Swiss Chard and Chickpea Curry

The original recipe is here. We made a few modifications because our goal was to use stuff in the fridge and pantry. We may have tweaked the recipe more, but honestly it's been so long that we don't really remember how...

Ingredients:
1-14 oz can chickpeas
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bunch swiss chard
1-14 oz can diced tomatoes
Garlic ginger paste (I didn't add it, so no idea how much.)
1 tsp yellow curry powder
1 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Salt, to taste
1/2 tsp olive oil

Directions:
1. Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add chopped onions, tumeric, coriander, curry, and stir fry on medium heat for 1-2 minutes, periodically stirring.
2. Add diced tomatoes and juice, kale, and chickpeas and juice and cover with a lid. Cook 3-5 minutes.
3. Add garlic ginger paste.
4. Serve by it self or as a side dish.

Apple Mint and Jalepeno Syrups

So I went to Ace yesterday to get more canning jars because they are apparently the only brick and mortar stores left on earth with a decent canning section. The trouble is, they have a decent canning section. So I came home with a copy of the Ball Blue Book and ambitions to see what else I could use up out of the fridge.

 

It was all downhill from there. The mint jelly I was trying to make tastes more like apple and less like mint than I'd like, and the jalepeno jelly started with the lesson that our blender turns peppers and apple cider vinegar into foam instead of puree. I know I followed the first recipe correctly and messed up on the liquid-to-powder substitution of the second; neither one set. I even opened them, cooked in more pectin, and recanned. Not much better. They taste good though, especially the sweet-and-sour flavor of the jalepeno stuff. I think they'll be good on pancakes, so I'm can't imagine they'll be wasted. I'm just going to call them syrups because it's all about marketing.

 

Taking a photo didn't go too well either, but trust me, they look pretty cool in person. Both of these jellies usually receive green food coloring, especially if made commercially, so you might be surprised to know that this is what mint and jalepeno jellies syrups, respectively, look like naturally.

 

Wild Blackberry Jam

 What does one do when one has pounds of highly perishable wild blackberries that need to be used? I can think of a few things. Personally, I'm a big fan of jam and so decided to give canning a shot.

I used this recipe by MizzNezz because of the large number of high ratings, and after doing some reading about lower sugar canning and discovering that pectin does not come in packets around here, this is what I used:

 

5 c. crushed blackberries (almost 50 oz. of loose berries to get that)

7c. 6c. sugar

1 packet 3 Tbsp. low-sugar powdered pectin

 

I wanted a mixture of jar sizes, so I ended up with (5) 8 oz jars, (7) 4 oz jars, and maybe 1-2 oz of leftover in a jar in the fridge. That means the equivalent of (8.5) 8 oz jars instead of the 7 the the recipe told me to expect. Thank goodness I planned for extra jars.

 

 

Of couse we sampled a little bit of the leftover, and there will be some tweaking next time. Wild berries have a lot of seeds, straining blackberry jam results in jam on the ceiling (family story there), so we need to figure out how to deal with the former without producing the latter. We aren't big fans of really sweet stuff, so I'll probably try 5 cups of sugar next time instead of the 6 cups. Overall it went well, set up nicely, etc. We plan to make more in the next day or two.

Wild Blackberries

 

We were lucky enough to discover that we have wild blackberries in the back yard. We let them grow wherever they wanted this year, and it's kind of payed off. When Clay brought in the first handful of berries I didn't think much of it; in the face of birds and such we've never had good luck with getting a share of our fruit. But a few days later it occured to me to check on them, and after filling the first tub I had to go in and get another. This photo is what I brought in the first day, and since I'm very curious about what the total yield will be I've been weighing each batch since. I've found that to balance the time it takes to comb through looking for berries (and amount of wounds from thorns) with the amount of berries received for that time, it's optimal to go out every 2-3 days. This week was been crazy so the last pick was 4 days, and that's definately too long because significantly more berries past their prime and/or fermenting in place.

 

So this is what we've gotten:

Day 1: 24 oz

Day 2: 10 oz

Day 3: 4 oz (apparently not a lot of berries ripen on rainier, overcast days)

Day 4: 10.95 oz

Day 7: 30.4 oz

Day 11: 35.4 oz

 

Total: 114.75 oz, or a little over 7#

 

Considering what that would cost to buy somewhere I feel very lucky indeed.

 

 

CSA Week 8

This week:

 

beets 26.3 oz

tomatoes 24.3 oz

chard 11.3 oz

kale 11.1 oz

mint 2.35 oz

cabbage 9.9 oz

carrots 26.05 oz

onions 21.65 oz

cucumbers 14.6 oz

 

  

CSA Week 6/7

It hasn't been a cooperative growing season for the farm, so we actually had a week off from deliveries. That was fine with us as keeping up with everything has been "a challenge." We took advantage of the week off to try catching up, and although we didn't make a lot of progress it was still nice to have the break.

 

This week we're back in the thick of it, and so we have:

 

kale 11.25 oz

onions 33.7 oz

bok choy 10.95 oz

green beans 23 oz

chard 8.65 oz

carrots 28.8 oz

cucumber 5.2 oz

basil 4.15 oz

tomatoes 22.65 oz

 

Ale Smith IPA

A good quality,  middle of the road ipa. The balance is nice,  bitter then slightly malty.