Edible/Usable

Carrot Blueberry Salad

After a rainy, chilly June and July, August has been hot and steamy (and rainy again).   It's really seemed like a short summer for me.  I live near from Pratt Institute  in Brooklyn and this weekend seemed to be the weekend that all of the new students were being dropped off by their parents and were attending orientation. That means that summer is nearly over.  For me, starting college was such  a great time in life - starting a whole new chapter in a totally new place.  And even though I haven't been in school for longer than I will reveal, I still get an unsettled and yearning feeling each fall - like I need to be starting something new.  But at the same time, I'm really sad that summer is over.

I love summer, I really do.  Even though it gets really hot in my apartment and it is uncomfortable to bake or cook or do laundry, there are tons of fresh fruit and vegetables available from the farmers market for making simple salads and simple fruit based desserts (I will get either my rooftop garden going or will find that perfect country house at some time in the future - it's just not happening yet).   We go on trips to the country.  I don't have to wear sweaters and jackets and gloves.  Everything is lush and green.   So before fall really kicks in, and before I go away for my camping trip where I'll be eating lots of meat and nary a green thing, I'm going to celebrate summer by making and eating a lot of salads.

I like odd food.  I don't mean food that is in itself odd, but taking different normal foods and pairing them in ways that  you had never thought of before.  It's so revelatory.  Watermelon feta salad was the salad revelation for me two years ago.  This year it's been this salad - the carrot and blueberry salad.  Two very simple and tasty ingredients, tied together with some lemon and roasted sunflower seeds.  I think nuts (or seeds) go well in almost any salad, and this salad is testament to that.   It's from the NY Times 101 Simple Salads article by Mark Bittman that I've mentioned before.  Last week I got as far as number 1.  This week it's number 7.

Carrot Blueberry Salad (from the NY Times)

3 Cups shredded or matchstick carrots
1 Cup blueberries
1/2 T olive oil
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Pepper

In a shallow pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add he sunflower seeds.  Stir constantly for 3-5 minutes until most of the seeds are brown and toasty.  Watch them very carefully since they burn easily and remove them from the pan immediately when they are done.  Set aside to cool.  Either grate or matchstick the carrots and mix with the blueberries.   Add the cooled seeds, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly and enjoy immediately.

Fennel Salad

It seems like all summer I've been on a feta/mint combo salad bender:  I'd walk through the farmers market or rifle through my fridge and everything that I bought or pulled out seemed like it would be a perfect fit with mint that I have growing in a big pot in my window, and my new favorite feta cheese.  But yesterday at last, I got a craving for a great summer salad that has neither feta or mint - Fennel Salad.

I adapted this recipe from something that a good friend of mine used to make at her regular summer Williamsburg Brooklyn backyard BBQs.  She is an amazing cook, and was a great hostess, but has unfortunately (for me) moved to London  so I thought I would make this nice salad in her honor.  

It's actually funny that I like this salad - or that I like fennel bulb.  I don't generally like the anise-y licorice flavor that comes from anethole, an aromatic compound in fennel that is also found in anise and star anise. I don't like Pernod or Absinthe or black licorice, but I really like fennel.  Raw or cooked the flavor of fennel is complex and goes well with other vegetables, meat or cheese, but holds its own. 

Two notes about this salad: It is actually very easy to make, especially if you have a mandoline.  I actually don't currently have a mandoline, so I partly used my box grater and partly sliced it very thinly with a knife.  I'm planning at some point on doing a 'mandoline off' where I compare 2 or 3 mandolines and rate them accordingly.  I think I've read all of the reviews of different ones on Amazon, and they all seem to have some issues (dull blades, cut fingers and awkward orientation to name a few).  Any recommendations on which ones I should try would definitely be appreciated.  But even if you don't have a mandoline, you can still make this salad fairly easily.  It just takes a little longer.

The second note is that the recipe calls for pistachio oil.  If you haven't ever tried pistachio oil, you are totally missing something.  Like many nut oils, pistachio oil has a strong toasty flavor that goes really well with both sweet and savory foods.  I raved about how delicious it was to my fennel salad friend the first time I had it, so she generously brought back a bottle of it from France the next time she went.  Unfortunately, like many good things, it's very expensive - especially if you buy it here imported from France.  But I think you can easily substitute another nut oil like walnut or hazelnut oil (or even dark sesame oil) and get a similar flavor.  Just now, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that this salad would be really amazing with the addition of some toasted nuts - hazelnuts would be nice.  You could probably get away with using a good strong olive oil and some toasted nuts and get a similar effect.

Fennel Salad

2 fennel bulbs
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 T finely chopped fennel greens
3 T pistachio oil
Juice from 1 lemon
Shaved parmesean cheese
Salt & Pepper to taste

Cut the tops off the fennel, reserving a few of the greens.  Clean the fennel, and lightly peel any spots off the outside.  Slice very thinly using a mandoline  or a sharp knife. Finely chop the Italian parsely, the reserved fennel greens and mix into the sliced fennel.  Add the lemon juice, pistachio oil and salt and pepper and mix well.  Using a vegetable peeler or a cheese slicer, shave thin pieces of cheese over the top.  Crack fresh pepper over the top and serve.

Tomato Peach Salad

This week's Summer Fest is all about tomatoes.  I thought long and hard about what tomato recipe I could share - I have so many  favorite ways of eating tomatoes, but very few actually written down or codified.  One of my favorite events of each summer is the first tomato sandwich:  some sort of nice white bread toasted, mayonaise, heirloom tomato, salt, pepper.  Super simple and super delicous.  Or, there is my favorite sweet tomato chutney - but that is actually long, hot and complicated, so I'll save that one for later.   

It's finally been hot here in NYC - August hot.  Humid, sweaty and smelly.  That means I've been cooking a lot less and just making salads or simple dinners of toast and cheese for dinner at home.  Since I've been working in an office near Union Square, I've been able to shop for food the way I like to - just picking up a few things that I'll need in the two days until the next market happens - rather than doing a big shopping trip once a week and lugging tons of bags home.  I've been getting lots of peaches, carrots, zucchini and radishes.  Sunday afternoon, I ventured on to the NYTimes site for the 101 Simple Salads article to get some inspiration.  I remembered seeing something about a tomato peach or tomato watermelon salad, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  The recipe called for tomatoes and either peaches or watermelon, a simple vinagrette and basil.  I didn't have any basil on hand, but I did have some mint, so I used this as a starting point and mixed it with the basics from my favorite watermelon salad and made a tasty peach tomato salad:

Tomato Peach Salad

2 ripe tomotoes, cut into chunks
3 ripe peaches, cut into chunks (I left the skins on)
1/3 cup feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped mint
Fresh ground pepper

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl and prepare the dressing:

Basic Vinagrette
2 T white wine vinegar
1 T balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 T pistachio oil (this is kind of difficult to find - but it is amazing oil if you can find it.  If you don't have it, sub olive oil)
4 T olive oil
Salt

Whisk together, taste for salt.  Pour half over salad - you may not use all of the dressing - toss and taste before adding more.  Grind fresh pepper and toss again.

Corn Pie - Local Food from a Country Fair

I love country fairs.  They are one of the few things left from the 'olden days' when a huge percentage of the American population lived in rural areas and fairs were the way that people came together from far-flung places to show their talents, do business, learn the latest agricultural techniques, and socialize.   I used to show my horse in my local county fair, and for me it was all about winning ribbons and meeting boys.

This weekend, I went out to Kutztown, Pennsylvania to the Kutztown Fair.  I've been going out to this part of Pennsylvania for a few years now, but I really don't know much about the area or Pennsylvania in particular.  The area around Kutztown is fairly rural - a lot of big and small farms and active Mennonite communities.  The fair offered plenty of country fair highlights - a midway with carnival rides and games, livestock judging, a demolition derby, craft shows and 4-H exhibits, tractor and hit-and-miss engine displays and, of course, plenty of food. 

There was the standard fair fare - hot dogs, hamburgers, funnel cakes, cotton candy, etc., but there were also several local specialties made and served by surrounding town granges, fire houses and social clubs.  I've encountered several local Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies that I have yet to try (scrapple, chipped beef on toast, fried balogna, chow-chow, shoo-fly pie, whoopie pies) but something caught my eye that I hadn't seen before, but was billed as a 'fair favorite:'  Corn Pies.  While my friends had locally made sausage sandwiches from the Virginvile Grange, I got myself a Corn Pie made by the ladies from the Kutztown Firehouse. 

A Corn Pie is exactly what it says it is:  sweet corn with some butter and salt, mixed with a hard boiled egg and baked in a double pie crust.   Generally, it's served with warm milk poured over the top, but I chose to have it plain (it was so good that my friends went and got one with milk after we all ate the first one).  It sounds a little heavy, but because the corn was so sweet, it was a perfect compliment to the flaky crust and the salt & pepper that I added on top.

Fair food isn't really known to be healthy food.  And I often hear people complain about the street fairs in NYC - they are essentially all the same vendors that travel from fair to fair during the summer serving  lemonade, fruit drinks, roasted corn, Italian sausage and selling socks, bags and t-shirts.  To me, a fair is all about local.  It's the opposite of what it used to be where people came to the fair to see what was going on in the world outside of their own small town or farm.  Even though there are still the traveling fair/carnival vendors that set up at fairs across the country, you can still find local, small town food made to benefit the local organization like the grange or the firehouse.  That's what I seek out when I go to country fairs.  And that's what I got with the corn pie.

In general though, my experience with food in and around Kutztown hasn't been the best.  It's odd to me that in a place surrounded by farms, most of the food you get at restaurants - even locally owned non-chain restaurants - most likely comes frozen in a box, delivered by Sysco.  At one diner, we asked the owner why he didn't put granola and yogurt on his menu so that people had a healthy choice for breakfast.   After admitting that he didn't actually eat breakfast, so he didn't really think about what was on the menu, he said that he would ask his Sysco representative what he would recommend.  He didn't say he'd talk to his chef, his cook or his customers.  His Sysco rep.  This was an eye opener for me, and something that I'll definitely be writing about in the future.

A few more fair photos:

Going Camping? Tools for Your Camp Kitchen

We're going camping in a few weeks, on what has become the annual canoe/kayak trip to Saranac Lake Islands in the Adirondaks.  The Saranac Lake islands have really nice, rustic campsites that require a boat to access.  You can take a motor boat, but we're taking a canoe, as usual.  This year we're staying on the middle lake which has much less traffic than the lower lake, and I'm really looking forward to it.   

After reading Jhumpa Lahiri's piece about vacation home kitchens in the NYT earlier this week, I started thinking about all of the organizing I'm going to have to do to pull together my 'camp kitchen.'    Camping, like many pastimes, is partly about stuff - who's got the best, most useful, most multi-purpose get-you-out-of-a-jam type stuff.  Friends and I used to joke about someone's 'kit.'  Like if someone brought a really great multi-purpose gadget, we'd all say, only somewhat jokingly, "nice kit."  So I take my camping gear very seriously and I have strict criteria about what I bring.  Especially for the camp kitchen.

My general rules are these: Each item has to have multiple purposes, or has to be something where some other object cannot do the same function.  Compactness is important, as is weight.   It has to be sturdy, hopefully unbreakable, and ideally re-usable.  The less garbage you bring in, the less you have to carry out.   I haven't gotten to the state yet where I make fancy stuff like bread or cakes, and we generally have a fairly meat-based menu, but having the right kitchen gear can make the difference between good and bad camp food.  Just to be clear, I'm talking mainly about tent camping where you are cooking on a camp fire, not in an RV or trailer with a kitchen.

The thing that I really like about canoe or kayak camping is that you have the ability to bring some of the comforts and conveniences of home - much different than backpacking, where you need to winnow down your belongings to fit in a little, heavy bag that you have to carry on  your back - but you still can get pretty far out in the woods and away from it all.  I grew up in Colorado, and we used to go on camping trips with horses - either carrying everything on our own horse, or having the luxury of a pack horse that could carry even more stuff.  The guy who used to lead our 4-H camping trips (pack trips we called them), Tom Butterfield, a true horseman in every sense of the word, had all sorts of amazing camp gear including a hand made sheepherders' stove made out of a 5 gallon drum cut in half, with a piece of cast iron welded on to the top that could be used as a cooking surface and a hot water pot that hooked on to the side that would provide hot water on demand once the stove was hot.  I went on a trip one year with some professional outfitters in Montana, and they had a fold-up kitchen that included a stove, wash basin and counter space.  Every day we moved, they would fold it up and pack it on the mule.  

I don't have a fold-up kitchen, but here's my list of what I'm planning on bringing to outfit my kitchen, and what I recommend to make any camp cooking experience a little easier. 

First, the essentials - These are all things that I consider to be mandatory in a camp kitchen:

1. Folding grill - Most campsites I've been to promise a fire ring with a grill, but you would NEVER want to cook on the grill they provide, usually because they are bent out of shape and filthy.  A grill with fold-down legs lets you grill directly over the fire, and you can also put pots and pans on it above the flame.   It's true that you can always sharpen a stick and stick your meat directly in the fire, but after a few days, that gets a little old.
2. Cooler - It doesn't have to be a big one or even one with fancy wheels and cup holders. I usually try to use the stuff that needs to be refrigerated on the first few days and nights so that we aren't dependent on the cooler when all of the ice is gone.  One important thing we learned last year - get block ice rather than ice cubes.  It lasts MUCH longer.  Camping Blogger had the great idea to use 1-gallon milk jugs to make ice blocks which seems really smart.
3. Can opener - Even if it's just the one on your Swiss army knife, you need a can opener.  Canned food is very convenient for camping.  It's heavy, but it comes with it's own cooking pot and serving dish (hobo style) and doesn't need refrigeration.  After you're done with it,  you can compress it and easily take it with you when you leave.  That said, I like to use canned food to supplement the regular menu, not just as the main dish.
4. Leather work gloves - These were a recent discovery for me.  After years of bringing a grungy old pot holder, last year I brought leather work gloves for gathering wood.  I quickly realized they are a MUST HAVE for cooking and working around the fire.  You can easily add wood, move the hot grill, move hot pots, turn food over the fire and generally just be around the camp fire doing stuff all without getting burnt.  Leather work gloves are a must.
5. Heavy duty tinfoil - Multi-purpose and often re-usable, you can wrap potatoes in tinfoil and bury them in the coals for excellent baked potatoes, you can make a makeshift pan to cook bacon, meat or vegetables, you can store and carry food in tinfoil (as long as it's not acidic like tomatoes).
6. Pocket knife - At the very least, you need a good, sharp pocket knife, like a Swiss Army knife or a Leatherman.  One with a can opener, an awl and a small pair of scissors is great.  But mainly you just need a good sharp knife.
7. Kitchen knife -  A good sharp basic cooking knife is a necessity if you plan on doing any sort of 'real' cooking besides just throwing meat on the grill.  I have a small-ish chefs knife that I made a cover for (cardboard and duct tape!) to reduce the likelihood of accidental cuts.
8. Small cutting board - Another necessity if you plan on doing real cooking that demands chopping or cutting.  Most picnic tables are pretty dirty.  I have a small plastic one with a handle that can also be used to serve food.
9. Multi-purpose lighter - One of the long ones that allow you to start fires (or light candles) without burning your fingers.  I've actually yet to find one of these that doesn't break easily or stop working after a few times, has easy-to-use child-proof features (most of them are adult-proof as well) and is refillable.  So bring a few in case you have trouble. And always bring a back-up of water-proof matches.
10. Utensil set - There are lots of different varieties of these, I have the MSR Alpine Kitchen Cupboard  which includes a plastic bowl into which the utensils fold away for storage and carrying.  Note: the utensils are heat resistant, but the bowl they come in is not.  The spoon/ladle has measuring cup markings (convenient for making pancakes), and it includes a pasta strainer and a spatula (also convenient for pancakes).  I added a metal pot grabber to my kit to grab and lift cans and metal pots off the fire or grill.  It also includes some small plastic containers, but I haven't found these to be very useful.
11. Small gas backpackers stove -  I have another MSR product, the Super Fly stove.   I definitely have some usability issues with this stove - it's just a burner that you screw onto a butane canister - so the balance is very iffy if you don't have it on a completely flat surface, and actively stirring something isn't a great idea.  You also really need a wind screen of some sort to block any wind so it heats properly.   I primarily use it to heat water for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, soup, and hot Tang (yes, hot Tang).  It's great to have in the mornings when you don't feel like starting a fire, or it's raining and you can't start a fire and you want something hot to eat or drink, and it's really small and light.  Always bring an extra butane canister since it's difficult to tell how much fuel each of them contain.
12. A small kettle/pot that fits on your gas stove - Something small and light that has a lid and a handle of some sort for pouring.
13. Paper towels - At home, I try to use cloth kitchen towels more than paper towels.  But when you're camping, it's kind of pointless to bring cloth towels that may end up getting ruined.   Paper towels can be disposed of in the fire, and can also be used as kindling in a pinch.
14. Paper plates - I know this isn't very eco of me, but I much prefer to have paper plates camping than metal or plastic ones.  First, they are multi-purpose: use them to eat off of, fan a slow fire, start a recalcitrant fire, leave notes for fellow campers.  Second, you don't have to wash them.  Third, you can burn them when you're finished with them so you have less garbage to carry out.  I just get the plain paper ones rather than the wax covered ones.  If you want a truly multi-purpose plate, consider bringing a Frisbee.  You can use it as a plate (with a lip so your food doesn't slide off) or for many other things besides tossing back and forth.
15. Spoon and fork - In general, everyone is responsible for their own knife, fork and spoon.  But it is nice to have a few extras hanging around in case you have company drop by.
16. Stanley cup - I don't mean a hockey trophy.  I mean a 2 in 1 cup and bowl  made by the tool makers Stanley.  It has an interlocking cup and bowl, a tight-fitting lid and it's big enough to hold a satisfyingly large amount of tea, coffee or soup.  It also insulates drinks if you use it while the two parts are interlocked together.
17. Plastic garbage bags - Some camp sites have garbage service, but many of them don't because the garbage attracts animals.  Plastic garbage bags are a must for any multi-day camping trip.  Be prepared with some rope and hooks to hang your garbage in a tree overnight so animals can't get to it.
18. Ziplock bags and plastic deli containers - Both for keeping leftovers and for storing food in a watery cooler. 
19. 5 gallon plastic bucket with a tight lid - We actually have two of these that we bring:  1 for getting water and/or washing dishes and the other for storing food in a place that prying little animals can't get to it.
20. Cast iron pan - For eggs, bacon, pancakes, any kind of sautéing, a well-seasoned cast iron pan is the best.  Obviously, they aren't light, but the versatility is worth it.  I don't recommend cookware with Teflon, especially if you are going to use it over the fire.  There's a lot of information about toxic chemicals that are released by Teflon cookware, especially at high temperatures.
    
    Nice to have items:
21. Plastic table cloth - Where we're going, all of the camp sites have picnic tables, but they are pretty grungy.  A plastic tablecloth gives you a clean surface and adds a bit of homey-ness.  It can also double as a rain tarp in a pinch.
22. Biodegradable soap - You can actually get away without having this if you are going on a shorter trip, or if you just use your grill.  If you do get soap, just be sure that it's biodegradable and wash your dishes away from the water.
23. Candles - Not just for light, but for romantic ambiance as well.
24. Larger pot  - I'm not a big pasta while camping fan, so I generally don't bring one of these.  But pasta is really easy to make, either over the fire or using the camp stove, so a pot big enough to boil enough water for pasta for 2-4 can come in handy.  It’s also good for keeping some warm water on the go for washing and cleaning up.
25. Sponge - When you go camping, you're never REALLY clean, but you can pretend you are if you have a sponge handy.
26. Water filter - Last year we went out for a full week without making any trips back in to town to get supplies.  This meant that we either needed to bring all of the water we would need for 7 days, or find a way to filter our own.  We got the Katadyn Camp filter  that you simply fill up and hang from a tree and let gravity do the rest (many other filters require you to manually pump water).  It worked really well and I'm a big fan of this type of filter.
27. Collapsible water jug - The counterpart to the water filter.  We use a collapsible plastic jug since it's easier to pack and carry.
28. Fuel sticks - In case you haven't practiced your survivor fire starting skills, or if it's rainy and damp, these fire starters can mean the difference between having a fire and not having one.
29. The Stanley cups work well around camp, but if you will be hiking or out on the lake, a thermos is a great thing to bring to keep warm drinks while you are out exploring. 
30. A Tree Huggerz.  No, I don't mean a hippie.  A Tree Huggerz is a camp organizer that you wrap around a tree so you can keep stuff off the ground.  It has pockets and hooks that you can use to store tools, hang towels and keep stuff organized.

Here's a decent site with some tips on starting a fire for cooking and some easy campfire recipes. 

Now I just need to put together a menu...

*I've linked to a lot of products on the Campmor site because I LOVE Campmor (not because they are paying me anything).  They have a great selection of products, a nice website and really great catalogs that I get in the mail twice a year with hand drawings of many of the products they have available.  They've always been really good with customer service, and they aren't a chain store.

Summer Salad: Haricot Verts

Another Summer Fest Post!  This week is beans and greens.

I never made it through the 101 Simple Summer Salads article in the NY Times a few weeks ago.  And by "made it through" I don't mean making them all.  I mean reading them all.  I didn't even get past the first page.  There were so many great salad ideas on the first page that I got a little overwhelmed and didn't go any further.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been making salads for dinner this summer. 

I've been inspired by two recent discoveries in the farmers markets.  First, radishes.  I've realized that I really love radishes - even just cut into chunks, lightly salted, eaten right off the cutting board.  But they are also a great addition to almost any salad.  The second thing is the goat cheese feta that I found at a stand at the Brooklyn Borough Hall farmers market.  It's sweet and salty and not too overpowering. 

Earlier this week I found some haricot verts (French green beans that are longer and thinner than most American varieties) at the Union Square market on my way home, so I put together this simple salad with my new favorites.

Haricot Vert Salad

1 lb haricot verts (or young, thing regular green beans)
2 small gherkin cucumbers
3 medium radishes
2 small spring onions or 4 scallions
1/3 cup crumbled feta
Salt
Pepper


Dressing*
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 small shallot, minced
1 T dijon mustard
1/4 cup white wine or rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 T olive oil

Trim the beans and place in a vegetable steamer over boiling water.  Steam for 4-6 minutes, stirring a few times until the beans have changed color and have a nice aroma.  Don't steam them too long (to the point where they are flimsy) You want them to be crunchy and crisp.  Immediately run under cold water and set aside.  Slice the gherkins, radishes and the onions in thin slices with a mandoline.  Place in a bowl with the cooled beans, crumble the feta cheese on top.

For the dressing, smash the garlic in the bottom of a small bowl.  Mix in the shallot, mustard, vinegar, salt and lemon juice.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil.  Pour half of the dressing over the salad and mix well.  Let it sit and marinate for 15 -20 minutes.  If desired, add more dressing, and taste for salt.  Crack fresh pepper over the top just before serving.

*This is actually the same dressing I made for the Fava Bean Salad I posted awhile ago (with the addition of some shallots).  I had some left over, so I thought I'd try it here.

Plum Chutney

I'm participating in Summer Fest 2009 - the month-long blog food extravaganza.  This week's theme is Fruit from trees, and rather than doing a pie or a desert, I thought I'd so something different: chutney! 

I'm a relatively recent convert to chutney - but what a convert I am!  I actually can't eat Indian food or most curries now unless I have a sweet/vinegary chutney to counter balance the spicy/savory of Indian curries.  Last year, I made a sweet tomato chutney from a recipe by Madhur Jaffrey from her book "World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking."  But this year, with all of the news on the east coast about the tomato blight, I decided to make a chutney from something different (I'll just have to ration that last 1/2 pint of tomato chutney I have left).

Walking around the farmers market after work, I saw that plums were just going out of season, so I bought a couple of pounds.  I got a few responses to my Twitter query (Twuery?) for good plum chutney recipes (thanks to @FoodPreserver1 and @crankycakes).  I took some basics from these, but then added the spice mixture idea, garam masala, common in Indian food, to give it a little more spice (not hot spice, but spicy spice).  I grind my own spices in a coffee grinder (that is only used for grinding spices), but if you can't do this, you can usually get garam masala mixes in many asian grocery stores.

I used what were sold as "sugar plums," which had dark skin and a dark red flesh, but when I make this again I will probably use a different type that has firmer yellow flesh.  I would also make sure that they are just on the edge of ripe - mine were too ripe and weren't easy to cut and also resulted in a chutney that is a little less chunky than I would like it to be.

Serve this chutney with Indian curries, as an addition to a cheese plate or in a sandwich (turkey or chicken with brie and this chutney would be amazing)It would also go really well with meats like lamb or pork.

Plum Chutney

2 T yellow mustard seeds
3 lbs plums, cut into quarters
1 1/4 cups raw sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw)
1 1/4 cups white vinegar
1/2 cup white onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T kosher salt

2 whole star anise
1 t whole cloves
1/2 t whole allspice
1/2 t whole cardamom

2 cinnamon sticks

If you are going to put up this chutney, wash 5-6 half-pint jars and lids.  Get the water bath canner ready, but don't start heating until 15 minutes or so before the chutney is done cooking.

Cut up the plums (leaving the skin on) and put aside.  Put the whole spices (with the exception of the cinnamon sticks and mustard seeds) in a spice grinder and pulse until finely ground.  Heat a heavy bottom pot and add the mustard seeds to the dry pot.  Watch them carefully, and when they start to pop and jump, turn down the heat and add the plums.  Add the remaining ingredients including all of the remaining spices.  Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until significantly reduced, about 50 minutes to an hour. 

Stir occasionally, but towards the end, stir frequently, making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.  I always try to cook chutneys a little longer than I think they should be cooked - they always turn out better that way.  The chutney should be thick, dark and somewhat shiny and you should be able to see the bottom of the pot as you stir it.

Sterilize your jars, and fill each leaving a 1/2 inch headroom.  Process for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.  If you don't want to can this, the chutney will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Makes 5-6 half pints.

Pickled Beets

Amongst friends, I'm kind of known for a few food specialties: Molasses sugar cookies, any kind of pie and pickled beets.  I've been reluctant to share the recipes for the cookies and the beets - the cookies because it's a recipe from my grandmother that was one of her favorites and the beets because they are good enough that even people who don't like beets have told me they like them.  I've decided to share the beet recipe (with all of the 35 of you that are reading this blog...)

Standard pickled beet recipes use spices like cinnamon, cloves and/or allspice to enhance (or some would say 'mask') the beet taste that some people say resembles dirt.  I love the earthy flavor of beets, but for some people it can be overpowering.   I picked up this recipe from an ex-roommate in San Francisco that uses umeboshi which is itself a pickled fruit  (usually called umeboshi plums, but they are actually related to apricots).  I've used both versions of umeboshi for pickling beets - the paste or whole plums  that you can get at most asian food markets, or the umeboshi vinegar  that you can find in most health food stores.  I'm not particularly fond of the cinnamon-y flavor of most pickled beets, but you can, if you want, add a stick of cinnamon and/or some whole allspice to one or several jars before you seal them up.  But in general, these pickled beets are more savory than sweet.

If you haven't had pickled beets before, you might wonder what you actually do with them.  I always tell people they can do the same things they would do with any pickle: put them on a sandwich, add them to a salad, eat them on their own.  My favorite way of eating them is with a little chunk of multigrain bread (or a simple water craker), some extra sharp cheddar (Canadian or English) and a few slices of pickled beets.

 

This recipe uses rice vinegar.  I only use unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar (which is clear), not seasoned or Chinese rice vinegar (which is dark colored).  Rice vinegar is only 4.2% acidity, which technically is not recommended for boiling water bath canning (recommended 5% acidity).  I do it anyway and I've never had a problem (I don't dilute the vinegar with water as many recipes that use regular vinegar suggest).  But if you aren't comfortable with this, make a smaller batch and just keep them in the refrigerator.  They will last for several weeks in the refrigerator.

Pickled Beets

1 dozen medium beets
1 1/2 cups unseasoned rice vinegar
1 small head garlic, minced (about 5-7 cloves)
1/2 c ume plum vinegar (or 1 tablespoon ume plum (mashed) and 1/2 c more rice vinegar)
2 t kosher salt
optional cinnamon sticks (1/2 for each half-pint jar) and whole allspice berries (can also use cloves)

Before you start cooking, wash 8 half pint jars and new lids.  Put the canning pot on to start heating. 

Wash beets, peel and cut into bite sized slices (some people cook whole beets then peel them, I've had issues with beets cooking evenly that way, so I peel and cut before I steam them).  Steam in a vegetable steamer or a pot with a steamer basket for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring occasionally until tender but not mushy.  While the beets are cooking, in a glass bowl mix together the rest of the ingredients including the cinnamon and allspice.  Immediately after the beets are done cooking, add the hot beets to the vinegar mixture.  Stir well.  If you're going to can the beets, prepare jars for filling by sanitizing them in boiling water. 

Fill each jar with beets, leaving about 1/2 inch of headroom, then pour remaining vinegar solution evenly into each jar.  Add 1/2 cinnamon stick and 1 or 2 nutmeg berries to each jar (or add to some and not to others) if you are using spices.  Seal jars and process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 half pints

Website Review: Evaluating "Good Guide" Ratings

The Good Guide is a good idea.  No, it's a great idea.  In case you aren't familiar with it, Good Guide is a website (and iPhone app) that lets you search for food, cosmetics, and other personal use items and get ratings on how healthy and green they are.  Their goals are to "provide the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies." If you've ever been in the cosmetics aisle, the food isle or in any store, and have found yourself wondering what the environmental impact and general 'green-ness' or nutrition value is of any product you have bought or are thinking of buying may be, Good Guide is the site (or app) for you.

But, I have to bring attention to a major usability issue I have with their site, and then subsequently an issue I discovered with their food ratings.  I follow Good Guide on Twitter, and today they posted the following Tweet:

Worst-rated energy and snack bars. Check your bar, get a better boost http://bit.ly/p1x5Y

I clicked on the link and I got this:



I've been on Good Guide before, but I was really confused when I looked at this list.  Was a higher rating good or bad?  Was the overall scale - 1 - 10 or 1 - 20?  Was a 4.2 rating that much better or worse than a 5.2 rating?   What did the colors of the rating circles mean?  This page gives me absolutely no clue even in simple terms how their rating system works or what the numbers mean. (I did crop these images, click here to see the actual page.)  This was partly because I'd gone to a page with the LOWEST rated items, so it was sorted from low to high, but it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on. I definitely don't need lots of details on this page, but I do need a little bit of guidance about what the numbers mean so I can compare and contrast as I go down the list.

If you click into any of the items, you do get a lot more details and ways to discover what the ratings mean.  But most importantly, they have this little indicator which is super simple and explains a lot.

If they put this colored scale on the list page, it would  help explain what the numbers of the ratings mean.  A simple change would make a huge difference.  Another simple change would be to add numbers to the list to the left of each item that shows the number RANK of the item in the list. 

I found this other scale indicator at the bottom of the detailed info that would be even more helpful if they put it on the browse pages.   It is a very simple diagram that explains a lot.

Since I was on the site, I started taking a more detailed look around.  I had been on the site before, looking for information on how "green" a face lotion was that I had just bought.  But I hadn't looked at their food ratings.  After spending some time, I have to say that I have some real issues with the way their rating system seems to be working.