Blog
August 20th, 2013
It’s the time of year where our kitchen is a lot hotter—and the days much longer—than anything summer might throw at us naturally.
The Tailor and I have been up late with the dilly beans,
out at dawn at the Blueberry Park,
and across the mountains to get peaches right off the tree.
And then everything has got to get washed and sliced—
—and packed into jars—as quickly as possible. It’s the best way we know how to make the fleeting summer last.
December 6th, 2009
For months now we’ve been finding new ways to use our stores of dried, home-canned and preserved blueberries. But we almost forgot about the containers of fresh berries we threw in the freezer—and on this unseasonably cold* morning, whipping up a little reminder of summer seemed like a good idea.
So the Tailor fired up the Cast-Iron Stovetop High-Collared No. 8 Griswold Waffle Iron™ (say that five times fast!), and we had ourselves a good old-fashioned hot breakfast—which, incidentally, goes great with the homemade blueberry syrup above, but the Tailor won’t share that recipe, I’m afraid.
No-Kiddin’ Waffles
2 ¼ cup flour
4 tsp. baking powder
¾ tsp. salt
1 ½ Tbsp. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 ¼ cup whole milk
½ cup oil (we use Canola)
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt three times, then add the sugar. In a separate bowl, mix the beaten eggs, milk and oil. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. While some people like to make their batter ahead of time, we’re firm believers in using fresh-fresh-fresh batter. So for best results, make your waffles right then and there.
Oil your cast-iron waffle iron well before starting. Heat both sides of the iron thoroughly (the advantage of a high-collared iron like this is even heating and plenty of room to flip waffles), and remember to apply oil after every third or fourth waffle—a bristle brush is handy for this.
Use a 1/2 cup measure to dip batter—one dip per waffle—and pour the batter into the center of the iron. When you close the lid, the batter will wick evenly into all the nooks and crannies.
Cook the waffle for 3-4 minutes (peek occasionally to make sure your iron isn’t too hot!), flipping frequently—every thirty seconds or so. The best part (other than the flipping, that is)? Waffles are kind of like pizza—you can jazz them up however you like with your favorite breakfast condiments. But eat ’em fast—a jazzed-up waffle will get cold and soggy** before too long.
That’s never a worry around here, though—these babies get gobbled up long before the next waffle is ready!
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* I know all you Minnesotans are rolling your eyes at this declaration, but a nighttime temperature of 17°F is enough to force us to rescue our squash colony from the attic, which isn’t insulated for “real” winter. So until the attic temperature stays above freezing, our pumpkins and butternuts are living in the spare bedroom like edible houseguests—definitely one of the less glamorous aspects of living seasonally.
** I’m really into the specific heat of foods. Mashed potatoes? High specific heat. Fresh waffles? Sadly low.
September 13th, 2009
The season is turning ’round these parts—it seems the whole world is tinged with hints of red and gold. We had another warm weekend, but I’m not fooled; behind the hot sun are chill mornings and the rush of the harvest.
So it was another canning weekend for the Tailor, supplied by our latest farmer’s market haul and our final trip to the Blueberry Park for the year. We had to work hard for it yesterday, but amongst the nearly-spent, now-crimson bushes, we found just enough berries for one more batch of jam. Our total haul for the year? Over fourteen gallons of blueberries! In the spring we’ll return the favor by volunteering.
There’s no time to pine for berry season, though—now we’re up to our eyeballs in heirloom tomatoes (like these beauties from our favorite farm in the Puyallup Valley, splashed with a little oil and balsamic). And soon it’ll be time to get the root cellar and attic ready for a winter’s worth of squash, onions, potatoes, and pumpkins (more on that later). Marking transitions is my favorite part of eating seasonally, and autumn is my favorite time of year. I’ll be ready for fall’s bounty—camera in one hand, fork in the other.
July 29th, 2009
They’re predicting 105 degrees today here in T-town—that’s an all-time, record-breaking high. Now, if you’re in the Midwest, the South, or the Southwest and you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking, “And this is news how?” Well, this is where the part about “all-time” comes in—since white settlement of this area, at least, it has never, ever been this hot before. This place ain’t made for 105°. Almost nobody has air conditioning, but the discomfort is only the half of it. Who knows what this will mean for the snow pack in the mountains, or the water supply?
Beastly or not, though, it seemed a shame to let all this amazing solar energy go to waste. So over the weekend the Tailor devised a passive food dehydrator out of old window panes (buying an electric dryer, to us, seemed to defeat the purpose of home sustainability). Our first attempt at drying berries seemed successful, so at 5:30 this morning,before the heat kicked in, we headed to the Blueberry Park to pick about three gallons more. (The berries are happy with the heat, even if nobody else is!)
Here’s how it works: four nylon window screens (don’t use aluminum! It reacts with the food) hover over the pavement, propped up on wooden beams to allow for air circulation. Tied to each screen is a black linen cloth to absorb more heat and provide a clean surface for the food, while still letting air pass through. The glass windows fit right on top, providing the perfect space to trap hot air, just like a greenhouse.
Now, on to the fruit itself. For blueberries, at least, the dried yield ends up being about a quarter of what you started with (so for example, two quarts of fresh berries will become about a pint dried), so it’s best to start with a big batch—another vote for a large, homemade drier over those tiny electric ones. Our drying system will hold five or six quarts of fresh berries.
Wash the berries and remove any stems, petals, grass and unripened fruit (and especially spiders!), and set a large stockpot of water to boil. Place about a quart of berries into a steamer —the berries will dry faster if you split the skins first, and smaller batches seem to be more effective than boiling the whole batch at once.
Once your water is boiling, put the steamer into the pot, and boil for thirty seconds—just long enough for the skins to split. Then remove the steamer and dump the hot berries into a colander in a cold sink (the ice water stops the cooking process).
Here’s what the split berries look like; they should feel squishy, and you should be able to see the pale interior flesh on some of them. (Sorry about the photo quality—that red tile just kills the light.)
Okay, now you’re ready to take ’em outside. Distribute the berries evenly over the cloth-covered screens,
and spread them out until you have a single layer.
Now, just put the glass back into place, and let the sun do the work. It’s amazing how quickly the humidity inside the glass disappears, and how hot it gets in there. The ideal temperature for drying blueberries is about 140°F, but we’ve already seen our dryer get up to 155°. It doesn’t seem to hurt the final product, but at the hottest part of the day we cover the glass with a sheet for an hour or so, just to cool it down a bit.
About once a day it’s good to redistribute and un-stick the fruit, which helps it dry faster and more evenly. It takes about three full, sunny days to dry the berries completely—unlike raisins, you want blueberries to be so dry they rattle. You should end up with hard little husks that don’t squish and don’t stick together.
Here you can see the difference between fresh, split berries and ones that are almost done. Once they’re dry, pasteurize them for fifteen minutes in a 175° oven to kill any residual germs, and store in a sealed, air-tight jar.
Since we’ll probably use our dried berries for a wide variety of recipes, we left them unsweetened. That way we can reconstitute them for pancakes, sauces and baked goods this winter without any recipe guesswork. They’re still sweet enough to eat plain, too (trail mix, anyone?), although if you prefer your berries pre-sweetened, you can coat them in simple syrup before drying.
Either way, you’ll end up with sunshine in a jar.
July 22nd, 2009
Maybe I’m still not over the shock of moving from Zone Two to Zone Eight, but the sheer variety of fresh produce ’round these parts never ceases to amaze me. Now, if I can barely contain my excitement over what I see at the farmer’s market every week, you can imagine the heart attack I had when the Tailor and I discovered Tacoma’s very own Blueberry Park.
That’s right: a public park. Filled to the brim with blueberry bushes. Four thousand of them. Once upon a time this was a working blueberry farm—after the farm folded or moved on, the land sat vacant and overgrown for years. Eventually Metro Parks took over the land, and decided to free the sixty-year-old bushes from the bracken.
It took years of volunteer labor and many passes by a goat herd to hack back (or eat, depending on one’s preference) the scotch broom and blackberry vines. Now, though, the jungle is mostly kept at bay, and the result is an incredible bounty of pesticide-free berries. The best part? The pickin’ is free. Yes—all the fresh blueberries you, or I, or anyone and their maiden aunt can possibly pick, as many times as we like, for free. And with 4,000 bushes, there’s more than enough to go around. Talk about your tax dollars at work.
The Tailor and I woke up before the sun today for our third berry-picking session. Our two previous trips to Blueberry Park didn’t yield much, as we were a little early for blueberry season. Today, though, an impressive crop was ready to take home, so with metal pails in hand, we dove right in.
The sound of those first berries hitting the bottom of my pail—kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk—reminded me of one of my favorite children’s books of all time.
Since we had big plans for these berries, we made sure to arrive with a full stomach.
Well, alright, I did eat a few (even with my dirty hands).
This is the yield of three hours’ work.
That’s a two-gallon bucket, mind you. We don’t mess around!
Our ultimate goal? The same as Sal’s mum: winter preserves. After all, if you’re a seasonal foodie, the only way to indulge a January craving for berries is to pop open one of your home-canned mason jars.
This sparkling jam, yielded by just four quarts of berries, is only the beginning.
Our house is filled with the scent of baking and the excitement of so many possibilities—pies, pancakes, syrup, glazes, dried berries. What would you do with all the berries you can pick?
Grab a pail, head to south Tacoma, and find out.
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