Crafty-Ass Witch

So, with the strawberries I picked up in Asheville last week, I’ve made strawberry yogurt pops, strawberry infused vinegar, strawberry balsamic jam (post soon, I hope) and strawberry lemonade concentrate (again, post soon).

I canned the lemonade concentrate last night. Today, I am going to a BBQ at a friend’s house. Bringing a pint of the lemonade would be a nice idea. The problem? I can’t bring myself to do it.

Does anyone else have this issue? That they can’t bring themselves to open what they can until at least a month after they do it? Otherwise, what’s the point? I used a perfectly good canning lid on something I could have put in the refrigerator to use later. It’s actually a point of contention between my fiancee and I. I canned some really freaking good peach ginger preserves last October and found that she’d opened a jar to put some on her toast the next day.

Canning and preserving walks a fine line between wanting to enjoy something immediately (I almost always have leftovers that go in the refrigerator/freezer instead of the pot) and wanting to put something up for later. But when does later become relevant? I still have pints of preserved peppers I put up last October with no idea how and when I’m going to use them. If I don’t use the peaches I pickled last August now, when will I? They’re going to be past their use by date soon. Is it better to crack something open too early or wait until it’s too late and be sad about what might have been?

I put it to you, my fellow canvolutioners. How long do you wait to open something you’ve canned?

I just came back from a weekend trip to South Carolina and while we took a side trip to Asheville, NC, we stopped at the Asheville Farmer’s market. I got a gallon tub of strawberries from Strawberry Hill USA for $12! $12!

I just pulled jars of Eugenia Bone’s Strawberry Balsamic jam out of the canner. The recipe called for 8 cups of hulled strawberries. Scarily that was maybe a third of what was in there. A third! Oh sure, I’ve been wanting to can Ball’s strawberry lemonade concentrate, but I was going to use leftover strawberry puree from last summer along with a pint of strawberries from the grocery store from an aborted can jam recipe.

I have no idea what to do with the rest of these. I think I’m going to make popsicles and vinegar and maybe strawberry margarita preserves, but I’m not sure what to do with the rest. What a happy conundrum. Thoughts?

I went a little overboard with this can jam. I’d originally planned to do 3 projects – this juice and a chutney and a jam using the leftover solids from this juice. As it turned out, I had enough rhubarb to do a half batch of the juice  and the 2 cups needed for Apple Rhubarb Chutney, so we did that instead. I still have the solids from this hanging out in my fridge, but they’ve been around the bend and then some. I may mix them into some yogurt this week, but I don’t think they’re fit to cook with.

Sunshine Rhubarb concentrate is from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I found it paging idly through the juice section while thinking of signature cocktails for my wedding next May and knew I had to try it. This stuff is awesome. My one regret is that this recipe makes so little! This is a half batch, which was supposed to be enough for 2 pints – for whatever reason, I ended up with a pint and a half. Oh well.

So you take 6 cups of chopped rhubarb, 2 cups of water and the zest of a lemon and an orange. Bring to boiling over medium high heat and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes until soft.

While this simmers, juice your lemon and your orange. I used a caracara orange, which is both lovely in color and taste. Also, if we were doing a true half batch here, I would have zested and juiced only half of the lemon and orange, but the more citrus the merrier! My lemons were exceedingly seed heavy, but don’t worry if a couple end up in there, they won’t end up in your juice.

One your rhubarb has cooked and is nice and soft, remove it from the heat and add in the orange and lemon juice. Stir, then strain the mixture through cheese cloth placed on top of a strainer (yes, like last time) into a large bowl. Let it sit undisturbed for at least two hours while you go off and make some apple rhubarb chutney.

After your at least two hours, give your solids a final squeeze to remove any lurking juice. You should have a lovely pink syrup in your bowl. Combine with 3/4 cups of sugar and heat on medium heat until the mixture reaches 190 degrees. DO NOT BOIL. Fill 1 pint and 1 half pint jar with mixture leaving 1/4″ of headspace. Put in canner, bring to a boil and then process for 10 minutes. Remove cover and remove the canner from heat and let sit for another 5 minutes. Remove and let cool undisturbed overnight.

To make the juice, use a 1:1 mixture of concentrate and water, sprite or seltzer. Frankly, I think sprite would be way too much. Add some vodka for a fun summer cocktail.

Without the Bajiggedy: A Half Batch of Sunshine Rhubarb Concentrate
6 cups chopped rhubarb
1 orange (zest & juice)
1 lemon (zest & juice)
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar

Combine zest of lemon and orange, water and rhubarb in a medium size pot. Bring to a boil on medium heat, cover, reduce heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes or until rhubarb is soft. Remove from heat, stir in orange and lemon juice. Take a sifter lined with cheescloth and place it on top of a large bowl. Strain rhubarb and water through it. Allow it to drip, undisturbed for at least two hours. Discard solids. Combine the juice in the bowl with 3/4 cups of sugar and heat on medium heat until the mixture reaches 190 degrees. DO NOT BOIL. Fill 1 pint and 1 half pint jar with mixture leaving 1/4″ of headspace. Put in canner, bring to a boil and then process for 10 minutes. Remove cover and remove the canner from heat and let sit for another 5 minutes. Remove and let cool undisturbed overnight.

To make a full batch (4 pints), use 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 12 cups of rhubarb and 4 cups of water. Orange and lemon remain the same.

Rhubarb! Not something I normally make. My only real experience with it was attempting rhubarb syrup last spring and while it was nice, I don’t think I made it strongly enough and the delicate flavor got lost in whatever else I was trying to make. So, this time around, I pulled out my copy of Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and went straight to the index. Two recipes caught my eye immediately and since I had a glut of rhubarb, I decided to make both! The first was Rhubarb Sunshine Concentrate and the second was this chutney. I had a bunch of empire apples from costco at home and a bag of craisins in the cupboard, so I decided to give this a go.

You chop up 2 cups of rhubarb and 4 cups of apples (about 3 apples or so). I pulled out this apple peeler, which is a lifesaver! My fruit CSA is very apple heavy in the late summer and fall, so being able to pull this out to quickly peel, core and dice apples for apple sauce, cobbler, or other canning needs is fabulous. Totally worth the money and definitely worth it over buying the cheapy one at Target, which I did and the handles broke off and it was a huge pain. The one I linked above both cores and slices the apples in one long line for you. While the vacuum base is imperfect in mine and it doesn’t always peel perfectly, it’s fabulous. And I love it. (This is an unsponsored recommendation, aside from the fact that I’m using an Amazon Associates link above)

Anyway, once you’ve got your 4 cups of apples, you need to treat them to prevent them from browning. Either sprinkle with Fruit Fresh, citric acid or combine 4 cups water with 1/4 cup bottled lemon juice and submerge in that (which is what I did, since I am lazy and without Fruit Fresh currently). This is an easy step to forget to do but it’s important because it a) adds acidity to your food and b) keeps it looking pretty for longer! I forgot to treat ALL of my pickled peaches and peach salsa batches last summer and they do brown. Zest and juice a lemon while you’re at it. Make sure you pick out any seeds, because that’ll add a layer of bitterness to your food.

Combine the rhubarb, apples, lemon zest, lemon juice, 2.5 cups sugar and 1/2 cup water in a pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce and simmer gently for 15 minutes.

As a side note, the original recipe calls for 4 cups of sugar. Holy crap, is that too much! I frequently find that most jam/fruit recipes are overly sweet and that the sweet tends to overpower the flavor of the fruit. I was always afraid to adjust sugar when it comes to canning because I was always terrified of botulism. However, I’ve discovered that it’s the acidity in fruits or vinegar that keeps botulism at bay, not the sugar. Therefore, adjust away! And thank goodness.

After 15 minutes, the rhubarb and the apples should be soft. Add 1/2 cup of dried cranberries (another reason to adjust down the added sugar – craisins are sweetened!), 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg. Simmer another 20 minutes uncovered, stirring frequently, until gelled enough to mound on the back of a spoon.

Fill 5 half pint jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Wipe rims, add lids and put in a water bath canner. Bring to boiling and process for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, uncover and leave for another 5 minutes. Remove jars from water bath and leave to cool over night.

The Verdict: This isn’t chutney. This is apple pie filling. Either my 2 cups of chopped rhubarb is less than what ball would use, or my lemon was less or I had more than 4 cups of apples or I should have adjusted down the sugar even more because of the craisins, I don’t know. But I basically have apple pie filling. I also cooked it for 5 minutes longer than the directions specified since it wasn’t gelled at all at 15 minutes. But I don’t taste the rhubarb in this. Or anything but apples and cinnamon. The acid that makes chutney tangy and delicious is missing. Probably would be better with the judicious application of some cider vinegar. Still, I can probably put it on a cheese tray, or on a turkey sandwich with a little bit of cream cheese or use it to make some hand pies or something. This also made 5 half pints instead of 4, so maybe I did have too many apples or something. I’m not sure. Happily, apple pie filling is delicious, even if I didn’t intend to make it.

Without all the bajiggedy: Apple Rhubarb Pie Filling Chutney
2 cups chopped rhubarb
4 cups apples, peeled, cored, chopped & treated to prevent browning
1 lemon
2.5 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup craisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Combine apples, rhubarb, zest & juice of lemon, sugar and water in a pot. Bring to a boil on medium heat, cover, reduce heat and simmer gently until apples & rhubarb are soft, about 15 minutes. Add dried cranberries and spices and simmer, uncovered, until mixture mounds on the back of a spoon, about 20 minutes. Fill half pint jars, leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Add lids and place in a water bath canner. Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit, uncovered for 5 minutes. Remove from bath and let sit undisturbed overnight.

Makes 5 half pints.

It’s finally happened. I finally hit the point in my personal training sessions where it hurts to move. Yay!

Let me back track a little. A while back there was a Groupon for a two week membership at Washington Sports Club that included 3 personal training sessions for $30. 3 personal training sessions for $30 is hard to pass up. So I bought it. I’ve been wanting to do personal trainer stuff for a long time, but always rationalized it away as too expensive. I am a member of Arlington County gym, which is cheaper, closer and 1/8 of the size, and our facility does have the option of hiring a personal trainer, the trainer only works on Saturday mornings. If you’ve met me, you know that my Saturday morning usually starts around 12:30pm, so that wasn’t really an option.

Anyhoodle, I bought it, I signed up, and yesterday I finished my personal trainer sessions. I must say that overall, my experience left me distinctly ‘meh.’ Despite telling my trainer that I had been running 3x a week before an ankle injury sidelined me and that I do pilates 2x a week and had for two years, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she saw the fact that I’m probably a good 50 pounds overweight and decided I couldn’t do anything. A lot of times she set the weight machines too light. She did check in to see if exercises were starting to make muscles burn and when I said they weren’t or that they were… a little, the weight stayed the same. She also made a few comments along the lines of ‘ooh, you’re going to be sore tomorrow!’ (especially relating to ab work) and… no, I wasn’t. Because I’ve been doing serious ab work for two years. I had difficulties doing the ab work that she had me do because I was unfamiliar with the machine and my ass is of a glorious size, so glorious that sometimes doing ab work with straight legs is difficult on my low back.

Yesterday, however, between finally having a breakthrough and getting side leg series in pilates the day before (and having a little bit of sore thighs from that) and being beyond all tired (probably from the weather, it’s nasty out here), was different. We did a lot of leg work (YAY) and then we did some weighted leg work, which was less than yay. She attempted to put me on the smith machine, which did not work out – I have issues with my shoulders, especially my left shoulder. So, that out, she gave me a weight bar and had me do a combo of walking lunges and squats. This was also rather hard on my shoulders and set up a cacaphony of complaints among pretty much all of my leg parts, after which all I wanted to do was curl up on the floor and die.

Which is what I wanted and never really got in the previous two sessions. To push myself, or more specifically, to have someone push me. I err on the side of caution with weight machine equipment because I don’t want to cause myself serious injury and because I never really learned how to use free weights. Is it my own fault that I didn’t tell her to push me more? Yeah, probably. I have a problem finding my own voice, especially when confronted by people who are supposed to be experts – usually in the medical field. Did the trainer do a good job? Of course! From those three sessions, I got the components of a great at home work out that I can do with handweights and a fitness ball, both of which I already own! I just couldn’t help the nagging sensation that I had been written off because fat = weak and out of shape (not the case!). Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever had people write you off as incapable to doing better because you were too big, too skinny, too short, too tall, a girrrrl or for any other reason?

I’ve been singing the praises of The Crockpot Lady’s pasta e fagioli all over twitter, but it’s awesome enough to tout again here. I made this on Sunday and it was absolutely delightful.

I did make a few mods – I used white onion instead of red, because that’s what I have, cut the celery (didn’t have it and fiancee doesn’t like it) and subbed ground bison for ground beef (it’s healthier anyway!). For the tomato sauce, I used sauce that I canned last August.

Not only is it delightful, tasty and filling, but this makes a lot of it. The fiancee and I had it for dinner, I’ve got lunches for a week AND an extra serving that she had for lunch yesterday. Woots all around!

I take the Blue line three stops most mornings – Pentagon, Arlington Cemetary, Rosslyn, Foggy Bottom. It is a wonderfully quick commute. It’s also rather crowded. Since WMATA couldn’t find their ass with both hands, a map, a service announcement, a flashlight and the book Your Ass: How to Find It and Other Tales of Competency, they tend to run blue line trains every 8 minutes at 8:30am on weekdays – peak rush hour time. It’s happy fun times trying to cram your way on the train. Especially when faced with people coming from National airport with 12 suitcases and three cranky kids (seriously, take a cab), a large school group from Iowa, all in matching neon shirts taking up an entire car on their way to their tour of the Capitol building (seriously, rent a bus) or just general assholes who don’t understand that the people shoved in like sardines by the doors could actually be comfortable if they would just MOVE THEIR ASSES TO THE CENTER OF THE CAR (seriously, go die in a fire). Especially since the Pentagon has a major bus terminal and is the final stop on the blue before branching into the Blue/Orange combo at Rosslyn, it gets full. It gets crowded, I get claustrophobic, but it’s all part and parcel of commuting in the city. (Though with Metro’s upcoming fare increases, it’ll soon be cheaper for me to drive to work and spend $100 a month to park than to take a bus and then 3 stops on a train, but that’s another story)

Today, however, was actually fairly calm. I think everyone’s going away for a long weekend or something. I got on the train and actually got a seat (in one of those ‘reserved for the elderly or those with mobility issues’ spots, but there weren’t any of those around). Since the train was a little jerky and I was literally falling asleep in my seat, I was also holding onto the pole next to me, directly by the door.

At Rosslyn, a woman comes on, steps inside, doesn’t move to allow everyone else to enter, and then leans against the pole. Her whole body. On the whole pole. Including my hand. She apparently finds this uncomfortable, and changes position to allow her whole body to lean against my hand in a different way. And she proceeds to put her weight behind it.

As someone who’s not particularly fond of having my hand crushed by oblivious assholes, I slowly extricated it from the loving hug between steel and stomach. This apparently threw her so much that she lost her balance, stumbled and gave me a dirty look. And then held the pole with just her hand for the rest of Rosslyn to Foggy Bottom.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, so we threw together a quick picnic platter. I can’t seem to do anything with food without taking pictures these days. Pictured are Safeway bbq chicken tenders, a couple of apples, carrots, asparagus, hummus, goat cheese, pita chips and baked Cheetos. I love have the fridge full enough that we can put together something quick, tasty & filling.

I made strawberry pickles according to ReadyMade the other week. This article’s actually from last summer, featuring seasonal spring ingredients (and believe me, I wrote an angry letter when I got the issue last August). This was the one that intrigued me the most. Having a deep and abiding love for balsamic vinegar (I’d drink it if it was socially acceptable) and especially the combo of balsamic & strawberries, I was really excited to try this.

And then I tasted it. Ugh. Too salty, not tasty at all. Maybe it was because the strawberries weren’t the ripest they could have been, maybe it was because I subbed cilantro for lemon basil, maybe I should have added more sugar. Ugh. Still. I think the other ones are worth a shot, though, especially the beets & chives.

I made another etsy treasury. This one’s squidtopus themed.

I can quit any time I want. Really.

(Also, I own the skullopus hoodie and it is fabulous.)