Making Pickles: My New Obsession

I have a whole bookcase full of cookbooks, and I will read a cookbook from cover to cover.  People who know me know that a great or interesting cookbook is a great gift for me.  I especially enjoy vintage cookbooks because they can give us a real insight as to the foodways of the past.  I recently had an abundance of green tomatoes that had developed on a rapidly dying vine.  In search of some green tomato recipes I pulled out a couple of my favorite oldies - one is a Menonite Cookbook published in 1950.  The other is the Little House Cookbook, which is a newer book that features recipes for many of the dishes mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series.  I found my tomato recipes - one for green tomato pickles, (meh)  the other for green tomato preserves (fantastic).  Here's the other thing I discovered:  at some point along the way in our change from a primarily agricultural/  rural society to urban, one where our food is grown and sold to us by a handful of corporations, a decision was made that "pickles" means pickled cucumbers.  There are rows and rows of pickled cucumbers at my local grocery and little else.  There are a couple of jars of pickled beets, one brand of pickled okra, and one brand of pickled green beans ($7 for a small jar!)  Going through the books I was astonished at not only all the different pickle recipes - some with dill, some with mustard, some with curry, etc. - but the variety of fruits and vegetables that were pickled or preserved was amazing.  Yes, cucumbers, okra, and beets, but also squash, tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, peaches, plums, beans, peppers, onions, even watermelon rind.  I compost watermelon rind.  I consider it to be garbage.  They were pickling it!  One of my favorite recipes was for "End of Garden" pickles.  Basically, you take whatever's left over from a harvest - a few okra, some green beans, one gangly squash, etc. and you bung it in a jar and pickle it together.  Brilliant.  I recently bought a big bag of green beans on sale for $1 a pound.  I haven't done the math yet, but with vinegar costing mere pennies and if I use garden herbs a quart of pickled green beans are bound to come in for less than $7!   Here's how to do it:

Green tomato pickles. Meh.

Pick your veggie and pick your recipe.  Do you want sweet pickles, dill, or spicy?  There are loads of pickle recipes all over the Web.  Here's the recipe I used for sweet and sour sugar snap pea pickles. They were addictive. I only had enough sugar snap peas to make one jar of pickles since the kids go out and munch on them while they are outside playing.  Sterilize your jar(s) and lids.  Remember jars and rims can be reused, but you need to purchase new lids each time you do any canning.  Once jars are sterilized stuff them with the sugar snap peas that have had their strings removed, add some red pepper flakes, and 1 clove garlic per jar.  In a saucepan combine 1 1/4 c. white wine vinegar, 1 1/4 c. water, 1 Tbsp salt, and 1 Tbsp sugar and bring to a boil.  Pour hot vinegar into the jars, seal with lids and rims and place in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes to seal.  Make sure the water fully covers the jars.  Remove and let cool.  Check the lid for a proper seal.  If the lid pops it didn't seal.  Put any that don't seal in the fridge.  You are supposed to let them sit for 10 days to let the flavors meld.  Good luck with that.  I broke into mine the next day and they were gone within the hour.

Dilly beans.  Oh.Yeah.

For dilly beans, follow the same procedure, only omit the sugar and add 1 sprig of dill to the jars before putting in the liquid.  Truly addictive.  Great with martinis!  Happy pickling!
For more on canning click here.

Kitchen Must Have: The Cast Iron Skillet

I have had mine for 20 years.  Actually, it belongs to hubby's ex - girlfriend who moved out of their tiny Denton apartment leaving everything but her clothes behind.  I came along three months later and got rid of everything but the man and the skillet.  I have been enjoying both ever since.  There are a few myths surrounding the care and maintenance of cast iron skillets.  It has been a much debated topic among home cooks and professional chefs alike.  The heavy question is:  Should I wash my cast iron skillet in the sink with dish soap?  The answer:
                                                                      YES!
 I have heard so many people say it's a no-no to wash them, you should use salt and water to scrub it instead.  That's a load of B.S. Wash it the way you wash any other dishes  - I don't ever put mine in the dishwasher, although I'll bet it would be fine.  Soap and water doesn't hurt anything and it doesn't make the pan less "seasoned".  Speaking of seasoning, I got a phone call from a friend with a brand spanking new cast iron skillet who wanted to know the best way to season it.  I don't know why "seasoning" a cast iron pan is important, but there seems to be an awful lot of people concerned about it.  Mine came seasoned, and if you buy yours at a garage sale yours will be, too.  If you have a new one and are concerned about seasoning it, here is what I have read:  coat the bottom of the pan with a little olive oil and bake the pan for 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven.  Maybe that works, I don't know.  Just use the thing.   It will soon become your favorite pan in the kitchen for it's versatility.  I love that you can move it from the stove top to the oven (providing it has an iron handle, not a wood one).  It's a great way to cook steaks - brown them nicely on each side and then finish in a very hot oven for a few minutes (we like our steaks very rare - even Sugar Snap prefers hers to still be mooing).  You get the added benefit of trace amounts of iron in your food whenever you cook in cast iron.  I love mine and use it daily.  As for the ex-girlfriend, if she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow wanting her stuff back I think I'd give her hubby before I gave her my skillet.

Canning Tomatoes...Success At Last!

Third time's the charm!  I did not can a puree, but small chunks of tomatoes in a tomato juice, which I boiled before pouring it into the jars.  All canning rules were followed and tomatoes came out looking great.  Especially pretty is the two basil leaves Sugar Snap placed in the bottom of each jar.  I used 25 tomatoes and got three quarts and two pints.  So, just to recap, for canning success follow these rules:
*Skin the tomatoes by dunking them for a minute in boiling water and then submerging in ice water.  Skins slide right off.
*Boil the lids (you must use new ones) and rims for 10 minutes.
*Boil the clean jars for 10 minutes
*After filling the jars with chunks of tomatoes and water or tomato juice, run a spoon or butter knife around the inside edge of the jar to remove any air bubbles.
*Submerge jars into boiling water - make sure they are fully submerged - for 45 minutes.
*Remove and let sit.  If the center of the lids pop then they did not properly seal.  I have never had this happen, but do check for it.
Happy Canning!

Sugar Snap and Sweet Potato skinning tomatoes.
They didn't love it.

Canning Tomatoes....FAIL AGAIN

Second try, still getting lots of tomatoes.  I followed all the rules.this time.  I even invested in a $6 canning kit that includes a proper jar holder (no boiling water down my arm this time), a magnetic stick to pull out the lids, a funnel, and a little tool to get rid of the air bubbles after the jars are filled.  I boiled the clean jars, boiled the lids and rims for 10 minutes.  I dunked the tomatoes in boiling water and skinned them. Then I put them in the blender because the plan was to can tomato puree.  Sweet Potato will eat tomato sauce, but she, like a lot of 11-year-olds, is finicky.  It has to be smooth,  not chunky.  No tomato chunks or onion chunks.  So, I usually start with tomato puree when I make my tomato sauce for pasta, pizza, etc.  I poured the tomato puree in to the cleaned sterilized jars, placed the lids and rims on them and submerged them into a pot of boiling water for 45 minutes.  I pulled them out with my new jar holder, and they looked good.  I let them sit for 24 hours, came back and now I'm not so sure.  The tomatoes have a lot of liquid and the liquid separated out.  I don't know.  I could be wrong, but they look like cans of botulism to me.  They aren't pretty at all, and although they may not be poisonous, they aren't something I would ever take as a hostess gift.  Will try again.

A Can of Botulism?

Canning Tomatoes...FAIL

Well not really a fail, but I will admit to not completely committing to this project 100% .  I did wind up with 10 pints of tomato puree in the freezer, but I didn't have all of the right equipment which resulted in a huge mess (ruined a white t-shirt.  Note to self:  don't can tomatoes wearing white).   I also wound up pouring boiling water down my arm because I was using tongs instead of a proper jar lifter.  I have never attempted canning before mainly because I am a chronic half-asser and canning is something that must be done right or your family will come down with a nasty case of botulism and it will be all your fault.  Actually, Sugar Snap keeps a healthy distance between herself and any tomato or tomato product so she would be fine, but the rest of us would be hospitalized.  I had 15 good sized tomatoes red and ready so I followed the instructions more or less.  I did boil the jars and lids first but I didn't use new lids like you are supposed to, I reused everything.    Next time I will invest in some quart size jars.  Here's what you do:

Bring three stockpots full of water to a boil.  Also have a large bowl of ice water at the ready.  In the first pot submerge your tomatoes for a few minutes, extract and put into the ice water.  This will allow the skins to slide right off.  At this point you can cut tomatoes in chunks or do what I did, put them in the blender to make crushed tomatoes.  Put just a half of a teaspoon of lemon juice in with the tomatoes so they keep their color.  In the next pot boil the lids and rims for the jars.  You can reuse rims, but you must use new lids unless you want to freeze the tomatoes until they are ready to use.  Boil those for 10 minutes.  In another pot boil the jars.  I did all of that, poured the tomato puree into the jars and then set them in the deep freezer.  I plan to try this again the right way - using new lids and boiling the jars after they are full - and I will wear an apron.  I'll let you know how that goes.