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Written by Julie
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Monday, 30 June 2008 21:55 |
For the most ardent of jam lovers, this is the month of strawberry freezer jam.
If you've been buying jars of commercially produced jam over the years and have never tasted actual strawberry freezer jam, prepare to be amazed. Once you're hooked on the genuine article, you will become manic come strawberry season, and spend more hours than you care to count feverishly hulling and stirring crushed strawberries into frighteningly large quantities of sugar in order to put up your own little (or, not-so-little) stash of freezer jam to tide you over until next June.
I've been making strawberry freezer jam since I was a kid. Back then, not only would I make the jam, but I'd also pick the berries. These days, I depend on the incredible Shuksan and Rainier strawberries available at the Day Road strawberry stand. (Get 'em while you can!) I picked up my first flat (6 qts) of berries last Wednesday, and paid $35. This might sound like a lot for berries, but when you figure that you can make about 30 half-pint-size jars of jam out of that, and you consider the astonishing difference between the luscious, sweet, deep garnet-colored, local berries and the tennis-ball texture of the spongy pinkish berries available year-round in supermarkets, it all seems like an incredible deal! Plus these berries are at the perfect stage of ripeness for jam-making, having just been picked that morning.
Karen Selvar grows her strawberries using organic methods in the Manzanita Bay area of Bainbridge, and trucks her berries over to the Day Road stand each morning before 9AM, when they're in season. You can still get them this season, even into early July, thanks to the slow start to summer weather, but prepare to arrive right when the stand opens. I showed up at 2:30PM the first day the stand was open, and it was already shut and completely sold out. I arrived at 8:45AM on the second day of the stand's being open, thinking I might snag some boxes of berries before the crowds showed, only to discover that at least ten other people had the same idea, and the gates were still closed. The following day, I returned to buy a half-flat, or 3 quarts ($18), and I found the stand swarmed with other jam-makers, who were practically running back to their cars with their loot, avoiding the covetous looks of those of us still waiting in line.
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Re:Strawberry Freezer Jam
Jul 10 2008 14:12:36
Making strawberry freezer jam has always been a major priority in my New Jersey kitchen in June. Since Julie moved to Bainbridge Island, I found that making strawberry freezer jam alone was not as much fun. My neighbor, who also loves making wonderful food from fresh produce quickly joined me in this yearly endeavor. We each have our specific duties as described in Julie's article and the time goes by quickly as we wash, hull, smash berries, mix with sugar, lemon juice and pectin and fill jars. It is truly one of the most satisfying and enjoyable experiences of the year for me. Friends and family members await each year's gift of fresh freezer jam - a perfect gift for Christmas or a special thank you for something someone has done for you. I love it on warm English muffins,scones, or even vanilla ice-cream. I encourage you to try making it but be sure to use only freshly picked berries from your local berry farm - it makes all the difference! Thank you, Julie for keeping up the tradition and spreading the word.
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#46 |
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Stir-fried greens with snap peas and pea shoots |
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Written by Julie
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Monday, 23 June 2008 13:04 |
I just picked up a new cookbook by Deborah Madison. For those of you who don't know her, Deborah Madison is a guru extraordinaire of making every vegetable imaginable into some tasty preparation. Her latest book, Local Flavors, offers excellent suggestions for cooking with vegetables that she's picked up at local farmers' markets around the country. In honor of the season and the prospect of greens at the farmers market and at the Sound Food Ferry Farm Stand, I've adapted a recipe from her cookbook that I intend to make as soon as the peas I'm growing at home are a bit more mature.
Stir-Fried Greens
Ingredients
6 baby bok choy or other leafy greens
1 cup snow peas or snap peas
a few handfuls of pea greens or shoots
sea salt
1 TB roasted peanut oil (can be substituted with canola oil)
(optional: add a handful or two of sliced garlic scapes at step # 3 with the greens.)
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Garlic Scape Pesto for Dinner |
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Written by Julie
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Monday, 23 June 2008 12:48 |
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(Note to those of you hoping to cook with garlic scapes this week: this Wednesday, June 25, locavores and ferry commuters alike will discover fresh-picked salad greens, delicious garlic scapes, and glorious garlic available at the Sound Food Ferry Farm Stand (in the information kiosk area of the terminal) to greet arrivals from the 4:40 and 5:30pm Seattle-Bainbridge WSF ferry boats. Sound Food hopes to connect you with local farmers on future summer Wednesdays, pending the success of our initial farm stand foray.)
For those unacquainted with garlic scapes, these delicious, leggy green shoots are the biproducts of hardneck garlic. Their removal ensures that the garlic bulbs still in the ground will continue to grow in size. Scapes are delicious and somewhat milder in flavor than garlic cloves. In terms of texture, think garlic-flavored green beans, and let your recipe imagination run wild. Frequent visitors to sites like epicurious.com will be disappointed to discover no recipes for scapes, but keep reading and you'll find a few for your experimentation.
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Cookbooks for Farmers' Market eating |
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Written by Drew Hansen
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Tuesday, 17 June 2008 16:51 |
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If you’re committed to local, seasonal eating from Kitsap County farmers’ markets, then you’re committing yourself to a lot of vegetarian food. That leads to an obvious question: Which vegetarian cookbook should you use?
There are hundreds of options, from sentimental favorites (The Enchanted Broccoli Forest) to modern classics (Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, a James Beard Foundation award winner), to cookbooks that aren’t exclusively vegetarian but from cuisines with excellent vegetarian dishes (Julie Sahni’s Classic Indian Cooking).
If I had to buy just one cookbook for seasonal eating from farmers’ markets, it would be Chez Panisse Vegetables by Alice Waters.
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Cookbooks for Farmers\' Market eating
Jun 19 2008 22:43:41
I haven't seen that book, but I've been recommending her book The Art of Simple Eating to a lot of people looking to start out cooking from seasonal, simple ingredients. What I like about it is that although she gives a lot of recipes, she also talks about each ingredient, so you become fluent in ways to use it intuitively. It's great for new cooks looking to be less dependent on recipes.
http://food.gofrolic.org
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Re:Cookbooks for Farmers\' Market eating
Jun 23 2008 23:43:37
I think Alice Water's vegetable book is really the best. It gives just enough information, in some cases, to make you feel confident enough to improvise! I've also been using Deborah Madison's and the cookbook.
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Re:Cookbooks for Farmers\' Market eating
Jun 26 2008 02:51:50
Seattledebs, that's a great recommendation - I don't have that cookbook (yet) but it sounds wonderful. Definitely check out the great, informative review on Seattledebs' site (linked in her post)!
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#42 |
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