Meat Curing Demo + All the Usual Suspects

We're going to be all cosy-like together in the parking lot tomorrow! 

Peter Barrett will join us at 5pm to do a meat curing demonstration. Learn how to cure duck breasts and make duck prosciutto. Peter cooks with and writes about all manner of local food. You can often find his work in Chronogram and Edible Hudson Valley, and at www.acookblog.com

Deb Tankard and Friends will play in the market at 5:30pm!

It's harvest time...time to start (or continue) those canning projects and think about storing the bounty (tomatoes, we're looking at you). If you're over or not into canning tomatoes, here's an easy freezing recipe for Tomato Sauce. Thanks to Eve Fox for bringing it to our attention - it'll make you happy in January!

From: The Girls Guide to Guns and Butter

And if you're not over the canning and love, say, peaches, why not make peach pickles? They are amazing.

Texas peach pickles (makes 6-7 pints)
8-10 pounds small texas peaches, peeled, pitted, and halved
lemon juice or crushed vitamin c tablets for aciduation (to prevent browning)
1 quart distilled white vinegar
5 cups organic cane sugar
1 small knob ginger, peeled and left whole
whole cloves-5 for each jar plus a tbsp for the syrup
whole allspice-5 for each jar plus 1 tbsp for the syrup
cinnamon sticks-1 for each jar plus 4-5 for the syrup

Place vinegar, sugar and spices in a large stock pot. heat until simmering to dissolve sugar. add peach halves, bring back to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes. turn off heat, cover and allow to stand overnight where the peaches will plump up and say howdy. sterilize jars and prepare canner and lids while you heat this mixture back up to the boiling point. add 5 or so whole cloves and whole allspice and hot peaches to hot jars. add 1 cinnamon stick to each jar and top with syrup and adjust for 1/2 ” headspace, removing any air bubbles as you go. process for 20 minutes in a hot water bath.

You could also take these beauties from Clove Valley CSA and whip up some lacto-fermented squash. Around here we've reached our summer squash threshold by this time, but what a lovely burst of summer in February!

Lacto-Fermented Squash from Cultures for Health
Ingredients:

• 1-2 medium sized summer squash, cut into 1/2″ chunks (just enough to fit in a quart jar)
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled
• a few sprigs of flowering cilantro.
• a couple of mesquite, oak, or grape leaves (to keep them crunchy)
• 1 quart of filtered water
• 2 tablespoons sea salt

Instructions:

1. Combine water and sea salt, stir well and set aside.
2. Add the crushed garlic and one sprig of flowering cilantro to the bottom of a quart jar. Fill jar halfway up with chunks of summer squash. Add a bit more garlic and cilantro and fill the jar with squash chunks up to 1-2″ below rim.
3. Pour salt water brine over the squash. At this point you want to weigh the squash down in order for it to remain below the level of the brine and ferment evenly. This isn’t an ideal solution, but I like to use a narrow-mouthed lid in my wide-mouth quart ferments. Just press it down until enough brine covers it that it weighs the squash down. You could also use a cabbage leaf or a cleaned rock.
4. Cover tightly with a canning lid and ring. Allow to sit out at somewhere near room temperature, ideally 60-80 degrees. Check your jars and burp them every 12 hours or so by loosening the lid and allowing some gas to escape.
5. Let ferment 2-5 days, depending on temperature and then transfer to cold storage (refrigerator, root cellar, etc.).