Maybe I Need A Twitter Account

I just mixed cookies by hand for the first time…. ever… I think. I don’t know what possessed me to do it. Maybe the yellow bread bowl like the one my grandma had. I bet she didn’t have a Kitchenaid.

Truffle Notes

I made truffles over the last few days. I am starting to understand how to properly temper the chocolate but I am still getting it right only half the time. My centers this year were pink grapefruit and I am a huge fan. Last night it took me three tries to temper the chocolate and I think I learned some stuff.

It doesn’t take very long to melt the chocolate to 120 deg. F. What takes a freaking long time is cooling it back down to 80 deg. I watched an episode of Dexter while I patiently folded the chocolate over and over and took the temperature every five minutes. My biggest mistake was to put the chocolate back on a pot of water that was on a hot element. I think the small amount of heat coming off the hot water is enough to heat up the chocolate again to the right consistency for dipping.

The truffles that were dipped when the chocolate was too hot were oxidized already by this morning. I will be eating those ones myself over the next few days.

Today I could see that some of my centers were melting and mixing with the coating. I think this is because I took the centers out of the fridge in large batches and by the time I got to the end of the tray they were very soft. Smaller batches next time.

I had fun putting little pink dots on the tops of the truffles. I used melted white chocolate and pink food colouring. The first few look a bit weird because I was pulling the piping bag away too fast so the dots are quite tall and stiff. I figured out that if I moved the piping bag in a circular motion I got a much prettier little pink button.

The Rain City Gardener might soon be just the Rain City Baker and Preserver. I have applied to baking and pastry school for a six-month program starting in March. I should know in one week if I am accepted. I am nervous and excited and a bit crazy. When I stay up until 1am to dip truffles and I love every minute of it I think maybe I am making the right choice.

Squidgy Squash

Yesterday was my first time pressure-canning veggies. I made mashed squash baby food for The Squidgy and I think it worked pretty well. There was no information on this on the internet so I made it up using the best of my safe-canning knowledge.

Squidgy Squash
1. Peel and cube the squash. Any winter squash is fine. I used three Kubota squashes that I got from the local produce market.

2. Put the squash in a saucepan that is about twice as big as the volume of squash. Put enough water in the pot to cover about half the squash. Put the lid on. Bring to a boil over high heat then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the squash is quite tender.

3. While the squash is cooking heat up clean jars, rims and lids in nearly boiling water. I used 125mL jars as they are the smallest available but still use the standard size mason lid. Fill up the kettle and boil it.

4. Drain the squash and return it to the same pot. Return the pot to the hot burner but turn the heat down to low. Mash the squash and keep it moving in the pot so it doesn’t burn. Make sure the squash is kept as hot as possible without burning it.

5. Pull the jars (or half the jars if you are working with more than four jars), lids and bands from the hot water. Fill the jars with the hot squash to within 1cm of the top for the 125ml jars. Headspace for 250ml (half-pint) jars is about half an inch and for 500ml (pint) jars leave an inch. Do not pressure-can squash in quarts. Clean the rims with clean, wet paper towel. Center the lids on and put the screw bands on finger-tight only. Put these jars in the pressure-canner and put some of the boiling water in the bottom of the canner to keep the jars warm. If you are doing more than four jars repeat for the remaining jars.

The idea is to keep the contents of the jar and the jars themselves as hot as possible all the way from cooking through filling and processing. Squash and other veggies with high starch content expand a great deal when they are hot. If you pack the jars with less-than-boiling squash it will boil out in the canner and make a big mess. The squash is still perfectly good as long as the jars seal but the cleanup is a total pain as the sugars dry on to the inside of the canner and the jars with amazing stickiness.

6. Add more boiling water to the canner until there is about an inch and a half of water in the canner. I use an All-American Pressure Canner so the rest of the instructions are for this type of canner only. (In my estimation it’s the absolute best one.) Put the lid on the canner but don’t put the pressure weight on yet. Put the canner on the stove and turn the heat up to high. When the water boils start timing and allow the canner to vent for seven minutes. I use a small burner on the stove because a large burner will apply too much heat during the actual pressure canning. After the water boils I turn the element down to medium-low to keep it boiling while it vents. I know the water is boiling because I can hear it! I put my ear next to the bottom of the canner and the bubbling can he heard quite distinctly.

7. Add the pressure weight and use the 10lbs setting. Stand by the stove and watch the pressure gauge. This is not the time to get something else done. When the pressure reaches 10lbs (or 8-12lbs as the manufacturer specifies) start timing the canning. Processing times are: 50 minutes for 125ml jars, 65 minutes for 250mL jars and 80 minutes for 500mL jars. Now I fiddle with the burner temperature until the pressure weight sputters one to four times per minute. This part is just about knowing your stove and your canner. On my stove this is one setting higher than absolute low. It doesn’t take much energy to keep the water boiling and the pressure up once it’s rolling.

8. When the time is up turn off the element. Wait until the pressure reading is totally zero before you take the weight off. Open the lid AWAY FROM YOU. My jars are usually already sealed before I even get the lid off. If not they seal within a few minutes. I don’t mess around with non-acid foods – if they don’t seal throw them out. I don’t try to re-process them, it’s just not worth the risk.

So far I have processed seven 125mL jars of the squash and I think I have about seven more to go. My canner is so small that I can’t stack the jars so my batches are small. It’s okay though, I love my canner and it’s so small that it’s easy to store in an apartment. This was my first time canning non-acid foods and it was super easy. I hope Morgan likes Kubota squash. I have to admit it didn’t smell all that good in the kitchen while it was canning but I think that’s because some of the squash boiled over and was being steamed pretty violently. It tastes pretty bland but I hear babies don’t get much of a choice with the foodz so I know she will eat all of it.

I would definitely consider canning my own pumpkin this year for pies and cheesecakes. Yummmmm…. pumpkin cheesecake….

Friends! Want to use the pressure canner? Call me! I would love to show you how.

A (Nearly) Photo-less Update

My sister, whom I live with, is in the desert somewhere. She, and several thousand of her new closest friends are at the Burning Man festival until Monday. The only camera she owned was bought for her by her employer so she didn’t want to sacrifice it to the fourty degree duststorms. I loaned her my crappy old digicam knowing full well that it won’t come back alive. At least my sister will have lots of photos of crazy half-naked people and their awesome art installations.

Ahem.

So while she has been gone the kitchen has been MINE! All MINE PRECIOUS!! The day after she left I bought 40lbs of tomatoes, 20lbs of peaches and 20lbs of pears. Modest by my standards but I really feel like I canned too much last year. I got the Keremeos canning tomatoes for $0.85/lb which is fair for an in-city price. I made a moderate batch of salsa which yielded 8 pint jars and a ginormous batch of chunky basil pasta sauce that took two days to cook and rewarded me with 8 quarts of delicious tomato sauce. I pulled out the pressure-cooker to finish off the last 2 quarts of whole tomatoes and impressed the hell out of my new boyfriend. Nothing says “hard core” like ten different warning labels about how you can blow yourself up or burn yourself. Booyah.

Peaches were canned as usual. I think I have 8 quarts so far. Pears were also done the same way as last year. This post remains the most popular on this blog with a few thousand hits. I hope people are finding this way of preserving the pears as successful as I do.

For the first time ever I tried to make baby food. This, is The Squidgy.

Here we are playing cards. I think we won this round. Morgan (as her birth certificate says) was born to my best friends on May 21st of this year which means she will be into solid foods this fall. This ridiculously cute baby motivated me to buy new tiny little jars and try to make some pureed stuff.

To make pureed fruit baby food I just used the less-than-perfect chunks when I was canning peaches and pears. They aren’t the bruised chunks but rather the odd-shaped pieces that result from cutting the bruises out. Since I am a raging perfectionist when in the kitchen I won’t put a non-perfect piece of fruit in a jar so it goes into the holding bowl (full of cold water and Vitamin C) and then into the food processor. I measured out one 500mg Vitamin C tablet per two or three 125mL jars, crushed it up and then added just enough boiling water to dissolve it. I then added the Vitamin C to the food processor and pulsed until the fruit was just mushy enough but not liquid. I processed the 125mL jars 15 minutes in the boiling water bath. The pears turned out wonderfully. They haven’t browned at all in the jar and they taste great. The peaches were a total fail. They got over-pureed I think and then they separated in the jar and don’t look good. I tossed them in favour of more pears.

Soon I will try to do some pressure-canned carrots or peas but I have a lot of reading to do before I am confident enough to make non-acid food for The Squidgy. I admit that when I was making the baby food everything was extra clean and done to the highest sterility standards, something I have been getting lax on canning for myself only. I hope Morgan appreciates my efforts!

Remedy for Hot Pepper Mistake

Recently I was involved in a conversation where a friend told us a horrific story about the time she spent all day cutting up hot peppers only to have her hands burn for the rest of the evening and night. She was in total agony and put just about everything on her hands to try and stop the burning but nothing worked. I told her how to fix it and she said that nowhere on the entire intertubes did she find this information and that I should share with the masses so here it is.

How to Stop Your Skin From Burning After You Cut Up Hot Peppers
Well firstly please wear gloves when you cut up hot peppers. Make sure you find all the seeds and dispose of them because if your cat licks up one off the floor you will feel pretty awful watching your cat spaz out.

If you are unfortunate enough to not wear gloves you can get some relief from Asprin and aloe vera. It has to be Asprin, not Tylenol or ibuprofen. This is an absolute must. Take a few tablets of Asprin and crush them in a mortar and pestle or use two spoons. It doesn’t have to be a fine powder, just crushed up bits. Mix the Asprin liberally into the aloe vera (preferably 100% aloe gel) and apply to your burning hands. Even better, get a rubber glove and fill it with the mixture. Stick your hands in the glove and put rubber bands around your wrists to keep the goo in. This way you can try to go to sleep and not have to wake up to reapply.

In mine (and my mother’s) experience this is the only thing that works. Oh and next time wear gloves! Just because the peppers don’t look hot, smell hot or taste hot doesn’t mean the capsaicin can’t hurt your skin.