David Smith 9/14/13 David Smith 9/14/13

Plums

Last week a friend who has some plum and apple trees called and asked if we would want to harvest what we could from them, as the trees were producing more than they could use. Of course we said yes! So we drove out with baskets and bags and spent two beautiful Wisconsin mornings in the countryside picking juicy yellow plums and tart organic apples.

One of two laundry baskets full of plums.

I don't know the variety of the smallish apples but I'm planning to go back for more, as they will make some delicious cider and apple wine. We processed the plums by rinsing them well and removing the stones, which was a lengthy, sticky, gooey and enjoyable task. The effort resulted in two 5-gallon pails full of plum pulp and 9 jelly jars of gently sweet plum jelly that I made last night. The plum mash in the pails are in the first stage of fermentation on their way to becoming what will hopefully be some fantastic plum wine and plum brandy or eau de vie.

David Smith 9/13/13 David Smith 9/13/13

Wild Grapes

Quick post showing some wild grapes (aka riverbank grapes or frost grapes) we harvested yesterday. We'll be posting more in the next week or so on the grape harvest and wine & jelly making sessions that result.

Approximately 14 gallons worth of wild grapes

David Smith 9/7/13 David Smith 9/7/13

Tomato Paste

The fantastic harvest of tomatoes we're getting this year has me finding more ways to use and preserve them. Yesterday I made tomato paste, which is one of those pantry items that has so many uses in the kitchen. It's a very simple though somewhat time consuming process, but it doesn't require your complete attention throughout, as the stove does most of the work for you. Making your own tomato paste also lets you customize it to your own liking. This recipe makes a paste that is thick and rich, with a lovely smoky quality.

Ingredients:

tomatoes, 5 to 7 pounds
olive oil, about ½ cup
sea or kosher salt
garlic, 3 or 4 cloves
onion, ½ of a medium sized
pimenton (hot smoked paprika), 2 tsp
thyme, 6 or 7 sprigs, just the leaves
cracked black pepper, 1 tsp

1) Seed and rough chop the tomatoes. I save all of the seeds and jelly juice, add a little salt and pepper and drink it as a breakfast tomato juice.

2) Add the olive oil to a deep pot and heat at medium high. Add the seeded tomatoes and a bit of salt, stir to mix and thoroughly coat the tomatoes. Let it cook until the tomatoes soften into mush, stirring every so often. Then turn the heat down to simmer and let the mixture reduce dramatically, until it is thick and perhaps 1/5 of its original volume. Give it a stir fairly often to keep the bottom from burning and sticking. This will take a few hours.

3) Mince and press the garlic cloves into a paste. Dice the ½ onion super-fine - you could use a food processor if you have a small one. I just diced mine repeatedly until I practically had an onion paste. Finely dice the thyme leaves until you get something that's almost a powder. Add the garlic, onion and thyme to the tomato puree. Add the pimenton, black pepper, and salt if you think it needs more. Mix well.

4) There will be tomato skins in the puree. You could have removed those in the usual way earlier in the process (briefly scalding the tomatoes, ice bath and peeling prior to cooking) but I hate to waste anything that has flavor, so I pureed everything in a food processor.

5) Spread the tomato mixture onto a baking sheet and spread it around. Place into a 300° oven for around an hour or so. Give the paste a good stirring with a rubber spatula. Place it back in until enough liquid evaporates so that it's think and brick red in color, maybe a ½-hour more, depending on how much you reduced it while on the stove-top.

Let it cool and jar it up. It should last in your fridge for quite a while, at least a month, unless you use it all before then, which will probably be the case because this stuff is just so good. Use the tomato paste as a pizza sauce, bruschetta topping, sandwich spread (we made chicken sandwiches with it), add to soups, mix with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic for a fantastic dressing, add to your homemade barbecue sauce, spread it on an omelet in the morning, You could even use it as a homemade ice cream flavoring (don't knock it til you try it!). This paste is sweet, salty and smoky, and it smells as good as it tastes. After making it we ran a few errands and upon walking into the house we exclaimed, "Mmmm, this place smells like pizza joint!"

David Smith 9/6/13 David Smith 9/6/13

Nocino update

Today I took the second step in making nocino, the walnut flavored liqueur I started over a month ago. The original July 23 blogpost is here. Today I filtered the walnuts and lemon peel from the alcohol, made the spiced simple syrup, and added it to the tea-stained alcohol. I'll let it sit for at least another 40 or more days before sampling.

Nocino, step II, strained, spiced simple syrup added.

David Smith 9/5/13 David Smith 9/5/13

The death of a duck

This morning when I went out to feed and release the ducks from the coop I found that our brown hen had died overnight. I pretty much expected to find her as such. She'd been declining steadily over the past couple weeks, until yesterday when she could not muster the energy to even waddle away from me when I reached down to pick her up. She felt fragile, weighing, it seemed, half as much as she did just two or three weeks earlier.

The girls had named her Chloe, but I mostly just referred to her and the others according to their coloring. The black duck, the brown duck, the male or drake. Chloe was the brown duck. I tried to find the reason for her illness online, but none of them really nailed all of her symptoms. Until one person in a poultry chat forum mentioned that ducks can suffer from depression and even die from it. So I looked that up as well, and while there wasn't a whole lot of information on duck depression what I did find made sense, especially considering the sequence of events that initiated and lead to her decline.

Chloe, the brown duck on the right. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

She had always been something of a third wheel in the trio of ducks we had, obsequious in her manner to the drake and the black female. When the black hen became broody and spent more than a month glued to her clutch of eggs, the brown hen suddenly had full and unhindered access to the drake, and the two of them made an inseparable pair, although, truth be told, the drake seemed to simply accept her constant presence rather than embrace it. She followed him everywhere, often chattering behind him with that constant head and neck bobbing motion that ducks often use when communicating whatever it is they're communicating.

A good egg layer...the one on the left, that is.

The black hen hatched three ducklings at the end of her brood period. We kept and raised them separately from the adult ducks while the broody black hen continued to sit on another clutch of eggs for another month. When we finally released the three ducklings, now much larger and able to fend for themselves, into the run with the adults, the dynamic between all of the ducks changed instantly and dramatically.

The drake immediately became aggressive and somewhat obsessed with the new kids on the block, so much so that we had to separate him for fear that he'd harm them. We kept him in the coop while the rest were outside, and vice versa. We noticed that when he became aggressive to the ducklings Chloe would mimic his aggressiveness toward them as well. When he was in the coop Chloe would lay outside the coop near him while the ducklings and the black hen, who had nicely rebonded with her three offspring, tooled happily around the yard, picking at bugs and leaves or just sleeping contentedly in a small group.

Clearly the brown duck, Chloe, was not happy with the new situation. The drake was not interested in her at all, the black hen and the ducklings had their own little family group, and during the times when the whole flock was together she seemed even more ignored by everyone. So, I really think she became depressed. She ate less, was less chatty, and seemed to sulk, inasmuch as a duck can be said to sulk. She became weaker and weaker, would lie down off to the side of the others and finally would not even come out from the coop when the rest were released into the yard. I'm convinced she expired from depression, which makes sense to me as ducks are a very social animal. Never get only a single duck, they say; it's cruel.

So, after I found her this morning I dug a grave next to a lilac tree in the yard, tucked her bill under her wing and laid her into the hole. Animals dying is of course a part of the experience of having animals. I'm no stranger to dead animals, be they farm animals or animals I harvest from the wild. Sometimes they die quietly (like a duck expiring alone overnight), sometimes violently (ducklings get torn apart by raccoons and chickens get mass murdered by weasels all the time). It's not anything to get real worked up over. You just accept it and do your best to prevent it where and when you can. Mostly you just try to give the animals in your charge a good life, and a good death when that time comes too. What always bothers me most is if there's any suffering attached to the death. The brown duck was suffering at the end, and that bothered me, particularly as I didn't know what to do about it. Hopefully I'm smarter about it now. But she did have a very good life up until then, and I'm content about that.

David Smith 9/1/13 David Smith 9/1/13

Sausage stuffed squash blossoms

Several days ago I pulled a rather large squash vine from the garden that was showing powdery mildew infestation. It was actually one-half of a plant that had an equally long vine trailing in the opposite direction, and since it's mate looked unblemished and had healthy squash attached I didn't feel like it was a great loss to cut and remove this section of the plant. I pulled the 7-foot vine into the driveway to let the sun bake and wilt it before disposing. A couple days later it still looked green and pliant. Even more interestingly, more than a dozen of the previously undeveloped flower heads had fully developed and opened as the severed appendage lay on the cement in the hot sun.

Rather than allow the bright yellow flowers to go to waste I clipped them and have used them as pizza toppings and stuffed and fried them for breakfast. I've loved the idea and image of stuffed squash blossoms ever since I first saw them in a Italian cookbook back in the 1980s. Even though I've made them many times since then they still strike me as exotic and picturesque.

This morning we made a stuffing of sausage, mushrooms, onions and cheese. The only cheese I had on hand was some ricotta, which is ok but not ideal for stuffing blossoms that are to be fried in oil. You have to fry quickly, lest the ricotta turn liquidy. I'd prefer something like a good parmesan or even a chewy pepperjack, but you work with what you have at hand. So I pre-cooked the sausage with the mushrooms and onions, let it cool and then mixed with the ricotta before stuffing the flowers.

Precooking sausage, mushrooms and onion. Not really necessary if you have a nice firm cheese to add to the mix.

Ready to turn after just a couple minutes.

Once the flowers are stuffed, dust with flour, roll in a beaten egg and then re-roll in flour spiced with salt, pepper and paprika. Fry quickly in heated oil, flipping with tongs after only a minute or two. Add fresh tomatoes, a cool, beautiful morning, and imagine you're in Italy.

What a great way to enjoy breakfast on this first day of September.

David Smith 8/29/13 David Smith 8/29/13

Beautiful heirloom tomatoes, courtesy of dirt, sunshine, rain & air.

Heirloom Tomato Salad.

How wonderful is it that nature provides a standard of beauty and flavor that no chef or artist can match? And it's there for us to simply accept.

David Smith 8/26/13 David Smith 8/26/13

Stuffed Grilled Zucchini

Simple heirloom tomato plates; drizzle with balsamic, olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper. Badaboom badabing! I added this image to the post simply because I like it; relevant zucchini images to follow!

This year we eschewed growing the common, green zucchini such as you see in most grocery stores. Instead we opted for the more ornate costata romanesco variety, with its variegated coloring and ribbed skin. It's a lovely, mild zucchini that seems to be making an appearance at farmers markets everywhere.

Like most any zucchini, costata romanesco is prolific. Thus far this year we've harvested quite a number from the four plants we have vining their way through our garden. I try to pick the fruits when they are no larger than around 8" in length, although I inevitably find one that had escaped my previous day's rounds, hidden in among the big green leaves, and that has managed to grow to a hefty size seemingly overnight. Those big bruisers are still good eating, especially when seasoned and cooked on the grill.

Last night we hosted a small dinner for our dear friends Paul and Talane, who spend a month or so each summer here in Wisconsin from their permanent home in the UK. They're heading back to England this week, so we wanted to spend one more day before their departure chatting, eating and making our own grand plans to visit England sometime soon. I tried to make dinner a mostly Wisconsin-and-garden-centric affair, with homemade pizza of mushrooms and venison (recipe for that one coming tomorrow), stuffed grilled zucchini, mixed garden salad and heirloom tomatoes. We also had some great Wisconsin beer on hand with Leinenkugel's and Three Sheeps Brewery in the fridge, although we all ended up drinking vodka tonics throughout the evening.

"Stuffed" zucchini ready to hit the grill.

Here's my recipe for the Stuffed Grilled Zucchini, although to be fair, the zucchini isn't really "stuffed" so much as it's topped.

Ingredients:

zucchini, cut in half length-wise, and again in half cross-wise if they're big.
olive oil
bacon lardons
garlic cloves, 3 or 4, finely diced
shredded parmesan or parmegiano-reggiano
granny smith apple, diced small
serrano pepper, diced
onion, diced small
sea salt and cracked pepper
mozzarella cheese

1) Fire up your grill and get it up to around 350°-375°.

2) Scrape a shallow groove or channel down each halved zucchini with a spoon. Place the removed zucchini flesh into a shallow bowl for mixing with the other ingredients.

3) Oil and season the zucchinis all over, top to bottom, both sides.

4) Add the bacon lardons, garlic, parmesan, apple, serrano pepper, onion and S&P to the bowl and mix everything together by loosely tossing it around with your hands.

5) Place a goodly amount of the stuffing into the hollowed-out channels of the zucchinis.

6) Place the halved, "stuffed" zucchinis on the upper grill rack if your grill has one of those (like mine does in the pic) or to the outside of the hottest area of the grill. You'll want to grill these with indirect heat vs direct heat, long enough to soften the interior and melt and ever-so-slightly brown the cheesy stuffing on top. It should take around 15-20 minutes, give or take, with a closed lid on the grill...depending on how big the zucchini are and how often you open the lid to check and move them around as necessary so they don't burn.

7) When they look about done, sprinkle shredded mozzarella on top of each half, and let it melt and brown slightly to pull everything together and cement the stuffing to the zucchinis as you plate them; maybe another 2 or 3 minutes.

Now then, I have a friend who, when I shared an image of the grilled zucchini on my facebook page, said she'd like to make them tonight. But she's a vegetarian and so the bacon will have to go (shedding small tear as I write this). I'd suggest substituting something like tart cherries and/or another mildly hot pepper to funk up the flavor of the stuffing a bit. Cherries and zucchini are a great combination. But really just about any combination of ingredients that you like will make a great stuffing.

David Smith 8/23/13 David Smith 8/23/13

Ramp seed capers

Ramps (or wild leeks, as they are often called) have bolted and been going to seed for some time now. Forest floors that several weeks ago were covered with a lush carpet of their elegantly shaped leaves now display a chaotic peppering of skinny stalks topped with green clusters of heart-shaped seed heads. In just a few more weeks those seed heads, now soft and succulent, will crack open to reveal seeds that have hardened into small black BBs.

But right now those seeds have yet to fully develop, are juicy and crunchy to the bite, and have a much softer though still unmistakable flavor and aroma of garlic and onion. They're also abundant enough to make collecting an easy job. We harvested about a quart's worth in no time at all.

Developing ramp seeds make an interesting "caper" of sorts, not unlike the homemade capers you might make using nasturtium seeds. One of the more tedious aspects of pickling ramp seeds as capers is removing the little ½-inch stem that the seed head is attached to, if you do in fact choose to remove it at all. The stems are only mildly fibrous and are easy to chew, so I leave them on some of the seeds I pickle, as they don't bother me. But I do snip them off, with scissors, of enough seeds to make at least one or two jars that are stem-free should I wish to use the capers for dishes I might make if we have company.

Ingredients:

red wine vinegar
water, equal in volume to the vinegar
salt, ⅓-½ cup for every 2 cups vinegar
sugar, ½-⅔ cup for every 2 cups vinegar
bay leaves, 1 per jar

You can see I'm a little iffy on the amounts of salt and sugar. Adjust to your preference, depending on whether you like it saltier or sweeter.

1) Rinse the seeds in a few changes of cold water, picking out any chaff, bugs or other undesirable elements. Cut of the stems from the heads if you so desire. Chew a few with and without the stems to help you decide.

2) Bring the pickling brine ingredients to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.

3) Fill your jars with the seeds and pour the hot brine over them. Keep a bay leaf in each jar. Seal, date and place in the fridge. Or, if you want to preserve them for a longer period of time outside of the refrigerator you may preserve them in a hot water bath as you would any vegetable.

Use ramp seed capers anyway you normally would with an actual caper. I added a handful to my omelet this morning.

David Smith 8/21/13 David Smith 8/21/13

Wild Grapes

Found a good number of wild grapes today, in a location with grape vines I have occasionally checked in past years but had never found any significant amount of fruit before now. Other fruit, like apples, seem to be doing really well this summer, so maybe it's just one of those extra full and lush years. I'll be back to check these periodically now.