Asked Questions

I thought I'd post a few of the canning questions I've gotten from folks over the last several weeks, posed here or on Facebook or by email or in person. If you have more, leave them in the comments, and I'll post again with answers if I have them, and eventually I'll figure out how to put an FAQ page on this blog thing. So here goes . . .

Where can you find citric acid for canning tomatoes and tomato sauce?

Some health food stores carry it, as do some Indian groceries (where it may be labeled "lemon salt"). It's available online from Amazon, Kalustyans, and Leeners, among many other vendors. If all else fails, you can use lemon juice or Fruit Fresh, which is citric acid stepped on with ascorbic acid and anti-caking agents (see the quantities for lemon juice and Fruit Fresh in the recipes in the book).

Do you have to dry off the flat jar lids after they've been in the hot water and before you put them on the jars?

No. Just slap ’em on.

Can you forgo peeling the tomatoes for sauce and just blend them up, skins and seeds and all?

Sure. Just wash the tomatoes really well first (there are more bacteria on the surface of the tomatoes, obviously, though those will be killed during the long processing time in the canning pot).

Can you can pesto in a boiling water bath?

No. Pesto is not an acid food (it has a high pH), and so it's not safe to can it in a boiling water bath. Freeze it instead!

What are your favorite things to preserve?

Sour cherries, all-purpose tomato sauce, salsa verde, and grapefruit marmalade are some of my favorites. They're extra-fun to make and delicious and useful.

Are your recipes approved by the USDA?

No. As far as I know, the only recipes officially approved by the USDA are the ones published in its handbook and online at the National Center for Home Food Preservation. The USDA is not in the business of evaluating or testing recipes to be published by private companies; the agency has developed its own recipes, and those are the ones they officially stand behind. That said, all of the canning methods described in my book conform exactly to current USDA standards for processing: I don't advocate the so-called open kettle or inversion method, I ask you to sterilize jars in boiling water rather than in a dishwasher or oven, processing times are totally in line with the USDA's recommendations, and so on. Fruit preserves in my book are significantly lower in sugar than those made by standard recipes, but when fruit (which is high acid) is canned using reliable methods sugar is not necessary for preservation purposes. The canned pickles in my book were tested for pH levels at several stages in the process—before processing and several days or weeks later—and packing and processing times conform to those recommended by the feds (in addition, temperatures were checked during processing using the method required of commercial canners by the FDA). If you still have concerns about a recipe—mine or any other—you can always send it to your local extension agent to ask if it looks okay to him or her. And, as always, use your judgment when opening and using a canned food, whether it has sealed properly or not. If anything doesn't seem right to you, toss it!

Pictures of the Gosford Wine Event

My friend Clare Adams took these lovely pictures of some of the food at the tasting and book signing the other night, and I thought I'd share them here with her permission. Rinne brought the summery flowers and let T. arrange them in those cute apothecary bottles.

I had tons of help filling tacos, pouring little cups of hot-pink cold beet soup, slicing bread and spreading it with fresh cheese and butter, scooping out single-cherry tastes of clafouti, and even dumping good crunchy tortilla chips into my big old butter-washing bowl for dipping into last year's super-spicy salsa verde. I didn't do a thing all evening, now that I think about it, except enjoy myself.

Rinne's sister, Lucy, who has the soul of a high-end caterer and the work ethic of an early American settler, arranged everything invitingly on two big wooden farm tables, with pretty paper napkins (Ikea, I think), rough linens, ironstone plates and platters, and in some cases simply dry waxed paper sheets (my beloved Kabnet brand, which I'd gotten to hold the tacos). And Lucy kept those tables looking spiffy and abundant all night long. D.'s coworker Anne and her daughter showed up during preparations and instantly set to work making tacos, refilling platters, and basically doing everything I'd expected to be doing.


T. helped me trim the little threads from the cards—she cut the corners off most of them too. (Here's a bad preparty shot I took of that cake, showing my genius cutting job in all its forty-eight-tiny-slice glory:)

It was a great time, and I felt very lucky to have been able to meet so many people who are enthusiastic about cooking and eating—and canning.

Tonight at Gosford Wine

Just a quick reminder that tonight at 6:30 is the wine and preserve tasting at Gosford Wine on Baxter Street here in Athens. (With any luck there will be books to be had as well.) Hope to see you there!

Cultured Butter

A while back, I became smitten with Vermont Butter & Cheese Company's cultured butter. It tasted like no other butter I'd ever had: funky, earthy, but delicate and just a little tangy. It's hard to describe, but the butter was different enough from regular butter that T., who is four, claimed not to like it at first (it's grown on her since then). I tried culturing some cream with buttermilk, but the result was bland—not right. I'd read about piima butter, made from a Scandinavian-style culture derived from the butterwort plant that is apparently similar to the culture used in buttermilk, acidophilus. Descriptions of it sounded like what I was going for, so eventually I broke down and ordered a little jar of piima culture from an outfit called Moonwise Herbs, which unfortunately ships the ready-to-use (not dried) culture only in cooler months; however, there are lots of other places online that sell piima.

The flavor of butter made with cream cultured with piima is amazing. And it's so, so easy to make this at home—that is, once you have a bit of culture. The culture will keep for a couple weeks in the fridge, or you can freeze it for months before refreshing it by mixing it with new cream and letting it ferment for a day. Just remember to save some of the cream for next time before whipping the rest into butter. Instructions that came with mine say it's best to use pasteurized cream so that the character of the culture remains consistent over time. For those of us in Georgia this shouldn't be a problem.

Cultured Butter
Makes about 7 ounces, depending on the fat content of the cream

2 to 3 tablespoons piima culture
1 pint pasteurized heavy cream

In a nonreactive bowl, stir together the culture and cream. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to culture at room temperature (or warmer) for 12 to 24 hours. The mixture should thicken, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, depending on the temperature and probably other factors that are mysterious to me. This time it thickened a lot:

Scoop a few tablespoons of the cultured cream into a lidded jar and save it for the next batch. I just put this straight into the freezer, where I'm told it'll keep for months:

Whip the cream with a mixer or an immersion blender. I think you could do this in a food processor, but I don't have a regular-size one and the cleanup would surely be more intensive than with a mixer or immersion blender. Keep whipping past the thick-whipped-cream stage to the point where the solids separate from the liquid, slowing the mixer speed down as this happens:

Holding back the solids (the butter) with your hand or a sieve, pour off as much of the liquid as you can. This is cultured buttermilk. I usually get about a cup from a pint of cream. Here I've transferred the butter back to the first bowl, but you could do this all in the same bowl start to finish:

Put a few handfuls of ice and some cold water in the bowl with the butter:

Use a spatula or wooden spoon to stir and knead the butter with the ice water. The water will become milky as the remaining buttermilk is kneaded out of the butter. Holding the butter (and any ice cubes) back, drain off the cloudy water. Add more ice and clean water and keep kneading to wash out the buttermilk, draining and replacing the water and ice until you can knead the butter and the water stays relatively clear:

Drain again and pick out the ice cubes, if there are any that haven't melted. Knead the butter some more, pouring off the water that comes out. Keep kneading and draining to remove as much water as possible. I imagine there are more effective ways of getting all the water out, and they probably involve butter muslin, but I just knead, drain, and then sort of pat the butter with a paper towel until it looks pretty dry:

Stir in salt to taste, if you'd like, then pack the soft butter into a container and cover with waxed paper (or wrap it into a log in plastic):

Refrigerate. This butter will last at least a week, and can be used . . . however you'd use butter. This butter turned out fairly light in color, while other batches have been brighter yellow. My mom tells me it has to do with what the cows were eating, along with the fat content of the cream. Of course, you could always color it with juice squeezed from a carrot that's been grated, milk-simmered, and squeezed in cheesecloth, as T. and I just read about in Little House in the Big Woods, but that seems like a lot of trouble to me.

To Pit a Cherry, or Two Hundred

Last summer when T. and I went out to my parents' place in Washington State for the cherries (and to, you know, visit) I had some slick little Oxo cherry pitters shipped there a week in advance. Hey, I was excited. We don't get many cherries—much less sour cherries—down here in the GA.

I shouldn't have bothered, though, because we determined, through the highly scientific experiment known as a "race," that the paperclip does a much, much faster job. Also a better one, because it makes only one hole in the cherry rather than two, so the cherry stays nice and intact and plump—this is what you want if you're making brandied cherries or sour-cherry preserves, or freezing a quart bag of sweet cherries for a winter clafouti.

First get yourself a large paperclip and unfold it once, like the one in the picture above.

Pull off the cherry stem:

Hold the cherry firmly in one hand and jam the small fold of the paperclip into the cherry where the stem was, angling it a bit so it slides right along one side of the pit:


You'll be able to feel when the bend in the clip has reached the end of the pit. Now lever the pit and sort of pull it out the hole you just made. You might need to apply a little pressure with the fingers holding the cherry. (It's easier than it sounds.)

Cherry, one hole, no pit:


This was about four pounds of Bing cherries, and it took maybe ten minutes. So raid the supply closet at the office and pit some cherries this weekend!

Book Event at Gosford Wine

Hello! Just a quick note to let you know that Gosford Wine here in Athens is going to be hosting a little wine and preserve tasting and book signing for the canning book, with Rinne Allen (the photographer) and me. Here are the details:

Thursday, July 15
6:30 p.m.
Gosford Wine
1059 Baxter Street (between the library and Rocksprings)

STC is expediting shipment of some (slightly) advance copies of the book, so you can get yours probably even before Rinne and I have gotten ours. Please come out and have some wine and taste samples of dishes from the book, including "Asia tacos" (pork with do chua, cilantro sauce, and pear), Lithuanian-style chilled pickled-beet soup made with homemade yogurt, and a selection of fruit preserves with homemade breads and fresh cheese. I think how the wine part works is that you give the man $10, he gives you a glass, and they pour you five or six wines throughout the evening. It should be a fun time.

I'd love to meet you, kind readers, in person, and give you tacos.

Figs

Carrie has this crazy, giant fig tree growing into the side of her house, and it's loaded with fruit, so T. and I went over yesterday to say hi and pick as many as we could before the heat, yellow jackets, and crankiness had their way with us. The first thing I did when we got home, while D. cleaned up the kid and kept her happy by talking about parties with her, was set aside three pounds for preserves and sear the rest in a skillet:

Seared Figs with Mustard Seeds and Curry Leaves

This is via my friend Regan, although I'm not sure if this is exactly how she did it that one time, and she says it came from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Now that I look at that page over on Amazon, though, I see that the dish has a squeeze of lemon juice and some cayenne—both of which would be nice, it's true. Also that recipe has quantities and everything. Fancy!

Vegetable oil or ghee (or a little oil and a little butter)
Ripe fresh figs, halved
Handful of fresh curry leaves
Yellow mustard seeds
Kosher salt

In a heavy skillet over medium-high heat, heat a bit of oil—just enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the figs and arrange them cut side down in the pan, then sprinkle in the curry leaves, mustard seeds, and a pinch or two of salt. Cook, without disturbing, until the figs are nicely browned on the bottom, 4 to 5 minutes. Use a thin metal spatula to turn the figs over and cook just until they're soft and glazed-looking, about 1 more minute. Serve warm.

Then I made some fig preserves, the first of this season, kind of winging it based on Regan's description of another fig dish she loved once, roasted figs with ricotta. It worked very well, and even though a version of this recipe will be in my book about canning and preserving (almost finished now, and due to come out next year!) I thought I'd post it here anyway for loyal friends and family who still have old Pie and Beer in their readers, blogrolls, or whatever.

Thank you, Regan, for passing along your extensive fig knowledge, and thank you, Carrie, for passing along the figs!

Media Notes

1. I wish this reporter had called me back to confirm slash copyedit the quote he attributes to me, and also to confirm that I live in Athens, which I don't. I like Simply Meats, and I said some nice things about it, but I don't think I said them quite that stupidly.

2. You can find my mug on the beta version of the new recipe resource Cookstr, alongside some very smart authors indeed (and probably some thick ones like me).

3. I learned yesterday that my proposal for a kind of unusual cookbook has been accepted, and if all goes well and contracts get signed it'll be published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. This will be the first book that's really my own (that is, it was my idea) and that I actually have a stake in (it's not a work-for-hire job). Apparently I'm going to have months upon months to write it, which means it's going to be awesome and I'm not going to go completely insane. Whew.

Stocking Up

Wow, it's been a while. I intend to write a real post one of these days, but in the meantime you can check out Flickr to see pictures of, among other random things, the Chalmerses and my mom and our friend Regan making butter in our old glass Dazey churn. I do have a big piece of news to relate: we've gone and gotten ourselves a chest freezer! It's a relatively small model, 8.8 cubic feet to be exact, but it fit through the narrow old pantry door (with about two millimeters to spare), which means it can be essentially right in the kitchen—such a luxury. I remember my parents' chest freezers—two of them: one in the laundry room on the other side of the house from the kitchen and one out in the storage barn. Holy pain.

The Great Whatsit.

It's a rainy, at times windy day here. My mom and I sat on the porch waiting for the freezer to arrive while it rained and the bug napped under a quilt in her teepee, on a bear-hide* rug my mom tanned out in Washington. I was reading Stocking Up and getting very antsy. I want to can a lot more stuff, sprout stuff, curdle and cure stuff, dry stuff, freeze stuff.


Earlier, we'd had a "tea" party. Table was a stack of boxes of canning jars. It was a good day to be on the porch. Grandma even swept the "piderwebs" away so the bug could—would—ride her trike up and down the long empty side of the porch.

We've become a bit lackadaisical about the chickens, one of which is seen here. These days we kind of just let them out in the morning and put them in at night and hope for the best. So far I think only one is laying, so unless that's the one that gets carried off by a dog it wouldn't be a huge loss. I must admit, though, that I've become accustomed to having them around.

My mom's been here for almost three weeks, and will stay a couple more weeks to continue helping out. I'm having back surgery this Tuesday to fix a badly herniated disc—it's been a mess for two months now. As much as I'm not looking forward to the process itself, I'm very much looking forward to putting the whole back-pain thing behind me so I can at least stand up long enough to cook a full meal, or take the bug for her bedtime walk. It seems that surgery is the best (some would say only) way to do it.

Mom and the bug planted a cover crop of annual ryegrass on my spring garden plot—right on top of the straw and newspapers I put down in early summer to kill the grass—and it's growing like crazy. She just put two loaves of bread in the oven and made some tea. She's almost done sewing slipcovers for the old orange sectional—she's been dragging her feet on the last part, with the curved swoosh-shaped back. Need to light a fire under her. Then she needs to start getting supper ready, and there's vacuuming to be done . . .

*Edit: Correction: sheepskin. But she did tan it herself.

Blackberries up the Road

They were much better than last year, and I credit the rain. They're still well protected by two-foot-high fire ant hills and lots of poison ivy, but one morning recently after the bug left for daycare I decided to go all out and get as many as I could. I put on long pants, high boots, gloves (which ended up being too unwieldy for handling the delicate, very ripe berries), and a long-sleeved shirt. I went early enough that it wasn't too hot. I brought a long pole with a hook on the end, thinking that I'd use it to pull vines toward me, but it was more useful for shoving them out of my way and for tamping down the brambles so I could step over or onto them—the hook just made that more difficult. I took a lot of risks—jumping over ant hills and into the thick of the brambles—and at one point, surrounded by ant hills and stuck to the thorns on all sides, it occurred to me that if I lost my balance and fell the cicadas and doves would be the last sounds I heard. I worked fast, and checked my picking hand for ants every few seconds. Usually I come home with three or four painful bites and a handful of berries, but this time I had no bites and about six cups of berries! I probably dropped enough for a pie, and left enough for four. I found a back way in, though, so if we're still here next year it'll be a piece of cake. I also found the muscadines, which are behind the ant hills, through the poison ivy, and on the wrong side of the blackberry bramble—but they're there, and when they're ripe I intend to pick them.

I picked the bug up early from daycare, and we made blackberry frozen yogurt from my mom's old recipe. She used to make it every July in Georgia and Virginia. Next time I'll strain out the seeds. (I like the seeds, but others don't.)

Blackberry Frozen Yogurt

4 cups blackberries
2¼ cups sugar
3 large eggs, separated
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 quarts plain yogurt

Put the blackberries and 2 cups of the sugar in a small saucepan; bring to a boil and cook, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved and the berries are broken down a bit.

In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks. Stir in ½ cup of the blackberry mixture, then stir in the remaining blackberry mixture, the lemon juice, and vanilla. Set the bowl in another bowl of ice water and let cool to room temperature, stirring frequently. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Beat the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add the remaining ¼ cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

In a large bowl, whisk the yogurt, then fold in the blackberry mixture, then fold the yogurt mixture into the egg whites.

Freeze in an ice cream maker until it's the consistency of runny soft-serve ice cream, then transfer to the freezer until completely frozen.

Mom's Pickles

The chicken tractor is done, as of 2:30 today. Pictures to come as soon as the Mr. comes home and helps me get it down off the sawhorse.

I stopped in at the produce farm today, and they had—along with the expected zucchini and yellow squash, onions, potatoes, melons, corn (well, it was being picked), and tomatoes—several kinds of pretty cucumbers. This is just what I needed, although I'd gone there looking for okra. (I did—gulp—put in an order for three pounds of okra, not knowing that the heavy bag of squash and potatoes I was preparing to buy was only three pounds. I'm not very good with weights. Good thing I have one or two ideas for how to use okra.)

Anyway, I came home and looked up my mom's recipe for Persian pickles, which I think are the most delicious pickles this side of the Lower East Side. The comparison is inapt, because they're not dill pickles but tarragon-flavored mostly; also they're refrigerator pickles, which means you have to keep them in the fridge, but that's okay because like most pickles they're best cold anyway. My mom and her friend, who's from Iran, wrote a little book of Persian sweets and sours, as yet unpublished; this recipe comes from there. I halved it: 1 pound cucumbers, 3 garlic cloves, a few tarragon sprigs, 3 or 4 clusters of fresh coriander seeds (or 1/2 tablespoon dried seeds), and 2 dried red peppers in a leftover pickle-barrel-type jar (sorry, I forgot to check the volume; I'm not very good with volumes); 3 1/2 cups water, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup cider vinegar.

Persian Pickles

2 to 3 pounds small crisp pickling cucumbers
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
5 sprigs fresh tarragon leaves
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 fresh or dried chiles
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup cider vinegar

Pack the cucumbers, garlic, tarragon, coriander, and chiles into a 1-gallon jar.

Bring 7 cups water and the salt to a boil. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. Add the vinegar and pour the mixture over the cucumbers. Put the lid on the jar. Refrigerate for 6 weeks.

Slice the pickles lengthwise to serve. Use within 2 months.

Makes 1 gallon.

Fresh coriander seeds—before they've dried into what we normally think of as coriander. They're tender, and the flavor is dead between coriander and cilantro. They're good sprinkled on top of a bowl of dal. I'm not sure how they'll work in these pickles, but I'll bet they'll be fine.