Tag: preserving

Asian Vegetable Soup

20 August 2011 by local kitchen

I didn’t plan on posting this one: I mean, how many vegetable soup recipes do you really need? But Tai loved it so much, and continued to rave after his second bowl, that I decided I should write it down so that I can make it again sometime. Which was the whole raison d’être of the blog in the first place: so that when Tai asks me next summer, “Remember that Asian soup you made a while back? Can we […]

Categories: cabbage, carrot, green beans, soup, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Blackberry Lemon Preserves

18 August 2011 by local kitchen

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve headed north to meet Julia, with munchkin in tow, at Greig Farm in Red Hook, NY to pick blackberries. It’s a large farm, spread out across rolling hills, and a beautiful one: acres and acres of blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and apples, as far as the eye can see. We’ve been lucky enough to pick bright & sunny days, yet there is always a breeze on the blackberry hill: it’s really a pleasant place to […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, citrus, preserves, preserving, summer • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Mustard in Jars

17 August 2011 by local kitchen

I’m honored to be a guest blogger on Food in Jars this week while Marisa enjoys a well-deserved vacation with her husband Scott. My post is up today on FiJ, and is a basic mustard tutorial, with recipes for Classic Dijon and Bourbon Brown Sugar mustards. If you haven’t yet taken the mustard plunge, this post has everything you need to get started – surf on over and check it out. If you are already rocking the homemade mustard, scope out this mustard […]

Categories: mustard • Tags: canning, food in jars, homemade, mustard, preserving

Marinated Green Bell Peppers

13 August 2011 by local kitchen

Yes, you read that correctly: marinated green bell peppers. Because you know what comes before red bell peppers? Green bell peppers. All peppers start out green: it takes time (and sunshine, love, devotion and a near-pathological desire to fend off every bug in creation) for the peppers to turn red. A lot of time. Like we are lucky if we see local red bell peppers before September. The one (1!) I managed to grow two years ago was still out […]

Categories: bell pepper, canning, condiments, preserving, summer • Tags: berries, canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Rhubarb Blueberry Pie Filling

4 August 2011 by local kitchen

Last week, when I was valiantly trying to Jenga yet another head of kale into the fridge, I reached the familiar summer breaking point: “something’s got to go.” Turns out the most likely culprit was a partially-snacked-on quart of blueberries from the farmer’s market and a couple of pounds of rhubarb, found, and pounced upon in joy, just a few days before at Holbrook Farm. Did you know that a well-managed rhubarb plot can keep growing right into August, and sometimes into […]

Categories: berries, canning, pie, preserving, summer • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes, rhubarb, summer

10-Minute Sour Cherry Bam!

31 July 2011 by local kitchen

You would think I would learn. (You would be wrong.) After my last run-in with shriveled fingertip sour cherries, I decided to make another attempt at cherry jam, this time just a straight-up sour cherry (a little bit of lemon, a little bit of sugar) and a minimal maceration, overnight, banking on the fact that it was the week-long maceration that caused the color-leach in my last sour cherry preserving attempt. Well, don’t take that piece of preserving wisdom to […]

Categories: 100% local, cherries, jams, preserves, preserving, quick & easy, summer • Tags: cherries, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Blueberry Vodka

22 July 2011 by local kitchen

Another beat-the-heat recipe, this one in the fruit + booze category (always a winner): blueberry vodka. Ice, ice (baby) cold blueberry vodka. This one couldn’t be easier and is a perfect way to preserve those blueberries you picked last weekend but haven’t been able to bear turning on the stove to jam. Easy-peasy: dump them in some vodka and call it a day. Some of the quickest, and tastiest, preserving you’ll ever do. My “recipe” was inspired by Sean of Punk […]

Categories: berries, drink, preserving, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: berries, booze, food, infusions, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Sour Cherry, Balsamic and Vanilla: Syrup & Leather

18 July 2011 by local kitchen

The all-too-short cherry season was even shorter in the Hudson Valley this year: many farms lost most, if not all, of their entire crop due to a rainy Spring preventing pollination (bees do not buzz about doing their pollinating duties in the rain), and causing fruit to drop and split. I managed to squeeze some cherry picking into a busy 4th of July weekend but I traveled far afield to do so, to Belltown Hill Orchards in Glastonbury, CT (thanks to @fixmeasnack on […]

Categories: cherries, drying, preserving, snack, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes, summer

Strawberry Jam with Mint, Basil & Habanero

10 July 2011 by local kitchen

It’s cruel to do this to you, I know, since strawberries are long gone in most parts of America. But I still have some fresh, local strawberries in the fridge (albeit they are starting to look a little peaky), and they are just coming into full season for our friends in the North. If you are one of the lucky ones that still has fresh strawberries in your neighborhood, or one of the industrious ones who put-up a few pounds in […]

Categories: basil, berries, canning, hot chile peppers, jams, mint, preserving • Tags: berries, canning, chiles, food, local, preserving, recipes, strawberries

Strawberry: Whole Berry Preserves

4 July 2011 by local kitchen

I know that most of you are beyond strawberry season and are thinking about blueberries, raspberries and even peaches; however, life got in the way of my strawberry ambitions this year and I just managed to squeak some picking into the tail end of the New York season. Because we were at the very end of the season, we ended up picking a lot of teeny, tiny strawberries: larger ones were already picked, or had rotted on the ground, but […]

Categories: berries, canning, preserves, preserving, spring, summer • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, pasta, preserving, recipes, strawberries

Cranberry Orange Rhubarb Popsicles

7 June 2011 by local kitchen

The weather forecast is calling for back-to-back 95+ degree days here in New York: a perfect time to use up my leftover rhubarb pulp to make a frosty treat. With some frozen Cape Cod cranberries, a bit of orange juice and sugar for sweetener and a touch of tequila (because, why not?) to keep everything toothsomely delicious, I have to say that these are pretty darn good. I don’t have popsicle molds, nor Dixie cups, nor a craft-cabinet stocked with […]

Categories: citrus, cranberries, rhubarb, snack, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes, snacks, summer

Rhubarb & Black Currant Jam

30 May 2011 by local kitchen

I feel like some tout in a seedy doorway, at once bored and alert, tossing out my banter with practiced skill, repetitious yet intriguing, tacky yet titillating. Except, instead of GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!, the neon sign over my head blinks RHUBARB! RHUBARB! RHUBARB! “Come on and get your rhubarb heAH, just one taste my lovlies, just one taste, it’s sweet, it’s sour, it’s tangy and tingly, step right up now, step right up!” Maybe I should just throw in the towel on […]

Categories: canning, currants, jams, preserving, rhubarb, spring, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, currants, food, jam, local, preserving, quince, recipes, rhubarb

Rhubarbaritas

27 May 2011 by local kitchen

From me to you: an easy-peasy preserving recipe, a fancy cocktail for holiday-weekend fun, and a way to enjoy rhubarb long after it has disappeared from the market and the garden. It’s been a busy, busy time here in the last few weeks. Tai has been working overtime, trying to make up for all the lost outdoor time during our incredibly rainy April, and I’ve been drowning in a particularly knotty data analysis with a deadline of earlier this week. Yesterday, […]

Categories: canning, condiments, preserving, rhubarb, spring, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cocktails, cooking, drinks, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

Strawberry Pinot Noir Preserves

16 May 2011 by local kitchen

The Great Freezer Clean-Out 2011 continues: this time with a Ferber-esque strawberry preserve, made with Pennsylvania pinot noir from Sand Castle Winery. I unearthed a giant bag full of strawberries from last June in my freezer assessment of last week. Half the bag went to one of my favorite strawberry recipes, strawberry rhubarb & caramelized onion jam; for the remaining 2 pounds, I wanted to do something new. I poked through Mes Confitures to see what she may have in […]

Categories: berries, canning, preserves, preserving, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, jam, local, preserving, recipes, spring, strawberries

Recipe Index: Preserves

6 May 2011 by local kitchen

Happy Friday, all! You may notice, in the top navigation menu, a new page called “recipes.” I’ve been working on a recipe index for some time now, in my spare moments between cooking, longing for Spring, researching cholesterol, and inventing new ways to screw up marmalade. (Oh, and that job that actually pays the bills. There’s that, too.) But I’m happy to announce that at least one piece of the puzzle is complete: a single page with every preserving recipe on the […]

Categories: preserving • Tags: preserving, recipes