Monday, August 12, 2013

Bread & Butter Pickles

This weekend I got to spend my time doing some canning. First I made my tomato chutney on Saturday. Then on Sunday I made some super delicious bread and butter pickles. 

Here are the ingredients. 
2 1/2 lbs kirby cucumbers, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch rounds - I bought mine at our local Farmers Market in Old Town Eureka.  http://www.humfarm.org/

2 cups thinkly sliced red onions
1/3 cup pickling salt
2 cups apples cider vinegar
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons corriander seeds
1 teaspoon celery seeds
2 jalapenos pricked with a tooth pick. 

Toss together cucumbers, onions and salt in a large bowl.  Add 3 cups of ice; set aside for 2 hours.  Drain' rinse well and drain again. 



Combine vinegar and the remaning ingredients with 1 cup water in a large pot; bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.  Add the cucumbers and onions and return to a boil.

Ladle hot vegetables and pickling liquid into 4 clean, sterilized hot pint jars, dividing equally.  Press the vegetables to completely submerge in the liquid, leaving 1/2 inch headroom.  Wipe the rims, seal and process a hot water bath for 10 minutes. 
The jarred result!  I can't wait to try these in a couple of weeks - and I need to mail off a jar to my niece!  I hope you enjoy them Julie!




Sunday, August 4, 2013

I'm BAAAAAAKKK!

I have so neglected my blog!  But not to worry, I have not stopped cooking and messing up my kitchen.  I've just been enjoying having a partner to do it with and life has been on high speed with all of the changes happening for us.  That has left no time to sit and tell you about my kitchen adventures.  Today I decided to make a little time to share.  It's going to be a fun filled cooking sorta' day, so I'm going to do my best to tell you all about it.

First thing today I got up at 5 am.  Yeah!  Me!  Up at 5 am on a Sunday!  My poor hubby had to go to work this morning and be there at 6 am.  So I got up and made him a fried egg sandwich.  I barely had one eye open, but I think I whipped up a pretty good sandwich.  I remember thinking, "wow!  I'm getting pretty good at this cooking thing when I can fry up a perfect egg in my sleep."  I was not awake enough to get a picture, but I did get a bite, and it was pretty delicious.  I fried up a couple slices of bacon, toasted some bread, spread some mayo and mustard on the bread.  Then I thinly sliced an heirloom tomato from the farmers market and pulled some pieces of romaine lettuce, also from the farmers market.  I fried up a fresh egg from one of my co-workers chickens and got it just cooked enough to not run down your face, but the yolk was still moist.  I put this all together and presented it to my love.  He wasn't very awake either, but I think he liked it.  He ate, grabbed his lunch and headed out the door and I promptly plopped my ass back in bed!

Nine am came around and I figured I should get up, even though I could have slept 'till noon.  My little Cece was already up playing some kind of people eating shark game and displaying a growling stomach.  In fact, we had a little duet of growling stomachs so I got off my bum and headed into the kitchen.  I grabbed the blueberries we had bought last week and desperately need to use up.  I'm still wondering why we bought blueberries when we have two blueberry bushes out front.  Hmmm. Well, anyway....

I decided to whip up some blueberry scones for the kids. 


2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
5 tbsp butter, cold, cut in chunks
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup heavy cream, plus more for bushing the scones

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.  cut the butter to coat the pieces with flour.  They tell you to use forks to do this, but I find it easiest to just use your hands.  The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.  Gently fold in the blueberries into the batter.  Make a well in the center and pour in the cream.  Fold everything together just to incorporate.  Don't overwork the dough.

Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 inches by 3 inches by 1 1/4 inches.  Cut the rectangle in 1/2 then each half in half again leaving you with 4 three inch squares.  Cut each square diagonally.  Place on a cookie sheet and brush with cream.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Until brown.  Let the scones cool while you make the lemon glaze.

Lemon glaze:
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tbsp butter
the zest of one lemon.

Mix the lemon juice and sugar and blend until the sugar is dissolved.  Place the butter and lemon zest in the bowl and microwave for 30 second and stir.  Microwave another 30 seconds and stir.  Keep going until the butter is melted and incorporated.  Whisk the mixture to get rid of any lumps.  Drizzle the glaze over the top of the scones.  Let them sit a minute before serving.

And this is what we ended up eating this morning:
They were nummy!  Now off to clean up the kitchen so I can mess it up again several more times today.
Happy Sunday!