Scratch Food with a Side of Geek Mom and Pop Culture.
Every year, around this time, I am elbow deep in some kind of fruit. Some would come from my garden, and some would come from the forest near to our place, but from the beginning of May till let’s say end of October I am probably preparing some kind of things with some kind of fruit….
It seems weird, I know, but I never got around to canning. I have, however, fallen solidly and madly in love with freezer preservation. In fact, freezer preserving oven-roasted cherry tomatoes is hands-down my favourite perk of gardening, and much of the reason why I continue doing it. Ever since I started up my planter…
It’s July and the smell of roses is still in the air. You probably picture them on your window sill. On the table, in a vase. Given as a gift to someone you love. In fact, the rose is one of the most formidable flower there is, often called the Queen of Flowers. But have…
Last year I pansied out on canning jam because I was intimidated by the idea of food poisoning. This year, I’m just flipping it off entirely. Canning for shelf-stability is a pretty precise science where well-tested recipes that doesn’t invite a great deal of playing around. It’s limiting, and boring, and many recipes taste pretty…
Have you ever wondered about how cream turns into butter, or why whipped cream and butter are different? I was thinking about post ideas, when someone said “have you done butter yet?” No, I haven’t done butter. Butter is gradeschool Homesteading 101, and everybody’s got a post on how to make butter. “Yes,” says my friend….
Okay, I know it’s not a super exciting post. Whee, vegetable stock! It has to be done though because t’s a building block to great things, and the honest truth is that if you peel your vegetables and throw them in the green bin, or if you tend to discard things like the dinged up…
Tahini, a paste made from roasted sesame seeds, is one of those unusual foods that has gotten slapped with the labels “ethnic” and “vegan.” That’s no reason to give it the cold shoulder. The odds are that you probably have had tahini pass your lips, though, especially if you’ve ever enjoyed a hummus dip. I…
I love historical minutiae as much as I love science. It could be a related phenomena… there is just so much to KNOW (also, keeps me thinking, helps me try to recover from baby brain…). For instance: carrots giving you better eyesight? TOTAL URBAN LEGEND. That’s right. If you grew up thinking carrots helped you…
My friend Jennifer at Homegrown.org recently asked me to write up a 101 on making homemade pectin instead of using store-bought powdered stuff with dubious GMO ingredients. I happily complied, since I’ve got the hots for scientific research of the food variety. 🙂 You can find the entire 101 article at http://www.homegrown.org/forum/topics/making-pectin-101
Apple butter is big in the south. It strikes me as strange that it’s not quite so big here in the Great White North, where apples are in rampant supply come fall. So sad! Great things come from apple butter. I personally like it more as an ingredient than I do as a condiment–it’s…