Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen

Looky here, a mulberry tree. Right? I am not totally positive at what point these can be picked, but if the bird poop that surrounded this tree last year is anything to go by, I need to wait until they are a MUCH darker purple. Also, I am not entirely sure what to make with them when I pick them. Maybe jam? Or wine?

a) This year there was no Turkey Shoot. No Grandpa = No Turkey Shoot. I just could not do Turkey Shoot without the oldest gizzard of all. I miss him and this only makes me miss him more. But we still got ourselves a gorgeous big ole birdy from Diemand Farm because they really do have the best birds, thanks to Dad for picking it up. and b) This year there was no insane excel spreadsheet for the Thanksgiving shopping list. I simply went shopping for everything last night and bought stuff that looked good. I have a couple of recipe ideas and basically I am winging it. More or less. At the very least we'll have turkey and gravy and pie. You know what else? I am not even stressed out about it. If I totally f*ck it all up then we're going to have pizza and beer. With a side of turkey and gravy and pie. No sweat, no problem. But keep this between us. No one else needs to know.

Sometimes you just have to brag about a particularly fantastic find.  Unfortunately for me, no one in my immediate circle shares in my total thrillation with this particular item, so I am taking it to the masses. Looky what I found!!: A MASLIN PAN!!! Hmmm, doesn't seem so exciting huh! But what if I told you I got it for a twenty. Brand new, twenty bucks.  Oh yeaaahhhhh! Usually these pans can run between $50 and $100 so finding one (new! in box!) was fricking thrilling I tell you. No more scorched caramelly jam for me thanks. 

You know what I love? I love lots of things, but I especially love blueberry pancakes on a snow day. And you know what else? The snow is coming. Maybe not today, probably not tomorrow, but there will be snow before blueberries are back in season! Which means that all summer long I've been stockpiling a store of frozen blueberries, frozen at the height of the season. I have about 6 cups worth and had been storing them in regular ziploc bags until I noticed that they were getting covered in ice crystals. That's not a good sign. So in order to protect my precious supply of blueberries I decided to invest in a vacuum sealing system. Which are startlingly expensive in some cases. Yipes! I decided against the fancy, higher end versions that involve heat and bags that can only be ordered online . Frankly I don't need a big system because it's just me and really I don't freeze all that much. Well, at least that is what I tell myself because just thinking about it now.........

As you may have guessed from the past couple of posts, I have recently been on a canning binge. And as promised, here are a few photos of the results. As a result of the canning class with Eugenia Bone, I am now obsessed with preserving tomatoes. I eat a ridiculous amount of crushed tomato, especially in the winter when I just want to start a stew cooking while I have a hot shower. But mostly I like to eat a little pasta with a can of tomatoes dumped on top with tons of garlic and parsley. The jar on the right is how freshly canned tomatoes sometimes look just out of the water bath. The clear yellow liquid is the pectin separating which is apparently quite normal. Just turn the jar upside down a few times and you will get something like what you see on the left. This is a little pot of tomato concentrate. I have a love/hate relationship with tomato paste. I will eat it directly out of the tube, squeezing it straight into my mouth. But I hate how sometimes tomato paste can taste a littl...

Ok, ok, yes, I am obsessed. Moving right along, shall we... So far this week I have processed the following: -- 6 pints of pickled cauliflower -- 8 half pints of spiced apples -- 5 pints of marinated red peppers -- 6 pints of crushed tomatoes I am picking up a secondhand pressure canner tomorrow and am looking forward to canning soup. Right now red peppers are nice and cheap so I was thinking about roasted red pepper soup. And now that the cauliflower is looking so nice right now, I am thinking to make more pickle. So this winter, when it blizzards out, come on over! There will be plenty for all.

I have a problem and canning is thy name. Pictures to come, but let me just say that I pickled cauliflower yesterday - 6 pints. And then today I was stuck in a long work meeting so by the time I got home I needed to do something to calm the self so I made 8 half pints of spiced apples. My house smells lovely and I feel like I accomplished something and NOW I am ready for bed. Why this is a problem? Because I am already planning what to can tomorrow. *sigh* This can't be good.

I was over in Cambridge today learning canning skills from the lovely Eugenia Bone, author of Well Preserved . Right now I am in full tilt canning mode and I will post all about this later. But let me just say right now that I totally have a kitchen crush on Ms. Bone! She is utterly charming and completely down to earth about canning. I learned a lot and the class was far too short at two and a half hours. Seriously, I could have spent two and a half days in class and that probably wouldn't have been enough.