The Can Jam Month 2: Thai Carrot Pickles

By Alexa | Published: February 18, 2010

We’re leaving for a week in Paris tonight, and what is the one thing that I have to do before I leave? POST my February Tigress Can Jam recipe! This is going to be brief, considering I haven’t even packed for our vacation yet, but it will give you an idea about what I decided to make. I have made this original recipe (for Vietnamese carrot and daikon pickle) with great success, so I wanted to modify it to only use carrots (which we had in ABUNDANCE from our CSA) and to use some Thai peppers and kaffir lime leaves that a friend’s mother grows. Does adding Thai peppers and lime leaves make a Vietnamese pickle into a Thai pickle? You be the judge!

Sweet and Spicy Thai Carrot Pickles

Adapted from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

  • 3 cups white vinegar
  • 3 cups water
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 2 T grated ginger
  • 4 lbs carrots, julienned
  • Star anise, Thai red pepper, kaffir lime leaves

  1. Prepare canner, jars and lids. (For step-by-step canning instructions, read THIS POST from Tigress.)
  2. In a large saucepan, combine vinegar, water, sugar and ginger. Bring to a boil over medium/high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add carrots and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat.
  3. Place star anise, halved thai chili, and/or lime leaves in hot jars. Pack vegetables into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch (1cm) of top of jar. Ladle hot pickling liquid into jar to cover vegetbales, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary. Wipe rim. Center lid on rim. Screw band down until resistence is met, then a little further until fingertip tight.
  4. Place jars in canner, ensuring that they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process for another 10 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, them remove jars, cool and store.

The resultant pickles were not as spicy as I would have liked, but the texture of the carrots are great, and they are very refreshing. Fastest post ever.

Posted in Canning, Pantry, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Odds and Ends Salad

By Alexa | Published: January 23, 2010

Salads don’t have to have greens; in fact, protein packed salads like this one can be quite filling and satisfying on their own. We have a delivery from our CSA coming this Tuesday (deliveries are once every 3 weeks during the Winter), and so our supply of fresh produce is sadly low, but I was able to scrap together this nutritious salad from odds and ends I found in the fridge and pantry.

  • Grated carrots
  • Chopped scallions
  • Chopped parsley stems (don’t throw them out after you use the leaves! They’re great in salads and soups)
  • 1 can of rinsed chickpeas
  • 1 diced roasted beet
  • 1 small clove of crushed garlic
  • Feta cheese
  • Olive oil, tarragon vinegar, salt and pepper

The traditional oil to vinegar ratio is 2:1 or 3:1, but I tend to like mine more vinegary than that, so I often do 1.5:1 but don’t get caught up on ratios, just eyeball it and let taste be your guide.  For this salad, I let the carrots, parsley stems, scallions and garlic steep in some vinegar, salt and pepper as I chopped the beets.  I then tossed in the chickpeas, oil, and finally the beets and feta. (Adding the beets at the end prevents the beet color from overtaking everything, though that’s somewhat unavoidable.)

Posted in Pantry, Recipes, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Can Jam Month One: Citrus Marmalade

By Alexa | Published: January 22, 2010

Let me just start by saying that I am no pro canner.  Yes, I dabble, I have the special canning tongs and lid-lifter-magnet, and I have performed the canning process a handful of times, but it was never anything too complicated.  But after a satisfying tomato canning experience (fresh, local, organic produce turned into a pantry staple by my very own hands!),  I knew I wanted to expand my canning credentials and venture into more advanced canning endeavors, but where to start?  Enter The Can Jam.

I’ve been using Twitter a lot lately (follow me @PantryTweets), and through it I have met and exchanged ideas with some amazing cooks all over the world who are doing some really exciting things.  One of these cooks has two wonderful blogs that I read, and wouldn’t ya know it, she is a fellow Queens resident, and she LOVES to can (and pickle!).

Tigress is holding a year-long online canning project which I am enthusiastically embracing with all of my canning heart.  Each month, she’ll post an ingredient on her site, and then invites others to can/preserve/pickle a recipe highlighting that ingredient and share their results.  January’s ingredient is citrus, and I immediately thought of attempting a true champion of preserves: Marmalade.

Before you read any further know this: canning marmalade is sticky business!

The first thing to do was to figure out what type of marmalade I was going to make.  Since citrus isn’t found in the Northeast I can’t just rely on my CSA to provide it, so I had to see what organic citrus looked good at my grocer (not just any grocer, Fairway Market), since with marmalade you end up eating the rind, where pesticide residues can collect, organic is the way to go. I was excited to find not just organic lemons and oranges, but organic blood oranges–what a treat!  When I got home I consulted my trusty cookbook collection and found a nice recipe in Joy of Cooking for Bitter Orange Marmalade, which I modified to include blood oranges, ginger, and fennel seed.  The following is an account of the steps (and occasional missteps) I took.  I hope this gives those of you who’d like to try canning that extra push you need to just GO FOR IT!

IMPORTANT: If the preserve is not prepared properly, it can be dangerous.  If you are new to canning (myself included) follow the recipe exactly, especially amounts of sugar, fruit, and processing times (spices can be played around with without compromising safety).   For canning steps, and a great resource, check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation, or these great bloggers and fellow Can Jam participants: Tigress in a Jam, Married…With Dinner, Food In Jars, Dorris and Jilly Cook, and Garden Fresh Living (for a full list of participants, check out Tigress’ master list.)

Tricalore Spiced Citrus Marmalade

Makes about 10 1/2 pint jars (I made five 4 oz jars, and five 12 oz jars.  (I processed the 12 oz jars for 15 min, vs. 10 min for the 4 oz)

  • 1 lb oranges
  • 1 lb blood oranges
  • 8 oz unpeeled lemons

Chill, wash, halve crosswise, snip out tough centers, and thinly slice, removing any seeds.

Combine in a bowl, with their juice, and add:

  • 8 cups of water
  • 2 T chopped or grated fresh ginger (Feel free to add more, I will the next time I make this)

Cover and let stand overnight in the refrigerator.  The following morning, simmer with the water until the citrus peel is tender.  Then add:

  • 6.5 cups sugar
  • 1 T fennel seeds (again, what was I thinking? I would definitely add more of this next time too.)

Divide the mixture in half and cook in 2 batches.  Bring each batch up to a rapid boil, stirring frequently, until you reach the jelling point*. Remove from the heat and skim off any foam. Combine the batches, then pack into hot 1/2 pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process for 10 minutes.

* The jelling point is a temperature/moment when the pectin reaches it’s zenith, and the preserve sets.  But…MY MARMALADE DIDN’T SET!  There are various tests to see if the jelling point has been reached;  I did the “quick chill test”, in which you drop a small amount of the syrup onto a chilled saucer, let it sit for a few minutes, and then run a finger through it.  The marmalade is set when the line of your finger stays, and the sides don’t move or when the marmalade crinkles when running your finger through it.  Mine never got to that stage, but it did hold a line, which various sources explained as a “soft” set.  I was afraid to keep boiling away (my sources said that if boiled too long, the preserves will overcook and be runny), and convinced myself, at the time, that a soft set was fine.  In retrospect, I should have boiled a little longer.  I’m told this jelling point thing will get easier with practice and experience, which I’m excited to get tons of this year!

Despite the syrupy consistency, I am thrilled with the color and flavor of my first foray into marmalade.  It’s a little bitter (which I don’t really mind), and I think it will be delicious with sweet buttered bread.

Posted in Canning | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Barley Bowl

By Alexa | Published: January 18, 2010

I always feel better after a simple meal of grain + veg + sauce. Especially in the winter season, with the plethora of root vegetables available, simple meals like this are only a roasting pan and steamer away. We had carrots and rutabaga left over from last week’s winter CSA share, which I roasted with with beets. All were tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper with a sprig of rosemary (I love the way the house smells in the winter with rosemary roasting in the oven).

The roast vegetables were served with steamed broccoli and that toothsome wonder, barley. When eating like this frequently, some people worry about getting bored with the same old thing every night. And the answer is SAUCES! I have a few standard sauces in my repetoire that can be mixed together on a whim, and used to top not only roast vegetables, but fish, tofu or tempeh.

Miso Sesame Sauce:

  • 3 part sesame oil
  • 2 part miso paste
  • 2 part rice wine vinegar
  • 1 part honey (or 1/2 part sriracha)
Place all ingredients in a clean jar. Shake. Thin with water to desired consistency. (Sometimes I add grated ginger, sometimes I make it spicier…Play around!)

Posted in CSA, Macrobiotic, Pantry, Recipes, Vegetarian | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

HOLLA! Sweet Potato Challah

By Alexa | Published: January 14, 2010

Challah, the braided bread served on Shabbat and most holidays, is delicious, and typically made with many eggs.  We had vegan guests over for Shabbat last weekend, so eggs were out.   I had to learn how to make an eggless challah, and fast, so I turned to Joan Nathan, the Guru of Jewish cooking, and modified a recipe she had for berches.  I had never heard of berches before, so I asked my German grandmother about it.  She explained that berches is just the German word for challah.  Joan Nathan’s recipe is made with potatoes, but according to my grandma, berches can be made with or without potatoes.  How about sweet potatoes?  Well that’s what I had from our CSA, so that’s what was going into my challah.  The sweet potatoes lent a nice sweetness and a beautiful orange hue to the final challah, and everyone loved it… it also made for some killer paninis (see previous post).   Does anyone else have any experience with berches?  Feel free to share in the comments below.

Sweet Potato Berches

Modified from Joan Nathan’s The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. This recipe makes 2 large loaves.

  • 2 pounds bread or unbleached all-purpose flour (8 cups)
  • 2 packages dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup lukewarm water
  • About 3 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes (still lukewarm)
  • 1.5 teaspoons salt
  • Poppy or sesame seeds

  1. Place the flour in a large bowl, making a well in the middle. Stir in the yeast and 1/2 cup water. Add to the well a small amount of the flour, about 3 tablespoons. Cover and place in a lukewarm place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
  2. Add the potatoes, salt, and more lukewarm water if needed [I didn't need any]. Knead the dough about 10-12 minutes, until it is as firm as possible. [I had to add more flour--about 1/4 cup--since the dough was mad sticky.] Put the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with a cloth. Place in a medium-warm, draft-free spot, and let stand until the dough has doubled in size (about 3-5 hours). [Joan notes that if you are serving on Friday, you can start the dough Thursday night at 8 O'Clock, and it can rise slowly overnight.]
  3. When the dough is ready, place it on a floured wooden board and split it into 4 parts. Make a long loaf of one of the parts [mine was more of an oblong round...], and divide one other part into 3 pieces. Roll the 3 peices into long ropes and braid them. Place the braid on top of the long loaf, pinching on the edges to attach. Repeat with the other 2 parts. Cover the challah and let rise once more for about 1 hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 350F with a pizza stone inside, if you have one.
  5. When ready to bake, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds.
  6. Bake 45 minutes to an hour or until the challah is nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped.

Posted in Bread, Recipes | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

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