More small batch canning: dilly beans & pickled peppers

Since we keep getting smallish amounts of veggies from our CSA, I am really digging small batch canning. A few handfuls of green beans become dilly beans. I made them extra spicy.

This was for two jars of beans:

enough green beans for two pint jars
1 cups water
1 cups white vinegar
2 tablespoons pickling salt

and

2 medium cloves garlic
2 dill flowers
2 teaspoons hot pepper flakes

Boil water, vinegar, and salt in a pot. Add 1 garlic, 1 dill flower and 1 teaspoon of pepper flakes to each jar with green beans. Pour liquid into each jar.

We also got several handfuls of hot peppers too. Aaron got me this awesome book of home preserving that shows you how to can pretty much anything.

So I made some pickled hot peppers too. Those should be good in sammiches!

Soup Season

The comfort cooking really kicks into high gear at my house when fall hits. We have been getting big heads of broccoli from our CSA farm share, which I have saved up. I saved them up to make a big batch of broccoi cheese soup. I used Pioneer Woman's recipe... she has been my go-to recipe source lately. They just pop up first in my google searches and I go with my google gut on these things.

We also got a large supply of leeks in our farm share so that meant potato leek soup. I was hesitant to make this after the big scalding hot potato leep soup and burn of 2007. It doesn't look like I blogged about it, but after making a batch of potato leek soup for our soup swap in 2007, I was taking it out of the microwave at work and spilled it on my hand. It was a surprisingly bad burn... I still have the marks on my arm.

Anyhoo, I was ready to put that behind me and this time used the Wegman's recipe. A dollop (ok more than a dollop) of creme fraiche, and fried bacon ends (have you ever had those? AMAZING!) and I was ready to forgive the soup for scarring my arm six years ago.

Dilly beans & Micro-canning

Last week in our CSA share we got green beans. One handful of green beans. I wasn't in the mood for green beans for supper so I canned ONE jar of dilly beans. I think the kids call this "microcanning".

There is even a cook book about it! Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round Canning just one small batch at a time. I don't HAVE to make 20 jars of grape juice all at once. I can make just one jar. Better than letting a bowlful of fruits or veggies go bad.

When did cookbooks get so stinkin cute? I love these square ones they come out with these days. I can't keep up with them, I want them all. Like this canning cook book, Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry.

Juicing berries

I love how we are getting fruits in our CSA share. It gives me more things to juice! This one is apple, carrots and blueberry. I was hoping it would be blue but it only turned out darker than the usual.

This one is cherry, apple and carrot. Still not cherry red, but very tasty.

Zucchini bread to share

Last week's CSA had zucchini included and it has finally cooled off enough for me to venture to turn on the oven. That means two loaves of zucchini bread with my tried and true recipe.

I like how this recipe makes two loaves. One for home and one to take to the office to share. It looks especially appetizing when wrapped in parchment paper and baker's twine!

Grilled Stuffed Peppers

Each CSA share gets better than the last. Peaches and blueberries!

With a collection of five green peppers, I was geting hungry for stuffed peppers. But with the recent heat wave, I didn't feel like turning on our oven. I figured there must be a way to cook them on the grill.

A little research on the oven showed that you can cook them using indirect heat, place the charcoal brickets on one side and the peppers on the other.

These are the best stuffed peppers I have ever made. Partly because of the grill and partly because of the stuffing combo I came up with.

After looking at oodles of recipes online I came up with this mixture.

16 oz Wegmans sage pork sausage

1 onion chopped

1 green pepper chopped

2 cups uncooked rice

1 can chopped tomatoes

1/2 cup grated parmesean cheese

1 Tablespoon worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon monterey steak seasoning

4 more green peppers

1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese

Cook the rice in a pot or rice cooker. Brown the sausage in a pan with the onion and one of the green peppers. Mix in the rice, tomatoes, parmesean cheese, worcestershire sauce, and monterey steak seasoning. Cut the four peppers in half and stuff them with mixture. Top with monterey jack cheese and grill on a bbq grill with indirect heat for about 30 min or until peppers start to soften and brown.

CSA - cherries, yellow squash and mystery veggie

These CSA shares keep getting better! Cherries! Yellow Squash! Weird thingy I had to google - turns out its kohlrabi.

I used the cherries in a cherry puddin'. The same recipe for blueberry pudding with cherries instead.

The weather is heating up, so we cook as much on the grill as we can. The yellow squash were sliced, tossed with oil and pepper and grilled.

The kohlrabi however is still waiting for me to tackle it. Staring at me. Challenging me.

Kale and Beet Chips

More goodies in our third CSA share. Cherries! Broccoli!

I had some red kale from the last share that I hadn't figured out what it was. When I realized it was kale I made it into kale chips like the other kale I had.

Then I got out the mandolin slicer and sliced the beets 1/16th of an inch thin.

After the kale chips came out of the oven, the beets went in. They are so good! Sweet like sweet potato!

More CSA strawberry goodness

We got another basket of strawberries in our CSA share this week. What goes great with strawberries? Rhubarb. Aaron LOVES rhubarb and has two big rhubarb plants in the backyard. I "borrowed" a couple stalks to make this homemade strawberry rhubarb soda.

It's pretty easy. You just make a strawberry rhubarb simple syrup and mix it with sparkling water.

Strawberry Rhubarb Simple Syrup

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

2 cups cup strawberries

1 cup chopped rhubarb

Boil it all together and let it simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. Mix it with sparkling water to taste.

The soda only used half the strawberries, so I raided Aaron's rhubarb again and made filling for strawberry rhubarb pocket pies.

Add a nice tall glass of cold milk and he didn't complain about his depleted rhubarb supply too much.

CSA peas and risotto

We got our second share of veggies from the CSA and there is a boatload of lettuce. I'm getting out the salad spinner and just leaving it on the counter for awhile.

I have plans for the strawberries and promised the garlic scapes to my mom.

Aside from that, there were peas. So many possibilities.

I settled on making risotto. I've never made risotto before! I love it... if it is on a restaurant menu chances are I will order it. But I never made it before, thinking it was too hard.

The peas pushed me toward it. I used a combination of Giada's two recipes Red Wine Risotto with Peas and Mushroom Risotto with Peas. I liked the pea and mushroom combo but it made a lot more than the red wine version. I used the ingredient amounts from the red wine recipe but cooked it like the mushroom recipe.

Oh, and I added bacon.

I figured that would cover any mistakes I made.

It wasn't as hard as I thought. Now, note that you can't leave the kitchen when you are making this. It does require your attention but it is pretty straightforward. The risotto turned out delicious and it will definitely become a repeat recipe!

Cooking CSA veggies

I like getting a CSA share of veggies because then I feel challenged to make things with all the veggies we get. With our last share we got a bunch of beets which I roasted and added to a salad with goat cheese, walnuts and a reduced balsamic vinegar dressing.

The swiss chard was sauteed with oil, garlic and parmesean cheese.

I used my mom's recipe for Korean green onion pancakes to used up the scallions. It's a simple recipe.

4 or 5 green onions chopped up

1 cup of flour

1 cup of cold water

Mix them all together and fry in a bit of vegetable oil

Dip them in a mixture of soy sauce with a couple drops of sesame seed oil

Lastly I mixed up a batch of shortcake...

... for some strawberry shortcake. That really topped it all off.

Garlic Scapes

When I heard we were getting garlic scapes in our CSA share I had to google what they are. Looks like they grow off the top of garlic and you can pickle them or make pesto.

We decided to pickle them. We went with this pickled garlic scapes recipe because it sounds spicy!

Summer CSA

We signed up for the Good Food Collective CSA this summer. We have tried two other CSAs and I've always felt I was seeing people with other farms getting more variety. I am pretty happy with our first share! Garlic scapes! I've never had them before and I can't wait to see what we can do with them. And look at those strawberries!

We got quite the haul today at our CSA farm. Several varities of squash and beans, some cucumbers... and my favorite... sunflowers and zinnias for my dining room table.

We also saw Ginger at the dairy. She is getting even bigger. Must remember to bring her a granola bar next time.