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!

Wasabi Green Beans

First, mad props go to Rick's Picks for this recipe. My sisters brought me back some of his Smokra recently and it was awesome! I visited his site and saw his Windy City Wasabeans and fell in love immediately! Then joy of joys, I found that he had shared his recipe on the Whole Foods Website! So there was no question what this week's pickle would be.

Bright and early this morning I headed over to the West End Farmer's Market to see if one of my favorite farmers, Gene of Riparian Farms had any green beans. He did, and he hooked me up! Also,  Agriberry (of the Asparagus fame) had their first peaches of the season, and blackberries bigger than my thumb, so I had to get some of their fabulous fruit, too. Anne (the owner of Agriberry) was being interviewed by Channel 12, so I totally snuck into the background and made a show of admiring the peaches and buying some while they were filming her. I'm such a dork. Yay!

So then I gathered the rest of my ingredients. I had most everything I needed except for the wasabi powder. Here's a fabulous tip. Don't buy it in the Asian section of ANY of the regular grocery stores. It's a RIP OFF. Go to Tan-A (if you're a Richmonder, you know where it is, even if you've never been inside) it costs a fraction of the supermarket price there. Plus you can get shrimp chips!! YUM!

So yeah, got home, started my prep:

Measured out my wasabi powder to make sure I had enough, peeled a zillion cloves of garlic. Made my brine (no pic of that... too boring, but it sure smelled good!) Also, check out my awesome new paring knife! On clearance at Sur La Table (online only) but get a couple friends together to save on shipping. You get an adorable set of three. With sheathes so you can take them camping and stuff. LOVE! (They totally should pay me for that endorsement.)

Then washed and trimmed my green beans. Tedious! And I only did 4 pounds so far. I'm going to do another 4 pounds later today or tomorrow. (Probably tomorrow.)

So fresh and so clean! Delicious too! Something about veggies that were in the field just 24 hours ago that taste so yummy.

Then with my jars all sterilized, I put in the garlic and the wasabi powder:

Packed in my green beans (I'm really trying to pack my jars tighter, but I don't know if I'm getting them tight enough. I ran out of brine HALF WAY THROUGH and had to quick whip up a whole second batch! Can that be right? This learning process is harder than I thought it would be.)

But check out the final product!

6 pints of fabulous smelling soy ginger garlic wasabi pickled green beans. And I'll do 6 more pints tomorrow! These are going to knock you socks off! I'm thinking these are for my most special friends.... So who are the lucky ones? We can taste these July 23 or later.... so you have plenty of time to come up with bribes. GO!

A Peck of Pickled.... Peaches?

So to be completely upfront, these peaches are not from my foodshed. I bought them on sale at Whole Foods. They're from South Carolina. But it was such a great price, and I've been wanting to do a fruit, I couldn't pass them up. They were a little greener than I wanted to use, so I ripened them in a paper bag for a couple of days. And I really should have kept a closer eye on them. I probably should have processed them on Sunday, because today they were luscious and juicy and delicious. But Sunday I was tired and feeling lazy. And the power went out for several hours, yeah, so I had to lay around and do nothing, yeah, and so I let my peaches get a little too ripe for pickling. So if they turn out a little mushy, I will have learned a lesson. But we learn more from our failures, right? And this whole thing is about experimenting and learning and blah blah blah. Don't worry, though, I'm not messing with my pH or my acidity. Nobody's getting botulism on my watch.

So it started out simple enough. Boil some sugar and some vinegar with some spices (I added some extras to the "Traditional Southern Spiced Pickled Peaches" recipe I had. Cardamom, allspice, more ginger....) let that steep for an hour while I peeled my 6 pounds of peaches. No biggie. You all know how to peel a peach (just like you do tomatoes): drop it in boiling water for 30 seconds or so, then ice bath!

The skins slip right off. It's actually super fun. Then cut 'em in half, pop out the pit (thank goodness for freestone peaches!) and into acidulated water so they don't brown. Really basic stuff here. While I was peeling the peaches, I had my canner going, getting my pint jars nice and sterile. The basic routine. Peaches done, jars sterile, add peaches to pickling liquid to get everything nice and hot. Then the fun part. Packing the peaches curved side down to avoid the cavities filling with air. Much harder than it sounds. I'm sure it'll get easier with practice, but my goodness those things are slippery and geez was everything hotter than hell! But I did succeed in packing six pints:

Then filling them with the pickling liquid, getting what I thought were all the air bubbles out, putting on the lids, and processing. But somehow when all the jars were full, I still had over a quart of delicious sweet peach vinegar left!!

I processed a pint of it to keep, but this jar is going in the fridge... not sure what to do with it. Mix with greek yogurt as a topping for fruit salad? I'm open to suggestions. Or if anyone wants some I'll gladly give out half pint jars... just hit me up!

So, the end result:

Six super yummy looking pints of spiced pickled peaches (that's a big chunk of ginger in the bottom of the jar on the left. YUM!) I hear they go great with cheesecake.... who out there's a baker?

One last question. All of my recipes suggest a specific waiting time before you taste them. But this one doesn't. Who thinks I should take these to the potluck at Polyface Farm next weekend as part of my pickle platter? Vote in the comments or on my Facebook!

In which I learn much about pickling asparagus.

First, I must give a huge shoutout to Agriberry! Not only do they have fabulous strawberries right now (and other luscious berries soon to come, in addition to the best peaches around come summer, and hands-down the most amazing Honeycrisp apples in the fall) Anne (the owner) hooked me up with a couple of pounds of the best asparagus to be found anywhere. And I mean anywhere. Not just Richmond, or Virginia. Seriously, I wait all year for the Agriberry asparagus, and when it arrives at my local farmers market (and really, I go to every market on a rotating basis.... share the love!!) I buy pounds and pounds of it and eat it daily. Sometimes twice a day. So I was sad when their season was ending and I still hadn't gotten any to pickle. Luckily I ran into Anne at a midweek market, and she said she'd try to save a couple of pounds for me to pick up today. Like the fabulous farmer-lady she is, she came through, and I joyously bought several pounds of her asparagus today, when no one else in Richmond, no matter which market they were at (Agriberry is at just about every local Saturday market) was able to buy some. One more reason to know your farmers, kids!

One more big thank you goes to Mr. Leonard's Sharpening Service, who is at the St. Stephens Saturday market every other weekend. He did a killer job sharpening my chef's knife and my paring knife. Sharp knives are things of beauty in the kitchen! What a great idea to have a knife sharpener at a farmers market!

So, to the asparagus! I went with a pretty classic recipe, not dilly, not overly herby, with a little kick and some interesting flavors I think will be subtle and delicious.... I happily set about washing my lovely long spears.

I specifically chose the 12 oz jelly jars since they are tall and skinny. They seemed perfect for asparagus, and the recipe I chose concurred. So after washing my asparagus, I trimmed it down to fit the jars. This was the result:

I was a bit surprised at how little I was left with to pickle, when I had this much "refuse" left over:

 So since there were some super long stems in there, and I only had 4 jars of tips packed, I did a jar of stems... I figured we can taste those for flavor, since Agriberry asparagus stems are just as yummy as the tips! After adding my secret spices, here's what I had:

That's five sterilized 12 ounce jelly jars, which I then topped with sterilized lids, and processed in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. The result:

 Some stray observations:

• In my initial research, there seems to be a lot of debate about packing your jars tips-up or tips-down. I packed mine tips up because I thought they'd look nicer, though I had to be a little more gentle with them.

• Next time I'll choose shorter asparagus. I thought it would matter if they were straighter, but the curvy ones packed just as easy. No big thang.

• Will thick stems matter versus thin stems? We'll have to see when we taste them!

• One of my secret ingredients was chunks of freshly smashed nutmeg. Someone please tell me what to do with the rest of this nutmeg!

• These will be ready to taste in three weeks, right when we can taste the pickled garlic scapes! Anyone wanna have a pickle picnic with me? I have some leftover pickles from last season that need to be eaten! Beets, romanesco, eggplant, bread and butter zucchini, cauliflower, pears, and watermelon rind. Sounds like a party! Wooooo!

Garlic Scapes!

As I type this, I hear my jars popping in the other room, and to me, there's nothing more satisfying after a hot steamy canning session as hearing your jars pop. The sound of a job well done.


So all spring I'd been planning on doing asparagus as my first pickling entry, but I wasn't terribly jazzed about it. Don't get me wrong, I love asparagus. But it's so awesomely good as is, unpickled... just grilled or roasted or sauteed, it didn't seem like a very exciting way to kick off my pickling adventures.


And then I met the mythical garlic scapes. I first met them at my Thursday farmer's market, fascinated I bought a bunch. Sauteed with some olive oil and kale, they were fantastic! Then I got the facebook update that Frog Bottom Farm would be bringing a whole mess of them to the Farmer's Market at St. Stephen's today, and they linked to a blog about garlic scapes, in which there was a brief mention of pickling them.... and immediately I knew what my first pickling experiment would be! Check it out:

2 pounds of Garlic Scapes! How awesome is that?! I was just too excited. Talked to the awesome chick who had just picked them yesterday (sorry I forgot her name!) She was way cool.


Another cool thing is my mom scored this awesome pressure canner on freecycle:

It even had the original owners manual/recipe book with it!

I didn't need the pressure canning capabilities, obviously, but it was great to have a huge canner to replace my significantly smaller one I used last season. I fit five pints and 4 half pints in there! She's letting me test drive it for her, isn't that nice of her? Thanks, mom!


So I'm not giving away my secret recipe... but in a month you're all welcome to taste them with me! I'm not making these to keep, I'm making them to share with anyone who wants to taste them and give me feedback! The goal is to end up with the most fabulous pickling recipes, so that in a year or so, JillPickles can take over the world with the most amazing artisan pickles ever. You shall all be my guinea pigs!


The end result of today's labor:
5 pints and 4 half pints:

Hit me up after June 14th if you want to taste some! I may even be convinced to open a jar early if enough of you guys going on the rafting trip want me to bring one...

Welcome to JillPickles!

So my big plan, back in January, was to do all the html myself, on my own domain and everything... yeah, I'm just not that ambitious. I'd rather spend my time thinking about pickling. I did manage to get one post up, back on January 15th. Then I came to two realizations. One was that the coding was way over my head and I wasn't interested in learning enough to make it work like I wanted it to. The second was that it was the middle of winter, and all the fresh local produce I was dreaming of pickling was months away! And so the blog faltered. Here's a copy of my first posting, full of hope and wonder:

And so it begins. So many pickles to explore, so many techniques, so many fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, meats, fish... I’m looking ahead to the seasons, planning my journey. Pickles have long sustained humankind, and I am going to carry on and expand on that history. They don’t simply have to be a means of preserving the harvest. They can be an amazing culinary experience. I can’t wait to get started!


Now farm market season is here and I have a bounty of fresh veggies to choose from! I picked up something special today, that I can't wait to share with you! What could it be....? You'll just have to wait and see!