Swapped Out! A post Yes We Can thank you!

A shout out to all of you who brought such amazing preserved treats to our first Yes We Can! event. It was such fun! There was an amazing variety of canned and preserved foods. Just a sampling of the items traded includes...

Pickled eggs, pickled beets, pickled watermelon rind, sweet pickles, bread and butter pickles, Spicy salsa, peach salsa, and sofrito, mad amounts of chutney... from apple ginger in multiple variations, to nectarine, persimmon, peach, and pumpkin spice, fermented delights like kimchi and sauerkraut, both sourwood, and clover honey, pesto and vegan pesto, blueberry jam, strawberry syrup, apple cider vinegar, tomato basil jam, roasted green chilies, bagged kaffir lime leaves, pickled hot peppers, dilly beans, pear butter and more!

We can't wait to try all of the goodies, or hear about E.A.T's spicy Dilly Bean Bloody Marys.

Thanks to Jason of Caramelized OpiNIONS and Mollee Sullivan for planting this seed in our heads, and for bringing such amazing canned goods! Sofrito, yeahman!

A post swap cider, planning for next year.

"Canning for a New Generation"

In the spirit of the upcoming Yes We Can! event, I thought I'd share my new favorite canning book; Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff with photography by Rinne Allen. These two ladies from Athens, GA know how to can it. The book is organized seasonally (my favorite way) with a nice introduction that takes you through the basics. Or if you already have some canning experience, you can jump right into cardamom plum jam, hot pickled okra and tomato and cashew chutney (!) Also, many of the canning recipes are followed by other exciting recipes in which to incorporate your newly canned goods. Oh, and if all that hadn't already won me over, there is a a recipe for "The Perfect Sidecar" finished with Brandied Sweet Cherries, um... yes please.

So, for now I plan on starting with Red Onion Marmalade with the canning swap in mind... okay spreading it on slices of crusty bread layered with a slab of aged cheddar is not bad for inspiration too. Come on, yes you can!

Yes We Can! Details

November 5, 2011
3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location TBA

And it's all free! You just have to bring something to swap!

Register by email: richmondfoodcollective@gmail.com

Send your name, your products and about how much you will be bringing

Two classes you won't want to miss!

Go RVA! There are some really fun foodie events coming up this month.

This Saturday, Mise en Place will have a Farm to Table market tour and cooking class at The Farmers Market @ St. Stephen's. The class meets at 8:30 to do a tour of the market, then start cooking by 9:30 or 10 and eat around 11:30-noon. This will be the fourth F2T class that they have taught this season. Chef Jannequin Bennet says these classes are always very lively- sounds fun, oui? The class can usually finish about 5 different recipes, depending on where people's interest lies, though one class completed 7 different dishes! You can learn more and register for this class on their website.

And, if you are getting ready for the RFC's Yes We CAN! preserved food swap, you won't want to miss Tony Arrington's lunchtime lecture at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on 'Preserving the Harvest', September 28 from 11:30- 1:30. Learn about pressure canning, proper freezing techniques and how to preserve herbs for the 'off seasons'. I do get to help with this class, and am pretty psyched to learn what Tony knows. You can learn more and register here. See y'all there!

I heart pickles (oh and Yes We Can!)

It is taking all of my energy to not write another post about eggplant. We have had so much of it lately and, much like soup, I have a hard time understanding when it's time to change things up. I came home with visions of pizza (with eggplant, natch!) in my head, but Micah seemed to think that having pizza two days in a row (and for breakfast!) was a bit much. Boo hiss! I stewed briefly until I realized something majorly exciting . . .

Today was the day that my pickles would be ready!!

I have never ever ever tried anything even remotely "canny" and I have always been really in awe of people who do can. Casey made it seem super easy. However, Casey is kind of an effortless chick, so I had low expectations for my own first try. Guess what though?

Her recipe is bombtastic! Super easy! I even found myself making a few changes off the cuff (I cut the sugar in half) and not even being worried about it. This is big for me. I am known to be a very worried little chef! No worries now!

(I even made extras today after tasting my first batch!)

Anyway, all this leads me to a very exciting announcement. Richmond Food Collective is hosting a food swap! We will include all things canned, preserved, dried . . . heck, even frozen! This is really going to be exciting. We sure hope you will register to be a part of the pantry-stocking fun!!

Yes We Can! Details

November 5, 2011
3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Location TBA

And it's all free! You just have to bring something to swap!

Register by email: richmondfoodcollective@gmail.com

Send your name, your products and about how much you will be bringing

We have a lot of cool people involved and some fun "extras" that we are super excited about. We sure hope you will join in as well!

Some of us RFC gals have been canning for awhile (in fact, maybe everyone except me? yikes!), and others of us are happily learning now. Either way, sharing the bounty seems so grand to us and we cannot wait to host this fabulous event.

What about you guys? Do you can? Are you psyched to get together with other "food putter-uppers" (got tired of using the word "can" so much) and do some good old-fashioned trading? Let us know! Register via email. Location will be disclosed only to registrants (intriguing, yes?). Bring your food to share, and take some home to eat!

I, for one, can't wait to eat your food!!

Makin' Strawberry Jam

I am making jam right now. Strawberry jam to be exact. I have been looking forward to this day ever since last spring when my friends Casey and Ned made the most amazing strawberry jam in the whole wide world. They called it spoon jam because you can just eat it right out of the jar. Or if you are more civilized, put it on pancakes and ice cream and, I am sure, the pedestrian peanut butter and jelly more than once. The jam was nothing short of amazing- complex and flavorful and bright and unlike anything I had ever tasted. I knew that as crazy as the spring always is for me, I needed to take some time and learn to make their spoon jam. If I didn't, I knew I would miss the magic and regret it all year. So here we are, eating chinese takeout and boiling, boiling, boiling away.

I wanted to bring you a recipe- I really did. This is not so much how it happens. We started around 5pm culling 6 flats of freshly picked, gorgeous strawberries.

We put the berries in pots on the stove, adding sugar- not very much to start- well, approximately 4 cups of sugar to 10 quarts of strawberries. When the pink foam subsided, (an important detail to remember) we added about 2 tsps of salt, 1 tsp of vanilla and 1 lemon- juice and zest to each pot.

Toward the end of the night, we started adding herbs like lavender and all kinds of mint to the jars for fun. Some jars were given the benefit of cardamom and cloves. A couple have rose water because I am currently a little obsessed with the combination- it might be the shared redness, I am not sure. I have no idea what the end result will be once it comes time to eat- immeasurable for sure- but I know it will be really fun to open the jars and remember this night.

Reader's Recipe Request: Brunswick Stew and Tomato Soup

We had a reader request for a Brunswick Stew recipe, and since I am vegetarian, I asked my coworker at Lewis Ginter, Phyllis Laslett for her recipe. Phyllis and her family make bunches and bunches of Brunswick Stew every other year at the Hanover Cannery.

Phyllis says:

The Cannery is open to anyone during harvest season starting in July, August, October, so it’s closed now. Non-Hanover residents pay a slightly higher fee. Here’s the FAQ link.

Here is the recipe for Brunswick Stew and a delicious sounding tomato soup from Phyllis. The recipe seems to be easily adjusted for one batch- Phyllis' recipe makes 40 jars. You can find most of these ingredients locally right now.

Rose Jenning's Stew (Mrs. Jennings is one of the ladies who works at the cannery)

10 lbs chicken (cook, defat, take off the bone: cook as for broth & use broth in this recipe)

10 lbs beef (cooked, cooled & cut up)

country ham bone or ham hocks

6 lbs onions (cooked in fry pan with 1 lb butter: add chicken meat from broth)

2 bunches celery, chopped

5 quarts corn (home canned or frozen if possible)

5 quarts limas (home frozen)

3 lbs carrots, peeled & cut up

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled & cut up

5 quarts EACH: tomatoes, tomato juice

20 lbs potatoes--peel or not, as you like, cut up at home & frozen

1 gallon water

These I don't add, but are in the recipe:

44 oz bottle ketchup

1 regular bottle Heinz 57 sauce

These I do add:

1/3 bottle Worchestershire sauce

1/4 lb black pepper

3/4 lb salt (I use a lot less)

1 lb sugar (I use less)

2 tblsp Tabasco

Thyme, Sage as you like

It's best to do as much prep as you can before going to the cannery: for one thing, it's a lot of stuff and takes a long time to prep, for another, there's no provision for cooking the chicken and beef there. You put everything in a big kettle they have and simmer until ready, then it gets canned & processed. Takes about 6 hours and makes about 40 cans.

We make this about every other year.

The great thing about canning: it makes a LOT of stuff. By going to the cannery you get help from the home economist there, who makes sure you don't make big mistakes and monitors your product and the canning process so it's safe. These ladies have been doing this for a long time and they know a lot! The other thing about canning is you control fat, salt, and sugar content.

Other things we can and the most successful: tomatoes, apple sauce (we like it really thick and spicy). We also canned tomato soup: very tasty

Going to the cannery takes up a whole day, but you've got all these lovely cans to pull out in the winter. Sometimes tomato canning in August is rough, but, then, it's not in your own kitchen!

Tomato Soup

1/2 bushel tomatoes

1 bunch celery

1 cup cornstarch

1 cup butter or margarine

2-3 lbs onions

2 tblsp parsley flakes (or 4 fresh)

red pepper flakes to taste

2 cups sugar (I used one)

1/2 cup salt (I did it to taste: probably much less)

Also good to add: the end of the basil

Quarter tomatoes and cook together with onions, celery, parsley, red pepper flakes. Put this mixture through the juicer. Add cornstarch, sugar, salt & butter, put in a large kettle and bring to a boil. Adjust seasonings. Add basil at this point if using. Put into cans or jars, seal and process.

Let's Talk Salsa.

It's August, and you're eating, breathing and living tomatoes. Your lips are raw from that tangy tomato acid and you can't stand another caprese salad, but you still eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner because you vaguely remember that time late last winter when you were dreaming in red and snarling at the mere glimpse of kale and chard. Still, tomatoes are getting old, and there are more right now than ever. What's a locavore to do? Well, I'm going to recommend two lovely dances to perform with your tomato excess, ones that will leave you satisfied and stocked up for the winter season: the salsa and the can-can.

Well, I hope you like long hours in the kitchen better than bad puns. Canned salsa is an ideal way to use up an excess tomato supply, but the process is time consuming. Expect to spend three hours in the kitchen, and longer if you are using an electric stove. Justify the time by remembering you're preserving historic foodways and learning a new, interesting skill. Canning connects you with the past and stores summer in a jar to savor during those cold, depressing months when all you're eating is butternut squash and toast.

Start by visiting the National Center for Home Food Preservation's website on canning salsa. Note that the proportions of tomatoes, sweet peppers and other vegetables to total acid is very specifically formulated. Deviating from the recipe means risking a poisonous salsa (fear the botulism!), and aspiring canners are advised to stick carefully to the recipe at hand. I admit that before this summer, I always thought canning salsa was as simple as throwing together a quick pico de gallo (a fresh, chunky, uncooked salsa) and boiling it in a hot water bath. I was wrong! Canned salsa is cooked prior to canning. Here is the recipe I used (Chile Salsa II, taken directly from the website above):

• 10 cups peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes
• 6 cups seeded, chopped chili peppers -- a mixture of hot and sweet.
  
• 4 cups chopped onions
• 1 cup vinegar (5 percent)
• 3 teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper

Necessary canning supplies include:

• Large canning pot, preferrably with rack insert for jars
• Pint or quart jars with new lids and rings
• Jar funnel
• Tongs for picking up jars

Before touching a single tomato, start by preparing all canning supplies. Put glass canning jars in the dishwasher and start the cycle, so that they will be freshly sterilized when the salsa is done. Fill the canning vat and heat it up. Boiling a big pot of water takes longer than you think.

Now it's time to attack those tomatoes. Boil water in another big pot, and submerge as many tomatoes as you can for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Transfer tomatoes into a bowl of cold water with a slotted spoon and pull off skins. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. This takes a long time. Listen to some music.


Coarsely chop tomatoes and throw them into yet another large pot. Now, de-seed the peppers and coarsely chop them using a food processor. Take care with all hot peppers -- I recommend wearing rubber gloves. I had some trouble in estimating how many hot peppers to include in the salsa, and the result ended up being quite mild since I was afraid to overdo it. I included 1 hot pepper per quart of salsa in the recipe. There could certainly have been more. Use the food processor to chop the onions as well. As an aside, if you don't own a food processor, my lovely fiancee showed me how to chop dry ingredients using just a blender: fill it 2/3 full with peppers or onions, then submerge ingredients in water. Pulse blender on a low setting, periodically checking the chopped size of the contents, then pour out into a strainer. This worked really well for me, though the size was not uniform.


Add spices and vinegar, then bring the whole salsa to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Now, finally, it's time to can. Had enough?

Since that vat of water should be boiling by now, all that remains is to jar the salsa. First, put the new jar lids in a saucepan and cover them with water. Boil this on the stove while dealing with the salsa. Sterilizing every tool is important. Now, use the jar funnel to easily spoon the salsa out of the pot and into the jars. Poke a spoon down into the salsa to remove any air bubbles, and do leave about a half and inch of headroom between the top of the salsa and the top of the jar. If you fill the jars too full, a seal may not be created during the water bath process. Take lids out of boiling water and place them on jars. Secure with rings (you do not need to boil these). Now place jars in canning vat and boil them for 15 minutes.


Keep some of the salsa in the refrigerator to try on-the-spot. Was it worth the time? Yes...canning salsa may be time-consuming, exhausting, and challenging. But then, some of the best things are.

Julie and Julia and me

Directly after seeing the film Julie and Julia, I went home and cooked supper. I was not up for making anything fancy, but I did want to make something that makes me happy, just like the film did. So I made breakfast for dinner- hash browns and eggs. I know- a meal almost embarrassing to admit to cooking after watching such great gastronomic inspiration. Yet the meal to me was comforting, and besides, I am in the middle of a larger project- pickling watermelon rind.

I first tasted pickled watermelon rind at the summer camp where I was a cook for a summer during college. This was the kind of camp where we made everything from scratch, where we scrambled the eggs each morning in bacon grease. It was serious work, and I learned a lot. I loved it there. The women who I worked for were significant influences in my fascination with food, as well as my introduction to the pickled watermelon rind.

That brings me back to the film, which I thought was great fun. It is probably the only film I can say that I liked better than the book. There was so much life in the way Julia Child interacted with food- she loved it so much, she often lost her senses. I can relate to that for sure. I also appreciated the emotional twists and turns of working on a project like both Julie and Julia encountered. Often there are times when I cannot remember why I am working on the projects I take on- sometimes everything feels so futile, other times, the work takes strides I could not even imagine.

What I do know, is that I wish I could take the best characteristics from each woman as my own- the 'courage of her convictions', as it were. I was inspired by the willingness of each woman to forge ahead with no real idea of where her path was going. I definitely wish I had either one of their precision. I am semi- famous for not reading directions, which, when making pickled watermelon rind is very important. Turns out, you need to have three days for three separate soaking periods, plus boiling in between. I am pretty sure both Julie and Julia would have read ahead in order to prepare... I am also sure they would have know what one DOES with pickled watermelon rind once on has made it, but ah, well- onward, upward and 'Bon appétit!'

When Life Gives You Cucumbers...

I love the term 'putting up' in terms of food. Whether it is freezing, canning, or drying, I love that I am able to store some of the ample fresh food available now for later, when there isn't as much to choose from. Plus, it is fun to do! I have been having the best time learning how to can veggies and fruits with my friends. Last year, Shannon taught me to can tomatoes. After a long season of gardening and just trying to keep up with the produce that just kept coming, we knew we need to find time to preserve some of the bounty for winter. Sometime in September of last year, Shannon and I spent a long evening skinning and stuffing tomatoes into a jar, then boiling the jars until they sealed. Each time I pulled a can of tomatoes from the pantry during the winter, I was grateful for her generosity..

So, when Natalie brought me boxes of leftover cucumbers a couple of weeks ago, (thanks, Nat!) I knew what I had to do. Make pickles! My friend Casey had spent a lot of time making pickles with her grandmother, and had always loved that time they spent together. So, who better to learn from? We made a pickling spice combination from bay leaves, cinnamon, allspice berries, mustard seed, chili pepper flakes, and cardamom, which we boiled with salt, vinegar and water. Then we cut the cukes into spears, covered them with the boiling mixture and added herbs and garlic. We even experimented with using grape leaves to keep the pickles crisp. In the end we wound up with over 40 jars of bread and butter pickles, dills and some (cross your fingers) experimental combinations.


Canning is a great community project. There are a lot of details, (sterilizing jars, prepping brines and veggies, timing the sealing) so it is very helpful to have a partner to help manage all of the different components. Use the bounty of this season as an excuse to hang out with your favorite people. When you open those jars sometime down the road, you'll remember an eventful and fun day working together.