So, I'm a little sad.  After getting used to the abundance of the end of the CSA season, the veggie/fruit selection around here has become a tad lackluster.  I'll be heading to the local cider mills and markets soon to see whether I can dig up some inspiration.

With that, I think that the last of the CSA produce and green tomatoes from the garden needs to be chronicled on this blog.  I made pickles and sauerkraut, of course. And they're fantastic.

I actually got this Kraut to self-brine!  For the first time ever!   I think it had to do with the addition of 2 whole (sliced and cored) apples.

It's apple time in Apple Country again.   So, we made our first trip of the season to our favorite Cider Mill. Our mill has actually partnered with a Hard Cider company, and we got to do a tasting of their latest combinations.  One of the combos was black cherry cider.  I loved it... and then I remembered that I had a TON of sour cherries left over in the freezer from earlier in the season.   I decided to make my own!   
These recipes are super-easy and don't call for any kind of finishing sugar.  They are dry, and tart, and delicious. My version of hard cider is very unlike a lot of the commercial stuff that's out there these days... which, in my opinion, tastes very much like my daughters' apple juice with carbonation and some alcohol in it. 

4 gallons of fresh pressed MacIntosh Apple cider.

2, 1 gallon batches of MacIntosh Sour Cherry cider.

Like I said.  These are so, SO easy to do.  All you need is cider, any fruit you want to enhance it with, cider yeast, carboys and airlocks.

Bring the cider to room temperature by letting it sit out on the counter for a few hours.  Dump it into a carboy.  Add any extra fruit you may want to add (each of these cherry gallons has about 1 cup of frozen (thawed) sour cherries in it).  Pitch 1 package of yeast per carboy.  Seal with an airlock and let ferment for 7-10 days at room temp.  Then remove any leftover fruit and bottle the cider in beer bottles or swingtop bottles.  Store at a cool temperature (I keep ours in the basement) for about 2 weeks and the result will be dry, carbonated apple-y goodness.  The longer you let it sit in the bottles, the dryer it will become.


Enjoy!!

They say that this Winter is looking like it's going to be a rough one.  So, while we're still here in Indian Summer, I thought I'd share some shots of the PLETHORA of sun-loving tomatoes that have graced our tabletop (and dehydrator, and blender, and sandwiches, and sauces aaand... you get the picture). This has definitely been our bumper crop this season!












The kids are finally both back in school.  That gives me a little more time to play.
Here's a recipe for a new pickle that I tried out.  It's a new personal favorite, combining the sweetness of grape tomatoes with a sparkling, crunchy explosion of flavor.  Oh, and it's probiotic!

I wrote about how we had gotten some beets with our CSA share last week.  Well, I cooked the greens a while back but the roots still remained.  I have a recipe for  Refrigerator Pickled Beets that I really LOVE which involves cooking the beets first and then pickling them in vinegar.

This time I decided to try getting a little probiotic goodness in there as well.

So!   I was presented with this lovely head of Nappa cabbage.  The only answer I could think of was Kimchi.  As a matter of fact, I couldn't help myself.  This particular cabbage was SCREAMING Kimchi!

I've made Kimchi in the past.  Both Classic Kimchi and Baek (White, or Vegan) Kimchi.   I personally LOVED the Vegan Kimchi.  It has a great light pickle flavor, and was super-fast to make.  I wasn't such a big fan of how the Classic Kimchi practically burned my face off when I tried it!  My husband, however, loved it.  Especially on hotdogs!

This time around I'm going for less heat, but the added classic flavors of chili, garlic, and fish sauce... along with the probiotic "pickle" tang that I love so much.

I also went ahead and substituted in easily-found (read, in my cupboard) ingredients along the way.  

This week is highlighted with the appearance of a HUGE nappa cabbage.  Perfect, I'll be making kimchi!  I plan to tweak the recipe I used last time so as to make it spicy, but not SUPER spicy like it was last time.

We pitted and froze the sour cherries, and the apricots and blueberries were eaten within the first day.

The swiss chard was combined with the beet greens from last week.  It was chopped, and sauted with bacon, onion, salt and pepper and made a great light dinner along with a crusty loaf a bread.

The we got 2 small zucchini and put them together with a couple more we had laying around and made a batch of Ur Oma's Zucchini Soup! 

The green beans were used in a 3 bean salad and the head of leaf lettuce was made into side salads during the week.

I see now that I wrote about my projects last week, but failed to explain what was in our CSA box.   Well, we got 1 bunch beets, 1 bunch radishes, 2 quarts sour cherries, 1 pint blueberries, 1 pint wax beans, 3 cucumbers, 3 small zucchini, and  a head of red leaf lettuce.

We'll start with the beets.  I separated the greens from the roots and will be making roasted pickled beets ala Alton Brown's recipe . I usually fiddle with recipes and make them my own, but this one is SO GOOD that you'll eat the whole jar in one sitting.  Trust me.

The beet greens were stored in the refrigerator and later chopped and sauteed along with chopped swiss chard, bacon, salt and pepper, and a sweet onion.  We ate this with a loaf of crusty bread and it was a perfect light dinner on a 90 degree day!



At this point, I actually had 2 bunches of radishes waiting to be eaten.  I did a separate post dedicated to this because I came up with a radish salad idea that takes the bite out of radishes. And I was PROUD of it!




The blueberries were eaten before the day was out.

The sour cherries were pitted and made into Blackcap/Sour cherry wine (it's still bubbling on the counter!).  

I made the wax beans plus about a quart of green beans from my Mom's garden into Dilly Beans!   I wait all year to make these!

The cucumbers were eaten whole by my husband and kids.

The lettuce was washed, chopped and kept in a bag in the refrigerator for easy green salad making.

AND the zucchini will be grilled tonight in oil and garlic to go alongside some BBQ chicken.

ENJOY!!

I've been processing away all day today.    

I pitted the sour cherries and had about 4 gallons of frozen blackcaps in the freezer.  It is OFFICIALLY time to make Blackcap Jam and Wine!

Here's this years first small batch of Blackcap Jam!

Follow the link above to find my original recipes for these. 

This year I'm doing a variation on the Blackcap wine recipe that includes 2 lbs of pitted sour cherries.  For the fruit, you just add 2 lbs Blackcaps and 2 lbs Sour cherries.  Mash, add dried cranberries (or golden raisins) as suggested let set 24 hours, and carry on from there just as the instructions from the original post tell you!

First, you pit the Sour Cherries!

Put all of your frozen fruit (cherries and blackcaps) into a large pot, add raisins (or dried/sweetened cranberries), and top off with 4 quarts of water.

Cover with a hand towel and set sit 24 hours.  This is actually 2 different batches of wine. One plain Blackcap, and one Sour cherry/blackcap

See the original recipe here!
Have Fun, and Happy Fermenting!!!

Our second CSA box arrived with a heavy dose of fruit, which was much appreciated! 



What you see here is 1 quart of cherries, 1 quart of strawberries, 1 pint of raspberries, 2 pints of peas, and 1 quart of blackcaps (the blackcaps were from our garden).  This side of the box disappeared within 2 days, and without any prepwork needed!   uuhh... sorry there's no recipe ideas other than set the boxes out on the table and let the family have at it.

Now, since I'm on the topic, lets talk briefly about blackcaps.  I have a huge patch in the backyard that grows wild.  The berries are smaller than blackberries and have no pit, much like raspberries.  They make amaaaazing wine, and jam, if they don't disappear immediately upon being picked.

These little berries ripen every year on the 4th of July and keep producing LIKE CRAZY until the end of the month.  For the next couple of weeks, I'm expecting to pick about a quart PER DAY.   I freeze a good number of them and they work just fine for cooking and fermentation projects. 

She took a break from bike riding to help (EAT) pick blackcaps

There was actually 2 of these containers full today that I picked, and probably at least 1 more out there on the bush.  It'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Now that we've discussed fruit, how about the rest of the bin?

We  got 1 head of red romaine lettuce, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, 1 small bunch of kale, 2 crowns of broccoli, and 2 small zucchini.  The heads of lettuce and the kale quickly became  a raw green salad for a family get-together on Sunday night (with some leftover for lunches during the week... I just keep it sealed up in the fridge, ready to go).  The zucchini was sliced and grilled up with some of the leftover garlic scapes and some asparagus I got from the store.

That leaves the broccoli.  I'm going to be making a broccoli/cauliflower (non-dairy) cheese bake later this week which I will share the recipe and photos for in my next blog post.

** One note from this week:  I wasn't all that impressed with the volume or variety of veggies in our CSA share this week and I actually ended up buying stuff in the produce section at the grocery store to supplement!  We also ended up going to a local orchard and picking up an extra quart of cherries and a pint of raspberries...aaaand a half dozen friedcakes for the girls and hubby.

The first week of our full share from the CSA included a lot of greens.  I described the contents in detail in my last post. 

Here are the recipes and photos from my two featured recipes this week. 

We had the Buttercrunch Steak Wraps on Sunday (along with a vegan pesto over whole wheat bowtie pasta). 

Radish pickles with garlic scapes, caraway sauerkraut in back, and kale ribs pickling on the right.

Lately Dandelions have been getting some attention because they are among the 1st food sources for honeybees at the beginning of Spring. So, this year I waited a bit until the trees and other flowers started blossoming before I harvested ONLY the wide open flowering tops of dandelions to make Dandelion Wine! I've done this every year for the last 3 years and am in LOVE with both the process of picking and preparing and with the beautiful golden wine that results. My girls love to help pick flowers too!
I blogged about the recipe and process last Spring and am currently at the point in the process where I'm waiting for the must to activate with the yeast. In another day or so I'll bottle it up in a 1 gallon carboy.

Here's our haul

Quinn helped me "Pick and Pluck" this year!

Ani helped me stir the ingredients together for wine!

Lately I've been using dinner salads as a place to finish up all of our leftover side dishes (grain salads etc) along with getting my daily intake of ferments, and foraged goodies.  

Yep, I said FORAGED goodies.  The weather finally broke and the green things are HERE!   It's almost impossible to go outside with my girls lately and NOT pick up a few flowers.  


This absolutely isn't a new topic for me.  Last year I covered the use of foraged wild sweet violets, bittercress flowers, and onion grass in this gorgeous post. 

This time around, I kept it simple and added the flowers to our salad plates along with baby dandelion greens, homemade purple sauerkraut, and a Quinoa salad made with some of this season's first onion grass (which, for all intents and purposes tastes very much like mild chives.  I substituted Onion grass for the green onions called for in the original recipe, and carrots for the daikon radish). There's also a couple dolmades on there.  I cheated and bought those from the Greek bar at the store, BUT here's a recipe for those as well!

And here it is, in all it's HUMONGOUS dinner salad glory.

 

Ingredients for Quinoa Salad

Enjoy!!