Dilly Beans, Pickled Okra & Pickled Carrots

Continuing to preserve the summer, these refrigerator pickles are ready after a couple days...

Each recipe makes 1 pint:

Dilly Beans
1/3 pound purple, yellow and/or green beans from JR Organics
3 cloves garlic, peeled and slightly smashed, from Schaner Farm
4 sprigs fresh dill, from Suzie's Farm
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup spring or filtered water
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

Pickled Okra
1 pint okra, from JRs
1/4 yellow onion, sliced thin, from the Schaners
1 hot chile, from Suzie's
2 cloves garlic, peeled and slightly smashed
1/2 teaspoon whole black pepper corns
1/2 teaspoon dill seed
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup spring or filtered water
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt

Pickled Purple Carrots
1 bunch small purple carrots, from JRs
1 hot chile
3 springs cilantro, from Suzie's
1/4 teaspoon mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon whole black pepper corns
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup spring or filtered water
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
2 tablespoons local honey

For each recipe, place fresh herbs and/or garlic in the bottom.  Stuff veggies and hot chile to tightly pack jar.  Add dried spices to jar.  In a small sauce pan, bring vinegar, water and salt (and honey if applicable) to a boil and pour over contents of the jar.  Seal, let cool and refrigerate.

Homemade Cajeta

What can I make with just shy of a quart of goat's milk?  It's not enough to make cheese.  It's too much milk to have hanging around my house.  I could make ice cream or...

Cajeta!
3 1/2 cups fresh goat milk (traded from my friend, Mariah, who is part of a local goat co-op, for some of my backyard eggs)
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons evaporated cane sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped seeds and pod
1/2 inch cinnamon stick (I would use proper Mexican canela if I had it)
slightly less than 1/4 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 1/2 teaspoon filtered or spring water

In a heavy (I use enameled cast iron) sauce pan, bring the milk, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon to a simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Remove from heat and add the dissolved baking soda.  It will foam up (baking soda is added to neutralize the acids and encourage browning of the milk solids, otherwise you get a really pale cajeta without the deep flavor).  Stir until the foam subsides, then return to heat.  Simmer, stirring occasionally (stir more frequently as you get close to the end and you get glassy bubbles), until it reaches a beautiful caramel color and it thickens (this takes an hour to an hour and a half).  Test thickness by putting a drop of cajeta on a cold plate.  The cooled cajeta should be a thick caramel-sauce-like consistency.

Makes a bit less than a pint.  Keeps about a month in the fridge.

Of course, it begs to be drizzled over ice cream, or berries, or an apple crisp, or pluot galette...
...it also begs to be licked off a spoon.


Adapted from Rick Bayless' Mexico - One Plate at a Time

DIY Hair Pomade

Ok, it's not food, but why buy products with a long list of ingredients I can't pronounce and probably are not good for my scalp anyway?

So I made up a test batch and it works great!  Is no one making organic, natural stuff like this to sell?

(all measures are by weight)
1/3 oz by weight beeswax, shaved (or 2 tsp melted)
3/4 oz by weight shea butter (or 1 1/2 Tbsp)
1/4 oz by weight jojoba oil (or 1/2 Tbsp)
several drops of essential oil (rose geranium, lavender, sage, or your favorites)

In a double boiler on medium heat, melt beeswax; add shea and allow to melt.  Remove from heat, add jojoba and stir to combine.  Pour into a small jar, add essential oil and shake to combine.  Allow to cool.

Adapted from mommypotamus

Fig Preserves Part 2: Spiced

3 cups fresh figs, chopped and destemed (thanks, Mariah!)
1-2 cups fresh apple juice, from Smit Farms
1 1/2 cups local honey
1/4 cup crystallized/candied ginger, diced
juice of one fresh lemon, from Schaner Farm
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy medium-sized pot (I like enameled cast iron; it's safe, clean and the least reactive) on medium-high heat.  Stir frequently, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer (this is a good time to set up your water bath for equipment & jar sterilizing) until jam gels, about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Fill sterilized jars (that you've been keeping in hot water), wipe lip & outer threads with a clean, damp cloth, add lids & rings (that you've been keeping in hot water), not too tight, and boil in a water bath for 10 minutes.  Remove and let sit undisturbed overnight.

Makes 4 cups 

If you're new to jamming, get yourself a good resource for a more descriptive process on how to jam.

(Ok, truth be told, the above recipe is what I wished I had made.  The recipe I was adapting this from was poorly written and had way too much cinnamon  - lesson learned for me -  so to try to salvage my jam, it became an "all fruits in" spiced jam and I cleared out my fridge to add an apple and a couple pluots, chopped up and another 1/3 cup or so of honey.  I'll call it christmas chutney and give it for holiday gifts and no one will be the wiser)

Honey Balsamic Fig Preserves

I am a big fan of trading.  Seeds, saplings, starters, recipes, clothes, work, skills, time... And I love food swaps.  I have too many eggs from my lovely backyard chickens, my friend has a heavy-bearing fig tree (or lemons, macadamia nuts, goat milk, honey, vegan tamales, tomatoes...), so we trade!  Yay!  Let's take some money out of the system and build community while we grow and produce our own!

 Now I've got all these figs (she brought me a sizable bag of them) -- enough to try 2 different small-batch fig jam recipes (and bonus: figs are another fruit that don't need added pectin to jam), so here's the first...

2 1/2 cups fresh figs (thanks, Mariah!), chopped into eighths
3/4 cup local honey (or your favorite sugar or syrup)
1/4 cup apple juice from Smit Farms (or orange juice or other liquid of your choice)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (or lemon juice or another vinegar)

If you're new to jamming, get yourself a good resource for a more descriptive process on how to jam.

Set up your water bath for equipment & jar sterilizing.

Combine figs, honey, juice and vinegar in a heavy medium-sized pot (I like enameled cast iron; it's safe, clean and the least reactive) on medium-high heat.  Stir frequently, bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until jam gels, about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Fill sterilized jars (that you've been keeping in hot water), wipe lip & outer threads with a clean, damp cloth, add lids & rings (that you've been keeping in hot water), not too tight, and boil in a water bath for 10 minutes.  Remove and let sit undisturbed overnight.

Makes 1 1/2-2 cups

Adapted from wellpreserved.ca

Mulberry Meyer Marmalade

I love making marmalade because it means I'm making my own organic pectin, and not adding anything from a box.  And while our mulberry tree has not been as prolific this year (maybe because I need to feed it, maybe because of our changing climate), I'm still thinking about coming up with new things to do with mulberries (although they are quite lovely just eaten straight off the tree).  I did bake them up into a mulberry crisp a few weeks ago, and simmered them into a quick compote to serve on waffles or pancakes, and then I thought of this!..

3 1/2 lbs Meyer lemons: ours from my mother-in-law's beautiful yard in the Oakland Hills
4 cups filtered or spring water
4 cups evaporated cane sugar
3 cups mulberries, stems removed

Scrub the lemons clean. I do not use soap (yuck); just rubbing and water.

Cut in half and juice the lemons except for one (you need about 2 1/3 cups of juice), saving all the seeds & membranes in a muslin bag or cheesecloth.  Scrape the white pith (and save in the bag) from the lemons.  Julienne the peels (for 3-4 cups).

Cut the last lemon in 8ths, lengthwise.  Remove seeds and membranes and add them to the bag.  Slice the sections into thin triangles.

Put the juice, peels, Meyer triangles, water & muslin bag (closed tight, let the string hang over the edge but don't let it catch on fire) in a large, heavy bottomed pot.  Bring to a boil and boil, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring so the fruit and bag don't stick to the bottom and burn.

Remove from heat.  Transfer bag to a bowl and allow to cool.  Measure the marmalade mixture and for every cup, add 7/8 cup of sugar.  Squeeze the pectin juices from the bag into the marmalade mix (I save it and squeeze it more after it cools, saving the pectin liquid for later jamming).

Heat the marmalade back up to a rapid boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.  Secure a candy thermometer in your mixture, making sure it does not touch the pot.  You want to get the temp up to 220-222 degrees so it will jell.  Then stir in the mulberries.

Fill sterilized jars (that you've been keeping in hot water), scrape down side to remove any air bubbles, clean head space & outer threads with a clean, damp cloth, add lids & rings (that you've been keeping in hot water), not super tight, and boil in a water bath for 10 minutes.

I got about 9 cups.

Rose Grapefruit Lemonade

Wow! Just made this one with inspiring ingredients on hand and it was amazing!!!  Perfectly refreshing with this super hot weather...

spring or filtered water
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
a handful of dried roses
3/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice, lemons from my neighbor
3/4 cup fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, grapefruits from Sage Mountain Farm

In a small pot on high heat, bring 2 cups of water to a boil, add the roses and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the sugar and stir until dissolved.  Strain into a half-gallon container.  Add a few cups of cold water, then add the juices (this way the heat doesn't cook the raw juice; I don't like the taste of cooked juice) and fill the container with cold water.  Delicioso!  And it's a beautiful pink color.

Check out more lemonades here.