Jul
5
Canning Red Beets
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[Updated: August 10, 2009: This red beet recipe comes out entirely too sweet and syrupy. See this entry for more information on what I am doing for subsequent cannings.]
For the last three weeks we’ve been receiving red beets in our weekly CSA share. I am indifferent about cooked beets, but one of my favorite foods is pickled beets. I can eat an entire pint jar myself. Since we had received three bunches so far, I had a total of about 22 beets on hand, about equal parts dark red and paler red beets. I am almost certain the darker beets are the Detroit Dark Red variety, and I think the lighter red ones are Chicago Red Hybrid.
I decided to figure out how to can them this evening. If I’d known canning was this easy — I only burnt one of my fingers — I’d have started doing it years ago.
I started by trimming the beets, leaving about an inch and a half of the stalks in place to prevent color bleeding. I put them in our large stock pot and set them to boil, setting a timer for twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes later, the beets were tender to the touch. I removed them from the pot and allowed them to cool for a few minutes.
Peeling beets is simple: just pull off the stems and squeeze the beet from the small end. The rough, outer skin will slip right off. I then chopped the beets into my preferred size: 3/4″ pieces.
The original plan was to can them all in one pint Mason jar, but we had more beets than would fit into one jar, so I separated them into the two varieties.
I then prepared the syrup solution, following a recipe from an old Pennsylvania State Grange cookbook, bringing it to a boil on the stove. (I halved the amounts; it was originally for 1½ peck.)
[Don't use this recipe. See this entry for what went wrong.]
Pickled Beets (syrup)
4 c. sugar
3 c. water
1½ c. vinegar
Next, I added the light-colored beets to the pan and returned it to a boil. I gave it a minute or so to reheat the beets.
The rest was an exercise in speed and precision (and is when I burnt my finger with hot syrup). I removed a jar from the large pot with a pair of tongs, carefully drained the water and sat it on the range. I then picked up a slotted spoon and carefully spooned the beets into the jar. Using a ladle, I covered the beets with syrup, filling the jar to the base of the neck, making sure to cover all of the beets. I then used the tongs again to retrieve a seal and a ring lid from the small saucepan. Using hand towels, I carefully twisted it tight and sat the jar on the counter to cool.
I repeated the above process with the darker beets. It was only when I tried to clean up some of the spilled syrup that I coated my right index finger in the hot, sticky stuff, and now have a blister that hurts like mad.
The finished product: one jar of each variety of beets.
I found it to be easiest to work with three pots: First, the large stock pot (cleaned since the beets were in it and filled with fresh water) for boiling the jars. Second, the medium saucepan for the syrup (recipe above). Finally, the small saucepan, filled with clean water, for the lids and seals for the jars.
Jun
23
Pesto Chicken with Pasta
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We have been getting so many vegetables from the CSA, and I haven’t been sharing what we’re doing with them. Last night’s dinner was one I must share.
We began by knowing we wanted to make a pesto sauce with the fresh basil and fresh garlic scapes we received in Friday’s share. The obvious use was on pasta. And then we needed some protein. Chicken was the obvious choice as well.
Onward to the recipes!
Pesto Chicken with Pasta
1 box pasta shells, or other pasta of choice
1 lb. chicken breast, cut into 1″ cubes
salt
pepper
Pesto sauce (recipe below)
Cook pasta according to directions on the package. Drain and place in large serving bowl.
Coat the bottom of a large skillet with olive oil. Heat to medium-high heat. Sautee the chicken cubes. Once they are thoroughly cooked, remove from pan and set aside.
Combine pasta, sautéed chicken cubes, and pesto sauce in a large serving bowl. Toss to coat the pasta and chicken with the pesto sauce. Serve with a simple side salad.
Pesto sauce
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c. fresh basil, chopped
1/2 c. fresh garlic scapes, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/3 c. pine nuts
salt & pepper to taste
Combine the ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until fully combined. Adjust the ingredients to taste.
We served it with a chilled bottle of Caves Aliança 2008 Vinho Verde, a fruity, slightly bubbly white wine from Portugal.
(Once again, I forgot to take pictures.)
Jun
11
Full Circle Farms CSA Blog
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Our friends at Full Circle Farms have resumed blogging. They’re at fullcirclefarmscsa.blogspot.com.
Jun
3
Locally-Sourced BLTs
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I really need to start taking photos of these meals before we eat them.
Last night we made Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato (BLT) sandwiches for dinner. It was a very “local” meal. The bread was from a local baker who buys her grain from a local farmer and grinds it herself. (If I knew her name, I’d share it, but my mother buys the bread when the lady comes to her office and I’ve never met her myself.) The lettuce came from our CSA through Full Circle Farms. The bacon was from a 4-H hog bought by my wife’s boss at last year’s Grange Fair Junior Livestock Auction. The only non-local ingredient was the tomatoes, which were from a pack of vine-ripened, hydroponically grown tomatoes I picked up at one of our grocery stores.
We also made fried potatoes with some of the spuds we picked up at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market last Tuesday. Those came out surprisingly well. I sliced the potatoes, with skin on, into 1/4″ pieces and fried them in oil in a skillet on the stove.
May
28
Tomatoes in the Ground
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We planted the tomatoes (ten Romas, two Sungold, two Rutgers), two Peppers, and two Basil plants last evening. The Basil plants were included with our first CSA pickup on Tuesday.
We should get enough tomatoes from the Roma plants for a decent batch of sauce. The Rutgers should give us tomatoes for sandwiches throughout the season, and the Sungold should be perfect for just snacking. Hopefully all of the plants will make it, but we definitely had them indoors too long. Next year I’ll do better and won’t start them nearly as early.
We still have eight plants that we didn’t put in the ground because they are too spindly or we just didn’t have the space. We may plant the best ones in large pots on our back porch at the townhouse.
More pictures are available in the Garden 2009 Flickr set.
May
28
First CSA of the Season
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We picked up our first CSA of the season Tuesday evening at the Boalsburg Farmer’s Market on the grounds of the PA Military Museum. As I’ve mentioned previously, we subscribe to the Full Circle Farms Community-Supported Agriculture program. We pay several hundred dollars in the early spring and receive a basket of fresh fruits and vegetables each week throughout the growing season. This first basketful included spinach, mixed seasonal greens, spring onions, rhubarb, and garlic greens. Sabine also had basil plants available and gave us two to plant in our garden.
We’re going to make a few things with this first batch. The rhubarb we will freeze until fresh local strawberries are available, probably in mid-June. I’m planning to make a spinach and garlic greens quiche for dinner tomorrow night. As for the rest, they’ll probably end up in salads this weekend.
A light rain was falling, but we went around to the few stalls that were still open at 5:45 anyway. I don’t know if there were so few vendors because of the rain, the earliness of the season, or because the market closes at 6:00. Most of the stalls just had baked goods or frozen meat, but we did find some nice potatoes. Overall, we were unimpressed and I think I still prefer the Millheim Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.
Aug
25
2008 Centre County Farm Tour
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[Note: This entry is delayed by roughly two weeks, but only because of a scheduling mishap. I'm still working out how to use WordPress for delayed posting. This entry (and the Mt. Nittany Winery review) were lost in the shuffle.]
We began our Farm Tour in Millheim at the Farmer’s Market for our weekly produce shopping. We had not intended to begin the tour so early — before ten o’clock in the morning — but the festivities were clearly underway. Parking was at a premium at the American Legion so we parked along the entrance road. Only a few of the usual vendors were there, with most of the stall space taken up by information tables on local farming and sustainable agriculture. There were also several guitarists playing folk songs. Overall, it was much more crowded than usual. I don’t deal well with large groups of noisy people, so we opted to buy a few items and head home. We had tickets for chicken dinners at the Pleasant Gap American Legion.
I don’t know if this is a Pennsylvania thing, and we didn’t see any of it in Michigan, but pretty much every fire department, church, and youth group will have at least one chicken barbecue fundraiser in the summer. If you wanted to, you could eat chicken every Saturday from May to October. The chicken is often hit or miss, but if the group doing the fundraiser knows what they are doing, it’ll be amazing. Unfortunately, everyone in the area knows which groups do the best chicken, so when those groups have their sale you have to get there early.
After a chicken dinner that couldn’t be beat, we headed off for the farm tour. We began by traveling back over Centre Hall Mountain to Full Circle Farms. We were met by Daisy the sheep, a farm pet who was showing Marie, an exchange student from France, around the farm. Located in Spring Mills, and owned and operated by Sabine and Thomas Carey, this organic farm also has its own Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm Share program. We hope to participate in this next year, and it was nice to see where they grow their food. We were able to see most of their operation, including free-range chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Among the turkeys were several of the somewhat rare Red Bourbon turkeys they raise. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the birds), these are all raised as breeding stock to be sold to other farms and are not available for sale to the general public. (The quest to taste a Red Bourdon continues!)
We then went back to our car and headed to Mount Nittany Vineyard & Winery, which was to be the last stop on our abbreviated tour and is detailed in the next entry.
