preserving the last of the summer bounty

when i was growing up, in the late summer my mom canned massive amounts of tomatoes produced by dad's garden full of tomato plants. he always had at least 50 and i seem to recall upwards of 70 plants some years. she canned quart jars of whole, peeled tomatoes and quarts and quarts of luscious, liquid summer, in the form of homemade tomato juice. i remember using the hand-juicer--it was a big funnel-shaped colander with a wooden "bat" that fit perfectly inside of it and we squeezed all the goodness out of the tomatoes, juicing them into a big bowl. i also remember her lifting metal baskets of steaming quarts of ruby goodness out of the big canner and helping her check to see that all of them had sealed properly. i loved hearing the jars making that popping sound as they sealed.

even more, i remember standing at the fridge, drinking directly from the jar that cold beautiful salty tomato juice that tasted of liquid summer even in the midst of the darkest winter day. dad was always cussing us out for drinking the last of it and not putting a new jar in to get cold, but beating him to it was part of the fun.

i think it was with that in mind that i gathered the last of the produce from my little vegetable garden a couple of weeks ago. i wanted to hold onto a bit of summer for the cold, winter months. we have about six tomato plants in our greenhouse (due to our climate, they don't do that well outside of the greenhouse, it's simply never hot enough for tomatoes). i had a couple of plants that seeded themselves in  in my herb bed, due to some dirt from last year that we had removed from the greenhouse that went into that bed. the tomato plants got big and are loaded with green tomatoes that won't ever have a chance to ripen in our short growing season, so i picked the green ones too.

i had green and red tomatoes, several eggplants, several zucchini (courgettes), some zucchini flowers, borlotti beans, some zingy little peppers in black and red and loads of herbs. my herb garden has done very well this year and even the basil we planted in the greenhouse did well. our climate doesn't let us grow basil outside the greenhouse, but thyme, sage, rosemary, tarragon and mint do very well, even into the colder months, due to our relatively mild winters. i had parsley and cilantro both inside the greenhouse and outdoors and they did well too. the parsley is still going, but my cilantro has gone to seed and it's nearly time to harvest those pungent seeds for winter curries.

we've been watching a wonderful cooking program with camilla plum on methods of preservation on DR2. so i was inspired to preserve my mixed veggies in olive oil and a light vinegar for use later this winter, when we need to remember the growing season that was. (note: links are in danish.)

it was very easy to do and it's quite simply difficult to describe how satisfying it was. inspired by camilla's recipe, i did as follows:

2 kg. mixed veggies - you can use whatever you have on hand in your own garden or what you can get in a green market or at the late season farmer's markets. i used:

3 med. zucchini, diced into bite-sized pieces
2 small eggplants, diced into bite-sized pieces
a few small red and green tomatoes, which i left whole
5-6 small red and black chili peppers
6 shallots, peeled and sliced into bite-sized pieces
1 head of garlic, peeled and separated into cloves
1 organic lemon, scrubbed clean and sliced into thin slices
handfuls of herbs - i used thyme, sage, parsley, tarragon and basil
6 zucchini flowers, rinsed carefully (bugs like to hide in them)
6 leaves from the grape plant that's growing in the greenhouse
1 C borlotti beans (happened to be the ones i had in the garden, but any beans will do)

toss the zucchini, eggplant, shallots and garlic together in a collander with a good handful of salt and allow them to drip a bit (any bitterness the eggplant has escapes this way).

heat to a boil:

3 dl of cider vinegar
2 liters of water

dip all of veggies (not the lemons and not the herbs) into the boiling vinegar/water bath for about a minute (the beans need a bit more than that, maybe 3-4 minutes) to blanch them.  i dipped the zucchini flowers, but they really wilted, so i'm not sure i would do that the next time. reserve your vinegar mixture.

remove the hot veggies and put them into your prepared jars - your jars must be sterilized before you begin (you can do it by sending them on a tour in the dishwasher or by rinsing them with boiling water). i laid a lemon disc in the bottom of each jar, both for prettiness and so that the lemon would be able to pervade everything from the bottom up. don't forget to put a few sprigs of the herbs here and there as you layer the veggies into the jars. i tried to make it as pretty as i could as i went along, imagining that some of them might be given as hostess gifts at some point. stick in a zucchini flower on the edge where you can see it. the same with the grape leaves. i also threw 12-15 peppercorns into the bottom of each jar for good measure

once the jars are as full as you'd like them to be, fill up to about 3/4 with the hot vinegar/water mixture you used to blanch the veggies. then fill to the top, so all your veggies are covered, with a good, tasty, high quality extra virgin olive oil. i used a wonderful, very strong organic one called rumi tree from palestinian fair trade. put another slice of lemon at the top and a grape leaf to cover. make sure everything is under the olive oil layer and then close your jar.

it should keep on a shelf in a dry, relatively dark place all winter long. you can eat this with good bread, cheese and sausage on an evening when you don't feel like cooking. it would be lovely in a salad or as a salad on its own.

once you open the jar, if you don't use it all, do refrigerate because of the low salt content and diluted vinegar it won't keep that long after opening if you don't refrigerate.  use a clean utensil to retrieve what you're using from the jar and you'll be fine. the olive oil layer can used for salad dressings or a marinade, as it gets all pervaded with the herbs. delicious. my batch made two of the large-sized jar pictured above and one small. i had enough of the vinegar solution left over to have had one more jar, but ran out of veggies. camilla plum recommends putting in mushrooms as well and i only didn't because i didn't have any on hand and this was at least partially an exercise in using what i had from the garden.

Crabapple Jelly

Last summer I made 100 teapot sugar cookies for the summer fête, and my mother (and several friends) told me I was mad (in the English sense of crazy) to do it. But as a thank-you, my daughter’s class unexpectedly gave me a voucher for the garden centre; and with this voucher, I bought a little crabapple (or “malus”) tree. So really, I think it all came out rather well, don’t you?

And by the way, aren’t fruit trees just so magical? Blossom in the spring, and then fruit in the fall? What a bargain. I can’t remember why I picked out a crabapple tree, but it was the right sort of size, and I liked the smooth bark, and it had a lovely pinkish blossom.

This September, even though my tree is still tiny, it brought forth a prodigious harvest of fruit . . . so much fruit, in fact, that the branches just drooped with it.

I asked an English friend what I could possibly do with my crop of crabapples, and she mentioned that her mother made crabapple jelly every year. The next day, she brought over a recipe scrawled on the back of an envelope. Although it seemed clear enough, and despite my fondness for a scribbled-down recipe, I decided that I better get a second opinion from one of my kitchen gurus – in this case, Tamasin Day-Lewis.

If you want a classic English recipe, I thoroughly recommend Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible. Its subtitle claims that it is “the one and only book for every cook,” and even though I wouldn’t dream of only having one cookbook, I will vouch for its comprehensiveness. Sure enough, it had a recipe for crabapple jelly – and not only just the recipe, but a family story to go along with it. Tamasin writes: My affection for crab apple jelly is a deep and enduring one. This was my father’s favourite breakfast treat, so it has to be mine. (For the record, Tamasin’s father was the British Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis. Just so you know that this is the jelly for poets!)

On the basis of Tamasin’s guidance, and that handed-over recipe from my mother’s friend, I am happy to go out on a limb and say that this is the definitive method for crabapple jelly. As it turned out, their directions were almost identical.

In brief (and it really is brief):

Ingredients:

Crabapples, as many as you have

Unrefined sugar – 1 pound (16 ounces) of sugar for each pint (20 ounces; this is an English pint) of juice. Further note on sugar: I used jam sugar which has added pectin. It worked beautifully, but I can’t say that it is necessary.

Water

Method:

Wash the fruit, and put it in a large saucepan or preserving pan. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, and then simmer, slowly, until the fruit is soft and pulpy.

*Then, you need to strain it.

Tamasin says to put it through a jelly bag, but here is my advice: Get your finest (as in the one with the smallest holes) colander (or strainer) and put it over a large bowl. Dump the fruit in the strainer, and let the juice run through. It won’t be entirely clear, which is why you are going to strain it a second time through a fine muslin cloth. (If you don’t have muslin, or any babies around, you could use something fine like a handkerchief (clean, of course). I didn’t have a jelly bag, so I just put a piece of muslin over a large bowl – and then I put a rubber band around to hold it in place. It drips through fairly quickly and THEN (voila) you have a perfectly clear liquid . . . with no mush to mar what will be your pink jelly.

Measure your remaining liquid and add a similar proportion of sugar. I went with Tamasin’s ratio, which is slightly less sugar to the fruit.

Bring to the boil, and as the whitish scum comes to the top you will need to scoop it off with a spoon. Continue scumming, and after about 10 minutes of boiling, you can test it to see if it has set.

The easiest method is to chill a small plate . . . and then drop a bit of the juice on it. If you cool it down quickly -- just stick it in the freezer for a couple of minutes -- then you can test it by pushing your finger against it. If the liquid wrinkles, then it has set; in other words, it is ready.

Now pour the well-strained liquid into a glass measuring cup with a spout and fill your (sterilized) glass jars. (You could also use a funnel for this job; if you have one, unlike me.)

It really is EASY to sterilize jars. I just run them through the dishwasher and then let them dry thoroughly in a low oven. Take the jars out of the oven (not forgetting to use a hot pad) when you are ready to pour the jelly into them. Then seal and cool. If you are that way inclined, make artistic labels as a final step.

Now, if you made it this far, you may be thinking to yourself: WHY would I ever want to do such a thing? I will admit that before I moved to the English countryside, and suddenly had crops that needed to be dealt with, it would never have occurred to me to make jelly, jam, preserves or anything else that required a sterilized jar. HOWEVER, there is something absolutely miraculous about the fact that fruit, sugar and water can be so easily (yes, easily) transformed into an entirely new substance. So far this year I have made chutney, orange marmalade, strawberry jam, and now this beautiful orange-pink crabapple jelly – each in its own season. I’m aiming to make pear preserves next week.

Preserving is one of those wonderfully old and useful skills that so many people have forgotten how to do, and sure you can just buy the stuff – and yes, it will probably be cheaper. But it really will not be as delicious. The taste of the fruit will not be as clear and true. And you will not have the satisfaction of doing something so gratifyingly wonderful.

Postscript:  I'm not much of a breakfast eater, which means that I have a tendency to require “elevenses.” Last week I was stuck on apple slices with peanut butter, but this week my favorite treat is a slice of good white bread slathered in butter and crabapple jelly. If you toast the bread until it is warm enough to melt butter, but still soft on the inside, the butter and the jelly will sort of merge and ooze together. The jelly isn’t overly sweet, and it has a tart “something” that is not like anything else I can think of. Unlike breakfast toast, which is always a rushed experience for me, I can linger over this delicious snack . . .

memories of mushrooms

when i was a kid, every may, we used to go to our secret i'd-tell-you-but-i'd-have-to-kill-you spot to hunt the wily morel mushroom. i still remember one bonanza year where we found what i would today refer to as chernobyl morels (tho' chernobyl hadn't yet happened at that point). they were enormous, like 5-6 times the normal size of morels. somewhere in my parents' basement there is undoubtedly a photograph of them. i remember it being taken and that they were laid out on a big piece of plywood for the purpose. i also remember that the local game warden came by to see them (it was a small town and news traveled fast) and that he tried to get it out of my dad where we had found them, but dad wasn't telling. there weren't that many suitable places where morels could grow in that area, so it's a wonder no one ever seemed to find our spot. but they didn't and we went back year after year, tho' we never equaled the haul of that one year in the mid-70s.

i clearly remember pans of tender morels fried up in real butter, served together with a special steak acquired for the occasion. because such fine mushrooms deserved a fine steak. and i remember fondly those exquisite, earthy flavors, eaten only in the few weeks morels, which are quite temperamental, were available. we were eating locally and appreciating things in their proper season before all that was fashionable. the steaks definitely came from locally-raised cattle as well, it was that kind of place.

where i live now, in denmark, the mushroom season comes in the autumn. there are several varieties of rørhatte or boletus (of which the porcini or karl johan is one) and chanterelles - the normal kind (pictured above) and trumpet chanterelles (below).

mushrooms are such a hard-won and precious commodity, crouching as they do, silently in the forest, blending in and hiding, that i always feel like cooking them in the simplest way in order to let them display as much of their mushroomy glory as possible. from childhood, i do have the notion in my head that they are best accompanied by a gorgeous steak. i have been known to stir them into a creamy risotto as well, tho' the temptation to serve that risotto with a steak is strong.

mostly, i do them as follows:

melt 25-50 grams of salted organic butter (depending on how many mushrooms your hunt yielded)
a glug of good quality extra virgin olive oil (i love the combination of butter and fragrant olive oil)
2 cloves of minced garlic
handful of fresh thyme
mound of cleaned, sliced (depending on the size) mushrooms

when we find karl johans, i tend to add a half pint of cream to the above and cook it down to make a thick, creamy mushroom sauce.

you can toss the beautiful, sautéed mess of mushrooms over fresh pasta, into your risotto or serve them as they are in their garlicky goodness, over a good steak. you'll never go wrong doing that.

on becoming a cook

i'm not sure when exactly it was that i became a cook. i remember having people over for dinner during college and grad school. big, elaborate dinners that were way over my head and over which i slaved and panicked and wore myself out to the point where i didn't really enjoy it once the food was served. once, together with a good friend, we cooked an entire thanksgiving menu by the book from bon appetit magazine. my main memory of the meal is actually some danish aalborg aquavit in a funky triangular bottle that i searched high and low for in every liquor store in a three-state area and which was worth it with the soy almonds we made as a snack.

it's funny the things you remember. i also remember a huge fight with my starter husband over the place of velveeta cheese in our home. i felt strongly it had no place and he thought it was an essential ingredient in the thanksgiving green bean casserole. i think that was the beginning of the end for us...

food provokes strong emotions. and memories. and laughter. and, as bee said, nearly every social occasion centers on food in some sense. this way in which food ties life together, both literally and figuratively is, for me, what this blog is about. the memories attached to certain foods, how they can evoke comfort and well-being or take you back to your childhood. exploring how we establish traditions through food.

although i grew up in a household with a mother who is a very good, solid cook, i don't know that i cooked that much there. i have more memories of baking or helping with canning and making homemade tomato juice in jars for winter (it is spectacular). my grandmother on my mother's side was a prolific baker. at christmas, she would make dozens of cookies in dozens of varieties. but i don't have clear memories of helping her with that, except for helping to eat them. my grandmother on my father's side was famous for one dish...her homemade chicken and noodles and i'll undoubtedly share that recipe along this journey, when it fits.

i remember as a kid, going to bed with nothing fun to eat around the house and waking up in the morning to the smell of freshly-baked apple bars (a recipe i will undoubtedly share soon) or a perfect pie cooling on the countertop, because mom had been up in the middle of the night curing her insomnia by baking. i haven't inherited that habit, tho' i do have a bit of insomnia. i'm more likely to cure it by reading or blogging.

i have to admit that what really transitioned my own perception of myself as a cook had to be the rise of the cooking show. i love to watch cooking shows and always feel inspired when i do so. my cookbook collection is undoubtedly heavy on the british cooks due to several years of a channel called BBC Food, but even when i still lived in the US, the Food Network was a favorite. watching cooking shows gave me courage to leave the recipes that i didn't really have before them. i was a slavish recipe follower. i succeeded at it for the most part, but i never felt like a courageous cook, even tho' i had a reputation as a good cook. it really took food television to move my cooking to the next level.

today, i'm as likely to pull down nigella or paul cunningham (a brit, but he writes in danish and has a michelin-starred restaurant here in denmark) when i want to relax and just read something as i am to turn to mma ramotswe. i adore food writing. good food writing. almost as much as i love to watch cooking shows. and when i do, i almost always end up in the kitchen, kneading up a batch of bread dough, inventing a new twist on potato salad or baking up a batch of red velvet cupcakes.

because the times when i consciously feel the most contentment are when i'm chopping or stirring or filling my red kitchenaid mixer with butter and sugar and eggs. sabin, at age 8, has already noted that that's one of the best smells you can smell, so i guess i'm passing along the love of being in the kitchen to her. and i see that as one of the most important things i can do.

for me, this blog is about thinking more consciously about the food we put on the table at our house, sharing it, recording the memories of it and hopefully, hearing from all of you what works for you and your families. and i hope to learn a whole lot of fabulous new recipes from bee. because she's a great cook and i know that sharing this with her will push me and help me to grow, both in my writing and in my kitchen. we're looking forward to seeing where this takes us and we hope you'll come along for the ride. we promise it will taste good.

foodie philosophy

Undoubtedly this reflects my own bias on the matter, but it seems to me that food is the most consistently available pleasure in life – and therefore, of utmost importance. Sometimes I am a teeny tiny bit envious of people who don’t really care about food – primarily because they tend not to have to worry about creeping weight -- but mostly, I just feel sorry for them. Food is love, and it is also comfort, and furthermore, it is the basis of most social life. In my home, it the basis of all social life. Even if we have to eat after 9 pm, we will all sit down together for dinner. I can be a slapdash housekeeper, and I will never wow anyone with the artistic beauty and originality of my domestic arrangements, but I do promise tea and cookies.

I am a cook who believes more in coziness than in perfection. I am more about the kitchen than the dining room. When I think of the food that I like best, words like nourishing, wholesome, comforting, savory and nostalgia come to mind.  I would rather have a good recipe for soup that anything super-fancy.  When friends or family eat at my house, they tend to say, sometimes bemusedly: Did you make this? Invariably, the answer is yes – because I have a deeply rooted belief that homemade food is just better. It tastes better, and it is better for you, and therefore it is worth the extra effort.

I think of myself as a “good plain cook,” but I realize that these terms are all relative. We all have our own mental parameters of what is too much bother and what isn’t. To my mind, making your own pie crust or lemon curd or fresh tomato sauce isn’t a bother. I think nothing of making my own meringues or choux pastry or cheese straws. (However, I would draw the line at croissants and pannetone, recipes that I’ve tried once but don’t intend on repeating.) On the other hand, I’m not that interested in preparations that involve beheading, deboning, or filleting. I once took a course on cutting up fish, only to conclude that I am just the sort of person who would rather buy my meat and fish ready for purpose.

Some people probably become interested in cooking by default – because there is no one else to do it, or because they are raised on such bad food that they rebel by learning how to prepare food properly. Mine was the opposite case. I grew up in a home that smelled (and tasted) of good food.

I remember coming home from school and smelling the heavenly winey aroma of a rich spaghetti sauce boiling away on the stove. I remember waking up in the morning, after one of my parents’ dinner parties, and greedily feasting on the cream puffs my mother had saved for me. I remember honey whole wheat bread, English muffins, and my mother’s special angel biscuits: all of those warm, yeasty smells. My mother particularly loved to bake and wasn’t that fussed about appetizers . . . and I have inherited these same tendencies from her. Although I spent a few college years living off of baked potatoes and bean and cheese tacos, it seemed inevitable that I would eventually acquire a KitchenAid mixer and a shelf of cookbooks of my own.

When I was a child, I used to sit in a gold velvet armchair and read cookbooks by the hour. I particularly enjoyed Helen Corbitt’s books – because she told great stories, had a strong point-of-view, and believed in the importance of soup, rolls and dessert. Also, she made it sound like so much Fun. She took great delight in feeding people. When I think of the food writers that I enjoy today – whether it is Nigella Lawson in London, or Rebecca Rather in Fredricksburg, Texas – I realize that they have those same qualities.

Very few cooks are inventors; most of us are just collaborators. I tend to get inspired by recipes, but then I go off-piste . . . partly out of necessity (maybe I don’t have all of the ingredients), and partly because I want to substitute according to my own eating preferences. I tend to favor the food writers who insist that every recipe is just a starting point. I also like the term “foodie,” because it suggests that the truly important thing is just having an interest in and appreciation of food. 

The best thing about collaboration is that it never really stops; I would like to think that every blog post is also the beginning of a conversation. When Julochka and I started talking about the idea for this new blog, the word “inspiration” kept coming up. Seasonal food, specific books or writers, our own food histories and stories, food politics, new techniques, adventures in growing and making food from scratch . . . these foodie matters are all part of the mix.

We all have to eat, but what a vast world there is between sustenance and sensuality! I think that food, whether it costs you in time or money or both, is the most vital luxury.