Raspberry Gastrique

After making raspberry sauce, jam, and red wine vinegar, I had about a quart of raspberries left.  Most were overripe, which doesn't make for good jam (the fruit can end up fermenting), and I wanted to try something else new.  I was looking through Put 'em Up! FRUIT and found a recipe for blackberry gastrique.  Gastrique is a sauce that the book recommends you put on lamb chops, pork, steak, or even just vegetables. 

I decided to substitute the raspberries for blackberries. This recipe is very similar to the red wine vinegar recipe, except it requires a lot of sugar that is made into a caramel before the red wine vinegar is added.  It's also an easy recipe, as you don't even stir (stirring caramel would result in crystallization). 

First, you put the sugar in with some water to boil until it starts to turn brown.

Add the red wine vinegar.

Add the raspberries and boil for a while.

Strain.

Process for 10 minutes!

If you want more details about the recipe, go buy Put 'em Up! FRUIT.  It's my favorite recipe book.  I can't wait to try this out.  It smells just as amazing as the raspberry red wine vinegar.  I think we're going to have to try out the Scottadito with Berry Gastrique recipe that's in the book.

Raspberry Red Wine Vinegar

Because I picked so many raspberries, I wanted to try something besides jam.  I looked through The Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving and found a recipe for Raspberry Red Wine Vinegar; I love red wine vinegar, so I thought I'd give it a shot!  It's a really easy recipe - just red wine vinegar, water, sugar, and raspberries.

The recipe is visible in the following photo, but I really think that if you're going to do any preserving, you should purchase the book.  It's got a lot of great recipes, and also - BUY BOOKS.

Heat raspberries, water,  and sugar.

Add the red wine vinegar and boil.

Then the raspberries.

You can also add mint as a variation.  I have a forest of it growing in my yard, so I use it whenever I can.  (BTW - don't ever plant mint.  EVER.  It spreads like crazy and is impossible to get rid of.  This year, it started growing up in my lawn, and I'm having a horrible time trying to control it.)

Strain.

 

And bottle!  As the directions didn't call for processing, I simply put the vinegar in wine bottles that I got from the home brew store.  However, you can also find lots of glass bottles in various sizes at The Container Store.  Unlike storebought red wine vinegar, it does need to stay refrigerated.

I tried some of the vinegar on a piece of French bread - it was DELICIOUS.  I can't wait to use it!

Next time:  Raspberry Gastrique

Raspberry Jam

Hey, all two people who have ever read my blog!  It's time to start preserving again!  My garden is looking quite amazing this year, if I do say so.  I have potatoes, several types of tomatoes and peppers, beans, zucchini, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, hops, onions, lettuce, and various herbs.  I had strawberries earlier in the year.

But for the past week, I've been preserving raspberries.  My mom's friend went out of town and told me to go over to her house and pick as many raspberries as I wanted.  I ended up picking close to two gallons of berries!

I've never preserved raspberries before, so I was very excited to try new recipes. 

The first recipe I made was raspberry jam from Get Started Preserving, which is a book I absolutely love and recommend to both beginners and seasoned preservers, as it has an overview of everything from canning to making butter.

Making the raspberry jam was no different from any other jam I've made, but I had a heck of a time trying to get it to set.  The first batch didn't set, and I processed it anyway.  The raspberry sauce (as we're calling it) is fantastic on ice cream!  We're also making pork tonight, and using the raspberry sauce instead of our usual cranberry sauce.

The second batch of jam also wouldn't set, but I gave it a second try, and it did end up with a softer set than I'd like, but at least it set.  I don't know if the berries were overripe or what, because I've never had so much trouble getting a jam to set!

Next time:  Raspberry Red Wine Vinegar!

Storing Onions

This spring I planted about four dozen Big Daddy onions that I purchased from Burpee.  They require a lot of water, but were otherwise super easy to grow, and except for one or two, they all survived.

Onions are easy to harvest - you just pluck them out of the ground, then let them dry in the sun for a week.  You then cut the stem to about 1" and store them in some sort of netting.

I decided to make onion bags out of netting that I have lying around (because I am also a costumer).   The netting is folded in half on the bolt.

I then cut out several strips of this, in slightly different sizes - 4", 5", and 6" wide.

I then sewed it all the way to the fold on both sides.

After that, I took it outside to the onions.  After putting an onion in the bag (depending on size - the larger onions went in the 6" wide netting bags and the smaller ones in the 4", etc.), I then tied a bow with twine in the netting before adding the next onion.  (I wore my Ravenclaw apron to keep my clothes tidy.)  To use an onion, you untie the twine and let the onion drop out of the bag, then cut the mesh about an inch below the next twine.

These are all now hanging in my house.  I tied these up two weeks ago, and so far, they're doing great!

A-Frame for Growing Cucumbers

Last year I made an A-frame for my cucumbers and zucchini, but for some reason, neither the cucumbers nor the zucchini survived.  This year, in addition to heavily composting the garden, we had a ton of rain, and I think it really helped.  I limited the A-frame to cucumbers, and helped them grow up the frame by gently clothes-pinning the leaves and vines to the frame.  This encouraged the cucumber plants to stretch out their runner vines and take hold of the frame.

As you can see, it was a rousing success!  I've even harvested several cucumbers from the vines already.  Our entire garden kind of went out of control due to the rain, but few veggies have been ready to harvest, probably because of the low temperatures we've had all summer (last week we woke up to 50-degree temps!!!)

Lemon Curd

I made lemon curd a few months ago, and it was such a success that I decided to make two more batches!  I got this recipe out of the Get Started Preserving book.  It's a fantastic resource, and like my other canning books, I highly recommend it.

Lemon curd is made with lemons, butter, sugar, and eggs.  First you grate the lemon peel and then slice and juice the lemon.

All of the ingredients (minus the eggs) get heated up until the sugar has dissolved and the butter has melted.

That gets added to a double boiler, and then the eggs (which have been scrambled) get strained into it to prevent curdling.

After a while, it all thickens, gets poured into jars, and processed for five minutes.  Ta da!

We've been eating it on these Italian lemon waffle cookies.  It's so good!

Pickled Carrots and Onions

A friend has been asking if I can make the pickled carrots that they serve in Mexican restaurants, so this weekend I gave it a shot.  I used this recipe from Food.com.  I haven't had these carrots myself, so I'll have to wait to see what my friend thinks!

Since I was pickling, I decided to also try making sweet pickled onions like some I had last summer.  I used this recipe from Heather Christo, and they turned out great!  I was very tempted to eat the entire jar when I opened them this afternoon ...

Please note - these have been jarred, but not processed.