Красный Хрен - Red Horseradish

Though the first few nights of passover have passed, I wanted to share my recipe for Красный Хрен (red horseradish), a traditional condiment for gefilte fish and a staple for many passover meals.
I opened up the garden last weekend and my one harvest so far has been an over wintered horseradish root that was dug up for the express purpose of making a few jars of this tasty condiment.
Красный Хрен - Red Horseradish
1 horseradish root, washed, peeled and diced (or grated)
2 medium beets, peeled and boiled or roasted and diced (or grated)
4-6 oz white vinegar (enough to be absorbed in the mixture but not so much that it is swimming in it)
2-3 tsp sugar
salt & pepper to taste (if desired)
Directions:
Using a food processor or hand grater finely grate or dice the horseradish. Add the grated beets to the horseradish (to ensure there is a good amount of heat let the horseradish sit in a covered container for a few minutes before the beets are added). Mix thoroughly and add a few teaspoons of sugar. Taste and adjust to desired heat or sweetness.  Add enough vinegar to absorb into the mixture, and mix very well. Transfer to jars, cover tightly, and store in the refrigerator until needed.
That is it. I wouldn't make this too far in advance as the horseradish will lose it's heat and intensity over time. For a more intense flavor use more horseradish and less of everything else! The lack of exact measurements in this recipe should serve as a general guide. The key to a good horseradish (red or white)  is to bring out the intensity of the horseradish without drowning it in vinegar. The recipe here yielded about 2 1/2 cups of red horseradish goodness.

Be sure to also check out my directions for making a traditional (white) horseradish.

Taking Stock for Dark Days

Below is a peek into what we managed to can & freeze which will assist us in eating locally for the Dark Days Challenge, which I posted about yesterday. Tomorrow I will be looking at some of the winter markets in my area.

homemade sauce. garlic, onions, some herbs, for seasoning, little else.

Here is a look at what we've got in the freezer as well as what we canned from our garden and local farms and farmers markets!
We have a small kitchen and limited storage space so we do the best we can. We also use some of the canned jams and relishes as gifts, because sharing is one of the best parts of canning all this wonderful stuff!
Canned & Refrigerated Goods:

corn relish. green bean/zucchini relish, pineapple salsa

Pasta Sauce 18 1/2 Quarts
Corn Relish 6 1/2 pints
Green Bean & Zucchini Relish 1 1/2 pints
Pineapple Salsa 4 1/2 pints
Blueberry Jam 1/2 pint & 4 oz jar
Peach Butter 1/2 pint
Apple Butter 1 1/2 pints
Triple Berry Jam 1 pint
Cranberry-Jalapeno Jam 1 3/4 pints
Beet Relish 5 pints
Cranberry-Apple Sauce 4 pints
Plum & Spiced Port Jam 4 1/2 pints
Ketchup Base 1 quart                                                                                   Horseradish (ground) 4 ounces                                                                                   Pickles 2 quarts

1 4 oz jar unlabeled jam. Based on color either Cran-Apple sauce or Plum & Port jam.

Frozen Goods:
Garlic Scape Pesto cubes
Basil Pesto cubes
2 1/2 lbs Frozen whole Tomatoes
cranberries, blueberries, strawberries, huckleberries
bacon, breakfast sausage, Italian beef sausage, hot Italian pork sausage, garlic and feta turkey sausage, beef kabob cubes, 1 whole turkey meatloaf, beef stew
frozen pepper strips, chives, & dill
chocolate zucchini muffins & bread, regular zucchini bread.
The meat comes from a variety of sources including Stillman's Farm, Bob's Turkey Farm, & River Rock Farm.

All this stuff, along with tomorrow's summary of some of the winter markets in my area is what we'll be relying on to make sure a portion of our food throughout the winter is from local sources!

Cranberry-Apple Sauce

Gail and I  also looking into incorporating jam or jelly into our wedding somehow, and I am currently looking for recipes with a certain color, in conjunction with thanksgiving on the horizon, means now is the perfect time to stock up on cranberries and try some new recipes. I've been on the hunt for a good Cranberry Sauce recipe and came across Marisa from Food in Jars awesome recipe for Apple-Cranberry Jam. The only alteration to the recipe was just a little bit of extra cranberries, not much at all though. 

I let it cook down to the consistency of a cranberry sauce instead of a jam and promptly processed it.

Cran-Apple Sauce

The result was a great tasting beautifully burgundy cranberry apple sauce that isn't overly tart or overly sweet. A perfect test batch with enough jars to share with friends and family before thanksgiving!

Making & Storing Horseradish

 The photo on the left shows the biggest or gnarliest pieces of horseradish I pulled from the ground. I tucked away more then enough root stock to replant some fresh in the spring, and have been making batches of horseradish here and there with different meals. It's a ridiculously easy process. If you are use fresh dug horseradish I recommend peeling the larger pieces and rinsing them small ones as best as possible.
Horseradish root is really interesting. If you manage not to pierce the outer skin of the root you will barely notice an aroma. Once you cut, grind, or expose the root it starts to breakdown and the cells release an extremely pungent and flavorful oil we know as horseradish!

diced horseradish ready to be ground

Homemade Horseradish:
3 oz horseradish root. cleaned and diced.
white vinegar I used 2.5 tbls
Place diced horseradish into food processor or mixer & grind and chop until the desired consistency is achieved. Add vinegar to neutralize the smell. The longer you let the ground horseradish sit before adding vinegar the stronger 'horseradish' flavor there will be. For a light flavor add more vinegar right away & for a strong flavor wait 4-6 minutes and add less vinegar.(note: make sure you are in a well ventilated room with a fan going and a window open, as the aroma given off is EXTREMELY strong. Strong enough that, like an idiot, when I disregarded this warning and took a big huge whiff off the lid of the grinder after running it, and resting it for 3 min. I instantaneously let out a huge yell and ran from the room. My sinus' haven't been that clear since my disco days!) Once vinegar added briefly process again. Pour off excess liquid and refrigerate.  The longer the horseradish sits the 'weaker the taste will be. However the 2-3 months at most it will be in the refrigerator shouldn't see much loss of flavor. It's great to mix with a favorite mustard or mayo to give it that extra zing!

result: 1 full jar + some extra

I store the extra horseradish wrapped in some newspaper in the freezer. When I need some I pull it out, peel  and dice what I need and return the rest to the freezer. I also have more then enough 'seed stock' to plant some of my own and pass a few off on others. I planted 5 of those things in a really small space, probably where I should have planted 2 or 3 tops so I got a good mix of big and small pieces. I cut some down to size and set them aside as seed stock after we initially harvested the 4 plants. 1 more is over wintering under straw in the hopes that I can dig some up fresh in April for Passover!
I cannot stress enough the warning that you should be in a very well ventilated room and preferably wearing a mask or dishtowel over your mouth and nose. When I got a big whiff of just the cap I screamed holy fuck that is hot and ran away in real pain. don't be like me, at least cover your mouth and nose with a t-shirt. you will smell the horseradish but it won't be nearly as painful.

Preserving Herbs: Drying & Freezing

Last year I managed to dry some thyme successfully and ruin some chives in an attempt to preserve both. This year the results were far more tangible.

back: dried sage, marjoram, & rosemary.
front: ground sage, mint, &  rosemary in jars

Michael Ruhlman's simple tip to place herbs in a wooden bowl and let the air circulate and dry them, naturally works incredibly well. We've got little buckets of sage, marjoram, rosemary (see above photo) along with jars of dried mint, ground sage, rosemary, and a rosemary/marjoram mix. This also works well with thyme and oregano.

Along with drying herbs we even freeze some. Granted herbs taste MUCH better when they are fresh with over 1.5 lbs of chives harvested this year, there is no way we could eat all them as we picked them. Throughout the season as I would cut chives I would freeze them in individual layers on cookie sheets and then put them in a freezer bag. We also freeze dill, a tip from my mother, which is great for soups and hearty potato dishes and freeze easily.

We keep a jar of 'fresh' pesto in a bit of oil in our fridge, but we also have baggies full of both basil and garlic scape pesto cubes that we freeze and use all year round. They are a great attention to fresh and canned tomato sauces!

What other herb preservation methods do you use?? Add them in the comments section, if I get a good list going, I will post it for posterity.

Hurricane Irene Canning Session!

Gail & I ended up picking the perfect weekend for a massive canning session! While Irene inched up the coast and made landfall we were canning like mad. Here is the final haul after a weekends worth of hard work:

Let me just say: that is A LOT of canning for one weekend - 12 quarts, 8 pints, & 30 half pints!!! A mix of tomato sauce, beet relish, corn relish, and garlic pineapple salsa!!

The tomato sauce is chock full of tomato seconds & onions from our friends at Kimball Fruit Farm, as well as tomatoes, peppers, garlic, basil, and oregano from our garden! We have a simple hand-crank tomato mill to juice the 25lb boxes of tomato seconds we pick up from the market. Once we've gathered a few gallons of juice we cook it down and add onions, diced tomato chunks, garlic, and spices to our preference. When we feel the sauce is the right consistency we jar it and process it! We made 12 quarts and 3 pints of sauce this batch to go with the 11 quarts we've previously made.

The Corn Relish recipe is easy and can be found in the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving and the always wonderful Beet Relish recipe is the same one from last summer because there is no sense is messing with a perfect thing!

Finally, the salsa. I had scanned cookbooks and the internet and went over hundreds of Salsa recipes. Not finding one that was just right I decided to make my own, and the results were great! This is a delicious Pineapple Garlic salsa with oven roasted tomatoes.

Garlic Pineapple Salsa

12-15 big tomatoes, diced

3 onions, diced

15 cloves of garlic, finely diced

6 jalapeno's seeded, diced

6-8 hot peppers seeded, diced

3 cups diced pineapple

1/4 cup fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon salt

3/4 teaspoon chili flakes (more if you like it spicier)

3/4 cup cider vinegar

Wash & train tomatoes, Peel, seed, and dice into 1/4 in pieces.

Remove seeds from hot peppers, place in a small bowl. Pour boiling water over hot peppers just to cover, allowing peppers to steep for 10-12 minutes. Drain half the water. Puree hot pepeprs and remaining water in a food processor for 1 minute.

Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until mixture thickens.

Ladle hot salsa into sterilized jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Process for 15 minutes in water bath canner.

Like I said the salsa turned out great!! So great that the picture of all the cans on our table is missing a pint jar of salsa because we managed to eat it all in about a day!

With the canning, herb preservation, frozen breads, and other stuff we are ending up with a nice little stock of home preserved foods. Once schedules here calm down a little bit I will have to conduct a tour and tally of all the stuff we are storing!

More Canning: Green Bean & Zucchini Chutney & Dilly Beans

The canning trend continue this past weekend. Gail was away and I had worked nearly 9 hours in the garden so I wanted a canning project that was on the 'easier' side. I had picked up a few pounds of green beans at Thursdays farmers market. A few more simple ingredients and I had all I needed for Green Bean & Zucchini Chutney!

Over the course of an evening I went from:

to a finally product that was cooked over low heat for over 90 minutes! I don't know how the final result will taste because it needs to sit for a month to allow the flavors to mature, but the little bit of leftovers I had were superb:

Green Bean & Zucchini Chutney

Males 3-5 pints

1 1/4 lb green beans, thinly sliced

4 zucchini, thinly sliced

3/4 lb cooking apples, peeled, cored, and chopped.

2 onions finely chopped

2 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 tsp mustard powder

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp coriander seeds

2 cups cider vinegar

Put the beans, zucchini, apples, and onions in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or pot then add the sugar, mustard powder, turmeric and coriander seeds. Pour in the vinegar and stir.

Cook over low heat, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a boil and cook at a rolling boil, stirring occasionally for about 10 minutes. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring from time to time until mixture has thickened. Continuously stir near the end of the cooking time so that the chutney doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Ladle into sterilized mason jars leaving 1/4 in headspace and make sure there are no gaps. Process using water bath canning method for 10 minutes then let cool. Make sure jars are sealed.

Allow flavors to mature for a month. Refrigerate after opening. The recipe yielded 2 pints & 2 1/2 pints

As I said- I don't know how the final product will taste, but there was a little bit leftover that I had the next morning and it was delicious! I can't wait to try it!

We had some green beans leftover when the chutney was done so I also whipped up a pint and 2 1/2 pints of Dilly Beans!

Dilly Beans

2 lbs green beans, trimmed to fit your jars

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more if you really like spicy food!)

4 teaspoons dill

4 cloves of garlic

2 1/2 cups white vinegar

2 1/2 cups of water

1/4 cup pickling salt

mustard seed to taste

Wash and trim beans to make sure they fit in your jars. Combine vinegar, water, and salt in medium saucepan and bring to a boil. While it is heating pack your beans into the jar, adding 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 clove of garlic, a teaspoon of dill, and mustard seed to each jar.

Pour boiling brine over beans. Process for 5 minutes using water bath canning method. Let sit up to 2 weeks for flavors to develop.

Dark Days Update #8: Soup & Salad

Sunday's Dark Days meal saw us reaching for something fresh and something from the freezer for dinner. With a bag of fresh salad greens and a butternut squash from Saturdays Winter Farmers Market we decided to roast the squash with some onions and add it to our salad along with the delicious 'Herdsman's Cream' cheese I picked up at the market. To compliment the salad and to warm our very cold stomachs we defrosted a great Kale & Bean soup.
Fresh salad greens in the dead of winter was certainly a welcome treat!
The soup was great on a cold night, and the leftovers made a perfect lunch on a Monday afternoon that saw temperatures dip as low as -3 Fahrenheit!
Kale & Bean Soup
serves 4
1-2 lbs kale
1 large yellow onion
3-4 potatoes peeled and chopped
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped
8 cups chicken broth
2 sausages**
1/4 cup olive oil
6-8 cloves of garlic peeled and crushed
1 lb cranberry beans
1 hot pepper, seeded and diced
1/3 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
**To make this dish vegetarian friendly I cook and add the sausage when I want a portion for me. However I have included the sausages in the regular recipe and preparation. Feel free to omit them. I defrosted the soup on Saturday afternoon and cooked a sausage for my portion as the soup heated up. Generally a dish like this calls for chorizo or languica, but I substituted hot Italian lamb sausage and it was a perfect fit.

-Slice sausage, and cook in olive oil with onion and garlic. Add garlic last so it does not completely brown. Add liquid and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.
-Rinse Kale and tear into bite size pieces, discarding the stems.
-Add Broth, potatoes, carrots, and kale. Simmer for 30 minutes.
-Add Beans and simmer an additional 15 minutes, or until beans are fully cooked. I used dry beans and had to soak them overnight.

This is a great soup to make ahead of time and freeze. I made this recipe in mid-November when I had just harvested my Kale and froze it.

I served the soup with some of the Cheddar & Leek muffins I made back in November.

Local Ingredients in our Soup & Salad: Salad Greens & Butternut Squash (Red Fire Farm), Onion for Salad (Allandale Farm), _____ Cheese (West River Creamery), Carrots, Onion, & Potatoes for Soup (Kimball's Fruit Farm), Hot Lamb Sausage (Stillman's Farm) Kale, Beans, & Hot Pepper for Soup (My Garden), Garlic (Linabella's Gourmet Garlic & Allandale Farm).

Between the great Viking themed dinner we attended on Saturday & a great local dinner Sunday I felt like it was summer again with the abundance of local produce I got to enjoy over the weekend!

Mobile Root Cellar (an experiment)

As I mentioned on Tuesday's post storage is at a premium here in the Grown Away kitchen. As a way to increase our supply of produce I acquired a 2 ft x 3ft x 2 ft plastic storage bin for the trunk of my car.

With nighttime temperatures falling as low as the upper 20s and daytime temperatures generally topping out no higher then the mid 40s the Mobile Root Cellar (MRC) should be kept at an appropriate temperature to prevent the spoilage of any of the storage crops I'll be attempting to keep. Below is a photo of the contents of the MRC as of Monday afternoon:

Contents of the MRC:

1 butternut squash

1.25 lb carrots

4 oz parsnips

6.5 oz radishes

5 lbs assorted potatoes

2 onions

2 shallots.

If the experiment is a success then I will be replenishing/depleting the storage bin on an as needed basis. With a local farm offering fresh produce until the week before Christmas I will definitely be adding more storage crops to the bin in the coming weeks.

Keep an eye on this space for updates regarding the Mobile Root Cellar experiment.

Taking Stock

The Dark Days Challenge starts tomorrow and I am very excited to participate and eager to share my results. In order to help prepare for forthcoming meals and to have a better idea of what local foods we have in our tiny kitchen I've taken stock of our local food items. The results are below the photo of our overstuffed freezer.

Canned:

2 pints Strawberry Jam

3 pints Peach halves in syrup

3.5 pints Peach Butter

4 pints Triple Berry Jam

5 pints Apple Butter

5.5 pints Blueberry Spread

4 quarts Pasta Sauce

Frozen:

1.75 oz Dill

12 oz Mint

2 lbs assorted Pestos & Basil

2.5 lbs sliced bell peppers

6 oz sliced Hungarian hot peppers

2.75 lbs corn

2.5 lbs green beans

4.5 lbs strawberries

1.5 lbs blackberries

1.5 lbs cranberries

18 ounces blueberries

18 ounces raspberries

1.5 lbs cranberries

5 portions Kale & Bean Soup

3 portions Potato/Leek Soup

14 oz thick cut Bacon (Stillman's Farm)

8 oz Bacon (Vermont Smokehouse)

3 lbs assorted sausage (Stillman's Farm)

3 dozen cheddar & leek muffins

5 portions homemade tater tots

Refrigerator:

Local Eggs

Regional Milk

Local Cheese

1 jar bell peppers in oil

1 small jar cranberry butter

1 bunch carrots

1 bunch parsnips

1 bunch radish

5-6 portions of turkey chili

Local Cider

Apples

Pears

Pantry/Storage:

Assorted Winter Squash

1.25 lbs Carrots

4 oz Parsnips

3 Onions

4 shallots

5 heads Garlic

1 bunch radish

8 lbs assorted Potatoes

Regional Flour

Regional Pancake Mix

Below is a photo of the collection of canned goods we have as of this morning, along with the one edible plant I am currently growing. A lovely rosemary plant I purchased at the farmers market 3 weeks ago.

Space is out a premium in our small kitchen so I am really pleased with the great variety of local food products we have to carry us well into winter. We are fortunate that one of my favorite local farms continues their Saturday farmers market until the week before Christmas. With a farm open so late into the year in addition to all we've saved from our garden and local farms as well as Winter Farmers Markets picking up in early January and lasting through late March we now have nearly year round access to local foods!

I am looking forward to meals which focus on local ingredients and challenging myself in the kitchen to incorporate what we have on hand into our meals.

As soon as I have a better idea of the participants in my group I will be sure to share those details. In past Dark Days Challenges the participants and recaps were split into groups by region, however this year some changes have been made and we have been split into various groups. I'll share any details worth sharing as they come in!

What local foods have you put up for the winter? Are they just from your garden or from local farms as well?