Fridge Pickles

Confession: I was born without a sweet tooth.  Since I was a kid, I have always preferred salty to sweet.  And as my romance with beer continues, so does my need for salty snacks: for roasted peanuts, hunks of parmesan, jars of fancy olives, and, of course, you already know my obsession with popcorn.  But summer brings barbecue season and mountains of farmer's market cucumbers, which means it's time to make pickles.

Pickles bring out the old country in me.  The shtetl in me.  The hot summers by the Danube in me.  (Never mind that any pickles I ate were dished out in the suburbs).  Maybe I am somehow channeling the kitchens of my past, but I do know this: when there are pickles on the table, I cannot stop eating them.  And nothing, I tell you, nothing makes a burger taste so right as housemade pickles.  Maybe it's that the spicy vinegar cuts the grease?  Or maybe it's because we always like what mom served, and my mom always served pickles.

Want to make pickles like my mom?  Let's do it!

Fill a clean jar or container about 3/4 of the way full of veggies.  Cucumbers can be sliced and go right in the jar.  Onions too.  If you are pickling other vegetables (my other jar is filled with radishes, carrots, and peppers), they should be blanched in boiling water for a minute, then plunged into ice water before you put them up for pickling.

Next, for one jar of pickles, combine 1 cup white vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 Tbsp kosher salt, 1 tsp dill seed, 2 bay leaves, 5 cloves, 1 clove of garlic, slices of onion, crushed black pepper, and crushed pepper flakes if you like things spicy (which I do).  Liquid should cover your solids--if not, top off with more white vinegar.  Repeat for the next jar, and so on.

Close the lid tight and shake it up so the sugar will dissolve a little and hard spices will distribute throughout.  This beautiful jar in the front is cucumber done with fresh jalapeno slices--yum!  You could easily play around with the flavors, like substituting star anise for the dill.  Go wild.  

As the name implies, put your fridge pickles in the refrigerator, not on a pantry shelf.  Cucumber pickles will be ready to eat in a day and keep in the fridge up to a month.  Other veggies may take up to a week to pickle--just an excuse for you to open the jar and sample to see if they're done.

I mean, it's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Seeing red

Strawberry season is here and I cannot control myself.

Look at me, sipping a kir royale adorned with strawberry slices at 3:00 in the afternoon for no reason whatsoever.

     
   

Oh, wait, there is a reason - summer vacation!

I wait for the once-a-year red berry madness and then gorge out of my mind.  I've been putting them in everything, including a spinach salad with Indian-spiced walnuts and plum vinaigrette that I made for a dinner party, and also in some fabulous mixed-berry buttermilk scones that were devoured before I could photograph them.

Um, yes please.

So of course I had to make strawberry jam, this time with a little help from my cousins Matt and Madhuri.

           

Tried a different recipe than the usual freezer jam, adding some lemon zest and a splash of creme de casis, just for kicks.  I highly recommend this recipe.  Check it out:

Naturally, there was also homemade strawberry ice cream.
I mean, it seemed like the thing to do.

Wish I could figure out how they do the strawberry balsamic ice cream at Bi Rite, but this was good too!
Whew, earned our treat! 

Gardening: The Windowsill Salad Bowl

The Problem: So, don't hate me, fellow health-nuts, but I have a problem with lettuce.  Lettuce always has to be difficult.  I don't like rudeness in my students and I certainly don't like it in my food.  I mean, I like chowing down on delicious, organic green salad with vinaigrette as much as the next guy, but for a single diner, lettuce is a real pain.  I buy a head of lettuce or bag of prewashed greens and after one handful on a sandwich, it rots in the fridge.  Then there was that horrible incident last year when I tried to grow it and a neighborhood critter cleaned me out in one evening.  And yet, I know that I should eat more greens.

The Solution: Presenting the charming and delightful windowsill salad bowl!  

  

You will love this.  I want one for every window in my place.  I took a medium-sized planting bowl and filled it with lettuces and herbs that will keep growing after I cut them.  I planted sweet Italian basil, Napa cabbage, wasabi arugula, and oak leaf lettuce.  Conveniently perched on a chair in my kitchen, where it gets some direct light and some indirect.  Seems happy so far!

If I want a few leaves of lettuce for my sandwich, it's done.  Fresh basil for caprese salad?  Done.

Best of all, the windowsill salad bowl is safe from neighborhood pests.  Now that I know I can grow herbs and veggies indoors, I will definitely be experimenting more!  

Now, who's hungry for lunch?

We're Back...

Good morning.  Or good evening.  Thanks for coming by for a little nosh.

Yes, folks, the blog is back...

...and more delicious than ever.  

Stay tuned for garden tips, lunch beers, French green beans, plum jam, tomato sauce, scones, simple moments, glossy food photos, and other adventures!

Apple of my eye

So apparently, we didn't have a summer here in California.  We didn't have a spring either, come to think of it.  We plowed right past the sunny days and languorous nights into rain on the pavement and perpetual dusk,  which I'm okay with because a) I hate the heat, b) yeah right are we over the drought and c) APPLES!  Case in point...

Pretty apples, dappled apples, sunset colored stripey apples.

And maybe my favorite kind of all: free.  

Now, you know how I feel about free produce--spread the love!  Last week, I noticed an apple tree on my block.  Some sort of green, tart cooking apple.  No one was touching it.  Every time I walked by, there were more and more littering the ground.  So, this Sunday, I shimmied up the tree and helped myself.

Then of course there was the debate in my kitchen (pretty much between me and the cat but who's counting) over what to do with these beauties.  Pie or sauce?  Muffins or spice bread?  Some sort of French tart?

What won out was an attempt at jelly that turned out something even better.  Cut up the apples, cores and all, and throw them into a large stockpot.  Cook unit the mixture thickens and looks like porridge.  Scoop into mesh jelly bags and let drip overnight.  Then simmer the juice with honey, sugar, and spices.  Those are real chunks of fresh ginger in there!

Because I cut back on the amount of sugar requested, it didn't thicken as much, and instead produced a glorious, amber, spiced wonder--sweet Johnny Appleseed, it's apple pie syrup!  Pancakes at my house!

 Any ideas for turning this stuff into some sort of pie-themed cocktail are welcome (ahem, Lydia).  I have brandy and I'm not afraid to use it!

Wanderlust: Turkey

What can I say about Turkey?  About Istanbul, that great crossroads of civilization?  Perhaps, you cannot believe it until you are there.  

There is the inexplicable mystery...

the vibrant...

the strange...

 yet familiar.

 

the locals

the conquerors...

and those just passing through.

This is the best part

 This is the best part of the summer garden...when there are things to snack on while you work out in the sun, like fresh green beans,

Hungarian wax peppers

zucchini 

(apparently they're sweet when small and fresh--who knew?)

Sweet Chelsea cherry tomatoes

  

and silver fir tomatoes! 

I am so excited that tomatoes seem to be happy here at my new place.  Last year was a terrible summer for tomatoes and I did not get a single one.  This is just the beginning!

 

Oh, and the cutest thing happened.  I went out to water the other day and found that one of my neighbors put a basil plant amongst all of my plants.  Spectacular!  Community gardening is alive and well in my own backyard!  In my old apartment, I lived there for 5 years and no one bothered to ask my name.  But this, this is real sharing and real community, and it makes me so happy, you don't even know.  

Still to come: eggplant, cucumber, edamame, jalapenos, and more tomatoes, like these green zebras.  Stay tuned!