71. Zip

I did two things for the first time yesterday. I used a zipper foot on my sewing machine. I replaced the zipper in a sleeping bag. So I suppose it's only really one thing, in two parts. But I spent a long time sewing yesterday.

Mike's aunt's mother-in-law has a robe, an old terrycloth robe, very simple construction, and it is her favorite. No other robes equal this one. They either don't lie flat enough along the neck, or the pockets aren't square pockets. So I was handed a robe and minky dot fabric and asked to make another just like the first. And I did. I hate tissue paper patterns, so I laid out the fabric and the robe folded to specific pieces in order to get the diagonals correct. I made 4 pairs of pajama pants this way already for Christmas, and I don't think I'll use a tissue paper pattern again. Bleah.

So anyway, I made the robe while Jake's uncle Johnny sat in the living room dropping not so subtle reminders of his political bent. I was glad for the task.

I finished it quickly--about two hours including a short break for dinner. I had brought one other project to accomplish this break. The sleeping bag zipper. Fiona and Daisy each have sleeping bags that I found at a resale shop on separate occasions. They are flowered and vintagey looking on the outside and lined with a thin flannel. Fiona's is blue and pink; Daisy's is red and green. I love them. They look like something my grade school friend Nicole would have had at her house for sleepovers. They are not cold weather sleeping bags, but they are cute and lovely. I had one, not with the flowers, but in a wine-red-brown, that was very much like these. And so I like them. I've always been a bit wabi-sabi about things. Things that are old and a bit shabby but still functional? Keep them and love them.

But this blue and pink sleeping bag's zipper was in bad shape. First, it stopped threading well and so I made a stopper with a zigzag stitch. Then the zipper, an old metal one on a stiff fabric tape, began to disintegrate. The teeth fell off in chunks (like my worst dental nightmare). Fiona brought it to me and asked what we could do.

I worked in a fabric store and I knew sleeping bag zippers existed, but I'd never replaced a zipper. I sat down next to Jake's brother Kevin and his wife Liz, playing scrabble on my mother-in-law's new Nook tablet. The couch is such that you kind of sink towards the middle. Anyway, I clung to the side of the couch, half-watched Thor that was playing on the TV, and ripped out the old zipper.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

I have this old zipper foot in my sewing box. I think it is probably from my grandmother. I gave it a try. I broke three needles in the process but the third one stayed intact and it worked. It did. I got the zipper sewed on and then rebound it with the original matching bias binding. The zipper is black, where the original was white and metal, but it works. It zips so nicely.

So now all the projects are completed and it's time to think about next year. Because as God is my witness, I swear on the grave of my scary great-great-great grandmother Jenny, may she haunt me persistently if I fail to fulfill my promise, that I will start Christmas sewing in February this year.

70. Brussels Sprouts Kids Will Eat

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. What is up with the capitalized name for this vegetable? Is it named for Brussels, like, the capital of Belgium?

Anyway.

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. Cut in half.

Saute in a hot pan with olive oil. Salt and pepper them lightly. They will turn brighter green and yellow at the center.

Take off the heat and powder them with Parmesan or Romano. Google wants to capitalize those words, too.

Serve hot. Fiona's comment: I wish we had more.

69. Salsa Verde Original Recipe and Changes

Here is the salsa verde recipe from Farmgirl:

Makes about 3 pints
Recipe may be doubled; increase cooking time by 10-15 minutes

2 lb. green tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 lb. white or yellow onions, chopped
3/4 lb. sweet red peppers, cored and chopped
1/2 lb. tart cooking apples, such as 'Granny Smith', cored and chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt
4 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded if desired, and finely chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, onions, peppers, apples, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a large,nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about an hour.

Stir in the jalapenos, cilantro, and cumin and simmer for 5 more minutes. Carefully puree the mixture using a stick blender until still somewhat chunky.

If canning, return the pureed relish to a boil, then ladle the hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Store in a cool, dark place.


And this is what I do if I'm not canning:

1. Throw all the green tomatoes in a huge pot.
2. Add enough vinegar and water to get them simmering.
3. Add whatever onions you have lying around. Garlic, maybe a handful of cloves? A few green apples. The tarter the better.
4. Chop a sweet pepper if you have one.
5. Dump in about 6 seeded and cored, chopped jalapenos. Maybe more?
6. When everything is mushy, stick-blender it (or pour it into the blender in batches).
7. Bring to a boil again, add lots and lots of cumin. Some salt. Some chili powder, maybe.
8. Simmer a while. Let it cool down. Pour it into freezer containers and hoard it away!

68. Canning Supplies

When you set out to can, you really don't need many supplies, but the few you need? You really need them.

1. You need jars. Canning jars. I'm sure there are people out there who reuse pickle and mayo jars from the store, but unless you are canning-for-the-fridge (meaning, making a small batch of jelly and sticking it in the fridge right there and then to use as your current jar of jelly--pickles are often done this way successfully as well), you need canning jars. They are sold by the flat at most grocery stores. They are made by Ball and by Kerr, which may be the same company? Not sure.
You can reuse jars as long as they are in good shape. We open jars, use the contents, and then use them as drinking glasses. The ones that survive to the next canning season get sterilized with the others and get put-up again.

2. With the jars you need bands and lids. The lid is the flat thing on top with the rubber seal. The band holds it on. You can reuse bands until they rust. You cannot reuse lids. If lids look damaged or weird (see below), discard. Just don't even go there. The one on the right has some sort of weird spot on it. I discarded.
3. You need something to process the jars in. I use the official canner from Kerr or Ball or whatever. It doesn't have to be that--any large flat-bottomed kettle will work. But the part that is implied here:is the rack. The rack is what makes it all work. You don't want jars to rest on the bottom of the kettle, where they are likely to burst. They need to rest just slightly above the bottom. There they'll do fine.

4. A few other random supplies that could be substituted for other similar objects:Tongs; a jar-lifter to bring it out of the hot hot water; a wide-mouthed funnel (which is frankly so useful it gets used all the time in my house); pectin if you are going for a firm-set jam or jelly and you are worried it might not set. I'll talk about pectin later. I have used it successfully, I have used it unsuccessfully (by not following the directions, oops). I have set jam without it as well.

5. And as Daisy is demonstrating there, you need water. Lots and lots of hot water. Many people, myself included, boil jars before using them. I rest lids in hot water but I don't boil them because I want the rubbery seal to stay hard until I need it to soften and do its job (seal). And hot water to process jars in, too, is key, of course, in "hot water bath" canning. It's such a large kettle of water that I start it on the stove before I do any other prep work (except chopping if I'm working with hot peppers, or pickles which have to rest in cold water a long time first). But straight-forward tomatoes or jam or jelly? The water goes on to boil first.

That's it for the hardware: jars, bands, lids, kettle, rack, a few utensils, pectin (the only "special" ingredient), water, and a stove to heat it on. Towels are good. Spoons. Knives. But those things you probably already have ready to go.

Next up: the basics of jam.

67. Shamefully Returning to Posting

It's been a really busy, really hectic return to school this year. Not only am I taking an online class that I'm too advanced for (long boring story omitted), but I'm volunteering 5 hours a week at school and Leo goes to speech therapy 2 hours a week. So there hasn't been a lot of anything that would qualify for this blog. Really. The garden is declining. I have a dying cat. The treehouse is all but done, but my part of it is the part that is all-but. Girl scouts are underway but nothing really for here to say right now.

But I have a few canning photos. So I'm going to go ahead and start that. Right now.

66. Learning to Can

Melinda came over yesterday. I don't know Melinda--she is a friend of Jen's across the street. They know each other from craft shows. Melinda wanted to learn how to can, how to "put up". She is part of a community organization for sustainable food and growing your own and all that. I told her to come on over.

Raspberries were cheap, the cheapest I've ever seen. I picked up plenty to make raspberry jam, something I would normally not waste raspberries on, frankly, because they get hoovered up at my house at an alarming rate. I pick them myself when I am able (the fall crop is coming in out at the farm where I usually pick, so Leo and I might head out early sometime this week).

She came over Sunday morning, and about 10 minutes before she was due to arrive, I realized I had no pectin. I always cheat. Always. Every jam I make has pectin in it. So much work goes into it, I don't want it to fail. So I had a mini panic, realizing I couldn't run to the store in time, and Mike was camping with the girls so I couldn't have him run out for me. By the time Melinda arrived I had shifted gears. Raspberry sauce, I told her. She was thrilled I was going to do a demonstration and not just a lecture.

Cut to the end: I used a Ball recipe for raspberry jam, warning her it probably wouldn't set. But it did. I followed Ball's recipe exactly and it set fine. It's definitely a homemade variety, it is runnier than store-bought, but it isn't just a sauce. It is jam.

But anyway, I went through the process with her and I realized that wow, I've been doing this for 12 years. Once again, not a novice anymore. And while the internet is probably not the best source for information, pretty much across the board, I'm going to do a few lessons about canning. Maybe it would be better to call them tips. It'll be a few days. I didn't take pictures of the whole process yesterday. I'll need to can something else. Salsa verde perhaps. Hmm.

65. Caprese Salad and Crostini

It is summer. August, specifically.

There have been many Augusts of Caprese salad. This year is no exception, although the tomatoes aren't coming from my yard this year, but from the CSA. Little candy-sweet sungold grape tomatoes. Romas. Big red lovelies for $1/pound because the farm that raises them doesn't consider them worthy of full price.

Mozzarella, the soft white kind, not the gummy string cheese kind. I found the latest batch at a local grocery chain, hormone free.

Basil from the yard. Handfuls of it. It's getting a little on the anise-ish side of basil this time of year (I've missed the perfect moment to make pesto but I'll still make it).

And we had this package of crostinis from the CSA. Crunchy, tasty, perfect with a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, a little orange tomato.

We've had it for dinner, just this and maybe some chicken strips from the freezer for the kids, for 2 nights this week. I'm out of mozzarella but that will be remedied tomorrow.