Maple Syrup

The sap is running:

Except when it isn’t:

Overall this is not shaping up to be a great year for maple syrup for me.  Between human error – I burned an entire batch while distracted by a home movie – and uncooperative weather – warm nights and overcast days – I am not getting much syrup.  I have managed to squeeze out a couple of liters  and I have enjoyed checking the buckets but so far I haven’t a lot to show for my efforts.

 

Orange Marmalade – Attempt Two

I made another attempt at Orange Marmalade. The trick is to get someone else to open the cookbook to the correct page so you are not distracted by suggestions of how to prepare and serve a calf’s head. Mrs. Beeton has several orange marmalade recipes but I chose this one:

I chose this recipe because of the line: “Let there be an equal weight of loaf sugar and Seville oranges.” It sounds so biblical.

I like these wrinkly Seville oranges. They don’t look perfect and they are pretty bitter, much like an interesting character in a book or movie. Anyway, through the mysterious magic of chopping, sweetening and simmering they were transformed into:

Marmalade!! This batch is way better than the batch we made last year and infinitely better than commercially prepared marmalade. It takes about three hours to make and is well worth the trouble. Just the smell of the simmering oranges is enough to make it worth the trouble.

 

Citrus

Maybe it’s just a fear of scurvy but I always start craving citrus at this time of year. I got these lovely lemons:

and transformed them into Lemon and Lime Chutney:

I have some reservations about this chutney because it contains what I think to be an odd combination of ingredients: lemons, limes, salt, sugar, vinegar, hot pepper and raisins. It’s the hot pepper that has me particularly concerned. My concern was not alleviated by the taste I took before bottling it. I’ll give it a few weeks to settle down in the jar before I try it again.

 

The Cucumbers Won

I admit defeat. After pickling and canning so many cucumbers that the smell of vinegar makes my stomach turn I am ready to say that I was outdone by an abundance of cucumbers. I have made dill pickles (sliced, whole and quartered) bread and butter pickles, spiced cucumber rings, lemon zingers and relish. Well, someone else made the relish, but I was very supportive. All the time a little voice kept telling me that there are not enough years in a lifetime to eat so many pickles and eventually that voice became too loud to ignore. The rest of the cucumbers, which were really past their prime anyway, were thrown into the compost where they were enjoyed by chipmunks and raccoons. However, besides a supply of pickles that are really quite good, I learned a couple of important things:

1) there were 132 seeds in the package

2) just because you buy a package of seeds it does not follow that you have to plant the whole package

3) homemade dill pickles taste better than commercially prepared dill pickles

 

Dill Pickles

The time came for me to finally make the dill pickles that had been planned since last spring. The garlic was ready, having been harvested and hung to dry several weeks ago. The dill was ready. I was pretty certain the cucumbers were ready. I admit I hadn’t been down to that garden in a while but it couldn’t have been more than a week since my last visit. At that time there were lots of cucumbers that were growing nicely. So I went down to the garden to pick some perfectly symmetrical, perfectly sized cucumbers to fit into the 500 ml mason jars.

You can see the problem. I had no idea that cucumbers grew so fast. This was not an isolated problem either, I picked about thirty cucumbers this size which gave me plenty of time to think about just how few ways there are to eat cucumbers. They are not the most versatile vegetable. Not wanting to waste them, and not able to think of what else to do, I went ahead and made the pickles.

I sliced them instead of leaving them whole as the recipe instructed. I have no idea how they will turn out. I made two batches but still have plenty of these large cucumbers to use up. I have not completely given up on my original plan because on the vines there are still plenty of these that I will be watching very closely:

 

This Doesn’t Look Like a Jar of Pickles

Exactly ten days ago I planted two rows of National Pickling cucumbers. They now look like this:

It just doesn’t seem likely that much can come from such vulnerable looking seedlings. The package says quite specifically that it will be 55 days until maturity. It hardly seems like that will be enough time. I’ve also planted dill since these are supposed to be dill pickles, but that has not come up yet. I think the tricky part will be having the dill and the cucumbers ready at the same time. I planted the garlic last fall and it is doing quite nicely. I also have the recipe. It is an old recipe that is a bit vague on directions so I’ll be doing a bit of research. I have made pickles from scratch before but never from seed. When I consider the number of steps involved it seems like a daunting project but those are the projects that are most rewarding as well.

 

Worth the Trouble

Some things are worth taking the trouble to make. One of those things is bread, so yesterday I did just that. At the risk of upsetting purists, I used a breadmaker to mix and knead the dough. For me it makes the difference between making bread and not. I did shape the dough, put it in the oven and took it out when it was done so I was somewhat involved in the process. The end result was this:

A lovely egg bread. Inside was a surprise:

A swirl of cheddar cheese. This loaf of bread, along with some turkey vegetable soup, made a pretty tasty dinner and was well worth the little trouble it took to make.