For all those slicers.. I've been saving mine for a couple weeks in order to pound out a batch of these. I've got 1 jar left from the ones I did last year that I've been saving. Now that 7 more pints are in I'll move the old ones to the fridge and start using em without fear.
6 lbs of 4- to 5-inch pickling cucumbers
8 cups thinly sliced onions (about 3 pounds)
1/2 cup canning or pickling salt
4 cups vinegar (5 percent)
4-1/2 cups sugar 2 tbsp mustard seed –or 3T ground mustard
1-1/2 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 cup pickling lime (optional- for use in variation below for making firmer pickles)
Yield: About 8 pints
Procedure: Wash cucumbers. Cut 1/16-inch off blossom end and discard. Cut into 3/16-inch slices.
Combine cucumbers and onions in a large bowl. Add salt.
Cover with 2 inches crushed or cubed ice. Refrigerate 3 to 4 hours, adding more ice as needed.
Combine remaining ingredients in a large pot. Boil 10 minutes.
Drain and add cucumbers and onions and slowly reheat to boiling.
Fill jars with slices and cooking syrup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.
Adjust lids and process according to the recommendations (15 minutes at a boil) or use low-temperature pasteurization treatment. The following treatment results in a better product texture but must be carefully managed to avoid possible spoilage. Place jars in a canner filled half way with warm (120º to 140ºF) water.
Then, add hot water to a level 1 inch above jars. Heat the water enough to maintain 180 to 185ºF water temperature for 30 minutes. Check with a candy or jelly thermometer to be certain that the water temperature is at least 180ºF during the entire 30 minutes. Temperatures higher than 185ºF may cause unnecessary softening of pickles.
I looooove baba ganoush. Absolutely adore it. I can't think of anything better to do with egg plant, seriously. Sure, eggplant parm is great, what with it's saucy and cheezy goodness, but mmmmmmmmmm baba ganoush.
Here's how we make ours (it's crazy easy):
Take 16oz o eggplant (1 large) and roast it on the grill with some woodchips for the smoke-effect for a while (say 1 hour at about 350-400--you can do the same sans smoke in an oven).
Then, once it's fully collapsed put it in a colander for 30 minutes. This has 2 purposes; (1) it cools, and (2) a bit of water will come out.
Mix: 2T tahinni, 3T lemon juice, 2T parsley (if you have it/want it), 2T olive oil, 1t salt, some fresh ground pepper, and 3 cloves of minced garlic in a bowl.
Open and scrape the eggplant remnants into the same bowl. Make sure to scrape the sides down good, that's where the smokiest bits are.
Mix it all up with a fork and let it sit for 30 minutes.
Eat like a pig-hog with whatever bread-product is about. I just cleared out 90% of a double batch for lunch with some pita. I'd take a picture but neither the empty bag of pita nor the mostly empty container of babaganoush is terribly impressive to look at right now.
Lynn Casper's book How to Eat Supper is amazing. We haven't found anything in there that we don't love. It has one of our favorite pasta dishes. Here's the plan:
1) Take 5 of the tomatoes that you've been hording for 2 weeks of CSA share, slice the tops off, core them and grate them into a bowl.
2) Chop up the whole head of garlic that you got last week and slice up a sweet onion.
3) Pick some of the basil that Kate has been growing in a planter in the yard and chop it up along with a bunch of parsley. Finally, round up 1T (large) of tomato paste, 1/2 c of leftover wine, 2t of cinnamon, 1.5t oregano, 1t of hot pepper flakes or a dried good flavored pepper that you've ground up and 1lb of round pasta (say ziti). Oh, right, and the leftover ricotta salata and some other cheese so that it's about 1-1.5 c.
Boil the pasta for 8 minutes (al dente according to the box) and rinse it in cold water when it's done.
Film a 12inch saute pan with oil and when it's warm throw in the onion, parsley, lots of salt and pepper. Saute the onion until it's a nice brown. Then add the tomato paste, garlic, oregano, pepper, and cinnamon. Cook for 1 min, then the wine, cook for 1 min.
Toss in the tomatoes and let it all cook for 8 minutes then mix in the pasta, cheez and basil. Then eat like a pig-hog!
If you feel compelled to add some meat (chicken or lamb according to the text) do so after you've added the tomatoes, close the lid and let it hang out until it's cooked. If you need more liquid add a bit of the pasta water, it's a great starchy liquid that helps sauces sooooo much.
1 choice of kohlrabi, beets, cabbage, raddichio, escarole, napa cabbage
Do you hear Baba Ganoush in the future? I do!
1 pt BB or 1 qt pyo
1 bell pepper or 1 eggplant
12 ears corn
1/2 lb new potatoes
In the food-bag this week:
Tomato, pint of peas, a bunch of carrots!!!, some greens, zuke, squash & 2 cukes and finally a quart of PYO blues.
So... Kate decided to make a take on tabouli. It had bulgar, cuke, tomato, mint, garbanzos, parsley, mint, pine nuts and some sauce.
I chopped and the like. That's all I know.
What's in the share this week?
2 heads of lettuce, 2 bunches of asian greens, 1 tomato (the last few got grilled and turned into salsa, what's in store for this one?), scallions, 3 zukes/squash (with 1,000,000 more to come?), beets!, and a choice of peas.
Conversation at the pick up says that a bunch of us do the same things with our beets: roast them, chop them, and mix with nuts and crumbly cheese. Eat them with things... Because, well, they're crazy tasty that way.
I'm getting chided for the amount of beet greens in the fridge. And, we need to make turnip-carrot bread. Last year chocolate-beet cake went to work one day and the grad students kept playing, "what's the random food in the cake?" with each other. I'm imagining that game may get played again.
