August 19, 2014 · 2:01 pm

Picnic Baskets

There has been a lot of packing going on at our house of late.

A few weeks ago I watched as our son R. simultaneously packed for both camp and college since he was scheduled to go straight from one to the other. Seeing how neatly he lay everything out on his bed, along with how well-labeled his boxes were, it looked like he had everything he would need to start school with. He’d even registered for classes and ordered his textbooks before we took him up to camp. This past Saturday we dropped him off at Simon’s Rock. Turns out he’d done a great job of packing since the only things he needed were a longer internet cable (the connection was on his roommate’s side of the room) and some coffee. Not bad for a seventeen-year-old.

Isabelle and Russell in his dorm room.

This week his sister has been scrambling to get packed for her return to UNH. The good news is she’s a sophomore and has a better sense of what she does and doesn’t need at college. Still, when I peek in her room this morning there seems to be a good many piles which have yet to make it into boxes or bags. It’s not that she hasn’t packed anything – there are bags of bedding, as well as several games for those necessary study breaks organized in a corner of the living room. I also caught a glimpse of a lengthy to-do list she is clearly working her way through. By the time we pack the car on Saturday I am sure everything will be sorted out.

Picnic baskets

House sale picnic basket picked up for $3.50

Unlike my two offspring I am not packing to go off to college, but I have been thinking about what to pack in when I go to visit them this fall. The other day I got out my collection of picnic baskets in anticipation of some upcoming Mommy Road Trips. One of the delights of having both kids go to school so close to home is that it’s easy to pop over (or down) for a day. While there are dozens of great restaurants in both New Haven and Great Barrington, sometimes the best thing to do is bring a little slice of home in a picnic basket and go off exploring.

Briefcase style picnic baskets

I have a small metal briefcase style picnic basket just big enough to hold a pair of plates, cutlery, glasses, napkins, and cups – the food clearly has to come in it’s own basket.
Vintage metal picnic basket

There are also mends on a few of the baskets. Ones which haven’t held up as well as one might hope, or which have been nibbled on by a very naughty mouse.

Mended picnic basket handle

Most of my picnic baskets are either hand-me-downs or from estate sales. In a pinch I have been known to throw together a picnic into a market basket or beach bag. Cold stuff usually ends up in a cooler, since most of our destinations are arrived at by car. Truth be told almost anything can suffice as a picnic basket – even a bag from the grocery store – as long as you don’t forget the essential tools. Here’s my list:

  • Small knife and cutting board
  • Corkscrew/bottle opener
  • Clothespins
  • Blanket or plastic table cover
  •  Rubber stoppered bottle
  • Plastic  or enameled tin plates/bowls & utensils
  • Two gallon plastic bag (for bringing home dirty dishes)
  • Paper towels or cloth napkins
  • Water

Picnic basket essentials

So four days until our eldest returns to college, then I can start planning some picnics.

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July 30, 2014 · 6:53 am

Farmer’s Market Gifts

Bunches and bunches of carrots

Tomatoes at the farmer's market

I got to the Amherst Farmer’s Market early on Saturday, before everyone had finished setting up their booths, which gave me time to meander the rows of choices as I nibbled a turkish beef roll. I picked up bags of yellow, green and fava beans for a 7 bean salad (which lasts all of 7 minutes at my house with my teenage locusts family). The bags of baby kale could not be resisted, especially after hearing about the upcoming world-wide kale shortage. I added a chunk of local goat feta and some baskets of organic raspberries so that once I was home I could throw together a lunchtime salad with a few toasted pecans and some balsamic vinaigrette.

Huge selection of greens at the farmer's market.

Blueberries, apricots, raspberries and black raspberries

Glorious eggplants and beets

This really is a fabulous time of year in New England to be cruising the farmer’s markets because you never know what you will find. One of the things I contemplated buying was my very own baby fig tree, which came from a cutting off a fig tree that had been brought over from Abruzzi, Italy in 1920. I loved the idea of owning a fruit tree whose great, great, great grandparents had come from Italy. However tempting it was to own this bit of culinary history I decided to wait and let the dust settle from both our kids zooming off to college in the next few weeks before I took on the care and feeding of a baby tree. It turns out that this fig tree needs a very specific organic diet. And who knows – a needy fig tree might be the perfect thing to combat empty nest symptom.

Fig tree with provenance

After I said goodbye to the fig trees and headed back to the car with my basket loaded full of goodies I decided to make one last purchase. A large bunch of red onions for my onion loving husband. To my surprise a free zucchini came with every purchase. Ha! That’s one way to deal with a row or two of rogue zucchini – give them away to all your customers. I guess it’s better than trying to sneak one into every car parked within a four block radius of the market. So I paid for my onions, picked out a zucchini and headed home to make Zucchini Pancakes.

Free zucchini with purchase

When life gives you excess zucchini there are many recipes you can sneak them into. I have a fondness for zucchini pancakes. If you are dealing with the monster zucchini I would suggest you shred from the outside towards the middle until I get to the inner quarter or third of the vegetable where the seeds are. That part can be mealy so you may want to compost it, it’s up to you. I also hand grate my zucchini rather than zap it through a food processor because I feel you can produce longer shreds by hand, which in turn make lacier pancakes. Obviously you choose what you prefer.

Zucchini pancake prep

Zucchini Pancakes

1 humongous zucchini or 4 regular size or 10-12 small ones

1/2 – 1 minced onion

handful of minced parsley

2-3 eggs

Tabasco sauce to taste

Salt and Pepper to taste

1/3 – 2/3 cup of flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Shred the zucchini and gently toss with salt then place in a colander so they weep and lose some of their excess liquid. After 15-30 minutes squeeze dry with your hands (if you want to go nuts use a towel, but it really isn’t necessary). Toss the zucchini shreds into a bowl and add onion, parsley, eggs, tabasco sauce and  pepper. Stir together then add some flour, but go light at first.

While you are doing this heat up your fry pan with some oil. You want it hot, but not smoking. Then make one zucchini pancake. You want to test for salt and to see if there is enough flour. You, the cook, must sacrifice yourself by being the official taste tester. Sauté the pancake until golden brown on one side, flip and repeat. Then see if your seasonings are right. If they are you can proceed to making more pancakes. If not adjust and make one more tester.

In our family we eat as the pancakes are made. If you want to be a bit more civilized you can turn the oven on to low and store the pancakes in there as you cook them and then serve all together. If you do it this you may want to cover them lightly with a piece of tin foil so they don’t dry out. We put a variety of toppings on our zucchini pancakes – salsa, more hot sauce, applesauce, tomatoes and onions. You decide what works best for you.

Zucchini pancakes

 

Flowers at the farmer's market

Tell me about what you’ve found at your local farmer’s market that has delighted you~

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July 10, 2014 · 11:00 am

Strawberry Kisses Part 3

Misty morning

At three am I woke to the smell of strawberry air. The gentle, soft essence of strawberries was coming from the kitchen. Not the fake, nasty chemical version you find in lip balms, candles or air fresheners, which in my opinion doesn’t have the remotest connection to a true strawberry, but rather the air in my house was filled with scent of real strawberries because I was making Strawberry Chips, and they take all night to make. Our neighbor Joyce had loaned us her dehydrator and I was trying my hand at preserving strawberries in a slightly different way than the strawberry fruit leather I made in my last post.

Strawberries

 

I’d eaten dehydrated and dried fruit before, but I had never actually encountered a dehydrator in person. They’re huge! Most of my kitchen equipment is the size of a baby, while this sucker was the size of a large toddler. And Joyce’s dehydrator is jacked up like the kitchen equivalent of a monster truck with so many extra tiers it may require a special license to operate. I ended up setting the dehydrator on a card table rather than on my kitchen counter since I wasn’t sure how much clearance the machine would need.

Stacking the dehydrator with strawberries

Before you can turn it on you have to get the food into similar sizes. Dehydrators do the work of sucking most of the moisture out of whatever food you put in them, but they don’t prep it for you. That’s just a lot of old-fashioned slicing and dicing. My husband told me Joyce cuts her fruit with a mandoline to get even slices (which theoretically would then have similar drying times), which makes total sense because Joyce is a physicist and does things scientifically. I chose to go rogue and cut my strawberries by hand. I’m such a wild thing. She also recommended a longer drying time at a lower temperature to preserve more of the vitamins. I did follow that suggestion, which is why I woke up at three am smelling strawberry air.

Strawberries in dehydrator

Before you decide to borrow your neighbor’s dehydrator I need to tell you that strawberry chips are the fruit equivalent of crack cocaine. You will become addicted to them. The good news is there are no withdrawal symptoms, well until strawberry season ends and you realize there are only strawberries from California or Florida to dehydrate and you go nuts and decide to plow under your entire lawn so you can plant every inch of your yard in strawberries. Not that you actually do it, but the lack of more local berries to dehydrate makes you seriously consider the option for a minute or two. I’m just warning you.

Dehydrated strawberries

Strawberry Chips

There is not a whole lot of recipe here. Take 2-4 quarts of strawberries, depending on how many tiers your dehydrator has, and after removing the stems slice them into 1/4 inch pieces. On my second batch I threw the outer slices into a bag which went into the freezer for smoothies, since the outer pieces seemed to dehydrate at a different rate than the inner pieces. You could slice horizontally or vertically – your choice depending on if you want circles or strawberry shapes, I chose the latter. Dehydrate on the low end of the spectrum, 105 – 115ºF for 12-14 hours depending on how juicy your strawberries are. When cool, store in small batches in baggies with the air sucked out.

If you’d rather not go to all the effort of sucking the moisture out of your strawberries you can enjoy them the old fashioned way which my friend Jane Lear did with her husband in this post. Or you can do what Shawn and I did last week when the kids were out one evening with friends. We just opened a chilled bottle of Prosecco and ate a bowl of strawberries au naturel as we sipped our bubbly.

Strawberries and champagne

 

Here are links for Strawberry Kisses Part 1 and Strawberry Kisses Part 2.

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July 7, 2014 · 3:52 pm

Strawberry Kisses part 2

Strawberry rollup lineup

The remnants of tropical storm Arthur, formerly known as Hurricane Arthur, put a damper on the beginning of the July 4th holiday weekend strawberry picking. Strangely nobody wants to pick their own strawberries during a thunderstorm. Where is their sense of adventure? Oh, they’re more concerned with safety. Once the storm blew through the skies cleared up and the harvest resumed. Inspired by my tinkering with some strawberry fruit leather last week Strawberry Boy and Strawberry Girl both came home with brimming boxes of strawberries and I went back to the kitchen.

Strawberry Boy

I love the idea of fruit leather since it is the distilled essence of fruit. Strawberries, a spoonful of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice, boiled down to a thick paste and then spread onto baking sheets and popped in a very low oven while more of the moisture evaporates. As if you could concentrate a strawberry’s soul. What you buy in the store is like a third cousin twice removed compared with what you can make at home. The two big differences between home-made and commercially made are no artificial preservatives and tons less sugar. Without all those preservatives I wondered how long the fruit leather would last, but then I watched the kids snorffle up strip after strip and realized it wasn’t going to last long enough to bother worrying about it. So I got on with making more and if you still have strawberries in your area I suggest you try these as well.

Whizzing up strawberry goo

A couple of things I noticed as I made batch after batch

  • You want to make sure the strawberry goo you cook down isn’t too thick or thin
  • If you make a 12″ x 18″ jelly roll pan it takes a really long time for the center to dry
  • Cutting the fruit leather is very sticky so try using a pizza wheel or really good pair of  kitchen scissors

Strawberry goo

Strawberry Fruit Leather

4 cups pureed strawberries (about a quart and a half)

4-6 Tablespoons sugar

1-3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

You can puree the strawberries in a blender, food processor or juice machine. The idea is to have absolutely no lumps. If you want to make seedless fruit leather strain the strawberry juice through a very fine sieve at this point. We didn’t bother. Pour the strawberry juice into a wide saucepan or jelly pot and add the sugar and lemon juice to taste. Simmer 40-55 minutes, stirring occasionally until the mixture has reduced to approximately 2 cups or half of whatever you started with*. While the juice is cooking down prepare a jelly roll pan with a silpat mat or piece of parchment paper. If you cook the strawberry juice so that it is too thick you won’t be able to spread it evenly on the jelly roll pan. If you make it too thin it will run to the edges of the silpat mat or parchment paper and seep underneath. When you get the right ratio you will be able to tilt the pan and have the strawberry goo flow to cover the mat, stopping short of the edges by about 1/2″.

Pop the jelly roll pan into a preheated oven set to its lowest setting (mine went down to 170°F) somewhere between 150-200°F. Bake for 3-6 hours depending on your oven temperature until the entire surface of the fruit leather is dry enough to touch without any sticking to your fingers. Every so often turn the pan front to back  since most ovens have hot spots.

Let cool, transfer fruit leather to a piece of parchment (if you baked it on a silpat mat) then cut into strips. Roll up parchment and fruit strips into little logs and secure with a piece of tape or a rubber band. Store in a bag in the fridge.

 

Too thick and just right

The top batch was too thick to spread evenly. The bottom batch was just right.

Strawberry fruit leather

 

Strawberry sunshine

 

Strawberry roll ups

* If you stop here you will have an amazing topping for yoghurt or ice cream. You could also drizzle this thickened strawberry goo over pancakes instead of maple syrup.

You can find links for other recipes that go well with strawberries by clicking here. If you want to dehydrate strawberries you can read about that here.

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July 3, 2014 · 4:32 pm

Strawberry Kisses part 1

Straw for the strawberry plants

I think 2014 will be the summer of perspective for my family, me included. One teenager has her driver’s license, but not her own car which means we have to share my car every day. I’m thinking of setting up a calendar just for the Suburu. It also means we’re all very aware the price of gas is hovering around $4/gallon. The flip side of Belle having her license is I don’t have to chauffeur her brother Russell (who only has his permit) around very much, which after sixteen years of driving them around is kind of nice. Then there’s the reality check that if you are juggling summer school, work, homework and trips to the gym you will have approximately zero time for socializing. Or the dismal reality that ER tables are not meant for people who are over 6′ 3″ (don’t ask, I’ll just say it was not at a visit to the ER and nothing is broken just badly bruised). My favorite sliver of family summer perspective came after both kids received their first paycheck. It became clear how how little money you actually make when you work for minimum wage. These aren’t bad lessons, they’re just life lessons.

Strawberries resting on straw

The good news is that both teens have jobs at a local strawberry farm. The better news is that with the cooler-than-usual spring weather strawberry season is running a few weeks late. So despite it being early July there are still two more weeks of strawberry season to go! Plus we now have two strawberry experts in the family. Did you know strawberries can get sunburnt? I had no idea but I’m not sharing my sunscreen. They have more vitamin C than an orange which is a factoid the citrus growers don’t share with you. Plus there are roughly 200 seeds on each strawberry. Who knew? Or more to the point, who counted?

Strawberries for sale

My favorite statistic was hearing what  people plan to do with the strawberries they pick on this farm. Ninety-eight percent of them say they plan to make either strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam or freeze them. So I decided I would spend the remaining weeks of strawberry season coming up with some other things to do with strawberries, though all three of those methods are great ways to use the season’s bounty.

Strawberry Girll
There is just one little problem. I keep eating whatever I make with strawberries before I can reach for my camera. They are just that good. Grammy Caldwell would approve because these strawberries are red all the way through, not just on the outside. Since I am hanging my head in shame for my strawberry hoovering tendencies I am going to instead direct you to the half dozen tried-and-true recipes featuring strawberries below.

  1. Crêpes with strawberries & a sprinkle of sugar or honey
  2. Macerated strawberries on Angel Food Cake
  3. Strawberry juice mixed with stewed rhubarb juice for astrawberry-rhubarb Quarantine Cocktail
  4. Jessica’s Silver Dollar Pancakes topped with strawberries
  5. Fruit Smoothies with bananas, strawberries and orange juice
  6. Chocolate cake with strawberries, raspberry jam and chocolate ganache

Flat of strawberries

 

I’ll try to grab my camera sooner when strawberry boy and strawberry girl bring home their next batch of just picked berries.

You can read about the strawberry fruit leather I made here and the strawberry chips here.

 

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