I’m still working to use up the half-bushel of green tomatoes stripped from one single row of dying vines at the farm. This recipe originates with Marisa McClellan’s splendid book Food in Jars I wanted to avoid the hour-and-a-half of stirring, while the mixture reduced, so I decided to try out a
Now that cool weather has arrived, it’s time to work on apples. Local orchards have bushels of fruit begging for my attention. I put up applesauce every year: it stores well, can be used in lots of ways, and is surprisingly easy. I like to use a variety of sweet and
In the late summer, I make seedless raspberry jam. It’s part of my calendar of the harvest, coming right after peach-oolong jam and before apple butter. I like to have the seedless version of raspberry jam in my pantry, even though it’s harder to make. It’s useful in a lot
It was Auguste Escoffier who devised the now-famous dessert, Pêche Melba, in the early 1900s. It consisted of fresh peeled peaches, slightly sugared, with raspberry purée, served over vanilla ice cream in a swan carved of ice. The dish has become a classic, though usually the icy swan bowl is
Small-batch strawberry jam goes together so quickly! Start with the berries: rinse them well, hull them, and cut them into quarters. Put them in a heavy-bottomed pot. (I used my favorite 4 qt pot, which was perfect for the task.) Add the sugar and lemon juice, then stir well, cover with a clean tea towel, and
If you cook for vegetarians, you will need vegetable stock on hand: so many dishes are improved by substituting stock for water. It’s hard to find the good stuff at the grocery store, so make your own at home. Let’s talk about pressure canning vegetable stock. Late summer or early autumn are
I’ve been meaning to write about making ratatouille for a few weeks now. I don’t mean the beautiful baked version from the cartoon movie – wonderful though that is, it’s not the one I make every year, late in tomato season, when all the ingredients are ready fresh from the
In this, the last of my three-part series on What To Do With A Chicken, I’ll talk about the process of preserving the stock. You did make chicken stock, right? Once you have made the stock, and skimmed it of fat, you’ll want to keep that golden treasure. When I
Let me just say this: I miss New England, especially the chowder! Local prices for ocean fish are sky-high: only to be expected in Michigan, but a problem for a frugal cook. Bottled clam juice just doesn’t have the flavor of a great fish-based stock. When my local fishmonger told me he was
I love berries of all kinds, and am lucky to live where lots of them grow. Recently I bought some freshly picked blueberries at a farm stand: they were delicious! Some went into muffins, some on cereal, some were just eaten as a snack. The rest, about a dry quart,
You don’t have to make a huge batch when you make jam. Take this example: in a small batch, Strawberry-Vanilla Butter uses only 1½ quarts of berries, and yields 3 half-pint jars (plus a bit extra for toast or snacking.) You may double the recipe, if you wish a larger batch: the
When you need to freeze berries, do it quickly! Acting on a hint from Alton Brown on how to freeze strawberries with dry ice, I started with my berries and (of course) dry ice. You’ll need the ice (a local grocery store will often stock this), a big pot or clean
I’m Maurita Plouff, and I write about cooking and preserving the local harvest in Southeast Michigan. Any recipe you find here is something I have cooked myself, and enjoyed, and think you might like too. I invite you to try the recipes, and leave comments.
