Stone Fruit Hotchpotch

What did I do with all of those plums? A lot. There were a lot of plums.

I raw packed a few of the good ones.




And then whipped up a double batch of just plain plum jam using a 2 pounds of fruit to 3 cups of sugar ratio. It turned out pretty good, but I overcooked it a bit and now have a very firm jam. This is clearly a problem for me.

I moved on to some plum sauces. I did an Asian plum sauce based on this recipe from Oregon State University. I swapped the canned chiles for a fresh jalapeno and pasilla chile. The result was a standard plum sauce flavor that I am pleased with and am sure will go nicely with some pork or chicken.

I also decided to test out this chipotle plum sauce recipe. Oh good god is it good! I didn't use the chipotle seasoning that was called for, but instead substituted a freshly grated dried chipotle as that's what I had lying around. I also used regular garlic powder rather than roasted. The overall product is divine with just enough kick to make it interesting. I'm not a huge fan of super spicy so this suited me perfectly. I think I will be enjoying it on a cracker with some cream cheese.

Even after all that, I still had plums leftover. I also had some other stone fruits that were quickly becoming borderline edible. So I whipped up a jam with the mishmash of leftover fruits.

I cut up several apricots, peaches, and nectarines that had seen better days.




I then added a bunch of plum sauce. I don't pit my plums individually, but rather cook them down first, pull out the pits, and run them through a food mill to get rid of the skins. Works for me.

I know this picture looks ugly. The plum puree had oxidized a bit, but the brown color wouldn't affect the finished product with so many fruits.




Next came the cherries. That looks somewhat better.




I weighed out my fruit and then added 3/4 of that weight in sugar. Though many recipes recommend a 1 to 1 ratio, I find that really sweet fruit doesn't need that much sugar.




Next I cooked it down until it reached the jelling point. Again, I carmelized the sugars a bit and the jam turned out more firm than I would care for, but the taste is wonderful. Much like the mixed fruit jams you can buy at the store, but like way way better 'cause I made it myself with more flavorful fruits.




Winging it in jam making can be intimidating when you are first starting out. The key is getting the right ratio of fruit to sugar. So far with my one pound of fruit to 3/4 pound of sugar has served me well. Keep this in mind the next time you want to go out on a limb and experiment with a wacky fruit combo.

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How to Salvage a Botched Batch of Bread

I've been attempting to make no-knead sourdough bread with minimal to no success. For some reason, my dough is not rising properly. The mixture gets nice and bubbly, smells sour, but turns to soup by the end of the 18 hour rising time. After investing a couple pounds of flour and two days of oversight (it takes a day to get the sourdough starter active), I refused to let the whole batch go to waste.  I turned that gloppy mess into a passable loaf and thought I would share my mad MacGyver skills with you all.

I started off with this recipe, which instructed me not to mess with any of the procedures. So I didn't, though that aided me in no tangible way. When I got to the part where you fold the dough over itself three times, I couldn't see the point as the gluten strands were obviously in liquid form now. How would I ever get the flubber back into the bowl for the second rise if all I had was a runny glue on my hands?

I could already tell that if I baked the dough as is, I would most assuredly produce the flattest ciabatta known to man. I quick grabbed whatever flour I had available, whole wheat bread flour, and started adding it along with about a teaspoon of commercial baker's yeast. I mixed in the flour until I had a soft smooth dough that wasn't sticky and yet wasn't too firm. The dough sat for a couple hours on top of the oven and developed somewhat of a rise. It didn't quite double, but definitely poofed up. I'll probably add more yeast if this happens again. I dumped the dough into a preheated Dutch oven according to the original instructions, baked it covered for 30 minutes, and then uncovered for another 15.

The final product was on the flat side, but had a great crispy crust and moist, holey crumb. Tasted great too, even if it was a tad heavy and dense. So never fear if you fuck up your bread. As I have found out, there is always a second chance for redemption.

Thrift Store Score

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Kitchen Madness

It's that time of year when the oven is running full steam ahead and the sink is piled with a mound of dishes that no matter how much washing goes on, never seems to decrease in size. Yes, canning season is upon us and a lot of the things that are in season will only last a few weeks at best. With pots and jars ready at the front, the food marathon is on in our counter space challenged kitchen.

Fruity Goodness

Those precious peaches, nectarines, apricots, and cherries don't have a very long season around here, so we've been stocking up from our favorite farmers market fruit stand (cheapest organic fruit at the market) and making all kinds of jams, cobblers, pies, and ice cream with our hand cranked Donvier that we snagged at the thrift store for eight bucks. Whatever cherries didn't go into this gorgeous pie, the lattice topping compliments of my six year old (didn't she do a great job?),

or into the several pints of cherry, chocolate, pistachio ice cream that we've been non-stop churning out

2 cups cherries blended

2 eggs well beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups half and half

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp. vanilla

* mix together and then add

1/2 cup pistachios

1/2 cup chocolate shavings

1 cup cherry chunks

* prepare according to ice cream maker instructions

I froze. They'll come in handy later when in season fruit is scarce.

I'm so bummed that I didn't get my flat of apricots that I ordered from my CSA this year. Their apricots really do make the best butter. But I did save enough from my weekly boxes that I was able to squeeze out four jars. Needless to say, I won't be sharing. Sorry.

This year I tried something a little different: peach jam with honey, which wasn't strictly peach or any one variety for that matter - I included both white and yellow peaches and nectarines. The cheap fruit is great, but it all tends to ripen at the same time, needing to be used up because it is attracting fruit flies, thus the mixed up jam. The flavor is fantastic and a bit more complex than my usual fare. I'll definitely make it again this way. Goes great on muffins made from a recipe that I got from one of my kitchen bibles, The Country Mothers Cookbook by Jane Watson Hopping, a.k.a. The Pioneer Lady. If you have a penchant for old, old school home cooking, this lady's recipes are for you. I haven't made any dish from her books that I didn't love.

Berrilicious

Berries have a longer season in our area than the stone fruits, so it wasn't crucial that I move into high gear on this one. But as I was on a roll, I figured "what the hey," let's just get it done while the iron's hot, as they say. The blueberry jam came out perfect, but I think I burned the sugar on the ollalieberry (a similar berry to blackberries, but bigger). I doubled the recipe without using pectin and had to cook it for too long to get it to sheet. Oh well. Live and learn. I still have strawberry jam from last year - it's not our favorite - so I won't need to make any this season. We are needing to replenish the frozen strawberries and strawberry syrup though. I use the syrup to flavor yogurt, since it's one of those foods that always seems to have unecessary ingredients added to it..

I would love to say that all this fruit comes from our backyard, but since our fruit trees are in their first year, the ollalieberry vines didn't make it, and the blueberry bushes are looking mighty sad, we buy our berries in bulk from either the farmers market or Swanton Berry Farm's u-pick.

Only Ute and I went to the u-pick this year and let me tell you, she was a real trooper. It took us about 3 hours to get all of our strawberries and ollalieberries that will see us through the year, a challenge for any young tyke. But Ute took it in stride, and when she got bored with berries, she made altars for the fairies and ran up and down the rows of tangled vines.

Living in a city, Ute just doesn't get enough running around outside time with limited supervision. At her age, I was roaming my small town neighborhood with barely a hint of the adult gaze upon me. I am saddened that she will never experience that kind of freedom, but trips to the farm give her the occasional taste.

Luscious Lemons

Last week I was at my friend Christine's house in Alameda when out of her second story bedroom window I spotted the most exquisite Meyer lemons. Their plump, juicy yellowness at the zenith of ripeness beckoned to me and as if in a dream, I floated towards the glass. The next thing I knew, I was hanging out the window, plucking the sweet scented spheres and chucking them onto the bed. I wrasseled that tree in full Crocodile Hunter style, with a ferocity that only a true champion of the Meyer lemon could exhibit. My friend found me draped over a tree limb with only my knees planted firmly against the edge of the sill to prevent a 15 plus foot fall. With slack-jawed bemusement, Christine admitted that she had been trying to figure out how to get those lemons for years. I felt like MacGyver.

The lemons were pretty darn ripe and needed to have something done with them and fast. I went with the Moroccan salt preservation method. They'll be great in a late summer tagineperfumey foods, though Ute and I thought it was delicious.

Flowerama

Speaking of flowers, I've been making syrups with the backyard lavender and roses. The lavender syrup is definitely a touch too heady, but I think it might work over a pound cake.

The neighbor's had a whole mess of roses that were getting eaten up by earwigs so I harvested the petals and made rose syrup. Tastes great in hot tea. With the way I consume the Queen's drink, however, I doubt that the jar will last two weeks!

Poultrypalooza

I've been preparing a lot of poultry lately and as most of you know, I'm not one to waste any bit of the bird. At a recent dinner party, I believe I actually screeched at my guests to not throw away the bones. Clearly I won't be winning any "hostess of the year" awards in the near future. In my book, nothing compares to the rich broth that comes from simmering the bones of a well spiced, roasted bird. The flavor of the broth reflects the way the the meat was prepared and the types of seasonings used, creating a stock that is always unique. At this point, I can't even bear to use canned stock, its flavor so inferior as to be nearly inedible. If you've never made your own broth, just try it. It's easier than you might think. I just throw the carcass or bones into a roasting pan, fill up with water, and simmer in a 350 oven for several hours, checking, of course, that the water doesn't completely evaporate.

At same said dinner party, while attempting to dazzle my companions with my special Moroccan chicken, I forgot to pull a roast duck out of the oven that was taking longer to cook than I had expected. Well I cooked the crap out of that duck, consequently feeling an utter failure with my first attempt to prepare this kind of bird. In the midst of me wailing on and on about the damn duck, one of my lovely guests turned to me and with a tone of seriousness that I can only liken to a military command said "I'll tell you how you are going to fix that duck." I snapped out of my little pity party. "How?" "You're going to make a confit by shredding the meat and marinating it in the fat from the pan." "Are you sure that will work? Won't it still be tough?" I queried. "No way," says my pragmatic friend, "It's going to be soooo succulent with all that duck fat." And then she did this lip smacking thing that was kind of gross. But she was right. It was scrumptious enough to make slightly disgusting gestures and sound effects with one's face.


Fermenting Fools


Did you hear that stores are pulling Kombucha from the shelves because they're worried about the alcohol content? Apparently, it might be more boozy than once thought. I'm thinking the whole thing is a bit overblown. I've had my fair share of experiences with alcohol and am no stranger to its effects, even if I no longer partake. Though I have felt a little "high" after drinking Kombucha, I certainly have never felt remotely drunk, even being the light weight that I am.

Frankly, I'm stunned that folks will lay down three plus bucks for a small bottle of the stuff from Whole Foods when you can make gallons of it for pennies. And the making is really not complicated. When I started my SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), I had my panties all in a stir, worried that I was going to mess it up and poison myself with some unwanted mold, but it's really as simple as making a pot of tea. A POT OF TEA! Really. I'm totally not exaggerating.


Ute and I really like the stuff, so we've got two cultures going at the same time. Esteban says he'll just stick with his beer that he's been home brewing (details to come). Fine, more for us I say.

What have you all got going on in the kitchen right now?

End of Winter Comfort Food

We are so fortunate here in coastal California to have a year round growing season. While the rest of the country is buried under a couple feet of snow, we can usually find something green and edible sprouting up in the garden. Currently, our CSA is providing us with loads of leeks, beets, carrots, cabbage, greens, broccoli, winter squash, and cauliflower. The Disgruntled Farmhand and daughter turn their noses up at over half these items. I'm sure many of you out there are all too familiar with the challenges of feeding picky eaters so I thought I'd send along a few tasty recipes that go over well at Itty Bitty.

A Wonderful Winter Salad


I came up with this salad with the need to clear out some of the veggies that were piling up in the fridge. This was a great way to get some cabbage into the more finicky folks around here and to add some dazzling color to the table.

ingredients:

• orange beets
• carrots
• purple cabbage
• apples
• pecans
• maple syrup
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• salt
• pepper
• feta (optional)
  

Peel and shred beets, carrots, and apple. Thinly slice cabbage. Toss with good quality olive oil, balsamic, salt, and pepper to taste. While flavors mingle in salad, cover pecans with maple syrup and roast in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Top salad with pecans. For a bit of decadence, add some feta cheese.

Roasted Chicken Soup with Leeks


Have you been tossing out your roast chicken carcasses? Shame on you if you have. Nothing beats a stock made from one when it comes to depth of flavor. (Handy tip: if you don't have time to make stock, throw the carcass in the freezer. Having a stock making day is a fantastic time saver for those of us who prefer homemade stock.)

But the real secret to this recipe is the way the leeks are prepared. My dear friend Joe Evans, a former cook at Chez Panisse, taught me how to properly cook leeks. Prior to this lesson, I consistently charred my leeks to the point of being inedible. It would always happen so fast, regardless of how high I set the flame. Joe explained to me that leeks are very fibrous and need time to break down. He suggested sauteing them covered, using half butter and half water for approximately 15-30 minutes under a low flame. This gives them an abundant amount of time to lose their woodiness and caramelize.

ingredients:

• carcass of leftover roast chicken
  
• a couple leeks
• carrots
• celery (optional)
• potatoes (optional)
• greens of some sort (optional)
  
• 2/3 cup of rice
• butter
  
• seasoning salt (I use something like Lawry's or my own mixture that resembles it.)
• pepper

Cover chicken carcass with plenty of water. Simmer on stove top or roast in a 350 degree oven for a couple hours. I often leave it in the oven for several hours. Don't worry about what types of seasoning you used on the roast chicken; they will add to the soup flavor. Strain broth from carcass and pick out usable meat. Toss meat back in with the broth. Bring soup base back up to a simmer and add rice, carrots, and any other veggies that you think might be tasty such as celery, potatoes, or some types of greens (note: add greens at the end with leeks). I usually add baby bok choy as we get a lot of it from our CSA and no one here, except me, will eat it cooked any other way. Add salt and pepper. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until rice is done. Meanwhile, melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a saute pan, add leeks, and top with a bit of water. Cover and simmer for 15-30 minutes, checking frequently to make sure there is enough water to prevent burning. When leeks are fully soft, add to soup with chopped greens during the last five minutes of simmering. Serve with crusty homemade bread.

Squash with California Chile Sauce


The DF detests squash. There's something about the texture that sends him running for the hills whenever there's even a mention of the gourd. But this recipe has completely reformed his squash hating ways. My brother tells me that if I figure out a way to bottle the sauce, I'll be a millionaire. Seriously, you're gonna kiss my ass for sharing this with you. If for some reason you find it completely repugnant, I'll give you your money back. Disclaimer: no guarantees for squash haters. I may have converted mine, but I refuse to be responsible for yours.

ingredients:

• winter squash - Delicata or butternut make a good choice, but you could use any kind you have laying around.
• butter
• California chile powder (This is a mild chile. You can find it at any Latin grocery. Feel free to go with a chile that has a bit more heat. I just prefer this one because I'm sensitive the super hot spicy stuff.)
• lime
• salt or garlic salt

Cut squash in half and roast, face down, on a baking pan with a touch of water at 350 until soft. Prepare sauce by melting about 4 tablespoons of butter. Add chile powder, at least a tablespoon or more, and salt to taste. I make it a deep brick red color. Juice one lime and stir into sauce. You can either pour the sauce over the squash left in their skins or remove squash meat, mash, and smother in sauce.

P.S. Let me know if you like the recipes. I'm thinking about trying to post the best of my kitchen experiments on a monthly basis. What do you think?

Ingredient Based Cooking

The other day my friend Juan was elucidating on the two main methods of cooking: ingredient based verses recipe, he being a fan of the former. I find myself partial to using a combo of the two, demonstrated by today's latest concoction. So what does one actually do with slightly under ripe-ish sour apples, overripe plums, and perfectly mature peaches? Make a crisp, of course!


Here's my basic recipe:

• Fill a pie pan with fruit like strawberries, blueberries, any kind of berries really, peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots, apples - whatever strikes your fancy. Feel free to make wild combinations. You really can't mess this up. Although I don't know if I would recommend melons or citrus.
• Make a crumble topping by combining 1 stick of softened butter, 1 cup of brown sugar, and 1 cup of flour. I usually use my hands to mix it really well and make it crumbly, but a fork or one of those pastry blenders that gets the butter and flour to stick together work well too. Sometimes I add oatmeal, cinnamon, or nuts. Pour crumble on top of fruit.
• Bake at 350 for 45 minutes, or 1 hour if you've got apples in there.

It's so yummy, especially fresh out of the oven. Just ask Ute. Look at her, she can barely wait for it to cool.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I really wanted to write an upbeat post about all the delicious foods I've been whipping up in my fabulous retro kitchen. However, the vicissitudes of life on the farm preclude me from doing so. There is much to report since my last post. I will try to be brief.

The Good

I made a lot of great stuff from scratch, like these loaves of bread:


And these precious 3 jars of loquat jam. About a third of the loquats came from our tree and the rest from a friend's backyard.


Ute and her friend Zoe and I went to pick Ollalieberries in Pescadero, but the crop this year was completely abysmal. After 2 hours of picking in the hot sun, without a lot of help from the short set, I gleaned approximately 2 pounds of berries. No Ollalieberry jam this year. So we went next door for some strawberries. Again the girls didn't quite take to task, as illustrated in their mostly empty berry baskets.


But I got some more red juiciness for the freezer and a few pints of jam out of the deal.

Other foods included pita bread, hummus - cooked those chickpeas and everything -, and yogurt, which turned out a bit grainy. Tasted fine, but I guess to get that real creamy texture that you find in the store you have to add pectin, gelatin, guar gum, or other additives. I used an electric mixer to smooth it out. It kinda worked.

In other news, we are making a lot of progress in the backyard with the help of our friend Daymon. He's building the fence, digging trenches, pouring concrete, and moving crap around so that we can move the animals to their more permanent location in the yard.


The little chooks have finally graduated to the big house. I wasn't quite ready to do that since Pearl is still sick, but it was either move them out of the garage or end up in divorce court. I chose my marriage over the chickens, which I hope is happy news to my DDF (Dear Disgruntled Farmhand). And after just under a week of separation from the flock, foot soaks, and antibiotics, Sweet Pea's toe is doing great.

The goats are fabulous. They are not tame yet, but are eating out of our hands. We are moving in the right direction.


The Bad

Poor Sweet Pea. Her toe was getting so much better and then I had to go and almost kill her again. I must have some weird karmic relationship with that bird because I keep inadvertently trying to do her in. I was cleaning out the chicken house, keeping the birds on the other side of a low, makeshift partition - think scrap plywood board - and things were going swell. I had to move in and out of the coop to bring the hose and the bucket of soap, etc., but I checked the door every time to make sure I wasn't squishing any meandering peeps. On my way back from one trip, I noticed that Lorraine was trying to fly over the partition and sneak out under the coop (usually this area is blocked off by aforementioned plywood board). So I pushed the run back, hoping to keep her in for a few seconds longer so I could get the board back in place. I went to put the board back, opened the door and noticed that Sweet Pea seemed stuck between a cinder block and the bottom board of the door frame. Then I realized that she wasn't stuck between, she was jammed underneath the run, the entire weight of it crushing down on her little body. I freaked. I screamed. Loud. Probably scared the neighbors. I swept Sweet Pea up and brought her into the garage so that Ute could tend to her. Ute starting crying that Sweet Pea was going to die. I assured her that she just needed to rest after her ordeal. She was still breathing. A little limp, but breathing. Meanwhile the hose that I was using to wash down the coop was leaking, spraying water everywhere. The chicks by now had all escaped, running underneath the coop and out into the neighbor's yard. It was utter chaos. But don't worry, this tale ends well. I collected the chicks, turned off the water, secured the coop, and brought Sweet Pea upstairs to watch Barney with Ute. The TV worked like a charm and Sweet Pea is again right as rain. Ute... well I will put some money in the therapy jar for this one.

The Ugly

This is the most difficult news to report. Pearl is not doing well. This morning she seemed more lethargic than usual and extremely stuffy and sneezy. Miss Lorraine recovered from this cold/conjunctivitis thing rather quickly. Pearl just seems to get worse every day. This afternoon I went to take some photos and I found her looking miserable. I picked her up and she drooped in my hands like a rag doll. I laid her down while I went to find a box to separate her from the others and she went limp on her side. I thought she would die then and there, but she continued to breath. She is now closed off inside the kitchen where I've been keeping her hydrated and dosing her with Sweet Pea's antibiotics. Normally I wouldn't give a chicken antibiotics, but since they are not laying yet and I don't have a very large flock, I want to prevent as much death as possible. Although I didn't suspect Coryza at first, I'm now thinking that this may be what is going around the flock as Pearl is displaying the telltale sign of foul smelling breath along with the other upper respiratory symptoms. Three of the young chicks seem to be immune to whatever this is. I keep hearing her sneezes and croaky chirps from the kitchen so I'm assuming Pearl is still giving it a fight. Please think healthy thoughts for this poor chook. Ute will be devastated if she loses her chicken.