Jams Preserved Foods

There’s really no arguing that scoby is uglydelicious homemade kombuchaIf you want to save a few bucks on your ‘booch habit, there’s just no getting around it. You’re going to need a scoby. You can beg a scoby from a kombucha-brewing friend, or you can order a fresh one online. But there’s one more option: you can grow your own. This can be easily done by combining tea, sugar, and some pre-made kombucha. Here’s how to do it.

When life gives you cabbage...

Milk kefir is an easy sell for anyone who loves yogurt, which I most definitely do. KefirsmoothieprobioticsAll you need is a teaspoon of active kefir grains and a cup of whole milk. Milk kefir is a fermented dairy product similar in many ways to yogurt and buttermilk. It’s how kefir is cultured that makes it really unique — instead of heating the milk, adding a culture, and keeping it warm as you do with yogurt, all you need to make milk kefir are kefir grains.

Can you slice vegetables and boil brine? Then you can make refrigerator pickles.

Spread it onto bread, fold into omelets, or eat spoonfuls with ricotta.

We love the stuffed cherry peppers we find in gourmet shops, though at upwards of $10 a jar, they can be a bit pricey. But peppers from the farmers’ market come cheap, and with a simple brine, you can get the same results for much less. All you need is buy some fresh peppers, poke the tops, and make the brine – a mix of white vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper. I first discovered pickled cherry peppers at the Ruby Tuesday salad bar.

The best jam you can make with just fruit, lemon, and sugar.

If you're looking for a quick way to preserve a bunch of cherry tomatoes, pickling is a unique way to put them to good use.

These oven-dried tomatoes are nothing like their sun-dried cousins.

They’re also pretty to look at.

Get out your slow cooker and make a huge batch (you can freeze most of it to have on hand for future meals!).

Have you ever tried beet kvass? Earthy, salty, sour, and sweet, this jewel-toned lacto-fermented beverage is full of probiotic goodness. Plus it’s ridiculously easy and affordable to brew right on your kitchen counter. Making beet kvass is similar to the process of making sauerkraut, traditional dill pickles, and kimchi.

It only takes 15 minutes to make.

You could even make a batch tonight and have homemade yogurt for breakfast by tomorrow morning!

I love Korean food, and I love kimchi. I’ve never attempted to make it on my own, I always thought it was this huge, complicated thing and that it’s probably best to just buy premade kimchi at the store. Plus, since I didn’t understand fermentation, it scared me. Some kimchi recipes call for raw oysters and raw squid. How would these stay fresh for weeks and months, I wondered? Would I get sick? So, making kimchi was just one of those things I avoided. It intimidated me.

Yes, there's a not-so-secret ingredient.

For me, there’s not much better than an ice-cold coffee on a hot summer day. One problem though: if you want to sweeten your coffee you only have a few options. Option one is to use sugar, which is hard to dissolve and can result in a pile of sugar gunk at the bottom of your glass. Option two is using a store-bought coffee syrup, but those tend to be cloyingly sweet and flavored with junk. The hidden third option is to make your own syrup at home.

If you like store-bought tempeh, just wait until you try fresh nutty-tasting homemade tempeh. You might never go back! Plus, when you make it yourself, you can go way beyond soybeans and customize your tempeh with whatever kinds of legumes and grains you want. To make tempeh at home, you just need some beans, a spoonful of tempeh starter, and a warm spot in your house. Today we’ll walk you through each step of the process, from preparing the beans to cooking it for dinner.

You can use it on burgers, grilled chicken, or just eat it with cheese and crackers.

I have been hoarding a platter of yellow quinces on my desk for the past few weeks, not because these knobbly fruits are especially beautiful to look at but rather as a source of deep olfactory pleasure. Tantalized by their fruity-floral aroma of pineapple, pear, and roses, I was almost convinced that cooking the quinces would be a shame … until I got them into a pot and onto a spoon.

I recently acquired a lot of meyer lemons from my neighbor’s tree. I can only drink so much lemonade, eat so many lemon pies, and make so much marmalade! So I decided to make preserved lemons, and it was ridiculously easy. Now I have several jars of preserved lemons that I can use in Middle Eastern recipes.Ingredients8 to 10 lemons (I used Meyer, but you can use any regular lemon)Kosher saltEquipment1 quart-sized wide mouth jar with lid1. Sterilize the jar in boiling water for 15 minutes.

The sweet and spicy spread is perfect for cheese boards.

The ultimate sauce to wake up tired boneless, skinless chicken breasts is also the easiest to make.

It's the best thing you can do this weekend.

And they make a great Bloody Mary stirrer, too.

Cranberries are not just for Thanksgiving jelly and sauce; homemade cranberry jam is wonderful on toast or a sandwich too. This is an easy homemade jam recipe that will keep in the fridge for at least two weeks. It’s smoother, sweeter and and thicker than cranberry sauce. We ate it on bread with peanut butter and used it in a pastry for Thanksgiving. It’s tart and sweet with traditional aromas of cinnamon and orange.

This weekend we were treated to a special dirty martini from our favorite pickle joint in town, Rick’s Picks. Just in time. In an effort to get you ready for summer, we’re going to kick off a week of original cocktail recipes, and we begin with a bang: it’s Pickletini time.This weekend we held a little book party here in the office for the launch of Maxwell’s new book.

It’s summer and it’s time for pickles! While I’m a big fan of canning, sometimes the thought of standing over a stove in the dead-heat of summer is just too much. Enter the refrigerator pickle, a quick and delicious way to get your pickle fix without heat stroke.This is an old-fashioned recipe, very sweet/sour, almost like a relish. It’s from my mom who got it from my Aunt Lorraine way back in the 60s.

These radishes started out bright red on the outside, and snow white on the inside — but quickly turned a lovely shade of pink after a few hours in their pickling solution. So pretty and delicious and easy to make! Read on for the recipe.These are Japanese-style pickles, with a well-balanced sweet/sour flavor and a satisfying crunch. While red radishes aren’t traditional, they are similar in taste and texture to the daikon radish and the turnip, which are more classic choices.

At the beginning of the summer, when we were still picking out plants and herbs for our container garden and dreaming of August’s tomatoes, we thought some pepper plants might be a fun change of pace from the usual choices — who wouldn’t love fresh pico de gallo or sliced fresh banana peppers at the height of summer’s heat?

Summer means fresh garden produce, and fresh garden produced needs preserving as much as possible. So we turned to Tigress for a brief summer series on quick and easy pickling, which is just one way to preserve the bounty of summer a little longer. Pickling is surprisingly easy — take a look at this first post to see just how simple it can be.Oh snap! Summer is here and you want something snappy to ward off the heat?

Summer means fresh garden produce, and fresh garden produced needs preserving as much as possible. So we turned to Tigress for a summer series on quick and easy pickling, which is just one way to preserve the bounty of summer a little longer. Last week she showed us quick pickled roots — this week, it’s pickled mushrooms!Welcome to the second installment of my quick pickling guest post series!

Summer means fresh garden produce, and fresh garden produced needs preserving as much as possible. So we turned to Tigress for a summer series on quick and easy pickling, which is just one way to preserve the bounty of summer a little longer. She has showed us quick picked mushrooms and quick pickled roots — and today, in her last installment, it’s pickled berries!

No matter how many times I have cooked with the watermelon radish, slicing into one is always a magical experience. Although the pale greenish-white root is rather unassuming at first glance, inside lies the most brilliant fuchsia core. Heating it dulls the color, so my favorite way to serve this mild radish is raw or lightly pickled. In a salad, it really adds a vivid pop.

I had a wonderful meal at the restaurant Bar Tartine in San Francisco a while back. One of the many highlights was the first thing on the table: a delightful array of brine-pickled vegetables served up in jars gathered on a rough wooden tray. Read on for three recipes from this repertoire and a few hints on how to create a pickle platter at home. Each pickle had a distinct taste, from the spicy but earthy carrots in turmeric to the bright, dilly (and also spicy) green cherry tomatoes.

I believe in the power of a good pickle. Toss baby greens with a bit of crumbled cheese and a slices of pickled beet and call it dinner. Drizzle olive oil over pickled cauliflower and it becomes a quick appetizer for guests. Nuzzle a couple of dilly beans alongside your hot dog instead of relish for a crunchy pucker. Truly, there isn’t much that a pickle can’t do to jazz up or round out a meal. Here in the US, pickles are inextricably linked to cucumbers.

In college, I occasionally worked at a small café tucked inside a local art museum. It was a ladies-who-lunch scene, and the food was brought in by a local caterer. The menu was what one might expect for that crowd—chilled soups, tea sandwiches, and dainty salads. Accompanying every entreé was a pile of tangy yellow squash laced with diced red bell peppers; it was our signature side.

We’ve all encountered, and possibly even served, a boring crudité platter. As a vegetarian and gluten-free guest and host, I’ve had my fair share of raw broccoli and carrot sticks while other party guests indulged in more interesting hors d’oeuvres. But these pickled baby carrots? These ones with the zingy bite that will be ready in just a couple of hours? You might want to double the recipe.

There are lots of ways to heat up your drinks, from fresh cracked peppercorns to wasabi and my personal fave — freshly grated horseradish. Add the endless array of fresh peppers (habañeros, serranos, thai bird chilies, etc.) and the even wider variety of hot sauces out there, and you’re choices are endless. Flavored and infused spirits are in the spice game, too, from vodka to tequila.

To the uninitiated, lacto-fermentation often sounds at best confusing and at worst frightening. Before I got elbow-deep into the world of kimchi, sauerkraut, and other fermented foods, I had vague notions of lacto-fermentation involving milk, bacteria, and jars of mysterious contents bubbling away in dark cupboards. Some of this is true, some of it isn’t, and I’ll get to that in a minute.

This roasted delicata squash salad is a superfood extravaganza! I’ve tossed it together with walnuts, apple, cabbage, and quick-pickled red onion dressing. (Yeah, I’m a total rebel and made the dressing in the microwave.) After all the holidays, parties, lack of sleep, dozens of cocktail-sized meatballs on toothpicks, and one-too-many Champagne toasts, I often get a little wacked out and start craving beet juice and kombucha in an attempt to get myself back on track.

When friends ask how to ferment deli-style pickles, I recommend that they start by practicing with asparagus spears. By practicing with asparagus you’ll learn all you need to know by the time cucumber season arrives. Thankfully this isn’t all about learning; asparagus makes for great pickles and is a welcome accompaniment to spring grilling. Preserving has taught me to look at ingredients differently than I used to; each part of a fruit or vegetable can be prepared in different ways.

Here's what to do with those underripe avocados!