Navy Beans

The farm we use now doesn't just have summer farm shares. It has mushroom shares, dahlia shares, fruit shares, winter shares, and all sorts of other creative local produce collections. We are alternating weeks currently with the mushroom share and the winter pantry share. One of this week's items is a kohlrabi literally as large as my head. (Still thinking about what to do with it.) Another was about a pound of dried navy beans.

We've been using more white beans in our cooking, but not often enough to just cook these and keep them in the fridge. So I canned them! I soaked them overnight then boiled them for 30 minutes. Then I put them, with their cooking water and 1/2 tsp salt per jar, into four pint-sized jars and processed them in the pressure canner. 75 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. 

Mulberries, Fava Beans, Farm Shares and Crisps

We got a new farm share this year. Last year we didn't get a CSA because the farm we'd been at for over a decade suffered from drought and chose to not offer the CSA. I missed it. This year it became clear they weren't going to restart the CSA program, so I needed to find a new farm.

There are several farms that deliver shares to our area and I found one, Siena Farms, that delivers to the ice cream shop in the next town which we visit often. Conveniently, we can buy ice cream when we pick up the veggies! A small share weekly seems to be just enough for us. We started with some good salads and are moving toward sautéed and stir fried vegetables with various proteins. Tonight will be shabu-shabu, as I have carrots, napa cabbage, shitake mushrooms and garlic scapes from the farm. 

Today I'm blanching some fava beans although I have to decide what to do with them, maybe marinate?
But at least they'll be ready to eat. 

Also today, I made a batch of mulberry jelly. This wasn't the best mulberry year, because we had some rather windy storms come through so a lot of the berries got shaken off before I could get to them. Not to mention, I am always competing with the birds, squirrels and chipmunks for berries. I got just enough to make 9 cups of mulberry-lime jelly.

Last project of the day is a berry crisp - for the 4th the youngerchild made a chocolate cake that was decorated with whipped cream frosting and berries in an American flag motif. There are a lot of berries leftover, even with me making raspberry-blueberry muffins this morning and us all just eating a bunch. So I tossed the rest of them with cornstarch and sugar and made a crisp that I'll bake for dessert. 

Taiyaki, Attempts 1 and 2

For Christmas, the elderchild gifted the youngerchild with a Taiyaki pan. Taiyaki are fish shaped cakes generally served as street food in Japan and other Asian countries. They are often filled with red bean paste but can also have Nutella, custard or other fillings. I remember finding some in Kyoto that had sweet potato filling. Those were pretty awesome. They're made a bit like waffles, with an iron pan.

Round one. 

Once we got the stove back, the youngerchild brought the pan down and left it in the kitchen, moving it from one prominent place to the other, "hoping" I would notice and get around to making them. Fine. I thawed some red bean paste and, using the recipe on the pan's box, made a batch for breakfast a few weeks ago. 

It was clear I was going to need more practice. The first batch were basically raw in the middle but the batter was at least runny enough to fill the molds. I had plenty of bean paste left over and figured I was going to need more practice so today I tried again. This time I used a more pancake-like batter that rose a lot in the pan, so I had more batter leaking out and making a mess. The end result, however, was more done in the middle and more like a stuffed pancake. They were pretty good. 

Now that I have the batter part worked out a little bit, I am thinking about fillings. I might try Nutella, or maybe chestnut puree. We had a different sweet in Kyoto that had chestnut paste and red bean paste together in a ball of rice and that was pretty amazing. Might be fun to try to recreate those flavors. 

Round two.

A Flurry of Cooking

At yesterday's farm share there were more tomatillos than usual so I got enough to make another half-batch of tomatillo salsa which I made this morning before I have to go to work. Nothing too exciting there, I suppose. What was more exciting is that last night I made karaage which is Japanese fried chicken. The recipe came from when the elderchild and I took a cooking class over the summer. Basically, you cut up chicken thighs into pieces, marinate them in soy, garlic and ginger, and then dredge them in cornstarch and flour and deep fry them. It was terrific, even if I didn't have the "right" mayonnaise for a dipping sauce. 

To go with the chicken, I made dango, which are balls of rice flour that are boiled, put onto little skewers, and then seared and topped with a sweet sauce. We'd had these at a yakitori place in Tokyo and remember them fondly. They're sort of like dinner mochi, I guess. I even let the youngerchild manage the blowtorch to sear them before serving. 

Lastly, we had chilled blanched green beans with a sesame dressing. There were no leftovers. 

Thunder Clouds

As I drove to get the farm share today, I saw big white fluffy clouds on the horizon. I wondered if I might get rained on. The answer was Yes, and then some...

I'm not sure why this is, but I'm always picking green beans whenever I get caught in a thunderstorm at the farm. Today was no exception. The share was for unlimited beans, and I wanted to can some dilly beans, so I continued to pick, soaked through in the heavy rain, with thunder all around me (thankfully I did not see any lightning) as I gathered as many of the smaller, more tender beans I could find and some dill flower heads. Ultimately I had enough for 3 pints of dilly beans.

Which are now 2 pints. One of the jars cracked in the canner and the bottom fell off. Whoops. 

Farm Share Mixed Radish Pickle

The farm share always has radishes and Hakurei turnips the first few weeks and, since I'm the only one who likes radishes, even with just half the share they build up. (Note to self, they are not great on pizza.) But last week also had small Daikon radishes so I thought to mix all 3 into a quick radish pickle using rice wine vinegar and ginger. This is a recipe in Preserving by the Pint which I've made before, just not with all kinds of radish/turnip at once. They made exactly 1 pint, good for sandwiches and salads.

Another thing I had in abundance was fava beans so following another recipe in Preserving by the Pint, I made a fava-parsley-walnut pesto, using foraged black walnuts instead of regular ones. This made over 2 cups of pesto; I froze one cup, and baked chicken breasts coated with some of the rest. All of us ate it, some of us liked it. The rest were just very polite. 

Overboard

Or is it...over-bored?

Today I decided to finally tackle the azuki bean paste I wanted to make several years ago when I learned how to make it from a friend. I guess I bought a lot of beans because now I have about 9 cups of it in the freezer, waiting to be made into various things. My first plan is a type of sticky rice dumpling like I did before with sesame filling but this time will use red bean.

Internet searches have given me more ideas: red bean buns, taiyaki (for which I would have to buy molds), daifuku (Japanese mochi sweets), red bean cookies, ice cream, popsicles, and so on. I don't think I have enough glutinous rice flour to make a huge amount of daifuku but I plan to order some.

Making the paste is relatively easy. After boiling the beans to a mashable consistency, you add a cup of sugar per 2 cups of dry beans, and a little salt. I ended up using the immersion blender to make it smooth.

Summer Has Begun

And the farm share is really plentiful!

Today I picked up the share: Napa cabbage, collard greens, kale, garlic scapes, daikon radishes, bok choi, Hakurei turnips, scallions, 2 heads of lettuce, 2 kohlrabi, cilantro, parsley, 1/2 pint of strawberries, "unlimited" fava beans and snow and snap peas (I only took a quart of snap peas and some favas, I'm not crazy), 1 quart of shelling peas, and rainbow chard. Some was set aside for my friend's half, and then I got to work.

I chopped the Napa cabbage, bok choi, daikon radishes and scallions and they are currently brining. Tomorrow I'll start them fermenting to make kimchee.

With the cilantro (1 large bunch) and garlic scapes (20) I made a pesto using toasted pecans (1 cup) and parmesan cheese (1/2 cup, maybe?) with salt, pepper, and some cayenne for zip. For dinner we had a salad with fresh peas, strawberries, turnips and lettuce and then cheese ravioli tossed with this pesto and some blanched fresh peas. Now I have three half-cup jars of pesto to put in the freezer for another time.

The fava beans were blanched and peeled and are now in a jar with some salt water. I didn't want to marinate them because I'm hoping to use them to make baghali polo; I'll grab some dill next week so I can make it.

Also, I picked a whole lot of mulberries off my tree, simmered them with water and ran them through the jelly bag to start getting juice for a batch of mulberry jelly. The tree is covered with berries so I hope only 2 or 3 more picking sessions will be enough. 

Prizewinners!

We went up this morning in the rain to spend the day at the fair. In addition to all the canned goods I entered, I decided to make cupcakes to enter in the baking competition. I am on a carrot cake kick so I made carrot cake cupcakes. I had to enter a plate of 6 of them.

When we got to the fair we immediately went to drop them off and check out the canned goods section. I did quite well, with first place for: soup, sauerkraut, and sweet relish. Second place for: the collection of three jellies (the ones with the wine that I banged out in a few hours the night before I had to take everything up), other pickled vegetable, Concord grape jelly and apple jelly. Third place for the strawberry jalapeño jam. Honorable mentions for: wild blueberry jam and ginger peach jam. Only three entries did not place: salsa, mulberry jelly, and apricot ginger jam.

We wandered around the fair for a few hours while we waited for the cupcake judging. We checked out the rabbits, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. I got nose-booped by a calf named Bella. We watched a little bit of the junior cattle show and visited the beekeepers exhibits. I held a 1-2 day old chick. Ate a bunch of fair food, ran into a few people we knew and shared a table with a few we didn't (but know now!). And we got back in time to watch them judge the cupcakes. We felt it was a very good sign that one of the two judges didn't want to give up the plate with my cupcake on it! And, at then end, I'd won first place!

Now I'm home, working on a beet and goat cheese tart for dinner with friends. And there are more of those prizewinning carrot cake cupcakes for dessert!

Dill Pickles of Various Kinds

This afternoon I picked up the farm share and, as my friend with whom I split it is away for a few days, I needed to deal with a larger portion of it. I also received some tomatoes, eggplant and celery from my mason. I do have a plan to can the tomatoes and celery and in the pressure canner but I didn't have enough time today. Instead, I made dilled carrots and beans and, when I ran out of those, one pint of dill cucumber pickles. All the vegetables were from today's share.

Since I made two jars of the carrots and beans very pretty, I will enter them in the fair. For later: 3 cups white vinegar, 1 cup water, 1/4 cup kosher salt. Each pint jar had one head of dill, one dried chili pepper, and 1/2 of a clove of garlic. The carrots and beans were packed in so they alternated along the outside, like so:

These, plus the cucumbers, were processed for 10 minutes and then they rested for 5 before I took them out of the canner.

Also in the share: peppers, zucchini, eggplant, lettuce, beets, broccoli rabe, tomatillos, hot peppers, parsley, cilantro, dill, blackberries, cantaloupe, and tomatoes. I'm going to have to eat all the fruit before she comes back, but there is a lot for her to enjoy.

First Attempt

The other day I learned how to make azuki bean paste from a friend. I brought some home and, since the youngerchild loves bean buns, tried to make my own.

Let's just say, they looked nothing like the photos on the webpage. They were edible. That's the nicest thing I can say about them. I didn't take photos.

So, for future attempts:

1. Don't make the dough circles too thin
2. Mash up the bean paste more
3. Don't overproof
4. Put down some sort of parchment or rice paper on the steamer first
5. Don't let them touch each other in the steamer

I'm sure there are more things I could do better, but this is a start. I think I had ONE out of sixteen that looked like it was supposed to.

Spicy Things

In today's farm share we could get 20 hot peppers of any kind they had. I chose Hungarian Hot Wax peppers which are close enough to banana peppers to make that hot pepper sauce we like. From previous weeks' distributions I added a few cherry bombs and the rest of the stockpiled Hot Wax peppers. This made about nine cups of sauce, distributed in jars ranging from 4-oz to 12-oz.

We also got a quart of green beans and 1.5 pounds of carrots. Together, with some garlic scapes and dill heads, these made five pints of dilled beans and carrots. Two of the pints have chili peppers in them and the other three do not.

The share distribution included eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, Swiss chard, parsley, cilantro, cucumber, spaghetti squash, and tomatillos. I have enough tomatillos to make another batch of salsa verde and enough tomatoes to consider making more caponata and/or salsa. I just need to get more olives for the caponata.

Series of Small Dinner Parties

We haven't done this in a while: have company for dinner more than once a week. Last night Lisa came by and we had grilled chicken marinated in yogurt, plus zereshk polo which is Persian rice with barberries. I have never gotten the tadiq to do this so well before. It just fell out of the pot, with all the rice in a pot-shaped disk. The difference is, I think, that I added some oil to the butter before I put the rice in. The barberries we brought back from Halifax. I'd never seen the right kind of berries around here so I bought enough to last me for years. Barberries are super tart and have to be cooked with a little sugar before steaming in the rice.

Tonight with another friend we had the grilled octopus I've been marinating for a few days. I used this recipe from Hunter Angler Gardener Cook and it was so delicious! It was served with homemade bread, baba ganoush which I made this afternoon, the marinated fava beans from the farm share, and roasted summer squash. To round out the theme, our guest brought Lebanese pastries which are like baklava but round with pistachios in the middle. Like these.

Cooking Non-Stop

Braised Octopus

At least, it feels that way. After making all the jam yesterday, I went out to pick up the farm share. This week we started to get zucchini and summer squash, plus kale, lettuce, scallions, bok choy, cucumbers, shell peas, snow peas, fava beans, Swiss chard, spinach, and herbs. The strawberries and snap peas are done for the season.

When I got home I shelled the peas and the fava beans and was able to get the fava beans blanched and marinating. I used the greens from the scallions, plus oregano, tarragon and parsley, to braise four small octopi in preparation for marinating them and then grilling them on Friday. (Also for Friday, I will make Baba Ganoush and grilled summer squash. And the fava beans will be a nice addition.)

For dinner, I made a huge salad with shelled peas, strawberries, lettuce and cucumber. There was strawberry shortcake for dessert. After eating plenty of fresh berries, we have almost none left from that 11+ pounds we picked yesterday!

Tasting Demo

My husband's coworkers, after hearing him rave about my canned goods, asked for a tasting. Today I brought 8 different things to sample, which we set up at a table during lunchtime. This way, people could just wander over. I brought:

Preserved garlic which was, by far, everyone's favorite.
Sweet Fiddlehead pickles. I'd brought 2 jars, we finished 1 and didn't open the second. Popular.
Bread and butter pickles, which also got some rave reviews.
Zydeco beans, nice and spicy.
Salsa verde, not as popular. I suspect that if I'd had the right chips to go with it the jar would be finished.
Crabapple jelly; people who like apple jellies liked this a lot.
Elderberry jam which was my husband's favorite, I think.
Strawberry Lemon Marmalade; this one surprised me at how much the lemon flavor stood out when compared to when I first made it. It was very popular.

It's nice to get some feedback from people who don't often get to eat the foods I prepare.

More Vegetables

With yesterday's farm share pick up, my vegetable drawer is rather full. Since we just can't eat that much, it's time to start making things with the veggies. First up, a batch of caponata. For this I had 2 eggplants, so I scaled the recipe up by 1/3 and used 4 peppers (instead of celery), 4 small onions, 4 tomatoes, and the last of my Kalamata olives. I didn't have any green olives for this batch. This made 3-1/2 pints of caponata and I'll take one jar to my parents' tonight.

The next thing was another 2 quarts of green beans, which are currently in the canner in 4 pint jars becoming "Zydeco Green Beans." Essentially, they are dilly beans without the dill. Instead, there is garlic, mustard seed, and a chili pepper in each jar.

The farm share is a bit out of control: 1 spaghetti squash, 1 pound of carrots, 1 bunch of beets, 1 head of lettuce, 1 bowl of arugula, 3 heads of garlic, 4 onions, 8 peppers, 2 quarts of green beans, 1 bunch parsley, 2 quarts blackberries, 1 quart peaches, 2.5 pounds of summer squash, 30 leaves of kale, 1 quart cherry tomatoes, 2 pounds of regular tomatoes, 8 tomatillos, and I didn't even get the flowers, husk cherries, basil and seasonal herbs. As soon as I got home I made a salad for dinner, used some of the tomatoes and onion in our enchiladas, and baked a peach and blackberry crisp. Which was dessert and breakfast. The berries had been too squishy to eat straight so I needed to bake with them. I contemplated a peach-blackberry jam but the crisp seemed a better option.

I've been keeping an eye on the bees, and have made a pint of "Bee Food" concentrate: sugar, water, lecithin, lemongrass oil and spearmint oil. This is added to the sugar syrup, 1 tsp. per quart. When I replace the quart jar tomorrow afternoon, that will be the first time they get it, hopefully they will like it. It's supposed to give them some essential nutrients.

Foraging When I Can

Yesterday was a pretty good weather day - 80's, a breeze, not too humid. Today we have thunderstorms. We were supposed to go camping this weekend but it's looking like that is a no go as this rain is supposed to continue all weekend. As our friends with whom we camp said, a passing thunderstorm is one thing but who wants to put up a tent in the rain?

Anyway, that same little voice that nagged me about the blueberries was after me about elderberries, too. The flowers had been so prevalent that there had to be tons of berries, the voice reasoned. And the voice was right. Yesterday I went back to my favorite elderberry shrub and the berries were ripe, plentiful and huge. I picked a whole bunch and came home and got them set up to extract the juice. I got about a quart of juice out of them. As I still have elderberry syrup and 1 jar of jam (of which I'm not fond because of the seeds) I decided jelly was the way to go.

This morning I mixed the 4 cups of juice with a little over 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 5-1/2 cups of sugar and 1 package of powdered pectin and came out with 7 cups of elderberry jelly. It still has that slightly earthy taste which I like.

Also this morning, I am pressure canning beans. I had about 4 quarts of string beans from the farm share and, as I already had dilly beans, I thought maybe pressure canning them might work. I don't really do a lot of vegetable canning this way, probably because I have an aversion to canned vegetables after eating a lot of elementary school lunches. Something about the metallic taste/smell, I think. Anyway, maybe glass jars are better? We'll see. Three quarts of beans, cold packed, are currently in the canner.

Another thing I did yesterday was put a jar of sugar syrup (3 cups sugar, 3 cups water) into the hive in my hacked together feeder. I used a plastic take-out tray and some bamboo skewers, cut to fit, to make a base for the jar of syrup. Using a nail I poked tiny holes in the lid for the bees to sip from. The base holds the jar up so the bees can get underneath it to drink. I went to check on them at the end of the day and they'd taken about 1/4 cup, maybe more, of the syrup already. This way I can make more syrup and just swap out the jars and hopefully a little less often than what I was doing in the beginning. There is a product called Honey B Healthy that contains essential oils for the bees, I purchased the ingredients online and will start making some when they arrive. Apparently one adds about a teaspoon of this mix to each quart of syrup and it's good for them. 

Quick Batch

Today's farm share pick up was interrupted by a massive thunderstorm...

While I was getting the already picked items, it was getting darker and darker and thunder was rumbling. I was told it had been rumbling for over an hour, so I figured I still had time. I went out to pick 2 quarts of green beans. The lightning was getting closer and closer! Just as I was finishing with the beans, the first large drops began to fall. Most of them missed me, they were so sparse. I started walking to my car, wondering if I could get the 1/2 pint of blackberries or maybe some dill flowers. By the time I got to the dill field the drops were coming more frequently. Halfway back to my car, the sky just opened. Whoosh. I was soaked in 3 minutes flat.

Once in my car I drove home, wondering if I was going to end up like those people you read about who have a tree fall on their car. They were really waving around in the wind! Fortunately, I made it home without incident and, by the time I got to my town, the rain had stopped. My husband wasn't as lucky; he was about to head home on his bike when the hail arrived. He ended up taking the subway.

After dinner I made 2 pints of dilly beans with 1 quart of the green beans. The other quart will be for dinner tomorrow night. For tonight's dinner I was able to use most of the farm share in the form of potatoes and salad. All that is left are a few cucumbers and carrots, one bell pepper, a head of garlic and some cabbage. Where did the rest of it go?  Into a batch of golden pickle relish, the same recipe which won first place last year in the Topsfield Fair. (For fair purposes, 6 cups cucumbers, 2 cups green pepper, and 2 cups red onion.) The vegetables are resting with salt until tomorrow and I'll finish the batch then.

Bee and Farm Updates

Close up of bees with capped cells (pupae) and larvae

First, the bees: I pulled out a comb again today - I really took my time and was able to get a good look at one of the combs. While I couldn't see any eggs, I certainly could see larva and capped cells. I took a few photos and was able to study them later to make sure there weren't any mites or anything bad. I also wore only the medical gloves as I'd felt too clumsy with the gardening gloves, that seemed to go fine. Whenever the bees would get agitated, I would stop and stay very still and the bees would eventually settle down. I don't think I crushed any trying to get it all closed again, either. I consider that a win.

Second, the farm: today's share consisted of 1 bunch each of komatsuna and collard greens, one head of spring garlic, 6 garlic scapes, 1 bunch scallions, 3 heads of lettuce, 3 quarts shell peas, 1 quart each snap and snow peas, 35-45 fava beans (but someone who didn't want hers gave me her share of favas, too, so I picked 82 pods), dill and cilantro and 1 pint of strawberries, if you could find any. I picked very few berries, less than a cup I think.

Honey in the upper left, just a bit!

When I got home, I shelled the favas and the peas while sitting outside and enjoying the breeze. The favas were blanched and are waiting to be made into baghali polo (rice with fava beans and dill) and the peas were cooked tonight with chopped garlic scapes and then finished with salt, butter and dill. For dinner we assembled our own salads: lettuce, carrots, mulberries (from my tree), strawberries, Hakurei turnips, sliced meats (chicken, pork, or sausages) and the cooked peas. I used more of that champagne vinaigrette which works really well with peas.

It's a Party!

Yesterday I had my family over for a BBQ. Well, since it was raining the whole time, it was more of a sit down meal that involved the grill. Regardless, in the spirit of BBQs we had hot dogs and sausages (mostly German, and all from Karl's Sausage Kitchen, truly a hidden gem in our area), pickles, sauerkraut, various salads, fruit and a pie. Of all that, these were the home canned items: pickled carrots, dilly beans, dill pickle spears, sauerkraut, and green tomato ketchup.

I made another batch of that strangolopreti dumpling, with kale and arugula this time. They came out different and I'm not sure why - maybe the bread wasn't soft enough, not sure. Maybe the kale wasn't chopped finely enough. Still, they were popular, and went quickly.

Also, I made the pie. (Of course!) In the morning I got it baked and made a bonus strawberry tart as well, which was breakfast. Despite the cornstarch the pie was very runny - I might have to use tapioca next time - and I think maybe I didn't bake it long enough because some of the rhubarb was a little tough. Still tasted pretty awesome, even if we had to eat it in bowls.