making dried fruit from scratch. No more mealy, squishy apples in winter; no more $4.00 for a bag of air and sulfur dioxide.
Want to try too? It was super easy!
—
Dried Fruit
Fruit of choice
1 lemon
12 cups water
Directions:
1. Wash or peel fruit, then pit or core if applicable. Slice larger fruits into thin slices.
2. Soak in lemon water for a few minutes while oven pre-heats at 90-150 deg-F
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment and place in a single layer, not touching.
4. Place trays in oven and wait several hours. Resist the urge to turn up the heat.

5. Let sit out over night (at least 12 hours) before packing away in air-tight containers

Living simple is complicated

After returning from a weekend trip away, the cupboard is bare. I always make a point before traveling of using up any fresh ingredients that might spoil while I’m away. But this was a rather whirlwind trip, and it didn’t occur to me that (1) it wasn’t really long enough for everything to spoil, and (2) there was no time before returning to work to go to the store and replenish the bounty.

As a result, the past few days have been really-creative-meal wise. Determined to eat at home and not order food (having eaten in restaurants for the entire weekend), I was nearly brought to tears standing in the kitchen at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night mashing pinto beans by hand into refried beans (for which I have no salsa or chips) with a red sauce made from frozen tomatoes and a slightly past-peak summer squash on the stove, and a mystery casserole in the oven.

Tears of joy, or tears of pain?
Yes.

It feels pretty good to take a pantry of nothing and freezer of next to nothing and make four full days of food out of it. It is envigorating to make things from scratch; if I have one goal in life it’s to make as many things from scratch as possible. And, I feel as though I could definitely survive an atomic bomb or the apocalypse given my uncanny ability to create a variety of meals from dried beans, rice, chicken, frozen tomatoes and slightly off squash.

On the other hand, no one should be mashing beans after 9pm on a school night.

When people lived in a time where everything was made from scratch they had the whole day to mash beans, churn butter, bake bread, whatever. I, on the other hand, am required to spend eight hours of the day with my butt in a chair and have few precious moments between, say, 8 and 11pm to try and “live simply”. I’m not saying I work harder; butt-in-chair is not hard, it’s just extremely time consuming.

So what, then, is the point? Why do I do this to myself when I could, with a lot less effort and a roughly equal amount of money, eat a TV dinner every night? It almost feels like in this day and age, living “simply” is less simple than living a technological, busy-body, microwaved life. Why does everyone say “I’m so busy,” or “I don’t have any time” when we spend SO much time sitting on our butts?

Say Pickles!

‘Tis pickling season! You know it’s come when you see mass quantities of Ball jars on sale everywhere. How fortunate are those who have such an overabundance of home-grown vegetables that the only way to deal with them is to pickle and can them? With fresh inspiration from the edu-tent at the Glenwood Sunday Market, and the fortuitous acquisition of a bounty of cucumbers (from a location which I wish not to disclose at this juncture…), I shall pickle.
After making a seriously good batch of refrigerator pickles (bread and butter, of course), I’m left with a sinking feeling. Do I put them in a hot water bath until the jar lids make that popping sound? Do I simply put on the lid and store in the fridge? Dear me, I can’t remember! I choose hot water bath. However, after noticing a slight sediment that has formed in my pickle jars, and confirmation from GSM’s pickling expert Toni that they needn’t be hot water bathed, I have serious regrets. I hope that six months from now, when I crack open that jar in the middle of a Chicago blizzard, that that my dear pickles that tasted so yummy this morning don’t disappoint…. or give me a case of botchulism.
Want to try it yourself?
Easy Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles (courtesy of grouprecipes.com)
8 small pickling cucumbers, washed (not peeled), and very thinly sliced
1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
4-1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp crushed dry red pepper flakes
1/2 celery seed (in my case, optional)
Directions:
1-Combine all ingredients in a soup pot and heat to boiling, stirring occasionally

2-Boil one minute, stirring frequently
3-Pour mixture into a large bowl, cool to room temperature
4-Cover and chill overnight before serving
5-Spoon into jars with tight fitting lids and refrigerate for up to four weeks…. (jury is still out whether or not you can use hot water bath to extend shelf life and seal jars. I’ll let y’all know when I crack them open in a couple months).

Churning day is highly overrated


I have a serious desire to milk a cow. With no room for a cow pasture in my yard (and the likelihood of serious backfire from my landlady), I’m at the disposal of the back wall of my local grocery store. However, with fresh inspiration from the Learn and Grow tent at the Glenwood Sunday Market in tow, I figured if I can’t milk a cow I can at least enjoy the old fashioned joys of making my own supplementary dairy products: butter, yogurt and cheese.

Operation: butter
Status: fail

Either Laura Ingalls was extremely patient AND buff, or I did something wrong. I was meticulous in my choice of half and half (pasteurized, not ultra pasteurized), waited until the cream reached 72 degrees, poured into a mason jar and shook. and shook. And got tired and put it in the kitchen aid mixer. Fifteen minutes later and a seriously hot motor on my mixer and although little butter chunklets did form I simply can’t imagine that 1-1/2 cups of cream only yields a teaspoon of butter. I am defeated. But not discouraged! I shall live to churn another day.