Cupcakes

Many people said the cupcake fad would die in 2010, but these tasty treats are still going strong, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Why go back to eating cake when you can have an adorable, mini cake individually frosted and flavored? The variety of decorative possibilities and the controlled portions make cupcakes an amazing choice.

And cupcakes’ popularity remained steady throughout 2011. In fact, their biggest peak was in April of 2011, proving that the doubters were wrong about cupcakes’ tapering popularity. So there you go, cupcakes. Don’t let the naysayers get you down. (And yes, I am directly addressing cupcakes. Don’t judge me.)

Cake pops

Cupcakes aren’t the only miniaturized cake treats getting attention. People are loving cake pops, which are basically little round pieces of cake on a stick, hence the “pop” part of the name. Instead of having traditional wedding cakes, many brides and grooms are choosing to go with cake pops to put a modern twist on an old-fashioned dessert.

Cake pops are at their Internet search peak in October, probably because October is one of the most popular months to have weddings. Not only have married-couples-to-be noticed the cake pop trend—even commercial retailers like Starbucks have spotted the fad and started selling the pops in their coffee establishments. Nice looking out, Starbucks.

Macaroons

Despite looking like the Pretty Patties SpongeBob invented (Google it), macaroons will delight your taste buds. The French type is sweeping the dessert world, and while the coconut variety is popular, the multi-colored ones more frequently appear at weddings because they add both flavor and decoration to the dessert table.

Macaroon hype peaked in April and experienced a second worldwide Internet search peak in September, though that’s just for the search term “macaroon,” which would also include the common coconut variety. The search for the term “French macaroon” peaked in March and October. Looks like people need their treats at their weddings and in the spring!

Whoopie pies are also getting attention on the wedding circuit, and just like every dessert listed before them, theytastelike they belong to the cake family. (Sensing a trend within a trend here?) It’s essentially a cake sandwich with cream or frosting in the middle, which means making these things is always a good decision.

Whoopiepies were searched online the most during the months of February and March, and while they’ve been less popular than the other desserts on this list, they’ve maintained a steady interest throughout the year.

Finally breaking from the cake theme, pies of all types made a real showing in the dessert world this year. From apple to chocolate cream, people have a taste for pie these days, which is sparking more and more shops to open up that are strictly dedicated to baking and selling homemade pies.

In terms of search popularity, “pie” blows everything out of the water, though we have to assume some of these searches were actually for “whoopie pies.” Poor whoopie pies — never getting any of the credit.

2012 trend prediction: Homemade packaged desserts

Baking enthusiasts have been whipping up their own versions of classic packaged treats like Hostess Twinkies and Cupcakes this year, and it looks like it’ll be a trend that’ll really gain some steam next year. Dozens of recipes exist on recipe sites like Recipe Finder and foodie blogs for homemade versions of Pop-Tarts, HoHos, MoonPies, and more, but this trend seems to have started toward the end of 2011. Let’s hope 2012 brings us delicious,non-processed versions of the treats we loved as kids.

Conclusion

Cake’s boring. Or at least that’s what seems to be going on here. Cake is like a super popular, old-school TV show that’s now the cause of four amazing spin-offs. Appreciate pies and cake-like treats for these last few months, because new trends will be arriving in 2012 that will surely grab our attention and satisfy our sweet cravings!

My daughter went a little wild this year “trimming” back the grape vines that wandered over the fence that badly needs repair (rather than simply repairing the fence), so diminishing the ripening fruit that we got basically nothing from them this season. Ah, well. Happens every so often. They should be back in bulk next year, and I’m fixing the fence over the winter so she won’t be tempted to prune out of season. What she didn’t manage to trim into oblivion this year are the wild roses (sweet briar) bushes on the up-ridge side of the driveway. They can get out of control pretty easy, and always want to drape down into the driveway to cause scratches (and sometimes blood) to people who park too close.

So I’m the one who did the pruning this year, and I was very careful to hardily discourage growth on the driveway side, while encouraging growth on the ridge side. That allowed for a pretty good haul of rose hips this past weekend by my grandson. In previous years I’ve simply put the little hips – sweet briar hips are about half the size of dogwood berries, not the fat wild persimmon sized hips of garden roses – into a jar in the freezer to add to teas made over the winter. Especially the colds/flu tea we drink a lot of to keep the viruses away. But this year we made rose hip syrup, and I’m definitely a convert as I drink my morning coffee sweetened with it.

Rose hips are sort of a concentrated multi-vitamin, with an average of 20 times the vitamin C as oranges. They don’t turn red (and soften up) until after the first frost, which occurred on the up side of the hill weekend before last. They’re difficult to harvest, as they must be pulled from the branches carefully in order to avoid battle scarring from those pesky thorns. So I must say I was very glad for grandson’s volunteering to do that job, I usually wait until November to harvest and end up looking like I’ve been handling an ill-tempered badger. Rose hips also contain appreciable amounts of vitamins A, D and E, making them a very good wintertime tonic.

You can make a jelly out of them, but it seems to me that the heat of jelly processing is probably not the best way to preserve the vitamin content. Whereas steeping them for tea doesn’t expose them to high heat for extended periods. Always keep them whole prior to processing, as once they’ve been cut or ground they begin oxidation immediately. A good rule of thumb is that it takes ~1/2 pound of hips for 1 quart of syrup, though you’ll want to use half-pint jelly jars for the final product. Be sure to sterilize them as well as the lids. They do not require actual canning, but you’ll want to seal them while still very hot.

Some people who use the big garden-rose hips cut off the tops and tails, but this would be silly with little bitty wild hips. To remove as much of the long-dead petals and hairs at the top end, I simply rub a small handful between my hands to loosen it up good, before spray-washing. Once washed, put the hips into a grinder or blender and process to a kind of sticky pulp. Put this pulp into 2 quarts of rapidly boiling water, remove from the heat, cover, and let steep for 4-5 hours or overnight.

Strain through an unbleached coffee filter or jelly bag, try to get all the liquid you can out of it. Put this into a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat while slowly stirring in 1.5 cups of packed light brown sugar. Make sure your sugar is natural brown rather than dyed, as in natural form it retains quite a bit of the good mineral content. Reduce heat to a bare simmer and keep uncovered to reduce the liquid by about half, so that it’s quite thick. Pour this into the sterilized jars and attach lids. Allow to cool on the countertop, then keep in the refrigerator to preserve the vitamins C and A.

Use this syrup like honey to sweeten coffee or herbal teas, or just take a spoonful a day as supplement. You can mix this syrup with strong elderberry tincture if you have a cold or get the flu. It makes the tincture a little easier to swallow, but sugar does affect the potency of the tincture a bit. I prefer to use the syrup by itself as a tea sweetener, it adds a little bit of tart and a lot of sweet, especially for blackberry and mint teas.

And don’t forget to throw a few dried dogwood berries into the teapot when you’re steeping, these are also excellent sources of vitamins C and A. Here’s hoping the viral season is light this year, and that we all spend as few days under the weather as possible.

Some Helpful Links:

Foraging: Making Rosehip Syrup
Katey’s Rosehip Syrup recipe
Rose Hip Jelly, Jam Recipe

If you’re like me, having to wait until November 1st before the kids (or, in my case, the grandkids) will allow me to process the pumpkins, making simple but delicious meals out of what’s still coming in from the garden at this late date can be a challenge. There’s not much out there right now, mostly the last of the peppers, some scraggly red kale still struggling along as the fall kale is just now coming up, the herbs still being cut and slowly dried for winter, the potatoes still safely stashed underground to be dug as needed. Oh, and those pesky but delicious cherry tomato volunteers that become tolerated weeds depending on where they grow (and I’ll allow).

Nights are decidedly chilly now, though there hasn’t yet been a freeze. Days are gorgeously mid-October, the reds finally kicking in to add their richness to the yellows of the fall leaf color scheme, all but the oak leaves will be gone before Thanksgiving. The grandsons have been spending their school weeks in town since the semester started at the Community College due to a shortage of motorized gad-about(s) since the pickup died last spring. That leaves hubby and I with four actual days a week just to ourselves, something we’ve never enjoyed at any time in the 40+ years of our lives together. It can be quite a challenge to suddenly go from a lifetime of cooking for a fluctuating hoard to making dinner for just two light eaters.

Took me quite a long time to learn how to make a large spread where everything manages to get done and ready-to-serve at the same time. That’s enough trouble that I’ve never tried too hard if it’s not Thanksgiving. Usually the family can handle meals served in ‘courses’ where they eat whatever’s done now and then eat whatever gets done then. For just hubby and me having any more than two or three kinds of food at a time just seems like too much. So I’m not bothering at all with that. Tonight, for instance, I’m going to make “Comfort Food” out of what’s coming in. I’ll no doubt make more than the two of us can eat, but I’m not nearly as averse to leftovers as he is, so that’s okay.

What’s “Comfort Food?” For us it’s simple, tasty, warming and satisfyingly home-grown. The kids harvested a big bowl of ripe cherry tomatoes this past weekend which will have to be composted if I don’t eat or preserve them. And I’ve got so many ‘tomaisins’ at this point that it’s not worth the trouble to produce more. So it’ll be good ol’ tomato soup, using some of the late bells. Combine that with grilled cheese on fresh whole wheat sourdough from the bread machine, and baked red kale crisps. Should take about 30 minutes total to prepare – not counting the bread, of course – and most of that will be cooking time instead of dedicated prep.

Roasted Tomato Pepper Soup

• ~1 pound of ripe cherry or grape tomatoes
• 2 fresh leeks
• 1/4 red onion, chunked
• 1/2 cup chunked bell pepper
• 3 largish cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 tbsp freshly dried basil leaf
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 2 cups tomato or vegetable broth
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1.5 tbsp. olive oil
• fresh chopped chives for garnish

Wash and remove calyxes from tomatoes, place into an oven roasting pan. Add garlic cloves, chunked peppers, leeks sliced 1/2″ thick and onion to the pan. Drizzle with olive oil and mix well to coat all the vegetables. Roast at 500º for 20 minutes, stirring well after 10 minutes. When soft and slightly browned, put the vegetables and basil into a blender with some broth and puree to smooth.

Put the puree into a saucepan and stir in remainder of the broth and the salt. When it begins to bubble add the milk, stirring well. Don’t let it boil. Serve hot garnished with chives or shredded parmesan cheese, season with table salt and freshly ground pepper as desired.

Baked Red Kale Chips

These are easy and very tasty. Just wash and trim the stems from the kale, spin-dry or blot with paper towels. Put into a cake or roasting pan and toss with about a little olive oil to coat lightly. When you remove the roasted tomatoes from the oven, turn the temperature down to 400º. By the time you’ve processed the vegetables for the soup the oven should be cooled to that temperature, so pop the kale into the oven as you finish the soup. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the kale is quite crisp.

I figure we all know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich, so I won’t bother detailing that. The baked kale chips would work nicely as a side to baked winter squash too, or with pumpkin soup for other comfort food ideas once it gets to be November. Then there’s the old standby of potato-leek soup my family seems to live on all winter, or navy bean soup from dry. Your basic soup and sandwich with a tasty side, all hot and tasty and most welcome on chilly evenings.

What’s your favorite “Comfort Food?”

The rush of big heirlooms and romas were processed in August, most dried in the solar unit out on the front (southside) deck. Weather’s back up into the ’70s during the day after a couple of nights of high-30s and frost warnings, looks like the peppers and grape tomatoes survived to finish up before Halloween – more sun-dried tomaisins! I keep making them, they keep disappearing faster than they’re coming in. I’ve found they’re not just great on crackers (with fresh basil, red bell peppers and feta cheese) and pizza, but add lots of zing to pasta and rice dishes as well. Mostly, though, the kids eat them as late-night snacks by the handful, right out of the jar.

As soon as it’s too cold to garden any longer, I’ll be using some of the dry-dried tomato that I’ve turned into powder to make tomato, basil and rosemary fettucini. Fresh pasta is fun to make and freezes very well, great to pull out and cook up quick when unexpected guests drop by. For the leathery half-dried tomatoes I had to go looking for recipes beyond “the usual” diced and tossed into/onto stuff. Discovered Valley Sun, a California company that specializes in sun-dried tomatoes. The linked page offers some general ideas about adding dried tomatoes to just about any recipe for meat, poultry, seafood and vegetables.

Dried Tomato Pesto Fettucini

• 2 cups half-dried tomato quarters
• 1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 cup Parmesan, Reggiano or Gruyere cheese
• 1 pound fresh rosemary-basil fettucini

Dice tomato quarters, toss in oil with basil and garlic. Saute slowly in a cast iron pan over medium heat until garlic is soft and basil is well wilted. Toast almonds over medium heat stirring constantly to keep them from burning. Remove from pan when slightly brown and set aside. Boil the pasta according to directions and drain. Return to pot over low heat, add tomato pesto mixture and the grated cheese, toss well. When this is all well heated, add the almonds and toss. Serve immediately, garnished with fresh basil and extra cheese.

Clams with Tihuana Pepper and Dried Tomato Broth

• 2 tins oil-packed clams (or oysters)
• 1 cup Chardonnay
• 1 cup clear vegetable broth
• 1/4 cup salted butter
• 1/2 cup diced half-dried tomatoes
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tbsp. crushed red pepper
• Lemon wedges

Bring wine and broth to a boil in a covered sauce pan, add butter, tomatoes, salt and red pepper. Reduce heat and add clams, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve in bowls over a slab of toasted home made whole wheat tarragon bread with lemon wedges on the side, to be squeezed into the soup as desired.

Sun-Dried Tomato Appetizers

• 1 cup half-dried tomato quarters
• 1/4 cup basil herbed wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 tbsp. finely chopped fresh basil
• 2 tbsp. chopped fresh oregano
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• Dash of freshly milled black pepper

In a small sauce pan heat vinegar and water together over medium low heat until barely simmering. Remove from heat, add tomatoes and cover. Allow to stand for 1 hour. Mix fresh basil and oregano together with the pepper and minced garlic. When tomatoes have soaked for an hour, remove from marinade and place cut side up on a cookie sheet and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle the garlic, pepper and herbs onto the tomatoes and bake in a 200º oven for 4-6 hours until somewhat ‘dry’ to the touch. Cut in bite-size pieces (3 per quarter of an average roma), insert toothpicks and serve on a plate with crackers and Chevre goat cheese.

Sun-Dried Tomato Dip

• 1/2 cup half-dried tomatoes
• 4 ounces softened cream cheese
• 4 ounces soft Chevre goat cheese
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 3 cloves chopped garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil, or 2 tsp. dried basil
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

Put all ingredients except fresh basil and chives into a blender and process until smooth. Mix in fresh basil and refrigerate until ready to serve. Sprinkle dried tomato powder on top, serve with dried crackers and fresh vegetables or French bread baguettes.

Hope these recipes for sun-dried tomatoes sound as delicious to you as they do to me, and I absolutely MUST remember to plant more basil next spring. Dried tomatoes are great additions to vegetable soups, chili and bean dishes, added to the cooking water for rice and just about anything else you might feed your family over the coming long winter. Dried tomatoes retain more of the original nutrients than canned tomatoes do, something to consider as cold and flu season hits. Dried tomatoes also make excellent straight from the bag or jar snacks when the family is gathered around the kitchen table to play cards or board games, though for this those little bitty grape tomato tomaisins are neater.

Now… out to the porch to see how the latest batch is coming along.

Ah, pie! Who doesn’t love pie? Custard pie, pumpkin pie, berry pie, meringue pie, ‘mater pie… and any good – or merely beloved – pie chef has his or her favorite crust ‘secrets’ that draw the oohs and ash from their intended pie-audience.

Now, there are different sorts of pie crusts for different sorts of pies. There’s the kind of solidly “bready” pie crusts one wants to use for pot pies and quiches and such. There are “sweet” pie crusts of graham cracker crumbs and butter, with a little brown sugar mixed in, that are scrumptious with pumpkin and other smooth spice-heavy pies. There are much more substantial bready (with additions like oatmeal), sweetened crust-like stuff you dollop on top of those hard-won blackberries and raspberries in mid-summer for cobblers.

Then there are the super-flaky, very light and subtle crusts that can be used for any type of pie, but are best for specialty items like tomato pie and some berry/fruit pies. I admit my luck with butter crusts has not been very good. They often turn out hard and chewy rather than light and flaky. Don’t know if that’s because I work it too much, or something else. But I don’t even bother trying anymore, just go with the crust recipes that work reliably rather than on a hit-or-miss basis.

To that end I have a very good crust recipe from Debrah Madison’s 1997 tome, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone that I use for ‘mater pie and light quiches. It doesn’t sound like it would be the flakiest crust ever, but it invariably turns out that way. It’s difficult to work with, being made with vegetable oil (for lightness I use safflower) instead of butter or margarine. This gives the dough an oily texture that doesn’t lend itself to easy working. But if you roll it out between sheets of waxed paper, it gets nice and thin and is easily peeled out into a pie tin or onto a pie filling. Not something you’d want to use for stuffed anythings, as those do far better with real bread crusts like for pizza.

Pie Crust Made with Oil

• 1.5 cups flour
• 1/4 cup wheat bran
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup safflower oil
• 2 tbsp. milk, soy milk or water

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix oil and milk/water together in a separate bowl, add to the dry ingredients. Mix until the dough sticks together. Shape into a flat disk and roll between sheets of waxed paper to 1/4 inch thickness. Pull off one sheet of waxed paper, and invert over pie tin. carefully pull back the waxed paper to leave the crust in place. Work into the tin carefully, press-patching rips as you go. Trim. This is one 9″ deep pie’s worth of crust, double recipe for a two-crust pie.

Doesn’t take long, and this crust is surprisingly praise-worthy. Given, of course, my notorious failures in All Things Baked notwithstanding. This recipe is one that fails much less often than others I’ve tried, and the family likes it better than any purchased frozen pie crusts other than graham.

But there’s a recent Big Update that I’m anxious to try – Food Hacks reports that using vodka instead of water (or, in the above case milk) makes those extra crispy/flaky pie crusts even better! Which dedicated foodies will nod along with just as I did, while of course figuring the Thanksgiving pie quotient and wondering if Tuaca would work as well, but with more oomph…

According to Food Hackers -

Swapping ice cold vodka for water in pie crust recipes ensures a flakier crust. The liquid makes the dough more pliable to work with, and then evaporates while baking, giving you a lighter result than water.

That makes sense. Tuaca has vanilla and citrus and other spices in it, so when its alcohol content evaporates during baking, it should leave a flaky crust with a lot of flavor. Perfect for pumpkin or sweet potato pies!

I’m with the Food Hacker – cooking or baking with alcoholic content is definitely a good recipe for awesome. The family and guests won’t get high off the goodies, but the cook sure might! Given the amount of hard work that goes into a major feast for mass numbers of people, that can only be a good thing…

At any rate, come this holiday season as I’m busy producing as many pies of all varieties as anybody could ever want to eat, I’ll report back on how well the use of vodka and/or some other alcoholic specialty turns out – in order of best to worst. If I can get past my hangover in time, that is… ;o)

With the Harvest Moon just a couple of days past, the last of the summer crops will be coming in over the next month to be properly stored and/or preserved. The big pears are finally falling, providing more than enough for as much pear butter as I can possibly make even as the deer and turkeys work hard to eat more than their share before I can gather. The pumpkins are good and orange now, but can stay on the vines until first freeze warnings before I have to harvest and process. Winter squash is looking to be a good harvest at the same time, and the peppers are quickly turning red in rushes. Grape tomatoes are being sun-dried to “tomaisins,” as many as I can fit into the solar dryer at a time and always many more waiting to be picked. They’ll keep right on coming until first freeze.

At the same time, as the beds are cleared from harvest they must be prepped for fall plantings. More kale and collards (which will keep going all winter into spring with plastic tenting on very cold nights), peas, lettuces and spinach, and of course garlic. Today I’m talking garlic, because it’s one of our most favorite garden goodies.

Garlic is a member of the onion [allium] family. It has powerful antibiotic properties, and is well known as a “blood purifier” and digestive stimulant. Legend has it that garlic is an effective vampire and werewolf repellant, but I haven’t heard that it will prove to be all that useful during the coming Zombie apocalypse. For that, you should follow the advice in The Zombie Survival Guide instead.

Garlic should be planted in the fall, but won’t be harvestable until the next summer. If done right, you can end up harvesting about 250 nice heads from just a 4 by 8 foot plot, so it’s a very good crop even in tightly-packed town homes and subdivisions if there’s that much yard that enjoys ample sun. Garlic is readily marketable at tailgate and farmer’s markets, but it also stores well and if your family loves it as much as mine, there won’t be many bulbs to sell.

First, double-dig your bed and break up the clumps, rake to smooth. You can purchase garlic bulbs or pre-separated cloves from your Farm & Garden supply or on line, but I usually just purchase some nice full heads of my favorite varieties in the organic produce section of my local grocery store. Carefully break the cloves off the bulb head, keeping the skin intact. Push these root-end first into the soil about 4 inches apart. I stagger-plant them, but you can do neat rows if you like. Leave the pointy clove tops sticking out, as only the roots need to be seated in the soil. The heads themselves will develop to be much bigger in compost.

Which you want to now apply on top of the planted cloves to a depth of an inch or two. Tamp this down and cover about 4 inches deep with leaves you’ve raked off the lawn. These will compact and compost themselves over the winter and those onion-like garlic leaves will come right up through it all in the spring. If you plant a hardneck variety you’ll want to cut off the stiff round flower stalks when they are a few inches tall, which will encourage bigger bulbs with more cloves. The leaf cover should help discourage weeds, but if stubborn weeds do get started next spring you’ll want to pull them.

That’s basically all there is to it. Other than cutting those flower stalks (which are quite good snipped like chives and added to stir-fry) and pulling any weeds that try to establish themselves in the leaf mulch, you need do nothing but watch it grow. Around mid-June I begin checking the bulb development, always anxious to roast some garlic for dinner or snacks. Just pull back the leaf mulch and feel around in the compost to gage how well the bulbs are coming along. If you’re like me you’ll end up eating several that didn’t get as big as they could have, but others will have plenty of time to fill out. Any garlic left by this time next fall should be harvested before planting anew for the next season.

Most cooks have their favorite ways to serve garlic. It can also be roughly chunked and dried, then ground as garlic powder, garlic salt, or as an ingredient in your favorite herb mixture for the dining table. Garlic cloves are great grilled with other veggies and/or meat chunks on a kabob skewer. But my family’s absolute favorite way to enjoy garlic is as roasted whole cloves.

Roasting is easy. I just separate the cloves from the bulb, discarding as much of the papery skin as possible while leaving the hard skins on. Put these into a roasting pan – I use a mini-bread pan – and add a tablespoon of olive oil. rub the oil and garlic together to make sure all the cloves are well coated, and roast in the oven at 350º for 15-20 minutes (depending on the size of the cloves). Allow them to cool enough to be handled, and dump them out onto a plate. The roasted garlic inside the skins is easy to squeeze or suck out from the pointy end. A nice plate of these roasted cloves (sometimes 3 or 4 bulbs’ worth) around my homestead always draws a quick crowd and never lasts more than a few minutes.

If you do end up with a few left over after the frenzy, you can squeeze out the innards into a little bowl and mix well with butter and a pinch of salt and store in the fridge for making garlic bread. You can also mix some fine parmesan/romano cheese into this garlic butter, which is great on home made bruscetta bread. Which I’ll talk about later, after the harvest, preserving and fall planting are done. Bon appetite!

As the various crops come in – for summer crops that is July through September in my zone 5 here in western NC – I’ll be writing about various methods of preservation. Two weeks ago it was tomatoes. Bushels and bushels of tomatoes. Last week it was the first pints of pear butter (the pears are by no means done falling, so there will be more). This week it’s peppers.

The main pepper crop will not be fully ripe until mid-September, but some bells, cayennes, thai hots, anaheims, poblanos, jalapenos, habaneros and hot banana peppers are making it into the house day to day. By the number of chilis on my pepper list readers may safely surmise that the family and friends of this homestead are fond of peppers with some heat to them. My menfolk subscribe to the culinary philosophy that a good pot of chili and/or beans is hardly worth eating unless it clears out your sinuses and makes you sweat. Things that chili powders, crushed dry peppers, pickled peppers and an assortment of hot sauces ranging from merely Cajun through 3-alarm and Nuclear all the way to Satanic are quite famous for providing.

Capsaicin and a range of capsaicinoid relatives produced by chili peppers are the compounds which provides the heat in peppers. These are classified as irritants to mucus membranes and increases secretion of gastric juices. The hotness (irritant level perceived as heat by nerves, even though the hottest peppers cannot really burn tissue) is measured in Scoville Heat Units [SHUs]. Bell and Cubanelle peppers rate a zero on the scale, with no appreciable hotness. Pimentos and regular banana peppers rate between 100 and 900 SHUs. Anaheims and Poblanos rate 1,000 to 2,500 SHUs, jalapenos 3,500 to 8,000, habaneros can weigh in at 100,000 to 500,000. The hottest peppers – the Peruvian ghost pepper , bhut jolokia peg the meter at a million SHUs or more. You do not want to take a bite out of one of these just to impress your friends at the bar.

Capsaicinoids are useful as well for use as garden pest control, effective against caterpillars and slugs. The active compounds are oily even when mixed with water to make spray, so will last through a couple of rains that aren’t downpours. Most of us are familiar with pepper spray as a self protection method. And capsaicinoids have also proven useful in topical ointments to relieve pain of arthritis and peripheral neuropathies like shingles.

Peppers can be dried, frozen pickled or canned (in a pressure canner) to preserve. At my homestead it’s drying and pickling. Today the subject is pickled peppers.

Some people add some sugar to pickled peppers, but my family isn’t fond of the taste. Sugar in the pickling liquid will serve to diminish the heat of the peppers more than no sugar liquids, so that’s something to think about for your own purposes. The regular vinegar and water pickling liquid also reduces heat a bit, which allows for good long term preservation and straight from the jar uses for even very hot peppers like jalapenos and habaneros.

The method is quite simple, which allows me to pickle peppers here and there as they accumulate. You can pickle whole (stick a knife into the side so the liquid can get into the pepper), halves pr slices. If you plan to slice hot peppers, wear some protective gloves and keep them away from your face (especially eyes and nose) the entire time you’re working. Your jars should be clean and well steamed, along with the lids. Some people process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes after filling, but as long as the jars are clean and tightly sealed, it isn’t absolutely necessary.

I add a young grape leaf to the bottom of my pickle jars before I start packing, to help keep the pickles crispy. On top of this I drop a couple of peeled cloves of garlic, half a bay leaf, half a teaspoon of sea salt, a pinch of alum and a few dill seeds. Half this for pints. Everyone has their favorite pickling spices, we’re just find of dill.

Then pack the peppers into the jars. You can remove the seeds and veins if you like, as these are where the capsaicinoids are most concentrated, but I just slice ~1/4″ thick rings of banana peppers to accompany salads, go on sandwiches, etc., thinner slices of jalapenos for nachos and such. If I can habaneros as pickles instead of hot sauce, I cut into the sides and pack them whole.

The liquid is half vinegar and half water. 1 cup each per quart. Bring it to a roiling boil, then pour it quickly into the jars to within half an inch of the top. Put on and tighten the lids and let cool enough to handle. Then you’ll want to shake the jars up good to mix the salt and alum well. Allow to cool completely and store in the fridge or on a shelf. Pepper pickles are among the easiest to make, and if your family likes hot pickled peppers it will save you considerable money through the year to have plenty of your own.

Hot sauces are kind of a version of pickled peppers, with more processing. For these I like to use frozen peppers so I can make it at my leisure during the winter. Besides, if you’ve thrown some hot peppers into freezer bags for later, it’s easy to just get one out and pop it into a pot of from-dry pinto beans or chili at any time to add significant heat. Just remember to get it out and into the compost before storing any leftovers in the fridge, or your chili will just get a whole lot hotter overnight.

To process for sauce, de-stem and add the frozen peppers to a heavy pot. I like to add onions and garlic at this time, thick-sliced or chunked. Some people add less hot green chilis and/or tomatillos as well. Boil these in water until they’re very soft, then blend the vegetables with about a cup of the cooking water until quite smooth. Put it back on the stove and add salt, any spices you wish to add, a cup of vinegar and some tomato sauce if you’re wishing to cut the heat to manageable. Some experimentation with the ‘extras’ should eventually result in a hot sauce that adds as much flavor as heat to whatever it’s used on or in. Bring to a boil, then put into sterile sauce jars and cap.

Your basic Louisiana style hot sauce is made with powdered dry cayenne, finger-hot, tobasco or other hot red peppers, added to a simmering pot of half water half vinegar and bottled. Hot vinegars for dripping on greens and such at the dinner table are easily made by packing the peppers whole into a jar and covering them with white vinegar. Keep in the fridge when it’s not on the table.

All these versions of pickled peppers are easy to make and welcome additions to the food supply if your family likes the heat. So enjoy, and stay tuned for information about drying peppers and how to process/store them.

We await berry season with watering mouths around the homestead. Check the progress from green to red for the wineberries, green to that luscious deep blue for the blueberries, and red to black for the blackberries every day on our walks and drives.

Actual Due Ripe date is 4th of July, but if we wait that long we’re entirely likely to be beaten by bears, who roll around in the thicket and strip berries by the bunch, leaving nothing but matted weeds behind. So my strategy is to get those first ripe ones as they ripen and save them up over a couple of days for cobbler. Of which there’s one in the oven now, it’ll be long gone by supper.

Grandson #1 and his girlfriend hit the creek yesterday for wine berries, a whole strainer full of the first rush with more to come by Monday. They look like raspberries but with fuzzy calyx and no thorns. Grandson #2 went to the top of the knob and got half a strainer of early blueberries, a task that always requires taking a dog because bears tend to actually guard blueberry patches when they’re ripening. Not big on sharing, I guess.

Meanwhile, I hit the high field for the second time this week, garnered another full strainer of juicy blackberries. Mixed them all together for cobbler, the one in the oven now is the second in as many days. Some ice cream for on top would be nice, but we’re not picky. There will be cobblers enough to serve with ice cream over the coming week and the usual 4th of July blow-out. Which reminds me we need to slip down to South Carolina and stock up on bottle rockets…

Anyway, here’s my recipe for quick and easy berry cobbler that you should always make two of if you can, because it disappears like magic!

High Field Berry Cobbler

6 cups mixed berries, washed and drained
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
3 tbsp. butter

Crust

1.5 cups whole wheat bread flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar (white, brown or mixed)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
2/3 cup milk

Mix dry crust ingredients in a bowl, then stir in oil lemon juice and milk. Mixture should be thick, not runny. If too thick, add a little milk until you get the right consistency.

Spray or butter a 12″ casserole or 9 x 11 glass cake pan. Add berries and sugar, stir to mix. Cut butter into chunks and dot over the berries. Spoon batter onto the berries and spread lightly with the back of the spoon to the edges. Doesn’t have to be pretty and doesn’t have to cover completely, it’ll spread as it cooks. Bake at 350º for 45 minutes or until crust is golden. Let cool a bit before serving. Top with ice cream if you like, spooning loose berries and juice over the top.

If you like a less watery berry concoction, mix a tablespoon of corn starch with the berries and sugar, it will stiffen the juices a bit. For peach cobbler add a tablespoon of cinnamon with the peaches and sugar mix and top with the same crust.

Happy summer cobbler!

Today I managed to get out into the garden before noon for a little clean-up and prep. Took out the last of the early peas and radish pods from their nifty PVC tent with twine, the peas being well past done and the pods perfect for harvest. I’ll need to clean out the bed thoroughly to replant with pole beans, and I will replant radishes down below in a bare well-composted spot next to the potatoes (which are blooming great guns!).

I also donned leather gloves and de-headed the milk thistle [Silybum marianum]. They were as tall as me by this time, falling over from heavy heads to make it difficult to get past them to the rest of the garden. Those dry pods are spiny like you wouldn’t believe, as if the leaves weren’t bad enough, but all spring the leaves make great additions to salads and pot greens, very pretty variegated thick foliage you have to trim the spines off of before adding to anything. The flower heads – the usual pretty purple thistle flowers about the size of a golf ball – produce seeds that are readily marketable to herb dealers in our region, but we end up using most of them ourselves for skin treatments, general systemwide cleansing, etc.

This stately and strikingly pretty plant has been in use for more than 2,000 years as a remedy for all sorts of ailments, most notably liver and gall bladder problems. There have even been medical studies of milk thistle as a remedy for liver damage caused by pain medications such as acetaminophen. Its flavonoid Silymarin is antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and its action on the liver appears to be stimulation of new cell growth in that organ.

Because of this quality, milk thistle has been used as a treatment for the liver conditions of alcohol abuse, including hepatitis and cirrhosis. It is also used in the treatment of viral hepatitis (particularly hep-C), and support in cases of mushroom poisoning which affects the liver directly. Some studies have suggested milk thistle may have anti-cancer properties, but this is as yet unproven and anyone with hormone-related cancers (breast, uterine, prostate) should avoid it. Double blind studies have demonstrated reduced mortality in cirrhosis patients, and biopsies demonstrated clear improvements in liver condition.

Milk thistle seeds can be made into extract, or munched dried, or steeped into decoctions to sip. The tinctures are stronger, so consider these a potent ingredient to be taken somewhat lightly or added to salves.

So, in case you have grown milk thistle too (or did in previous years and let the volunteers go ahead and grow just because they’re so pretty), here’s a basic how-to for making the extract that is so good for your liver and skin, and thus can be added to mixed tonics and such for your purposes…

Milk Thistle Seed Extract

Separate the seeds from their spiny flower calyx and dry, mix it around a bit to loosen it from the whispy aerial flight fluff. That fluff can then be threshed by tossing from a basket and letting the breeze carry it away. Good seed that you wish to market or store should be threshed so there’s not much waste matter. Drying should be open air (not in full sun), not done by heating. Stored seeds should be kept whole in jars kept in cool, dark and dry places until preparation.

Grind the seeds to break them open, either by blender or a bit at a time with mortar and pestle. Put about 3/4 of a cup of broken thistle seeds into a pint size canning jar. Mix in 1 cup of 100 proof vodka (get the organic stuff), or blackberry brandy for a bit of flavor. Cap the jar and swirl it around to mix well every day or two for 3-5 weeks.

The longer the seeds steep, the more potent the resulting tincture will be. Always make sure the alcohol covers the seeds completely, add more if necessary. DO NOT let them mold, as they will if they aren’t fully covered. After steeping for the period of weeks, strain the tincture into a sterile bottle (or several), preferably bottles of green or brown glass with tight lids or cork stoppers.

Dosage

Always check with the doctor if someone already under treatment wants tincture from you. Milk Thistle can affect the potency of pharmaceutical drugs, including anti-psychotics, drugs for various ‘nervous’ disorders, etc. Be on top of any reported side effects like nausea, abdominal cramps or diarrhea. Adjust dosages accordingly.

For general purposes a dose of 20-40 drops of tincture (straight or in water) 3 times a day is good for most purposes. That works out what I always start with, which is a solid 1/2 teaspoon 3 times a day, 1/2 teaspoon being equivalent to 30 drops. You want to spread this dosage out to 3 times a day to get a the best benefits of timing, but for those who just aren’t capable of keeping up with such a regimen (as for some alcoholics I know), half a tablespoon once a day will work but may cause more stomach upset.

At any rate, milk thistle is one of those beautiful and very useful plants that are both marketable and useful for herbal remedies that grow great in and around a garden and assorted sun-drenched homestead plantings. They will hurt if you don’t wear gloves when dealing with them, though, as the spines are cactus-sharp. They grow with no tending, they’re good to eat in salads and with pot likker at dinner time, and the seeds are precious. Those seeds when ground to rough powder also make very nice defoliating material for homemade soaps and cleansers, and are particularly useful for clearing up acne and rosacea.

So if you happen across a nice natural herb shop selling milk thistle seeds by the gram or ounce, pick some up and sow them in a sunny spot where the kids and dogs don’t hang out much. You won’t be sorry!

Some of the people who live on my homestead are vegetarian, while some are meat eaters. Some love fish or shrimp, some get queasy just thinking about it. A few will eat chicken, while others seem to want everything (including dessert) wrapped in bacon. During the summer when crowds of people from cities north, south and west of us come to the mountains for a little R&R, feeding them can be a rather large challenge.

Having purchased a nice new gas/charcoal smoker grill last year when the kitchen was being remodeled, I’ve become quite good at grilling various different meats, veggie alternatives and even vegetables themselves. No matter what kind of meat or alternatives are slated for dinner, I’ve discovered that THE most important ingredients for any such operation are the sauces and marinades. These need to be prepared well ahead of time, and some of what is going on the grill – like chicken breasts, all half-dried fish, peeled shrimp, etc. – needs to soak in marinade in the fridge for hours prior to firing up the grill.

And the sauces can be quite tricky. Each rural region of the U.S. seems to have its favorite, and some people are quite picky about them. I do like to mix it up so people get a variety of taste treats. Even when grilling veggie patties or just fresh garden finger-veggies it’s nice to have good barbecue dipping sauces. Some are sweet with brown sugar, molasses or honey, some are spicy hot with peppers and sharp onions. Some are made with ketchup, some with mustard, and northern Alabama they prefer a mayonnaise based white sauce.

Here I’m including some recipes for sauces, which your family and friends’ own taste preferences will dictate the use of. For marinade just add some vinegar water to the sauce if it’s thick and let the meats sit in it for at least an hour per side in the refrigerator. If you’re grilling hamburgers and/or home made veggieburgers, add some sauce when mixing and making the patties. The mustard based South Carolina sauce is great on hot dogs (even chicken, turkey or veggie dogs). Sweet sauces are best on pork, not so great on beef. Vinegar based is also good on pork and excellent for salmon, shrimp or trout.

Play around with sauces and find your favorites! And when the garden comes in, consider cooking up some sauces your friends and family have raved over, to bottle and give as gifts. They’ll love you for it!

Basic Tomato-Based Sauce

1/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tbsp. olive oil
4 tbsp. molassas
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 6-oz. can tomato paste
1.5 cups water
2.5 cups finely chopped onions
4 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Louisiana hot sauce*
1/2 tsp. black pepper

* Your favorite hot sauce here

Heat oil in a heavy pot, add onions and cook over medium heat stirring regularly until soft. Reduce heat and cook over low until caramelized (~20-30 minutes). Turn the heat back to medium and add garlic and brown sugar, cook for 2 minutes. Add molasses, cider vinegar, tomato paste and spices, stir well. Add the water and bring to a gentle boil, simmer over low heat until reduced and quite thick (~30 minutes), stirring occasionally. Put it in a jar, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate. Recipe may be doubled or tripled, and if it’s too chunky it can be puree’d in a blender or food processor.

To any basic sauce a tsp. of Worchestershire and/or liquid smoke may be added for extra oomph.

Basic thinning sauce for marinade

1 cup tomato ketchup
1 tbsp. brown mustard
3 tbsp. Worchestershire sauce
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
3 tbsp. light molasses
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. hot sauce

Mix all ingredients well in a bowl, it does not need to be cooked. Keep in a jar and dilute 2 to 1 with water for marinade. i.e., twice as much water as sauce.

Eastern North Carolina BBQ Mop

This is a thin sauce brushed (or “mopped”) onto the meat while it’s cooking, then dripped over the meat upon serving. Great on pulled pork and ribs.

1 cup white vinegar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 tbsp. chili powder or hot sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Another sauce that doesn’t need to be cooked first, just mix in a bowl and pour into a bottle. Keep refrigerated and shake well before using.

Citrus barbecue sauce for fish and shrimp

1.5 cups onions, fine chopped in food processor
1 tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1 green chili pepper skinned, roasted, seeded and finely chopped (Ancho, Anaheim or Poblano)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup lemon or lime juice
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp. salt

Heat oil and saute onion, chili pepper, red pepper flakes and chili powder, stirring frequently ~5 minutes until onions are soft and clear. Stir in remaining ingredients, heat to boiling. Lower heat and simmer uncovered ~10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

This sauce can be brushed on fish and shrimp, and can be thinned with water for marinade.

South Carolina mustard sauce

1 cup brown mustard
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup onions, processed fine
3 tbsp. sweet red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. chili powder or hot sauce
1 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. powdered rosemary
2 tsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. powdered mustard
1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce
1 chicken (or vegetable) bullion cube in 1 oz. of water

Add more hot sauce or chili powder for more heat.

Heat oil and cook onions until limp and clear. Add garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add dry ingredients and hot sauce, except the sugar. Cook about 3 minutes stirring frequently. Add sugar and bullion and simmer on low for about 15 minutes while stirring frequently to keep the sugar from burning.

Pink sauce for shrimp and lobster

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp. grated onion
1 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
black pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Thin with water to marinate, or brush generously onto shrimp or lobster tails before they go onto the grill. Brush again when they’re halfway done, do not overcook.

Mexican barbecue sauce

1/3 cup dark corn syrup
1/3 cup strong coffee
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup Worchestershire sauce
2 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. hot sauce

Mix well and let sit for an hour or more to blend the flavors.

Good cooks will play around with ingredients and know their family’s favorite tastes. One can always use less sugar, more lemon juice for fish sauces, substitute tomato paste and a bit of extra vinegar instead of ketchup, and ‘heat it up’ to taste with hot sauce and chili powder. Some folks like to add a bit of wine, dark beer or even whiskey, try not to sample too much of that while the feast is on the grill or you might forget it’s cooking and end up with charcoal instead!

Happy Barbecues!