Crabapple Butter

Yum! My neighbor has a lovely crabapple bush which survived the tropical storm force winds that Hurricane Ike sent through our area on September 14th. So many trees came down in our part of the state that we were out of electric for nearly a week. Fortunately this crabapple bush wasn't damaged. However, it is so loaded with fruit that the limbs might break. The crabapples are ripe now, lovely shiny red and yellow. My neighbor asked if we wanted the fruit. Oh yes! Our crabapple is too young to bear much yet. Lovely flowers, but not so much fruit yet.

So it's time for crabapple butter!

Showtime Rotisserie

A couple months ago my husband purchased a countertop rotisserie. The idea was to use it to roast coffee, as well as to cook. We've used it quite extensively, and I highly recommend it. I think it's about the best way to cook most meats. It will roast 2 chickens at a time, or the basket can be used for steaks, veggies or other flat items. It takes no longer than using the regular oven, doesn't heat up the whole house, and the food is wonderfully tender and juicy.

There are several additional things that it either can come with, or that you can get separately, including 2 sizes of baskets and skewers. Some packages come with a warming try that can be put on top.

A lot of thought went into the design. The drip tray is square, so there's no 'wrong' way to put it in. The spit can go in either way, so you just use it. It comes with a gray plastic disk that takes the gear shaft and holds the spit vertically, allowing you to position the foods/baskets on it without it falling over, and which will protect the table/counter when taking food off.

All in all, I highly recommend these rotisserie ovens. They take up about the same amount of space as a breadbox, coming in several sizes to suit your needs.

Vegetable Stock, a nice side effect of canning corn

We recently spent a day canning. Started first thing in the morning in the garden, picking corn and shucking it. Nice activity for a lovely summer morning. Then on into the house to cut and can the corn.

The corncobs seemed like too much goodness to just put back in the compost, so we made vegetable stock. Got two big stockpots for the cobs, added a few tomatoes, some green beans, kohlrabi, onions, carrots including their greens, fresh herbs and a few dried. Used our new 21,000 BTU burner and the side burner on our grill to make the stock. Let it cook slowly over several hours, took the stock off, added more water and did it again. And again! In the end we had 26 quarts of stock. We mixed the 3 different batches together so they would all be about the same concentration.

Wonderful start to some soups this winter!

Brined Zucchini Pickless Need More Work

Well, I'm not satisfied with how the brined zucchini pickles turned out. More experimentation is needed. Some possibilities are that they were cut, not whole, and that I may not have had a strong enough brine solution. When I get a chance I'll try some more with other solutions.

Brining Zucchini Pickles

On Friday I started some brined zucchini pickles. I happened to stop at a local discount store and saw a lovely, large glass vase. Clear glass, with a sort of swirled pattern, about 18-20 inches tall, lovely shape, narrowing down to an opening still large enough for me to put my hand in. Hmmm, looked perfect for pickles! And only $5.00. Home it came. I cleaned it, then tried to decide how to use all the lovely zucchini.

I decided on spears, since the zucchini's were pretty good sized (say mostly 3-day zuke's). We chunked them into spears about 3.5 to 4 inches long, either quartering each section, or cutting it into 8ths, depending on how big they were. As I layered the spears into the jar I added a pickling mix that we had purchased. I'd just found out the day before that pickling mixes were initialy intended for brined pickles, and this was my chance to try this one out.

Mixed up brine and put it over the full jar. I then used some of the remainder in a sandwich baggie, double bagged, which I put on top to keep the new pickles under the brine. It started bubbling by the next day. The spears are reducing in size, I presume as the salt pulls the water out of the spears. They sure look good. They should be ready in about 2 weeks.