Adventures in Canning

I was born in Iowa, so life just doesn’t seem complete without a big vegetable garden.  I don’t have a lot of space out here in Colorado, so I try to maximize what space I do have.  As a result, in just a few short months my garden goes from carefully laid out and under control….

… to a complete jungle! Note the mammoth zucchini plants in the front!

 

This year it quickly became clear that I was not going to keep up with the yields through my traditional means of incorporating (aka hiding) as much as I could into our daily meals and then making the rest into freezer-friendly formats.  I’m always on the lookout for new ways to use up the aforementioned zucchini, and a friend suggested sweet vinegar zucchini pickles.  I made a batch and they were fantastic - even my five year old liked them!  However, a family of three can only consume so many pickles within the few week safe storage window for refrigerator pickles.

This led me to the dreaded, but obvious conclusion that I must attempt canning.  Now, I’m an Engineer, so I should be able to handle this….right?  Besides, as I mentioned, I’m from Iowa so this should be in my blood somehow.  However, the concept of canning has always filled me with both utter awe when others do it and with the deepest sense of fear when contemplating the act myself.  That said, I was drowning in veggies, so I squared my shoulders and marched myself off to Walmart to buy the necessary supplies to start my first canning endeavor. I bought the traditional Ball canning kit, a few cases of half pint jars and started researching zucchini pickles online.

 

I found a great resource online: http://pickyourown.org/allaboutcanning.htm.  It’s a good thing I read it first too, as I discovered that the basic canning kit was not going to work with my ceramic cooktop.  The standard Ball canning kit is essentially a huge metal pot with ridges on the bottom.  Apparently, a flat bottomed pot is required to ensure sufficient heat transfer between my type of cooktop and the pot.  Otherwise, the water temperature of the bath may not be consistently high enough for safe canning.  In addition, if the pot sticks out too far beyond the ceramic cooktop burner, the bottom of the pot can reflect the heat beyond the burner area and possibly crack the cooktop. Yikes!

So, I marched back to Walmart to return the original canner (Just to be fair, I did later notice that it does say in very small print of the Ball canner "not for use with ceramic cooktops") and bought myself a really big flat-bottomed stock pot with narrow base along with this nifty kit from Ball that turns any pot into a home canner!

 

Thus armed with all my supplies and a recipe for Kosher dill zucchini pickles, I began the process.  I dutifully sterilized all my lids and jars, filled the jars with the zucchini and heated brine, carefully extracted all bubbles and wiped the threads clean before sealing, slowly lowered the jars into the canning bath, waited and watched water boil for the requisite time making sure to add time for my 5,280ft above sea level (yes, I was actually reduced to watching water boil), turned off the heat to let them rest in the canner for five minutes.....

 carefully raised the jars out of the bath and onto the cooling rack, held my breath and waited…..

 

I wasn’t quite sure what I was waiting for exactly as I stared at the small grouping of jars on the cooling rack.  I think I half expected them to explode or crack or utterly fail in some unknown way.  However, out of nowhere came the first metallic pop.  At first my heart stopped as I thought the seals were all failing.  But, I looked more closely and found that the lids had sucked in and they were good and truly sealed!  Hooray! 

 

Emboldened by this small success, I moved on to sweet vinegar zucchini pickles,

 

 

sweet vinegar pickles made from actual cucumbers, a peach salsa that was so good I ended up making two more batches:

and finally, quarts of vanilla cardamom peach pie filling!

 

 

Tastes of Summer

On Saturday I finally made it to the annual Peach Festival in Old Town Lafayette, CO. That night I couldn't resist combining some of the glorious peaches with my home-grown tomatoes and Munson Farms sweet corn to create a fantastic summer salad. Just had to share the results:

Summer Salad With Corn, Tomatoes and Peaches

Makes 2 large servings

3 ears fresh, sweet corn
3 large beefsteak tomatoes cut into 1 inch chunks (or equivalent amount of halved cherry tomatoes)
2 ripe but firm peaches, thinly sliced
1/8 cup finely diced red onion
2 T chopped fresh basil
1 T olive oil
1/2 T red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)
Drizzle of balsamic vinegar reduction* (optional)

Cook corn in boiling water for 3 minutes. Allow to cool and then slice kernels off the cob into a medium bowl. Add tomatoes, peaches, basil and onion to the bowl with the corn.

In a small bowl, whisk olive oil, vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Add vinaigrette to corn mixture, toss to combine and serve. If desired, drizzle with balsamic reduction and sprinkle with crumbled

                                          Enjoy!

* To make balsamic vinegar reduction: combine 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar with ~1/2 tsp honey in a small saucepan. Simmer over medium heat until thickened and coats the back of a spoon.

Now Is The Time When This Woman’s Thoughts Turn To….

Peach Pie!

Last weekend I stopped by the local farm stand to pick up a few ears of fresh sweet corn to go along with the BLT’s I was planning to make for dinner to celebrate my first ripe beefsteak tomatoes of the season.  While there, I sampled the newly arrived peaches from Colorado’s western slope.  The hot days and cool nights on the western slope combine to make the sweetest peaches I’ve ever had.  Needless to say, a few peaches managed to make the trip home with me as well. 

Those few peaches didn’t last long in my house.  So, I did what any reasonable person would do.  I went back for more …. 10lbs more!!!

While I concede that I may have gotten a bit carried away (moderation has never been my strong suit), I am certainly not going to let them go to waste.  My first order of business – peach pie of course!

My current “goto” recipe for peach pie is: “Peach Pie with Cardamom and Vanilla” originally published in Bon Appetit in 2007:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Summer-Peach-Pie-with-Vanilla-and-Cardamom-238821

The cardamom is a bit of an unusual flavor, but it works beautifully with the peaches and vanilla (although I do cut it down to 1/2tsp as most reviewers on Epicurious also recommend). 

This is an incredibly juicy pie (especially with the beautifully ripe peaches I used), so I made a lattice top crust in order to allow more liquid to escape during the cooking process.

Yum!

Next up, spiced peach muffins. J

A Hug in the Making

On my last trip back to Boston, I enjoyed a fabulous evening of fabric shopping with a good friend (and expert quilter) who cheerfully braved rush hour traffic to share some of her favorite quilt shops with me.  At Quilter’s Way in Concord, MA (www.quiltersway.com), I found a jellyroll of “A Walk in the Woods” by Aneela Hoey for Moda.  This whimsical collection features storybook prints of little red riding hood, foxes, toadstools and adorable little birdies, all accented by modern geometric prints.  The reds, blues, pinks and grays all work together beautifully.

My only problem - what would I do with it once I got home?  I didn’t have a pattern in mind, or even a recipient.  But, with a little encouragement from my friend, it did indeed come home with me.  J  I decided to make a geometric quilt on a white background. I drafted a pattern of filled rectangles that worked well for the 2.5” wide jellyroll strips and set to work. 

However, as I worked on it, it began to feel a bit frivolous to be making a quilt that had no purpose.  I was continually distracted by thoughts of a very close friend of mine that had recently been diagnosed with an aggressive form of bone cancer and had just started her first round of chemotherapy.  The treatment was taking its toll on her and I found myself struggling with ways to be there to support her when I couldn’t see her in person and it was too difficult for her to talk on the phone.  I kept wishing I could just give her a hug.  Then I realized – I was making the quilt for HER.  I hadn’t really thought about it, but it ended up that the woodsy theme, color combinations and strong graphics were perfect for her!  With her in mind, I sped up my sewing so that I could finish it before she starts her second round of chemo tomorrow.  I poured all the joy I could into this quilt that I hope will be there to give her a hug when I can’t.

More Madras Please....

I’ve been having so much fun experimenting with different fabrics for my bears, and also expanding my repertoire to include elephants.  Now I have to actually think whether a given fabric would work better as a bear, or an elephant.  Life can be rough sometimes…. ;)

Recently, I excitedly showed one of my latest creations (an elephant) to a co-worker and was slightly disappointed with her less than enthusiastic reaction - “that’s cute, but if you want to do something REALLY cool, you should make a hippo.”  I flippantly fired back “sure, if you can find me a pattern.” 

I should have known better – I had just issued a challenge!  Within hours, I received an e-mail with links to FIVE candidate hippo patterns.  Included among them was a link to an incredibly cute hippo pattern from Funky Friends Factory: http://www.etsy.com/listing/62051926/hippo-heather-stuffed-pattern-pdf?ref=af_new_item

I had to admit that she was right – I DID need to make a stuffed hippo!  The only question now …..  which fabric to use?  Ok, that was easy actually – Madras of course! 

Meet Harris.

My first Madras hippo made from fabric from the Pottery Barn Madras bedding collection in navy.  His ears, feet and tummy are accented with a coordinating navy fabric with contrasting white stitching to match the original bedding set.  My son (my official hug tester) quickly adopted him and has declared that he will not be giving him up.  I can’t think of a better ending!!

Chevron Bear

I just love all the chevron fabrics that are finding their way into home decorating accents and accessories these days.  Maybe it’s the engineer in me, but I’m drawn to the bold, clean graphic prints.  I recently fell in love with a gray and white chevron pillow cover with a bright yellow felt flower accent from urbanfringe on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/80474117/gray-chevron-stripe-felt-flower-pillow
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to think of a good place for it in any of the rooms in my house…… yet. 

But, I couldn’t get that combination of gray and white chevron with the pop of yellow out of my head.  Finally, my neighbor suggested that I should make a bear.  The result is my Dylan bear!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/98930016/dylan-gray-and-white-chevron-fabric

My Dylan Bear

My Inspiration Piece

Wedding Dress Blues To Beautiful Bear!

What to do when your wedding ceremony and reception leave that special dress you spent months picking out a bit worse for wear?  One of my customers faced this very dilemma when she decided to re-visit her beloved wedding dress that she had carefully packed away 5 years earlier.  To her dismay, she also got to re-visit the drink that was spilled on it during the reception and the footprints of the shoes that had repeatedly caught on her train.  Once the cleaners declared it irreparable, she contacted me to ask if I could use the fabric to make a teddy bear for the baby girl she is expecting shortly.

The original dress was a beautiful fitted satin gown with a satin edged chiffon overlay.  I constructed the body of the bear out of a double layer of the satin and chiffon in order to simulate the look of her original dress.  The fabric for the feet and ears was taken from the Cocalo Daniella bedding set that she will be using in her daughter’s nursery.  The bow is constructed from more of the chiffon overlay fabric which I edged on each side with the original satin piping.

What a wonderful challenge, and what a very special way to remember the dress!