Musings on the Tomato, with Lacto-Fermented Salsa

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. I think this is a record. Yeah for me.

Last year my friend Dave pointed out that my anemic tomatoes weren't the result of the universe plotting against me, but simply that I'd not paid attention to their needing more sun than my semi-wooded backyard would afford. Noted. This year I moved the tomatoes to the front yard, and while we've only had six plants, I've been beside myself with how they've thrived. Simply beside myself. If you have any doubt what sun can do for sun-loving plants like tomatoes, here are two heirloom tomatoes, one in the backyard (because I had some extra plants and a little extra room in the raised beds) and one in the front yard. Case closed.

Sylvia explaining last May why we planted tomatoes out front.

It's been a fun gardening year. I tried potatoes for the first time and am giddy that you can put a part of a potato under ground, and a couple months later dig under the resulting foliage and find... Potatoes. As Phil says, "honest potatoes." I planted a 4 X 4 box with Purple Haze potatoes and we've been eating on them for a bit. I can't find a good source for seed potatoes this fall, so I'm sprouting some myself, and sharing them with my dad, who's never grown potatoes but was fascinated when I told him about our experience this year. By the way, if you're thinking of planting potatoes, you might want to check out The Resilient Gardener, which devotes a whole chapter to spuds. One thing I learned from that book was to watch for the foliage to die, wait another week or two, and then dig up the potatoes. Apparently they keep growing and getting nutrients even while their foliage looks dead and as if nothing good is going to come of them.


Backyard on the left; front yard on the right.

So, back to the sun. I took Dave too literally. While I moved the tomatoes to the front yard, I didn't apply his lessons to all summer vegetables needing sunlight. So my first attempt at corn turned out miniature. The raccoons got it, and frankly, they could have it. Ditto the peppers, which were less than impressive other than one hot pepper plant that did me proud. So the plan next year is to expand the little garden plot next to the driveway , and stock it with tomatoes, peppers, corn, rhubarb, and everything else that's been struggling in the backyard. The raised beds in the backyard will be planted solely with the leafy greens and spring/fall vegetables that thrive there: radishes, lettuce, kale, chard, mache.

Meanwhile, the tomatoes.

I will admit that my ultimate strategy is that we'll be able to grow all or most of our vegetables, and even fruit, on our little 1/4 acre suburban lot. But this year the thought of canning tomatoes made me tired. So very tired. So we're eating and enjoying them fresh, and I'm going to rely on the eight packs of Del Monte organic tomatoes at Costco to get through the winter. Sue me.

That said, we've got an abundance of tomatoes, and even tomato-philes like me and Phil are a little overwhelmed. And we've got a raccoon problem that ends in slightly blemished tomatoes that are still mainly good, if a bit scratched or bitten here and there. Bring in lacto-fermenting. I'm a little in love with it. This is a way to get probiatics (you know... Jamie Lee Curtis yelling at you about a yogurt brand that helps keep you "on track") through crazy-quick and easy prep. No canning. Essentially, you're prepping vegetables (pickles, kimchi, sauerkraut) and then letting them sit at room temperature. The result is living food filled with good bacteria; canning, on the opposite spectrum, kills all bacteria -- bad and harmful as well as good.

So I'm loving lacto-fermented salsa, which uses up less-than-perfect tomatoes, takes about five minutes to make, and tastes phenomenal. (Phil, who is more sensitive to salt than me, says it's a bit salty; I haven't noticed.) I'm using a combination of the method from Nourishing Days and a very slight riff on the recipe from Cheeseslave. I'm tickled that the tomato, garlic, and hot peppers all come from my garden. Next year, the onions will, too. Here's what I've been doing.

Lacto-Fermented Salsa

1 small to medium onion
2 cloves garlic

1 to 2 hot peppers, depending on your taste, split and seeded
Juice from 2 lemons
1 Tbsp. salt
4 oz. whey or 1 Tbsp. salt
About 3-4 decent-sized tomatoes
If you like, fresh herbs like cilantro or oregano

In a food processor, process the onion, peppers, and garlic. Now add the tomatoes and whir them a bit. I have a very small food processor, so I have to add the tomatoes, quartered, one at at time. If you're using fresh herbs, put those in and whir them a bit more. Now pour into a bowl, add the lemon juice, salt, and whey (or additional salt). You should have about a quart, so after it's all mixed up, pour it into a quart canning jar, making sure you have about an inch of headspace (space between the top of the salsa and the lid) and let it sit on the counter for a few days. The salsa should be pretty watery, and you'll want to be sure that stray pieces aren't clinging to the lid, as these could develop mold. In two or three days, taste your salsa; it'll be a little tangy and, in my opinion, crazy-delicious. Stick it in the fridge, and it'll keep for a long long time.



Delicious!

If you're really into this, just double the recipe and use a half-gallon canning jar.

For a lot more about lacto-fermenting, which used to scare the bejezus out of me, you might want to check the books Wild Fermentations or Nourishing Traditions.

Taking Stock

Phil and I recently cleared out and defrosted our deep freezer in anticipation of our annual quarter-cow purchase from a local farmer. In the midst of organizing, using up, or throwing out Parmesan rinds that I saved in 2008 and was sure I would use to flavor soups, five bags of edamame, a large stock of beef from last year's cow, and various other treasures, I made a gruesome discovery. The chicken carcasses I'd been saving for making stock "some day" created a veritable graveyard of Ziploc-enclosed body bags stacked at the back corner of the freezer. This macabre collection needed to be used up or thrown out, and some Depression-era gene couldn't let me just toss what I felt held potential for putting up stock.

Up to this point, I'd made stock once. Using the soup bones that had amassed with our cow delivery, I followed Julia's recipe in The Way to Cook. The recipe took our biggest pot, two years of soup bones, lots of vegetables, and six precious weekend hours. For my effort, I got two quarts of stock. Lovely stock, but the thought of devoting the next eight weekends to chicken stock wore me out.

Then I found the slow cooker recipe on NourishingDays, and I've since become a stock junkie, using up the chicken bones, as well as a turkey carcass from a turkey breast also found in the freezer. The stock is now frozen (in our newly defrosted and recently restocked freezer), lined up in quart canning jars, and waiting for winter soup making. It's crazy-easy, and because it uses kitchen leftovers, virtually free. I'm tickled pink every time I make stock. Tickled. Pink.

I now keep a gallon Ziploc bag in my main freezer in our kitchen, and all the stock-appropriate scraps from vegetables and herbs go in there: onion skins, half a rosemary stalk, carrot peelings, celery that's gone limp.

Here's how to make it:


Easy-Peasy Slow Cooker Stock

Two chicken carcasses, or whatever will fit in your slow cooker
Water
1 to 2 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
A couple handfuls of frozen vegetable leavin's

Put the chicken carcasses in the slow cooker, and add enough water to cover. Pour in the vinegar, cover, and let it sit, without turning on the slow cooker, for about an hour. This tip from NourishingDays.com lets you extract some of the nutrients from the bones. After an hour, add a couple handfuls of the vegetable droppings you've saved for stock, cover, and turn to low. Leave it alone for 24 hours. After 24 hours, strain through a coffee filter, paper towel, or cheesecloth, and either use the stock in a couple days, or freeze for later.


Used to be I'd buy organic stock at Costco. Six four-cup (e.g.,one quart) boxes are around $10. This recipe in my cooker usually gives me about two quarts. FOR FREE, as I keep reiterating to my long-suffering husband. Just kitchen scraps. And water. I so love this.

Three Quick Recipes, Weekend Edition

We had guests this weekend. The kids were over the moon with extra friends on hand to play with, and Phil and I got to visit with two people we adore and who we don't see nearly enough of. When they left, the house was quiet(er), and it was too hot to cook. Sylvie and I tackled our out-of-control basil and made pesto for the first time ever while Phil and the boys were swimming.

When the men got home, the kids had a quick dinner, during which Tommy complained of a sore throat. He went to a MedCheck that confirmed strep. This left me about 15 minutes between getting his prescription filled and the start of Mad Men to make dinner for the local friends who come over for Don Draper and dinner every Sunday night. Fortunately, the pesto made a delicious pasta dish that whipped up quickly and was consumed in about 10 minutes.

Monday, back to work, Tommy home with Grandma, I didn't think of what to make for dinner until I was driving home. The pantry and pressure cooker let me make dinner in about 10 minutes.

One day I'm looking to get back to lingering over cooking. Not now. I've made peace with that.

Pesto
Fill a food processor with four (packed) cups basil leaves, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup pine nuts, and two peeled garlic cloves. Whir up until it's a smoothish consistency. Then stir in 1/2 cup grated Parmesan and a couple good-sized pinches of course sea salt. If you're not going to use it immediately, put it in the fridge covered by about 1/2 inch olive oil.

Pasta with Pesto, White Beans, and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Start boiling about 8 to 10 ounces pasta like rotini. Meanwhile, heat up 2 Tbsp. olive oil and gently cook 1 minced garlic clove for about 2 minutes. Now throw in 1 can drained cannelini beans, about 1/3 cup pesto, about 1/2 cup white wine, and about 1/2 cup drained sliced sun-dried tomatoes in oil (I buy dried and reconstitute in olive oil). Let this simmer/bubble for about five minutes while it cooks down. By this point, the pasta's done, so drain it, add it to the pan with the tomatoes and pesto, stir it around, grab a bowl, and go check on the progress of Stirling Cooper Draper and Price.

Crazy-Quick Rice and Beans
Dump 1 cup jasmine rice, 1 can coconut milk, 1 can drained black beans, and 1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes into a pressure cooker. Cook on high 7 minutes. I didn't add spices, lest the kids turn up their noses (which they did anyway; sigh), but sprinkled some Adobo seasoning and chili powder when it was done. Despite what the kids insist without trying it, I found it delicious.

Lavender Jelly

Back when we lived in New York, we once spent a weekend in New Jersey at the home of a friend's parents. The friend's mom grew lavender, dried it in little bunches, and used it to make sachets, many of which included a cross-stitched initial for the lucky recipient. I received a gorgeous "C" sachet when I gave my friend's mom a cookbook that we'd recently published. I dreamed of having a garden and the perfectly manicured lavender bushes I saw at their lovely house.

Several years later, I now have unperfectly manicured lavender bushes, and have yet to lovingly dry the lavender into thoughtful sachets for friends and acquaintances. Usually I hack the things down once or twice a summer and throw away what I cut. But this year I decided to try to do something useful with the cuttings. Having really gotten the jam bug this year, I tried my hand at lavender jelly.

Here's all you do. First, come about June, hack the heck out of your bushes. Here's half of what I cut. The other half, I'm ashamed to say, went into the compost. Next year I'll consider sachets...

With a little luck, you'll have a lovely and enthusiastic assistant helping:


Now separate the lavender into little bunches. It's a thrill to know that the buds look like bugs; I was desperately brushing buds off myself, thinking we had a kitchen infestation. But the terror is worth the end result:


You need to tie up the little bunches and let them dry, upside down, not touching each other, for about two weeks. They should also be out of direct sunlight. Our house is short on space, so the living room bookshelves were adorned. Here's some of the harvest in progress:


And here's a close-up of my improvisational tying. Thing is, lavender is so beautiful it stands up to knotted kitchen twine, baby hairbands, and old bread ties. Still, I'm not seeing the staff of Martha Stewart Living paying me a visit anytime soon:

The strings of lavender were secured with a collection of books I trash-picked from behind my college library more than 20 years ago. I have yet to crack one of these, so it's good to know they're getting some use:

In about two weeks, you're ready to remove the buds from the stems. I read lots of advice online advocating removing the buds by putting the bunches in a pillowcase, rolling them around, and removing both the stripped stems and the buds. I tried this method and found it cumbersome and messy. After trial and error, I found the best option was to roll the bunches between my fingers and thumb over a clean piece of paper, and then roll the paper and funnel the buds into a jar for storage.

Making the jelly is really very quick -- about an hour start to finish, including steeping the lavender. Outside of the lavender (which was free and organic), the recipe just requires some pectin, sugar, and lemon juice. The recipe I used is here, and it was so simple I didn't make changes. The recipe says you'll get about five half-pint jars; I got almost six.

I was so tickled with this jelly -- the fact that I could do something useful with what had essentially become a weed. I also absolutely love the taste. It's definitely lavender, but not remotely overpowering. Just soft and delicious. The first batch I made I handed out like a meth addict on the beach: Lavender Jelly for All! So I recently made another batch. I have enough dried lavender buds left for at least two more. I'm seeing some unusual teacher gifts for the holidays...

Happy canning!

When the Front Walk Hands You Too Much Lemon Verbena...

make Lemon Verbena Jelly. Which is what I did this morning.

(Yes, it's been so long since I've posted that I nearly forgot my password.)

This spring I read a thought-provoking book called Radical Homemakers. I'd first seen it referred to in a New York Times article, and since have seen it popping up everywhere. The book, written by radical homemaker Shannon Hayes, looks at the history of homemaking, something shared equally by men and women historically, and how it devolved from making a home to making enough money to buy things we're convinced we need for our home. I have been very taken by the idea of our little household becoming more of a productive than consumptive unit.

Reading this book has dovetailed nicely with my current reading of Gone with the Wind, a mammoth tome my book club inexplicably chose this month. (Thank God for the Kindle, which weighs only 10 ounces, as the print book weighs more than Tommy.) I'm at the point where the South is going down and Scarlet is back at Tara and trying to feed her family. Without what the Yankees left in the garden -- and Scarlet blowing the head off of and robbing a soldier, but we'll forget that part for now -- the family would have starved. It gets a gal thinking.

So, taking baby steps, I've been looking for more ways for us to be self-sustaining and more wisely use what we have.

When I recently read a post from my favorite blogger about making violet jam from the violets peppering her lawn, I started eyeing our little yard. I'd spent a couple weekends earlier pulling up two wheelbarrows full of violet, intent on destroying them, not eating them. Again, gets you thinking.

Several years ago I got a tiny lemon verbena twig. Someone with a house on the way to the CVS we walk to twice a week used to have a perennial exchange; you'd leave little cups of perennials and pick up a couple. Since I picked up the innocent looking styrofoam cup of lemon verbena, it has become a near-nuisance, taking over any time I have my back turned. So last night Sylvie and I went out and picked a bunch, which didn't make a dent in the plants, and this morning I made lemon verbena jam.

I was worried the color might be a little blah, but my disorganized shopping took care of that. I ran out of white sugar and had to include a cup of sucanat sugar, which made the jelly a lovely honey color. Next time, I'll just plan to use a cup of sucanat.

The recipe I used came from Gifts from Your Kitchen. Here's all you do:


Lemon Verbena Jelly

2 packed cups chopped lemon verbena leaves
Large pieces of zest from 1 lemon (I just used a peeler to scrape off big pieces)
2-1/4 cups water
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cups sugar (3 white, 1 sucanat)
3 ounces liquid pectin (Certo)

Combine the lemon verbena, lemon zest and water. Bring to a boil, then cover and lower to a simmer for 15 minutes. Take off the heat and let this sit for several hours; I let it sit overnight because I got sleepy about an hour into it.

Strain the mixture (I did it through a coffee filter) into a big pot. Be sure to squeeze all the liquid from the leaves and zest. Add the sugar and lemon juice, bring to a boil. Add the pectin and bring to another boil; boil for two minutes. Now take off the heat, skim any foam, put in canning jars, and seal. (This link tells how.) If the idea of actually canning makes you woozy, you can just freeze the jars. I don't, since my freezer is full of beef and popsicles, and I love that *THINK* sound the jars make when the lids seal.

This made about five 8-ounce jars.


The taste is really pretty and subtle; I'm thinking scones and chicken glazes.

Lavender bushes that are taking over and I haven't had the heart to cut back, don't think I don't see you...

Yo, Baby!

There's been a lot of domestic shenanigans in our house lately. The angry hiss of the pressure-cooker letting off steam. Sourdough bubbling and fermenting next to the stove. Abandoned wine corks being dressed in little knitted hats and sweaters to make stockpiled ornament gifts for next Christmas. So I'm guessing Phil took it in stride the other day when he came home late from band practice to find a soup pot overturned on a heating pad warming up on the kitchen counter. I was making yogurt.

I ran out of my Light N Fit yogurt this week, and after having made a crack about Gogurts last week in this blog, thought I'd try making my own. It's pretty simple. You bring a quart of milk almost to the boiling point (180 degrees F), and then let it cool to about 112 degrees F. (You need a candy thermometer for this.) The cooling takes the longest time in the process -- maybe 45 minutes to an hour -- but I had a laundry list of things to do that night, so would flutter around changing sheets and folding laundry and just check in on the milk's temperature after each task.

Then you take a small amount of the warmed milk -- maybe 1/3 cup -- and mix it with either 2 Tbsp. yogurt with active cultures or a commercial yogurt starter. I used the starter, but I think either are purported to work equally well. Then you mix this little bit of milk-mixed-with-starter back into with the quart of milk, and pour it into whatever container it will be incubating in. I used a quart canning jar.

Once the milk was in the canning jar, I just screwed on the lid, placed it on heating pad set to low, and overturned a big soup pot on it for extra insulation, a slightly kooky but effective method I read about in The Tightwad Gazette.

After that I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and went to bed. In the morning, there was a quart of yogurt.

The yogurt was runnier than I like, but tastes wonderful and fresh. I've read that you can thicken up the yogurt by adding about 1/2 cup powdered milk to the quart of milk after mixing in the starter, so I'm going to try that next time.

Because there will be a next time.