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….

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

in the soup

 Chase Snyder visited us in Eugene a couple weeks ago–it was super fun. We cooked and played and ate constantly.

We got a quarter head of grass-fed beef this summer, so we decided to finally try making Pho.

fried oysters from Eugene Fisherman's Market

lunch at Sweet Basil

Off the Waffle dinner

Chase

Dirk

Lydia

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.

Lydia has been making permutations on this freeform tart since the crust recipe came to us from Food & Wine.

The original recipe used apples, but we’ve been finding some nice off-season pears that go into the crust deliciously.  Baking time is a bit off–the pears are juicier than apples, so it’s a trick to get them to the soft-but-not-yet -soggy place.

The most recent iteration happened over brunch last weekend, and was outstandingly marvelous.  The crust recipe is simple, and works perfectly in this form.

For the filling, Lyd substituted orange zest for the lemon, and it went well.

We’re thinking about adapting the crust to fit something savory, maybe spinach?

When Winter blows into Nepal and cold fog covers everything every couple of days, straw thatched huts start popping up like mushrooms on a yak pie.
What goes on inside them?  Mushrooms!

There is an epic amount of mushroom growing in Nepal. It’s a choice winter crop for people who cultivate rice, mustard and maize at other times of year. The mushroom shanties are built up and broken down on a seasonal basis, on top of fields that are laying fallow.

My host family here went out and bought some mushrooms from a local grower recently, and made an amazing mushroom curry:

It’s been nice this summer/fall to be close enough to my parents’ house to filch plenty of goods from their garden.  We’ve had some weeks of eating almost exclusively from our foraging there.  Now that it’s getting cold, though, it seemed appropriate to document what will probably be our last harvest.

There is still a greenhouse full of citrus trees that should give us lemons and limes all winter–pie, anyone?

Our friend Chase is in Nepal this year, and anyone who hasn’t already should check out his sick blog on food and life in Kathmandu.

Tomato juice, pizza sauce, salsa, blackberry jam, plum jam, applesauce, apple cider, green beans, sauerkraut, peaches.

Bring it on, apocalypse.