As I previously mentioned in last week’s Fiddlehead Frolic part one, I’ve been doing some research into pickling fiddleheads. There aren’t too many recipe books that include recipes for fiddleheads, so I’ve had to experiment a bit. I really enjoy … Continue reading
Back in the summer, I wrote a post called “A week of CSA meals” which outlined what I did with my CSA veggies for a week. I have gotten some nice feedback on that and have been wanting to write a winter version – a week of root cellar/freezer/preserved meals, which illustrates what I’ve been making with everything I squirreled away last fall. So, just over a week ago, I sat down, made a nice meal plan, filled with lots of wintery meal ideas. And then I got a few days in, work got busy, meals got less creative and then I got the stomach flu. Ah, the best laid plans…
So, here’s a week (and a bit) of suppers made from ingredients in my root cellar, freezer, and pantry, in the real world, where plans get made and subsequently thrown out the window.
Sunday: We had friends in town and cooked up a feast. We made quiche with a vegetable crust, a grated beet & carrot salad with some not-so-local, but still delicious greens, roasted potatoes, and fruit crisp for dessert. (We had strawberries and rhubarb in the freezer and apples in the root cellar, and baked them with a crispy oatmeal top.) The vegetable crust for the quiche was made of zucchini (which I had grated and frozen in the summer), grated parsnip, and grated carrot. See recipe at the bottom of this post. The quiche itself was a mushroom, goat cheese quiche.
Monday: Parsnip apple soup with fried potatoes on the side. The parsnip soup is loosely made as follows: I chopped and sauteed an onion and a couple cloves of garlic. I added a teaspoon or so of each of the following spices: curry powder, ginger, garam masala. Then I took about 4-5 large parsnips, peeled and chopped, and added them to the onion mixture and covered them with water. I peeled and chopped 2 apples and threw them in there too. Bring to a boil, then simmer until vegetables are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as any additional spices. Meanwhile I boiled the potatoes in a separate pot until soft, and then fried them in a bit of oil. If I’m in the mood for comfort food, I’ll add cheddar cheese to the top.
Tuesday: Homemade macaroni and cheese. I like to add vegetables to the cheese-noodle mixture. In the winter months, mushrooms are really good, as are the green beans I froze last summer. Once the cheese-noodle-vegetable mixture has been mixed up and spread into the baking pan, I add a jar of (drained) tomatoes to the top and then bake it.
Wednesday: Quick week night meal. Back in the summer when I was tomato canning with a friend, we canned up the tomato liquid that was left over. (I don’t like my canned tomatoes to be too watery.) This tomato juice/pulp makes AMAZING soup. Chop up and saute an onion and a clove or two of garlic, add some salt and basil, and pour in a litre of tomato liquid. Bring to a boil. Soup! Pair with some cheese on toast.
Thursday: Another quick week night meal. Egg sandwich for dinner. Fried egg on nice bread. I can’t actually remember what all I put on this sandwich, but I often add a little pesto or sprouts.
Friday – Monday: Okay, this is where things all fell apart. I wasn’t feeling great at this point. And Friday night through to early Tuesday I basically just ate plain rice, oatmeal, applesauce, and anything else that was sufficiently bland as to not upset my stomach further. Ugh. Let’s move on.
Tuesday: I worked up enough motivation and appetite to cook again! Yay! I started simple, with an old stand-by: squash soup. This batch also had some carrots, parsnips, and an apple.
Wednesday: Still dragging a bit from the flu. Vitamins! I need vitamins! I went through the root cellar for inspiration. Beets? Yes! Carrots? Yes! Apples? Yes. Into the food processor they went (using the grating attachment). Then I found cranberries in the freezer. Yes, they’ll make a nice addition. More grated salad for me, with a simple olive oil, lime, basil dressing. I also felt like I needed comfort food. Hmm… potatoes? Yes, potatoes. So, we made potato salad. The kind my mom makes, with boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, and mayo. I like to add a little pesto for flavour.
Thursday: Back into the swing of things! Since I started this tale with a dinner party, I’ll end with one too. We cooked up a meal for some friends (as our wedding present to them). First course, Quebec cheeses with dilly beans, blueberry apple chutney, and pickled beets. Second course: Prime rib roast (we modified this braising recipe), roasted root vegetables, and mashed potatoes. Third course: pumpkin pudding and ginger snap cookies. The beef was from a freezer order in the fall, veggies from the root cellar, and pumpkin from the freezer.
And there you have it. A week of meals using primarily ingredients from our root cellar, freezer, and supply of preserves.
What are your favourite winter meals?
Yours in Food,
Marla
(Note: To give you a sense of what I’m eating at other times of the day, my lunches are generally leftovers from the night before. Breakfasts are usually one of the following: oatmeal with frozen fruit; cornmeal with cheese, eggs, and salsa; smoothies with toast; and sometimes rice with veggies and eggs. Snacks are often nut-based or include hummus. My partner regularly whips up a batch of homemade hummus and there’s usually some in the fridge.)
Golden Vegetable Crust
From Mollie Katzen’s The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
2 cups coarsely-grated summer squash
1/2 cup coarsely grated parsnip
1/2 cup coarsely grated carrot
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup whole wheat flour (I used buckwheat and it worked beautifully)
(extra butter to melt on top)
Place the grated squash in a colander. Salt it lightly, and let it stand for 10 minutes over a bowl or sink. Squeeze out all excess moisture. (Marla’s note: if using frozen squash, simply defrost and drain off excess water.)
Combine all ingredients and mix well. Transfer mixture to a buttered 9-ich pie pan and form a crust with fork or fingers.
Bake for 40 minutes at 375° F. Midway through baking, brush the top surface with extra melted butter.
Fill crust with quiche batter, or any other savory pie filling you can find or concoct.
Happy New Year!
The Ecology Action Centre office is open again after the holidays and we’ve got several new blog posts lined up for you here at Adventures in Local Food.
I have several food related New Year’s resolutions (e.g. creative ways to use up leftovers and reduce food waste), but before we get to the serious stuff, here’s a quick post dedicated to New Year’s Eve deliciousness. What better way to ring in the new year than with a delightful meal with someone you love!
Appetizer: Chutney & goat cheese in filo pastry. Based on a suggestion from Alison, we whipped up these quick appetizers. Remember the blueberry apple chutney from our summer preserving posts? Here’s a great way to use it.
Ingredients: filo pastry, olive oil, chutney, soft goat cheese. (I used Ran-cher Acres cheese.)
Take five sheets of filo pastry. Brush olive oil on the first sheet, then cover that sheet with another sheet of filo. Brush it with oil, and so on until you have five stacked sheets. Cut sheet into small rectangles. (I got eight rectangles out of the sheet I had.) The size is flexible – I’d say that mine were 10 cm x 20 cm. In one corner, place a spoonful of chutney (1-2 tbsp) and a small amount a goat cheese (about 1 tsp). Fold them up into small triangles and bake for 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees.
Main Course: Squash Ravioli with Sage Butter sauce
We recently acquired an old pasta machine. Using the recipe and tips from our Spring cooking workshop, we made sheets of pasta, which we then cut into squares of approximately 10 cm x 10 cm. Then we used this recipe from the Food Network website to make the squash filling and sage butter sauce. Yummy! I think I’ll be planting extra sage in the garden next spring.
2012 is sure to be a year of delicious local eating! What do you have planned for 2012? Is this the year you build a root cellar or join a CSA? Do you have a new recipe to try?
Ahh… December 1. With the gardens put to bed, the cupboards full of preserves and the root cellar stocked, the food action committee has finally had some time to reflect on the growing season. Here’s a short slide show of some of our favourite photos from the season:
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For details from any of our workshops, search this blog and our sister blog at the Halifax Garden Network.
Yours in food,
Marla
We moved to our property on the Eastern Shore last November. It was great to walk around the yard this spring and summer to see what new perennials were popping up, and to discover the wild blueberries in the back woods. Midway through the summer, I started noticing the ominous growth of something viney and leafy in the ‘wild’ corner of my front yard. Something vaguely grapey… but surely the growth of vines 20 feet up the birch tree couldn’t be grapes??
They certainly did end up being grape vines - masses and masses of grape vines of an unknown variety. It was a big project to cut the vines down this fall in order to save the trees – there were a few 6-foot spruce trees that had been holding up a portion of the vine mass that now have curved, sickle-like tops. (I know where my Charlie Brown style Christmas tree is going to come from this year!) We harvested the grapes once the vines were cut down – many of them were underripe, overripe, or damaged – but we still managed to gather up around four 5-gallon buckets of ripe grapes. Many were given away to grape-loving Food Action Committee members, but I saved about eight gallons or so to make some juice! I’m not much of a jelly fan, but who doesn’t like grape juice?
The first step was washing, cleaning and sorting the fruit. The cleaned grapes went in a big pot with just enough water to cover them. Once the pot got close to boiling, I mashed the berries down (some recipes called for mashing the grapes at the very beginning, but I found them a lot easier to mash once they started cooking up a bit.)
I kept them just under a simmer for another 15 minutes or so, and then drained them into a new pot through a cheescloth lined colander. A new batch of berries was started up, and then drained into the same big pot when it was done cooking.
I let the big pot of unsweetened juice settle in my cool sunroom for a day or so to let the sediment collect at the bottom. Then I carefully drained the juice back into another pot, added some sugar to taste and let it come to a boil before canning it in 1 litre jars.
Voila, Grape Juice! It’s a concentrated juice that tastes great with a bit of soda water.
We left a good chunk of the root system to start again next year, but hopefully we’ll be able to manage the growth a little better so we can actually access the grapes without yanking down the vines!
Yours in Food,
Alison
Check out a few more excellent entries from our Preserving the Harvest contest.
From Cory
To celebrate my first summer with a large garden at the house my husband Chris and I bought in Ardoise last year, I decided it was time I started canning. I grew up with a constant parade of jams, jellies, pickles and preserves moving through the kitchen as mom “put by” the produce from her garden, and have always associated gardening with preserving. Earlier in the summer I made my first strawberry and raspberry jams, and started thinking of what my first pickles would be. Lunch at Chris’s Aunt’s made up my mind – she served delicious green tomato chow with her fishcakes. I called her up the next week and got the recipe.
Friday afternoon I set out for the tomato patch to pick green tomatoes. Standing in front of my lovely tomatoes, I realized this would be the toughest part! I was to pick the tomatoes green, just as big, juicy red tomatoes were starting to appear?? I felt like I was robbing myself. I compromised by picking any that were touching the ground or too close together, consoling myself by thinking they might have rotted before getting fully ripe anyway. The recipe called for 4 quarts, so I picked a big bowl.
Inside, I washed the tomatoes and started slicing. Two quarts in I realized- worst case scenario- I had picked too many green tomatoes! I was certainly not wasting them, so quickly determined I could make 1.5 times the recipe. I would give jars as Christmas gifts! The recipe requires that the sliced tomatoes be layered with sliced onions and salt, and left overnight.
The next morning while our pancakes were cooking, I rinsed the tomatoes and onions with water. I was sceptical about this step – wouldn’t most of the tomato wash away too? But green tomatoes soaked in salt are much sturdier than red tomatoes, and they washed fine. I put them back in the pot with cider vinegar and pickling spice in a cheese cloth bag (which Chris had made an emergency trip to Home Hardware for that morning – what is a first pickling adventure without some drama…). About the cheese cloth bag – there must be something better to use?? The cheese cloth started fraying immediately along the cut edge, even though I tried to cut it evenly.
The chow simmered for an hour, while I did laundry, and cleaned the kitchen; stirring every time I passed the stove. After an hour I added the sugars and let it simmer another hour, this time I was a little more vigilant about stirring as it thickened up and threatened to stick. I set out the boiling water bath, washed the jars, and set out the tools I would need.
I have been sterilizing jars in boiling water, which is a huge pain since I get the jars all set in the rack and as soon as I add them to the water they float and get all mixed up. Mom has since told me that she sterilizes jars in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 mins, which seems much more manageable. 
At this stage in the canning process, I find everything goes a bit blurry. This time was no different (notice there are no more pictures till the end…). I tried to move as quickly as possible to get the jars out of the water, the water out of the jars, chow into the jars, the rims wiped, the lids on, and the jars back in the boiling water. Whew! I sat back to relax while the chow processed, before I pulled 10 beautiful jars out and set them on the counter to admire.
Like many people, I found the thought of canning a little intimidating, but with a little practice and planning I find that it’s perfectly manageable. I have since made salsa and have plans for tomato sauce tonight!
From Cheri
We always made our jam at the cottage, on the Miramichi Bay. The berries were grown in the fields up the road, and were fertilized only by nature and salt breezes. My daughters and their friends were ‘the pickers’ from the time they were able to navigate the rows. They were also ‘the hullers’. Needless to say, these same children then became the eager eaters of the finished product – served on homemade white rolls from the rural co-op store ‘down to the bay’. The jam was always appreciated on a cold winter’s morning, as well. By the way, the pot in the picture was the one my mother used (exclusively) for jam, jelly and pickles.
From Steph
This post comes from Megan, neurotic first-time canner turned pro!
A few weeks ago I inadvertently volunteered to do a preserving demonstration at the Maritime Fall Fair. Inadvertently because I’d thought I was volunteering to man a booth, standing by while folks look at a display or pamphlets, and maybe answering some questions. Having never preserved anything in my life, I likely would not have volunteered had I understood I’d be demonstrating lacto-fermentation and canning to a seated audience. On a kitchen platform. With a microphone headset. Eep!
(This misunderstanding was no fault of the requester; I need to read my emails more closely and make fewer assumptions).
Realizing what I got myself into I figured I’d better learn in a hurry. Mixing up sauerkraut was easy – chop, salt, pound, wait. I texted a friend who’d taken the sauerkraut workshop: could it be that easy? I was forgetting something, right? But as with many of the foods that we’re used to harvesting from grocery shelves, it really isn’t complicated; we’ve just gotten out of the habit of doing things for ourselves. Lacto-fermentation, check.
Next: canning. Much more intimidating. In preparation I borrowed a book on canning and bought myself a canner and the appropriate utensils (all for less than ~$40 new). I got home and set out all of my equipment, along with my jars and a bag of valley apples I’d picked up, and got busy reading through all the steps. After going through it four times I felt ready to give’r.
After an hour of peeling and chopping I had a pot of apples and spices simmering into applesauce on the stove and I began heating water in my canner with the jars and lids. This was the first important safety step in the manual: making sure that your jars are hot enough that they don’t break when you add your hot food. Check. Within little time my apples were turning to frothy, foaming, pillowy goodness. I carefully removed a jar from the canner, filled it with applesauce, removed air bubbles and checked the “headspace” as directed, placed a lid and sealing ring, making it “fingertip tight” (another important safety step), and put it back in the canner. Ditto the second and third jar, add enough water to completely surround them, and they were on their way. Voila!
At this point I grew skeptical; this was too easy. So I started worrying about whether they would actually seal – did I get the headspace right? What exactly is “fingertip tight”? Did I get out all the air bubbles? And if I got any of these steps even minutely wrong, could it work?
As I pondered this something startling began to happen – boiling water began shooting from the canner and cascading down its sides, creating an alarming sizzling and popping noise akin to a tiny fireworks display. I leapt into action with tea towels, trying to avoid the boiling water droplets flying through the air while attempting to stop the water from running down between the stove and wall to areas unreachable – already late in the evening, I didn’t fancy ending my night by having to pull the stove into the middle of the kitchen to mop, knowing that such an endeavor might uncover a much scarier mess. Standing as far from the stove as possible, arm out-stretched and oven-mitt protected, a quick assessment told me that while my canner was tall enough for the jars I’d chosen, with the steamer insert (used to keep the jars off the direct heat source – another important safety step) there wasn’t enough room to completely cover them with water, and once boiled it had boiled over.
Okay. Time for a quick decision. Remove enough water to stop the overflow (but then the jars wouldn’t be completely surrounded!), turn the jars on their side so they could remain completely immersed (but the directions said not to tilt the jars!), or completely abandon the process? I went for option two, thinking it was probably the wrong choice but going for it anyway. I tipped them on their sides, took out a bit of water; the effluence stopped. As I waited for them to process I lamented that my instructions hadn’t told me which steps are fudge-able and which aren’t. Not being science-minded, I figured the process was probably pretty picky. Twenty minutes later I removed the jars from the canner half-heartedly and stood them back up on the counter, believing that they wouldn’t seal and my foray into canning would be a failure.
As the final step was to check the seal 24 hours later, I put the venture to rest for the night. All the following day at work my mind would return to the jars of applesauce on my counter, waiting for me to come home and do my check, mocking me as the lids would lift easily from the jars. I’m not sure if I would have been so wrapped up in their success or failure if I hadn’t been aware that in one week I’d be doing it in front of a group of folks who would probably know better and I would be revealed as a preserving fraud. The ego is a powerful thing.
But sometimes miracles happen. They sealed! I’d googled “seal test” earlier in the day and tried four methods, just to be sure. I was elated! It worked! I’d canned something! I celebrated by promptly opening one and diving in.
Over the next week I stoked my confidence by preparing jars of lacto-fermented kimchi and dill pickles, and pickling and canning the last of my summer carrots. The satisfaction of chopping and mixing, bubbling and boiling, setting aside and tasting, is addictive. Part science experiment, part artisan craft, and results that celebrate our local harvest well into the winter.
And I avoided appearing as a complete novice at the demonstration. I was paired with someone with plenty of experience – a whiz with preserving – who took the lead while I played the role of assistant / beginner, demonstrating that you don’t need to be a kitchen or harvesting expert to make the most of our local produce – you don’t! It was fun – and I added pickled beets and salsa to my list of Things I’ve Preserved. What will be next?
One of my favourite things about writing this blog and doing workshops are the comments I get from people afterward.
It really makes my day when I run into a past workshop participant who tells me that the workshop we did inspired them to get back into canning. (And that they used recipes from our blog!) Or when I get emails asking for suggestions on which farmers might sell bulk tomatoes.
I also love getting photos like this:
These three lovely ladies took our Salsa Workshop. Then they got inspired, and made 48 jars of salsa a week later.
And sometimes people send me things that just make me laugh. Like this:
(Here’s the source.)
So, keep the mail coming!
Yours in Food,
Marla
Recently we announced the winners of our Preserving the Harvest Contest. We had so many great entries that we wanted to share a few more!
From David
A few years ago, my wife and I watched the movie “Food Inc” and became quite concerned about the consumption of commercially raised meat. Soon afterwards, we began to try to find ways to change the source and quantity of beef that we consumed. As enthusiastic carnivores, this became more about changing the source than the quantity.
We decided to try to substitute whitetail deer to replace part of our annual consumption of red meat. With help from a colleague who was an experienced hunter, I shot my first deer in 2008. Although we found the meat to be excellent, it was a small deer, and we ran out within a few months, so we had to go back to eating beef. As we developed our taste for deer and our repertoire of venison recipes, my wife and I decided that we could make use of two deer per year, thereby reducing our reliance on commercially-raised beef to nil.
Because deer are particularly abundant in Lunenburg County, the Department of Natural Resources currently gives out Bonus Deer tags to encourage hunters to harvest a second deer, which must be a female, to try to reduce the deer population in this part of the province. Because the areas of high deer and human population density overlap strongly in this Lunenburg county, and because most property is privately owned, archery is a much safer and more effective means of hunting deer in this part of the province. After an initial investment in some archery equipment, and significant investment of time to acquire the skills to be able to make a certain and ethical shot, I was able to kill two deer in 2010. The only problem was how to preserve so much meat (approximately 60 lbs per animal) for a 12-month period until the next hunting season.
Aside from the energy requirements of running a large deep-freeze, there is also the issue of freezer-burn, which affects the quality of the meat and can ultimately result in waste. Although vacuum sealers work wonders for this, the bags are expensive and add up to a lot of non-reusable plastic. I was aware of the very common practice in Newfoundland of bottling large amounts of moose meat, so I inquired with a friend from The Rock. After a quick email to his mother, I had my recipe, and it could not be simpler.
Although it is common practice in Newfoundland to bottle meat in a conventional canner, and no-one seems to suffer from it, the internet is full of dire warnings about the dangers of bottling meat this way, with links to companies selling expensive pressure-canners designed to increase the heat of processing to ensure a safe product. Luckily, I was able to borrow one from a colleague, saving me the expense and allowing me to give it a try.
When the butcher asked me how I wanted my deer cut, I decided how many chops, roasts, steaks and how much hamburger I wanted to for my freezer, and then asked for the rest cut up as stew-meat, which was destined for canning. When I was ready, I sterilized the jars and prepared the lids/rings as per normal canning practice. I heated the water in the large pressure-canner while I further trimmed that meat, removing as much fat and sinew as possible (which I froze into small patties to be mixed into my dog’s kibble). The canning recipe could not be simpler. I put a quarter of a small onion in the bottom of a 500 ml Mason jar, added a half-teaspoon of canning salt, then packed the raw meat into the jar up to the neck, using a plastic knife from my camping kit to remove the bubbles from between the meat and the glass. I put the lids and rings on and finger-tightened them. I loaded them into the pressure-canner, clamped down the lid, and raised the internal pressure to 15 lbs for 70 minutes.
The product is simply wonderful. The fat, which accounts for most of the gamey taste of deer that some people find hard to get used to, is congealed on the top of the bottle and is easily picked out. The meat falls apart at the touch of a fork, and the broth makes a wonderful gravy. The meat can be simply heated in a pan in its own juices, or added to spaghetti sauce, or used as a base for simple stews. It is also a nice way to share the meat with others – making a nice gift to drop off for non-hunting friends and family to be able to try some venison. This year I plan to bottle some 250 ml “single-serving” jars. I also plan to try some “hot packing” recipes that incorporate potatoes and vegetables in jar with the meat, making complete ready-to-heat meals. Stay tuned next year for the results!
Venison stew with mushrooms and cranberries
From Sarina
In the summer of 2010, a friend and I tried our hands at running a small veggie CSA on her family’s organic farm. As new gardeners we thought we would lean on the side of caution and plant more than we needed: this way (we hoped) our customers would have a better chance at receiving full baskets for the duration of the season, and if we had extra veggies, we could learn how to preserve them ourselves. Four cracked hands, two sore backs, and a near fatal entrapment in the jungle of a greenhouse later, we were knee deep in the most beautiful veggies just singing out to us to be made into relish, pickles and ketchup. We chopped, washed, froze, canned, and fermented for days and days. We listened to every CD we had, with a few repeat sing along to Joni Mitchell and Old Man Luedecke. We learned which dance moves are appropriate for working with sharp knives and boiling water, and which are not. We stunk like vinegar and garlic, and by the end of everyday, we were tired, sweaty and likely burned in a couple of places. Nevertheless, it was all worth it when we congregated around the latest batch of pickles or relish in anticipation of the mason lid symphony to serenade us with that satisfying, “pop…POP! poppop…..pop POP pop”.
From Jen
Check out the haul of peaches that Jen canned! She says, “When I was buying these in the grocery store, filling my shopping cart with peaches, somebody thought that I worked there.”
Peaches bought up from the grocery store for preserving... and transported on a bike!
Thanks again to everyone who entered our contest. Stay tuned for more entries!
Thank you to everyone who submitted a story and/or photos to our “Preserving the Harvest” Contest! All the names were entered in a draw. And our lucky winners are… (Drum roll please)
Grand Prize: Elisabeth Bailey
Runners up: Cory Mooney & Jennifer Naugler
Enjoy your preserving books, ladies!
The stories and photos I received were too good not to share. Here’s a smattering of what I received:
(More to follow in the coming weeks.)
From Elisabeth
Here are a few preserving pics to share–drying a variety of heritage tomatoes from the Lunenburg Farmers’ Market, and blueberries packed in lemon syrup for the freezer. Enjoy!
From Jennifer
This is a photo from the first time I made jam. Strawberry jam. I was so proud of myself…that lined the jars up on the kitchen windowsill….and stared at them all day. 
I would never dream of buying jam again.
From Georgina
Around this time last year, three of my friends and I decided that we would try canning tomato sauce. One of us had canned with other people once before, one had made jam, and the other two of us were complete newbies. We figured that by doing it together we could combine our collective knowledge, help each other, and learn how to do it together. Little did we know that we’d learn most lessons the hard way.
Lesson 1: Don’t Over-Do It.
We also figured that we’d save money: the greater bulk we purchased, the cheaper the tomato sauce would be. We all wanted to walk away with enough tomato sauce to last us through the winter. During one of our planning sessions, we sat around my kitchen with a calculator, price quotes from various local farmers, and an Excel spreadsheet open. We made lists that would have been incomprehensible to anyone else, with things like:
Tomato Sauce – Pare (4.5 lbs – 3.5 pints) (40 lbs for 7 jars each)
(6.5 lbs – 12 cups 3 L 6 pints)
(1 L 2 pints 6 lbs)
Stewed Tomatoes
Roasted Tomato Sauce – Small Batch
When my roommates wandered into the kitchen and saw the mathematics and heard our conversation, they looked at us like we had lost our minds. But we were sure we weren’t crazy; in fact, it would be crazy NOT to buy a massive amount of tomatoes and can them ourselves! We continued crunching the numbers and finally settled on an amount: we would buy 50 pounds of tomatoes.
We made arrangements with a farmer at the market, and on the designated Saturday, we took my station wagon down to the market to pick up our tomatoes. It was only then that we got an idea of what 50 pounds of tomatoes looks like. This was the first time we wondered whether perhaps we’d gone a little overboard.
Lesson #2: Know Thy Tomato.
We had four large boxes of tomatoes. And they weren’t exactly the tomatoes we wanted. We had ordered plum tomatoes: solid, oval-shaped tomatoes that have fewer seeds and are ideal for making sauce and packing. But when we went to pick them up, the farmer told us that those tomatoes weren’t ready yet, so instead he’d brought us 50 pounds of field tomatoes. Field tomatoes are rounder and juicier, with more seeds and liquid. We should have turned down the tomatoes right then and there. But it’s hard to say no to somebody who has boxed up 50 pounds of tomatoes for you and is carting them out to your car. Plus, we’d all set aside this weekend for doing the canning; when would be able to align our schedules again? So we decided to carry on and make the best of our field tomatoes.
Lesson #4: Don’t Over-Do It. I repeat: Don’t Over-Do It.
We got back to my place and started working: boiling water, dropping the tomatoes in the hot water and then submerging them in cold water; cutting up vegetables; measuring herbs. We had picked three different recipes to use, so we’d have a variety of sauces to enjoy.
The first recipe was from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and was designed for large quantities. The other two recipes were from a book on small-batch preserving. Since we weren’t preserving a small batch, this meant we had to multiply the recipes by 16. One of them called for balsamic vinegar, and while it seemed like 16 times the amount called for was just too much vinegar, we were afraid of botulism, so we went for it. The other recipe called for roasted onions, peppers, and garlic, so we had to rotate trays and trays of vegetables through the oven to roast.
The hours wore on and soon it was past dinner time. My roommates had to snatch whatever morsels of prepared food they could get from the fridge or cupboards before escaping the kitchen. Squashed tomatoes and puddles of tomato juice were everywhere. The kitchen looked like a war zone. We had finished the first batch earlier in the day, and it had turned out pretty well: it was Kingsolver’s recipe, and though the herbs were very present, it wasn’t bad. We named it Herby. It was the most basic of the recipes, and we had high hopes for the other two. But when the second batch was finished, it had an overpowering flavour of balsamic vinegar. The tomatoes were very juicy, so the sauce was a watery, vinegary liquid. We tried to see the vinegar flavour as a positive, and brainstormed ideas for a name – things like “zesty” and “tangy.” In the end we settled on Zingy. Everything was now riding on the final batch: the roasted vegetable sauce.
Lesson #5: Work in a Good Space.
Before we knew it, it was past two o’clock in the morning. We’d been roasting vegetables for hours, and the sauce was finally simmering on the stove. As we sat exhausted and drooping around the kitchen, one of us suddenly perked up. “Does anyone else smell burning?” It turned out that our spoon wasn’t reaching the very bottom of the massive pot, and a thick layer at the bottom – about 3/4″ – had burned. We were so exhausted, we weren’t in a good mental space, and so we began stirring strenuously, trying to scrape the burned bits off the bottom. When we sampled the sauce, we realized that now the entire pot tasted of burn. “It’s like eating a cigarette,” I declared, despondent. Exhausted, we decided to can it anyway and figure out what to do with it later. We named it Smokey. One of my friends, too tired to bike home, slept on my couch that night. We finished at around 3:30 am.
It was several months before any of us tried our sauces – not because we were saving them for winter (we’d canned enough for 18 jars each) – but because we could hardly bear to even look at them. But eventually we started trying them, and finding creative ways to use them. “Zingy is great as a base for a stir fry!” someone would email. Surprisingly, Smokey became a favourite, as a base for chilli.
A few weeks ago, we got together to enjoy one of the last jars of sauce. Loaded up with black beans and veggies and seasoned with cumin and paprika, it was a pretty delicious chilli – with that distinctive smokey flavour. Sure, we hadn’t produced the most tasty batch of sauces ever canned, but we had fun and certainly learned a lot along the way. This year, we’re taking a different approach to canning. We’re sticking to basics, like whole tomatoes, and we’re doing our canning independently. In very small batches.
Thanks for sharing your photos and stories with us…
(More to come!)
Yours in food,
Marla
