Category Archives: My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Pesto Party

September 12, 2013 Red Dirt Kelly Leave a comment

Our kitchen smells like buttery toasty garlic-y basil.

Tonight at 8:15 p.m. I was so tired I had contemplated going to bed when I recalled a phone call from my younger daughter a few days earlier.

“I’m going to get a few groceries, mom. What do I need to make pesto?”

And so the discussion about pine nuts and parmesan began.

So I was sitting there, recalling that discussion about pine nuts and parmesan and looked over at her.

“Hey, I know it’s 8:15, it’s dark outside, and it feels late…but do you want to make your pesto tonight?”

She’s been living with us since July and I really haven’t had that many meal preps in the kitchen with her. I felt like I wanted to bond. To create our own “farm to fork” night right in my kitchen. The basil in my garden is almost waist high. The timing was now.

“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

My heart smiled and my legs pushed me out of my comfy chair. Before long the entire island was covered with parts of a food processor, garlic infused oil she had brought from California a few months earlier, loads of sweet smelling basil, and her groceries.

We deleafed basil, shredded cheese, measured ingredients, chopped, and presto! Or, should I write…PESTO!?

The oily, complex flavor was delicious.

But the time in my kitchen with my daughter working by my side was even better.

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: The Sauce Tomato Crucible

September 8, 2013 Red Dirt Kelly Leave a comment

There are always the less-than-lovelies. And, they have a purpose.

My sauce tomatoes are not sliced nor diced. They are not stuffed with glorious salads, nor wedged and placed on top of beautiful pizzas.

My sauce tomatoes have a mission. They are ridded of spots, bruises, overripe sections and holes bored by grasshoppers. They are lovingly washed and quartered, then inspected before being packed into my sauté pan.

My sauce tomatoes were born for blending into spicy fresh salsas. Or, for pairing up with herbs from the garden and garlic to reduce into something beautiful.

My sauce tomatoes were made for simmering, for steaming, and for bubbling aromatically.

And tonight’s batch was extra-tangy-amazingly…saucy.

Bravissimo!

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Salsa Like Wine

September 7, 2013 Red Dirt Kelly Leave a comment

Who needs chips? A spoonful into my mouth, oh my…I close my eyes.

Green coolness, fragrantly salted hits the tip of my tongue and

Garden onion aroma goes up my nose;

Black pepper accompanies the bite

And as it slides toward my throat I taste

Fire grilled chilis, and a garlic finish.

I exhale to recall the savory essence of my homegrown

Salsa Verde, vintage 2013.

A very garden-y year.

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Secrets to Making Crabapple Jam, Jelly, or Jamly

August 18, 2013 Red Dirt Kelly Leave a comment

When my neighbor and I see each other in the back yard, we almost always say “hi, there!” Sometimes we yell a question or check in with how each other is doing. And about twice a week, we start a conversation by walking toward our adjoining fence. By the time we reach the fence, we’re halfway through with our discussion, and carry on by assuming our fence-leaning postures. Lisa usually lays her arms over the top, and I usually lean my whole body against the fence and stand on one foot. So, there we stand, three feet apart leaning on the fence and talking…about the topic of the day.

Today’s topic was “the proper consistency of jelly products.” Lisa contends that you get what you get, and you eat whatever your fruit decides to offer, “whether it’s jelly, jam, or…jammmlllyy.” In other words, there is a spectrum of what you end up with depending upon the year, the fruit, how ripe or unripe it was, the water content, whether you juiced it in a high-filtered juicer or one that extracts as much pulp as possible, et cetera et cetera et cetera.

The point being ~ there’s no real perfection in a recipe unless you’re a manufacturer with specifications, and then that takes the joy out of life.

So, how do you deal with crabapples? After all, some years they’re tiny, other years they are fairly good-sized, sometimes they’re a little overripe, and sometimes…well, I could go on but I feel I’ve made my point.

If you “Google” crabapple jelly recipes, you’ll find about thirty. Most will tell you exact measurements. Which brings me to secret number one: there are no exact measurements when making crabapple jelly. This is why you need a recipe that explains how you work with the fruit instead of trying to force it into a place it just won’t go. Therefore…

Use this recipe. Julie Van Rosendaal took the time to write out the how, why, where, etc. on the proper process of making crabapple jam. There is no reason to keep reading recipes that say x amount of fruit, x amount of water, and x amount of sugar. I agree with her explanations, her sugar ratio, and her explanation about when the jam/jelly/jamly is ready. You’ll be glad you didn’t waste your time reading through 200 hundred mixed reviews of every recipe out there. This one is the best and I stand by my recommendation…and I’m picky.
Make sure the fruit is ripe before you pick it. If you rush crabapples, you’ll recreate a mistake I’ve made twice…the fruit will have too much tannin when prepped and it will give your mouth an astringent treatment. If you’ve eaten a green persimmon…same thing. You’ll know the crabapples are ripe and ready to harvest when some of them are already falling off the tree. If you can find one or two that are slightly wrinkled on the tree, this is also a good sign. If the fruit is by and large yellow and slightly wrinkly, you may have missed the window. Taste the apples – they need to be tart, but not astringent in order to work best. You’ll be glad you waited and so will everyone who eats your jam.
The only juicer you can really use on crabapples is a fine-straining type. If you want to save some hassle and use straight crabapple juice, I would caution you about this decision. Only if you’ve strained the juice well will it work – seeds, stems and blossoms can also add astringency to juice. My best recommendation is to give up your thoughts about using a juicer and just cook the apples like the recipe says. However, if you INSIST on using a juicer, make sure and understand that there will be a lower pectin rate, you’ll need to strain the juice, and your color might be slightly less because you didn’t cook the whole apples long enough for the peels to stain the juice a nice deep pink color.
Take time on the front end to prep your fruit well. The best fruit is washed fruit, destemmed and deleafed fruit, and WORM-FREE fruit. Please be careful and inspect your fruit. If you miss things like I mentioned, they’ll show up in your beautiful jelly or between someone’s teeth.
In order to make sure it sets up, it really IS okay to use some SureGel or other type of pectin. Although the recipe says that crabapples make their own pectin (and they do), I still use about 1/2 box per every 4 cups. Otherwise, you might end up cooking the jamly down for 30, 40 or even more minutes in order to get it to the right setting up stage. Either way, it will be lovely, but if you’re worrying about it setting up – give yourself a break and use SureGel!
Can you recook jelly that didn’t set up? ABSOLUTELY. I’ve done this four or five times. Just open all the jars, dump them back into your stock pot, rinse and dry your jars and lids, then recook. Remember the test – – reduce it until it’s clear, pure, beautiful…and test it on a cold plate. The timing should be: already cold plate, add one drop of hot jelly out of your pan, put in freezer for 60 seconds only, take out. If it wrinkles when you push it with your fingernail, it’s ready! If it doesn’t, keep cooking!!
Don’t have a crabapple tree? Use the barter system! I have never, ever seen a crabapple tree completely stripped of all the beautiful ripe fruit during picking season. And, I’ve never owned a crabapple tree…I just look for trees in public spaces, or in my neighbor’s yards. If you knock on a door and introduce yourself, pitch this idea: “I’d love to pick a few gallons of your crabapples. May I have permission if I bring you back a jar of jelly?” All they can say is “no.” And generally, they say, “heck yeah!” We’ve utilized trees on golf courses, on university campuses, on street medians and in people’s yards. Keep your eyes open, and let people know you’re looking. There may be trees right around your corner!

Okay – that’s it. You can use ANY kind of strainer: a jelly bag, a colander, a strainer like mine (see below), but just make sure you really break apart the apples when you’re cooking them and you wait until all your juice finishes dripping into your pan.

Crabapple jelly/jam/jamly is a beautiful thing. So, take time to honor the beauty and you’ll be richly rewarded with jars upon jars of delicious, precious, jew-ly jamly every time you make it.

My Little Victory Garden

My Little Victory Garden: Jam Therapy

August 5, 2013 Red Dirt Kelly Leave a comment

Three times my friend communicated that “the blackberries are ready,” and to “meet me at Wellston…we’ll drive down together to pick them.”

But the first time they weren’t really ready. Then the heat was too extreme. Then it rained. And then I think my friend might have gotten tired of trying, and we dropped that plan.

I had already let the thought of those precious blackberries fade from my mind when I drove by my favorite sand plum thicket and spotted the color of ripeness. I picked a few, took them home to show Mick, and within a few hours we were headed back to strip the thicket and head to the kitchen.

In spite of the lingering effects of chigger bites I suffered the next week, making that jam was a beautiful thing. You see, I’ve been writing and coding and building tables for my dissertation. And jam therapy seems to be the best thing to clear my head this summer.

I’ve cleared my head six more times since then…

Mick’s friend called and reported that his “daughter’s pasture had wild blackberries, and would we like to come pick some?” Our answer was, “Yes!”

Our arms were scratched, I picked up a piece of wire in the pasture that made a horrible screeching noise against my brakes, and it was so hot our clothes were soaked when we finished. But we got about 6 or 7 pounds of blackberries and my second “jam session” was once again a beautiful thing.

Then I called my friend Cathy because she had planned on going for the original blackberry run that never happened and I wanted to chat with her while picking fruit. I knew my contact down in Blanchard had grapes and that it was time for them to be turning. So after she answered, I said, “Hey, wanna go pick grapes with me?” And she responded, “Yee-haw” or “Yippee-Skippy” or something like that.

So the two of us packed our containers, do-rags, rubber boots, bug spray and more equipment than we probably needed and headed to the vineyard. We picked Mars, Vanessa, Jupiter, and one other variety. And then, we took her 14# bag and my 10# bag up to the shed to pay for them. The farmer weighed Cathy’s bag and said, “Okay, that’s 14 times 6…uh, that’s…”

I looked at Cathy’s face. Her eyes were blinking as she tried to register the fact that he actually WAS charging us $6 per pound for the grapes. She was stuttering, so I decided to help. “That’s $84, I’m pretty sure.”

In my head I was screaming, “EIGHT-FOUR DOLLARS??? WHAT-DO-YOU-THINK YOU’RE DOING? THIS IS HIGHWAY ROBBERY!!”

After we paid for the grapes, I took my $60 bag and Cathy took her $84 dollar bag and we walked to the car. Then we opened the doors and gently laid the grapes in the back seat. Then we closed the doors and checked through the windows to make sure the grapes were okay. Then we got in the front seat. Then we closed the front doors, buckled our seatbelts, and exploded with, “What the??…” “I KNOW, right?”

Then we took our solid gold, no – PLATINUM grapes home and went our separate ways.

Later I got a text from Cathy. “Drinking fresh Jupiter grape juice – Oh. My. Larry….this stuff is good.”

Then I juiced all mine, cooked them down with a rosemary bouquet and turned it into Rosemary Grape jam. Another therapy session. And, it’s probably my favorite of all I’ve made this summer. Cripes, maybe they were worth the six bucks a pound…who knows? After all, I charge $125 per session when I provide psychtherapy…maybe $6 was actually a bargain, eh?

Then Mick and I drove to Stratford and got peaches, and I made jam. TWO therapy sessions today: jalapeño and cherry bomb pepper peach jam, and spiced peach jam with bourbon and crystalized ginger. Each time I scrape the very last bits from my large stock pot I close my eyes and think, “Okay – I can do another table. I can write another few pages….I can do this.”

I was in WalMart one day and saw $3 bags of apricots. I bought five of them and made apricot jam. And felt better when they were done.

I invited two friends over who wanted to learn how to can. I had jam therapy vicariously through Rose’s first pickles and Katie’s first peach jam. When the day was over, we were all a little worn out but I was calm and peaceful as a cucumber.

My daughter and my husband have dispatched the location of two loaded crabapple trees that I’ll probably harvest this weekend or next. I haven’t even built my last two statistical tables or my final model but I KNOW I’ll need crabapple jam therapy to get me through.

Blackberries, peaches, grapes, apricots…all procured by hand in one way or another. All cleaned, prepared, cooked and put up into half pints or pints, each pinging with a beautiful seal when it’s over.

I can’t wait to climb the crabapple trees. I can’t wait to smell that beautiful tart-apple-ly aroma, or see the lovely pink sunset color when the jam is packed into the sparkling jars. I can’t wait to feel relaxed and worn out after I complete my (most likely) 60th half-pint of jam this summer.

Why? Because I know that between each therapy session in my kitchen, is a pile of pages stacking…and stacking…and stacking up in my master dissertation document. I think on my defense day, I’ll take my committee jam.

After all, that’s only appropriate, right?

Just another WordPress site