6/21/2019 – This salad turned out great and we have made it again several times.
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6/17/2019 – Made this with our corn, blueberries, cucumbers, and jalapenos. Nice crunchy salad. The jalapenos are not distinctive but add a zing that is nice. The feta cheese gives it a Mediterranean tone. Several of the quantities below were increased from the original preparation. This dish was inspired by a recipe here.
Continue readingMary made this as a test for Piper and Olivia during their week with us.
- 1 cup banana
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1/4 scant cup of sugar
- 2 cup vanilla greek yogurt
Blended it to smooth purple stuff. Put into plastic popsicle makers and froze it.
This was our first preserved B&B Pickles made with our cucumbers from our garden. Mary had made some great B&B refrigerator pickles. The preparations below were inspired by the one at Better Homes and Garden here and in our copy of their book. It turned out too sweet and not quite spicy enough.
Continue reading6/10/2019 Blueberry Cream Cheese Cookies with a Lemon Glaze
Continue readingINGREDIENTS
3 to 4 cups coarsely grated zucchini
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup grated mozzarella or cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/2 to 1 cup grated cheese for topping
pizza toppings of choice
INSTRUCTIONS
- Sprinkle grated zucchini with salt, toss, and let sit in a colander for 30 to 45 minutes.
- Squeeze out excess moisture with your hands or a dish towel (try to get the zucchini really dry).
- Combine the zucchini, eggs, flour, cheeses, and basil, and season with salt and pepper.
- Spread the mixture onto a lightly oiled 10-inch round or 9×13-inch baking pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the surface is dry and beginning to brown.
- Broil for 5 minutes, or until the top is firm and lightly browned.
- Remove from oven and spread with tomato sauce. Sprinkle with grated cheese and toppings, if desired.
- Bake for about 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted.
We like this dill-based kraut better than anything we have made. So, time to start experimenting with the ingredients–particularly the dill. This batch contains 25% more dill at 4.6 gm rather than only 3.7. On 7/23/2019, after it has been in the refer for maybe a week, Mary said she liked it best of any we have made.
| Orig. Grams | 25% more dill | |
| Cabbage | 1862.0 | |
| Dried dill at 1.25 gm per 500 gm cabbage | 3.7 | 4.6 |
| 1.7% salt | 31.7 | |
| 2 T lemon juice* | ||
| Garlic – 3 lg cloves |
In truth, the large digital scale only weighs to the nearest gram. We arrived at about 4.6 by adding dill until it read 5 then removed some.
.* This happens to be 1 tbsp of juice per 900 gms of cabbage
5/11/2019 – This was our first Giardiniera made at the farm and we used mostly the white parts of the bunching onions from the garden. We repeated the use of a 6% brine as was successful for us in Houston.
- 4 C Cauliflowerettes
- ~4 C large diameter green onions cut into 1/2″-3/4″ long sections
- ~2 C carrots also cut into 1/2″ long sections with the larger ones sliced into quarters then into sections
- ~ 10 fresh Thyme sprigs about 2″-3″ long
- 6 large toes of garlic cracked and a few broken
- large pinch of red pepper flakes
Packed all into a 1/2-gallon mason jar and pressed and bounced them down. Put a glass weight on them then filled it with the 6% brine made from well water and pickling salt.
6/9/2019 – Our first taste of this ferment was after one month of fermenting in the small pantry. The cauliflowerettes, onions, carrots, and garlic were crunchy without being salty so the 6% brine was just right. Needs more thyme and red pepper flakes or Sambal Oelek.
This was interesting but not likely to be made again unless a different ingredient promised to give it a flavor beyond just the typical ferment and everything tasting the same.
5/5/2019 – We made this with swiss chard and green bunching onions from our garden. We used the white lower parts of the larger onions and only the inner small tender leaves. The red stems of the chard were included.
The white part of the onions was cut into 3/4″ long pieces and the greens closer to 1/2″. As this time we are using only small leaves and cut shorter so hopefully, they do not turn out so chewy.
- Swiss Chard – enough to make layers in the one-quart jar
- Onion – Chopped up about 1 quart lose.
- Garlic – 4 cloves smashed lightly and cut into large pieces.
- Salt – The chard + onions weighted 276 gms. So, for a 6% brine, we added 16.6 gm pickling salt.
- Packed the chard, onions, and garlic in layers in the jar and weighed it to get the weight of the contents; i.e. 276 gm.
- Calculated the salt needed for a 6% brine.
- Filled the packed jar with water then poured off the water into a bowl and mixed in the salt.
- Poured the brine into the jar with the chard+onion+garlic.
- Put in a glass weight, capped it with a fermentation lid and into the small dark pantry.
6/1/2019 – We have eaten both jars and found it interesting in that the chard was NOT mushy. The flavor of the veggies was noticeable over the ferment but not a lot. The 6% salt made the veggies firm but they were not salty. This could be worth trying again and maybe with some more spices and heat.
4/30/2019 – We have tried the LDG Kraut enough to know the first batch is very good. So this is a big batch as we have two small heads and two large heads of cabbage. This batch uses the two small and one of the large heads.
- 2 very small and 1 large head of cabbage – 2,538 gms
- 4 large toes of garlic that weighted 20 gms.
- 5 grams of dill that is equates to 0.00197% of the cabbage
- 2 full tablespoons of fresh lemon juice plus a scant tablespoon.
- 43.6 gm salt that is 1.7% of the cabbage plus garlic plus dill.
This 2,500 gms of cabbage nicely “filled” two 1/2 gallon jars. There was about 1.5″ of headspace. That equates to about 3 lbs. of cabbage to fill a 1/2 gallon jar.