Fermenting Some Pickles
A couple weeks ago Mr Chiot’s 2nd mom sent me this book that was her mom’s. It’s an old Farm Journal Country Cookbook. It’s from the 70’s so all of the photos are quite fun, it’s amazing how far food photography has come since then (just check out smittenkitchen.com)
While leafing through it I was trying to decide what I could make from it. It has all kinds of exciting recipes, it’s particularly good for seasonal cooking recipes. It also has some interesting kitchen items that most people don’t keep in their kitchens any more, like a stone or a paraffined brick.
I came across this recipe for 14-day Sweet Pickles. Since I’ve been wanting to make a batch of brined pickles I decided this would be the perfect recipe to try.
I now have a batch of pickles in the dining room brining away. They’ll sit in their brine for, then on the 8th day I start the week-long process of finishing the pickles. I’m kind of excited to see how they turn out. I’ll be sharing some with Brian’s parents next time they come for a visit.
14-Day Sweet Pickles
adaptation of an heirloom recipe long prized in country kitchens
3 1/2 qts (2″) pickling cucumbers (about 4 lbs)
1 c. coarse flake pickling salt
2 qts boiling water
1/2 tsp powdered alum (I’m not using alum in my recipe)
5 c. vinegar
3 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp celery seeds
4 -2″ cinnamon sticks
1 1/2 c. sugar
1. Wash cucumbers carefully; cut in lengthwise halves and place in stone crock, glass, pottery or enamel-lined pan (I cut mine into big chunks).
2. Prepare brine by dissolving salt in boiling water; pour over cucumbers. Weight cucumbers down with a place almost as large as the crock and lay a stone or parraffined brick (not marble or limestone) on plate to keep cucumbers under the brine. Let stand 1 week.
3. On the 8th day, drain; pour 2 qts fresh boiling water over cucumbers. Let stand 24 hours.
4. On the 9th day, drain; pour 2 qts fresh boiling water mixed with alum over cucumbers. Let stand 24 hours.
5. On the 10th day, drain; pour 2 qts fresh boiling water over cucumbers. Let stand 24 hours.
6. The next day, drain. Combine vinegar, 3 c. sugar, celery seeds and cinnamon; heat to boiling point and pour over cucumbers.
7. For the next 3 days, drain, retaining liquid. Reheat liquid each morning adding 1/2 c. sugar each time. After the last heating, on the 14th day, pack pickles into hot jars. Remove cinnamon sticks; pour boiling hot liquid over pickles; adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath (212) 5 minutes. Remove jars and complete seals unless closures are self-sealing type. Makes 5-6 pints. (current standards say to process pickles for 10 minutes in a water bath canner).
Do you have any old heirloom cookbooks in your kitchen? Have you ever made a recipe from it?
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Quote of the Day: Morning
I can see the orange haze on the horizon as the morning
exhales a yawn, and seems to be ready to rise.
~Jeb Dickerson
Mr Chiots and I usually aren’t early risers. We are usually up working late into the night and we sleep until we wake up in the morning, generally around 8-8:30. A couple weeks ago we were up before the sun (at 3:45 am) for a road trip.
Mr Chiots managed to snap these photos while zipping along the bumpy back country roads at 55 mph (he wasn’t driving). Not the clearest photos, but they still convey the beauty of the sunrise that morning. It was particularly foggy that morning in the low-lying areas which made the sunrise all the more beautiful.
Are you up early enough to see the sunrise?
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Quote of the Day: Robert Louis Stevenson
“Judge every day not by the harvest you reap,
but by the seeds you sow.”
-Robert Louis Stevenson
It’s that time of year to put aside thoughts of harvesting and canning and plan out your fall garden. I started seeds for mine last week (which is a tad late, but oh well). A lady at the farmer’s market had good luck growing a fall crop of green beans last fall, so I’m trying it this year.
I’m planning on covering them with plastic on those hoops we built. If this fall is colder than usual, as our summer has been, I’m only out $1.50 for the seeds. If it works out, I’ll be eating fresh green beans in October. I also started: red cabbage, brussels sprouts, radicchio, broccoli, cauliflower, and zucchini for my fall garden.
Are you planning & planting a fall garden this year?
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Gardening Holidays: Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day
Today is Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbors’ Porch Day – HOW FUN. I happened up on these great beauties for free at our local bee supply shop. We’ve been keeping up with ours, so this gave me the perfect fodder to celebrate this holiday!
Mr Chiots ran in to town yesterday afternoon (since I needed photos for today, we celebrated a day early). He put them on our friend’s porch, right on the porch swing.
Unfortunately he was caught in the act. Ollie, their crazy little dog wanted to keep the zucchini (I’m sure he thought it was a dog toy).
In the end the zucchini is back at our house (our friend’s don’t appreciate zucchini as much as we do). I sauteed it last night and it’s marinading in a balsamic vinaigrette in the fridge. We’ll enjoy it as a side dish, on pizza, or on a sandwich.
Are you going to celebrate this fantastic holiday (if so, snap a photo, put it on your blog, and link to it in the comments)?
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Another Reason to Grow Your Own!
My friend Shaun mentioned that while out running one day he spotted a truck spraying something on a local field.
He assumed it was liquid manure at first, which is common to see farmers spraying on their fields. A closer look revealed something interesting.
That truck reads, “Brown Township Malvern Sewer District”. A couple days later he noticed a new sign had been placed kind of behind a tree, down on one corner of the field.
Sewer Sludge is defined as: an unpleasant material whose the quantities increase each year. According to the Center for Food Safety, this is what’s going on:
Every time you flush your toilet or clean a paintbrush in your sink, you may be unwittingly contributing fertilizer used to grow the food in your pantry. Beginning in the early 1990s, millions of tons of potentially-toxic sewage sludge have been applied to millions of acres of America’s farmland as food crop fertilizer. Selling sewage sludge to farmers for use on cropland has been a favored government program for disposing of the unwanted byproducts from municipal waste water treatment plants. But sewage sludge is anything but the benign fertilizer the Environmental Protection Agency says it is.
Sewage sludge includes anything that is flushed, poured, or dumped into our nation’s waste water system–a vast, toxic mix of wastes collected from countless sources, from homes to chemical industries to hospitals. The sludge being spread on our crop fields is a dangerous stew of heavy metals, industrial compounds, viruses, bacteria, drug residues, and radioactive material. In fact, hundreds of people have fallen ill after being exposed to sewage sludge fertilizer–suffering such symptoms as respiratory distress, headaches, nausea, rashes, reproductive complications, cysts, and tumors.
So I googled Class B sewer sludge to see what we were dealing with and I found this sickening bit of information:
Sludge is classified as either Class A or Class B, depending on the type of treatment it has received. Class A sludge has benefited from both pretreatment and treatment at the wastewater facility. The pathogens in Class A biosolids cannot exceed certain levels set by the EPA. Standards for Class B sludge are less stringent, and their use is therefore more regulated. A landowner who wishes to use Class B sludge as an alternative to conventional fertilizers must apply to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to register his site. Among other items, the application requires information on the type of land, the amount of buffer zones, and the type of soil. The applicant must also provide information from the wastewater treatment facility on the type of pollutants and pathogens in the sludge, and calculations of nutrient needs for the crops. The use of Class B sludge on land has been criticized by the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. A landowner using Class A sludge does not have to register his land.
After searching a while for information I came across a few articles I though you might find interesting if you want to read more about the use of sewer sludge in agriculture.
* Here is a great article about sewer sludge.
* Another story about sewer sludge usage on hay that was fed to cows that resulted in their death, over at the Organic Consumers Association.
* Even the White House garden has been contaminated with sewer sludge.
* Bio-solids: by any other name, Sludge
* Sludge News: a website dedicated to information about and activism against the use of sewer sludge. Including a list of fertilizers sold at Hardware stores that contain sludge.
This is why I want to GROW MY OWN and keep as closed a system as possible in my gardens. I’ll put homegrown compost on my gardens thanks!
Did you know that sewer sludge was used in agriculture, particularly on the food we eat?
