Food, again, and two gripes

[magid]

The last few weeks farm share has included watermelons. I keep thinking I should make watermelon pickles with the rinds, because, well, I can, and here I've got organic watermelon rinds (after I cut the inside into chunks to chill and eat over the sink). However, I'm not a huge pickle fan, so I'd never figured out how I'd use watermelon pickle. Until I read a number of recipes that included the option of adding crystallized ginger. Vinegar, sugar, spices, and ginger... Aha! It's really watermelon chutney, and that makes it much more useful. (Odd how the brain works.)

I cut up this week's watermelon. It's perfectly ripe, which is why it split in that satisfying way as soon as I put the knife in, with a little *snap* as the rind split. The sensation is rather like slicing a really fresh white mushroom, with a bit more sound effect. Both are pleasing. After putting the watermelon chunks in the fridge, I peeled the rind, and set that on the stove to boil. (In previous weeks, I'd followed the recipe instructions that have you peeling the rind after boiling, which is an extremely frustrating task, as the texture has changed from firm to bendy. Which is why I never got around to the pickling part of it before this week.)

In the interlude while the rind boiled, I pulled out the large bouquet of soybean stalks, and started pulling the soybeans off. It requires more force than picking berries or peas, and they can hide in the similarly-green leaves. I like doing it, despite the time it takes, as it puts me at the end of the harvesting chain, rather than just the end consumer. I have only one large pareve pot, so I'm not boiling them tonight, but it'll be much quicker tomorrow or Friday now that they're off the stalks. Mmm... edamame.

Back to the watermelon. After it boiled enough, I drained it, and diced it up. Recipes made a point of saying how you could cut it into whatever shapes you want, but who's going to take the time to cut fancy shapes in limp watermelon rind? Back into the pot it goes, then drained again (it's not for nothing it's called watermelon). I added enough cider vinegar to barely cover, plus a mixture of white and dark sugars. I diced a number of rounds of crystallized ginger and put that in. The smell was not really complex enough, so I just added a touch of nutmeg and cayenne, on a whim. Soon I'll have a couple of half pints of watermelon pickle/chutney... suggestions for how to use it are welcome.

I got a number of new foods on a whim Friday. Mini-reviews:

• Primal Spirit Food's Soy Primal Strips (meatless jerky, available at Harvest) were fairly good. The texture is stringy like dried meat (in the right way for jerky), but I thought the flavorings a bit uni-dimensional. Texas BBQ was too sweet, and Hickory Smoked was too unrelievedly spicy. They were still pretty good, and I'll likely get some to keep at work, probably trying some of the other flavors (seitan and shiitake based). The one definite drawback is that the packaging is a pain to get open, requiring much force.
  
• Elliott Bay Baking Company's European Tea Biscuits (available at Filene's Basement (?)) are low-key pleasant. I tried two flavors, lavender vanilla and lemon ginger, and I think the flavors are a bit too subtle, especially in the former. That said, they're decent in a pinch, designed for dipping (perhaps the flavors are muted to keep from fighting with tea/coffee flavors?), not very sweet, and have the advantage of being pareve as well.

---

My building has two largish trash bins, and have had them for a couple of years. Today, we were informed that they are too large, and must be replaced. They've only now decided it's a problem?
(Definitely time to clear out my car, to fit enough new bins/barrels/whathaveyou in the car.)

I got an email from one of the other people in the building, asking me if it was ok to have put five boxes in my storage unit until October, since my area is empty. Which is not a problem (obviously, I'm not maximizing my use of the storage), but it bothers me that they asked only after the fact. (Not that it changed my answer. Nor did I manage to say I'd prefer to have been asked in advance. Sigh.)

Comments

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Hmm...is this like a real canning process where you have to put them in the boiling water and all that?

I've been eating a ton of watermelon this summer and I have been throwing away a half a ton of watermelon rinds.... I've got some unused cans from the perserved lemons, too.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Well, sort of. I'm planning to keep mine in the fridge, so I'm not officially canning them. I am using the canning jars, however.

If you have a big pot and a vegetable steamer, it's pretty easy to can. Just bring a very full pot of water to boil with the jars and screw bands already in the pot on the vegetable steamer. Put the lids in briefly when you're ready. Once the jars are filled, put them back in the pot, boil for 10+ minutes (depends on the kind of food), take them out, putting them on a towel on the counter. You're done, except for checking later that they've sealed properly, and putting labels on.

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

I was just on the Ball/Pell home canning website and it seemed to make sealing out to be much harder than you do. :-/

Plus, this morning I am now thinking "and what am I going to do with watermelon pickles?"

[magid.livejournal.com]

All of their writing tends to make it sound harder than it is, really. The seals will form automagically from the heat of the food and the boiling water. Make sure there aren't big air bubbles, and you're fine.

I read a book called Blue Jelly which demystified a lot of the process, plus an essay by Laurie Colwin on making plum jam.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I've heard the trick is to take them out of the water and turn them upside down. But that could be disastrous, I suppose.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've not heard that one before.

I don't think it's likely to be disastrous, given that even if it doesn't seal, there's still a screwband holding the lid on.

I wonder if I'd still get to hear the chorus of pings as the lids seal if the jars are upside down...

[queue.livejournal.com]

Your storage area doesn't have a door and a lock?

[magid.livejournal.com]

My storage area has a door, but I've never bothered to put a lock on it, since I've never put much in it other than empty boxes and parts of the sukkah.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

The one definite drawback is that the packaging is a pain to get open, requiring much force

or a pair of scissors?

[magid.livejournal.com]

I kept trying to use a knife, not scissors. D'oh.

Huh. Scissors and food don't go together at all in my head.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

My chicken-carving life was revolutionized by the introduction of poultry shears (http://ww1.williams-sonoma.com/cat/pip.cfm?skus=4204731&pkey=xsrd0m1%7C15%7C0%7C%7C%7C%7C%7C%7Cpoultry%20shears&gids=sku4204731&cmsrc=sch) into the process.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've seen poultry shears in use, and never have gotten around to getting one myself. Mostly, it's because I wouldn't need it much, since it seems to be for cutting up raw chicken, and I tend to buy it already in the form I want it in. But it's cool when I get to see them in use.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

I did use them for raw birds first, but now that we often roast whole chickens (on the grill, beer-can), I use them as well for cutting up the cooked bird, and they're great.

[magid.livejournal.com]

And they'd probably handle turkeys, too (I think I end up making more whole turkeys than chickens). Hm... Must consider.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Well, for turkey carving, there's the whole "slicing the breast meat" thing, where you definitely want a knife, though some people certainly do remove the entire thing from the bird rather than presentation-carve at the table, Norman Rockwell-style (http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/artists/Norman%20Rockwell/Freedom%20from%20Want.jpg). For chickens, I never use a knife at all...

[magid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suppose I still would have to slice the white meat. (Can you tell I'm not particularly interested in white meat? It's just too blah most of the time.)

I don't have a big enough table to carve with all the other side dishes served, too. Ah, for a larger space... Though perhaps it's safer this way. Plus I get to sneak the pope's nose if I want.

[fairdice.livejournal.com]

Brine (http://www.cooksillustrated.com/turkeyhelp/faq.asp). (Then air dry.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I can't bring myself to brine an already-kashered salty-enough (and sometimes too much) bird. But I've read about brining, and adding different seasonings to the brine, and so on, and it sounds interesting. (Also a bit inconvenient, but interesting.)

I just prefer dark meat when given the choice of parts, though I do use chicken breasts for stir fries and such. Which means that all those white-meat loving friends are in luck :-)

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I think the kitchen shears I use are supposed to be for chicken (but they were an el cheapo freebie add-in to something else I bought or was given so I doubt they'd actually be any good at that). However they are very useful for cutting packaging and for cutting plastic wrap more to the size I want for some things.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Are they better than using regular scissors?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Well yes, because they're conveniently located in the kitchen and my regular scissors are not. :-)

I honestly don't know. Probably not.

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

I do so love that sensation of cutting into the perfect white mushroom. Oh the joy!

[magid.livejournal.com]

I remember finding the biggest, freshest mushroom and trying to see how many slices I could get out of it. And the truly fresh ones gave that sensation for every slice.

It's not just me. Cool.