Limoncello & Rosemary Fig Jam

We have at least 6 (I'm too lazy to go out and actually check) Fig trees at our new house in Italy. Apparently that is quite a bit, because we are practically giving figs away. Unfortunately figs, although being absolutely sweet and delicious, don't last long. This is the reason I had never seen a fig in a grocery store until a visit to my sister-in-law in Northern California when I saw a basket of fresh figs and had to buy it. Fresh is absolutely amazing if you can get your hands on some. But hurry up and use them!
Because of our crazy surplus, the easiest thing to do with them is make jam. That way you can enjoy them all year long. I have also dehydrated and froze them, but I like canning them into jam the best, because its a finished product, and it makes a great gift!
My first batch of jam was just regular fig jam. But with this latest batch, I wanted to make something different. I looked around on Pintrest, and found that a lot of people were putting liqueur into the jam, like brandy and grand marnier. I thought, hey, I don't have any of those, but I do have Limoncello from a friend, and some rosemary outside, so why not combine these? If I may say so myself, it turned out fantastic!

So Many Figs!

Limoncello & Rosemary Fig Jam
adapted from the Ball Blue Book guide to preserving

Yield: about 5 Pints (I ended up having 4 pints and 4 half pints, but only because I added another 2 cups of figs)

• 5 pounds of Figs
• 6 cups of sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 2-3 tablespoons of Limoncello
• a few sprigs of Rosemary
• 3/4 cup water if your figs aren't very juicy

The Rosemary on top of the jam. The plant was blooming with beautiful blue flowers. 

To prepare the figs: Completely cover figs with boiling water. Let stand for 10 minutes. This allows the figs to become a nice gooey mess. Drain, stem, and chop figs. Measure out 2 quarts of chopped figs.

To Make the jam: combine figs, sugar, and water(optional) in a large saucepot. Bring slowly to a boil, stiring until the sugar dissolves. After rinsing the rosemary, add to the pot. keep the rosemary in the pot for as long as you want, just know the longer it stays the more rosemary flavor you'll get in the jam. I left mine in for about 10-15 minutes. Remove the rosemary, and make sure you remove any leaves that got left behind. Cook the jam rapidly to gelling point (Or however long before that, I like mine slightly less than Jelly). As the mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking.
Add lemon juice and cook a few minutes longer. skim off foam if necessary. Add Limoncello and stir to combine. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Here you are! let me know what you think :-)

Cristina's Fried Green Tomatoes

Its Mid- May here in Vegas, which means that one of our growing seasons is almost over before the harsh, sizzling clutches of summer starts. My garden is coming along nicely. I've already harvested a couple of Artichokes, some peppers, and a lot of radishes. Unfortunately the Brussels Sprouts were a bust, even though they grew to be quite large and aphid infested.
   
I noticed that a lot of tomato plants have been popping up in the garden. I bought one plant from the nursery, and purposely planted another from seed, but there's tomato plants all over the place. I think this has to do with the fact that last fall I just let the dead plants lay where they may, and the seeds have germinated. So I'm anticipating tomatoes coming out of my ears this year, which makes me reallllly happy.

I went out to the garden this afternoon to grab some herbs for dinner, and was struck with a thought- I have a few green tomatoes, why not make up some Fried Green Tomatoes? So I did, loved it, and decided to post the recipe here.

Cristina's Fried Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

• A green tomato or two, depending on how many you're feeding. One tomato is enough for 2 people as a side dish. 
• Egg whites (for one tomato I used 2). whip them up a little bit with a fork. 
• Bread crumbs. I ended up having a lot left over, so I would suggest using approximately 1/2 to 3/4 cup. 
• Corn meal. I would use about a 1/4 cup. Adjust to how crunchy you want your breading. 
• fresh or dried herbs. I didn't measure, and neither should you. At this moment I added chives, tarragon, oregano, and dill from the garden. Use whatever amount or types you want. 
• Seasoning salt. I added a couple of shakes of Lawry's Seasoning Salt, and then twice that of Tony Chachere's original Creole seasoning (love this seasoning!). You can use any kind of seasoning you like.
• Garlic Salt (or regular) Salt and Pepper. 
• Frying oil. I used peanut because it's what I had on hand. Enough to line the pan and fill it about a 1/4 inch. 

Directions

1. Before you get started, stick the tomato in the freezer. Leave it in there while you get the other ingredients ready, or about 15 minutes. 
2. Chop up the herbs if you're using fresh. Then squeeze them in a paper towel to make sure they're dry.
3. Combine the bread crumbs, corn meal, dried herbs, and seasoning into a bowl. 
4. Set up a work station next to the stove- first a bowl with the egg whites, then the bowl of dry mixture closest to the pan. 
5. Cut up the tomato (I went with 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick), and sprinkle garlic salt and pepper on both sides. 
6. heat the pan on medium/ medium high heat, then add the oil. (might need to adjust the heat during the cooking process if the slices are turning too dark brown)
7. When the oil sizzles when you throw in a couple of flakes of bread crumbs, its ready. 
8. dunk a tomato in the egg white mix, let it drain a bit, then put it in the bread mix. Make sure it is well coated. 
9. Carefully put the tomato in the hot oil. Repeat with other slices, until the pan is full but not crowded. 
10. when the mixture is golden brown on the bottom, flip the slices over. 
11. As soon as the slices are browned on both sides, take them out with a spatula and drain them on a paper towel. 
12. Repeat until all slices are cooked. 

Eat them while they're nice and hot! I love that they were tangy and slightly crunchy. I had so much leftover mixture and egg whites, that I decided to cook a yellow squash the same way, which also turned out delicious!

Homemade Pepper Sauce

Last year I planted about 5 pepper plants. A couple of Pimento, a couple of hot ones I don't remember the name of, and I believe an Anaheim. They did so well, I had peppers coming out of my ears. I credit the hot Las Vegas sun, as well as the fact that I sprayed them once with an Epsom salt/water solution when they were young. I should have harvested them periodically through the summer, but I thought the pimentos would get bigger (they didn't). Which means I had A LOT of peppers at the end of the season. I did try a couple of peppers in recipes throughout the summer, which is how I realized that the pimentos were pretty darn spicy. Must have been cross pollination. . . .

I realized when I had all these peppers at harvest time that I wanted to make a hot sauce, like a Tabasco type. So I started researching pepper sauces on the Internet, and came up with a wide variety. I decided to try a couple of different ways, and see what I came up with as an end result. The reason why I'm posting this now and not when I had a new finished product is because I wanted to make sure it was good, and would last. (It did, I still have some in my fridge. Delicious!)

Homemade Pepper Sauce

Ingredients
Peppers. Any variety. Type depends on how hot you want your sauce. Amount is up to you.
garlic cloves, husk taken off but whole (amount depends on your taste)
Pickling salt
Vinegar
Water

Type 1: Brine, Peppers, and Garlic
Source
Into a pint sized jar, stuff as many whole peppers as you can (and by whole, I mean stem and all). Add a clove of garlic or two. add 2 1/2 tsp of Salt, and then fill to the top with water. Screw on lid, shake well to dilute the salt into the water, and leave on your pantry shelf for at least 2 weeks to ferment. At the end of fermentation, skim off any scum on the top, and dump everything in a blender and blend. Store in the fridge.

I started to do this, but then realized that the brine was escaping, and I didn't have the patience. So I let it sit for a couple of days in a bowl (to catch the escaping juices) then took off the lid, added a glass cup to weight down the peppers until fermented to my liking, then blended them up. turned out really well, had a good flavor.

Type 2: Peppers, Garlic, Water, and Vinegar
Source
Well, right off the bat I didn't do exactly what the directions said. I only added vinegar to a quarter of the jar, then filled the rest of the jar with water. To start from the beginning: Cut stems off peppers. Stuff a quart jar with peppers, adding a clove or two of garlic. fill the jar with vinegar a quart of the way. Add water to the rest. Add a glass cup or weight to the top of the jar to weigh the peppers down and keep them immersed in the liquid. Ferment to your taste.

Type 3: Peppers, Garlic, and Brine, Fermented open air from the beginning
Source
Her Sriracha
Now the author from this website didn't grind up her chilies, but by now I got the idea of what I needed to do. So I took out my trusty fermenting crock, threw in a bunch of different chilies and peppers (by now my Grandmother had given me some sweet Hungarian Paprika peppers, so I added some of those as well) and made a brine. The brine I used was 1 cup of water: 1 tbsp salt. I mixed up enough brine and chopped up the chilies (make sure you use gloves!!) trying to take out most of the seeds and discarding the stems (which took a lot of work!). I then threw the chilies into the crock, and filled it up above the chili line with the brine. I added my plate and weight, and waited. I checked it every day or so, making sure if there was any scum on the top of the brine that I skimmed it off and rinsed my plate and weight.

End Result

I let my different experiments ferment for about a week and a half, which is not very long. This year I'm going to shoot for at least 2 (preferably 3) weeks (Keep in mind the longer you ferment your chilies, the more sour they will taste). I then took out the standard blender (if you want finer blending, I would recommend a baby blender) and blended each different experiment and put them back into their jars. What I also did, within each experiment, was have jars that had more hot peppers or mild peppers, and kept them separate.

When I had finished blending everything and labeling, I got to tasting. My taste buds took a couple of hours to recover, so I would recommend having some milk or cheese on hand between tastings. Type 1 and 3 were similar, mostly because they ended up being made the same way. Type 3 was much more mild because I had the Hungarian Sweet Peppers in that one. Type 2 was HOT! I think the vinegar brought out the heat of the chilies.

So now I had a couple of different heat levels of hot pepper sauce. I decided to combine them in a way that would make them hot or mild. I combined them into small decorative jars that I gave out as Christmas gifts, and kept the rest in my fridge. I've been eating the pepper sauce as a sort of salsa with ruffles chips, pouring it on my eggs in the morning, or adding it to stir fries to add heat. You can pretty much add it to anything.

Please let me know in the comments if you have tried any of these recipes, and how they turned out. Thanks!

Smoked Salmon Snacks

Wow, it really has been quite a while since I've written in this blog. A couple of culprits are at work: 1. Getting an Ipad. The blogger app on it is not great, and I sort of stopped using regular laptops for a while there. 2. Pintrest. Why try my own recipes when I can drool at what other people have made instead? 3. (Mostly this one) Laziness.

Oh well its never too late to end a stretch of no-posts. So here goes; a snack that I made up a couple of weeks ago.

Smoked Salmon Snacks

I love lox and cream cheese. I grew up eating it as a special breakfast treat that I enjoyed with my dad. We would make it with onion bagels that were nice and toasty, a hearty helping of cream cheese, the smoked salmon, and some sliced onions. Delicious!
Every now and then I like to replicate this childhood treat; sometimes I add ingredients to the pile. I recently bought a huge package of Atlantic Smoked Salmon from Costco, and realized when I went to make lox that I did not have any bagels! So in a round about way I came up with this concoction, which can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or as an appetizer!

Salmon snacks, step 2

Ingredients

Crackers, your choice (I used a small multi-seed type)
smoked salmon
cream cheese
capers
preserved lemon (or the pulp from a Meyer lemon, I haven't tried it with a regular lemon which might be a little more sour than you'd like)
French Fried Onions
(I'm not giving exact measurements, because you can make as big or as small a batch as you'd like)

Salmon Snacks, Step 4

1.line the crackers up all along a plate or serving dish.
2. Smear a dollop of cream cheese on each cracker.
3. Depending on your taste, put a couple of capers on each cracker (press them into the cream cheese so they won't roll around).
4. Chop up the lemon bits and add a little bit of lemon to each cracker (again based on your taste, I liked the taste of lemon to be barely there).
5. Tear off a piece of the smoked salmon and place it on top of the cracker.
6. add a piece or two of french fried onions to the top.

Voila! you have a delicious snack! Let me know in the comment section of you've added or subtracted anything.

Crockpot Oxtail Soup

Oxtail soup is delicious. End of story. If you've never had it, you're missing out. the meat is very tender and delicious, with broth that makes your lips sticky. In this recipe, the meat'll come right off the bones. But don't forget those bones- there's delicious marrow in there.

This is a basic recipe; all you need to add is the additions that you like- vegetables and some sort of grain or bean.  Enjoy!

Crockpot Oxtail Soup
Serves 2 (x2 for 4)

2 lbs cut oxtail (I had to go to a butcher shop to find this, sometimes if you're lucky you'll see it in a standard grocery store).

1 tbsp olive oil

garlic salt

fresh ground black pepper

1 cube of beef bouillon

1 packet of onion soup mix

1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce

2 cloves of garlic

vegetables of choice

bean or grain of choice

Rinse and pat the cuts of oxtail dry. Season all sides with the garlic salt and black pepper. Heat a medium to large pan with the olive oil until a sprinkle of water in the pan sizzles. Add the oxtail, and brown all sides of each piece. No need to cook through, just medium to high heat for a good caramelizing.

When they're browned on all sides, add them one by one to the crockpot. Depending on how cold your crockpot is, you can turn it to low or warm during this. Deglaze the pan and add the water and all the goodies to the crockpot. Add water to the crockpot, a little or a lot depending on how thick you want your soup. I like mine more soupy, and remember there will be loss of water throughout the day due to cooking. Add the beef cube, the onion soup mix, the Worcestershire sauce, and a pressed clove of garlic. At this time, add any grains or beans that'll take longer than 45 minutes regularly to cook. I've added barley in the past, and it was delicious. 

Set on low for 6-8 hours. 6 hours if you want to add anything, 8 hours if you're not going to add anything. Anything examples include: Lentils, presoaked kidney/lima/garbanzo/pinto beans, cracked wheat, quinoa, Cauliflower, carrots, parsley root, etc. I usually put whatever's in the fridge. Last time I made it there was cauliflower, carrots, and lentils added. When you put in your additions (including another pressed clove of garlic) let it cook for an hour or two, or until the veggies are cooked. (the oxtail will be fully cooked at 6 hours). Let me know what additions you came up with!

Also, if there is any broth left after dinner, save it! It makes great soup additions in the future. Freeze it into little ice cubes and add to soups and gravies, or anytime you want that rich beef flavor.

Homemade Sauerkraut

So I found another food that my husband will not allow me to make in the kitchen ever again; sauerkraut. He doesn't like it at all- its smell, taste, look. He won't even sit near me when I eat it, even the storebought stuff. Well, his loss. I've always been a fan of sauerkraut. Maybe its the crispness, that sour taste, the brine. Whatever it is, when I made it myself I just might never buy it from the store ever again. It just has that something extra. Not only does it taste great, but its good for you too. I found this recipe in Sandor Ellix Katz's book Wild Fermentation, and tweeked it to my liking. Enjoy! 

What you'll need:

A crock to ferment in

a small plate that fits inside the crock

a large cup or vessel that will fit on top of the plate inside the crock and can be filled with water

a clean towel or cheesecloth

Ingredients:
1/2 head of green cabbage
1/2 head of red cabbage
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
pinch of caraway seeds
pinch of celery seeds
container of sea salt

Finely chop up the cabbage, and as you're putting the cabbage into a big bowl, every now and then sprinkle salt on it (overall you want about 1 tsp to 1 tbsp of salt for 1 head of cabbage). I used 2 halves of cabbage, but if you have a big enough crock you can use the whole ones. Chop up the shallots, and mince the garlic. Add those to the bowl, adding salt. Grate the carrots, add to the bowl, add salt. Add the caraway and celery seeds to the bowl. The salt will draw the moisture out of the vegetables, so make sure to mix well.
Start packing the mixture into the crock. Pack it in well, you should have no pockets of air, and possibly have liquid rising from the mixture. After you've packed in all of the vegetables, you should have enough liquid to cover. I didn't, so I added brine. Make brine from 1 tbsp of salt added to 1 cup of water. I added enough brine to cover the mixture.
Put the plate on the mixture, and a full cup of water on top of that (the cup adds weight so the vegetables don't touch the air). On top of this put a clean kitchen towel (so that dust can't get in). Let this sit on your kitchen counter (Or the next time I make it the garage or well ventilated (but not hot) place) to ferment. Try a little every day, until it has reached your favorite flavor and crunch. It took mine a week in the winter, but this is Vegas. If it is cooler it can take longer. Once it has fermented to your liking, store in the fridge (I put mine in a reused pickle jar).
There's all kinds of different ways to make sauerkraut, next time I might add more garlic and different seeds. Please let me know your favorite way to make it!

Sausage with Cauliflower and Orecchiette

This is one of those hybrid recipes out of a book. You see a recipe, are all excited to make it, buy all the ingredients, and then by the end of the week one or two things are missing. Or you read the recipe again, and realize how in depth it is. Well, never fear, this takes approx 30-45 minutes to make. Orecchiette pasta is kinda hard to find in the supermarket, and if you can't get it use farfalle (butterfly) or small shells. What type of sausage doesn't really matter, I personally used basil because it was in the freezer, but an good Italian sausage would do.

Sausage with Cauliflower and Orecchiette
(serves about 4)

• 2 Links or 1/2 lb of Sausage, Italian, basil, or any variant will do.Remove from casing (if applicable) and crumble the sausage into small bite-sized pieces. 
• 1 chopped yellow onion
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 can or bottle of traditional tomato based pasta sauce (whatever you've got in the cupboard will do).
• 1/2 pound of Orecchiette Pasta (Or amount to your liking, this is one of those pastas where less is more, its very filling).
• 1/4 cup of slivered almonds
• 2 tbsp of bread crumbs
• chopped herbs to taste- I added about 2 tbsp of fresh oregano, thyme, basil and parsley.
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Grated Parmesan 

Cut up Cauliflower into small pieces, and place in a medium sized pot, filling with water until the cauliflower is covered. Add a pinch of salt to the water. Boil until the vegetable is the desired softness; about 5-10 minutes. Drain, and set aside, putting the cauliflower water right back into the pot.
In a large saute pan, cook the onion in the olive oil on medium low heat. When the onions are starting to soften, bring the cauliflower water in the other pot to a boil , then add the orecchiette pasta. When the onions are starting to brown, add the sausage to the pan and turn the heat up a little, no more than medium. When the sausage is cooked through, add the cauliflower to the pan and mix well, letting it cook for a couple of minutes for the flavors to mix. Add the pasta sauce.
Meanwhile, check the pasta, making sure to drain it when it is al dente and again, saving the water used. When the sauce is bubbling, add the pasta to the pan. Add the slivered almonds, bread crumbs, chopped herbs, and salt and pepper. Stir in small amounts of pasta/cauliflower water until it is a desired consistency (don't want it too thick).
It is finished cooking when the sauce is bubbling. Serve with grated parmesan on top with a couple of turns of the peppermill.