Preservation Link Roundup 8/16/10

Sometimes I'm so jealous of Georgia. Seems like nearly every high school there boasts a community canning center. How come we don't have any in Los Angeles? The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that there will be tours of these canning centers (Georgia Organics Plans Special Tour on Canning).

The canneries, Croom said, are a unique public resource.

"We really want people to use them," said Croom, Georgia Organics' Farm to School program coordinator. "What can take eight hours in your kitchen can take two-and-a-half hours there; you can do huge amounts at once."

We need one of these centers in LA.

Doris and Jilly Cook answer a question about non-sealing jars of stock when pressure canning (Ask the Goats: Bad Seals in the Pressure Canner). There is some good advice on getting a firm seal, such as removing as much of the fat from the stock as possible. I like to chill my stock overnight in the refrigerator and remove the fat that has solidified on the top. It is easy to remove the fat in this way and I also get a better idea how fortified my stock is - does it seem just like a thick liquid or have I gotten a jelly-like flavor bomb?

And don't forget to save the fat. The fat from beef stock makes a nice frying medium, especially for potatoes. Or use it (instead of butter) to caramelize onions. Chicken fat is even better, I think, because what you now have is a flavorful schmaltz. I wouldn't make Matzah balls without it.

In any case, the main recommendation was to let the pressure canner cool down for at least an hour after turning off the heat. This is good advice for any pressure canning. Just be careful that with some models of canners, excessive cooling may create a vacuum seal making opening more difficult.

Speaking of pressure canning, Frugal Canning did what everyone with a pressure gauge canner should do every year: get that gauge checked (Pressure Canning Gauge Check). Unfortunately, we don't have a testing setup in LA County, but will see if we can't get that changed in the next couple of months. Of course, even if you don't need to get the gauge checked, don't forget to replace any rubber gaskets on an annual basis as well.

The Jam and Jelly Lady provides a little background on how she left office worker and became tJ&JL (My Journey to Becoming a Canning Mom).

Well Preserved is getting ready for some major tomato canning (The Tomatoes are Here – One of My Favourite Weeks of the Year). Sounds like a good time with family!

We`ve got our system down pretty good and the four of us can run through 6-8 bushels with a solid day of work. Even after 5+ years of doing this as a team we find there`s a few kinks that we can work out (last year we had 200 liters of sauce but no large pots left for the hot water bath) and will continue to learn from the process. One of the great joys has been learning to work as a team and having fun together with it. We now complete the entire task in less than half the time than what we took 5 years ago (with most of the same equipment).

The Kitchn laments that they haven't done enough preserving this summer (something I can relate to), but there is still plenty of time for tomatoes (Weekend Meditation: That Time of the Year ... or counting the jars in my pantry). Of course, while you are canning those tomatoes with friends or family, you might want to take a break for a refreshing beverage. Luckily, the Kitchn also provides a simple recipe for Ginger Ale, with bread yeast providing the fermentation for the bubbly (Try This! Easy Homemade Ginger Ale).

There is more to canning tomatoes than sauce and whole tomatoes, however. Mother's Kitchen makes a tomato salsa for the August Can Jam (Can Jam August: Salsa #5). This recipe features tomato paste and tomato sauce for a thicker consistency (Mother makes her own from scratch). Looks really good to me.

The Washington Post looks at whether you can make a good homemade ketchup with those excess tomatoes (Could Homemade Ketchup Beat Heinz?). It might seem that is an obvious win for homemade, but we expect certain things from out ketchups, and some homemade versions (including some I've made) just don't seem what we're used to. Good, yes, but not quite the ketchup you've grown up with. On the other hand, maybe we shouldn't expect so much consistency in our flavors. We're not five year olds afraid of everything different. So, let one thousand ketchups bloom. More later, but I will demoing homemade ketchup Aug. 29 at the Hollywood Farmers' Market.

Know Whey makes "spiced peaches," which I call "pickled peaches" (Spiced Peaches). This year I've made both pickled peaches and plums. Love 'em. So sweet and tart. Although it is wonderful to have these pickles in the winter or for Thanksgiving as Know Whey does, I really enjoy them in the summer as well. They go great with barbecue and taste like summer to me; they are very refreshing on a hot day.

Tartelette does something a little more traditional with her peaches, she makes several jams (French Word a Week - Confiture de Peche). What I particularly liked is that she varies the flavor with different spices and a bit of alcohol. Why not try the same with pickled peaches as well?

Putting By makes a favorite preserve of mine: Razzleberry Jam). Sometimes you don't have enough berries for a single berry jam, or you just like to add layers of flavor. Razzleberry jam it is then.

In My Kitchen provides some excellent lessons learned on storing fresh basil (Garden Journal 8/15/10: How to and, More Importantly, How Not to Store Fresh Basil). Of course, sometimes you have more fresh basil than you can use over a few days. Freezing is the best method of preserving basil, though you can dry it as well. You can chiffonade the basil and freeze it in ice cubes, freeze it on sheet trays and then bag it, chop it and mix with oil to freeze as a preliminary pesto, or freeze as an actual pesto (my favorite).

And feel free to play around with the pesto. Cold Cereal and Toast not only makes a nice mention of a recent report on food policy (Planting the Seeds for Public Health: How the Farm Bill Can Help Farmers to Produce and Distribute Healthy Foods) but describes making pesto from a CSA excess of basil - but without the traditional pinenuts, substituted peanuts (The Thing About Surplus: Easy Peanut Pesto).

Preservation Link Roundup - Catching Up - 4/8/10

So, last week was spring break for many as well as Easter and I had to work six days. I work the afternoons/evenings and in the mornings I was driving an hour each way to interview for my new job. So far this week I've had to drive to my new job twice in order to sign all the paperwork that goes with starting in a new place. Unfortunately for me, I forgot that when you get a new job you need to show proof that you can be employed (passport or SSN card and Drivers License, etc.) so, I had to make that second trip to take care of that little detail. In any case, that is what has kept me from my updates. It'll take me a some time to get caught up, so please be patient. I've also got a few special posts planned (such as a book review), but those will have to wait as well. Oh, yeah, and I've got to get some studying in for my Master Gardener class (I dropped my studies for Advanced Sommelier for now, but will have to pick that back up in the summer).

The New York Times Magazine has a review of the Little House Cookbook, based on the cooking found in Laura Ingall Wilder's Little House books (Little House in the Hood). Preservation, of course, was an important part of life in the big woods and on the prairie, and it isn't clear how much preservation makes it into the book, though the review touches on it, but it would be interesting to learn more about preservation in frontier America.

The Jam and Jelly Lady provides a "semi-homemade" recipe for a trifle, layers of pound cake, cream (in this case, a tarter cream cheese mixture), fruit and jam (Strawberry Amaretto Trifle). The actual recipe is here: Jammin' Good Food. Trifles are simple, fresh and delicious. Garnish with some fresh mint and served chilled as they are wonderful warm spring evening or summer desserts. They can be prepared well ahead of time and don't require any cooking, unless you insist on making your own pound cake (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). They are wonderful for playing with flavors as well. Add your favorite liqueur, herb or even spice.

Well Preserved has just been going crazy with some wonderful spring preserving posts:

• Dandelion Wine, Jelly and Coffee - A fine introduction to the possibilities of preserving dandelions.
• Lamb Jerky - Something delicious that you are unlikely to find in your local megalomart or even gourmet food store.
• Rhubarb Two Ways - Simple jams and a chutney. I can't recommend playing with rhubarb enough - it is another of those secret ingredients that can punch up so many different dishes without anyone knowing for sure what you've done.
• Beech Tree Noyau (Infused Gin) - I'm not really sure if there are beech trees in Southern California, but if I find any, I'm going to give this a try.
• Asparagus - Pickled and Pressure Canned - I'm a fan of pickling asparagus, of course, but haven't tried pressure canning them yet. I'll have to give it a try.
• Pickled Fiddleheads - I used to forage these in New England, but haven't found many in Southern California (though last week on one of my walks I did find some Alpine Strawberries). They're delicious freshly steamed or sautéed, but pickling sounds delicious as well.
• Wild Leeks (or Ramps) - There is very useful advice on foraging - making sure to leave enough after harvesting for the wild crop to flourish.

Serious Eats alerted me to the fact that I missed Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, which is held each April 2nd (Happy Peanut Butter and Jelly Day). What an opportunity to make something special to celebrate the holiday. It is going on my calendar for next year.

Tired of traditional scones? Looking for something a tad bit healthier? Why not try some oatcake bannocks? Serious Eats has a recipe for what may be the scone's wholegrain ancestor (Sunday Brunch: Bannocks). Delicious with clotted cream and your favorite jam or marmalade.

Food in Jars turns some whole preserved fruit into a delicious cake (Pear Cake). Sounds great, would probably work with a number of different fruits and FiJ recommends it with yogurt for breakfast ... sounds like my way to start the day.

Hot Water Bath comes home to a nearly empty pantry and improvises some Triscuit/chevre/pickled pepper snacks (Thank Goodness I Canned: Pickled Hot Peppers). They may not sound particularly fancy, but I bet they tasted pretty darn good. Hot pickled peppers are great to have around - and don't forget the brine:

The canning brine (I use a very standard 2 parts vinegar, 2 parts water, 1/2 part kosher salt) can likewise be used in marinades, drinks (yes! Really!), as a stir-in for plain rice or potatoes, or to punch up the flavor in all kinds of otherwise insipid dishes.

Leda Meredith's Urban Homestead makes a pizza chock full 'o local preserving goodness: tomato puree leftover from some home canned tomatoes, lacto-fermented garlic, in state cheese and foraged wild greens (Wild Pizza Improv).

Miia Monthly's sauerkraut is ready for eating (Sauerkraut is Done). She uses an interesting technique before putting the sauerkraut in the refrigerator, however - she removes the brine, boils it, chills it and puts the kraut back into the brine and refrigerates it.

Tigress in a Jam provides a little more guidance on April's Can Jam: Herbs (Preserving Herbs in Jars). Tigress points to some of her favorite herb books, some links, and provides these comments:

the rules state that the food in focus must be integral to the canned product. in the first few months when canning citrus, carrots and alliums it was easy to consider the chosen produce to be the main ingredient. this month's herbs are a little different and i would interpret integral as being essential to the flavor of the preserve but not necessarily the main ingredient.

this will open up a world of possibilities and i hope will allow those in zones where things are beginning to burst from the ground and jump off the trees to take advantage of what's springing in tandem with the essential herb. and for those of us who are still anticipating spring's abundance it may offer an opportunity to use up the last of the root-cellared produce.

finally, herbs are generally considered the leafy green parts of a plant (i would include flowers in here too) while spices are derived from other parts of the plant, particularly the seeds, berries, bark and roots. so while spices are certainly welcome in this month's entry they are not considered the food in focus and must be in addition to the integral herb.

Finally, for today, Two Frog Home shares a homemade pattern for knitting a cover for mason jars - perfects for gifts (Knitted Jar Pouch). Darn cool.

Happy Easter and Pickled Eggs - Weekly Email

Greetings!

Happy Easter! I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday, spring break or just a beautiful Southern California weekend.

A couple of announcements.

First, I have accepted a new position as sous-chef at the Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club, effective in a couple of weeks. This will have a significant impact on my schedule, so my presence at the farmers' markets will certainly change. I will continue to be available to answer questions via email, but it may be awhile before I have a regular schedule of time at various farmers' markets again.

It will also likely take me some time and effort to get up to speed in my new position, so if these emails are shorter, or non-existent, please be patient.

Second, I have a class and a demo coming up. I will be teaching a class on fermentation (yogurt, vinegar, and kombucha) on Sunday, April 18th at Delilah Snell's Road Less Traveled Store in Santa Ana. Sign up for my class or one of the many other food preservation classes (sauerkraut and kimchi, working with chilis, foraging) here:
http://www.roadlesstraveledstore.com/shop/home.php?cat=263

The demo will be on Sunday, May 16th at the Hollywood Farmers' Market to celebrate the 19th Anniversary of the market. Delilah and I will be demonstrating some food preservation techniques as well as giving out samples. I look forward to seeing many of you at the demo!

Today is Easter and for those of you who celebrate it, you will probably be left with a significant number of hard boiled eggs at the end of the day. There are many things you can do with fresh hard boiled eggs, but after several days, you might start getting a bit tired of them. You don't want the eggs to go to waste, though, so what do you do?

Pickle them, of course.

Preservation Link Roundup 4/1/10

All sorts of preservation news from Master Food Preserver Delilah Snell. First, she has a list of food preservation classes for the next couple of months. Most are at her shop, the Road Less Traveled Store, but a few are in other places (Food Preservation Classes, Workshops & Events April and May 2010). I'm doing one at her store on April 18th (fermentation: yogurt, kombucha and vinegar) and we'll be doing another demo together at the Hollywood Farmers' Market on May 16th. There are many classes, so check them out.

Delilah is also making some progress on her root cellar (Root Cellar Upodate). Root cellars are great preservation spaces. Many types of food (often root vegetables, natch) store very well in cool dry spaces and don't need refrigeration. They are also good spaces for many types of fermenation; Delilah will be using her for vinegar.

I haven't talked about cheese much on this blog, but making cheese is a food preservation technique, of course. It is actually appropriate to discuss cheese-making in the spring because we seldom realize nowadays that milk was (and still is, in some cases) a seasonal good. For example, due to seasonal breeding seasons, both goats and sheep produce milk a maximum of ten months a year and usually (much) less.

Slashfood provides some background on a traditional fresh cheese from Italy that is often a featured part of the Easter holiday feast (What is Easter 'Basket' Cheese?). Make your own basket cheese following instructions provided on eHow (How to Make Basket Cheese). It's simple, give it a try.

Not too different from basket cheese is fromage blanc. Know Whey shares a recipe for the cheese and also a wonderful use for it (Fromage Blanc Tart).

What Julia Ate tries another method of milk preservation (Buttermilk). Hers is a good story of how one can have a consistent supply of buttermilk without paying the outrageous prices at the supermarket every time you want to make biscuits, pancakes, fried chicken or any one of thousands of dishes improved by tart, fermented milk.

So, apparently, there is no refrigeration in space. Which means that NASA is big into food preservation for space travel. Slashfood has an interview with NASA's leading food manager for the International Space Station, Vickie Kloeris (NASA Chef Talks About Food in Space).

"All our food has to be processed because there is no dedicated refrigeration," Kloeris explained to Slashfood. "We use freeze drying and thermo-stabilizing, which is like canning but we use pouches. We also use natural form products like cookies and dried fruit."

Read the whole thing.

Oh, Briggsy... enjoys some salami from Mario Batali's dad and is intrigued and entranced by pickled sunchokes (Tuesday Night Pickling Club: Pickled Sunchokes).

Congratulations to Well Preserved on their first published article in Edible Toronto (Our First Published Article – Spring Preserves). It is beautifully layed out, a pleasure to look at. They will be doing an entire series - highly recommended.

I would love to see the various Edible Communities magazines featuring a quarterly preserving feature, preferably written by local preservers.

Backyard Farms publishes a photo of her father's humble preserving shelves and reflects on why she preserves (Where I'm From - Part One).

When I find myself getting too caught up in trying to make something exotic, or longing over designer jars, I think of this shelf with its plain jars and handwritten labels. I think of the long hot summers of work that go into making these, and how good they taste when we eat them in the dead of winter, and I remember why I do this.

Amelia Saltsman, author of the Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook, provides a market update for Eat LA: there are seedlings perfect for gardeners and also some beautiful purple baby artichokes - perfect for pickling (Spring "Starts" at the Farmers' Markets).

Preservation Link Roundup 3/23/10

Regrettably, marmalade canning season is past its peak. Though there is still great citrus in the markets, many of my favorite citruses are on the wane. The LA Times' Market Watch report by fruit detective David Karp can help you figure out which fruit is still good and which is not quite what it was just a couple of weeks ago (Market Watch: When Citrus is Past its Prime).

Of course, just because a fruit is a bit overmature doesn't mean it won't still make a great preserve. In fact, such fruit may be better in a preserve than for eating out of hand. Ideally, you want perfectly ripe fruit for preserving, but if the choice is whether an overmature fruit should be eaten out of hand or preserved, preserving might be the answer.

Be assured though, that while some citrus is making its exit from the farmers markets, some citrus is just hitting its own peak. The Kitchn notes the wonderful (grapefruit or pomelo)/tangerine hybrid tangelos that are in markets right now (Farmers' Market Report: Tangelos).

Master Food Preserver candidate Kevin West and artisan preserve maker Valerie Gordon of Valerie Confections will be doing a series of preserving classes starting in April (Sign Up for Private Preserving Lessons!). Space is limited, so sign up now.

Can't get to the class? Try some self-instruction as Kevin also shares his favorite recipe for Seville Orange Marmalade (Recipe: Seville Orange Marmalade).

If you're looking for a more difficult marmalade recipe Leite's Culinaria has a recipe for blood orange marmalade from Mes Confitures (Blood Orange Marmalade). Blood oranges are reaching their peak of color about now, so they are a good choice for a spectacularly colored marmalade.

My friend Rachael Narins of the sustainable, private supper club Chicks with Knives is also holding some classes, one on pickling and the other on basic knife skills on April 17th (Cooking Classes).

If you have ever attended a CWK dinner, you know we love anything pickled. Join us for this event and learn to make your own! We will start with a brief lecture on the different types of preserving methods, equipment and safety. We will learn to make quick, brined and fermented pickles using seasonal, farmers market ingredients to create several treats for you to try. At the end of the class you will have samples to take home, along with some basic tools, ingredients and equipment.

Yummy Supper makes dandelion jelly (Dandelion Jelly). If a flower is edible, you can make jelly from it and capture that floral essence in a jar. Just be careful, however, since even if a flower is edible, the rest of the plant may not be.

Chickens in the Road is giving away a copy of the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving (Ball Blue Book Giveaway). Post a comment for the chance to win.

Rurally Screwed was having some difficulty getting good flavor from pickled eggplant (What is Up with Pickling Eggplant???).

The other day I made eight different versions of pickled eggplant, trying to find one worthy of the canning cookbook I’m writing with Brooklyn chef Kelly Geary. And the consensus was that all eight versions more or less sucked. That’s right, I’m touting myself as a canning pro and my pickled eggplant was no good. You won’t find any of these recipes in the cookbook, that’s for sure.

But pickle and all-around preserving guru Linda Ziedrich stepped in to comment on the difficulties of pickling eggplant. The result? A delicious garnish or addition to salads (Pickled Eggplant Postscript).

The National Center for Home Food Preservation has only one recommendation for canning pumpkin: cubed in a pressure canner (Resources for Home Preserving Pumpkins). Local Kitchen set out to prove to herself that at least some canning recipes featuring pumpkins are safe (Pumpkin Cascabel Marmalade).

Obviously, I can't say that this recipe is safe, but I do think that LK's analysis is interesting, informative and well worth reading. There are some tests that can be done with the resulting marmalade, for example, puréeing the canned marmalade in a couple of weeks and checking the pH level. Of course, I would be interested in seeing what data the NCHFP based their analysis on as well; to see if LK is missing anything in her analysis.

Smoking cheese isn't really about food preservation. But, if you already have a smoker for preservation, smoking cheese is a great way to add flavor to all sorts of things. Savory TV demonstrates this with a recipe for (Smoked Cheddar Grits). I smoke a lot of cheese: pepper jack, cheddar, gouda, mozzarella, etc. Anywhere you would normally use cheese, substitute in some smoked cheese and you've got some amazing flavor.

Nearing the last of the March Can Jam:

• Rufus and Clementine uses tarragon (a great idea) to flavor pickled pearl onions (Tigress’ Can Jam (March) | Pretty Pickled Pearls).
• Small Measure, who picked alliums for the can jam, makes an interesting seasonal relish, though she subs out tarragon in favor of thyme (Onion, Orange and Thyme Relish).
• The Cosmic Cowgirl makes cocktail onions, though not for their beverage prowess - she plans to use them when grilling season is in full swing (Pickled Pearls of Wisdom).
• Backyard Farms makes a red onion jelly - imagine how good that would be in all sorts of savory applications (It Must Be Jelly Because Alliums Don't Shake Like That! CanJam Episode 3).

Preservation Link Roundup 3/22/10

Yeah! We will soon have another Master Food Preserver in Los Angeles County! Kevin West of Saving the Season is making the long commute to San Bernardino every week in order to complete the Master Food Preserver certification course, which is only offered in three California Counties, two up North and one in SB (MFP). Yet another step closer to reviving the program here in Los Angeles.

Serious Eats highlights a video from Food Curated (highly recommended web series) about an artisan maker of "bacon marmalade" (Bacon Marmalade, from 'Food Curated'). The idea is very interesting and I know people who are making bacon jams. However, I am uncertain of the safety of canning such recipes, as opposed to merely refrigerating them. I was surprised that, near the end of the video (5:56), the artisan was shown merely screwing on the 1-piece lid for the jar with no processing at all. Perhaps there was processing that was not shown, but it is certainly not clear whether they were processed or not.

Wow, hasn't What Julia Ate been busy? She has a new flock of chickens, and still had time to stuff a trout with some tangelo lemongrass jelly which was accompanied by homemade ricotta cheese (a wonderful way to preserve milk) (Trout with Vegetable Hash and Fresh Ricotta Cheese). Wonderful choice. Lemon-y jellies of all sorts (I made a lemon/lemongrass jelly last year) go wonderfully with fish (and chicken). Stuff, as Julia did, use as a glaze, or an accompaniment.

Wendolonia is very happy with the results of her "easy" lemon ginger marmalade - easy because it uses powdered pectin (Actually Easy Lemon Ginger Marmalade). That is one of my very favorite flavor combinations (try it in lemonade). There are a lot of fish dishes this would pair well with.

As you may recall, last week Well Preserved dehydrated some beets, onions and celery root. This week, they used the dried onion and some other homemade spices as a rub for ribs (Homemade Ribs – Preserved Dry Rub Included…). Quite a bit more satisfying (and flavorful) than buying one of those stale rubs at the store.

Ground spices, because they have so much surface area, lose their flavor much faster than whole spices. Since a rub is usually mostly ground spices, depending on how long they've stayed in a distribution center or store, commercial dry rubs are often much less flavorful than a freshly ground one made at home. Try it yourself and see the difference.

Just last week I was noting the beautiful rhubarb in the local farmers markets. Hitchhiking to Heaven makes the first rhubarb preserve of the season that I'm aware of (Rhubarb, Pear, and Vanilla Jam). She also explains a little bit about substituting Pomona's Pectin into the recipe.

If you haven't tried rhubarb yet, the simplest thing in the world is to grab a stalk (only! the leaves contain dangerous oxalic acid), dip the end into some sugar and bite. The original sweet and tart. Brown sugar is also an option, or get fancy and dip it into vanilla sugar - makes an elegant, yet simple and fun dessert at your next dinner party.

A few days ago Eugenia Bone shared her recipe for pickled fennel. Now she shares two recipes for using it (Two Recipes that use Pickled Fennel). Use these recipes as inspiration for some of the things you can do with any sort of pickle.

I've been pretty harsh on Slate recently, but they published a good article on a story I've posted about a couple of times here, in this case the ongoing canned tomato scandal (Rotten Tomatoes: Scandal Strikes the Tomato-Paste Industry). The article is the best I've seen yet on the structure of the tomato industry, a brief history and how the scandal fits into all of it. Read the whole thing.

Here is a somewhat lengthy response (for a blog post) to that Slate article I disliked so much from the Ethicurian (Yes We Can ... and We Relish It!). Wow, two puns in a single title. The article is a great description of Preserving Traditions:

Preserving Traditions was begun in February, 2009 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a way to keep alive (and re-teach) "traditional" foodways, including preserving and cooking food from scratch.

Very cool.

What is it with knitting and canning? Detroit Knitter made Jalapeño Apple Spread on St. Patrick's Day. - which is what most would call jelly (Jalapeño Apple Spread).

More March Can Jam:

• Putting By makes pickled garlic (Pickled Garlic).
• Cafe Libby isn't so sure how her onion relish will come out (pickles can take a couple of weeks to develop flavor) and cutting all those onions made her cry. (Can Jam: This One Made Me Cry). My favorite anti-crying trick? A sharp knife. Seriously.
• Plot 22 hates onions and is not a big fan of fennel, so let's hope that this pickle changes her mind somewhat (Tigress’ Can Jam March: Sweet Onion & Fennel Relish).

Preservation Link Roundup 3/21/10

The March Can Jam entries came fast and furious as the deadline loomed.

Nina Corbett, of Puts Up, was looking for ramps with no success when she was inspired by a wide variety of farmers' market produce (Rhubarb Fennel Chutney).

I actually spoke with an award-winning home canner (Los Angeles County Fair, natch) today who was looking unsuccessfully for some ramps to pickle. I suggested he try some green garlic instead.

Inspired by pickling guru Linda Ziedrich, Food in Jars makes a "bread and butter"-like onion pickle (Can Jam: Sweet and Sour Pickled Red Onions).

Oh, Briggsy... makes a Salsa Criolla, a traditional Peruvian condiment (March Can Jam: Salsa Criolla). Read the whole post for the meandering path she took to the recipe she choose. She also makes the following point:

It’s kind of like a simple red onion in vinegar, which I almost made but thought would be anticlimactic, but the ante is really upped by the lime and cilantro, which makes these pickled onions different and what I was going for. There’s only so much veggies sitting in vinegar that one can eat, am I right?

Pickles anticlimactic? Perhaps, for some, but really there are so many options for vinegars, spices and base that pickles need never be anticlimactic.

Doris and Jilly Cook make classic pickled cocktail onions - and discover the secret to easily peeling the little buggers (Pickled Onions for Cocktails).

Yes! I was hoping someone would make cocktail onions for this Can Jam. I'm a huge fan of what I call "cocktail canning"; syrups, pickles and mixes can all be canned at home for some wonderful drinking options.

For example, Food GPS reviews a restaurant owned by the first family of caviar (Petrossian -- West Hollywood). The first item reviewed? A champagne cocktail featuring candied hibiscus flowers in rhubarb syrup. If you want rhubarb syrup this summer (wouldn't that be nice on a warm Sunday morning in August) ... you're going to have to can it.

And what about flavored vinegars in cocktails? Sounds strange, but the Paupered Chef would disagree (The Strange Appeal of Vinegar in a Cocktail). You can make flavored vinegars and can them ... break out that peach vinegar for a winter party. Why not?

Preservation Link Roundup 3/19/10

Big Black Dogs makes carrot cake jam and pairs it with carrot bread (Carrot Bread with Carrot Cake Jam). That sounds great ... it also makes me think of other things it would go well with. How about carrot cake pancakes with a smear of cream cheese and carrot cake jam? Or simply use it as a glaze for caramelized carrots? I like doubling (or even tripling) down on flavors sometimes.

Well Preserved is canning multiple alliums, onions and leeks (Pickled Onions – Coming to a Sandwich Near You and I’ve Sprung a Leek ... a Pickled Leek). There are some very interesting things going on here. I think the use of malt vinegar in the pickled onions is an excellent idea. Malt vinegar isn't used much in pickling, because of its intense flavor and color, but with the right ingredients it can be genius. This sounds like one of those cases.

Malt vinegar is basically made from beer (sans hops), so it has an affinity for ales and things that go with ale. I'm thinking sharp cheddar, sausages, that sort of thing. How about as a garnish for a cheddar/ale soup?

The other thing that is interesting is that WP pickled not only the white/light green parts of the leeks, but the leaves as well. I've never actually used the leaves of the leek for anything other than a flavoring agent in soups and stock. I didn't really think they were edible due to their fibrousness. I would love to find out whether pickling changes the texture enough to make them readily edible.

What Julia Ate is also working with alliums. Coincidence? I don't think so. A great flavor combination is the result (Roasted Garlic and Candied Ginger Jelly). Originally, though, it wasn't a jelly ... it was a syrup. Julia explains why her original didn't set and why. You always learn more from your mistakes than your successes. And then, she reprocesses, and success! I usually don't recommend reprocessing, but this was definitely a good call.

Tea for Joy hosts a craft evening for her church group and they make some beautiful jars of lemon curd (A Lemon Curd Craft Evening). Once again, we see that canning is a great social activity. However, I must note that the recipe for the lemon curd they use calls for sealing with wax and no processing. This is not recommended. The National Center for Home Food Preservation does have a tested recipe for Canned Lemon Curd.

Guava paste, like dulce de membrillo, is a fruit cheese that has a number of culinary uses. The Kitchn lists ten ways to use it (Fun to Say, Fun to Eat: 10 Ways to Use Guava Paste). Of course, you can buy your guava paste, or membrillo, but when the fruit is in season, it is easy to make your own. You can also make fruit cheese from stone fruits (mmmm .... plum cheese), apples, pears and probably some others I can't think of off hand. So, consider the list as a stepping off point for using other fruit cheeses as well.

The OC Weekly's food blog, Stick a Fork in It, notices the local sugarcane showing up in farmers' markets (At the Farmers' Market: Sugarcane). Juice, strain and use as a syrup for canning local fruit for a locavore delight. Sugarcane isn't that difficult to grow either. Thirty years ago when I was growing up, my grandmother grew it as a treat for us grandkids.

The female half of Those Mathiases and Their Adventures in Kansas did a lot of canning with mom when young, but didn't take it up as an adult. Until now, that is, sort of (On Canning).

I. Do. Not. CAN.

And then I realized something.

We don't have moms or grandmas that live closeby to gift us with such delicacies. Fail.
We don't live under the old landlords that brought down the best raspberry jam ever made. Fail again.
And, the result? We don't have freezer jam. And it's not coming anytime soon. Epic fail.

So I did what any girl would do. I made my husband do it.

If my blogging is a little shorter, slow or otherwise not up to my usual standards, I have an excuse. I have been building some raised bed planters so that I can more easily grow and harvest more food, some of which will definitely end up in cans.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/17/10

Another great March Can Jam update:

Local Kitchen adds alliums to a classic sweet jam and finds that it has "a depth of flavor that must be tasted to be believed" (Strawberry Rhubarb & Caramelized Onion Jam). If onions were as rare as truffles, onions would be more expensive. They are savory, yet work surprisingly well with sweet. Perhaps it is all their inherent sugars that only come out through long, slow cooking.

I just noticed citrumelos for the first time at last Sunday's Hollywood Farmers' Market and, apparently, so did The Kitchn (Citrus Spotlight: Citrumelos). Check out the nice photos and description (and find out why they're also called "marmalade fruit").

Delightful Country Cookin' has a photo-rich description of making a berry-citrus jam, excellent for those just getting started in canning (Blueberry-Lime Jam). And, hey, plenty of blueberries and limes in our farmers' markets right now.

Put a Lid On It is in the process of making classic pickled eggs, pickled in beet brine. Of course, that means first you have to pickle some beets. To keep her husband happy, she also pickles some okra (Pickled Okra and Pickled Beets). Here in Los Angeles, if you want some classic pickled eggs and don't want to have to pickle beets first ... you can find the purplish delicacies at Philippes; they go great with the French Dips.

On her blog for the Denver Post, Well Preserved, preserving guru Eugenia Bone pickles that underutilized aromatic, fennel (Pickled Fennel). I use fennel whenever I have the option. There is hardly a dish that uses mirepoix that I don't think can be improved with fennel. Pickling provides even more options for me to use fennel.

Cooking in Someone Else's Kitchen makes a chile jam from chiles they froze last fall (A Little Summer Heat). The recipe they used was a British recipe and called for "jam sugar," which is sugar combined with pectin. They made the recipe with regular granulated sugar and, of course, it failed to set. They reprocessed with pectin and it worked.

The conversations started by Sara Dickerson's Slate article continue.

The Art of the Rural agrees with the Dickerson (Putting Up).

I often make pâté and have cured different meats (duck prosciutto, bresaola, etc.) and I like having a cabinet full of pickled onions, green beans or bread and butter pickles to have on hand for the occasions when I can slice open a new celebration of pork fat. But last fall I went to Whole Foods to buy 5 lbs of cucumbers for my pickles only to discover that conventional cucumbers were $2.50 each! There was nothing frugal or practical in pickling these and, in fact, it was an expensive little project.

Ummmm ... duh? What did you think would happen if you buy all your produce at Whole Paycheck? Try this for an experiment ... buy some all-beef patties, special sauce (mayo and thousand island), lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions and a sesame seed bun at Whole Foods and you'll (surprise, surprise) discover that Big Macs are less expensive.

Well, I guess that it's it for the food revolution. Back to fast food it is.

Amazon blog Al Dente is a little less gullible when it comes frugal canning (The Inevitable Canning Backlash).

Now, the author here is a generally fabulous food writer. I normally nod my head at her sharp and astute articles, but this one had me shaking it the other way. I can't argue with the assertion that buying a slew of new canning equipment and jamming up a ribbon-wrapped collection of $5/lb heirloom tomatoes isn't particularly frugal. The process does pencil out nicely, though, if you re-use those cans year after year, and choose tomatoes from the cheapie seconds bins, or grab 20 pounds of inexpensive fruit from the U-Pick, or if you do belong to that not-particularly-endangered category of zealous gardeners with too many cucumbers.

On the other hand, Dining@Large, the Baltimore Sun's dining blog, joins Dickerson's canning backlash trend (Top Ten Retro Foods We Wish Would Stay in the Past).

2. Home-canned anything

I love the whole locavore logic behind canning and, honestly, I'd like to try it. But Sara Dickerman in Slate nails what's wrong with this homespun hobby's becoming "ridiculously trendy." She calls it "showy industriousness." "These culinary trophies are emblematic of a project-based food relationship that we urban food junkies are prone to indulge these days: athletic all-weekend bouts of cheesemaking or bacon curing or jam and pickle making are so much more bloggable and boastworthy than making a decent brown-bag lunch five days in a row." And then there's the botulism thing.

I'm beginning to think that pampered food writers only know "showy industriousness" and are unaware that many people are actually industrious. Being writers, the concept of industriousness is probably foreign to them. For example, instead of writing lame and lazy top ten lists (really, how bereft of ideas do you have to be in order to resort to a 1990s-style top ten list?), perhaps salaried food writers could share what brown bag lunch they're bringing to work five days in a row, since they seem to be so hot on the concept.

Oh, and speaking of retro things that should stay in the past, perhaps you could get rid of the "@" in your blog name? Those were cool back when modems were.

Plate to Plate lets one of the commentators on the Slate piece do the speaking for them (Much Ado About Canning).

Dickerson thinks canning $5/lb tomatoes is not very frugal. I agree, but finding inexpensive canning tomatoes is not that difficult. For example, one CSA has a good bargain for those who join by the ides of April: free canning tomatoes (Join our CSA by April 15. Receive Free Canning Tomatoes).

No matter how efficient we get as a farm, there will always be "extra" tomatoes at the end of the day between mid-August and the end of October. Some are too ripe. Some are seconds that got bruised or damaged in the picking process. Some have a bug bite or two. Some are just not quite right for selling. Our breeding rows are also the source of tomatoes that don't fit into our markets.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/15/10

The March Can Jam entries continue to roll in.

Mother's Kitchen modifies a tested barbecue sauce recipe to more closely match a favorite of hers (Can Jam: Alliums Barbeque Sauce). Read this post for some great tips on modifying a tested recipe safely.

What Julia Ate makes one of those really involved canning recipes that Slate hates so much (Shallot Confiture). But you know why you go through so much effort for this recipe? This is why:

How can you be so good? To be honest, I haven't really thought of how I'm going to eat this. This is no work horse chutney or every day jelly. This is something that deserves the spotlight. The suggestion is warm or cold, with meats. I'm thinking with a pork roast, or a salad even? On top of ice cream? I don't know, help me out. I'm a little star struck at the moment.

Thinking Out Loud thought she had all the ingredients for her marmalade when she discovered other members of her household sneaking into the dried cranberries and apple juice (Red Onion Marmalade). Luckily, she was able to get resupply and finished her entry in this month's Can Jam.

Serious Eats picks chamomile as a secret ingredient (The Secret Ingredient (Chamomile): Seared Sea Scallops with Chamomile Beurre Blanc). It can be the secret ingredient for jams and jellies too. Lemons, honey, ginger and apricot are some flavors that go well with chamomile.

Leda's Urban Homestead explains how she participated in a food-swapping tea party tweet-up (Food-Swapping Tweet-Up).

The way the gals set up the swap was that we each filled out tags with the name of what we had brought plus our name. Then several other people each wrote one of their items on the bottom of our tag, offering it in exchange for our item. Each of us got to decide which of the items offered we wanted to accept in trade. Kind of like a silent auction for edibles.

Sounds very cool.

Well Preserved has a two-part post on dehydrating beets, onions and celery root (Dehydrating Beets, Onions and Celery Root and What to do with Dehydrated Beets and Celery Root). SPOILER ALERT: They make powders with beets and celery root. Beet powder is one of those ingredients you usually find only in fancy restaurants. And it is so easy to make at home. You an be creative as you want to be with powders. Use them for garnish, or make unique and interesting combinations ... why not try some celery root powder on fresh homemade french fries or potato chips?

The Seattle Times profiles gardener and country living author Lorene Edwards Forkner (Growing Your Own Veggies Fills the Larder and the Soul). She has revised two of Carla Emery's books, Growing Your Own Vegetables: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide and Canning and Preserving Your Own Harvest: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide.

The Local Beet has a good overview article on all the various means of food preservation, freezing, cold storage, dehydrating, canning and fermenting (Making the Most of the Seasonal Bounty).

Purposefully Mom has some suggestions for using Mason jars for purposes other than canning (Endless Uses for Glass Canning Jars.....).

Finally, a photo for Sara Dickerson: 18 pints of chicken I canned yesterday.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/14/10

March Can Jam Update:

All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here! wanted to work with a more unusual allium and ramps weren't available, so she searched and found cipollines to pickle (Allium......Yum!). Cipollines are an Italian pearl onion with a saucer-like shape. They're small and sweet and add a distinctive look to any plate. I usually use them whole in braises and stews or roasted as part of mixed roasted vegetables, but they are very versatile - just keep them whole (or mostly whole) for their unique appearance. Pickling them is a great idea.

Kitchen Jam riffs on a red onion marmalade by adding blood orange juice and rhubarb (March CanJam: Red Onion & Rhubarb Jam).

Miss Can Jam herself, Tigress in Pickle, silences some red onions with extreme prejudice (Onionz Limone Chutney).

this little chutney packs a powerful punch, and definitely has an eastern flair. i would say skip the ubiquitous chutney & sharp cheese pairing with this one and go right for the curries, stir-frys and one dish indian and southeast asian inspired meals. or simply use it stirred into a rice or grain as the exotic flavoring agent.

Not every preserve is a success. Case in point: Hitchhiking to Heaven had to leave the room while cooking her entry in the Can Jam (Garlic and Green Chile: Never-Again Jelly).

Yielded only 3 half-pints of jelly and one slightly nauseated cook.

Yeah, I guess you'd have to be a garlic lover for that one.

Although the result wasn't exactly what they wanted, at least Three Clever Sisters wasn't nauseated by their onion-fennel-red pepper pickle (Can Jam March Challenge: Alliums). If they didn't like red pepper, they could have simply left it out.

As a Disneyland Resort cook, I was happy to hear that Put a Lid on It (a chef herself) was impressed with the food served at our sister park, Disney's Animal Kingdom, and decided to recreate a pickle (actually, more like a chutney, I think) that came with the bread service (Sweet Onion and Lime Pickle).

A couple of quick notes. Although this pickle is most likely safe for canning it hasn't been tested. Also, the processing time seems a bit short. And, if you are processing for only five minutes, the jars must be sterilized prior to use. Jars do not have to be sterilized (only clean and hot) if the processing time is ten minutes or longer.

Other notes. If you are ever at a Disney park and like the food, you don't have to reverse engineer the dish, unless you want to. Please feel free to ask for the recipe. You will get it. They might have to email or mail it to you later, but they'll get it to you.

Also, Disney's California Food & Wine Festival will be taking place April 16 - May 31. Not a bad way to spend the day. And I'm not just saying that because I work there.

The Atlantic's Food Channel publishes an ode to homemade fruit wines (In a Fruit Wine, Comfort and Validation).

I swear to God, if you blindfolded me I would not be able to tell it apart from a decent Amontillado. Smooth, a little caramel, but with a bright acidity I did not expect in a wine that looked like maple syrup. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fine sherry. Made from Costco raisins. In a plastic bucket.

Fruit wines may sound sort of weird, but you can actually make some darn fine stuff. Even from Costco raisins.

Rufus and Clementine really wasn't bothered too much by Slate's condescending take on the revival of canning (Market.Watch | 12Mar10 & The Slam Reax).

The Slate article got under my skin, primarily, because it hurt the feelings of people I’ve come to respect, who felt attacked for practicing the traditions they hold dear. I had less of a problem because I kind of knew who she was talking to and about. It didn’t bother me, personally, because I’ve come to really enjoy doing it. Period. Whatever.

Mahlzeit (a German salutation, often preceding a meal, especially lunch) isn't so sure that food preservation is part of the solution (Apostate).

Food preservation, also, struck me as naive in its economy of scale. Is it really better for a million local households to each have a dehydrator ($80) and a couple of freezers ($200 to $350 each), and a pressure canner ($200 to $600), and a vacuum sealer ($150)?

Investing in these devices doesn't make sense unless you're going to use them, sometimes for several years. So, yeah, if everyone used them and account for the cost over several years, I think it does make sense.

Last week I pickled and canned local asparagus for a demo at the Hollywood Farmers' Market. Now, fruit detective David Karp reports in the LA Times that California's asparagus growers are shrinking in the face of Mexican and Peruvian competition since asparagus is a labor-intensive crop (Market Watch: Hard Times for California Asparagus).

The New York Times Magazine runs an interesting article with a feminist take on locavorism, what one author calls Radical Homemakers (aka a manifesto for "tomato-canning feminists") (The Femivore’s Dilemma).

Local artisanal canner Valerie Confections gets some press from NBC Los Angeles Feast - not only are they making farmers' market sourced preserves, but they will be doing some classes in the near future (Canning with Valerie Confections). Very cool.

Finally, with Easter right around the corner, Within My Means makes a kumquat chutney that she has fond memories of serving for the holiday (Easter-y Kumquat Chutney). Although it isn't a canning recipe and should be refrigerated, it sounds good to me.

Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 3/11/10

Last week's LA Times Food Section had tons of food preservation related content (Preservation Supplement to LA Times Food Section 3/4/11).

This week, not so much.

There was one significant article (didn't make the front of the section for some reason) that dealt with sustainability in restaurants. I actually blogged about it yesterday, so I'll just copy what I wrote then:

The LA Times has a nice article on how local restaurants are trying to be more green and sustainable (Serving Up Sustainability). There are a lot of good ideas that I hope other restaurants will take up, but one that isn't mentioned is food preservation. Fresh is great, but processed isn't always bad, especially when you are the one doing the processing. Food preservation has been an important (and sustainable!) aspect of human meals since the dawn of humanity.

Of course, many types of food preservation are labor intensive. Most restaurants will have a difficult time making enough preserved food for their customers, especially if they are doing stove-top processing. What might come in handy is, one guess, a community canning center, which would have the commercial retorts, steam kettles, filling equipment and other tools that would allow efficient and effective processing of significant amounts of food. In other words, a community canning center could be a great resource for sustainable restaurants.

For the professional cooks and chefs out there ... any comments and ideas on how you might use such a resource would be appreciated.

Amy Scattergood does have an article on delicious, mild and seasonal green garlic (Kinder, Gentler Green Garlic Mellows out the Menu). Give them a try! And, why not try pickling some for the March Can Jam?

Preservation Link Roundup 3/10/10

Bakers are all about the precision of a recipe - they take their measurements seriously. Chocolate and Zucchini shows this trait in her formula for converting commercial yeast recipes to a sourdough starter (Converting Yeast-Based Recipes To Use A Sourdough Starter). I'll have to give this a try.

Local Kitchen brings the first post I've seen on March's Can Jam (It's Alliums!) with some pickled shallots, even though she is not a fan of pickles - though maybe she is learning to appreciate them a bit (Pink Pickled Shallots).

Pickled shallots are absolutely delicious. If you can them, let the flavor develop at least a week. Most quick pickles that are canned will improve in flavor over a week or two. Most importantly, don't forget to save the brine! That shallot-flavored vinegar can be the base for delicious vinaigrettes or a gastrique. Or use it to dress a soup or beans.

Speaking of flavored vinegars, Small Measure, who picked "Alliums!" for this month's Can Jam, shows how easy it is to make beautiful and delicious infused vinegars for home and gifts (Bottled Bliss). More ideas for flavored vinegars: marinades, salsas, tartar and ceviche.

Paper Dolly Girl canned an awful lot in 2009, and reflects on what she has left, what she needs, and what she learned (Planning for 2010 Canning).

The LA Times has a nice article on how local restaurants are trying to be more green and sustainable (Serving Up Sustainability). There are a lot of good ideas that I hope other restaurants will take up, but one that isn't mentioned is food preservation. Fresh is great, but processed isn't always bad, especially when you are the one doing the processing. Food preservation has been an important (and sustainable!) aspect of human meals since the dawn of humanity.

Of course, many types of food preservation are labor intensive. Most restaurants will have a difficult time making enough preserved food for their customers, especially if they are doing stove-top processing. What might come in handy is, one guess, a community canning center, which would have the commercial retorts, steam kettles, filling equipment and other tools that would allow efficient and effective processing of significant amounts of food. In other words, a community canning center could be a great resource for sustainable restaurants.

For the professional cooks and chefs out there ... any comments and ideas on how you might use such a resource would be appreciated.

Food & Think from the Smithsonian, has discovered pickling (In a Pickle).

Salty and crunchy cucumber pickles have been a mainstay in American refrigerators for decades. But The Daily Beast recently listed pickling as one of its top trends for 2010. And the trend isn’t just for cucumbers—you can pickle just about anything. At the restaurant where I work, we serve pickled red onion on our burgers and pickled beets in our salads.

Although F&T visited the website of a PreserveNation favorite, Food in Jars, they didn't really discuss canning pickles.

Although I didn’t end up choosing a recipe from [Food in Jars], mostly because I wanted an in-season quick pickle, I learned a great deal about the basics. For instance, when pickling vegetables, it’s important to use a vinegar that has at least 5 percent acidity. In the brine, this can be diluted to one part vinegar, one part water.

This is actually only important if you are going to be canning the pickles. If you're only making refrigerator pickles, you have much more flexibility ... use that rice wine vinegar (at 4.3% acidity) if you want.

The Kitchn provides a recipe for preserved lemons and a recipe for using them (How to Make Preserved Lemons and Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon). Tagines are great, but don't think that preserved citrus is only for Moroccan food. Be creative; they can punch up just about any dish.

Serious Eats provides an inexpensive recipe for a Salvadoran staple: pupusas with curtido (Eat for Eight Bucks: Papusa con Curtido Recipe). Their recipe for curtido uses vinegar, but traditionally, curtido is basically a mixed vegetable and latin-spiced sauerkraut. You can use vinegar for a quick version, but you'll get better flavor with a 3-5 day fermentation. Try the pupusas with some black beans that you've pressure canned.

Ideas in Food has a good discussion of the differing varieties of juicers, and a few ideas of their use (Juicers).

I'll end with one more entrant in this month's Can Jam. Hitchhiking to Heaven decides to give chutney a chance (Carmelized Onion and Apple Chutney). She has a good tip on determining the right consistency for chutney.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/7/10

Fellow Master Food Preserver Delilah Snell will be giving a 1-hour lecture on food preservation at the Spring Garden Show at the South Coast Plaza (Ed Begley and....Delilah Snell ????). Set your calendars for Friday, April 23rd from 2:30pm-3:30pm.

Hungry Passport is a blog dedicated to travel and good food. It is written by a tour professional who, as you might imagine, gets around quite a bit. Recently, she was in Alsace Los Angeles enjoying a rustic French meal at Café des Artistes (Week 25 - Rustic French).

I noted throughout the evening that our meal looked like a study of food preservation methods. Since it was late wintertime, this meal reflected what we'd be eating when we're relying on our reserves of food and awaiting the return of springtime and a new growing season.

Pickles, marmalades, confits, rillettes, pâté and, of course, cheese. What would French cuisine be without food preservation?

Chiot's Run has a good post on using canning jars for freezing (Using Canning Jars in the Freezer). Plenty of good tips:

You may worry about freezing in glass because of the possibility of breakage, but there are a few things you can do to minimize this chance. Do not fill jars all the way, most wide-mouth canning jars have a “freeze fill line” marked on the side of the jar. Using smaller jars also helps, with less liquid you don’t have to worry as much about expansion and the possibility of breaking the jar. The larger the jar the more expansion room you’ll need to allow. I freeze in jars often and have only had a broken jar once, it was my fault for filling it too full and not allowing enough expansion room. (another note, make sure the stock or veggies are cold before putting into freezer)

The "freeze fill line" he is referring to is actually the 1-inch headspace line - good for freezing and most pressure canning.

Hitchhiking to Heaven makes a conserve with dried fruit, Clementine syrup and red wine (Red Wine and Clementine Stewed Apricots and Prunes). What a number of flavors going on; it sounds truly delicious. Conserves just don't get the respect they should.

What do I do with partial bottles of red wine? I pour them into my red wine vinegar jar. What does preservation guru Eugenia Bone do? As she explains on Well Preserved, the Blog, she makes a reduction sauce (Red Wine Reduction Sauce). This can be a sort of secret ingredient that you can take in many different directions and use with all sorts of different dishes. Bone uses it with duck breast, but add some sautéed mushrooms and you've got something that will go well with beef. Add some cherries and suddenly you've got a sauce for pork loin. Stir it into stews, or add it to a tomato sauce for pasta. Your imagination is the only limit.

Earlier in the week I hosted a birthday dinner party for my girlfriend's sister. She had requested a Red Velvet Cake for dessert. Traditionally, Red Velvet Cake is served with cream cheese frosting. I have to be different, of course, so I used a standard buttercream frosting (with ganache between the two layers of cake) and put the cream cheese into the ice cream, instead. Tonight, I had some leftover cherry pie filling from a pastry I made in the morning. Just a little over the cream cheese ice cream was sort of like a frozen cheesecake with cherry topping. Go light on the cherry pie filling, though. Its flavor can overwhelm the ice cream, which has a more delicate cream cheese flavor than a real cheesecake.

When a recipe for a preserve says that it is good on ice cream ... it doesn't mean it has to be a common ice cream.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/6/10

Stony Run Farm provides some very simple instructions for making a solar dehydrator from scraps (An Afternoon in the Garage). It requires a little woodshop skill, an old window and some wood scraps but not that much. If you check around the interwebs, you can find a number of different ways of making solar dehydrators. Just be careful that in our summer sun and heat your dehydrator isn't actually an oven.
via Two Frog Home

The Atlantic's Food Channel has some good suggestions for pantry staples that, when you need to cook out of your pantry, make life a good deal easier (A Southern Pantry for Stress-Free Meals).

The LA Weekly's Squid Ink keeps us up-to-date on seasonal produce, this week highlighting that most delicious of thistles, the artichoke (What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Artichokes). There is some nice history and a brief discussion of the various varieties.

Artichokes can be pickled. The best artichokes for pickling are the small "baby" artichokes that you can eat whole, usually they are cut in half for pickling, pretty easy. You can pickle just the hearts, but trimming artichokes down to the heart is an awful lot of effort.

For more on what's fresh in the markets, check out Good Food every week (What's Fresh at the Farmers Market This Week). That rhubarb looks darn good.

Wisteria - Wisteria - Wisteria
It's that time of year again! Sierra Madre is hosting their annual wisteria festival Sunday, March 14th (2010 Sierra Madre Wisteria Festival). The Huntington Library also has some fine wisteria as well. The food preservation take? Wisteria makes a fine, delicately floral scented jelly. The violet color is lovely as well. CAUTION: Only the violet wisteria flowers are edible. Not the leaves, vines, roots, and ESPECIALLY not the seeds.

LampGoods' shop on Etsy has a cool looking hanging lamp made from a vintage Mason jar (Orono. Vintage BALL CANNING Jar PENDANT made NEW).

What is it with fermented cabbage and soups? Why do they work so well? Serious Eats publishes a Momfuku recipe for kimchi stew (The Momofuku Cookbook's Kimchi Stew with Rice Cakes).

All Types of Cooking, and a Whole Lot of Canning Here! always keeps a supply of home canned tuna on hand. She shares her technique and some good photos (Canning Tuna). I haven't canned tuna myself, but I definitely have it on my list of things I want to can.

I doubt canned tuna is the recipe Creative Canning is excited about canning when her new All American canner arrives soon (All American Canner). But she's right to be excited. The All American is, IMHO, the best pressure canner out there.

Nutrition Know How has a good list of things to do in order to get ready for canning season (Gear Up for Canning Season).

And, last but not least I take the time to go through my canned items. I check for any change in the canned items, and when the item was processed. I try to use all the items canned from the previous year before my next season starts. So if I have items that I have not used from the previous year, I know that I need to plan some menu’s that will include those canned goods before I start canning again.

Finally, it is a bit late in the season, but Slow Food USA has declared 2010 the year of the heirloom apple (Let 2010 be the Year of the Heirloom Apple). So, later this year, let's all can some heirloom varietal apple products. We might find that some of these heirlooms, which aren't great for out of hand eating, are very well-suited to particular canning recipes.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/5/10

Whatever its origins, the Ploughman's Lunch is a very satisfying repast, especially with a cold pint (ale or hard cider). The Kitchn provides one version with some alternatives (Treat Yourself To A Ploughman's Lunch!). To me, the pickled onion is the most important element after the bread and cheese. The "pickle" is actually a mixed vegetable relish, but could also be replaced with a chutney. One other item that I consider important to the plate is a good, hearty mustard.

If you haven't tried a Ploughman's lunch, I highly recommend it. It is excellent for picnics, or something to enjoy in the sun after a morning of garden work.

The Gainesville Times of Georgia reports that severe budget cuts will lead to the closing of many county extension offices and 4-H programs (Cuts to Extension, 4-H Would be ‘Devastating,’ Officials Say). Now is the time that such programs should be expanded, if anything. There is more interest than ever, and in times of recession, these programs help people help themselves.

The proposal to cut the programs comes at a time when state residents seem to be relying on the help of extension agents the most.

Billy Skaggs, Hall County’s agricultural extension agent, said the past 12 months were “extremely busy” for him as area residents had increased interest in locally grown food. UGA family and consumer sciences agents also were flooded with questions of financial literacy and food preservation, Sparks said.

“We’re needed right now,” she said.

American Home Canning had a jar break on them while pressure canning some chicken (Broken Jar). They provide a list of reasons why jars might break during the canning process, as well as some preventative measures you can take to minimize the chances of breakage.

Preservation Link Roundup 3/4/10

Serious Eats' Slice, reviews a pizzeria in Indianapolis (Indianapolis: Maria's Pizza Still Going Strong After 50 Years). The featured pie? A "Sauerkraut Special":

Bringing everything together was the named star of the pizza, the sauerkraut. This grossly underutilized pizza topping provided a zestiness that demanded I continue eating well after I was full.

Nina Corbett has an excess of lemons and was running out of energy for the more strenuous forms of preservation ... so, she put some lemon zest in a jar of vodka with a little sugar and rosemary (Lemon Rosemary Vodka). Frankly, making liqueurs is definitely a great way to preserve without a lot of effort. And experimentation with flavors is entirely up to you.

Steam Kitchen posts a crowd-pleasing and simple recipe for stuffed dessert wontons (Chocolate Wonton Recipe). As she notes, you don't have to fill the wontons with chocolate. Try your favorite jam, conserve, marmalade or pie filling. How about strawberry preserves as the filling and then drizzle a little ganache on top?

The OC Weekly's food blog, Stick a Fork in It, discusses the Murcott Tangerine, also known as a "honey" tangerine, noting that they are excellent for marmalades (Murcott Tangerines). Might I suggest that they're easily separated sections make them excellent for canned sections in syrup? They make a great local version of the canned mandarins that are popular in various salads.

The Kitchn provides a traditional recipe for pickled red cabbage (How to Make Easy Pickled Red Cabbage). These can be kept in the refrigerator, but no processing time is provided. Twenty minutes in a boiling water bath would make them shelf stable. I like to use red wine vinegar in mine however, with an occasional foray into apple cider vinegar (especially with green cabbage).

The Denver Post (via the Washington Post) falls in love with kimchi (Kimchi is Really Some Hot Stuff). Some good ideas for using kimchi in the article, I hadn't thought of using it in a dressing (such as for a turkey), but it makes sense.

Serious Eats reports on the slowly growing prevalence of kombucha (Kombucha: The Acquired Taste for Funky-Tasting Fermented Tea). Good stuff and easy to make at home. Ask me about it at the market.

Real Food Fans found the instructions for an old 70s-era water bath canner in one of his mother-in-law's old recipe books and harshes on it for, supposedly, encouraging people to water bath can low acid things like soups, vegetables and seafood (Somehow They Didn't Die).

Slipped into the book a few pages later ... [was the] instruction booklet, hand dated "July 75," for a WestBend water bath canner. "Ideal for Water Bath Canning...OR Soup * Stew * Spaghetti * Sea Food * Corn-on-the-cob." Uh...ideal if you're looking for a way to cull your family and reduce your food bills, I suppose.

Leafing through the instructions themselves, there is no mention of any of these "or" items, just the usual high-acid vegetables and fruits. And there is a disclaimer on the top of the inside front page, shown below. [image in original]

Phil is not certain his mom canned soup. Even if she didn't, I'm sure others did, either missing the disclaimer, or not knowing enough to figure out what constitutes high- or low-acid foods, or not understanding that failure to use the proper canning method could kill you.

Actually, I'm not so sure about that. Just because in the year 2010 not too many people know about proper canning techniques, doesn't mean that canning knowledge was in short supply in 1975. Many more people likely had experience with canning and access to people who were experienced canners. They probably knew better than to can soup and seafood without a pressure canner. Clearly, the pamphlet meant to say that the canning pot was good not only for canning, but you could make soup in it as well. Actually, that is why I don't recommend specialized canning pots, but rather a good stock pot for a boiling water bath.

Still Blonde After All These Years is giving away two copies of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Preserving Food ($330 Complete Idiot's Guide Giveaway March 3- March 13). You just have to comment on the blog ... but read the post for full instructions.

Sustainable Food from Change.org provides a short introduction to canning (Yes, We Can! A Brief Guide to Home Canning). Cool, but can we stop with the "Yes, We Can" stuff already?