Hot Hot Hot!

Of all the things I planted in the garden this year, my cucumbers were the most prolific, with the Anaheim peppers close behind. The serrano, jalapeno, and habanero peppers also did well. So, what to do with all those peppers?

I made a couple of kinds of hot sauce! Sadly, I won't eat either one, but they are being distributed to friends. One is a mixture of roasted jalapeno and serrano peppers plus garlic and vinegar and a single habanero, and the other is a mixture of onion, carrot, and several habaneros. The former is green, the latter is electric orange and could be aerosolized and used as a chemical weapon (capsaicin. It's not just for the Military anymore!)

Carrot Habanero Hot Sauce

* 1 large yellow onion, chopped
* 1 clove garlic, diced
* 1 Tbl cooking oil
* 1 1/4 cup shredded carrot
* 2 cups water
* 3-4 habanero peppers
* 2 Tbl lime juice
* 2 Tbl vinegar
* 1 tsp salt

In a large skillet, heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic until translucent. (Do not caramelize!) Add the carrot and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until the carrot is soft. Pour into a blender, add the peppers, lime juice, vinegar and salt, and puree until liquid. Eat, or use to defend yourself against attackers, your choice. Can be served hot or cold, and is probably best used sparingly.

Homemade Goodies

Yesterday I went up into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to go to Takhlakh Lake. We made it almost all the way before my daughter declared she was carsick and we had to pull over (never mind that I was also carsick; I can usually tough it out, but a four year old not so much.)

When we got out to walk around, we discovered a patch of huckleberries. It's legal to take up to 3 gallons of berries per person for personal use each year, and those picking for personal use can pick anywhere in the area except for those sections marked and set aside for the Yakama Indian nation...so we picked. After rooting around for a bag, we picked a few cups and took them home with us. Not enough for jam, but enough for something. A pie? Cobbler? Ice cream? Finally decided on a critter called a "buckle."

I'm not usually a great fan of berries or berry creations, but oh my. This was fantastic. Great hot out of the oven, still great cold, would be lovely with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream but stands completely fine on its own!

HUCKLEBERRY BUCKLE

BATTER
* 1/4 cup butter
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice to taste (1/2 - 1 tsp each)
* 1/2 cup milk

FILLING
* 2 1/2 cups huckleberries
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 1/4 cup flour
* 1/2 cup boiling water
* 1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375. Grease the bottom of a 9 inch square pan. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. In a separate small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, spices and salt. Stir into butter mixture. Stir in milk; mixture will be thick and lumpy. Spread batter into the prepared pan.

In a large bowl, combine berries, sugar, flour and boiling water. Pour over the batter in the pan. Dot the top with remaining butter.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes. Eat hot. YUM!

The sky is falling!

Seems appropriate...wasn't that an apple falling on Chicken Little's head which set the whole thing off? Two things I have a lot of around here right now: chickens and apples.

The three new chickens are still skittish, but getting settled. The one missing a large patch of her back feathers will launch herself at me when I come into the coop, but not to be mean. No, she wants to sit on whatever bowl of food I've brought out so she can gobble her fair share without any of the others picking on her. The other buff orpington will come out and let me hand feed her and pet her, but she doesn't yet go down and join "my girls". The little game hen, now dubbed Racer X, is speedy, flighty, nervous, and the low girl on the totem pole. I did manage to catch her tonight with little effort, and held her and cooed at her for a while until she calmed down. They'll get there eventually, I'm sure. Meanwhile, one of my original girls has a big owie on the back of her comb, presumably where the other girls were picking on her. Turns out that one likes to sit on my lap and cluck to herself and have her wings scritched. I'm sure my neighbor thinks I'm insane; he used to raise chickens by the hundreds, in a very "factory" mindset, and here I am petting mine.

As for apples, well, we have a lot. There's a tree in the front yard which is obviously old, and had a few sad apples stuck on it last fall when we were moving. It's dropped a ton so far, filling a big cardboard moving box with soft-fleshed yellow apples with a bit of surface scabbing but no sign of anything major. Once peeled, they are perfectly acceptable apples. I made some into a pie last weekend, and though I objected to them on the basis that they are soft and don't hold up well after baking, they did have a nice flavor. They're destined to be applesauce though.

We have even more apples than that, though, because we went over to our old house and raided the Emerald Spire columnar apple tree in the back yard. (My parents now own the house, so it's not as weird as it sounds.) We planted the tree three or four years ago, and it's a beautifully compact tree less than 4 feet wide but about 12 feet tall. The apples are big and green, and those that hadn't fallen yet were also smooth skinned and relatively free of anything resembling scab or insect damage. I did find a few with a worm parked right at the stem end, but they appeared to be doing nothing beyond sitting there in a little webby bit. After bringing them home, I slated them for apple pies and apple cheesecake, because I know they are wonderfully firm and have a nice tart flavor that holds up well in baking. I still have a few left, but I canned a batch of yummy apple pie filling today!

Apple Pie Filling
* 6 quarts blanched apple slices
* 5 1/2 cups sugar
* 1 1/2 cups Clear Jel (a food starch, available at WilCo Farm Stores and some baking stores)
* 1 Tbls cinnamon
* 1 tsp nutmeg
* 2 1/2 cups cold water
* 5 cups apple juice
* 3/4 cup bottled lemon juice
* Ascorbic acid powder, or commercial anti-darkening powder for fruit
* At least one 6+ quart saucepot, two very large bowls, and a strainer or sieve
* Quart jars and lids

Prepare your jars and lids for canning, leave the sterile jars hot and leave the lids in the hot water from scalding. Fill your water canner and set on to heat.

Wash, peel, and core your apples. (If you do this a lot, let me recommend a hand-crank apple peeler-corer. I've had mine a couple of years now, and I love it. LOVE it.) Cut apples into 1/2 inch wide slices, place in a large bowl with anti-darkening solution of 1 tsp ascorbic acid to 1 gallon of water, or solution made according to the directions on the bottle.

Remove slices from the solution, drain well. Bring a large pot of water to boil on the stove. Blanch fruit by placing 6 cups of slices in the water, then return it to boiling. Boil each batch for 1 minute after it returns to a boil, then remove the fruit from the water, drain well, and place in a large bowl. Cover the bowl to keep warm.

After all fruit is blanched, drain the pot of water. In the large pot, combine sugar, Clear Jel, cinnamon, nutmeg, water, and applesauce. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble.

Add the lemon juice, stir in well, and boil one more minute, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat, immediately fold in the hot blanched apple slices. Fill hot jars with the pie filling, leaving 1 inch head space. Remove air bubbles with a non-metal spatula, wipe jar rims, adjust the lids. Process in a water bath canner for 25 minutes (pints and quarts.) Makes 5-7 quarts depending on how much your apples shrink during blanching.

What a crock.

No seriously, it's a crock! I was at the local Wilco Farm Store yesterday looking for canning jars and generally poking about in the canning section while my daughter was amusing herself riding the pint-sized tractor. I was about finished with my selections when I happened to glance down to the bottom shelf and realized they had 3 gallon stoneware pickling crocks in stock! It takes so little to make me happy...I squee'd out loud, grabbed one, and stuffed all my pickling supplies inside it.

I'd been on a quest for a stoneware pickling crock for a couple of weeks. For my first batch of dill pickles I used a plastic vacu-sealing bucket, but if I'm going to be soaking foods in acids I'd rather have something besides plastic (even though this particular bucket is deemed "okay" chemically, it just seems better to use stoneware or glass.) I'd searched local secondhand stores, and though I'd found a couple that were gallon sized and would have worked, I hadn't found what I really wanted. I looked online, and while I could find listings for them, most of them were out of stock. Even Lehman's page for crocks marked them all as out of stock; it looks like perhaps one of the primary manufacturers has gone out of business. Of the couple I found, the shipping was in the $20-$30 range, so I saved quite a bit by finding one locally. When I told my husband I'd found one at Wilco, he said, "Go buy another one." Not one to need a lot of encouragement when it comes to geeky old-fashioned farmlike equipment, I swung by there tonight on my way home and dashed in 10 minutes before closing to snag one of their last 3 crocks. Turns out Todd's mother also has a 3 gallon one that used to belong to her mother, which has been sitting in her living room and likely functioning as a plant holder, and which she offered to let me use. More pickles!

So today I stopped by BiZi Farm (support your local farm!) and picked up 6 heads of cabbage, 2 cauliflowers, and a bunch of celery, plus a bag of Bob's Red Mill 13 Bean Soup Mix, some lemon cucumbers, a few peaches, and a book on Log Cabin Cooking since I'm a sucker for pioneer recipes. I came home and shredded all the cabbage and started it fermenting for sauerkraut in one of the new crocks, then I chopped up all the cauliflower and celery plus a row of carrots from our garden and made 5 quarts of pickled vegetable mix for Todd's snacking pleasure. After that, I chopped up 6 pounds of pickling cucumbers and made 11 pints of sweet pickle chips, and started another 10 pounds of dill pickles brining in my other stoneware crock.

And I'm still getting around 5 pounds of cucumbers per day from my garden. Oh dear. I think I shall soon be offering cucumbers to unsuspecting passers-by!

Homemade Sauerkraut

* 20 pounds of cabbage (approximately 6 heads)
* 3/4 cup pickling and canning salt (or NON IODIZED, non-rock salt like Kosher salt)
* 3 gallon crock
* plate or wooden disk that fits inside the crock with 1/4-1/2" clearance around the edges
* cheesecloth

Wash the cabbage heads, remove any wilted leaves. Quarter the heads and remove the core. Cut into very fine shreds, about 1/16" inch, using a sharp knife or a food processor or mandoline. In a large, non-aluminum bowl, place 5 pounds of shreds with 3 tablespoons of the pickling salt. Toss to cover, then allow to rest for 5-10 minutes or until wilted. Pack down firmly into the clean crock, using a wooden tamper if you have one. (The head of a wooden tenderizing mallet will work, or use your hands.)

Repeat with the rest of the cabbage and salt, pressing down firmly on the cabbage in the crock after adding each layer and before adding the next. The cabbage should begin to shed its liquid, and by the time you reach the end of the packing, you should have enough liquid to cover the shredded cabbage. (If you do not, add a brine made of 1-1/2 tablespoons of salt per quart of water until there is sufficient liquid to cover the cabbage entirely.)

Place a layer of cheesecloth on top of the cabbage, and top with a plate or a wooden sauerkraut "lid". Add a weight (a ziploc bag full of water, a canning jar full of water, etc.) to the top of the plate to ensure that the cabbage all stays submerged. Allow to ferment between 55 and 75 degrees for 3-6 weeks. Fermentation is done when bubbles cease to form after the sides are tapped to remove bubbles. If a scum forms on the top, skim it off. Switch plates to a clean one if necessary.

Bring sauerkraut to a simmer (185 to 210degrees F). DO NOT BOIL. Sterilize canning jars and equipment per manufacture instructions, leave jars hot. Pack hot cabbage into hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles with a non-metal spatula run around the inside of the jar. Adjust caps. Process pints 15 minutes, quarts 20 minutes, in a boiling water canner.

Pick a Peck of Pickles

One of the spaces in my garden this year went to pickling cucumbers. I bought a pack of seeds for around $3.00, and started them in the greenhouse. I'm not sure every single seed came up, but it was pretty darn close. And once I moved them to the garden, even though it was late in the season, they took off. They are now producing several pounds of pickles a day. They are thus far the single most productive, useful vegetable I've planted in the garden just in terms of volume picked and used, especially with regard to cost outlay in the beginning.

So far, I've got two gallons of dill pickles brining in the jelly room, using dill from my yard. I also have 8 quart jars and 8 pint jars of bread and butter pickles stored away. In the fridge I have my last three days' worth of pickings, which amounts to enough cucumbers to make about 12 quarts of sweet pickles. And the cucumbers really don't show any signs of slowing down. Pickles anyone?

Brined Dill Pickles

* 15 pounds of pickling cucumbers (whole, small)
* 2-3 bunches of dill heads, fresh or dried
* 3/4 cup pickling spices
* 3 cups white vinegar
* 1 1/2 cups pickling salt (not table salt)
* Garlic cloves (optional)
* water

Wash the cucumbers thoroughly. In a large crock (at least 2 gallons), sprinkle half the pickling spices, and half the dill, and 2-3 cloves of garlic if you wish. Pack with cucumbers to within 4 inches of the top. Add the rest of the salt, pickling spices, and dill. In a large pot, mix the salt with the vinegar and enough water to fill the crock, and add to the crock of cucumbers. Be sure the cucumbers are all submerged in the brine; weight with a wooden block or ceramic plate if necessary.

Let brine in a cool-ish place for 2-3 weeks. Don't stir or disturb, but do make sure the pickles stay submerged. If a scum forms on top, skim off (it's a byproduct of the fermenting process.)

When you're ready to can, strain the brine into a large, non-reactive (stainless steel, enameled, or glass) pot. Bring to a boil. Sterlize your jars and pack with your brined pickles and a small piece of the dill from the crock, then add the hot brine, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Do not overpack.

If your brine is cloudy, it's due to yeast blooming during fermentation. It won't hurt the pickles, and in fact will taste better if you use it, but if you prefer you can make new brine before canning. Use 1/3 cup salt, 4 cups vinegar, and 1 gallon of water, and bring to a boil, proceed as above.

More Ice Cream!

After my success with the mint ice cream, I wanted to try some other flavor. That other flavor was dictated by the fact that I have a strawberry patch in my yard which yields a reasonable amount of berries for a new patch, but not enough at once to make a pie or a batch of jam. But the ice cream recipe I found only required a pint and a half, which was perfect!

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

* 6 Tbls flour
* 3 cups sugar (divided into 2 cups and 1 cup)
* 1 tsp salt
* 4 cups whole milk
* 6 eggs
* 1 1/2 pints (3 cups) fresh strawberries
* 2 Tbls fresh lemon juice
* 4 cups heavy cream
* 2 Tbls vanilla extract
* Crushed Ice
* Rock salt

If you wish, you can substitute whole milk, half and half, or even low-fat condensed milk for the cream. These will lower the calories, but affect the texture. My philosophy: eat less of something really good instead of getting used to crummy food. People getting used to crummy food is what's allowed Fast Food to rise to power.

In a large, heavy saucepan, combine the flour, 2 cups of the sugar, and salt. Use a wire whisk to blend well. Stir in milk and eggs, beat with the whisk until well blended. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until the custard becomes thick and coats the back of a metal spoon well. Should take about 8-10 minutes. Using a candy thermometer or an instant-read thermometer, the temperature should read between 165 to 180 degrees. DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL, as this will cause the custard to curdle and change the texture.

Remove from heat. Place the pot immediately in a large bowl filled with ice and ice water, and stir for several minutes to rapidly cool the custard. This ages the custard and gives the final product better whipping qualities and a smoother finish. After the custard is cooled, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-24 hours. The longer, the better.

One hour before you intend to churn your ice cream, put the berries in a bowl and crush with the lemon juice and the remaining 1 cup of sugar. Allow to stand for 1 hour.

Remove custard from refrigerator. Add the cream, vanilla, and the sugared berries. Proceed with the churning and freezing according to the directions on your ice cream maker. Eat. Be very glad this makes about 3 times as much as the mint ice cream recipe. Still whine that there's not enough.

I did actually make this already, and it's very, very good. I'm not even a big fan of strawberry ice cream, but this is smooth and tastes like actual strawberries instead of some food scientist's idea of strawberry. Plus I know there are no preservatives or artificial colors or flavors in it. Too bad my 4 year old has also rejected this one. Next I think I'll try plain old vanilla and smush up some Oreos in it; that ought to do the trick!

Mint Ice Cream

For several years now, I've grown an herb garden. I have had things such as echinacea, horehound, feverfew, lavender, sage, bay, chives, valerian, and of course mint. My husband has made fun of me in the past for how little I've actually used the products of the herb garden, though I counter that they are as useful in just being attractive and good for local wildlife as they are for human consumption. Still, I decided this year I should make better use of the herbs I do plant. So far, the one I've made the best use of is the mint.

If you've never planted mint, take care. I'm convinced that all the Mentha species are actually invaders from the planet Kudzu, whose sole goal in life is to take over all Earthly garden spaces. While their free-ranging and easily-spreading habits are great when you want to naturalize an area, or when you find them growing wild along streams and springs, it's not so great when you're trying to keep a somewhat orderly herb garden. As a result, both my Peppermint and Spearmint plants are growing in containers this year. I see their little shootlets growing around the edge of the pot, seeking a way to escape and conquer the rest of the bed, but I'm faster than a growing plant and can nip them off before they get away.

And nip I did. I just harvested a cup of fresh leaves for my first ever batch of homemade ice cream. (While my husband came into our relationship with an ice cream maker, he never used it before we started dating, and we've never used it in the almost 8 years since. First time for everything!)

FRESH MINT ICE CREAM

* 2/3 cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 2 1/2 cups whole milk
* 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
* 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped
* 5 large egg yolks
* 1/4 cup honey
* 1/4 tsp table salt
* 1 cup chopped dark chocolate or mini chocolate chips (optional)

Put the mint leaves and sugar into a food processor, and process until the mint is finely ground and blended with the sugar. It will look kind of like green wet sugar at that point. If you don't have a food processor, you can use a blender, or a mortar and pestle.

In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, cream, and vanilla bean (pod included) on medium heat. Stir to keep from sticking.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until they are smooth. Add the minted sugar mixture and combine until smooth.

When the milk mixture steams (do not let it simmer), take 1/4 cup of the hot milk and whisk it briskly into the egg yolk/sugar/mint mixture. Repeat with another 1/4 cup. This is an important step, as it warms and tempers the egg yolks so that they do not scramble on contact with the hot milk. Remove the saucepan from the heat, and slowly pour the mint mixture back into the hot milk mixture, stirring briskly until completely combined.

Return the saucepan to the stove and cook over medium heat. Add honey and salt. Cook and stir until the custard becomes thick and coats the back of a spoon well, 5-10 minutes. (Do not allow to boil.) The custard should hold a line when you draw your finger through it on the back of a spoon.

Set the saucepan into a large bowl filled with ice water, and stir well for several minutes to quickly cool the custard. Cover, and refrigerate until completely cool, at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Pour the custard mixture through a fine mesh strainer to remove the mint leaves and vanilla bean bits. Add chocolate chips if desired. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the directions on the machine. Eat. Whine because there's not enough. Make another batch.

Oh Deer.

The garden is proceeding wonderfully. All three sections of raised bed are finished and filled with compost, a three-way soil mix (dirt, compost, and sand) and vegetables. A lot of work, to be sure! Apparently I'm incapable of doing anything halfway, given the quantities of everything I've planted. For example, we have a three person family consisting of myself (a known hater of vegetables), my four year old daughter (likewise), and my husband. And we have, among many other things:

• 42 tomato plants of various strains including Stupice, Beefsteak, Yellow Brandywine, Brandywine, and Roma.
• 18 Cabbages
• 24 pole beans
• 48 pickling cucumbers
• Rows of carrots, lettuce, chard, radishes, peas
• 10 dozen Walla Walla Sweet onions
• 5 dozen each white and red onions
• 3 dozen asparagus plants
• 3 rhubarb plants (huge)
• Several dozen strawberry plants
• Peppers including a habanero, half a dozen jalapenos and about that many serranos and anaheims
• At least 7 squash plants plus 3 (really weak and sad and potentially dead) zucchini plants
• A whole herb bed including 2 kinds of lavender, 2 kinds of rosemary, purple sage, pineapple sage, feverfew, chard, bee balm, lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon catnip, 2 kinds of thyme, cilantro (EW!), horseradish, 16 basil plants, and 4 kinds of oregano
• Other things including an eggplant, 4 cauliflowers, 3 soy beans, 18 potato plants, some trees and berry bushes yet to be planted.

Why so much if I don't eat many vegetables? I get a kick out of giving food away, out of processing it down into jams and jellies and sauces and eating it that way, and out of drying it for future use in soups and whatnot. It's healthier and better tasting than the limp stuff that comes from the grocery store, and I actually tend to eat more of it when it's freshly grown than I do when I lug it home from WinCo.

So today, I was out watering the part of the garden that gets missed by the early morning wave sprinkler. I know, I know, drip systems are better, and wave sprinklers are wasteful, and top watering is bad, and so on and so forth. Well, we're putting in a drip system eventually, but right now the garden needs watering and we have other projects more pressing, so a wave sprinkler it is.

Anyway, Todd pointed out to me that the tops of some of my newly planted tomatoes were snipped off. AUGH. We further determined that there was damage to our two small cherry trees as well, and deer prints in my garden beds. While I do like deer, and I don't actually care much if they're wandering around in my yard, and I don't even mind if they eat my ornamentals or poop in my lawn, they best be leavin' my veggies alone. Now I'm on a mission to find deer deterrents that actually work.

Todd's bringing home "repellent stakes" for the edges of the garden. I asked him to call me from the store to read me the ingredients, as I dislike using chemicals in the yard. These contain, and I kid you not, "100% Dried Blood". I tried not to think about what kind of animal might have once been using the blood, and told him to bring some home. While the ew factor for me is a bit high, the plus side is that I don't have to spray it on anything and it's chemical-free.

I'll also be making Deer Repellent Spray at home. I'll post the results after I find out whether it works or not. The spray I'm trying first:

• 3 large eggs, shells included
• 1 large clove of garlic
• 2 cups of fresh green onion tops
• 2 cups of water
• Bar of deodorant soap (like Dial)
• 2 Tbls chili powder or cayenne pepper

Put the first four ingredients in a blender or food processor and liquify completely. Pour into a bucket, add 2 quarts of warm water. In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the soap and add to the bucket. Stir well. Add chili powder or cayenne pepper. Stir well again. Pour into a sprayer and squirt your plants well. If there are still chunky bits of shell, use a watering can with big holes to pour some of the mixture around the plants. Use every 2 weeks, works year-round. Rumored to be effective against Voles and Rabbits as well. Also rumored to be more effective if left to "ripen" in the sun for a few days before use.

Making Butter

A couple of weekends ago, I made a fresh loaf of bread while my D&D group was here. The one guy who is a big bread-aholic asked if he could have some, and I said of course. He proclaimed it good (yay!) and asked me when I was going to start making my own butter, because the fresh bread with fresh butter would be Nerdvana. I assured him that I would keep that in mind.

Weirdly, I'd been considering making my own butter for a little while. I probably had an article about it laying around, which might be what prompted the question. Or perhaps they're just getting used to me making things that "normal" people buy in the store. Either way, it got me to finally make the leap into my own butter.

I did a brief search online for butter churns, and after pricing them between $150 and $300, I decided that I could probably do without. Technically, I have a tall dasher churn, but it's a family heirloom that hasn't seen cream in at least 50 years, and there's no way I'd use it for making butter, both for the sake of anyone eating the butter and for the integrity of the antique.

Turns out, if you're not trying to go "off the grid" or avoid electricity, you can make butter in a KitchenAid stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or even in a food processor. And if you are trying to go without electricity, or find yourself in a situation where you have cream, no butter, and no electricity, you can use a mason jar with a tight-sealing lid and shake it, it just takes a while. Good way to pass the time while you're watching TV, unless you have no electricity, and then it's a good way to pass the time while you're, uh...singing campfire songs?

For sweet cream butter, you can use pasturized heavy whipping cream (yes, like you get in the Dairy case) or sweet raw cream. Make sure all your utensils are crazy clean and sterile, then pour the cream into your mixing bowl, food processor, or jar. Then beat/shake. Cream goes through three stages as it progresses into butter; first, you end up with a fluffy white concoction you will probably recognize as whipped cream. Next, it becomes slightly yellow and granular; if you've ever overbeaten your whipped cream, you will be familiar with the sight. If not, it looks like slightly lumpy frosting. Finally, it will "break" and become butter sloshing around in buttermilk. It's really quite amazing, seeing the solid fluffy mass suddenly contain a liquid component!

Butter "breaks" fastest between about 50 and 60 degrees, and the cultured breaks faster than the sweet, but it will eventually get there even if the temperature is not optimal or if you're using pasturized cream.

Beat thoroughly until the butter clumps up. In a mixer or food processor, it will stick together rather like dough. When it's all clumped, strain off the buttermilk and save it for your favorite recipe requiring buttermilk; it's much better than the "cultured" faux buttermilk you can buy in the dairy section. After it's strained, use a wooden spoon or even your clean fingers to press the butter together and against the side of the bowl, squishing out as much buttermilk as possible. When you can squeeze out no more buttermilk, rinse the butter with cold, clear water. Fold the butter over on itself and "work" it with wooden spoons or your fingers. Drain, repeat with more cold water washings until the water runs clear.

When the butter is clean and rinsed, be sure to press out as much water as possible with the spoon or your fingers. If you wish, add a very, very tiny amount of salt at this point. If you want a flavored butter, use a Tablespoon of rosewater in the final rinsewater for sweet butter for baked goods, or use salted water in which a sprig of rosemary has been boiled for a savory butter to go with meats and breads.

If you want to get all fancy-pants, you can buy butter molds and press your new butter into them. You could also use small candy molds or even cookie cutters to shape your butter. Or you can squadge it into a bowl like I do. Whatever works. Refrigerate.

Now, for a more flavorful, cultured butter, you either have to start with raw cream (unpasteurized), or add back in a culture starter. If you have access to raw cream, allow it to age in the fridge for a couple of days to a week. It should smell sweet and slightly nutty, never foul or sour. If it curdles or smells bad, throw it out. Otherwise, beat into butter as above.

If you start with pasturized heavy cream, add a starter. You can buy a commercial starter for creme fraiche or butter making; check Google for sources. If you go this route, follow the directions. Or, you can use a Tablespoon full of commercial sour cream, creme fraiche, or yogurt...just be sure to check for "live cultures". To strengthen commercial cultures, leave out, covered or preferably still sealed as purchased, at room temperature for 8-12 hours before beginning your buttermaking. Add a Tablespoonful per cup of cream, mix well, then cover and allow the cream to age in the refrigerator for a couple of days to a week or more. Same caveat as above; if the cream smells bad or curdles, throw it out and start again. After your cream is aged, beat into butter as above.

Now. Imagine how great shortbread recipes would be with fresh butter. Or how good hot, freshly baked bread would be with homemade butter. Melted on freshly grown corn. Mmm.

Asparagus - The Pointiest Vegetable

I saw that sign on a local Burgerville..."Asparagus - The Pointiest Vegetable". At the time it made me giggle, but lately I've been a little overly excited about asparagus, so I thought I'd share.

A few years ago, someone in my family asked me to pickle some asparagus spears. Okay, I said, bring me some asparagus and lo, I shall render unto it a pickle form. What happened next was not pretty; my father stopped at a farmer's market in Yakima on his way through, and brought me 45 pounds of asparagus to pickle. That's a LOT of asparagus. A whole lot. 7 hours worth of work, actually. And the kicker? I don't even like pickled asparagus.

Anyway, I decided when we moved to a larger property that we needed a permanent asparagus patch. Asparagus is a perennial plant which can produce spears for 25 years, so it's a good investment. Drawback is that it's at least 3 years before you can harvest it if you start it from seed, and 2 years before you can harvest from most transplanted crowns. I've heard that a 10 foot row of asparagus should yield 5 pounds of asparagus after the third year, though of course I haven't had it long enough to verify that.

I ended up getting 25 asparagus crowns of a couple of varieties, one of which is the ubiquitous Martha Washington. I planted them out in the vegetable garden and hoped for the best. Well, at least several of them have sent up shoots, whoo! They look just like asparagus from the store. I'm hoping all of them come up, but I won't know for a while yet if they'll all survive. I may hit them with some nitrogen rich fertilizer in the meantime to promote vegetative growth.



I also started some asparagus from seed in my greenhouse. After a week of soaking on a paper towel in the house, they did absolutely nothing, so I gave up and planted them in peat pots and just assumed they wouldn't do anything. Well, I was wrong! They're sending up slender little tiny shootlets, which I will nurture along in the greenhouse until they're big enough to transplant. Here I am presented with another issue that I hadn't really considered; asparagus plants are dioecious, meaning they have male and female plants. Both genders produce flowers, but in the fall the female plants produce red berries which will drop and re-seed the asparagus bed, rendering it potentially crowded and weedy. Buying dormant crowns, you can usually get all male populations and never have to face that issue. Both genders of asparagus are edible, with the female producing more but thinner spears, and the male producing fewer but more robust spears.



In the fall, the asparagus left uncut will go sort of ferny, with flowers and more structure than we're used to seeing in the spears. This is normal, in case anyone thinks they have mutant asparagus!

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** A note on how to avoid the hard, woody ends of asparagus **
The easiest way to ensure that you only use the tender part of the asparagus is to grasp it near the base, and bend it. It will naturally snap at the point between the woody part and the tender, tasty part. Toss the woody ends into the compost heap, and work only with the tender bits!

Roasted Asparagus

* 1 lb asparagus spears
* Olive oil
* Fresh grated parmesano-reggiano cheese (or regular parmesan)

Heat oven to 400. Roll asparagus spears in olive oil to coat thoroughly, and arrange on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with the grated cheese, and roast 10 minutes or until tender. Salt and pepper to taste if desired, and eat with your fingers!

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Pickled Asparagus
Recipe from my friend Meg Safranek

* Asparagus, fresh
* Mustard seed
* Dill seed
* 2 cloves peeled garlic per pint, or 4 per quart
* Crushed red pepper flakes
* Lots of ice water and extra ice
* White vinegar (or use half Apple cider vinegar and half white)
* Water
* Rock Salt
* Cane Sugar
* Pickling Spice (remove the cloves)
* Alum

One batch of Brine will cover: 6 quarts of spears plus 1 quart of chunks, or pints to total that much. Depending on how much asparagus you chop, you may need more than one batch of brine.

Prepare a large ice water bath in a tub or large bowl. Next to this, lay several clean towels for drying your asparagus.

Wash the asparagus thoroughly. Snap off the woody ends and discard as described above. Working with the tender portion of the spears, measure the depth of your jars and chop the asparagus spears to fit in the jar with at least 1/2" left between the top of the asparagus and the jar lid. Keep the bits you chop off; they will pickle just as well as the spears, they just don't look as cool.

Blanch the asparagus: Bring a pot of water to boil, preferably one with a collander insert like for cooking pasta. Plunge the asparagus into the boiling water and leave for exactly one minute, then remove from the boiling water and plunge immediately into ice water. Use lots of ice, and get it very cold immediately. This helps retain the crispiness. Remove the asparagus when completely cold, and allow to drain on clean towels until thoroughly dry.

Wash and sterilize canning jars by boiling 5 minutes or by running through the hottest setting on your dishwasher. To each clean jar add:

* 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed
* 1/2 teaspoon dill seed
* 2 cloves peeled garlic per pint, or 4 cloves per quart
* 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

For one batch of brine, bring 5 cups water, 1/2 cup rock salt, 1/2 cup cane sugar, 1 Tablespoon pickling spice (remove cloves), and 1 teaspoon Alum to a boil in a large saucepan. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add 5 cups vinegar, and cool.

Pack the jars with asparagus. I usually pack spears point up. Be sure you have about 1/2" headspace between the top of the spears and the lids. You can just fill jars with asparagus chunks any old way, but still leave 1/2" headspace at the top.

Pour the cooled brine over the asparagus in the jars, covering the asparagus but leaving 1/2" of headspace. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water bath.

NOTES:
Um, my garlic is blue.
Yeah, that happens. It'll turn either blue or green sometimes in the pickling brine. It's harmless.

Boiling Water What?
It's a canning method. If this is your first time canning something, congratulations! In a nutshell, it means to bring a large pot of water to a boil, then place the hot, filled jars in the water bath. Bring back to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes. Remove the jars from the water, allow to cool overnight. The lids should vacuum seal down (test with your finger; if the lid "pops", it didn't seal). Once the seal is set, remove the outer bands and store without them.

If you want more information about canning, I recommend purchasing the Ball Blue Book of Preserving, as it's a great guidebook. And there is lots of information at the Ball jar home site, Freshpreserving.com.

Bananananana Bread

I've been trying to cut down on our garbage output, especially in the form of wasted food. We compost, and we feed scraps to our chickens, and I've been getting better about using leftovers and freezing half of the large batches of food I make so they don't go bad before they're consumed. So I always feel a little twinge of "Yay!" when I use up some food that might have been a garbage can candidate.

Lately I've been freezing bananas when they go a little overripe. I like my bananas in that 24 hour window where they are perfectly yellow and ripe; no astringent taste from the greenness, and yet not at all mushy. (As you might expect, I don't eat many bananas.) My husband and daughter like them a little green. This means that any bananas that pass my threshold of edibility are way past theirs, and therefore go uneaten. The overripe bananas generally occur one a a time, which is too few for use in my recipes, so we used to feed them to the roses, or simply compost them. Then I learned that you can throw an entire unpeeled banana in the freezer and save it for later! When you get adequate amounts, make something!

It's really as easy as throwing the banana in the freezer, no need for a container or wrap. It will turn black and unappealing, and the banana is definitely beyond regular edibility after freezing, but it's still perfectly fine for recipes. To use the bananas in banana bread or smoothies, take out of the freezer and allow to thaw for about 20 minutes. Snip the end off the banana peel, and squeeze from the bottom. The entire banana will slide out of the skin. It's kind of gross, but very convenient and sort of cool too. It's almost pre-mushed!

Banana Bread

* 1 3/4 cup flour
* 2/3 cup sugar
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 cup mashed bananas
* 1/3 cup softened butter (you can also use margarine or shortening)
* 2 Tbls milk
* 2 eggs (farm fresh if ya got 'em!)
* 1 Tbls cinnamon
* 1 tsp allspice
* 1/2 tsp ginger
* 1/2 tsp nutmeg
* Chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom only of loaf pan, set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of flour, plus the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and mashed bananas. Stir well, then add the butter and milk and beat well with a mixer for 2 minutes. Add eggs and spices, blend well. If desired, add nuts, blend well. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake 60 minutes, or until a pick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven, allow to cool 5 minutes, invert onto rack, and cool thoroughly before slicing.

Hummingbirds

A few days ago I was standing at the kitchen window and was surprised to see a hummingbird investigating the porch. The former house owners left a ton of cup hooks up on the roof part, so I'm thinking they might have had hummingbird feeders there at one point. Who am I to argue with a hummingbird? They are so much cooler than I ever thought about being!

Did you know that hummingbirds...
* have heartbeats up to 1,260 per minute, and take up to 250 breaths a minute
* consume half their weight in sugar daily
* eat small flying insects as well as nectar
* flap their wings 80 times per second
* can fly forwards, backwards, up, dow, sideways, and even upside down, at up to 60mph...but can't walk

So today I went to the Backyard Bird Shop in town, to find a decent hummingbird feeder and potentially a dripper for my birdbath (another story.) I had no idea there were so many types of hummingbird feeders! I still think of them as the bulb-shaped containers filled with red liquid and with a little glass spout at the bottom, which attracted more bees and wasps than birds and was generally kind of a bust.

Apparently hummingbird feeders have come a long way since my childhood. They now are generally drip-free, as they are designed to allow the birds to perch and feed from above, instead of hover and feed from below. They may come with ant traps to deter ants from stealing the sugar water, and probably attract fewer bees because they don't drip or leave sugar on the outside of the container as much as previous designs. It's now also recommended that you clean your feeders weekly with vinegar and rinse in hot water.

After wishing I could afford to buy them all, I purchased a decorative, three "flowered" feeder with glass bulbs set into driftwood and topped with bright red tin "flowers" possessing yellow centers for feeding. I also purchased a window-attached feeder with two glass tubes with red caps wrapped up in copper wire and attached to a suction cup for sticking to a window.

The lady at the shop told me that hummingbirds are territorial, so it's best to set stations up a fair distance apart. It wasn't until after I was on my way home that I wondered, what then is the purpose of having two or three "flowers" on each feeder? Just for the bird's entertainment? In case he brings a date?

One way to attract more of the little hummers into your yard, and thus have more visitors to your feeder, is to fill your garden with plants that hummingbirds happen to like. Since I'm looking at planting a new yard this spring, I have sheets on attracting various critters. For hummingbirds, attractive plants generally possess tubular flowers, in colors of red, orange, scarlet and gold.

Plants that attract hummingbirds include:
* (Perennials) Columbine, Foxglove, Fireweed, Bee Balm, Clarkia, Salvia, Trumpet Vine, Honeysuckle, Fuschia
* (Annuals)Petunia, Nasturtium, Red Salvia, Snapdragons, Scarlet Runner Beans
* (Shrubs/Trees)Butterfly Bush, Hardy Fuschia, Salal, Flowering Currant, Salmonberry

At checkout time, I noted that the shop was charging $4.00 for a small box of "nectar" powder. When I investigated, it was merely sucrose. Sugar. Fortunately, the gal at the counter also gave me a recipe for Homemade Hummingbird Nectar:

* Boil 2 cups of water for 1-2 minutes
* Remove from heat, add 1/2 cup white sugar
* Stir to dissolve, and allow to cool
* DO NOT add food coloring, or use Honey or Sugar Substitutes

Fill feeder with only as much nectar as will be consumed in 4 or 5 days (or fill to the top if you are willing to throw it out if unconsumed.) Store remaining solution in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Take the feeder down, rinse with hot tap water and vinegar, and refill with nectar every 5 days at minimum (more in hot weather). Spoiled or moldy nectar can kill hummingbirds.

Breadness

I've declared this the year that I will learn to make decent homemade bread, so I've been working at it for several weeks. I've determined that it's part science (as is all baking), part art (as is cooking), and a lot of practice, practice, practice.

I've started with a recipe I found in Mother Earth News. At one point, I found a pointer to it in a blog on how to live in poverty and still have things you want and need. A week or so later, I got my first issue of Mother Earth News, and in it were several letters to the editor declaring the recipe in the last issue to be fantastic and trouble-free. Interestingly, it was the same recipe.

I've noted that my bread comes out differently on different days; this latest batch came out with a bit of a beer-like aroma and taste, which I attribute to some fermentation as the dough sat in the loaded fridge for a week or so before I used it. Previous batches have risen more or less depending on conditions at the time of baking. Thought I'd share some other things I've learned about this particular recipe...

-- If you double the batch, you need a very large bowl for the rising process. My first attempt at doubling had the dough crawling all over the counter like something out of a 50's horror movie.

-- If you don't have a pizza peel, a small cutting board works almost as well.

-- Their recommended size loaf really makes a small "dinner" loaf, suitable for baking for one meal for a family with no leftovers. If making a larger loaf, adjust the baking time accordingly.

-- This dough makes AWESOME cinnamon rolls. I pulled out a hunk and rolled it out, and without a recipe, proceeded to make a batch of cinnamon rolls that won the hearts and stomachs of my weekly D&D group. And their kids. A large part of that was merely providing fresh, hot cinnamon rolls of any variety, but they were quite tasty!

For a 13"x9" pan of cinnamon rolls, you'll need:

* 1/3 batch of the artisan dough, post-rising
* 1 cold stick of butter (1/2 cup)
* cinnamon
* white sugar
* powdered sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla

In the 13"x9" pan, finely chop or slice half the butter and dot it randomly around the pan. Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon to cover the entire pan, then sprinkle evenly with sugar to cover the cinnamon. (Guesstimate: 2-3 Tbls of cinnamon, 1/4cup sugar). Set aside.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and treat it as if you were going to make a loaf of bread. Pull it around and make the "ball" as directed in the original recipe, but lay it on a floured cutting board. Roll out to a rectangle about 1/4" thick.

Take the remaining butter, and chop finely or slice thinly, and dot evenly over the rectangle of dough. Sprinkle evenly with cinnamon, then sprinkle evenly with sugar; about the same amount you used in the pan. It's not an exact science here.

Starting with a long edge, roll the dough tightly into a log. Dust the top of the rolled-up dough with flour. Using a very sharp serrated knife, slice the log into 1-2" slices. Lay sliced rolls in the pan on top of the butter and cinnamon and sugar. (15 slices works well...five rows of 3 rolls.) Try to arrange them so that when they rise, they'll fill the pan. If you don't have enough rolls to fill the entire pan, don't worry. They'll be fine even if they're not all bunched together.

Heat the oven to 350, and allow the rolls to rise on the counter for 30 minutes. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden.

A few minutes before they are done, prepare the frosting. In a small bowl, combine a scoop of powdered sugar (guesstimate, 2-3 cups), a tsp of vanilla, and enough milk to make a thick frosting consistency. You may also add a spoonful of softened butter or margarine if you wish a little richer frosting. Blend well.

Remove the rolls from the oven, and spread immediately with the frosting. Serve hot. Store any leftovers (yeah right) in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Reheat 30 seconds in the microwave for just-baked yumminess!