A taste

We are alive and kicking. We made it through the long winter (I cannot resist a Laura Ingalls Wilder reference, inappropriately used or not) intact, and we didn't even have to grind our own flour using a coffee mill or braid strands of straw for "firewood." Comparatively, it was pretty darn comfortable, despite the enormous amounts of snow.

I was overjoyed when the temperatures began to shift and we got above freezing during the day, because this year I was determined to tap our two maple trees. One of my favorite places ever, Egg|Plant Urban Farm Supply (could there possibly be a store more suited to me?), had sugaring equipment. I bought a package of four spiles (those things you tap into a tree to help in collecting sap), waited anxiously for the weather to warm, and tapped those suckers as soon as I could. One-gallon jugs were used to collect the sap, and this worked well, despite some mishaps. It took a few days to work out the kinks in the system.

I will share more soon, once I have photos of the finished product. For now, let it be known that it is very possible indeed to make the maples in your front yard work for their room and board.

Carrot cake from someone who knows carrot cake

I make the best carrot cake ever, no lie. It's even almost healthy, if you pretend that frosting has no calories. I looked long and hard for a carrot cake recipe that met my basic requirements: it must not have pineapple or raisins; it must use oil; it must not contain egg substitutes or anything else to make it "light," since I have my own ideas about that stuff. The result is this recipe, adapted from something I found on Recipe Source and can't find again because there are approximately 500 carrot cake recipes.

My modifications are to use some whole wheat flour, substitute applesauce for half the oil, and substitute flax seed meal and water for two of the eggs. This makes three layers, one 13x9 pan, or 24 cupcakes. I'll bet you could make a good zucchini cake if you use that instead of the carrots. I leave out the nuts these days, since I have a little dude who isn't quite at the nut-eating stage yet.

The 501st recipe for carrot cake on the Internet
Cake:
2 c. flour (I use half whole wheat and half white)
2 c. sugar
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. ginger
1/2 t. allspice
2 eggs
2 T. flax seed meal
6 T. water
1 t. vanilla
3/4 c. applesauce
3/4 c. oil
3 c. grated carrots
1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 t. vanilla
4 c. powdered sugar

1. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside. 
2. Mix sugar, eggs, flax seed meal, water, vanilla, applesauce, and oil. 
3. Gently mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. 
4. Fold in carrots. 
5. Bake in a 350 degree oven in a greased 13x9 pan for about 40 minutes (timing will obviously vary if you use a different sort of format), or until a toothpick comes out clean in the center. Cool completely.
6. For frosting, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. Add powdered sugar and beat until fluffy. Frost cake and enjoy!

The last canning

This goes down as the last thing I canned this season, though I may pull out my jars at some point during the winter to make some orange marmalade. We have here some Italian prune plums, purchased at the grocery store and hailing from who-knows-where, canned in honey syrup. The recipe comes from Food in Jars.

I bought about 8 pounds of those plums just 'cause they looked awesome and I have somehow obtained a huge quantity of honey from various places. It's one of those things I like to pick up as a souvenir, and then my mom stealthily provided me with a giant jar of it from her friend's neighbor's hives. I didn't notice it until I had bought another big container of honey at the farmer's market. Oh, well. It keeps. I remind myself that they find edible honey in Egyptian tombs. The stuff in my cupboard is fine. Might as well buy more.

I have no idea what I'll do with these lovely plums, though Smitten Kitchen has a contender.

Pickl-ed-It

My Pickl-It jars have allowed me to make non-moldy sauerkraut. Hooray! I used the basic recipe for kraut from the Pickl-It website for one jar, and the other is a beet/cabbage/onion concoction that I found here. I didn't add whey, since the Pickl-It people says it's not needed for this kind of fermentation.

The verdict? The sauerkraut tastes like sauerkraut! The beet stuff is so darn sour it brings tears to my eyes and makes me cough, but the flavor is nice otherwise. Since my favorite way to eat sauerkraut is cooked in the crockpot with pork, onions, bacon, apples, and caraway, it's not practical to use this sauerkraut for that. It took several weeks to get it to this point, and cooking would pretty much make all that nice probiotic stuff obsolete.

"Use your imagination" muffins

First, imagine a picture of really delicious muffins here.

Second, imagine these muffins brimming with any sort of fruit, nut, berry, or other goodie possible. The sky is the limit. This is a recipe you can experiment with and the results will be delicious despite your lack of adherence to a specific recipe. This is how I like to cook, using recipes as a guide instead of gospel.

I also will not micromanage your baking. The original recipe is very specific about whisking dry ingredients together, adding things in a specific way. You can do that if you want. Me? I dump things in a bowl and as long as I don't mix the flour very long, they turn out.

Use your imagination muffins
Adapted from Elise's blueberry muffin recipe. Makes big, bakery-style 12-16 muffins, but cooked in a regular tin. The thick "liquid" used to bind everything together - yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk - enables you to really mound the batter up and get a big, puffy muffin. These are fantastic straight out of the oven.

Ingredients
3 cups of all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (1/2 teaspoon if using unsalted butter)
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
1 1/2 cup plain yogurt, sour cream, or buttermilk
Plus: mix-ins of your choice (see sample variations)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Oil or grease a standard muffin tin. You will need 12 to 16 spots, and will definitely want to use a tin rather than any stand-alone reusable muffin papers, as these spread a little on the top.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated after each one. Add vanilla/almond extract.
4. Add baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix to combine.
5. Mix in yogurt/sour cream/buttermilk.
6. Gently fold in flour. (Or, throw caution to the wind and dump it in your mixer, furiously beat it just until it comes together, and hope it doesn't become tough.)
7. Fold in whatever mix-ins you're using.
8. Mound the batter into each tin, going for about an inch over the top of the pan.
9. Bake until muffins are golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes.  

 Variations

• 1 1/2 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen) and 1/2 t. lemon zest
• 1 1/2 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen) with almond extract
• 2 cups diced apples mixed with 1/4 cup of the sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and any other sweet spices you like (I use allspice), and a pinch of salt and left to sit while the remaining ingredients are mixed
• 1 1/2 cup cranberries (fresh or frozen), 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, and orange zest if you have it
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 cup chopped strawberries or whole raspberries
• Whatever your little heart desires

It's grrrrrrrrrrrrrrape!

A couple of years ago, one of my friends and I raided the grape vines growing all over the fence she shared with a neighbor. I'm not sure of the variety - maybe Red Swenson - but the jelly I made from these grapes was decent enough. Better than the usual storebought, of course, but maybe a little too sour and definitely not the deep, rich purple we know and love from Welch's.

I was informed that her new neighbors ripped out the grape vines. Panic set in! Then I resolved to find a new source of grapes. Enter Craigslist. Now, if you haven't used Craigslist to source local produce, eggs, meat, and the like, you've been missing out. Almost everything you could possibly want is being advertised on Cragislist.

In this case, I found a very nice gentleman not very far away from me who has multiple varieties of grapes for winemaking, jam/jelly, and eating. Someone swooped in and picked the wine grapes, but there were Bluebell grapes enough to pick about 10 pounds (plus 2 pounds of table grapes) in less than an hour. The scent of the grapes was intoxicating, and sent me right back to my childhood. Our neighbors had a grape arbor covered in concord grapes and we kids would go over and pop them into our mouths at every opportunity.

Those ten pounds of grapes yielded 2 gallons of destemmed fruit to work with. Half of that has been turned into the most delicious grape jam one could possibly consume.

I was introduced to grape jam via a jar from another friend. At first I was reluctant; who wants to eat those skins? But one taste had me hooked.

Using the recipe from the Ball Blue Book, I set to work, and one batch of 7 half-pint jars took about 3 hours from start to finish AND I was wrangling two young children at the same time. Another batch done that evening took even less time.

After what happened with the apricot jam (darn near eating through it in record time), I may just need to turn the other half of the grapes into jam as well, though I might want to do jelly instead to skip the whole "acid from the grapes eating away at my skin and making it itch like crazy" thing.

Canned fruit army

Hear me, o peaches and o pears! Thou are not safe from me! I shall turn you all into an army of perpetually preserved produce.

Yet another thank-you to Amy of Crazy Boy Farm for organizing the second round of bulk buying of the most gorgeous fruit my palate has ever laid into. I bought two boxes of pears and peaches, which weighed about 22 pounds each.

Here are the results of my can-stravaganza, peach-and-pear style:

4 pints, 4 half-pints, 1 quart, and a quart-sized container that is living in my fridge of peach salsa; 8 quarts and 3 pints of sliced peaches (one of which did not seal)

15 quarts of pear halves

I've also got three gallon bags full of sliced peaches in the freezer because I ran out of jars and had a bunch of peaches that needed tending to before they'd get overripe.

Peach salsa
The basic idea came from this recipe. I ended up with enough to fill the equivalent of 10 pints.
16 peaches, peeled, pitted, and chopped
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 large red pepper, finely chopped
The zest and juice of 3 limes
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
6 banana peppers, finely chopped (note: please don't wimp out and use these peppers; get yourself some jalapenos)
1 cup white vinegar
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon salt

1. Throw all of the ingredients together in a large pot and bring to a boil for five minutes. Take pot off of the heat and let everything sit another five minutes.
2. Process in sterilized jars.