Ahhh Yeah, be jealous

Be jealous because your SOs don't set up a clothes line (henceforth known as  food line) in your kitchen.

BEHOLD!

Isn't it majestic? Not pictured is the fan under it, blowing up toward the line to keep air circulating.

Please ignore the YELLOW of my kitchen walls. My landlord calls it 'depressed man yellow' because it's so bright that it helps combat depression. I call it 'rather oppressive yellow'. Anyhow, that sucker is about 8 feet or so in the air, Husband needed to stand on a chair to put the nails in to hang it from, and he clocks in at 6 and a half feet. That's high enough to keep both my dogs, and my pain-in-the-butt cat from knocking things off of it.

What on earth is hanging from the wooden clothes pins? I'm glad I pretended you asked dear reader! That is 9 ears of dwarf corn that I'm drying on the cob for easy storage. That big long green thing on the end is a line of herbs. From the bottom up we have:

Cutting Celery
Sage
Purple Basil (or as I lovingly call it: Goth Basil)
And regular Basil

I call it my soup bundle. When it's done drying I'm going to toss a bunch of each into  the jar that I have the dehydrated green beans and soup noodles in. And when the corn is done drying I'm going to put some dried corn in there too. Yup, dehydrated soup mixes are a go.

Also Husband and I have been cleaning the basement. And by 'Husband and I' I mean 'Husband'. Apparently the dust and mildew down there sets off headaches and dizzy spells if I'm working for more than 30 minutes. But Husband is awesome and is cleaning. While he was cleaning he discovered a root cellar.

No seriously. There's something down there that can only have been intended as a root cellar. It is tucked away in a corner, with two exterior walls that never see sunlight, with a third wall and built in shelves. And a window. All we need to do is add a fourth wall (which can be heavy plastic) and a vent into the window. Guess what is happening before next winter? Yup, come this time next year I'll have a legit root cellar for storing the produce from my better planned garden. Which will have more squash, so there will be more need. But if nothing else it's a safe place to keep all my canned goods out of the sun, and my dry goods safe.

Yup. Somewhere along the line I've turned into my grandmother's memories of her mom in the '40s. And I'm perfectly ok with this.

Tonight is the march of NOM!

We went to the garden this morning. We harvested a handful of snow peas (it's been so damn cold that they're still producing. It is august. They ought to be dead by now), the last of the cucumbers, some tomatoes, more evil tasty peppers, some spinach, a few blue potatoes, some more corn, and three pumpkins.

You read that right. Pumpkins, in August.

There is only one thing for it. Tonight? I make pie filling. Just the filling mind you, pie crust and I are not on speaking terms. Husband is also going to make beer at some point, as one of the harvested pumpkins was The Beer Pumpkin. The one he has been babying since he saw it. So some time in the next month or so Husband is making me pumpkin beer out of our own pumpkins. It must happen.

But first, I make beef stock. The plan is to freeze the extra stock that I don't use for soup tomorrow so that I have it for the future. I am also going to dehydrate the veggies I don't use, and make "instant" soup mixes where we just  need to add meat and broth (or broth for veggie soup). The dehydrated versions will take up less room than jars of soup, and save me jars.

Mia's Beef Stock

You need:

1 good sized beef marrow bone
1 medium sized sweet onion, cut into large chunks
1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic
1 tablespoon of salt
3-4 quarts of water

Sweat the onion in a sock pot. Add the garlic and saute until the garlic is toasty-colored. Add the marrow bone, salt, and water. Set on low and let it do its thing, covered, for 4- 6 hours. Remove the bone, and use or freeze with the onions and garlic still in the stock. Alternately you can just make it in the crock pot.

Tomorrow I make soup. Beef and Bacon soup.

Beef and Bacon Soup

You need:

1 lb stew beef, cut into chunks
1/2 lb thick cut bacon
1 handful of green beans cut into 1-2 inch pieces
4-5 small potatoes cut into chunks
1/3 package of Orzo or soup pasta
3-4 carrots, sliced into coins
3-4 ears worth of dwarf corn (roughly 1/2 package of commercial frozen corn)
1 handful of spinach
1 small handful of okra
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
Oregano
Parsley
Sage
Basil
1-2 quarts of the beef stock outlined above

Cook the bacon until crispy. Brown the stew beef in the bacon grease. Add in everything else and set on low. Let it simmer for 4-6 hours. This can also be made in a crock pot if you want. Eat with a crusty bread.

Still with me after this recipe dump?

Because now I want to talk to you about my pumpkins.

As you know I grew Long Island Cheese Pumpkins this year. From what I'd read they were better than sugar babies for making pies, and they would keep like preservation pumpkins in a root cellar provided they weren't cut into. So I decided to grow them, thinking 'what the hell, the seed packet is $3.00, if it doesn't work or I hate them I'm not out much.'

Guys?

I am never growing a different type of pumpkin. Ever. Allow me to preach the joys of these things. The outer rind is thinner than a sugar baby, which means it comes off easier after steaming or roasting. The inner rind (the part used for pie makin') is thick, and creamy. It looks and smells a bit like a butter colored cantaloupe.  The pulp is small and easily removed, the seeds are large and are easy to separate from the pulp. I'm currently making pie, so I'll post tomorrow about how it tastes. But I can't see how this wouldn't be amazing. Why the hell did sugar babies replace these?! If you're going to grow pumpkins for eating, grow these. Seriously.

Pumpkin Pie Filling 

You need:

1 medium sized Long Island Cheese Pumpkin
nutmeg
heavy cream
brown sugar
all spice
cinnamon
ginger
cardamom
1 frozen pie crust (because fuck making that fickle bastard)

Cut the pumpkin into wedges (leave skin on, trust me). Remove the pulp and seeds. Roast the slices on a lightly oiled baking sheet at 390 degrees for 1 hour. Let the slices cool until you can handle them. Peel the skin off, it'll be easy to pull off after the pumpkin is cooked. Add the pumpkin and spices to a food processor. Pulse together, add heavy cream until the texture resembles a thick custard. Pour the custard into the crust. Bake at 350 for roughly 30 minutes, until the crust it starting to brown (check frequently to avoid burning). Let it cool.

Because pumpkin pie isn't complete without whipped cream:

Basic Whipped Cream

You need:

1 quart (or however much you have left over) heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 tsp white sugar

Pour the cream, vanilla, and sugar into a food processor and pulse until a light and fluffy whipped cream happens. Or you can use an egg beater. But I don't have one of those.

There's one more recipe that I forgot to include the other day. I made a pork rib marinade with the Peppa Sauce that I made a couple of weeks ago. So here's that too.

Peppa Pork 

You need:

1 lb pork ribs
2 tbs Worcester sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
3 tbs Peppa sauce
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Put everything together in a container in the fridge. Let the pork marinade over night, flipping frequently if the marinade doesn't cover the ribs. Either bake, or grill the ribs like normal.

Husband and I did the pork in the crock pot with some sweet onions. It came out tasting more like a delicious pork roast than ribs, but it was still tasty tasty stuff.

Ok, I think that's it for today. Time to go continue my cooking.

Tomato Sauce for freezin'

So today I'm making tomato sauce. Because I have tomatoes that are ripening faster than I can eat them raw. So I'm doing a basic sauce.

Lazy Freezer Sauce

You'll need:

Tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Basil (fresh if you've got it)
Parsley
Oregano
Thyme
Rosemary
Garlic
Bay leaf

Wash your tomatoes well. Cut them into chunks. Toss them (seeds, skin and all) and the seasonings into a sauce pot on low. Let them simmer for 20 minutes covered. Uncover and let cook down about another 20 minutes to thicken. Strain to remove the seeds and skins if you want to, then put it through the blender until it reaches your desired consistency. Then toss the sauce into freezer bags and freeze until you're ready to use it.

This is a good basic red sauce, when you thaw it you can add meat or cheese or more veg depending on what you feel like having for dinner that night.

Tomatoes and cold

This month has been unseasonably cool. While this is nice for those of us who are heat sensitive and can't eat if it is too hot, it is not great for veggies. My cucumbers have decided it is fall and are done. They have died back and I think they are completely done producing. There may be one or two little cucumbers left from them but nothing like the multiple dozen I was harvesting a week.

But I'm not here to talk to you about cucumbers today. No. I am here to talk to you about tomatoes. Delicious nightshades, the base for red sauces and chili, the lovely red slice atop your burger. I could continue but I will not. Tomatoes are delicious is what I'm getting at here.

Tomatoes also love heat. They ripen best when left on the vine in the hot days of July and August, lazily turning ripe while the world slows down and butterflies drift by. Except this year. It is mid-August and it almost hit freezing at  night this week. Tomatoes ripen very very slowly in cool weather. And won't ripen at all after frost hits.

So what is a gardener to do? For as long as the weather holds out and frost stays away, leave them on the vine and just wait patiently. If however you see frost in the forecast? Harvest everything. Even the green ones. You can ripen them inside.They won't be as good as ones that are vine ripened, but they'll be better than store bought and better than having lost half  your crop because Mother Nature is a frigid bitch this year.

You need:

A box.
Newspaper.
A place that doesn't get too cold and has very little draft. Like a basement, or a count on your kitchen if you only have a few tomatoes.

Carefully wrap the green tomatoes in news paper, pack them into the box. Set the box in your chosen place and wait a few days. Check your tomatoes frequently because you don't want them to zip past ripe and into overly-ripe/almost rotten territory.

That's it. Ripen your tomatoes indoors and outsmart Mother Nature!

Tune in next time where I'm sure I'm going to pay for that comment somehow.

Jerky 2: The reckoning

Ok, so there was something I left out of my little expose (can't get the accent on blogger drat it!) on jerky the other day. Something I'd assumed was obvious, yet apparently needed to have been articulated to Husband.

When slicing meat for jerky, slice it thin. Otherwise it doesn't dry out correctly. Which then leads to having to bake it in the oven at 390 for about 30 minutes to kill off anything living in it and to properly dry it out. After it spent 12 hours in a dehydrator. And I'm still a bit suspicious of whether or not I should eat it. It looks and feels like jerky. It breaks apart like jerky. However food borne illnesses are a thing and I'm not sure I've avoided them entirely.

Food science friends, please advise.

Other thing I made the other day as Peppa Sauce.

Peppa Sauce is apparently a Southern Staple. It is hot peppers in vinegar. That's it. I had hot peppers and apple cider vinegar, and garlic. My husband likes spicy things so I figured why the heck not and thew a bottle together. Specifically a fancy bottle.

This fancy bottle

I found the recipe (such as it is) here: http://ourdailybrine.com/southern-pepper-sauce-recipe/

The changes I made were:

Apple cider vinegar instead of white wine vinegar (I'm on a budget I had to work with what I had)

A mix of Bird's Eye Peppers (7 or 8 of them), Jalapenos (about 10) and some whole dried red peppers for color (a handful 'cause they're wimpy). I cut each pepper in half so the vinegar could get to all of the rind, and left the seeds in for added burn. I also tossed in about 1 tsp of minced garlic and Husband wanted ground black pepper added because he likes black pepper and we didn't have whole pepper corns. 

It's been sitting on my counter for two days now. It has opinions. It would like to share these opinions with you. Mostly by clearing out your sinuses when you sniff it. I wonder how it'll taste.

Jerky

Here we depart from things directly going on with Fwigf to discuss preserving something I can't grow in my garden:

Meat.

The day I find a steak tree that'll change. But until then I must buy my meat from a store. But buying meat in bulk is cheaper long run so we need to discuss how to preserve it. Sure you could toss it in a freezer, but where's the fun in that? And what if (like me) you lack a freezer big enough?

That my darlings is where jerky comes in. Jerky is a pre-refrigeration method of preservation. We've got all kinds of accounts of smoked or dried meats from almost all cultures (to the best of my knowledge, someone correct me in the comments if I'm making things up). Jerky is dead simple to make, or complicated as hell depending on your preference. I am lazy, I prefer dead simple.

Jerky is created by long, slow, drying and cooking and low heat. This means the heat doesn't get intense enough to properly kill off pathogens lurking in your meat. So, a few safety precautions:

1. Use lean cuts. Fat takes longer to dry out than muscle.
2. Brine your meat. In addition to adding flavor an acidic brine helps kill nasties.
3. Make sure your dehydrating method of choice gets to and maintains a temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Sanitize you work surfaces
5. Use either the pre-roasting or finishing method to be extra sure

Pre-roasting or pre-boiling the meat either in brine or water is the safest way to make sure your jerky is cooked all the way through and safe to eat. However it produces a crumbly/crunchy jerky. If that's your thing then by all means! Boil your meat in the brine for about 10 minutes, or roast it at 350 for about 15 minutes before putting it either in your dehydrator or oven at 155 degrees for 4-6 hours.

Me? I prefer chewy jerky. So I'm going with the finishing method. Which is basically roast it at 350 for 10 minutes after it's spent it's time in the dehydrator. My source for this information was a paper by the University of Wisconsin, link in the bibliography page.

So now that you know how you're going to cook your meat lets actually make brine!

Mia's Jerky Brine

You will need:

Apple cider vinegar
Brown sugar
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
smoked paprika

I put my meat strips into a quart sized freezer bag, covered them with the apple cider vinegar, then added the different spices to taste, then sealed the bag and smushed everything around and left it over night in the fridge. There are no measurements given because I'm a rebel that doesn't actually measure her spices, I just kind of eye ball it and call it good.

If you're pre-boiling you don't need to marinade over night, just boil in your brine.

The next day take your tasty brined strips of raw meat and layer them on the  trays in your dehydrator (after confirming it gets to and keeps 155 degrees), turn the thing on, and ignore it for 4-6 hours. I'm doing 6 to be safe.

If you didn't pre-boil then after 6 hours pop your jerky strips in the oven at 350 for 10 minutes. Let them cool, then keep them in an air tight container and they'll last for about 2 months. Unless you devour them all first.

Corn!

Guys we have corn! Successful and tasty corn!

See? Isn't it cute?!

This year we grew Jade Blue Dwarf Corn (Hudson valley seed library) and I highly recommend it. I planted about 20 stalks, 10 down either side of Fwigf. My tallest one is about 3 and a half feet tall (just over a meter for our metric friends). The advertised average was about 2 mini-ears of blue corn per stalk. I'm looking at 3 or 4 ears each. The ears themselves are not large at all, they're about 3 - 4 inches long (6-8cm), so each one yields about one side dish serving of corn per person. Not the massive ears of sweet corn that I'm used to, but tasty none the less. I'd actually like to try these as container corn. They didn't take up much room at all and frankly I believe a nice big pot will hold three or four stalks and give a decent yield of corn. So there apartment dwellers, you too can have corn!

They were less sweet than commercial sweet corn, but they had more corn flavor if that makes any sense. I think these would stand up very well to being frozen. The good news is we will have enough to freeze, and we can freeze one meals worth in a quart sized freezer bag. So yay corn!

This weekend also marked my acquisition of a dehydrator. And by 'a dehydrator' I mean 'the dehydrator my parents had when I was a child that they used maybe all of twice in the early '90s'. It is an ancient beast. There are no thermometers, no digital timers, the temperature is regulated by turning the top to open or close vent holes. But it works. And it was free. And the company is still in business, so even though the box says 'as seen on tv' it wasn't a one hit television wonder invention.

Current cunning plan is to make jerky. Then start making soup mixes out of on sale seasonal veggies and meat. This will save us money this winter. Provided my wonderful new-to-me dehydrator doesn't take off like the UFO it resembles (guys, this is a creature of the early 90s and looks it). The other plan is to attempt to make drink mixes by buying seasonal fruit (Read: all fruit) when it's in season (read: summer) and dehydrate it then smash it into powder. But first, we try jerky. basic jerky. Salt, pepper, garlic, and a little bit of vinegar. That's it. Baby steps.

Spinach and Carrots

Yesterday I went back out to Fwigf to do some harvesting, attempt to get my pumpkins under control, and reinforce my tomatoes. I have given up getting my pumpkins reigned in. The determined jerks are now growing through the chain link fence and making a bid for the street. I'm just going to let them. Worst case? The world outside Fwigf gets some pumpkins. It's not like Husband and I will be able to eat all of them. Though he is going to use some to make beer. Pumpkin ale from our own pumpkins. This pleases me.

Anywhozle! I harvested spinach yesterday. A lot of spinach. I'm debating what to do with all of it, since Husband and I will not eat all of it as salad before it goes bad. I'm thinking of blanching and freezing it. But whatever I do I need to do tomorrow. Otherwise it won't get done.

But this spinach is weird guys. It was a gift from another gardener so I'm not sure what variety it is. But it's waxier than I'm used to, and the leaves grow off of central stems. It's more bitter than regular spinach, but the after taste is surprisingly nutty. It's got a good mouth feel; the leaves are thicker and crunchier than I'm used to, so it's very satisfying. It's also a big producer. I harvested less than half of what I could have from my garden, and there will be more on Monday when I go back.

That brings us to carrots. Guys? Garden carrots are awesome. I didn't know carrots were supposed to have a flavor beyond 'orange'. But they do. They're spicy without being hot, and finish sweet without being cloying. They're not as crunchy as commercial carrots, but what they lack in crunch they make up for in flavor. I may have to rethink my plan to not grow carrots next year. If I end up with room in Fwigf I'll plant up some carrots. Husband and I don't use many, in fact the amount we planted this year will probably be all we'll end up using until next season. I'm going to blanch and freeze those too.

The fall of Jerkface

Jerkface terrorizes Fwigf no more.

For years Jerkface has held all in the garden in perpetual frustration fueled terror. He viewed himself as king rodent over all, and the plants he devoured within our carefully tended plots were his tithe.No lettuce was safe, no carrots went unmunched. Our gardens were his salad bar, and we were but his servants.

Jerkface was a clever beast. No trap, no matter how cunningly laid, would claim him. Assassination was out of the question, as poison was forbidden within the garden. And so his reign continued unabated.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday Jerkface finally fell into a trap laid for his removal. The scent of the bait was too enticing to ignore, no matter how plump the other offerings. And so Jerkface was captured, and set free elsewhere. Far from the borders of Fwigf.

Today I harvested. And tried to deal with my out of control pumpkin vines. This did not work as I had hoped. They remain uncontrolled. I have achieved 'screw it' and my level of give a fuck is negative. So grow pumpkins. Grow.

I did manage to harvest some carrots today, and a whole lot of some weird spinach thing. It was a gift from another gardener, I don't know what it is exactly. But it's tasty.

Here, have an example of everything I've harvested so far.

The above is of course not everything I've harvested. It is however all the jalapenos, all the carrots, all the birds eye peppers, a jar of pickled snow peas, a jar of pickles, the mass of green in the upper left is the spinach stuff. And then a small head of lettuce. And cucumbers. 

Tomorrow I pickle. And freeze the carrots. And deal with the chili that is made with my garden carrots and peppers. 

Peppers!

The garden in my back yard has been giving me jalapenos pretty steadily for the last week or so. Which means I have about 15 of the little green peppers of awesome in my fridge waiting to become something. Then today I went out to Fwigf and discovered that my Bird's Eye had peppers on it, not just flowers. I'd never had birds eye peppers, I had no idea what they tasted like. So I handed one of the small, green, thin and long peppers to my husband to taste. 

Darlings? Bird's eye peppers are Hot. Angry hot. I've had hobs that were more restrained and polite. I now have 5 or 6 of these devil peppers in my fridge waiting to become something. 

The thing with peppers is you can't can them. Botulism is a thing. A thing you'd rather avoid, trust me. Ergo home canning peppers is not something I want to risk. I'll leave that to professionals in sterilized kitchens. So what CAN you do with a windfall of hot peppers?

Chili. 

And so my dears I give you:

Mia's Crockpot Cheater Chili

You need:

Roughly 1 pound of sweet sausage

1 medium sweet onion

1 large can of crushed tomatoes

1 large can of diced tomatoes

2 table spoons of minced garlic

1 ounce of tequila

Jalapenos

Bird's Eye Peppers (or any unreasonably hot pepper will do)

3 stalks of celery

about 2 carrots

either 1 can of kidney beans or 1/2 a cup of dried beans

2 medium sized potatoes, diced

If using dried beans: Soak over night and rinse well (multiple times) before adding to the chili. 

Cut the sausage up if you have it in links. Brown it in a pan with the garlic and onions (roughly chopped). Put the browned sausage, onions, garlic, and pan drippings into the crock pot. Seed and dice your peppers. Dice your celery and carrots. Add everything to the crockpot set on low (do not drain the tomatoes). Proceed to ignore it for about 6-8 hours. 

Serve over rice with cheese and sour cream. Keep a glass of milk handy, just in case. 

I am going back to Fwigf tomorrow since there is a lot of work that has to get done. Life has eaten me so I haven't been out there as frequently as I should, and I want everything back to organized chaos before life eats me again.The plan for tomorrow entails:

Weeding. The weeds are taking over. I do not approve.

Picking lettuce. It came back. I do not approve.

Planting Turnips where the lettuce was. Turnips are much better.

Tying up my tomatoes

Reigning in my pumpkins

Harvesting some spinach

Not getting heatstroke and dying. 

Picking through the dead potato buckets for potatoes and mounding the living ones with the dirt. 

We will see how much I get done.