Okra Redemption

So last weekend the Okra beat me. But those of you who know me well, know what a sore loser I am. I couldn't leave it like that. While picking up my free gift share of fabulous Agriberry blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, and donut peaches (I am seriously in fruit heaven!) at the Monument Market, which I hadn't been to before, I found some perfect okra for pickling, and I knew this was my chance for redemption!

No way was this okra going to be too big for the jars! HA! Perfect little bite sized pickled okra. Of course, some were bigger, but these were too good to pass up. So I brought them home and got to work! You don't need the full recap of last week's process, so here's the brief version:

Gather ingredients. Garlic, dill and dill seeds. Also some crushed red peppers.

Wash okra and remove any split pods or otherwise imperfect ones.

Prepare mise en place. Measure spices for each jar and slice garlic, etc.

When jars are sterilized, add spices and dill, pack with okra, add brine, top with sterilized lids.

Hot water bath for 15 minutes. With no mishaps (YAY!) the end result was: 3 fully packed pints and one half-packed pint. These are going to be soooooo much better than last week's! Lisa, I have my eye on the best one of the lot just for you!

High on the endorphins of my okra victory, I decided to try something new:

So all this lovely fruit from Agriberry, coupled with some other events of the season, has had me thinking about freezer jam. I'm not a big jammer, but Grandma's Strawberry Jam is legendary in my family and it's so good because it's a no-cook freezer jam and the fruit doesn't lose any of the fresh berry flavor in a cooking or canning process. So I've been wanting to do a peach freezer jam, and this weekend seemed like as good a time as any. I was hoping for more peaches in my Agriberry share (not a big fan of nectarines), but I'm not one to complain about free fruit, so I picked up some other local peaches, and some of Grandma's secret ingredient for her Strawberry freezer jam: Certo. (Also the tip from Grandma: don't use store bought lemon juice! Squeeze the lemon juice yourself!) So, refer back to Pickled Peaches to see how to peel them, then here's what I did:
Quartered my peeled and pitted peaches.

Mashed 'em up (the recipe said chop them in a Cuisinart, but mashing seemed so much more fun)

Added a ton of sugar, and let sit for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then I added the Certo/lemon juice mix.

Stirred for 3 minutes. There weren't supposed to be any sugar crystals left, but it was totally grainy still, so I stirred for two more minutes and it was good to go. After disinfecting my freezer jam containers...

... and drying them thoroughly, I filled my containers with my jam!

Then they had to sit for 24 hours at room temperature. I've only just moved 4 into the freezer. One into the fridge for personal use, and one is going to a friend this evening for immediate feedback. So there you go! Freezer jam is crazy easy. Make some next time you have 3 cups of fruit you don't know what to do with!

Okra. When easy things become difficult.

It was a beautiful day for the farmers market yesterday, and accompanied by my good friend Jen, we had a lovely time browsing the stalls and admiring all the beautiful produce that is available this time of year. I really want to figure out how to pickle kohlrabi before the season's done! I handed out some of my fabulous new business cards to some of my favorite farmers, and asked them to let me keep me posted about some of the special produce I'm eagerly anticipating is due (thick rind watermelon in particular!!)

But I was on a mission, I knew exactly what I wanted yesterday. Okra. I had seen really beautiful okra last time, and my spicy dilly okra was such a big hit last year I knew I needed to get a jump on it. I also wanted to get more green beans because everyone is asking for a jar of my wasabeans and I only made 6 pints last time (I swear, once I can legally sell these things I'm gonna make a mint!) so I knew I had to make more of those. So optimistic (or is that masochistic?) me planned a double-pickle Saturday.

First up: The Okra!

I need to say right off the bat that I clearly did NOT pay close enough attention to the recipe when it said to choose small pods. I thought I was choosing the smaller of the pods that the farmer had on display. I was so excited and distracted by the beautiful day and a million other beautiful types of produce (this vendor has about 18 different kinds of peppers... even purple ones!) that I ended up choosing about a third of my okra that was simply too huge to fit in any of my jars. Doh! I had some of the 12 oz tall jars, but I was saving those for the the next round of Wasabeans... so I have this much fresh okra left:

Seriously, if anyone wants it, come get it. I'm not going to use it. I really only like it pickled. Hit me up in the next day or two and it's yours. I hate to throw it away, but apparently if you cut the pods and the slime gets in your brine when you're pickling, bad things happen (not like botulism bad, but still)... so HEY KIDS, FREE OKRA!! COME N' GET IT!

So yeah. Wash short okra, trim stems, gather the rest of my ingredients, including a fabulous gift from Jen:

Some beautiful lovely fresh dill! I have lots left over... What to do with all this wonderful dill?? I hate to just stick it in the dehydrator? Do you put dill in tzatziki? I could make that...

Anyway, the rest of the ingredients:

One note: I get my bulk spices at either Good Foods Grocery or Ellwood Thompsons, both super local businesses where you can get just the spices you need for so much cheaper than buying them in jars at any grocery store... seriously, go buy your spices there!! Get some cute little jars at World Market for a buck a piece, you're all set.

Ok, so after losing a third of my okra due to their size, I only got three measly pints packed, and those not as tightly as I would have liked:

So after all that, the end result was

And my cousin Lisa gets one simply for her overwhelming appreciation of last year's okra pickles. The jar in the middle will be the tasting jar, since it managed to fall over in the canner and lose some of its brine. I swear nothing went right with these pickles. But I guess I learned a lot. If everything had gone perfectly I wouldn't have learned very much, now would I?

So feeling very frustrated I proceeded to take a long nap, then watch some netflix and get some dinner. Then about 10:30 I started some more wasabeans! Because nothing cheers my up like pickling! (Well, technically I did it because I had 4 pounds of fresh and beautiful green beans and if I didn't do them then I wouldn't have another chance until Wednesday, and by then they wouldn't be fresh and beautiful anymore....) So you can reference my last entry for the process, substituting tall 12 oz jars for the pints (so I could get 8 jars instead of 6) and about 1:30 in the morning I ended up with:

Yay!! Now there should be enough for everyone to have some... but bribes are still the best way to ensure you get some. Two weeks left until we can taste the first batch!

Now I'm off to my VICFA meeting to talk about how to get homemade pickles legalized in Virginia, so that I can sell you guys my fabulous, wonderful pickles!