Weekend Canning Round-up: Tomato Sauce, Zucchini Relish and Bread & Butter Pickles

Nine weeks out from my knee surgery, I am up and about almost back to normal in time for autumn canning season.  Tomatoes, basil, squash, apples, ground cherries, quince, persimmons - I just need to lay my hands on some lemons!

STOCK:  I made my best batch of stock yet, using the bag of veggie scraps I store in the freezer, along with the beet green stems from 3 bunches of white beets, stems from a bunch of radishes, and the seeds & skins of the tomato sauce making.  I even threw in the seeds & stems from a couple jalapenos used in salsa - giving the 2 gallons of stock a bit of zing but it's so rich and flavorful that I am going to use it to make some udon noodles this week. 

My newest favorite trick for making stock:  throw in a 1/4 cup of dried porcini mushrooms.

TOMATOES:
Tomatoes have suffered the worst of this chilly growing season -- as a result, nobody has tremendous backyard tomato production.  Even local farmers are finding the fruits are coming late and small.  I had been banking on picking 200# of tomatoes at Mariquita's "U-Pick" weekends this fall - the 150# I picked last fall didn't get me through the spring.  However, Julia said that they might not have a U-Pick event this fall (my fingers are still crossed, okay?). 

I bit the bullet and bought two 12# box of Early Girl tomatoes for $29 each.  I made up a big batch of marinara.  My friend Serafine helped me process the first batch of cooked tomatoes - we used the food mill attachment for the Kitchen Aid.  I think she was impressed by how easy it was to make sauce - she had seen cooking shows where they pour hot water on tomatoes to skin them and then cut out the seeds.  That's a PITA, IMO. 

Two weeks later, I bought two more 12# boxes of tomatoes last Thursday.  I spent all day cooking down the sauce - even pulled out 4 quarts of sauce from the first batch out of the freezer.  I ended up with a mere 9 quart jars of sauce, plus about 2 quarts that went into dinner each weekend - that's just under $10/jar to make my own sauce.  I guess I could go to Berkeley Bowl and buy sauce cheaper - but it doesn't taste at all the same.  After spending $120 on tomatoes (which is more than I spent last year for 150# at 50 cents/pound) - I think I am going to hold out and wait for tomato season to perk up so I can do the U-Pick event.

I didn't use all of the tomatoes for sauce - I also used some in a black quinoa tabouli, and made a quart of killer salsa (which goes great with carrot-flax crackers).  I still have a few in the fridge because those Early Girls are good eating!

YIELD:  
14 qts tomato sauce
1 qt salsa


APPLES:
Last Thursday I also got 20# of Pippin apples ($11 for 10#) from Mariquita - which I made into applesauce & dried apple rings.   The apples were mostly fairly large, a bright green and super crisp and delicious.  I saved about 8 of them for eating, put about 7# into the dehydrator and turned the rest into applesauce.

YIELD:
12 16 oz jars of applesauce
4 8 oz jars of applesauce


SQUASH:
Despite the problems my tomato plants are having in the garden - my squash are doing great.  The cocozelle is still going nuts with three vines that are about a total of 22' in length.  The yellow sunburst squash is more compact and still producing several a week.  The Rond de Nice - which I transplanted to a mini raised bed - has just showed signs that it is going to take off and be the rockstar of autumn.  The fourth zucchini plant that I bought - perished after it was sat upon at my "bon voyage" party on 7/9 - it limped along but transplanting it to another pot just resulted in speeding up the death.

I've been collecting squash all week - the small squash went into zucchini bread & butter pickles, the large squash went into the cuisinart to be shredded for zucchini relish.  I also saved the carrot pulp from the juicer to put into the relish - it made it a really pretty color.

YIELD:
12 8oz jars of zucchini relish
3  4 oz jars of zucchini relish
4 16 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles
2 12 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles
2 8 oz jars of zucchini bread & butter pickles


GROUND CHERRIES:
I'm collecting lots of ground cherries - mostly they are ripe but some are not.  I am experimenting with ways to ripen the green cherries - and have put them cleaned on a tray in the kitchen in the sun.  They might go into a bag soon.

Coming up - a trip to Larissa's house to check on the quince & persimmon trees!

Savoy Cabbage Rolls Stuffed with Chanterelles, Spring Alliums & Arborio Rice

Mariquita's Mystery Box included a gorgeous head of Savoy cabbage - and after contemplating several ideas, including kim chi - I remembered my grandmother's cabbage rolls, read a few recipes and decided to approximate my grandmother's version using her recipe of Pottsville Relish which I have made up every year since college (so I always have some on hand til early summer, at least!).

Her cabbage rolls were stuffed with rice, onions and some ground beef, swimming in a sweet & sour tomatoey sauce.  It was always the sauce and the cabbage part that I liked best - the tomato not too thick, not too sweet and still savory.  Most of the recipes I read either called for using cooked rice or  uncooked rice (and rolling looser rolls).

Since I'm a big fan of risotto, I liked the idea of letting the water from the tomato sauce finish the rice, so this recipe calls for partially cooking the rice. If you happen to have cooked rice on hand - by all means, use it (waste not, want not!).  I'm a big fan of reserving extra rice from Thai or Indian take out for use in dinners the following day.  :)

This recipe has two parts, the filling and the sauce.  I have included alternate instructions for ingredients that you may not have on hand. 

STEP 1: Cabbage

In a large pot,place sufficient water and a steamer basket, bring to boil and put your washed head of cabbage inside.  If the lid won't fit, improvise with a stainless steel mixing bowl.  Let the whole head of cabbage steam on a med-hi simmer while you prepare the filling.  I turned my cabbage over once, let the water nearly boil down and left it on the stove with the lid on until the very end.


STEP 2:  Filling

Pull out your two largest cast iron skillets - I used #8 and #10.  In the smaller pan, drizzle enough olive oil to cover the bottom and heat on medium-high. Add

• 1 cup arborio rice

Stir gently and coat the rice with the olive oil until it starts to become transluscent, then add:

• 1 cup mushroom stock
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tb dried thyme
• Black pepper to taste
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

Turn heat to a simmer - this smaller pan will be your filling pan and you will add a few more batches of ingredients to it.  You want the broth to absorb into the rice but you don't want it to stick.   If you have an open bottle of cooking wine, add 1/4 - 1/3 c to the rice while it simmers.

In your other, larger skillet, heat the pan with a drizzle of olive oil, add:

• 1 qt cleaned & coarsely chopped chanterelle mushrooms (about 1.5# - substitute for portobellas or shitake) 

For chanterelles, you want to put a lid on the pan and heat these until they throw off some liquid - drain that into the rice and return the pan to heat.  The mushrooms will put out a bit more liquid - then you can just add them to the rice & broth.  For other mushrooms, heat until softened and add to the rice & broth.


Next, add a bit more olive oil to the emptied skillet and reheat it, add:

• 4-6 spring garlic (white & green part), cleaned & chopped (or 3-4 cloves garlic, minced)
• 1 healthy spring red onion (whole thing!), cleaned & chopped (or 3/4 to 1 c. finely chopped red onion)

Sautee the onion & spring garlic til soft, add:

• 2-3 coarsely shredded or julienned/chopped spring carrots (about 1/2 - 3/4 c carrot)

Once carrots start to soften, add all vegetables to the rice & chanterelles in the other pan and mix together.   Reduce the temperature.  You want the broth to absorb into the rice, but you don't want it to stick.  Test the rice - it should be undercooked by at least 50% when you shut off the flame to let it cool.

NOTE: Taste your filling!  Does it taste good?  Do you just want to sit down with a bowl of it or reserve i as a side dish?  Check your spices, adjust if necessary.



STEP 3: Sauce

After you have emptied the larger skillet of garlic, onion & carrot - return the pan to the flame and deglaze with:

• 1 c red wine (whatever you have open!) or mushroom stock
• 1 Tb crushed dried rosemary
• (optional) 1 Tb crushed dried oregano, marjoram or tarragon
• 1 Tsp cayenne pepper flakes

Reduce the heat and let simmer to reduce for about 10 minutes, then add:

• 1 pint San Marzano Tomato Sauce or other unseasoned tomato sauce (open a quart jar of store bought sauce don't use the whole thing all at once!)
• 1 pint Pottsville Relish  (alt - 16 oz can chopped tomatoes & peppers plus 1/4 c vinegar & 1/4 sucanat)
• 1/2 c light vinegar (champagne, white wine or apple cider)
• 1/2 c sucanat (or 50/50 granulated & brown sugar)
• salt & pepper to taste
• herbs to taste - finely chopped fresh parsley or oregano
• (optional) 2 Tb smoked red jalapenos packed in olive oil or chili oil to taste, or toast & grind a piece of chipotle pepper to add some smoky heat

Cook down the sauce, taste it, adjust seasonings & spices as necessary.  We're going for sweet & sour but still savory - not too sweet! not too sour!  Turn heat down to med-low and simmer.

At this point, your cabbage should be cooling off and your filling should be cooling off, too.  I let my sauce simmer for about 30-45 minutes, your time may vary based on the amount of water in your tomato sauce (my tomato sauce was very watery!).

STEP 4: Assemble

Prep cabbage by pulling the leaves off.  Using scissors, cut off the thickest part of the spine with a V-cut.  Make a nice big stack of leaves on your cutting board or plate.

Your filling should be cool enough to handle - take some and form a small ball - maybe 1/4 cup.  Place it in a cabbage leaf - fold up the cut ends across each other, then the sides, then firmly roll and place into the pan with the loose side on the bottom.

Repeat until you fill your pan.

Cover the rolls with the sauce from your skillet.  If it seems a bit thick - add a bit more sauce from your reserve or from the extra half pint - smooth with the back of a spoon.

Cover the casserole with foil or a lid and bake at 375 for about an hour -- you want it to be nice and bubbly, with sauce thickening up on top, water from the sauce working down into the rolls to finish cooking the rice inside the rolls.

Leftovers Rule!

YIELD:  10 x 16 baking dish of 16-20 rolls, depending on your cabbage and how you roll'em!  You could also put some rolls and sauce into glass or metal baking dishes to freeze and heat up later (yum!) - if you have that kind of space in your freezer!


Postscript: many of the ingredients came from my own yard (herbs mostly) or from Mariquita (carrots, spring garlic, red onion, savoy cabbage, San Marzanos for tomato sauce, red jalapenos that I smoked and preserved, sweet peppers & tomatoes in the Pottsville Relish, even the cayenne peppers that I dehydrated and made into flakes!). 

Pumpkin Mole Enchiladas

After roasting and pureeing the large musquee de provence pumpkin I got from Mariquita months ago - I had 15 cups of pumpkin in my freezer!  Since I have been so happy with my red and green enchilada sauces, I decided to go for something more exotic - pumpkin mole sauce for enchiladas.  It came out STUPENDOUS! 

Here's the recipe - or process, rather - for the mole.

Ingredients:

• 1 very large yellow onion, chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 5 c pumpkin puree
• 1 c tomato sauce
• 3-4 c mushroom broth
• 2 chipotle peppers, softened in hot water
• 2 ancho chile peppers, softened in hot water
• 1 bar mexican chocolate
• 1/2 c toasted black sesame seeds
• 1 c toasted pumpkin seeds
• Herbs: 1-2 tsp sage, marjoram & epazote
• Spices: 2 tsp ground Mexican cinnamon, 1/2 - 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp ground allspice
• Cayenne chili flakes - to taste
• Salt - to taste

Directions:

1. Soften the onions & garlic in a large cast iron skillet or dutch oven in olive oil.
2. Add the pumpkin, tomato and coarsely chopped or broken up chocolate to the pan.
3. Stir to keep the sauce from sticking and add mushroom broth about 1 c at a time throughout the process - you want this sauce to pour nicely over your enchiladas and keep in mind that while it is in the oven, it will reduce so you want to make it a bit thinner.  
4. Carefully toast the sesame & pumpkin seeds - either in the oven on a small cast iron skillet, on the stove top or in toaster oven - the sesame seeds burn easily!  Grind half the pumpkin and sesame seeds and add to the sauce - reserve the other half for garnish.
5. Grind dried herbs & spices in the spice grinder and add to the sauce.
6. Chop up the chipotle & ancho chiles - add the water used to rehydrate them to the sauce, and add the chopped peppers to the sauce in batches and stir & taste.  Add more mushroom stock as needed.
7. Taste & adjust seasonings.  Let cool on the stove.
8. Puree in the blender - add more mushroom stock if necessary - taste and adjust seasonings.
9. Pour a small amount in bottom of casserole dish - use some sauce to soften tortillas (I nuke them in the microwave for 1 minute inside the plastic bag to soften), roll with your filling - then pour enchilada sauce all over the enchiladas.
10. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
11. Garnish with cashew cream (1 c cashews soaked for 20-30 minutes, put into blender, add liquid as necessary, brewers yeast, cilantro & lime to taste - puree til you get a cream consistency) and toasted nuts.

ENCHILADA FILLING:
Since the sauce is the main show, I like to keep the filling a bit simple firm tofu with some potatoes, chard, kale or other greens, some mushrooms, a little onion & garlic, maybe juice of a lemon, salt & pepper - cook til it is "dry" and let cool so you can roll it up into the tortillas and cover with your enchilada sauce.

57# of San Marzano Tomatoes

My friend Jeff visited on Saturday and took 10# of the San Marzanos, leaving me with 57# which I cooked in one big and one smaller batch.

I put everything into the giant colander over a big steel bowl and then ran that juice through the chinois (to capture the seeds), then smashed all the pulp and seeds out in the chinois.

Next step was to process through the Kitchen Aid fruit strainer/puree attachment which is not quite robust enough for a lot of tomatoes - I had to stop every 5-10 minutes to take it apart, unclog it and put it back together. Next time - I will get a big tomato press/strainer!

YIELD:

• 11 quarts San Marzano tomato sauce
• 7 pints San Marzano tomato sauce
• 3/4 of 1 quart jar (for dinner tonight!)
• 2 quarts San Marzano raw tomato juice (to be frozen for soup broth)
  

A sad tale of two tomato gardens...

My tomatoes are not looking nearly as good as last year - next year, I am definitely mixing in several bags of manure and more fresh dirt. I threw in the towel and ordered a 20# box of San Marzano tomatoes from Mariquita and brought them home on the back of my motorcycle on Thursday night. I think that Andy, who writes a great blog Ladybug Letter, hasn't been exposed much to folks who use motorcycle for anything other than joy riding because he remarked, "You'll sure make an interesting figure in traffic with all that stuff on the motorcycle!"

Sunday, I seeded all the tomatoes and heated them up enough to put them through the Kitchen Aid food mill attachment. I quickly discovered that the skins clog up the food mill attachment quite quickly and ended up putting through the solid matter 3-4 times before I got all of the good stuff out of the skins - resulting in about 1# of skins and seeds going to compost out of 20# total. After simmering down the sauce in two pots (I really do need one big stockpot) - I put up my tomato sauce.

YIELD:
9 - 16 oz jars of San Marzano tomato sauce
9 - 8 oz jars of San Marzano tomato sauce

Tomatoes!

It's all about tomatoes this week. Friday, I cleaned the tomato seeds that I had been fermenting since Sunday and put them in the Excalibur on the lowest setting to dry them up.

Both James & I picked as many ripe tomatoes as we could from our gardens at the end of the week. I even pulled up four tomato plants that were done (three were volunteer cherries).

Saturday, I spent the day doing housework and cleaning. I even had a pair of housekeepers come in to help out while I labeled, inventoried and organized all my jars of preserves and boxes of wine from Dry Creek & Anderson Valley.

Saturday night, James and I set 9 trays of tomatoes to dry in the Excalibur. For those of you who dehydrate, that results in about 3 half pint jars of dried cherry tomatoes (ha!). We dried some bigger tomatoes but I need to cut those into strips and dry them a bit more. We also got started with the yellow tomato sauce and then put it away to finish on Sunday.

Today, we dilly-dallied a bit, had chai & backgammon, went to his house, then to brunch and on errands. We had a nap and then finally started on making the tomato sauce around 6pm. James worked his buns off with me for 4 hours. I have been waiting for the sauce to cook down and processing the jars for the last two hours. Here's the result:

YIELD:

Dried tomatoes:
3 - 8 oz jars of dried cherry tomatoes from Jenn's garden

Yellow tomato sauce:
2 - 16 oz jars (both gardens, more Jenn's due to Wonderlights)

Orange tomato sauce:
9 - 12 oz jars (both gardens, mostly James due to enormous Hawaiian Pineapples)

Red tomato sauce:
12 - 16 oz jars (both gardens)

This probably isn't the last batch of sauce for us. There are still a lot of tomatoes on both our plants. I cut down dead parts and removed branches from a few plants that had no more fruit or flowers -- I need to do that again on Tuesday or Wednesday this week to help the plants mature the rest of the fruit.

I do want to make more dried tomatoes, too. We both have a lot of basil that is about to flower, so we need to make up more batches of pesto. I think I may just make oregano-thyme-basil-garlic-oil pesto to freeze -- no pine nuts -- so that I can use it to season my tomato sauce when I open it this winter.

FIGS: Asiya from Forage Oakland brought me a couple dozen figs - so I am going to make another small batch of fig preserves.

RHUBARB & RASPBERRIES: Probably the last of the season. I bought these at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market on Tuesday and intended to make a big crisp but was totally off track. I may just freeze up the raspberries on a cookie sheet and make rhubarb pie or crisp later this week.