It’s been one of those summers. One of those that happens more and more frequently. Fall is falling before summer even sums.

If you know what I mean. Lest you think that I have endless amounts of summertime to frolic in my garden and a myriad of long n’ lazy sunny mornings lounging amongst my preserving pots (in my pjs). and hours upon hours to hone my blogging skillz. I don’t. Or at least I didn’t, and I haven’t yet.

If it wasn’t for the sheer belief I have in eating what I grow or what my neighboring farmers grow, and the necessity of preserving the northeast growing season to do just that year round, I might have quit the whole shebang this summer. Yup, rolled up the blog/s and called it a season. But I didn’t, I can’t and I won’t.

‘Cause I believe in it way too much to let a little work get in my way.

As stressful as life can be sometimes, as fast as it can go; when I can barely get food from garden to table, never mind into jars saved for later. When every daylight hour plus is spent hunched over keyboard, nary a word typed in a jam or a pickle, I still can’t forget the fact that it’s important to slow down, take note of the seasons. Get my paws in the dirt. Even if I can’t do it all, I can do it some.

These cool cukes are a quick & easy way to get these stress-inducing little growing machines (jeesh, if only I could be as cool as a cucumber!) saved for later. I love fermented pickles, but growing your own rarely produces a bushel full of similar sized cukes at one time. With this method, you can do batches of a 1/2 gallon, quart, or even a single pint at a time – I often do pints of little cornichon sized cukes.

Cool Cukes

fresh 2-4 inch long organic cucumbers, blossom ends sliced off, enough to fill a quart jar
1 large clove garlic, peeled & coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon allspice berries, lightly crushed*
1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns*
1 large dried red chili, broken into bits*
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped fennel fronds (or dill)*
1 & 1/2 tablespoons sea salt (not super fine)
1 quart jar with a tight fitting lid

yield: 1 quart

Directions:

1. Place salt, herbs, spices and garlic in a sparkling clean jar.

2. Fill jar with cukes. Pack them in, but not so tightly that they can’t move at all.

3. Fill jar with cold spring or filtered water (chlorine can hinder the fermenting process, be careful of city tap water). Cap the jar tightly and shake it vigorously. Shake it until all the salt has dissolved.

4. Put in the fridge. Your cool cukes will be fermented pickles in approximately 3 weeks.

That’s it! You don’t need to worry about keeping the cukes submerged – or any of that time consuming stuff. Just stick them in the back of the fridge and soon you will have the most delicious fermented pickles with the perfect pickly crunch. It’s true!

Scale up or down depending on what you harvest or bring home from the farmers market. Be sure to adjust the salt accordingly depending on the jar size used.

I make a jar approximately every four days when my garden is producing cucumbers. It takes about 10 minutes – and when preserving is hard to do, at least I can do this.

You know how I feel about herbs this time of year in the northeast?

Get ’em while they’re hot! In the quest to clean up the garden, herbs are high on my list. But never-you-fear if you don’t yet have a garden because at farmer’s markets right about now, the size of the bunches grow in direct opposition to the dwindling prices.

And IMO there’s hardly a better way to preserve the intense taste of herbs than in pestos. This is one of my absolute favorites, and it’s been said that once you try marjoram pesto, basil pesto starts to look like it’s frumpy, ordinary cousin. (well I said it, didn’t I?)

Marjoram Pesto

1. Tear the bread slice up in chunks and place in a bowl, soak with 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar. Let soak for 5 minutes.

2. Place all ingredients except olive oil in a large bowl of a food processor, pulse to combine. Continue to pulse until a dry paste forms, then run on low while drizzling oil in. Stop processing immediately after oil dispenses.

3. Pack in freezer proof containers with 1/4 inch headspace. Freezes well for at least 3 months.

See how simple?

This pesto is a pasta staple around my place, so I freeze it in containers large enough for 1/2 lb. of pasta. It is so intensely flavored that no cheese is required, but you can certainly grate a bit of cheese over your finished dish. I would recommend a milder pecorino as the big parm may just push it over the edge of too much umami (can we ever have too much?).

You can freeze this in ice cube trays for 24 hours, then pop them into freezer bags. A cube or two added to a vegetable or bean soup would most certainly intensify it.

Pasta Tips:

Salt the water well just before putting the pasta in. It should taste like a well-salted broth. And for pesto, always make sure to take a cup or so of the pasta water out of the pot before draining the pasta. Please, please, please cook it al dente, and never rinse it in cold water. Put the pasta back in the warm pot, add the pesto and just a bit of the water, to desired consistency. Serve in warm bowls with freshly ground pepper.

All you can jammers in the house jumped headfirst into the pickling process and for that I’m proud! Family recipes & memories, experienced canners branching out and first time cuke-picklers too! I do hope that the newbies in the bunch discovered just how easy pickling can be…and for all you peeps out there just getting ready to pickle,

Pickle this:

Pickles

Bread & butter pickles – prospect: the pantry she breaks out the big one: sweet hot. …and a good idea about a taste-test sample in the fridge. what? this too!

cantaloupe pickles – flamingo musings I actually made similar pickles last summer and I can agree – they are weird & wonderful!

crisp sweet pickle – simply loving home the rind idea is great! Watch the head space, & hot water bath for 10 minutes…

dill pickle chips – …oh briggsy! what she said: I like me pickles crisp, like chips! …and you can do it in the can!

dilly beans – bigger than a breadbox I am so happy that she broke out the local clause. ‘Cause cukes will come & go, but local is as local does. And this is as pickled as a pickler could ever pucker for! 🙂

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earle’s dills – backyard farms this is a treasure! A tried & true family recipe shared with all of us. Thank you!

gingery watermelon pickles – Rufus & clementine I think I need to try these. And I wanna know how your second batch goes too – Bryant’s! I’ll be checking back!

green & yellow squash pickles – market life sf yikes! Those zukes don’t stand a chance around that fancy mandolin! And they looks so nice & svelte in those jars too. 🙂

kosher dill pickles – notes from a country girl living in the city sounds like a great old book! Here’s a lovely place for a reminder to all: if you’re using an old book for canning, make sure to compare to current USDA guidelines for up-to-date safety!

quick dills – what Julia ate she had big plans (melons preserved in jars) and empty hands (melon season comes later in the N.E.) but she didn’t come up empty-handed. Pucker up to these!

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ice-brined garlic dill pickles – married …with dinner I really dig your tenacity. And I think I would really dig these pickles. Can I come over for a bite? 🙂

mcClure’s pickles – mother’s kitchen yes I’ve had them, yes I love them. But I love even more that you made them yourself, & I love your label too!

pickled watermelon rind – thinking out loud er, and lemon rind, don’t forget the lemon rind. 😉

pregnancy pickles – put a lid on it it’s a girl! It’s a girl! It’s a girl! (Oh and I would process these pickles for 10 minutes, not 5).

slap my hind with a watermelon rind – mock paper scissors (I couldn’t figure out if that was the name of your pickle or not. If I’m wrong, I’m just happy I got to say it). And there’s also spicy dill pickles! And another great round of tips & bonus tracks from tengrain’s little cooking school.

spicy garlic dill pickles – my caffeine diary uh oh! You waited to pickle ‘dem cukes… fingers crossed! (I hope they’re not too soft).

watermelon rind pickles with garam masala & jalapeno – showfood chef and she’s also making a TON of these babies too – for her daughter’s wedding!! How great!

zucchini cornichons – wine book girl these pickles are inspiring me! What a great idea to use up all those little monsters! How do they taste?

Can I officially change the name to all-yums?

I am truly excited about a number of the entries this month!

This month I was particularly moved by Barbara of robbing peter‘s post as she confessed her initial excitement and then struggle coming up with her March entry, until finally she arrived here:

“Can jam is about learning. About challenging ourselves to simply get into the kitchen once a month and can something. About devoting this time to our kitchens, our blogs and therefore ourselves. Once I figured this out I knew what I was going to make. Something that would be a valuable addition to my pantry. Something that I would actually EAT.”

Pickles

garlicky bread & butter onion pickles – robbing peter …I could not have said it better myself. (And it’s your mama’s pickles even, oh happy day!)

jerked pickled onions – notes from a country girl living in the city ya mayd dem onyuns good maan, me cyaan see! (I had to)

pickled garlic – putting by ok, when the time comes, let us know – are they good, or really good?

pickled green garlic – wine book girl green garlic? In weck jars? J’adore! I can’t wait for spring in the northeast!

pickled onions & green garlic al balsamico – famingo musings sounds like yo’ mama had a happy happy b-day – and good eats too! Pickled onions – all types of cooking and a whole lot of canning here! She did the chippolines! ..And a solid pickling recipe here.

pickled pearls – the cosmic cowgirl these are gonna drive me to drink.

pickled scallions – post-industrial eating oh Carol. What a morning. But they look so beautiful. And please, tell me you got to work on time!

If you love pickled carrots, then you’ll find plenty of ideas below. Let me know which one is your favorite!
I love pickling and have so many ideas and recipes about this topic. And then I felt a lot of you look at us like this:

Pickled Carrots

There’s a ton of great recipes below and I know that when spring carrots have sprung, I for one will be referring back here again and again…’cause you can never have enough reasons to put those babies in a jar. Well, maybe there’s enough here – so let’s get to it!

Carrot Pickle adapted from Savoring India by Julie Sahni. If you like hot, very flavorful things, this will never last that long.

Baby carrots in honey, vinegar and dill – flamingo musings love the honey Renee! And don’t worry about what to use ’em for – have a pickle party! Basil carrots – living homegrown fresh quick & easy, she said….just like canning can be!

Carrot and onion sandwich slaw – put a lid on it tossing in olive oil to serve – I like it! Oh, and that slicing video – thank you!

Carrot and onion sandwich slaw – on a little land they say imitation is the best form of flattery! – go here for the recipe.

Carrot relish – simply loving home I think this will dress up any sandwich! Make sure your salsa is from a reliable source – I’m a little worried about the acid level in that one.

Carrot relish – a sweet carroty relish, with onions too! Zoey says she’ll report back after the 3 week waiting period.

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Classic pickled carrots – I’m impressed with your ‘green bag’ solution for storing carrots – that’s a long time!

Dill jardiniere – bigger than a breadbox ok, I’ll let this one slide ’cause you put in an extra carrot. But I don’t know, is it really about the carrots or all those other gorgeous veggies?

Dilly carrots – all I can say Libby is break out the Bloody Marys ’cause these are worth more than a hill of beans to me! And some nutty good carrot cake jam too!

Mexican inspired pickled carrots with jalapeños and onions – that’s a mouthful! And so are these!

Moroccan pickled carrots – what a nice addition of oregano and sweet peppers – and the little baby carrots look so happy in the jar. 🙂

Pickled carrots – mock paper scissors more success for Tengrain’s little cooking school! …and can I just say, love those graphics! 🙂

Pickled carrots and daikon – food in jars. And just in the nick of time, Marisa slides in with this beauty. Love the anise!

Pickled carrots and leek shreds – adds color to a winter table. And your cheeks I imagine.

8 gallons of cream (plus 2 gallons of buttermilk)

You may know that I drove to Vermont early this past Friday to pick up 8 gallons of cream for a year’s worth of butter. I picked up the cream in the lovely little mountain town of Brattleboro, Vermont. If you ever get a chance to go, do get a coffee at Mocha Joes, and whatever you do, get a croissant at Amy’s Bakery Arts Café. Trust me, I might drive back just for another one, or two.

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I’ve been asked how I know that 8 gallons of cream is the right amount for a year’s worth of butter for two people.

I don’t. But I do know that I bake with it. I make ghee – which I cook with most often, and I like to slather it on toast with jam. M, being half Danish, spreads it on anything edible with a flat surface. We’re both partial to a hefty dollop on warm breakfast grains, and did I ever mention that I’m a popcorn junkie? …Oh, and I love biscuits and scones!

If you’re planning to try this at home, my first advice to you is to suss out a local dairy that cares about their cows and their product. Happy cows make better cream, it’s true! My cream came from the lovely Butterworks Farm. But I am sure there’s a dairy that cares near you. At Butterworks Farm they pasteurize their cream the old-fashioned way: held at 145-150 degrees for 30 minutes. Do talk to your farmer to find out what their practices are, and don’t use ultra-pasteurized cream because you will not be able to produce butter from it.

If you plan on trying this at home on a smaller scale – like butter for a week – then pick up a pint or two of the best quality organic cream you can find at your local co-op or farm stand.

Let’s Do This!

…That’s what I said to M yesterday when I enlisted his help with the first 2 gallons. The first 2 gallons of cream were destined to be sweet butter, otherwise known as uncultured butter. Sweet butter is typically what we eat here in the US. It comes from cream that has not been cultured – or soured.

First, see how yellow and bright it is? Grass, baby, grass! Cows need grass, and so does your butter!

Sweet Butter

organic cream (not ultra-pasteurized)
sea salt (optional)
quart or half gallon mason jars

Directions

1. Leave cream at room temperature for a few hours until it’s fully warmed to room temperature.

2. Pour room temperature cream into jar. Important: the jar should be double the size of the amount of cream you are using. If you are shaking a pint of cream, you need a quart jar. If you are shaking a quart, you need a half gallon jar.

3. Make sure the cap is screwed on very tight and here we go: shake it! Turn it up! (you should feel something happening in the jar by the time the song is done). It will get thicker and thicker, keep shaking!

4. After 5 minutes or so of shaking you’ll see and feel a bright yellow clump and the rest will be a thin white liquid. You’ve just made butter!

Keep shaking it another minute or so to make sure it is completely separated.

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5. Pour the buttermilk into a bowl, or better yet a jug or pitcher. Use a large wooden spoon or the like to hold the butter in while you’re pouring. Set buttermilk aside, more on it below.

6. Place butter in a bowl and run very, very cold water over the butter while you press down with a large spoon to squeeze as much of the buttermilk out as you possibly can. Pour the water off. Continue doing this until the water that is coming off does not look milky anymore. The clearer the water is as it runs off, the better. Your butter will last longer if all of the buttermilk is expelled.

7. Here, you can add salt to taste or keep it unsalted. If you are making butter to keep in the fridge, the salt will help it stay fresh a bit longer. Butter will last about a week to two in the refrigerator. Frozen, as you may have guessed by my endeavor, it will last for approximately one year with no change in quality.

8. Pack in refrigerator or freezer-proof airtight containers. If packing for the freezer, label and date.

This batch was made for my baking and ghee making, so no salt was added and I packed it in 1/2 liter jars. 2 gallons of cream yielded six jars – approximately 3 quarts – of sweet unsalted butter. In the freezer they went!

There was about 1/2 cup extra which we sea-salted right up, spread on some crusty sourdough and topped with sliced, just-picked radishes.

IMO, it doesn’t get much better.

Now about that buttermilk. This is not the thick cultured buttermilk you can find in stores. It is water, dissolved milk sugars, and protein. It is different from whey in that it comes solely from cream and not milk, or milk and cream. The true buttermilk – it’s what’s left when all of the fat globules within the cream get agitated enough to band together and shout to everything else, “get out!”

This buttermilk is good stuff. You should pass it through a strainer, put it in a sealed jar, and keep it in the fridge. You can make pancakes, biscuits and cornbread with it. But my favorite way of all is to enjoy it cold, straight-up. It lasts for a week or so in the fridge.

But it’s so damn refreshing, it would never last that long in my house.

I bet you thought you heard the last of my year’s supply of butter-making didn’t you? Yup, you thought I went through all that buttermilk and used up every last drop of cream too, right? Think again. 8 gallons of cream and 2 gallons of buttermilk goes a long way for 1 catty pilgrim.

You see, that cultured buttermilk I had just keeps on giving. As I said over here, you can easily make more of it with what you’ve got. And the cream, ok, yes it’s true, this is the last of it (sad face). I used this final quart of cream, plus a whole gallon of cultured buttermilk to make a big batch of the tastiest ricotta I’ve ever had. Take it from this half Italian tigress who has ricotta in her blood – I grew up on the stuff – this buttermilk version is swoon-worthy.

This makes a lotta ricotta – close to a full quart. Since it lasts only about a week in the fridge at perfect quality, you probably don’t need to make this much. So go ahead, half it. Of course, if you’re prone to eating it by the bowlful like me, then you better dairy up!

…Basically, I’ve just decided I need a cow.

Buttermilk Ricotta

1 gallon buttermilk
1 quart cream
2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
butter muslin or a double layer of cheese cloth
thermometer

Directions

1. Combine the buttermilk, cream and sea salt in a non-reactive stock pot (stainless or enameled covered iron) and heat on medium to 190 degrees – it should take about 25-30 minutes. Stir occasionally and gently as the temperature nears to 190 to prevent scorching. Be gentle.

2. As soon as the temperature reaches 190 degrees, take off heat. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. You will have very delicate curds.

3. Place a damp (rinse it in hot water and squeeze dry) butter muslin or double-layered cheese cloth inside a large strainer. Place the strainer over a large bowl. Gently scoop the curds into the strainer, and then pour the whey directly over. If you’ve made ricotta before using a different method you may notice that the separation of curds and whey is not as straight-forward with this method, and that it is a bit difficult to see the separation.

That’s ok.

4. At a certain point, the whey will seemingly stop dripping through the muslin and strainer in the bowl. You could leave it there for hours and it will drain to perfection eventually. Or you can lift the muslin out with everything tucked inside (it will be full of liquid so be careful) and tie it around a faucet to hang for about 30 minutes. Tthe weight will help expel the excess whey.

5. When most of the obvious liquid is out, place the whole lot back into the strainer. It should still be quite soft and wet, like this:

6. After that it’s maker’s choice. I let it drain for another 20-30 minutes so that the finished cheese is still quite moist. It’s better to err on the side of too moist as it will firm up even more when chilled. When done, transfer to an airtight container. It will stay fresh for up to a week in the fridge.

Or, before you do any such thing, you can scoop out a warm and generous hunk and christen your pasta arrabiatta with it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever lose the wonder and excitement of growing my own food. I hope not!

Honeyed Cayenne Chiles

Adapted from The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich

1 & 1/4 pound cayenne (or other) chiles, stemmed & sliced into no larger than 1/4 inch rings
1/2 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole coriander seeds
5 whole cloves
5 whole allspice berries
3/4 quart apple cider vinegar
1 & 1/4 tablespoon honey
1 & 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 small garlic cloves, sliced
4 whole bay leaves (make sure they still smell like bay!)
12 black peppercorns
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 pint mason jars

Yield: 2 pints

Directions

1. Prepare canning pot and jars. No need to sterilize, but make sure jars get warm.

2. Place mustard seeds, coriander seeds, allspice and cloves in a spice bag, tea ball, or tie in a small snitch of cheese cloth.

3. Combine vinegar, honey, & salt in a medium sauce pan, add spice bag. Bring to a boil. When just boiling, add sliced chiles and bring back up to a simmer.

4. Take all four 1/2 pint jars out of the canner and place right side up on a towel. Divide the garlic and peppercorns evenly between jars. Fill each jar 1/4 of the way full with chiles and add one bay leaf to each jar, placing it against the side and tucking the tip into the chiles to steady the leaf against the side. Add the rest of the chiles evenly between jars. Pour in the vinegar mixture, filling each jar to just under a 1/2 inch head space.

5. Slide a plastic knife, chopstick, or small spatula around the inside rim of jar, and tap it gently on the counter to loosen any air bubbles. Drizzle 1 & 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil into each of the jars. Wipe the rims clean with a wet paper towel and place the two piece lids on.

6. Hot water bath process for 10 minutes.

You must wait three weeks to eat these pickles.

I know, I know.