Pesto!

Dear Turkey,

CSA members,

People whose moms have gardens

Will thank me for this

Strawberry Jam

Dear Turkey,

Yesterday my mom and I made strawberry jam. She told me that she remembers helping her mom make it when she was little. Her mom used to turn the pectin packet upside down in order to get every last bit of pectin out. The packet looked the same then as the one that I used yesterday (in fact, it was invented in 1912). So, my mom used to help her mom make jam, and now she helps me. She has not been promoted.

But she did pick the berries:

And chop them:

And put them in the pot. We followed the recipe on the pectin package (but we added lemon because local strawberries tend to have a high water content, causing runny jam without additional acid):

And processed the jars:

We made four batches, for 34 jars (mostly half-pints). So what did I do? I was the Consulting and Advising wing of the outfit. Okay, Mom, I guess you can be promoted.

Does anybody want one? Okay, send me a guest post. 

I moss you,

Tofu

Empanadas

Dear Turkey,

Remember when we lived in the same town and you used to take me out to lunch all the time? And a lot of the rest of time you would invite me over for lunch? Yeah, that was great.

I moss you,
Tofu



Just kidding. Now that I must depend on myself for lunch, I have a lot more to say about it. In fact, I've been dreaming about this lunch project ever since I had my baby, but I was waiting a few crucial elements before I could try it:
1) daycare
2) no work
3) a little friend we like to call Veggie Nugget
    3a) little Veggie Nugget taking a trip to Wegmans with our parents' credit card

Actually, this is a cheap (I could have even used my own money), fast, and tasty project; I labeled it "canning" because, even though I didn't "can" the empanadas, I made them to freeze. Now I can microwave a couple for lunch any time I feel like it's not safe to light a burner in case my baby tries to blow us into space.

The recipe is inspired (aka mostly plagiarized) by one of my favorite blogs (this girl owns an empanada truck, so she knows what she's doing). I developed a taste for empanadas during my formative cosmopolitan years at this totally awesome restaurant. My heart skips a beat just looking at their website.

Here's how it's done (for 50 empanadas; trust me -- this whole thing only took a couple of hours):

you start with an obligatory "ingredients" picture

Then, in a big pot, combine two red onions (diced), two or three cloves of garlic (minced, or even from a jar!), olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, nutmeg (few T), and red pepper flakes (few T).

Gabrielle: is this what you meant by a "tad" of butter?

after sauteing that for a few minutes, add 4lbs of spinach (I used frozen), tons of lemon juice, 16oz of cottage cheese, and 12 oz of feta

Cook that until the cheese just melts and then crack four eggs into the pot, and stir until eggs are hot enough to be just cooked. You may need to cook/drain off liquid at this point; it may feel wrong to lose this great liquid, but it will make the stuffing way easier (you could use it as the liquid in a great pizza dough).

then it's time to stuff them! I used Goya frozen empanada wraps (no shame!); you will see that there are two colors

Secrets:
1) use as much filling as you can without any leaking out
2) close the wrappers by pinching your fingers like it's your job
3) it will go faster if you have a Veggie Nugget to help you and you're watching Mean Girls

bake them on stones or cookie sheets covered with parchment paper, 375 degrees for 18 minutes (until just starting to brown)

when cool, freeze -- don't worry Husband Mother Earth -- I am going to re-use those bags!

taste test

I moss you,
Tofu

Beautiful Applesa -- I Mean: Nope, Still Not Jealous of You

Dear Turkey,

Like you, I am experiencing an exotic adventure for the first time: staying home with a sick baby. So I'm not at work, I'm wearing a hoodie, and I'm not even starting the laundry or cleaning the house since I don't know what time we'll have to leave to go to the pediatrician (because sick babies wake up way earlier than doctors' offices). 

So I'm going to tell you about my adventure from Saturday: making applesauce. I make applesauce every year, usually twice. Once I use one kind of apples only and add a bunch of brown sugar and cinnamon. The other time I use four or five different varieties of apples and don't use any sugar (family secret, don't tell). That's what I did this time; I try to hit all the colors of skin and flesh (white and yellow). 

I don't peel the apples. I use one of those apple slicers, and then I use a paring knife to make sure I got all the hard parts from the core that sometimes sneak through.

I put the apples in pots with an inch or two of water at the bottom and brought them to a simmer on low heat -- be careful or they will stick and burn:

 I kept stirring them as they got soft, about 30 mins:

 Meanwhile I sterilized the jars; I used quart size:

 This is almost done; there are still some crunchy bits:

 After it was as cooked as I like (which is totally arbitrary), I packed the jars, leaving 1/8-1/4 inch headspace, and processed them for 30 mins. They all sealed within an hour:

The whole thing took about three hours from start to finish, thanks to the people who held my baby while I worked!

I moss you,

Tofu

Another Batch of Tomato Jam...With Bonuses!

Dear Turkey,
So I just had to make more tomato jam, because 30 jars was not enough! But I won't bore you with how I made it (NB: only boring people are bored). Instead, I will tell you what I did while it was cooking down (not including laundry or nursing my baby).
First:

Bread. This isn't a very good picture because my bread was SO BIG it didn't even fit in the frame of my (crappy) phone. (NB: Dear Cell Phone Companies: this little blog would love to do a giveaway of free phones with really good cameras [as long as it was rigged].) Here's how I made it: I took 2c of warm (my mom says "wrist temp") water and mixed it with about half a capful of dry yeast and 1T sugar. Then I kneaded in flour (any kind will do, I used white) and 2T salt with my hand until a ball formed. I kneaded it for about two minutes right in the bowl, adding a little flour if it got sticky. Then I let it sit in the bowl uncovered, just like it was, until it rose visibly, about 1-2 hrs. I baked it on an un-pre-heated baking stone with parchment on it at 475 for 5 mins and then 450 for 30 mins, until it got all golden brown on top. I usually make smaller loaves, but sometimes the nice crack crust and drama (or melodrama) of a big loaf is just satisfying.
Then I switched my laundry and stirred my tomatoes...oh I wasn't going to talk about that...
Second:

Oh Yeah

Delcious Pickles

That My Mom Grew

From Cucumbers

There are lots of ways that I make pickles. Yesterday I sterilized the jars (always do that or my husband will be mad...I guess he doesn't think botulism is a good way to lose that nagging baby weight). Then I cut up the cukes and STUFFED them as tightly as I could into the jars, because they will shrink. However, there needs to be 1/8-inch of headspace in order for the lids to seal. Then I put about 1T of minced onion on top of the cukes in each jar. Then I heated up 32oz of distilled vinegar (only use Heinz -- shameless product endorsement -- giveaway opportunity -- I hope you are reading this, Heinz People -- I voted for John Kerry!), 32oz of water, a scant 1/2c pickling salt, about 3c of sugar, and a few tablespoons of: celery seed, mustard seed, corriander, and tumeric (if you don't have whole spices, ground will still taste good -- your water will just be a little cloudy). I brought it to a boil and tasted it to make sure that was how I wanted my pickles to taste. Then I used a ladle and a funnel to fill my jars (leaving the ubiquitious headspace), making sure the spices were evenly distributed..I counted them...just kidding, put on the tops, and processed them for 10 mins (the next day, make sure all jars are sealed, crank the lids down, and write the date on them with a sharpie).
Thank you for listening. This post was brought to you by the people who held my baby while I was being so productive.
I moss you,
Tofu

Tomato Jam

Dear Turkey,
Thank you for sharing our canning exploits for posterity. Here is my canning adventure from Saturday:
First, let me say that, if you have a baby, you need, in addition to people to help you can, people to hold your baby far away from all the boiling pots of splattering liquid. Luckily my mom's friend, upon the first drop of our delicious tomato jam touching her lips, offered her services. Yes, it is so good that even retired people will hold the world's most adorable baby for an afternoon in exchange for a few jars (it's bring your own jars, by the way).
We have been making tomato jam since 2008, and it's probably our most popular canned item. It's also the biggest production, since it sets up by cooking down instead of with pectin. That means several hours of boiling tomatoes (which also means that it really isn't worth sterilizing the jars until it's almost done, if you use a water bath, or your water bath will be boiling for many hours for no reason; in other words, wait until it's almost set up, them turn on the water bath and then do the jars right before you fill them). This recipe was inspired by Mark Bittman, although we've changed it quite a bit.
Here's what we did for a peck of tomatoes (8 qts. just picked from your garden [which if it's been a good year like this one will take five minutes] and washed):
1. Roast 3 sweet onions (peeled and sliced) and 3 heads of garlic (peeled) in a little olive oil at 425 until soft and a little golden (about 30 mins).
2 Combine that with 10 cups of sugar and 20 teaspoons of salt (can you tell we multiplied a smaller recipe?).
3. Add the tomatoes, quartered and cored.
4. Simmer, stirring, for as many hours as you can (it goes faster if you divide it in a few pots -- it took me about 3 hrs).
You will know it's done when it changes color to a nice dark red and gets sticky.
Then add chili oil to taste (usually about 1-2 tablespoons for each 6oz jar of finished product -- this recipe may yield 25-30 jars that size).
Fill sterilized jars leaving 1/8-1/4 inch headspace and process for 10 mins in a boiling water bath.
Since this is a canning project with oil, I wouldn't reprocess jars that don't seal; if that happens, just freeze that jar or eat it right away in the fridge.

This is how it looks when you first start cooking it

Then you can see everything starting to break down after an hour or so

Yay. One of my great pleasures in life: jars full of stuff that we grew

I moss you,
Tofu

Millions of Peaches (Peaches for You)

Dear Tofurkey,

Well my world travel has brought me back home, finally and only for a time. Thank you for picking up the large amount of slack left in my absence. I endeavor to make it up and then some during my next bit of world travel. While I can't cook much in Japan, I think I could find some inspiring food pictures to send back.

From this trip, I return with pictures of us (surprise! OK well not for you, but maybe for our tiny public of adoring fans). Yes, Turkey and Tofurkey got to can together as part of the world travel. Other than that, I don't have much to offer since Canada is not exactly a culinary paradise.

These peaches looked delicious, even though they were seconds. As I'm allergic to peaches (no, that's real, even though you didn't believe me for years), I have been eating them this summer because they're just so delicious. I just wait until I'm ready to be uncomfortable for awhile.

This peach extravaganza and canning jubilee gave us the opportunity to teach Angel how to can and also let me refresh my memory. I don't know if I'd go out of the way to do it for myself, but maybe when I have my own garden I'd want to can my stuff. It's actually not that hard and pretty fun. Here's what I learned:

1. Sterilize the jars (especially if you have a particular husband whose diet-angst makes him more particular)
2. Peel peaches. This step is a bitch (excuse me even tinier tiny public but it's the best word for it). I think we can safely conclude that you DO NOT want to refrigerate your peaches before you peel them. If they are room temperature, you just boil them for half a minute and rub the skin off. If you refrigerate them, pray to God for the end to be near because this will not be easy
3. Make a simple syrup flavored with whatever you like (vanilla beans works for us) and put the sliced peaches in a jar and cover with the syrup.
4. Boil the jars so the lid gets sealed.
5. Store and feel satisfied

I'm sorry that I can't offer anything I made while in Canada because I was just enjoying my time away. However, I believe I proved with this trip to Canada that I make the best nachos on the planet. As evidence, I cite my friend David, who lovingly permits relentless teasing of his persnicketiness. David, while a fully grown adult, does not like when you combine lots of foods together; a casserole is David kryptonite. In fact, he will sometimes look like a toddler in a restaurant as he separates the entrees and side dishes on his plate into distinctive regions. In short, Mexican food is hell to David. If you can still read through your tears (because I know that's a tragedy), read on. I did not take a picture of the nachos I made while in Canada, to which I subjected David, but shortly after, he asked for the recipe. I mean, wow, right? So, I will make nachos and takes pictures and share my nacho-making secrets (even though I am NACHO bitch {sorry again tinier tiny public}) so that you and all our public (tiny and tinier) can enjoy them. And maybe you can try them out and add your nacho-making suggestions and we will create Los Mas Supremos Nachos Para Siempre!!! It could be like that article on chocolate chip cookies in the New York Times, only less researched.

That's all for now,

Love,

Turkey

P.S. Diets, while not bad, are sad for cooks. Chicken is not bad at all

P.P.S. I capitalize nouns, verbs, and all the important stuff, but do not capitalize prepositions and conjunctions. That said, I've never really known either.