Marisa McClellan's Blog, page 91

Preserves in Action: Grain Bowl with Chutney

The classic grain bowl is a dead easy way to start moving your chutney from the jar to the plate (or bowl, as the case may be). In the picture above, I  used whole wheat couscous, which I do realize is not truly a grain. But this idea works equally well with bulgar, farro, or quinoa (a pseudo-cereal), so I’m grouping it all under the grain heading for ease.

I toss the warm grain of the day with some chopped arugula or spinach, top it with a couple of soft boiled eggs (I am partial to the six minute egg), and lay down a generous spoonful of chutney along the side. If you’ve got a container of pre-cooked grain in the fridge (or portions in the freezer), it takes nearly no time.

As I eat this quick little bowl, I make sure to get a little chutney into each bite of the egg, grain, and green for maximum deliciousness. I’ve eaten versions of this meal with plum chutney (that’s what you see above), as well as rhubarb, apple, and pear. Each variation has been different and wonderful. Best of all, it can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, so it’s a good one to have your mental arsenal for days when you need fast sustenance no matter the time of day.

How are you using your preserves this week?

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Preserves in Action: Avocado Sauerkraut Sauce

Guest Post: Aged Persian Garlic Pickles from Stefanie Kulhanek

Today’s guest post comes to us from Stefanie Kulhanek. She is an ecologist and science educator living in Montreal, Canada who currently works at the Montreal botanical gardens and Biodome. She has done extensive work with local non-profit organisations promoting urban agriculture and community composting in both Montreal and Toronto.

Stefanie first began canning and preserving 8 years ago as a way to deal with surplus from her garden. Since then she had attended various courses and workshops on the topic and loves to experiment with new recipes. Her other hobbies include winemaking, foraging for wild edibles, growing mushrooms and even cultivating Bonsai trees from native species.

Last fall I was first introduced to the fascinating food item know as Seer Torshi; a unique garlic pickle of Persian origin, which is often aged for seven years or more. I was attending a workshop given by a friend on the topic of unusual foods that she’d discovered while traveling. Amongst the various goodies I sampled at the event, Seer Torshi impressed me the most!

When raw garlic cloves are immersed in plain white vinegar for a very long time, a rather magical transformation occurs. The cloves turn from crisp white to ivory, sometimes with hints of blue-green (see the note at the end of the post), eventually fading to a light brown that deepens with age. After several years the cloves become very tender, mild and almost fruity, while both the garlic and its brine take on a deep mahogany colour – reminiscent of balsamic vinegar.

Seer Torshi is mainly served as an appetizer, much like olives or a fine cheese and is rarely added to recipes. In fact, given its lengthy aging time and supposed medicinal qualities, this pickled garlic is considered a real delicacy and it’s definitely quite addictive.

I was lucky enough to leave the workshop with what remained of an 8-year old jar and a determination to make a batch myself. After doing some research I learned that, while traditional Seer Torshi requires only minimal preparation but lots of patience, there are also several short-cuts that can be taken to reduce aging time substantially. I decided to try my hand at both methods, based on the recipes below.

Method 1: Old school Seer Torshi (makes 1 pint)

4-6 heads of garlic, or enough to tightly pack a 1 pint mason jar

1 cup distilled white vinegar

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon honey

Split garlic heads into individual cloves but don’t peel them, otherwise they’ll turn to mush as they age. Try to choose similar sized cloves and pack them tightly into a pre-sterilized 1 pint mason jar.
Add the honey and salt to the vinegar and stir to dissolve. Then fill the jar with the vinegar mixture leaving about 1 inch of headspace. You may need to put something sterile on top of the garlic to ensure it stays immersed.
Place the lid on the jar but don’t seal it too tightly. The garlic should actually undergo a short fermentation and the gas will need to be released by loosening the cap about twice a day for the first week or so. Alternatively use a jar fitted with an airlock.
After the fermentation subsides, the garlic should have softened and no longer float. You can then remove the weight, top up with vinegar and re-seal the jar. It should be stored in a cool, dark spot for a minimum of 1 year but ideally for 7!

Method 2: “Quick and dirty” Seer Torshi (1 pint batch)

4-6 heads of garlic, or enough to tightly pack a 1 pint mason jar

2 cups distilled white vinegar

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon honey

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Split garlic heads into individual cloves but do not peel them.
Add garlic and white vinegar to a stainless steel pot and heat uncovered on medium-high until simmering. Add salt and honey and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and allow to cool. The garlic cloves will have soften somewhat but should still be fairly firm with their skins intact.
Pack the garlic cloves into pre-sterilized 1 pint mason jar. Add 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and then fill the jar with the cooled white vinegar mixture, leaving about an inch of headspace.
Unlike the traditional method, this garlic pickle should not ferment. Also as that garlic is pre-cooked, it tends to sink in the brine and shouldn’t need to be weighed down. I imagine you could process the jar at this point to seal it – I didn’t bother. Store in a cool, dark spot for a minimum or 3 months or up to 1 year.

A note on garlic turning blue-green

Under certain conditions, garlic may develop a blue-green hue especially when exposed to certain acids or fats. This is the result of various reactions between the sulphur compounds and enzymes than naturally occur in garlic and the fat or acid it’s exposed to. It doesn’t effect the safety or even the flavour of the food but can be a bit unappealing to some.

When making Seer Torshi using the traditional methods, some degree of blueing is likely. The extent however, will depend on anything from the age of the garlic to the chemistry of the soil in which it was grown. In any case there’s no need for alarm, as the colour will eventually fade to brown. If using the quick method the garlic shouldn’t turn blue as boiling destroys the enzymes responsible for the colour change.

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Blackberry Sage Jam Story and Recipe on the Driscoll’s + Berry Coupon Giveaway

The Philly Farm & Food Fest is Coming!

Things have been pretty quiet on the event front for me lately (what with the book writing and all), but I’ve got a fun event coming up next week. I’ll be at the 4th annual Philly Farm and Food Fest at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from 11 am to 4 pm. This event brings together farmers, food producers, and other makers from around the region for a delicious day of tasting, learning, and shopping.

I’ll be there to sign books and offer a jam making demonstration, but I’m not the only local author who will be there. A whole group of us are taking over a classroom and offering signings at the Cookbook Stall’s corner. Here’s the demo schedule and the signing schedule.

Demo Schedule

11:15 – Meat Lite with Tara Matazara Desmond and Joy Manning: How to get the most bang from your local meat dollar

12:15 – Stumped for Sides with Tara Matazara Desmond

1:15 – Preserving with Natural Sweeteners with me, Marisa McClellan

2:15 – ​Going Beyond Kombucha with Amanda Feifer

3:15 – Pasta from Liguria with Jeff Michaud

Cookbook Signing Schedule

11 am – Jeremy Nolen & Marisa McClellan

12 noon – George Hummel & Allyson Kramer

1 pm – Tara Matazara Desmond & Joy Manning

2 pm – Matt Teacher & Jeff Michaud

3 pm – Aliza Green

Tickets are available now and can be purchased here. General admission tickets are $20 and kids 12 and under are free.

Oh, and there’s just one other thing going on that day. From 10-11 am, there’s a special Industry Preview Hour for wholesale buyers. It’s a great opportunity for folks to discover new products or resources for their businesses (with coffee and pastry from La Colombe). If you’re in that category, leave a comment on this post so I can send you a discount code that will get you $25 off the $40 admission fee.

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Giveaway: The Optimist Cleaning Kit

For the last decade, I’ve kept an ugly, industrial-looking spray bottle of diluted white vinegar under my sink. I use it mostly as a simple, non-toxic countertop spray that’s good for quick clean-ups during meal prep. While it’s been effective enough, both the look of the spray bottle and the unadulterated scent of vinegar leave something to be desired.

Enter The Optimist Co. Founded by Devin Donaldson after conventional cleaning products left her with a nasty asthma attack, they focus on simple, effective, non-toxic cleaning products that will help you keep your home spotless without compromising your health or the planet.

Devin sent me The Optimist Co.’s Make Your Own Cleaning Products Kit to try out a few weeks back. It comes with two amber-colored spray bottles with the cleaning formulas printed on the labels, a small bottle of castile soap and three small bottles of essential oils to make your custom scents.

Add some white vinegar and flat club soda* from your pantry to the mix and you have everything you need to build both an all-purpose spray (Time to Shine) and a glass and surface cleaner (Bright Side).

I made up both bottles the same day that the kit arrived. I followed the suggested recipes almost exactly, making only one change to the Bright Side. It suggests that you use plain white vinegar but instead, I used some of the lemon-infused vinegar I’d made during my Meyer lemon frenzy back in January (that’s what’s in the smaller measuring cup in the picture above). Bolstered with the enclosed lemon essential oil, every spray of that cleanser is a olfactory pleasure.

I’ve been using these sprays exclusively since they arrived and could not be more pleased with their effectiveness. I use them without worry around food, because I know that if a few droplets land on the contents of the fruit basket, no one will be harmed. Plus, they are far prettier than my old bottle of watered down vinegar.

I know that lots of you are trying to make your own homes more non-toxic and sustainable and homemade cleaning products are a very good way to start yourself on that path. To that end, Devin is offering up three of her Make Your Own Cleaning Products Kit for this week’s giveaway. Here’s how to enter.

Leave a comment on this post and share one thing you’ve done to make your cleaning routine a little more sustainable.
Comments will close at 11:59 pm eastern time on Saturday, April 11, 2015. Winners will be chosen at random and will be posted to the blog on Sunday, April 12, 2015.
Giveaway open to United States residents only. Void where prohibited.
One comment per person, please. Entries must be left via the comment form on the blog at the bottom of this post.

*When we talked, I asked Devin what the flat club soda added to the mix and she said that it helps the cleaner wipe away streak-free, particularly on stainless steel appliances. So clever!

Disclosure: The Optimist Co. sent me the make your own kit at no cost to me for review and photography purposes. They are also providing the units for this giveaway. No additional payment has been made and all opinions expressed here are entirely my own. 

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Links: Quick Pickles, Nut Butters, and Winners

This weekend was about family and book work. My extended family gathered at my cousin’s house on Friday night for our Seder. Saturday was devoted to hunkering down in my local coffee shop to work on the book draft. And on Sunday, my mother-in-law came over for a simple Easter brunch.

I like nothing more than food, family, and productivity, so I had a very lovely time. I hope your weekends were equally good and balanced! Now, links!

Has your kefir started to separate? Make marinated kefir balls!
If you’ve struggled to make homemade nut butters, you’ll appreciate the pictures in this post. They should give you the confidence to just keep going!
Thinly sliced raw pickled beets with ginger.
A friend gave me a third of a pound of fresh horseradish from her garden this week, just as another friend recommended this carrot citrus horseradish. A true match made in heaven!
Meyer lemon marmalade with tart cherry juice! Such a glorious color!
Pantry porn, at its finest.
A visual guide to canning.
Quick pickled purple cabbage.
Apparently, fermenting sunchokes makes them go down without gastric distress!
Homemade gluten-free matzo.
Some oil topped pickle tips from the great Linda Ziedrich.

I so enjoyed reading all your straw stories last week during the Glass Dharma giveaway. The three people who won the $25 gift certificates are #77/Julie Parker, #139/Rebecca, #168/Anita. If you didn’t win, make sure to check out their Earth Day straw giveaway (all you have to do is pay shipping)!

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Other People’s Preserves: McVicker Pickles Rainbow Cumin-Pepper Carrots from Garibaldi Goods

Other People’s Preserve is my opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of the very delicious jams, pickles, and condiments being made by dedicated professionals. If you see one of these products out in the wild, consider picking up a jar, tub, or bottle!

I am exceedingly fond of pickles with attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take a crunchy spear just about any way it comes, but when pickles immediately telegraph personality like McVicker Pickles do, I am sold before I even pick up the jar. And if they are crisp, earthy, and just slightly spicy like the jar of Rainbow Cumin-Pepper Carrots you see up above, well, consider me in pickle heaven.

The brain behind McVicker Pickles is Kelly McVicker. Raised in the prairie, she brought her pickling know-how to San Francisco and has been sharing it with the Bay Area (and beyond) since 2012. In addition to making a variety of pickles for sale, she also teaches preserving classes (including some really fun sounding ones like Whiskey Picks Not Whiskey Dicks: Pickling With Beer & Booze).

This jar came to me by way of Garibaldi Goods, the third installment in a monthly series we’ve been doing together. Garibaldi Goods is an online shop that features artisanal, small batch products all made in the fine state of California (place of my birth!). This month, you can get free shipping on all of their products by using the code “foodinjars”. The code is valid through April 30, 2015.

Disclosure: The folks at Garibaldi Goods sent me this jar of McVicker Pickles for sampling and photography purposes. All thoughts and opinions remain entirely my own. 

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Cookbooks: Better on Toast

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll have noticed that I’m a big fan of putting things on toast (though lately, I’ve been on something of a soft boiled egg kick). I think that toast is an equally good vehicle for pickles and kraut as it for jams and butters and I have made many a meal over the years out of a slice of toast topped with a few scraps of cheese and a goodly layer of relish.

So when I heard that there was a book coming out called Better on Toast by Jill Donenfeld, I made a point of searching out a copy. I figured it would contain some good inspiration for my own toast practice, and also might offer some ideas for those of you who looking to use up your preserves in fresh ways.

The book opens with a introduction that goes deep into Jill’s love of toast and the many ways you can transform a humble slab of bread into toast (traditional toasting, grilled, pan toasted, or oven toasted). Then, it proceeds into sections devoted to breakfast, hor d’oeuvres, non-veg toppings, veg toppings, and finally things to do with your extra bread.

I think the beauty of this book is that while it offers a number of actual recipes, it should be used more as an inspirational guide. Because Jill’s ideas can easily translate to the specific contents of your own pantry without too much issue.

For instances, the recipe above for Grilled Cheese with Romaine and Bosc Pear (page 123). When pears aren’t in season, you could just as easily make this with canned pears from your pantry, or even with a couple dabs of pear vanilla jam. A few pages later, she’s got you heaping golden beets on a piece of toast topped with yogurt that’s been spiced with vadouvan. Steal the idea and use your own pickled beets instead.

If you struggle how to use up your preserves and love toast (I realize it’s an endangered species these days), this might be a good book to add to your wish list or library queue.

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Making Brisket for Passover

About four years ago, I became the official brisket maker for my family’s Passover Seder. I’m not the most natural fit for this role, particularly since up until the time I moved to Philadelphia, I’d only ever attended Seder in the all-purpose room at our Unitarian Universalist church.

I started dabbling in brisket making during the years when Scott and I were regularly filming episodes of Fork You. We did one episode in honor of Philadelphia’s beer week, in which I braised a smallish brisket in a slurry of sauteed onions, herbs, and a generous pour of dark beer.

For the longest time, that beer soaked method was my favorite. However, once I took on the task of making brisket for Passover, the beer had to go because fermented grain products (like beer) are most decidedly not kosher for Passover. And while my people aren’t particularly observant, using that as my braising medium seemed a step too far.

Since this year is my fifth brisket adventure, I thought I’d take a few minutes to write about the process (I actually took these pictures last year, intending to write this post then). It’s not hard to do, but it is time consuming. I always start the day before I plan on serving the brisket. This allows me to remove the bulk of the fat that the meat releases and truly, things just taste better the second day.

My current approach is relatively simple but time consuming. I start with one pound of brisket for every two people I’m feeding, plus a little more just in case. This year, we’re expecting 18 people, so I started with 10 pounds of brisket (if the pieces have a substantial fat cap, I suggest buying even a little bit more).

I use one pound of onions for every two pounds of brisket. They add a ton of flavor and lend substance and body to the eventual sauce. In the beginning, I sliced those onions by hand, but by year two, I got smart and pulled out the food processor. It’s still not easy on the eyes, but it is a lot less tedious.

To brown ten pounds of brisket, I pull out two large pans and heat some oil with a high smoke point until it shimmers. Salt and pepper the brisket pieces (to get ten pounds, you end up with at least two big pieces) and brown them on all sides. Once the brisket is nicely browned, they get pulled out and I saute the sliced onions in the fond from the meat.

Once the onions are done, I put a little down in the bottom of the pans I’m using for braising. Because of the amount of brisket I make, I tend to divide them between a low, wide Dutch oven and a large cast iron roasting pan so that I can fit them all into my oven.

I pour beef stock in so that it comes up most of the way up the sides of the meat. Finally, I arrange the remaining onions on top of the meat and tuck sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme into the pans. I cover both pans and cook them in the oven for 3 to 4 hours. They’re done when you stick a fork into the center of the meat and it feels tender instead of tight.

Once the brisket is finished braising, I let everything cool down. Then I separate the beef from the sauce and refrigerate them both separately. This way, the fat can rise to the top of the braising liquid and I can pull it off (I typically keep it and roast potatoes in it at some later date).

A few hours before I want to serve the brisket, I remove the container of braising liquid from the fridge. I pull off the fat that can collected and I push everything through the fine screen of a food mill. This removes all the woody herb bits. Then I pour the milled liquid into my crock pot and taste it. I’ll add a little balsamic vinegar and salt, if necessary. If it feels too granular, I’ll sometimes zap it with an immersion blender.

The last thing is to cut the brisket against the grain and add the pieces to the sauce. This way, it heats slowly and never develops any of that funky, reheated meat taste.

Special occasion food, at its finest! Of course, I don’t have a picture of the finished product, because it’s not yet finished for this year (and I didn’t get one last year). I’ll try to snap one tomorrow and add it to this post.

Related Posts:

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Pickled Red Beet Eggs

These are some words I originally wrote for Serious Eats, back in the days of my In a Pickle column. As we approach both Passover and Easter, I thought it might be appropriate to share this tale and recipe here, in the hopes that you might be inspired to take some of your hard boiled eggs and tuck them into a jar of beets and brine, for a batch of classic pickled red beet eggs.

I grew up in a household with hippie tendencies. This showed in a number of ways, from the 12-grain bread my mom used for sandwiches, to the jar of homemade granola that made up the bulk of our cereal selection. However, it was never more obvious than around major holidays.

At Halloween, we were the house giving out raisins or tiny tubes of toothpaste. Christmas brought candy canes sweetened with maple syrup. And around Easter, our baskets were filled with carob, fruit juice sweetened jelly beans and naturally dyed eggs.

Instead of pulling out the dyes that the other kids used, my mother would gather onion skins, carrot peelings, spinach leaves and beets for our egg coloring sessions. I found these methods deeply frustrating because they never provided the same depth of color that the commercial egg coloring kits could.

I blame the fact that I was very late to red beet eggs on my frustration with those natural dyes. You see, these pickled eggs get their color through the addition of beets to the pickling liquid. And I just didn’t want to have anything to do with adding beets to eggs.

But then, I had the opportunity to taste one a few years back and I changed my tune. Pickled red beet eggs have nothing in common with the still-in-their-shell hard-boiled eggs I once tried to dye with beet juice.

The finished eggs are bright in both color and flavor. Pickling firms the whites of the hard boiled egg, transforming them into something springy and substantial. The finished eggs are good eaten on their own, or chopped into a vibrantly colored salad and make a terrific addition to any springtime table.

A few tips for you before you get started

To avoid peeling frustration, use the oldest eggs in you fridge for hard boiling. Super fresh eggs are incredibly hard to peel, while the ones that have been around for a week or more will give up their shells more easily.

I used home-canned pickled beets for this recipe. However, don’t feel like you have to make the pickled beets first. Commercially pickled beets do just as good a job here.

Make sure to let the eggs rest in the refrigerator for at least 48 hours before eating the first one. They do keep well for up to a month, so don’t feel like you have to bolt them down once they’re ready.

PrintPickled Red Beet Eggs

Ingredients

8 hardboiled eggs, peeled
1 cup canned pickled red beets (with their liquid)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves

Instructions

Place peeled hard boiled eggs in a quart-sized mason jar (or any other heatproof container of similar size).
In a medium saucepan, combine pickled beets, apple cider vinegar, water and brown sugar. Heat until it just comes to a boil.
Place the cinnamon sticks and cloves into the jar with the eggs.
Carefully pour the pickling liquid and beet slices into the jar with the eggs.
Tap the jar to help loosen any air bubbles and use a long, skinny spatula to ease out any remaining air bubbles. Place a lid on the jar.
Once it has cooled to room temperature, refrigerate. Let pickles rest at least 48 hours before eating.3.1http://foodinjars.com/2015/04/pickled-red-beet-eggs/

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April Sponsors: Cuppow, Fillmore Container, Spice Ratchet, Mighty Nest, and Fermentools

Happy April, friends! You’ll get no pranks here today, just a humble request to send a little extra love and internet attention to the sponsors that help make this site possible.

First up is jar accessory maker Cuppow! They are the creator of the original mason jar travel mug topper and the BNTO, a small plastic cup that transforms a canning jar into a snack or lunch box. They also recently launched a branded jar coozie, made entirely from recycled plastic bottles. You can keep your drink warm in a most sustainable fashion!

Our friends at Fillmore Container are back this month as well. They’re a family-owned business based in Lancaster, PA and sells all manner of canning jars, lids, and other preservation gear. They are currently hosting a HUGE giveaway on their blog, so get on over and enter (the winner will receive a $100 Fillmore shopping credit).

Next up is Spice Ratchet. They make the blossom trivet that I use as a canning rack, and last fall they released a line of silicone Blossom uCaps for mason jars. They are available as a storage cap, a sipping cap, and a flower frog. Don’t miss their new purple uCap. It pairs perfectly with the purple Heritage jars that came out this year.

The fab folks at MightyNest are back with us again. They are an amazing resource for non-toxic, natural, and organic products for homes and families. Right now, they are running an organic bedding giveaway that valued at $1,500. Here’s where you can enter.

Last up is Fermentools. They make a brilliant fermentation starter kit that involves a heavy-duty glass pickling weight, an airlock, a lid with a reusable rubber seal, and mineral-rich salt. I used the kit recently for a batch of sauerkraut and it worked like a dream!

If your company or small business is interested in becoming a sponsor, you can find more details here. I offer discounts for multiple month purchases and am always happy to work with your budget.

Related Posts:

February Sponsors: Cuppow, Fillmore Container, Spice Ratchet, and Fermentools
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January Sponsors: Cuppow, Fillmore Container, Spice Ratchet, New West Knife Works, and Fermentools!