I found these two brand new crocks sitting by the Down to Earth dumpster today with a “Free” sign on them. The small one was stuck inside the larger, so I guess they gave up on prying them apart. Score. That’s like $50 worth of crocks right there, believe it.
Anyway, I feel led now toward some ambitious crock-ing. We have these two, plus one other 3 gallon. Suggestions? We’ve already done all the sauerkraut we’ll need….
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sungold, currant, german green
It’s been a massive job to process the tomato insurgency bubbling out of the garden these past few weeks. We’ve canned a few rounds of juice, and sauce, and used some in canning vegetable soup. The bulk of the enemy force is Cherokee Purple and Viva Italia romas, which are easily dispatched into juice and sauce. The problem is coming from the dense jungle of currant tomatoes and sungolds.
No matter how many we pull out, more spring up in their place, and there are so few ways to effectively deal with them once they’re captured. Last weekend we made a tactical strike to extract as many small tomatoes as possible. They were detained on the kitchen counter for several days, and are being processed as time allows. Many of the larger tomatoes have served time in sandwiches or on pizza.
drying, day one
We froze the currants whole, something we’ve never tried before so we’ll see. The sungolds have been outside drying for the past couple of days, and are so far really sweet. Definitely interested in more ideas for how to use/preserve these things.
drying, day two
Posted by in Food
in the soup
Chase Snyder visited us in Eugene a couple weeks ago–it was super fun. We cooked and played and ate constantly.
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Black, black seedless sorbet
After a long and brutal battle against the blackberry infestation in our yard, we ceased hostilities for some brief fraternization. Over three weekends we picked around 100 lbs of berries, and flipped them into some dank sorbet, 5 gallons of wine, and a doomsday supply of jam and canned juice.
Sorbet is one of the most instantly gratifying things to do with an abundance of berries, but seeds are always a turn off. We’ve been using a victorio strainer for juicing our tomatos, and found a berry screen accessory that pulls out seeds and skins, leaving super dark syrupy juice.
The juicing
Drips
We use a very simple recipe for sorbet that can be modified for most any fruit. The base is a very thick sugar syrup. The corn syrup helps keep ice crystals from forming and gives a super smooth sorbet that can be kept in the freezer indefinitely without becoming icy.
Sugar syrup:
1 1/2 c. water
3 c. sugar
1/4 c. light corn syrup
Heat in a saucepan until the sugars are thoroughly disolved, then cool and chill before using.
For blackberry sorbet we use one part blackberry juice, one part sugar syrup and 1/2 part water, freeze it in any ice cream maker.
We use the same proportions for most berries. It can be easily adjusted for sweeter or tarter fruits, just by adding more or less sugar syrup.
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