Tomato, tomato, ginger

     

Cored, Blanched, peeled, chopped, cooked and canned. My first summer of tomato canning and it was pretty successful. Thank you so very much to the wonderful produce guy who sold me 35 pounds of Roma tomatoes for $15 when I only asked for 20 pounds. I am now almost completely out of canning jars. I Only have 4 oz and a few half pints left . Most of my canning this year has been done using Marisa McClellan's cookbook Food in Jars. Today I canned 6 quarts and 6 pints of chopped tomatoes, 3 quarts and 2 pints plus a half pint of marinara and 1 half pint and 2 half pint jars of pickled ginger with bay leaf and black mustard seeds. 

        

                                  

 I've always loved the pickled ginger that comes with sushi and thought. Would try my hand at making my own, I used a few different recipes for all over. In the end I used  my own combination of spices and vinegars. 

                   

Pickled Ginger with Black Mustard Seeds

 1 cup rice wine vinegar

 1 cup white vinegar

 3/4 cup sugar

 1 tbs salt

 1 lb ginger (sliced paper thin)

 2 tsp black mustard seed (divided)

 2 bay leaves

Peel ginger and slice as thin as possible.( I used a mandolin) toss in a medium bowl with salt and let sit for an hour. After and hour drain and rinse the ginger slices. Put vinegars salt, sugar and bay leaves in a medium sauce pan and beta over medium heat, stirring until sugar and salt dissolve. Bring to a boil and add ginger slices for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and let cool while preparing your jars. Divided  mustard seeds between jars and using tongs or a slotted spoon pack ginger into your jars. Once the jars are packed pour remaining liquid over the ginger. Use a chopstick to loosen any air bubbles and refill with pickling liquid leavin a 1/2 in head space. Wipe clean rims and seal jars to finger tightness and process at a rapid boil for 15 mins. ( I added a small slice of beet to the pickling liquid as it was heating to add color.)

National Donut Day

Today is….

 

I have officially been making donuts every weekend for 21 weeks now. I have baked so many flavors of donuts it’s kind of hard to remember them all. Luckily I have a picture of ALL of them! There have been a few duds and a few that have been more than delicious, I have combined recipes from all over the place, mostly from my pintrest donut board.  I have been using this mini donut pan and this toaster oven to make them the whole time. Happy Donut Day! I hope you get to enjoy a sweet treat today!

 

36 pizzas

This year we are challenging ourselves to  make 36 pizzas. So far we have made….

#1 Mexican, with chorizo, sweet peppers, enchilada sauce, onions and cheese.

#2 Tomato, fresh pizza sauce, slices of ripe tomatoes, mozzarella and oregano.

#3 Chicken and Asparagus 2 ways, one with red sauce and one with garlic olive oil, shredded rotisserie chicken, asparagus, fresh mozzarella shaved parmesan

#4 Thai chicken, peanut sauce, shredded carrots, green onions, shredded green cabbage, shredded rotisserie chicken and cheese.

Making Butter and Whipped Cream in a Jar

I have seen so many tutorials and so many pins about how easy it is to make butter in a mason jar, I thought I would try it out. I happened to need some whipped cream that night so it worked out pretty well. Here’s a little tip…. use a BIG jar and let the milk sit out for about 30 minutes to warm up before you start. I tried this a couple of  times and the first time I used a pint jar and cold cream and it took forever. It did work but it was a lot of work. The next time I used a quart jar and only filled it about 1/3 of the way and let the cream sit for a bit to warm up. Then I added a pinch of kosher salt and put the lid on and got to shaking.

       

This is what it looked like after 2 minutes of very vigorous shaking.

        

This is after 4 minutes of even more vigorous shaking.

        

This is after 5 minutes of more vigorous shaking and after the infamous thump that everyone describes. It really is just out of nowhere, you go from shaking a liquid to shaking a liquid with a large lump of butter in it. At this point I drained half of the  liquid off and kept shaking.

         

This is what it looked like after 6 minutes for shaking and draining the liquid off.  I shook it out of the jar and “washed” the butter. Rinsed it in water while massaging the butter until the water was clear and them you have you very own fresh butter.



          

When it comes to the whipped cream I did the same trial and error. I used a smallish jar and filled it a bit too much the first time around. The next time I filled a pint jar a 1/3 of the way full and added some super fine sugar and split a vanilla bean in half and scraped the caviar into the milk. Stirred the mix together and and let it warm up a bit. then it was time to start shaking. After 2 minutes I had this…

Cherry Cardamom Tarts

I have been passing the cherries in the market and waiting for the right time to snatch some up. This week they were $1.99  per lb. and so I grabbed 4 pounds to take home and do something with. I have also been wanting to use my mini tart pans lately so I figured why not do both. There is something so rewarding about pulling a fresh crisp tart shell out of the oven and filling it fresh fruit. 

Cherry Cardamom Tarts

Ingredients

 

1 lb cherries (pitted)

 

1/2 cup sugar

 

1 tbs butter (shaved or cubed)

 

1/8 tsp cardamom

 

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

 

1/4 tsp salt

 

1 recipe Pate Sucree, (I use Martha Stewarts recipe.)

 

 

Prepare tart shells and freeze for 30 minutes while oven is preheating to 375.

Line tarts with parchment paper and fill with pie weights.

Bake until it just begins to color, 20 to 25 minutes.

Combine cherries, sugar, butter, cardamom, vanilla and salt in a bowl.

Once tart shells are baked remove parchment paper and pie weights and put back in the oven for 12-15 minutes until the center is dry and browned. Pull shells out of the oven and put on a wire rack to cool.

Fill shells with cherry mixture and bake at 400 for 10 minutes then

Lower heat to 350 and bake for 30 minutes.

Sourdough

 

I was given some fantastic sourdough starter a few weeks ago. I immediately made some bread… or tried to. Unfortunately my bread was  a bit dense and not quite as airy as I wanted them to be so, the next weekend I set out a cup of starter and got started. After feeding my starter and putting the rest of my starter back in the fridge, I set it out overnight to see what would happen…

I was super surprised, I have never had such an active starter, it went from a few bubbles on Friday night to a living breathing creature on Saturday morning. I immediately got started. After visiting my starters parent batch and seeing and tasting the delicious airy  bread that it made I started asking questions. It turned out that the one ingredient that I was missing was vitamin C. So I went to the store and bought a bottle of chewable vitamin C, took one out and crushed it to bits. Then started on bread again.

After letting my starter and Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) with 1 1/2 cups of flour rest for 90 minutes I added a bit more flour and had a wonderful dough to knead for a few minutes. Then I let it rise for 2-3 hours inside our TV cabinet, ( the warmest non drafty place in the house.) Then I portioned the dough out and rounded it over to let it rest for a few minutes.

After letting the dough rest for a while I got my mini loaves and one large loaf ready to rise again. 2-3 hours later we were ready to bake. This time I got light airy bread! The recipe and sourdough starter both come from Sourdoughbreads.com. The instructions are a bit long but filled great information and you can buy starter from this website as well.

Making Macarons

With the help of Bakerella and Tartlette I can finally cross something else off my 30x30 list! I made French Marcarons. I have always wanted to make these super delicate and simple cookies, but they always seemed super hard and complicated. Now I know.. 4 ingredients and a little bit of patience and you have some very delicious treats.

You need 90g of aged egg whites, either 24 hours out loosely covered at room temperature or 3-5 days in the fridge.  Whip these until they are foamy and gradually add in 25g of granulated sugar until you have a glossy  meringue. Then in another bowl add 110g of ground almonds and 200 g powdered sugar and  fold in your meringue.  Fill a pastry bag with your batter and pipe small circles on a baking sheet ( you will need 2) lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat. Then let them sit out for 1 hour to harden your shells. I put a 1.5 inch circle out to help me make all the shells the same size.

Once your shells have rested for an hour they go into the oven at 300 for 18-20 mins.

Make sure to watch them towards the end I made some smaller shells the next day and they only needed 16-17 minutes. Hopefully once you pull them out you will find delicate crispy shells with beautiful feet and soft pillow like insides.

I whipped up a quick ganache and filled them.. then set to getting some egg whites aging for the next day to use up my last Meyer lemon for some mini macarons!

Soft Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies for November

I have been searching for the perfect soft chewy peanut butter cookie recipe and I think I finally found it thanks to Clockwork Lemon

Soft Peanut Butter Cookies from Clockwork Lemon

(adapted from Epicurious)

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter (natural/unsweetened)
• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1  large egg, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup peanut butter chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 and grease some cookie trays.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a mixer's bowl cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter, and egg until well combined then add the vanilla extract

4. With a wooden spoon or the mixer on a low setting mix the flour mixture in with the peanut butter mixture in three additions until just combined.

5. Roll out 1.5 tbsp balls of cookie dough and gently flatten with a fork.

6. Bake for ten minutes, rotating the cookie sheets after five minutes. Let cool on the tray until firm enough to move to a cooling rack.

Homemade Tomato Paste

 

Today  I turned 6 pounds of  beautiful Roma tomatoes into two 1/2 cup portions of delicious rich tomato paste.  I looked all over for a good recipe and decided to combine a  few different  ideas.

I started with 6 pounds of chopped tomatoes (next time I will skin them first or buy a food mill)        

3 chopped red bell peppers

2 bay leaves

2 crushed cloves of garlic

Bit of Sea salt to taste

Combine it all and  let it simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes and peppers were soft. then run them through a food mill or run them in the food processer. Dump all of the liquid and pulp onto an oiled tray and put in the oven at 300 for about 3 1/2 hours. Every half hour just stir it around a bit.

 

After about 2 hours you will have something like this…

It’s not quite done, let it go for another hour or so and stir a bit more frequently until it has a brick like color. Here is where having a food mill pays off. If you have a food mill you are all ready to put your tomato paste away and use it when ready, if you don’t have a food mill you need to strain out those seeds and skins. I tried before putting it in the oven but it wasn’t very easy. After the oven it’s not too bad. You just need a sieve, wooden spoon and a lot of elbow grease. After that you will have about a cup of tomato paste to enjoy. Back into sterile jars and top off with enough olive oil to cover, label and enjoy.