Dilly Long Beans

Well, hi there! It's been a while! I have been cooking and creating, but haven't had the brain power to sit down and post. The good news is, I have several yummy things to share in the next week or so.

If you have never been to a farmers' market, I so urge you to go asap. Produce at the farmers' market is good, fresh, local and not expensive at all. There is a persistent myth that healthy food has to be expensive. I think this is true only if you are buying specialty items. Regular old fruit and veg are cheapity-cheap. Because of the large variety available at the farmers' market, I can try new things and if I need some help, the farmer is right there to give me pointers. They want me to enjoy their produce!

Here is a dramatic price comparison for you:

Lemon grass:
Bel Air - A tiny clam shell with one stalk cut into thirds, $2.99
Safeway - $6.99 per pound (it looked horrible too!)
SF Market in Little Saigon - 99 Cents per bunch, which has about 4 stalks
Sunday farmers' market - A big handful for a buck! (plus the nice lady shoved mint in my bag because I had to wait a minute)

I make iced tea with lemon grass and fresh ginger several times a week and I go through it pretty fast. There is no way I will pay $6.99 a pound for an inferior product! Herbs are one of the things that are always freshest and cheapest at the farmers' market. Most herbs grow like weeds, so I don't really know why they are so expensive at the grocery store. In fact, planting herbs is really the cheapest option. Many herbs are perennial and you will enjoy one plant for many years. I'm not much of a gardener, but I've always had good luck with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. (I couldn't resist!)

This week, the family that grows my lemon grass and other herbs, had beautiful long beans. I've been wanting to make dilly beans for a while and I thought it would be fun to experiment with long beans. I figured I could cut them to the length of any jar and they are usually pretty straight. I bought two bunches of green long beans. I don't know how much they weighed. They are bound at the top by a rubber band and the bound bunch was probably about 4 inches in diameter. As I was making my way out of the market, I noticed another family had purple long beans. They were gorgeous! They had to join my green long beans! Now, not only do I have dilly long beans, I have multi-colored dilly long beans! How cool is that!

I used the same brine I use for my little cucumber dills. Because the beans are smaller than the cucumber dills, the brine penetrates them more fully than the cucumber dills. In flavor, they remind me a bit of capers. I think it would be awesome to decorate the top of deviled eggs with purple beans. Stylish!

Dilly Long Beans
3 big bunches of long beans (I used 2 green and 1 purple)
6 cloves of garlic
6 sprigs of fresh dill weed
3 tsp. dill seed (1/2 tsp. per jar)
2 cups distilled white vinegar
6 cups water
1/3 cup kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp. whole black pepper corns (1/4 tsp. per jar)

Prepare 6 wide mouth pint jars, lids and rings. Prepare the boiling water bath.

Wash and trim the ends from the beans. Use a ruler to cut the beans so that they fill the jar with 1/2 inch head space. Peel the garlic and split each one in half, lengthwise. Set aside.

Bring the vinegar and water to a boil and stir in the salt to dissolve. Place the hot, sterilized jars on a towel and place one garlic clove, 1/2 tsp. dill seed and 1/4 tsp. black pepper corns. Carefully fill the jars with the beans, keeping them as straight as possible. Add the purple beans last, around the outside of the jar. Stuff the dill weed down one side, making sure everything is clear of the 1/2 inch head space. Pack the beans as tightly as possible, because they will shrink when processed. After the jars are filled, carefully pour the hot brine over the beans, again being careful of the 1/2 inch head space. Carefully wipe the rim of the jars and top with the prepared lids and rings. Process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Allow to cure for two weeks before opening.

Makes 6 pints

Random Food Fridays - Rockin' the Pizza!

I'm having a hard time coming up with superlatives for pizza. I mean, it's pizza! Everybody likes pizza. I've seen vegans eat pizza with no cheese. I've seen gluten-free pizza with veggie crust. I've seen pork sausage swimming in a puddle of grease, using bell pepper rings as life preservers. I've seen it all. And, there is that famous quote that I once heard in a movie, "Sex is like pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good." (Tootled around google and could not find a reliable source for this quote. If you can remember, let me know.)

I can honestly say that I've eaten some of the best pizza of my life out of my own oven. Remember Butternut Squash Pizza? I'm looking forward to that specialty this Fall. One of the reasons homemade pizza rocks so hard is that you can make it just how you like it best. Your thickness of crust. Your favorite toppings. Your favorite cheeses. It's all you baby!

Here are some tips to make your homemade pizza especially good:

1. Make your own crust and use good extra virgin olive oil - My crust recipe is a basic one that won't fail you. If you like a thin crust, it is essential to let the dough rise at least once and then reform it and let it rest before stretching. The resting period should be about 10 minutes. More details in the recipe below.

2. Use a VERY HOT oven. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees and let it remain at that heat for about 10 minutes before you start to bake. Get to know your oven. My oven has a convection setting, but I find that the traditional bake setting works best for pizza. In my oven, this means that the heat comes from the bottom rather than circulating with the convection fan. The bottom of the crust gets nice and crusty this way. I use well seasoned, thin cookie sheets to bake and place the pizza in the top third of my oven. If you are talented enough to use a peel and pizza stone, go for it!

3. Use very flavorful cheese - I like Trader Joe's Quattro Formaggi. This is a cheese blend that includes mozzarella, asiago, provolone and Parmesan. Using strong flavored cheeses makes a huge difference from using plain mozzarella. Now, if you want to use a good fresh moz, I approve. Fresh mozzarella is sweet and creamy and totally different from the mozzarella used by most pizza places. I'm just saying, your pizza will only be as good as your cheese. Use a cheese that you would eat by itself and one that will compliment your other toppings. Another tip - cheese is the glue for your pizza, so use some below and some above your toppings.

4. Use great toppings that are not too wet - I used fresh, sliced tomatoes on the pizza you see in these pictures. The tomatoes I used are an heirloom variety that are very meaty, plus a few sungold cherry tomatoes. If the tomatoes had been super juicy, I would have cut them in half and squeezed some of the juice and seeds out before slicing. I don't like my pizza to resemble a blow-up pool filled with grease or tomato juice.

5. Divide the dough so that each person get their own pizza - Mr. Dwayne's pizza was meat sauce (Mixmaster Bill's Special Sauce!) with lots of cooked sweet Italian sausage and lots of cheese. Mine had tomatoes, garlic, sliced green onions, fresh basil, some of that sweet Italian sausage and cheese. Vive la difference!

I know that pizza doesn't need a hard sell, but I hope that you will try making pizza with your family. It really is worth the effort.

Late Summer, Thursday Night Pizza, Susan Style

Basic Dough:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tsp. sugar
1 packet active dry yeast
4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Stir together the warm water, sugar and yeast. Set aside until bubbly. Place the flour and salt in a large bowl or in your Mixmaster with the dough hook attached. Add the water mixture and stir to combine. Knead until smooth and silky. (5 minutes by machine or 10 minutes by hand.) Add 2 tbsp. of the olive oil and work it into the dough. Pour the other 2 tbsp. olive oil in a large bowl. Remove the dough and form it into a ball so that the outside is smooth. Roll it around in the bowl of olive oil making sure you end up with the smooth side up. Cover with a lid, plate or plastic wrap and a towel. Allow to raise in a warm place until doubled in size.

(Alternately, you can place this bowl in the fridge and use the dough another night. If it gets too big, just press the air out gently and reform the ball until you are ready to use it. Bring it out of the fridge to come closer to room temp about an hour before you plan to bake.)

Divide the dough and form each segment into a ball. Cover and let rest for about 10 minutes before shaping the pizza.

This dough will make two medium pizzas with a medium crust. You can use the whole batch for a large pizza with a thicker dough. Each pizza will bake for about 15 minutes in the preheated 500 degree oven. You'll want to check sooner until you get to know your oven.

For my toppings:

2 handfuls flavorful cheese

1 handful cooked sweet Italian sausage

1 large tomato, cored and sliced thin
a few cherry tomatoes, cut in half
a handful of fresh basil leaves
a handful of sliced green onions
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
kosher salt
freshly cracked black pepper

Toss all together. Set aside for 5 minutes to allow the salt to draw out some of the moisture.

Oil your baking pan and gently stretch the dough to almost fill the pan. Sprinkle with some cooked sweet Italian sausage and a big handful of cheese. Remove the veggie mixture from the juices and place them on the pizza. Cover with another small handful of cheese.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until the bottom of the crust is brown and crusty. Carefully remove to a wrack and allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and slice.

This was so darn good!

Food Literacy Sandwich - Ginger Turkey and Wasabi Slaw Sliders

This sandwich was created to help the nonprofit California Food Literacy Center celebrate Food Literacy Month. The ingredients are good for you, good for the planet. www.californiafoodliteracy.org.

For the ginger turkey burgers...

Amber Stott is the genius behind the California Food Literacy Center and Food Literacy Month. She's also the creator of Awake at the Whisk, a great blog with recipes that are as fun as they are delicious and thoughtful. She's invited several bloggers and local restaurants to invent food literacy sandwiches. Here's the definition:

Food Literacy [fu: d lit-er-uh-see]

noun: Understanding the impact of your food choices on your health, the environment, and our community.

What’s a “Food Literacy Sandwich?”

You decide! It should take the definition of food literacy (above) into consideration. Is it healthy? Is it sustainable for our planet and community? You may already have a great sandwich on your blog that fits this description. Why not change the name and re-post it to let your readers know you care about the health of our children and our planet?

For my Food Literacy Sandwich, I've called on the rich cultural resources of the Sacramento area. This is a fusion of Vietnamese and Japanese flavors, all held together with one of my weaknesses - King's Hawaiian Rolls. I made these up today and got a big thumbs up from my tester, our friend Marcus (aka Big Sexy). Dude knows food.

The slaw is full of fresh flavors, with a little fruit for sweetness. I think the creamy, lively slaw is the perfect foil for the rich flavors in the ground turkey mini-burgers. I recommend making up the meat mixture and the slaw at least a couple of hours in advance, then cooking them to order. Juicy!

Ginger Turkey and Wasabi Slaw Sliders

For the mini-burgers:
1 lb ground turkey
1 tbsp. fish sauce
2 tsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tsp. fresh grated ginger
1 tsp. fresh grated lemon grass
1 green onion, sliced

Add all the ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. (I used a micro plane grater to grate the ginger and lemon grass.) Stir with a carving fork until mixed, but do not compact the meat. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

For the Wasabi Slaw:
1 tsp. wasabi powder plus 1 tsp. hot water
2 cups thinly sliced Napa cabbage
1 cup of pea shoots
1 green onion, sliced
1/2 avocado, peeled and diced
1 tsp. rice vinegar
1/2 cup red radishes, grated
1/2 of a pear, grated
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tsp. sugar
pinch of salt

Combine the wasabi powder and hot water and let stand to rehydrate. Add the rice vinegar to the avocado and toss to coat. Run a knife through the pea shoots to cut into lengths of about 1 inch. In a large bowl, toss the cabbage, pea shoots, green onion, avocado, radishes, and pear. Mix the wasabi, sour cream, sugar and salt. Gently toss the slaw with the wasabi dressing. Cover and refrigerate until ready to assemble the sliders.

To assemble:
8 King's Sweet Hawaiian Rolls (I used Honey Wheat)
Cilantro

Heat a large cast iron or heavy bottomed skillet over a medium-high heat. Brush with oil or use a spray.  Use a 4 oz. ice cream scoop to measure out the sliders. Lightly press down to flatten. When the pan is hot, place the sliders in the pan and cover loosely. When the bottom has browned nicely, turn the sliders. Continue to cook until the internal temperature comes up to 165 degrees. Remove from heat.

Split the Hawaiian Rolls. Top the bottom half with one of the turkey burgers. Top the turkey burger with about 2 tablespoons slaw. Top the slow with cilantro, if desired. Top with the rest of the bun and EAT!

Makes 8 sliders.

Roll Call!

Grocery Store - ground turkey, fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice vinegar, wasabi powder, cabbage, pea shoots, ginger, sour cream, sugar, salt, King's Hawaiian Rolls

Farmer's Market - garlic, lemon grass, green onions, avocado, pear, radishes, cilantro

Random Food Fridays - Sweet Potato and Adzuki Bean Salad

Here's another crazy salad for your consideration. I often visit the farmers' market on Sunday mornings and then spend much of the afternoon preparing food for the week. My go-to lunches are salads in Summer and soups in the cooler months. With soups and salads there are no limits. You've seen plenty of salads if you check this little blog on Fridays. This salad came on a Sunday when I didn't make it to the market. I foraged in my fridge and pantry for likely pairings and boom! Salad!

Adzuki beans are little dark red beans that are slightly sweet. They are often used in Japanese desserts. I've had sweet bean paste in mochi and whole sweet beans in shave ice and in chilled fruit salad. You might think sweet beans are weird, but think about baked beans - they are sweet and delicious. I also chose to use adzuki beans because they are small and don't take as long to cook as larger beans.

I started with 1 cup of dried beans and ended up with about two cups cooked. Not all the beans got used in this recipe. I used about 1 1/2 cups, similar to what you would find in a can of beans. You can use any kind of bean you like.

Sweet Potato and Adzuki Bean Salad
1 medium sweet potato (about 1 lb)
1 large, ripe tomato, cored and diced
1 small red pepper, cored and diced
1 carrot, diced
1 shallot, peeled and diced
2 ears sweet corn (I had leftovers from the grill), cut from the ears
1 big hand full chopped parsley
1 1/2 cup cooked and drained adzuki beans
white wine vinaigrette*
hot sauce, if desired (I like Tapatio!)

To cook the sweet potato, peel and dice into about 1/2 inch chunks. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the sweet potatoes. Cook until just fork-tender. Do not over cook. Drain and rinse with cool water.

Toss all the veggies and beans together and add vinaigrette to taste. Add hot sauce, if desired.

Makes 4 lunches for me.

*White Wine Vinaigrette
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. country style Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. garlic and herb seasoning

Add all ingredients to a jar with a tight fitting lid and shake like crazy.

Random Food Fridays - Gluten Free Peach Crisp

My dear friend, Miss Paula, is off the gluten. She says she feels much better for it, with several pounds released and a sharp decline in her acid reflux. Me, I say, "Pass the bread, and don't forget the butter!"

So often, when I bake a treat, Miss Paula cannot enjoy it with us. Every once in a while I try to whip up something we all can enjoy. This is one of those recipes and it came out great. If you don't want or need your finished product to be gluten free, you can use regular AP flour in place of Pamela's pancake mix.

By the way, Pamela's mix make fantastic pancakes!

Gluten Free Peach Crisp

8 cups fresh peaches that have been peeled, pitted and sliced
1 tbsp. lemon juice
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cold butter
1 cup dry toasted sliced almonds (I like Trader Joe's)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the peach slices and lemon juice in a large bowl and stir. In a smaller bowl, combing the cornstarch, cinnamon and sugar, then stir this mixture into the peaches. (Mixing the cornstarch in with the sugar helps to prevent it making clumps when you stir it into the fruit.)

Butter a 9 X 13 inch bake pan. Spread the prepared peach mixture into the pan.

In another bowl, combine the oats, Pamela's mix, salt, cinnamon and sugars and give it a stir. Cut the cold butter into little chunks and add to the oat mixture. Combine the mixture by squishing it together with your fingertips. When it is well combined, stir in the sliced almonds.

Spread the oat mixture over the peaches and bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Wild Grape Jelly

Food is everywhere. Really! At least, where I live, in the great valley of Sacramento. This is farm country. If you ever fly into Sacramento, you will see a green and gold patchwork all around, with glints of light flashing up from the rivers and rice paddies. It's magic. I think we sometimes take it for granted.

Some foraging outings are easier than others. Leaves may be tricky for a beginner to identify and prepare well. But, fruit is often easy to smell, see, gather and eat. The plant's effort to grow and increase  results in generous gifts for those of us who gather and eat. I've foraged figs, blackberries, wild plums, feral pears, and elderberries. None of them are much effort, except maybe the blackberries. I spotted these grapes growing up and over elderberry bushes and bitter almond trees near my house on a levy. Usually, I'm cautious about foraging close to a road. There may be spraying. My philosophy is this - the more abandoned and unkempt the area looks, the less likely it is to be managed by chemicals. My only competition for the fruit I gathered in this spot was a raccoon. We had a bit of a staring match, then Mr./Mrs. Raccoon decided to retreat and come back again later. Very gracious and appreciated.

As I travel through this beautiful world, I find myself scanning the roadsides, open fields and public spaces. Sometimes I find treasure, like the loaded peach tree I found in an abandoned parking lot last night. Sometimes I wonder why there isn't more food growing everywhere. Why not have parking lot trees that provide shade and fruit? Granted, there may be some splats in the harvesting season. I wouldn't mind. Even a "vacant" lot in an urban neighborhood, can have tons of edible plants. Fruit is more rare than those leafy pioneer plants that populate fields, but it is out there and in abundance.

Wild grapes will range from a transparent green to deep purple as they ripen. They are smaller than table grapes and have large seeds. They taste nice, but are tricky to eat because of the seeds. If you find a ton, you could make grape juice for canning. Grapes have plenty of pectin and if you are patient, you will be rewarded with a beautiful color and wiggly set. I never really liked grape jam or jelly as a child. Those flavors just tasted like sugar to me. This tastes like concentrated grapes. You get a bit of the tannins and a rich and unexpected depth of flavor. The gathering of these grapes was well worth the effort. Like many wild foods, you have to hit it when the time is right. I gathered and made this jelly last week and the remaining grapes in my neighborhood are already drying out. Some may continue to be available at higher and cooler elevations over the summer and fall.

Wild Grape Jelly
Ripe wild grapes
Sugar
Lemon Juice

Step 1 - Make the Juice
Remove the grapes from the stems. Wash and sort them, removing grapes that are spoiled and any debris. Place the grapes in a large pot with enough water to cover the bottom by 1/2 inch. Bring to a boil, reduce heat. Simmer until the grapes are soft. You can help them release their juice by mashing and stirring with a potato masher as they cook. Once the grapes are pulpy and the seems easily separate from the rest of the fruit, remove them from the heat. Line a colander with several layers of cheese cloth and place the colander over a tall pot. Gently pour in the cooked grapes. Allow the fruit to drain, undisturbed, 8 hours or overnight. Do not squeeze the fruit in the cloth. Let the juice stand for several hours to allow the tannins to settle to the bottom of the pan. Carefully pour the juice off and leave as much of the sediment behind as possible. Now your juice is ready to make into jelly.

Step 2 - Make the Jelly
Prepare the boiling water bath and several jars, lids and rings. Place some saucers and teaspoons in the freezer. Measure the grape juice. Your batch can be somewhere between 4 and 6 cups. Don't use more than 6 cups of juice. Add 3/4 cup sugar for each cup of juice. Stir to dissolve. Taste and add lemon juice to balance the sweetness. (My grapes were quite sweet and I added a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice just to balance the flavor. The lemon juice is not needed for a safe acidity with most wild grapes.) Bring the juice and sugar to a boil. Reduce heat slightly and continue to boil until the juice reaches about 220 degrees. Jelly does not visibly thicken like jam does. You can use the thermometer to let you know when to start the saucer testing. Once the temperature is reached, use one of the frozen spoons to scoop out a small amount of the jelly. Place the spoon back in the freezer for a few minutes. Observe how the jelly pours off the spoon onto the saucer. When it sheets or bloops off, push what has fallen to the saucer with your finger. If it wrinkles and mounds up, it is ready.

Remove the jelly from the heat and skim any foam. Carefully ladle the jelly into the hot, prepared jars. Leave a quarter inch head space. Wipe the rims and cover with the prepared lids and rings. Process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Use your jar lifter to remove the jars from the boiling water bath, being careful to keep the jars level, and place them on a towel lined tray. Do not disturb the jars until after the seal has formed. The jelly's set will become more firm over the next few days.

I gathered two 9 X 13 baking pans full of grapes before I started this process. The grapes I gathered made 6 half-pint jars.

You Say You Want to Make Some Pectin

I periodically share a recipe with your that includes some of my homemade apple pectin. There is really nothing wrong with commercial pectin. It's made from fruit, but it's very processed. Commercial pectin reduces cooking time, which can be desirable. But a short cooking time isn't the best if you don't want your fruit to float, or if you want to infuse an extra flavor, such as from vanilla beans or cinnamon sticks. Silly me, I like the challenge too. I think I'm getting to know the fruit better when I work with its own pectin. If I discover that it just won't set up on its own, I can add some of this apple pectin for the second try.

I didn't even know you could make your own concentrated pectin until I saw this post from Tigress in a Jam. It's really easy. She cans hers, but I like to keep them in the freezer.

My father-in-law has a McIntosh tree. He  LOVES his Macs! The last couple of years, I've gathered the apples that fall to the ground when they are still green to make pectin. You can make pectin from any unripe apple, or you can use granny smith apples. They are loaded with pectin. You can also make pectin from quince, but they are so fragrant and their reduced juice so red, that they will not hide in your jam like this apple pectin will.

This is one of those recipes where you can use any amount you happen to have on hand. I package it in 2/3 cups portions in freezer bags. This seems like the right amount from most batches of jam. My experimental jams tend to work with 6 to 8 cups of prepared fruit. Sometimes I break them in half for medium-pectin fruits or mixtures that include a high-pectin fruit.

Apple Pectin
Apples - unripe or granny smith
Water to cover the bottom of your pan by 1 inch

Wash the apples. If they have any bruises or wormy spots, trim them away. Chop the apples into 1 inch pieces. Use the peel, cores and seeds. These have a lot of the pectin. Add the apples to a large pan and add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the apples are very tender. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Process the cooked apples through a food mill to remove and discard the skins, cores and seeds. Place a large colander, lined with 3 or 4 layers of cheese cloth, over a large pot. Pour the apple puree and allow it to drain for several hours or overnight. Remove and discard the pulp and cheese cloth.

Bring the remaining juice to a boil. Reduce to a low boil and simmer until it is reduced by half. It will turn slightly pink as it reduces. Allow to cool and measure 2/3 cup portions into marked freezer bags.

Add to low-pectin fruits when making jam. Unlike commercial pectin, this is added at the beginning. Use the frozen spoon and saucer method to test for doneness.

Now, when I share a recipe that includes this good stuff, you will know how to make it for yourself!