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It's that time of year again. My gosh this summer just flew by!
The garden is exploding with veggies that we can't eat fast enough fresh, so, into the water bath canner they go!
Canning is easier than you think and there's info all over the net on the how to's.
The best thing to do is get some good recipes from friends & family and can away.
I find having canning parties makes it more fun.
It makes the prep, wait, and clean up go sooo much faster.
Tomatoes are the easiest for me. If I have time, I make my sauce and then water process it all finished. My own homemade sauce, ready to go. If I don't have time, I just can the plain tomatoes.
Happy canning!
Crunchy Kosher Dill Pickles:
3c. water
3c. white vinegar
2tbsp. pickling salt
3qts. firm cucumbers 3-4 inches long
3 tbsp. dill seed ( or 9 heads fresh dill)
1 tbsp. pickling spice
1 clove garlic per jar
12 peppercorns
In large kettle combine water, vinegar and salt. Bring to a boil.
Meanwhile, pack cucumbers into hot sterilized jars. Add 1tbsp. dill seed or fresh dill, 1tsp. pickling spice, 1 clove garlic, and 4 peppercorns into each jar. Cover with boiling vinegar mix, leave 1/2 inch headspace. Wipe rims. Adjust caps.
Process in boiling water bath 20 minutes.
Let cool .....
Squash, pumpkin, even day lilly flowers. All can be eaten and are sooo good stuffed!
First you very gently clean the flowers an remove the stamen, pat dry.
The filling amount can vary depending on size & number of blossoms.
For five to six blossoms, 2 cups ricotta cheese, chopped fresh basil and or flat leaf parsley. Sorry, I eye ball this. A little salt, to taste. Mix that up and set aside.
Prepare the egg, flour station. Two large eggs beaten in a vessel. Flour, enough for the blossoms, lightly seasoned with salt & pepper.
Heat enough oil in pan for frying. Choose an oil that you like. I actually use olive oil. I know they say not to fry in it but, I don't bring up the oil too hot, especially with flowers, hello, delicate !
To stuff the flowers, have a pastry bag or a plastic bag ready. Plastic bag: snip off one corner.
Turn the sides of the bag down a bit and fill with mixture, squeeze it down until it just starts to come out.
Gently coax the blossom tops to open a bit and fill, being careful not to overfill.
Dip in egg, then in flour, fry until light golden brown.
I know, a lot of work, but they are good and only once a year!
Enjoy!
She's here! Beautiful Elena Anne Fattibene arrived on August the 1st at 7:02PM.
Weighing in at 6lbs. 1oz. don't wrap her I'll eat her here :o)
Mom & Dad did a great job and everyone is home now.
You will most likely soon get sick of me drooling over her and posting every picture I can. Too bad!
So, you know there has to be a back story to asparagus pizza, right? Well, I hadn't thought about dinner ahead of time and it was Monday night, so I wasn't feeling very festive. Everything we had was frozen, and I was in the mood for vegetarian anyway. My tummy being what it has lately, I knew I couldn't handle rice and beans. So I started looking around in the fridge and there was the pizza dough that Andy had brought home a few days before. It was still good! Now for some mozzarella. There was none. Crap, now what? Think, think, think. OK, there was a little goat gouda left, a smidge of cream cheese, and some shaved parmesan. Great, now for some pizza worthy veggies! Let's see, I had carrots, kale, red cabbage potatoes and onions. Bleh. What's in the freezer? Rhubarb, cauliflower, edemame, peas, and asparagus! Bingo, asparagus wins. I don't know about you all, but I need a little acidity with all that cheese, so I found me a box of crushed tomatoes. Yes, I said box. I prefer things in glass or those boxes that the Italian tomatoes come in. I'm a little worried about all the stuff about the toxins from cans leaching into my tomatoes. Anyway, I made a quick little marninara with the tomatoes, some olive oil, garlic & herbs (basil, oregano) cooked it for about two minutes then put the pizza together. First, I got the dough all round and put it onto parchment paper while heating the oven (with the pizza pan in it) to 500. Then I smushed the smidge of cream cheese over the dough. Then I poured my instant sauce over that. Next came the goat gouda which I had sliced as thinly as possible. By this time the asparagus had defrosted enough to chop in to bite sized pieces and I spread them around. I topped it with the shaved parm and into the oven she went! 25 minutes or so later, Andy and I were devouring this deliciousness! You should come join us one of these days :o)
So, here's how it happened. We had been trying to figure out what to call the place since before we moved here. I figured the mountain would "tell" us what we should call it.
Well, it didn't. I tried things in German, in Norwegian, in English, nothing seemed to fit. One of the things that Andrew and I have always said to each other was how quiet, how peaceful it is up here. But I was stuck on what it was we were doing up here. Teaching Yoga and Meditation, Massage, Cooking/Canning, Organic Gardening, Painting, Blah blah blah.
So anyway, last Saturday night, (5/19/12) we were sitting on the front porch in our rocking chairs, listening to the birds singing, the cows down valley mooing, the occasional whinny from one of the horses on the nearby farm and enjoying the warm breezes, when , for the eight millionth time, we looked at each other and said: " God I love it here, it's so peaceful". And, "we have to come up with a good name for our Mountain!" That's when Andrew sat up a little straighter and said "you know, my grandfather in northern Norway had a cabin that he called "Stille" I got pretty excited because it sounded the same as the German word "stille" which means "silent, calm, peaceful" So we looked it up in both dictionarys and not only did it have the same meaning, it had the same spelling!
From now on we will refer to the mountain as "Stille".
3 Large eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1-1/3 cups water (room temp)
1 cup lentil flour
1 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup GF oat flour
1/4 cup GF oats
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup corn starch
2 tsp xanthan gum
3 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup non fat dry milk powder
2-1/4 active dry yeast
Combine wet ingredients plus 1 Tbsp brown sugar; pour into bread machine.
Sprinkle dry yeast over wet ingredients.
Measure dry ingredients and mix well to blend. Add to bread machine.
Set to normal/white cycle and start machine.
After mixing action has begun, help unmixed ingredients into the dough with a rubber spatula, keeping to the top and sides to prevent interference with the paddle.
Do not skip this part!
This is a dense bread that slices easily and is best sliced very thin.
Don't get too excited, we don't have Bees yet! But it is part of the plan. We think Bees are so important to the ecology and we get to have honey.
