Putting Up Summer - A Challenge

The growing season is short here. And, it is about this time of year that a certain anxiety takes over me. Not so badly that I can’t enjoy summer but badly enough that I start scheduling life around the availability of fruits and vegetables.

Normally, I know in the back of my head that we will be going away for some portion of the winter months. This is the first time since I started doing any sort of preserving that I I am planning on being here for all of the winter months. So, my anxiety is at an all time high. 

As herbs start growing I whizz them into a ‘pesto’ and toss them in the freezer. By pesto, I mean any combination of herb mixed with olive oil and whizzed. I don’t use nuts or cheese in most so that they are that they are easier to toss in to anything for anyone. Swiss chard and spinach are getting blanched and frozen. Garlic scapes, a lot of them, have been pestoed and frozen or pickled. I am imagining pickled garlic scape tartar sauce as soon as they have sat for a few weeks. Strawberries have been picked, hulled and frozen. Others have been turned into jam, two types. 

For the first time in my jam making career, I didn’t muddle around with the recipe and low and behold, it looks like it has set. Just in time for my children to decide that they don’t like jam. The other type got muddled with and is a little runnier as the result of a little less sugar and some balsamic and black pepper. I can taste it with creamy goat cheese and it is going to be good.

Currently, there is a big jar of nasturtium seeds brining on my countertop. Who knew those things could be quite so stinky. There is a definite waft of boiled eggs as you walk in to our house, especially when the jar gets a little jiggle. I am told, by many folk and website, that they will be pretty similar to capers.

I have great plans for the rest of the summer’s produce. I have a new canning bible, Canning for a New Generation. All I can say is, it will likely teach you a ton of stuff, it has me. If you plan on putting up any amount of produce or you want to make some lovely gifts, this is a book I would get. 

I want to know what it is you ‘put up,’ if anything. And, to that end and without getting caught up in any social movement, I want to issue a challenge, a project if you will. It will just take a few hours, I know they aren’t often easy to come by. Think of something you buy through the winter, or something that you buy that you think you could make. Maybe it is jam or pickles. Maybe it is pesto or tomato sauce. Look up a recipe, I will gladly help if you get stuck. Spend a few hours getting everything ready and preserve something to use later on. You can turn it into a family project or just take some time for yourself and enjoy the satisfaction it offers.

You do not need any fancy equipment, a really big pot will help. If you have a canner in the basement, or attic, or your mother-in-law’s cupboard, you could use it but, unless you are making huge jars of something or lots of jars, you should be fine.

Ideally, and for best results, you should choose something at the peak of its growing season for a couple of reasons. The first is that it tastes the best and the second, well, it usually costs less.

So, tell me if you are up for the challenge. I am by no means an expert, but I will happily help anyone out as best I can. 

Sorrel Pesto - a.k.a Sour Duck Sauce

When I was little, I was a pretty good little forager. My folks fed me, I just liked to find things to eat in the ditch, on the lawn, in the woods or anywhere other than the conventional.

I ate, what we called, tea berries, fiddleheads (I am sure I likely ate some other ferns as well), blueberries from wherever I could find them, blackberries and wild raspberries, with scratches and scars to prove it and carefully guarded patches of wild strawberries spared the blades of the lawnmower. One of my greatest discoveries was sour ducks. I have no idea who introduced me to them or what possesses a fairly functional eight year old to eat sour weeds from the lawn but I would walk, head down, looking for the tell tale wispy red heads of the plant, all summer long. 

I tried to figure out what these things were, I was sure that it wasn’t really called sour duck. I asked lots of people, none seemed to have a clue what I was talking about and would raise an eyebrow. I, while by no means searching relentlessly, never gave up, my curiosity was still there.

Imagine my excitement and joy to be alive, when I finally realized what it was. It is actually an edible plant, in small quantities. Large quantities are apparently poisonous. A plant used, more and more, in food created by master chefs, not just hedgerow foragers. It is sorrel. 

While I am sure that what I ate, and what grows in my lawn, is a different variety to what grows, somewhat wildly and accidentally, in my garden, there is no mistaking the sour grassy taste of what is properly called sour dock, not sour duck.

While I like to make a chiffonade and add it to a salad, I understand that the raw, unadulterated flavour may not be to everyone’s taste. My girls seem to enjoy eating it straight out of the garden. Poppy put a few leaves on her lobster sandwich the other day and I realized that, mixed into some mayonnaise, it would be delicious with cold fish or seafood.

Sorrel has become popular as a cream sauce or butter flavour, especially in Europe, which is delicious when executed properly. In our CSA this past winter, we had bunches of the stuff and decided a pesto would be a great way to diversify its uses.

If you don’t have sorrel in your herb garden yet, I want to suggest you get a little pot and pop it in there. I did this last year and had a pretty unsuccessful crop, the bugs ate far more than we did. I didn’t expect it to survive the winter but I now have a big patch of limey green spinach like leaves which the bigs don’t even seem to be able to keep up with. 

I have used this to stuff salmon or spread it on top as a crust. It makes a delish primavera style pasta too. If you find the taste too sour, add an equal amount of fresh parsley and adjust the seasoning.

Sorrel Pesto

Large handful sorrel leaves (plus large handful of parsley if you are using)

1/2 cup slivered almonds (substitute pine nuts if you want to)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup olive oil

3 cloves garlic 

Tear or chop sorrel leaves. In the bowl of your food processor, purée all the ingredients until smooth. 

Place in clean container and refrigerate until ready to use.

This is what I did with the latest batch.

Pistachio and Cranberry Pesto (and eleven of its uses)

I was at the market on Thursday collecting our CSA and strolling around, as you do at the market. We stopped to buy some cookies, sublime chocolate chip and walnut, from an Australian stall holder who was selling a wide variety of things -bread and pasta, pesto and hummus, olives and nuts, cookies and cheesecake. After serving a very anxious Tilly, he proceeded to give a very indecisive woman the hard sell on his pasta and pesto combos. 

Now, I think fresh pasta is a delicious luxury and homemade fresh pesto equally so but, if I am going to buy pesto of any sort, it had better be damn good. My curiousity, and maybe his selling technique, got the better of me and I caved in for a taste. The choice was Poppy’s and she decided that we should try the pistachio and cranberry pesto. I dutifully tried to scoop up what looked like a fancy herbed dipping oil onto the bit of bread for a taste without much solid stuff sticking. It tasted fine, if you drizzled it over something maybe even a little yummy but not fantastic, not really fruity or nutty or anything. We didn’t buy it.

I decided to make it and would like to say that this is a little holiday kitchen workhorse for you. It is warm and wintery and fresh at the same time. It is so versatile that without even trying, I can think of a ton of uses. We have tried it three ways and we only made it after lunch today. 

So, you can, of course, use it stirred into some pasta. The girls devoured this perfect apres-swim supper this evening. You could also put it in a little jar and tie a pretty ribbon around it and give it to a friend. Add a beautiful goat cheese, if you really like this friend. You could use it to top roasted squash. And, in that vein, it could turn the sweet potato casserole on its head - mini marshmallows beware. You could roll it in some filo, with or without a little bit of cheese (think soft) and make very tasty little hors d-oeuvres. Try stuffing it into apples, baking them and serving with a pork roast. I like to muck around with the humble grilled cheese but I really, honestly think this would be divine spread inside with some really old cheddar. I think that this would be really nice alongside turkey, not traditional cranberry sauce but maybe a tasty new tradition. And, despite my disregard for it, I can’t help but quietly whisper roast lamb to you as well.

Stephen, for supper, had it stuffed into a chicken breast and roasted - it would have only been better had I taken a real chicken breast out of the freezer instead of a skinless one. Had it been a real chicken breast, ie. one with skin, I would have been inclined to just stuff the pesto under the skin. I, for a late lunch, had it dobbled over some fresh figs, a SoCal benefit, with a bit of shaved Parmigiano Reggiano. It disappeared rather quickly. 

I should mention a few things about making this. I would recommend buying shelled pistachios for two reasons. The first is that you can save yourself a lot of time, especially if you find yourself dropping whatever it is you are doing to rescue various parts of your house, furniture, sanity from your small child. The second is, that by the time you finish shelling them, especially with a little helper, you will have eaten half of what you bought. If you can buy them shelled, roasted and unsalted, even better. If not, buy unroasted and lightly toast and cool them before you start. Try as hard as you can, and buy unsalted ones.

If you go the shelling route, you will need to get some of the loose skins off. Do that by wrapping the pistachios in a clean towel and rubbing them. Then they should be less skinny and ready to go.

This makes about four cups of pesto which is quite a lot but you can keep it in the fridge in a jar covered with olive oil for a couple of weeks at least, if it was to last that long.

Pistachio and Cranberry Pesto

1 1/2 cups shelled unsalted roasted pistachios

1 cup dried cranberries

2 large shallots minced

4 cloves garlic minced

1/4 cup + 3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup parsley finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Sauté the shallots and garlic with 1/4 cup olive oil until translucent. Cool.

Pulse the pistachios in the food processor.

Pulse the cranberries in the food processor, or finely chop.

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it up. Store it in a jar in the refrigerator until you find the next use. It won’t take long.

Kitchen Saviour - Garlic Scape Pesto

Sometimes you feel like you are doing everything you can just to keep the wheels on the bus. That is exactly where we have been lately. Not that I haven't been cooking. I have been. It just seems that by the time I think to take a picture whatever it is has been eaten or I have forgotten to measure exactly and write it all down. 

It all started with the return from Sint Maarten and Big Daughter's birthday party preparations which took the better part of every evening for a week. The birthday party was quickly followed by a weekend in Toronto which, while fun and exciting, didn't exactly help in our household/day-to-day organizational crisis. A steady stream of house guests and summer activities has kept me on my toes since then. 

I wouldn't change any of it, I love being busy and I love a house full of folk, but something has to give sometimes. I gave up on bathing the girls for a little while because that seems to take an age these days, but we started having people cover their noses around us, so I had to get back on top of that. I wanted to give up on taking the garbage out and sorting the recycling but that may have caused a health hazard. I tried to give up on laundry but then they came to fix our water issue. So, the rare moments to play around in the kitchen and try not to forget what I am cooking in the oven had to be put on the proverbial back burner while we just about managed to 'keep her between the mustard and the mayonnaise,' as my old friend Dana used to say. He was referring to motor vehicles, but it works for life with children too.

***

Every year, I excitedly buy garlic scapes, the curly green stems of the garlic, as soon as I start seeing them at the market and I take them home and I put them away and a week later there they are, looking out at me, asking to be given a warm supper time welcome. Don't get me wrong, I love them but I have two little eaters that aren't as keen on strong new flavours - the littlest still only has two teeth and the biggest is becoming skeptical of new flavours in her old age, although as I write she is devouring some stilton and crackers as a bedtime snack.

Then, I saw it. The answer to my five day old garlic scape dilemma. Garlic Scape Pesto. It has made the past few weeks better in many ways. I have added it to sauces and dressings, substituted it for straight garlic, spread it on stuff and made the easiest and freshest spaghetti aglio olio there ever was. All devoured by young and old alike.

I am told that this will last for up to a year in your fridge as long as its covered with olive oil. I doubt you will need to worry as it won't last that long.

Garlic Scape Pesto (makes about one cup)

200 grams garlic scapes

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Remove the tops of the garlic scapes just below the seed pod and chop the bottom parts into 1-inch or so pieces. Put these into the bowl of the food processor and pulse until chopped.

Add olive oil, salt and lemon juice and puree until smooth.

Put pesto into a clean glass jar and refrigerate. Keep the pesto covered with olive oil.

Use the pesto to toss with pasta, to add mild garlic flavour to sauces, soups, dressings, toss it with bread cubes and toast for great croutons, add some extra oil and drizzle over tomatoes or grilled vegetables. Use it almost anywhere.