Fresh Garlic- What to do with it!

 

1. Roast it!

Preparation:

• Most sources suggest to wrap garlic in tin foil, and roast it in the oven until it is soft. This works well, and is a totally valid option! However, we usually have a large amount to roast and try to avoid using much foil, so we roast ours a little differently.
• After peeling away the tougher outer layers, spread the garlic in a large glass baking pan. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil to lightly coat it, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. At 400F, roast the green garlic in the oven until it is golden brown and soft.
• The time will vary depending on the age and thickness of the green garlic you’re working with. For our larger, more mature bulbs, we found that roasting them for 20 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered worked well. Flip the pieces over once during baking to evenly roast both sides.

2. Pickle/Ferment it!

Preparation:

• Another way to preserve a larger harvest or supply of green garlic is to pickle it. Bloody Mary fans and garlic-enthusiasts will love this option! If it is young and tender enough, pickled green garlic could be munched on whole, if that’s your style and taste. They could also be further cut up later and incorporated into other meals. Some mouthwatering options for using pickled garlic are in salad dressing, stuffed in olives, served with cheese and crackers, mixed with sautéed vegetables, or in hummus.
• To pickle green garlic, cut and peel away any tough upper and outer portions, revealing the most tender middle parts. Pack into a jar with a vinegar-based brine and seasonings of choice. See our favorite pickling brine recipe here. It is used for banana peppers in this example, but could easily be applied to a variety of veggies – including cucumbers and garlic! We most often make quick-and-easy refrigerator pickles, rather than messing with hot bath canning.

homesteadandchilicom

Kimchi

Ingredients:

• 1 medium head (2 pounds) napa cabbage
• 1/4 cup sea salt or kosher salt (see Recipe Notes)
• Water (see Recipe Notes)
• 1 tablespoon grated garlic (5 to 6 cloves)
• 1 teaspoon grated ginger 
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 to 3 tablespoons seafood flavor or water (optional, see Recipe Notes)
• 1 to 5 tablespoons Korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
• 8 ounces Korean radish or daikon, peeled and cut into matchsticks
• 4 scallions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

Instructions:

• Slice the cabbage: Cut the cabbage lengthwise into quarters and remove the cores. Cut each quarter crosswise into 2-inch-wide strips.
• Salt the cabbage: Place the cabbage and salt in a large bowl. Using your hands (gloves optional), massage the salt into the cabbage until it starts to soften a bit, then add water to cover the cabbage. Put a plate on top and weigh it down with something heavy, like a jar or can of beans. Let stand for 1 to 2 hours.
• Rinse and drain the cabbage: Rinse the cabbage under cold water 3 times and drain in a colander for 15 to 20 minutes. Rinse and dry the bowl you used for salting, and set it aside to use in step 5.
• Make the paste: Meanwhile, combine the garlic, ginger, sugar, and seafood flavor (or 3 tablespoons water) in a small bowl and mix to form a smooth paste. Mix in the gochugaru, using 1 tablespoon for mild and up to 5 tablespoons for spicy (I like about 3 1/2 tablespoons).
• Combine the vegetables and paste: Gently squeeze any remaining water from the cabbage and return it to the bowl along with the radish, scallions, and seasoning paste.
• Mix thoroughly: Using your hands, gently work the paste into the vegetables until they are thoroughly coated. The gloves are optional here but highly recommended to protect your hands from stings, stains, and smells!
• Pack the kimchi into the jar: Pack the kimchi into the jar, pressing down on it until the brine rises to cover the vegetables. Leave at least 1 inch of headspace. Seal the jar with the lid.
• Let it ferment: Let the jar stand at room temperature for 1 to 5 days. You may see bubbles inside the jar and brine may seep out of the lid; place a bowl or plate under the jar to help catch any overflow.
• Check it daily and refrigerate when ready: Check the kimchi once a day, pressing down on the vegetables with a clean finger or spoon to keep them submerged under the brine. (This also releases gases produced during fermentation.) Taste a little at this point, too! When the kimchi tastes ripe enough for your liking, transfer the jar to the refrigerator. You may eat it right away, but it's best after another week or two.

Recipe Notes

• Salt: Use salt that is free of iodine and anti-caking agents, which can inhibit fermentation.
• Water: Chlorinated water can inhibit fermentation, so use spring, distilled, or filtered water if you can.
• Seafood flavor and vegetarian alternatives: Seafood gives kimchi an umami flavor. Different regions and families may use fish sauce, salted shrimp paste, oysters, and other seafood. Use about 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, salted shrimp paste, or a combination of the two. For vegetarian kimchi, I like using 3/4 teaspoon kelp powder mixed with 3 tablespoons water, or simply 3 tablespoons of water.

thekitchn.com/how-to-make-easy-kimchi-at-home-189390

Different Ways to Preserve Tomatoes

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I don’t feel like eating any more gazpacho, or salsa, or tomato sauce. And I don’t know about you, but I have trouble buying tomatoes in the off season, knowing they aren’t as fresh and have little flavor (I know, I’m spoiled from being a vegetable farmer. . . ) So, I often try to preserve some of my tomato harvest for later use. Canning is a classic way to preserve your tomatoes, but it takes a great deal of both time and attention to detail. So, here are a few other interesting ways to save your tomatoes.

Freezing

I was skeptical of this tomato preservation method, but apprentice Danielle tried it last season with great success. She would just cut her tomatoes into quarters, stick them in a freezer bag, and freeze—later, when making tomato sauce or other recipes that call for cooked tomatoes, she would just dethaw and use the frozen tomatoes. This is not recommended for dethawing and trying to eat the tomatoes fresh- the consistency is a little off. However, it works really well for cooked tomatoes in recipes.

Fermentation
The following recipes all come from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, one of my favorite books. The next recipe is for fermented tomatoes. Some of you know that fermenting foods is a slight obsession of mine.
Tomato Balls

Ripe tomatoes
Salt
Oil
Herbs
A fine strainer
A finely woven cloth
A screen
Canning jars and lids

Pick a good amount of tomatoes that have ripened well in the sun. Cut them in half, squeezing lightly to release any water, and put them in a jar. Set the jar outside in the sun (bring them in at night) until they begin to foam and smell a bit fermented.
Pass the tomatoes through a very fine strainer, rubbing it through with your fingers. Collect the strained portion; place it in a clean, finely woven cloth; hang it ouside in the sin until you get a paste dry enough to be shaped into balls. Let the balls dry on a screen in the sun. Then add salt, and put them in a canning jar. Cover them with oil, season with herbs to your taste, and close the jar.
-Jennifer Rocchia, Beaurecueil

Preserving with salt

Whole tomatoes preserved in brine

Tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt
A saucepan
Glass jars and lids

Make a brine (one-quarter cup salt to one quart of water), and bring it to a boil. Allow to cool. Choose firm tomatoes, preferably (Editor’s note: paste tomatoes are great for this), wash and dry them carefully, and put them in glass jars. Pour in the cooled brine, up to one and a quarter inches below the rim, and fill in the remaining space with olive oil to cover. Close the jars airtight and store them in a cool place.
These tomatoes will keep for nine to ten months; use them for sauces.
-Jean-Yves Cousseau, Millau.

Tomato Chutney

2 lbs. tomatoes, scalded, peeled, and chopped
2 medium-sized onions, thinly slices
3 apples, peeled and diced
1 ½ cups brown sugar
½ cup raisins
2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 cayenne peppers, dried and finely chopped
6 cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
An enamel or stainless steel saucepan
Canning jars and lids

Prepare all the ingredients and put them in an enamel or stainless steel pan. Slowly bring to a boil and continue simmering over low heat, uncovered. Stir from time to time. The mixture will gradually thicken; when done, it should resemble a thick jam. This could take up to three hours or more.
Put the chutney into jars. Close and store in a cool, dry, place.
-Jeannette Busiaux, L’Etang-la-Ville

It is Cucumber Pickle Time!

By Nicole Sugerman

The cucumbers have been producing at full capacity for about a week, and they show no signs of slowing down. We farmers have been harvesting those cucumbers every single day; we have bins and bins of cucumbers in the cooler. That means that you all need to use up a lot of cucumbers! I have included a number of cucumber recipes in this share letter, but one of the most tried, true, and delicious ways to use a lot of cucumbers all at once is to make a batch of pickles.

Pickling means different things to different people. I used to be a pickle purist; when I said or made ‘pickles’, I meant the lacto-fermented kind, soured in a salt brine on my kitchen counter over the span of a week or two. I am still partial to this kind of pickle, partly for the politics of it, partly for the health benefits, and partly for the taste. But I have come around to the fact that the ‘other’ kind of pickle, the one you put in vinegar and stick right in your refrigerator, tastes pretty good itself.

A word on the politics of the pickle to which I refer: Fermented pickles came first. Most, if not all, traditional cuisines of the world have fermented foods as integral parts of their food cultures. Fermenting food not only preserves it for later use, but makes it more nutritious, using wild microbacteria to pre-digest the food and make the nutrients more available to our bodies, as well as adding nutrients not originally available in the food. The ‘problem’ with fermented foods, in a modern context, is that, because they make use of the wild bacteria present in any particular micro-region, a fermented food will always taste different depending on when and where it is made. This was not conducive to industrialized food production and distribution, which wanted a standardized product for widespread shipping, long term storage, and brand development.

Fermented foods are made in the home and stored in a cool place, like a root cellar; they have no longevity on a supermarket shelf and no potential for homogenization of taste and culture.

Enter the vinegar pickle. Vinegar can be mass-produced and, poured on the cucumber, will preserve it in such a way that the taste will be the same each time the pickle is made. Vinegar is a preservation agent, and, when canned, the pasteurization process can preserve it for indefinite storage. Still, vinegar pickles are easy to make and can be stored in your refrigerator like fermented pickles. Make a batch of both!

For these recipes, I recommend that you use pickling cucumbers. Pickling cucumbers are bred to grow slightly smaller and with a thicker skin than slicing cucumbers, keeping them crispy in pickling recipes. You can, however, also eat pickling cucumbers raw. For making pickles, try to select pickling cucumbers that are roughly the same size.

Lacto-fermented Cucumber Pickles
Timeframe: 1-4 weeks

Special Equipment:
• Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket
• Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
• 1-gallon/4-liter jug filled with water, or other weight
• Cloth cover

Ingredients (for 1 gallon/4 liters):
• 3 to 4 pounds/1.5 to 2 kilograms unwaxed
• cucumbers (small to medium size)
• 3⁄8 cup (6 tablespoons)/90 milliliters sea salt
• 3 to 4 heads fresh flowering dill, or 3 to 4
• tablespoons/45 to 60 milliliters of any form of dill (fresh or dried leaf or seeds)• 2 to 3 heads garlic, peeled
• 1 handful fresh grape, cherry, oak, and/or
• horseradish leaves (if available)
• 1 pinch black peppercorns

Process:
1. Rinse cucumbers, taking care to not bruise them, and making sure their blossoms are removed. Scrape off any remains at the blossom end. If you’re using cucumbers that aren’t fresh off the vine that day, soak them for a couple of hours in very cold water to freshen them.
2. Dissolve sea salt in ½gallon (2 liters) of water to create brine solution. Stir until salt is thoroughly dissolved.
3. 3. Clean the crock, then place at the bottom of it dill, garlic, fresh grape leaves, and a pinch of black peppercorns.
4. Place cucumbers in the crock.
5. Pour brine over the cucumbers, place the (clean) plate over them, then weigh it down with a jug filled with water or a boiled rock. If the brine doesn’t cover the weighed-down plate, add more brine mixed at the same ratio of just under 1 tablespoon of salt to each cup of water.
6. Cover the crock with a cloth to keep out dust and flies and store it in a cool place.
7. Check the crock every day. Skim any mold from the surface, but don’t worry if you can’t get it all. If there’s mold, be sure to rinse the plate and weight. Taste the pickles after a few days.
8. Enjoy the pickles as they continue to ferment. Continue to check the crock every day.
9. Eventually, after one to four weeks (depending on the temperature), the pickles will be fully sour. Continue to enjoy them, moving them to the fridge to slow down fermentation.

From: http://www.wildfermentation.com/ resources.php?page=pickles

Refrigerator Pickles

• 1 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 cups white sugar
• 6 cups sliced cucumbers
• 1 cup sliced onions or scallions

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring vinegar, salt and sugar to a boil. Boil until the sugar has dissolved, about 10 minutes.
Place the cucumbers and onions in a large bowl. Pour the vinegar mixture over the vegetables. Transfer to sterile containers and store in the refrigerator.

Fermented Beet Kvass

To make the whey, strain plain yogurt (in towel or cheesecloth) over a bowl. Let sit at room temperature until whey runs into bowl. Remove cloth without squeezing. Milk solids can be used as cream cheese, and will keep up to a month in fridge. Whey can be stored in fridge for six months.

To make the kvass (2 quarts):
3 medium beets, peeled and coarsely chopped
¼ cup whey
1 tablespoon salt
Filtered water

Place beets, whey, and salt in 2-quart glad container. Add filtered water to fill container. Stir well and cover. Keep at room temperature for 2 days, then move to refridgerator. To make subsequent batches, reserve some of this liquid and use instead of whey when making next batch.

This drink acts as a blood tonic, aids digestion, and cleanses the liver.

From: Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Basic Sauerkraut

Quart-size glass jar
1 tablespoon Sea Salt
Filtered water
One medium cabbage
--------------------------
+ Finely chop or grate cabbage. Place into large bowl as you chop.
+ Sprinkle salt on cabbage as you go.
+ If you want, you can add other vegetables; try garlic, onions, carrots, turnips, kohlrabi, anything.
+ Massage/pummel ingredients with your hands a little to get the juices flowing. Salt will bring out the juice of the cabbage as you work with it.
+ Pack vegetables and their juice very tightly into your jar. If you pack it tightly enough, the whole cabbage should fit in the jar.
+ Press down on cabbage throughout day to force water out. Brine should rise above surface of cabbage. If it does not after a day, add filtered water until cabbage is covered in brine.
+ Place lid on jar, but do not screw tightly. Unscrew lid often to release pressure.
+ Taste daily until sauerkraut reaches desired sourness. Try to keep cabbage below surface of brine. If white mold forms on top, scrape off with a spoon.

Once you have reached your desired sour-level, sauerkraut can be stored for months in a cool, dry basement or the refrigerator.

Adapted From: "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz

The Joy of Fermentation

By Nicole Sugerman

This is an article I have been itching to write from the start. I thought this week was a good time since we have cabbage, which was my first ferment and is particularly delicious when fermented. Perhaps by now, a few of you have noticed my penchant for recipes involving fermentation (although I have been trying to limit myself). A very old form of food preservation, fermenting foods is a process close to both my heart and my stomach.

Fermentation is a process by which specific microorganisms enter and break down a food, producing alcohol, lactic acid and acetic acid, which prevent foods from spoiling while retaining nutrients. Commonly known fermented foods include yogurt, sour dill pickles, and sauerkraut, but endless numbers of foods can be fermented using a great variety of different fermentation techniques. Fermentation is one of my favorite methods of preservation. Not only does it preserve the nutritional value of the food being preserved, unlike canning, but it actually breaks down nutrients into forms that are easier to digest. It also creates B vitamins, removes toxins from certain foods, restores important intestinal bacteria lost to antibiotics, and can create antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

A staple of traditional diets worldwide, fermentation fell out of favor in the U.S. with the onset of industrialization and the subsequent mass production and long-distance transport of food. Because fermentation uses local microorganisms, a ferment done identically in two different places will taste subtly different. Pasteurization, the process of heating a food quickly to a very high heat, kills the local microorganisms present in the food, allowing for the introduction of a controlled, standardized culture. Although pasteurization destroys many of the nutrients present in the food, it allows for a uniform, predictable product. Home fermentation is a process of reclaiming the unique tastes specific to your locality.

Fermentation is so interesting and delicious, it can become something of an obsession. One winter, I had so many fermenting projects going that I had to add an extra half-hour to my nightly routine to tend my various ferments, between draining the sprouts, feeding new tea to the kombucha, racking the beer, pressing down the kimchi, and taste-testing the pickles. I often feel like part of an illicit underground when I stumble upon fellow fermentation afficianados, speaking in hushed, excited tones about obscure rarities: “Hey, I’ll trade you a sourdough starter for a ginger bug,” or, “Who hooked you up with your kefir grains? Do you think they have any more?” Fermenting my food adds variety, pungent and exciting tastes, and health to my diet. Sandor Katz, author of the fantastic text "Wild Fermentation" and source of much of the information in this article, describes the appeal of fermentation best. “By fermenting foods and drinks with wild microorganisms present in your home environment, you become more interconnected with the life forces of the world around you. Your environment becomes you, as you invite the microbial populations you share the Earth with to enter your diet and your intestinal ecology.”

Look for more fermentation recipes throughout the season!

Preserving Turnips

As we embark on the third week of turnips in your CSA share, I thought I would share some interesting methods of preservation in case you are turnipped-out for the time being. All of these ideas come from a wonderful book Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning, by the Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivant.

Lacto-fermented Turnips

Ingredients:
• Turnips
• Salt (kosher or other non-iodized)
• Filtered water (with a brita is fine, or boiled and let sit to dissolve the chlorine)
• Clean glass jar with a lid (cleaned with vinegar to sterilize)
Slice or dice turnips. Place in jar and pack down with clean hand. Add salt brine made with two tablespoons of salt to one quart of water. Place lid on jar loosely, so air can escape (otherwise mixture can explode). Pack down mixture with hand each day to keep turnips below waters surface; if a mold forms on the surface, simply scrape off with a spoon. Turnips are done when they have reached desired sourness. Can keep in a refridgerator indefinitely, or in a cool basement for several months.
(note: can be made with any combination of root vegetables, including radishes, kohlrabi, beets, etc.)

Vegetables Preserved in Oil

Ingredients and Supplies:
• Fresh young vegetables, including turnips and can also include zucchini, cucumber, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.
• Fresh herbs (oregano, bay leaves, tarragon, etc.)
• Dill seeds, coriander seeds, and juniper seeds, if desired
• Vinegar
• Salt
• Oil
• Enamel or stainless steel saucepan
• Canning jars and lids
Slice the vegetables in ¼-inch rounds, or dice. Chop and mix the herbs and seeds
Pour enough vinegar into the saucepan to cover the vegetables. Heat the vinegar until it just starts to boil. Immerse the vegetables in the boiling vinegar for one to three minutes, simmering gently.
Drain quickly, and place vegetables into jars, alternating with the herb-seed mixture and a pinch of coarse (non-iodized) salt. Do not pack jars too tightly. Pour oil over vegetables, covering with a layer ¼ to ½ inch thick, but allowing 1 and ½ inches air space below the jar’s rim. Seal with a screw-on lid and store in a cool place (50-59 degrees F). The vegetables will be ready in one or two months and will keep for about a year.

String-dried Turnips

Ingredients and Supplies:
• Turnips
• Cotton thread or kitchen string
• Pie tin or cookie sheet
• Airtight box
Cut turnips into 1/8-inch-thick slices. String them on string, leaving space between slices. Hang the strings in a dry place and let dry for one or two weeks, depending on room’s humidity.
Once turnips are very dry, unstring them and put them in a single layer on the pie tin or cookie sheet. Place the sheet in an oven on very low temperature (140 degrees F) for five minutes. Let cool and store in an airtight box. May keep for several years!
Turnips preserved this way are very good for soup.

Spotlight On Greens

In the spring, any CSA, and, for that matter, any farmers market in our part of the country is inevitably dominated by greens. It works out this way due to timing. Crops in the brassica family (broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, and kale) can tolerate frost, meaning we can plant them early, but the leaf crops mature much more quickly than the slower growing crops that form a head, like cauliflower and cabbage. Then there are the asian greens and lettuce crops, which are less frost tolerant but grow quite quickly, meaning they, too, are ready to harvest before many of the other vegetables.
I often find that people are intimidated by greens. My mother is a formidable cook, but just this winter I bought a bunch of collard greens while visiting her and was surprised to find, in my farmer-bubble sort of way, that she had never cooked them and had no idea what to do with them.
In fact, greens are easy, delicious, and healthy. I have included several easy recipes for greens to give you some ideas of their possibilities. In addition to the recipes I’ve found, greens can be added to any brothy soup, right before the end, so they wilt in the heat right as the soup is done cooking. I add greens to my scrambled eggs in the morning, and used to sell kale to a coffee shop that added it to their banana-orange smoothies for a drink that was startilingly green and very delicious.
Should you tire of eating fresh greens or find yourself with an overwhelming amount, they are also easily preserved for later use.

Freezing greens: Cut up your greens and blanch them in boiling water for about two minutes. Dry lightly, put into freezer bags, press out the air, and freeze.

Lacto-fermenting greens (Gundru): Note: I tried this last year. It worked, for sure, but the greens do taste very unusual. Try this if you have an adventurous palate. According to Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, the book in which I found this recipe, this is a traditional Nepalese ferment.
• Set greens in the sun for a few hours until they wilt.
• Using a rolling pin and a cutting board, smash and crush the greens to encourage the juices out. Do not lose the juice.
• Stuff the leaves and any juice coming out into a glass jar. Use pressure to fill the jar to capacity, forcing out more juice. Fill until jar is completely full of smashed greens covered in green juice. Screw a lid onto the jar.
• Place jar in sunny place for two to three weeks. At the end, greens should be pungent.
• You can serve them as is, or dry them on a line or spread in the sun. In Nepal, the dried gundru is used as soup stock.