How to Host a Canning Party

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of home preservation. I recently simmered some lemons into marmalade, have turned plums and apricots into jam, and set up jars of whole pears and plums (well, semi-whole with pears, but still). I've spent a lot of solo time with my canner, but really it's so much better when you get together to can with friends. It's like anything else, I suppose.

And, like anything else, there can be something of a learning curve. I recently authored an article on the lovely blog Culinate, giving some handy tips for hosting a canning party. It's something of an update on thoughts I'd been marinating on since last year's canning parties, all refined and distilled into an easy list. You can check it out here. Happy preserving!

Lassi (Rosewater Yogurt) Popsicles

From my humble corner of the kitchen world, I'm not quite sure what to make of the molecular gastronomy that's happening at top restaurants. While I chop vegetables and simmer marmalade, chefs at fancypants venues are rendering ingredients unrecognizable. I'm still in awe of things like slightly savory ice creams (I literally started giggling the one time I tasted a pink peppercorn sundae), and can't imagine vegetables turned into squishy bubbles, peanut butter and jelly rendered into powder, or air and smoke considered legitimate ingredients. It's all far beyond me these days. The closest I come is turning a drink into a popsicle.

I've always been a big fan of lassis, the yogurt drink enjoyed at Indian restaurants. Usually they're featured flavored with mango, and occasionally show up salted instead of sweetened (which can lead to disappointing mistakes, unless you favor a savory beverage). But my favorite is the plain sweet lassi. As someone who always picked vanilla ice cream over strawberry, that's probably no surprise. But the sweet lassi is far from plain. It's got tang from yogurt, a bit of sugar to sweeten, and rosewater to lend a lovely perfume (beware overdoing it, or it might be a bit too much like perfume). I also like to mix in a bit of cardamom, though it's still sweet and refreshing without. I know it's pretty humble, but on days like these it feels like the perfect bit of kitchen magic.

Lassi (Rosewater Yogurt) Popsicles

I freeze my popsicles in these nifty molds I bought with some cooking store credit, but you can use anything: paper cups, a loaf pan (slice after freezing), or, adorably, shot glasses. If you don't have handled molds, you can pick up popsicle sticks at a grocery or craft store. In a pinch: chopsticks! You can also substitute buttermilk for both the yogurt and milk, for a nice variation.

2 cups yogurt (low-fat yields an icier pop, full-fat is creamier)
1/2 cup milk
6 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp rosewater
1/4 tsp cardamom (optional)

Whisk together all of the ingredients. Let sit a minute, and then whisk again until the sugar has dissolved. Pour into your desired posicle mold, and freeze until firm (usually overnight). Enjoy.

Meyer Lemon Thyme Marmalade

For all my love of my current home (Portland, Oregon), I must admit that California just blows my mind sometimes. A few years ago I made the drive from Portland to the Bay Area, and at one point I casually turned to look out the window and the view just knocked me out. Napa, maybe? The picture had changed from the usual grassy verge to these amazing, breathtaking golden-blond hills. It was like the setting for some romantic period movie, secretly hidden in this very country. "Oh my god, why doesn't everyone want to live here?" I managed to gasp. My boyfriend turned to me, patiently. "Everyone does want to live here," he explained. "These are some of the highest property values in the entire country." Ah, California.

Truth be told, it's not just the rolling Tuscan hills, dirt-cheap amazing produce, or general golden glow that endears California to me. It's this: everyone I know in the Bay Area has a meyer lemon tree in their backyard. Everyone. I think they're part of a state-issued program, like the dividend checks from Alaska's permanent fund. If by chance you don't have one of your own, you live next to someone who does. And you have at least an apricot, fig, or persimmon tree instead to console you.

Last month a friend made the drive up from Berkeley, and offered to bring some lemons with her (it's possible I might have insisted). I made it clear that I wasn't looking for a couple token fruits, but a cardboard box full of them. Which I was given. We had a few blissful weeks of fragrant whisky sours, and the zest is still infusing in a jar of soon-to-be meyer limoncello. But time marched on, and I didn't want the remaining lemons to go soft. So I turned to marmalade.

I've tried a few marmalade techniques over the years, and this method is my favorite. I won't lie: it's undeniably fussy, and takes a good bit of time. But the results are lovely. Most methods have you hack up the whole fruit, discarding only the pits. The rinds soften during their long simmer, and the resulting sour/sweet product is delicious. But, inspired by the amazing June Taylor, I adopt a somewhat more involved process. Instead of tossing in pieces of whole citrus, I break them down in a particular way. The zest is shaved off, cut however you like (I tend to use a citrus zester for tiny curls, but some people might favor taking larger strips with a peeler). Then the remaining bitter white pith is trimmed off, and the fruit segments are "supremed," or cut/pulled off of the tough dividing membranes. You simmer the membranes and pits in a cheesecloth bag to extract pectin to set your marmalade, but the spread itself is remarkable smooth and delicious. No bitter white pith, no tough fibrous membranes. Just lovely juicy fruit and sharp candied peel, suspended in clear golden sweetness. Oh, California.


Meyer Lemon Thyme Marmalade

yields ~ 6 half-pints marmalade

6 lbs meyer lemons, washed
2.5 cups water
2 lbs (lbs, not cups!) sugar
~1 Tbsp thyme leaves, rinsed and pulled off the stems (I favor a sprinkling of thyme to play on my Mediterranean dreams of the Golden State, but the marmalade is just as lovely without)

special equipment: cheesecloth, kitchen twine, canning jars and gear

Peel the zest from 2/3 of the lemons, and chop however finely you like (I like to remove tiny ribbons of peel directly from the fruit with a citrus zester, but if you want finished peels that are large enough to see in the finished product, use a regular peeler and then cut the removed peel into bits the size of your choosing). Be careful to remove only the peel, and none of the bitter white pith. Set the chopped zest into your marmalade pot and set aside.

Take the lemons and supreme them. If you haven't done this before, you can find a handy pictorial here, but this is the basic overview: Cut off the top and bottom of the fruit to form level surfaces, and then cut off all remaining pith and peel. Free the fruit from the membranes--with some citrus you'll have to cut the sections out, but with most meyer lemons you can just sort of tug them free with your fingers. Drop the naked, membrane-free fruit sections in your marmalade pot along with the zest. Place all membranes and seeds in a separate bowl. Discard the pith and extra peel. If there's any bits of fruit on the peel/pith you've trimmed, feel free to squeeze its juice into the marmalade pot. Bear in mind that the fruit segments will break down as they boil, so don't worry too much if you can't get them out in one piece.

Add the water to your marmalade pot, and bring to a boil over high heat. While the heat is coming up, lay out a large square of cheesecloth, and place all your membranes and pits therein. Tie it up with the kitchen twine, and add it to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, and fish out the ball of seeds and membranes and set it on a plate to cool. When it's cool enough to handle, squeeze it to milk out the pectin. As you'll squeeze, a milky goo will ooze out. Exactly what you want! Let this goo plop back into the marmalade pot (don't worry if it sits strangely in blobs--it will melt once you reheat the marmalade). Squeeze the bag for a few minutes, until you've milked out a few tablespoons of pectiny goo. Add the sugar and thyme leaves, and bring the pot back to a boil.

Keep the pot at a good rolling boil until the marmalade sets. The amount of time this takes will vary, depending on the amount of pectin and water in the fruit. Count on at least half an hour, generally. It's done when a candy thermometer measures 220 degrees (the consistency will also have changed somewhat, and become more thick and syrupy). If you, like me, don't have a candy thermometer, you can do the cold plate test: Chill a plate in the freezer, and then drizzle a small amount of hot marmalade on it. Place it back in the freezer for a minute, then check it. Set marmalade doesn't need to be set like a jelly, but should be firm enough that it wrinkles slightly when you push it with your finger, and you can almost mound it, like slightly-thickened egg whites. Done! Pour into sterilized canning jars and process in a water bath for a shelf-stable product (and adored gift), or pour into any jars you like and store in the refrigerator.

Garlic Scape Potato Pizza

Summer didn't really hit Portland until about 3 days ago. These last few weeks featured buckets of rain, and chilly winds that made you want cover any exposed flesh. In mid-June. But once the sun comes out, it wipes away any memory of the blustery past. Right now my clothes are drying outside on the line, the dog is snoozing in the sun, and a lone glass or two still needs to be gathered in from last night's backyard party. There's really not much to remind us of the last few cold and damp weeks. But if you look at the farmers markets, you can see the aftershocks. Harvests are a few weeks late. Oregon's beloved hood strawberries are a touch waterlogged this year, not quite their usual punchy flavor-filled selves. But the biggest loser seems to have been garlic.

Last month I thinned out tasty shoots of green garlic from the garden, and was eagerly awaiting the proper harvest. But within a few weeks, reddish-brown spots started showing up, the sign of garlic rust. According to gardening sites, rust is promoted by low light and high moisture levels, so I suppose we didn't stand a chance. Most of our neighbors are in the same boat. My gardening partner and I pulled out all of the garlic, to prevent the infection from setting into the soil. It's a bit disheartening. But I comforted myself with garlic scapes.

Scapes are the adorably curled tops of the garlic plant, which would turn into flowers if left to grow. But they can be harvested and cooked (even when you don't have to pull up the whole plant), and taste vaguely like garlic-dressed asparagus. You can grind them into a delicious pesto with the usual ingredients, but I think it's much nicer to feature them in recipes that highlight their curls. Like this pizza.

If you make this at home, you don't need to load up quite so many scapes on top of your pizza (I got a bit carried away). But they're so delicious, you might want to anyways. You can also cut them into somewhat more manageable lengths, but where's the fun in that? As with my asparagus pizza, I turned to a sauce-free pie to highlight the flavor of the scapes. I laid down a bed of boiled waxy red potatoes, left over from hash browns a few mornings earlier. You can also use mozarella, but it's surprisingly nice with just potatoes, which create a creamy and satisfying base. A sprinkling of fusty bleu cheese stands up to the equally-assertive scapes, and a scattering of walnuts rounds it out with a welcome crunch and nutty depth.


Garlic Scape Potato Pizza

1 ball of pizza dough, ~10 oz (I'm still a big cheerleader for the recipe in Artisan Breads Every Day by the great Peter Reinhart)
olive oil
2 good-sized waxy red or yellow potatoes, boiled and sliced into 1/4" rounds
3 Tbsp walnuts, untoasted (they'll toast up enough in the oven)
3 Tbsp crumbled bleu cheese
~6-8 garlic scapes, tossed with a light spray of olive oil
salt

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for 1-2 hours. If your pizza dough has been refrigerated (as most good pizza doughs will be), let it come to room temperature for 1 1/2 hours.

Place the pizza dough on a lightly-floured counter top, and press outward into a thick disk (leaving a 1" unpressed area along the edge as the crust). Pick up the disk and let it drape over the backs of your hands, letting gravity help you stretch it into a 12-14" circle. If the dough resists, let it relax for a few minutes, then try again. Place the stretched dough on a peel (or overturned cookie sheet or cutting board) that's lightly dusted with semolina or other type of flour.

Lay your potato slices evenly on top of the dough, and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Scatter the walnuts and bleu cheese, then top with garlic scapes. Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone in your oven, and bake ~7-10 minutes, until the crust browns and the cheese melts.

Remove the pizza from the oven, and let cool for a moment (I like to move it to a rack for just half a minute, to let the steam escape from the crust while I reheat the peel). Sprinkle with a touch of salt, slice and serve.

Poppy Seed Cake

It's easy to get excited by new flavors. When I first tasted pimenton, the smoked Spanish paprika, I snuck it into whatever dish I could manage (and in case you're wondering, not everything in the world benefits from a whiff of smoke). My first taste of the almost piney preserved lemons knocked me out, and the fusty edge of za'atar led to a serious run on flatbreads in our household. Discovering new tastes makes dinner more exciting, and opens a window to the rest of the world. But it's so much more, almost like discovering a whole new color: the palette expands in ways you wouldn't have thought possible. It's amazing. Except for one little drawback: sometimes in our oh-my-gosh-taste-this enthusiasm, we forget about the simple pleasures we used to know. Like poppy seed cake.

I can't recall the last time I ate a poppy seed that wasn't affixed to a bagel. Which is a shame, because poppy seeds are surprisingly lovely, much more than you'd expect from their ho-hum reputation. Up close, their black color is actually a deep dusky blue, and their round sillhouette is more of a kidney shape. And their flavor is nutty, with a fun bit of crunch. They also contain a good amount of oil, which gives cakes like these a moist richness.

This recipe comes from The Baker's Cafe, where I had the pleasure of working throughout high school and college. Although I ate staggering amounts of all sorts of pastries during my shifts, this poppy seed cake was one of my favorites. It's rich and moist without being too sweet (so as to balance out my inevitable slices of chocolate cake), with a bit of tang from sour cream and a ridiculously generous full cup of nubby poppy seeds. The oil-rich seeds keep it moist for several days, but it will freeze well if you need to keep it longer than that. It's perfect for enjoying with a cup of tea or glass of milk. I'm usually a fan of sneaking some puckery lemon into everything I make, and many poppy seed cakes recipes offset the mild cake with some juice or zest. This bundt cake doesn't, but I find I like it more--the better to taste the poppy seeds.


Poppy Seed Cake

adapted from The Baker's Cafe Cookbook
yields one 9" bundt or tube cake

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 generous pinch salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one by one, beating after each addition. Blend in the sour cream, extracts and poppy seeds, mixing until well combined. Fold in the dry ingredients, and mix until barely combined. Pour into the prepared pan, and bake 45-60 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let cool in the pan (on a rack, preferably) for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a plate.

Whole Wheat Tortillas

My boyfriend is a very tall man. And also very slim. And for some reason, this particular combination flummoxes the American garment industry. Most clothing manufacturers have taken the term "big and tall" to heart, and can't conceive of one without the other. If a shirt actually hugs his narrow waist, then chances are the cuffs are hovering somewhere mid-forearm. Alternately, if the sleeves stretch nicely to the wrists, then there's likely enough billowy fabric for a good 3-4 torsos. It can be a bit maddening.

I find a similar frustration when I shop for tortillas. Specifically, flour tortillas. I generally like a bit of whole wheat flour in my savory baked goods, to pretend I'm healthy and enjoy a more pronounced wheaty flavor. But I don't want to sacrifice the traditional goodness of a tortilla, where the flour is touched with a bit of salt and fat to create a quality flatbread. For reasons I cannot figure out, my local grocery store isn't with me on this. They figure that if I want whole grains, than I also must be opposed to fat. And so they try to sell me tortillas that omit the shortening in favor of weird cottony binding agents. Unsurprisingly, the resulting tortillas are not so awesome. I like whole wheat, but I also like fat. And I like delicious tortillas, which require fat. Luckily, I can solve this problem. While sadly I don't have the skills to tailor a tall-yet-slim dress shirt, I am fully capable of cutting fat into flour, mixing and rolling dough, and turning out delicious whole wheat tortillas.

Now to the purists who scoff at this idea: I know that whole wheat flour tortillas aren't traditional Mexican food, for the same reason brown rice isn't seen in India: tropical heat + oil = badness. Before such modern conveniences as refrigeration and air conditioning, oily bran and germ needed to be stripped off of grains, so that they could be stored without the danger of rancidity. If we're going for full-on authenticity, these tortillas would feature lard instead of shortening. So evidently I have no qualms about adaptation.

But while whole wheat tortillas may not be traditional, they are definitely delicious. Admittedly, these aren't 100% whole wheat, but a mix of wheat and white flours, so you get a bit of toothsome nuttiness without sacrificing delicacy. Although they're just a millimeter or so thick, they still have a distinct layers, with a toasty crust surrounding a supple-yet-flaky center. They're fun to make (depending on your definition of fun), and keep well in either the refrigerator or freezer.


Flour Tortillas

adapted from Saveur Cooks Authentic American, by way of Orangette
yields 18 tortillas

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (a finely-ground flour will give you the best results)
2 1/2 cups white flour
1 1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp non-hydrogenated shortening, cut into smallish pieces

In a small saucepan, bring ~2 cups of water to a boil.

In a large bowl or food processor, whisk (or pulse) together the flours and salt until well combined. Add the shortening, and either break it up with your fingers, or pulse briefly in the food processor, until it is reduced to tiny bits. If you're using a food processor, turn the mixture out into a bowl at this point. Add the boiling water bit by bit, mixing first with a spoon and then your hands to distribute the water and work the dough together. Add just enough water until the dough just holds together (generally no more than 1 1/2 cups). Knead the dough for a few minutes on a floured counter top until it becomes smooth. Don't overwork. Shape into a ball, place in a plastic bag, and let relax on the counter for half an hour.

After the dough has relaxed, heat a heavy skillet over a high heat (as with pancakes, you want to make sure you're at full heat or else your first efforts won't be good--aim for just-shy-of-smoking). Cut the dough into 18 equal pieces--you can either do this by weight (the exact weight will vary, depending on the water needed, so weigh your dough and then divide by 18), or cut your doughball into 6 wedges, and then each wedge into 3 pieces. Roughly shape each wedge into a ball.

You want to roll out each ball into a thin circle on a floured counter top, as thin as you can make it, with a ~8" diameter. But you don't need to do this all at once --you'll have time to roll as the tortillas are cooking. I like to give maybe 3 balls a rough pass first, then let them relax a moment, then roll them to full size one by one as I'm cooking. Cover any dough you're not working with with a dish towel so that it doesn't dry out. As each tortilla is shaped, toss it onto your hot skillet. It will puff up, sometimes dramatically. When it is lightly puffed, turn it over and cook the other side. This will take just half a minute or so per side, depending on whether you like light golden spots, or nearly-burnt spots (I tend to favor the latter). Stack the finished tortillas on top of each other, one by one, on a rack or plate. Keep the whole pile covered with a dish towel so that they stay soft and pliable. Leftovers can be refrigerated in a sealed bag, and warmed in a low oven, or heated briefly over a gas flame.

Leftover Salmon Kedgeree

I have a thrifty streak that runs a mile wide. Recently I discovered that the local grocery store sells whole wildcaught salmon, and they go on sale for as low as $2.99/lb. How can I not buy one? But the catch: when I say whole salmon, I mean whole salmon. You only get this price when you take home the entire fish. As one can imagine, a 4 lb salmon + 2 person household = lots of leftovers. A day or two of baked salmon is lovely, but after that I start looking for ways to add a bit of excitement. For a while, the winning treatment was a pan-fried version of fish tacos, slicing the leftovers and frying them up with a homemade mixture of chili and spices. But the new favorite is salmon kedgeree.

Kedgeree is a traditional Indian pilaf, where seasoned rice is mixed with legumes. But when the Brits came over, they replaced the lentils with their beloved smoked haddock. The whole affair is spiced with curry seasonings, perked up with lemon juice and fresh cilantro, and served with hard-boiled eggs. For breakfast. Even a leftovers-in-the-morning fan like myself finds that a bit hard to swallow. But as a lunch or dinner, kedgeree is fantastic. Especially with salmon.

Sharp-eyed readers may note that a version of this recipe appeared on the website Food52 a few weeks ago, and I'm embarrassingly just getting around to posting it here now. The time, she does fly. And in another example of what I believe the kids call a "cross post," last week's sloppy sauce was featured on Salon.com. I'm ridiculously happy to see it sitting there in such a nice layout (and among such nice company).


Leftover Salmon Kedgeree

I came up with this recipe to use up leftovers, but it's good enough to make from scratch--just bake or poach a pound of salmon and start from there. The spinach isn't remotely traditional, but I can't resist adding some greens to make this a one-pot meal.

serves 4

1 Tbsp canola oil (or ghee, if you've got it)
1 Tbsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1-3 Tbsp Indian-style jarred curry paste, such as Patak's (if you don't have this, you can substitute 1-3 Tbsp curry powder (depending on your taste and the spiciness of your curry), mixed with a splash of oil and 1/2 tsp tomato paste)
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, julienned or grated
~5 cups cooked long-grain white rice (yeah, my picture has overcooked short-grain brown rice, but long grain white would be better)
1 lemon, juiced
salt
1 lb cooked salmon, flaked into bite-sized pieces
1/2 bunch spinach, washed, dried and roughly chopped (optional)
1 bunch cilantro, washed, dried and roughly chopped
yogurt for serving (optional)

Heat the oil or ghee over a medium-high flame in a heavy pan. When the oil is rippley-but-not-smoking, add the mustard seeds and cover. The seeds will sputter and pop.

When the popping has subsided, add the turmeric and curry paste or powder (start with the smaller amount). Let the seasonings toast for a few seconds, then add the onion, garlic and ginger. Stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium and saute, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent (~5 minutes).

When the onion is cooked, add the rice and stir gently but thoroughly to combine. Add the lemon juice and salt to taste, and more curry paste if desired. When it's seasoned to taste, add the salmon, spinach (if using), and ~ 3/4 of the cilantro, and stir gently to combine. Cook until the fish is warmed through and the spinach has wilted. Garnish with remaining cilantro and serve with yogurt if desired.