Category Archives: techniques

Wild Purple Scones

29 August 2010 by local kitchen

Because woman cannot live on jam alone: wild & crazy purple scones for your Sunday morning. Made with wild black raspberries from my backyard, these delicious scones get their wild purple color (and flavor!) from slightly smushed black raspberries in the dough. Much like many of the area farms, we’ve had a terrible wild berry crop this year; I only saw a few black raspberries on the bushes, the wineberries came and went in a flash, and I haven’t harvested […]

Categories: baking, berries, breads, breakfast, citrus, milk, whole wheat flour, wild foods, year round • Tags: baking, berries, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, whole grain breads

Peach Jam with Caramelized Onion & Basil

27 August 2010 by local kitchen

I was thinking of saving this recipe for the September Can Jam but; who am I kidding? We all know that I couldn’t wait that long. And it gives me the perfect excuse (as if I needed one) to dig in to peaches, plums and nectarines one more time before the season ends. This is another Michel Nischan preserve (he of Strawberry Rhubarb & Caramelized Onion Jam, Pickled Sweet Peppers and Blueberry, Lemon & Chilé Jam fame) and while, once again, there were […]

Categories: basil, canning, jams, peaches, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Blue Leather

26 August 2010 by local kitchen

No, it’s not the sequel to Blue Velvet (but a girl can dream, right?). As promised, the recipe for sweet & sour blueberry leather, using the leftover pulp from infusing Blueberry-Basil Vinegar. Being congenitally incapable of throwing anything out, I clearly was not going to just discard perfectly good blueberries and basil simply because they had been sitting in vinegar in my garage for a month. But let’s use the term “recipe” in the loosest way possible, folks: basically, once […]

Categories: basil, berries, preserving, snack, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce

25 August 2010 by local kitchen

In honor of the Great Tomato Can Jam Round-Up of 2010, today we bring you Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce. Let me warn you from the get-go: this is not a beginning canner’s recipe. The ratio of non-acidic to acidic ingredients is critical for canning safety, as are strict adherence to the methods (slicing, dicing & measuring) and processing instructions. Also, I’ve tweaked, more than a little bit, a published recipe (Italian-Style Tomato Sauce from the Ball Complete) in order to add […]

Categories: 100% local, basil, canning, carrot, preserving, sauces, scallions, summer, tomatoes, zucchini • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, tomatoes

Peach Preserves with Forsythia & Chile

24 August 2010 by local kitchen

I know it’s Tuesday morning and all, but I need you to do something for me: run, don’t walk, to your nearest peach orchard or farm stand, grab a bag of peaches (before they disappear), and make this preserve. This, my friends, could very well be the perfect peach preserve: sweet yet tangy, beautiful texture of plump slices of fruit in a just-barely-set jam, just the right floral note from the forsythia and the sweet heat finish of fiery pequin peppers […]

Categories: breakfast, canning, dessert, peaches, preserves, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Peach Salsa for Canning, Revisited

23 August 2010 by local kitchen

Ironically enough, the day we went peach picking a couple of weeks ago at Fishkill Farm, we came home, had an impromptu barbecue with our friend Alison, and opened a jar of last year’s peach salsa (rather than boiling a big pot of water, peeling peaches, and making a fresh batch). While it is still quite tasty after a year on the shelf, the salsa has definitely mellowed (it seemed just a bit too sweet and not nearly spicy enough) and […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cilantro, hot chile peppers, peaches, preserving, salsa, summer, tomatoes • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Blueberry-Basil Vinegar

20 August 2010 by local kitchen

Can you believe that blueberries are still going? Well, they are, for today at least: Jones Family Farms (in Shelton, CT) has announced today is the last day for blueberry picking at the farm. And what better way to preserve your late-season haul than an infused vinegar? (Um… what?) OK, I’ll admit, there are a million lovely things to do with blueberries, including, but not limited to: pancakes, scones, tarts, (a blueberry-peach pie that I am making today for a […]

Categories: 100% local, basil, berries, condiments, preserving, quick & easy, summer, vinegar • Tags: condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Can Jam: Roasted Tomato & Chipotle Salsa

18 August 2010 by local kitchen

Tomatoes are amazing, aren’t they? Red, pink, orange, yellow… black, purple, green, striped, or volunteer, I love ’em all. And despite their precarious perch on the cusp of safe acidity levels for water-bath canning, there are a million lovely ways to preserve them: whole or crushed, basic pureé or fresh-herb sauce, fire-roasted or fiery wing sauce. And of course: salsa. I’ve preserved a few salsas in my time; it’s one of those recipes you have to be careful with, because […]

Categories: Can Jam, canning, hot chile peppers, preserving, salsa, summer, tomatoes • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Pirate Peaches

17 August 2010 by local kitchen

An oldie but a goodie, I’ve made this peach rum sauce for three years running and it always disappears quickly. This is the first year, however, that I’ve used The Kraken rum, yet – how could I resist? Not only does it conjure up images of sandy beaches, swaying palms, and swoon-worthy pirates, it happens to be delicious. Added to peaches and three kinds of unrefined sugar? It’s delectable. Enjoy it on ice cream, over pound cake or cheesecake. Have […]

Categories: canning, dessert, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Locavirgin: Spicy Garlic Sandwich Spears

13 August 2010 by local kitchen

We interrupt the onslaught of peach preserving recipes to bring you something completely different: pickles! OK, so not completely different. Beef tartare au gratin would be completely different (not to mention hilarious). But I don’t eat beef (Sorry, Julia) and what I have is a kitchen overflowing with summer produce. So: pickles it is. The first time I made pickles was two summers ago, which was also the first time I grew a garden. I had a very prolific cucumber vine, […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cucumber, garlic, Locavirgin, pickles, preserving, quick & easy, summer • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Procrastinaty Peach Butter

12 August 2010 by local kitchen

I’ve noticed a bizarre phenomenon with peaches this year: although my peaches were quite firm, some rock hard, when I picked them (as I mentioned in the last post), they began to brown and rot very quickly, many of them in less than 24 hours. Wondering if this could be specific to the peaches at Fishkill Farm, I tweeted about it and instantly heard back from several tweeps in the Northeast saying the same exact thing: rock to rot in a […]

Categories: breakfast, canning, dessert, peaches, preserving, spreads, summer • Tags: breakfast, canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Peach Chocolate Dessert Sauce

10 August 2010 by local kitchen

Peach chocolate sauce, the first of many peach preserves to come, rolled out of the canner this morning at far-too-early o’clock. In case you missed the discussion on Twitter, Tai, Alison & I went peach picking at Fishkill Farms on Sunday. It was hot & sunny, then it rained, then it was hot & sunny again. We picked, and picked, and then picked some more: 40 lbs of peaches later (and 2 quarts of nectarines, and 3 quarts of Italian plums, […]

Categories: canning, chocolate, dessert, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Roasted Golden Plums with Honey & Sage

9 August 2010 by local kitchen

Did you feel it? Last weekend, that nip in the air that signals autumn is on the way? It’s a distant memory now, as I contemplate preserving 40 lbs of peaches in my humid, 88-degree kitchen, but over the weekend there was a definite autumnal crispness to the night air, and temps dipped into the 50’s for the first time in a long while. I love all the seasons, but I’ve always loved Fall the best (and not just because I’m […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, condiments, plums, preserves, preserving, roasting, sage, summer • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Red Raspberry & Dark Chocolate Refrigerator Jam

5 August 2010 by local kitchen

“So what convinced you to sacrifice good chocolate to a jam?” Nadine said. I had to laugh. My friend Nadine is a certifed chocoholic, as am I, and like most chocoholics, tends to like her chocolate in its purest form: chocolate. Whether it be melted into a cake center, heated as a drink, or a sweet square morsel after dinner, good quality chocolate is so purely indulgent, in and of itself, that it seems the ultimate in lily gilding to gussy […]

Categories: berries, chocolate, dessert, jams, preserving, summer, year round • Tags: berries, chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Jamaican Jerk Sauce

3 August 2010 by local kitchen

Last week, when I whined about discussed my scallion overload with y’all (you know I’ve been reading The Bloggess too much when I bust out the y’alls), my friend Weber King suggested that I make jerk sauce, as it uses up a lot of scallions. (Y’all should go visit his blog; maybe that would convince him to update it more than once every 3 months). Hands up if you knew that jerk sauce was made primarily of scallions: I had no […]

Categories: condiments, grill, hot chile peppers, preserving, sauces, scallions, summer, thyme, year round • Tags: condiments, cooking, food, grilling, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes