First Pie of the Season

And just what is the season, one may ask?

First of Season Apricot Pie

Summer.
In California.
It's end of cherry - beginning of ApricotPlumPeach season in this part of the world. Bring it on.
I have apricots dehydrating in the Excalibur, apricots I've already dried, lots of apricots in my tummy, apricots waiting for me in a bag, and now - ta da! - an apricot pie in the oven. It's in the 70's outside, close to 80 in my kitchen, and the oven is on 400F.
It takes a certain kind of mind (one may consider "unstable") to think this is fun, but I certainly do.

So here's my recipe for this lovely pie:

Roughly 5c of chopped, freshly picked lovely apricots, full blush :-)
1 c of sugar (more was in the original recipe, but I *know* these apricots, and they don't need more)
1/2t of salt (because human tongues need that)
3T of cornstarch (or flour, or tapioca, or rice flour, whatever you fancy for thickening)
about 1/4 c candied ginger (because I have a thing for ginger), chopped fine
a good dose of freshly grated nutmeg (I was having issues with my grinder, so I'm betting I have at least 2t in there)
(Note: some lemon juice would have worked, but isn't required. Maybe 2T. Adds just a little bite. Depends upon your apricots, are they super sweet or do they have acid content?)

Mix it all together. Let it get soupy.

Make your favorite double 9" pie crust. Keep it in the fridge for an hour (then discover that your fuse has thrown itself and your fridge is defrosting. Choke down the panic. Go out and throw all the breakers and then try something in the outlets until they work. Sigh of relief. Back to the pie). Roll it out and try not to let it get hot. I actually put my pie plate back into the fridge while I was rolling out the 2nd crust. Pour the filling into the 1st crust, top with the 2nd, crimp the edges, brush with milk, dust with sugar (I happened to have cinnamon sugar sitting RIGHT NEXT to me, so that's what went on top). Cut a pretty design in the top.
Bake the extra strips, dusted with cinnamon sugar, next to the pie, take them out in a few minutes and eat them hot, and give them to your kids and remind them this is one of the BEST things about having a mom who knows how to bake.

Bake at 400F roughly 45 minutes, or until it's a golden brown.

Great with vanilla ice cream.
When you're an adult, you can even eat this BEFORE your dinner.
Life is good. As coach Erik Hajer says, always remember to SMILE.
:-)

Get crackin'

Candied yuzu peel

It's citrus season again. The trip to my Mecca (Lindcove orchards just past Fresno, CA) was last weekend, and my living room floor is once again covered with some of the rarest citrus in the world (and I'm not being hyperbolic here).
The first batch, since I found it was so perishable last year, was the yuzu. I've made yuzu marmalade, and what I'm calling A to Z marmalade (Avana Apireno mandarin mixed with Yuzu, since the yuzu doesn't produce much juice); followed by candied yuzu peel. Here is a picture of the peel right after I swooped it out of the yuzu crack, which unfortunately did not set up overnight. Instead of leaving it as a syrup, I will cook it down some more until it reaches the hard crack stage. Crack is what I'm after here, although if necessary of course I could use the yuzu syrup as well. My chai doesn't care if it's syrup or crack.
I did a 3x blanching method with the peel, but if I were to do it again I would only blanch them once, because I don't mind the bitterness so much and really love the yuzu peel flavor. Last year I used the candied peel in breads, muffins, cookies and jams so far. Aromatic plum preserves (Howard's Miracle or Inca), I have discovered, combine beautifully with candied yuzu peel. Go wild with this stuff, you can't go wrong.
Yuzu (YOO-zoo): A traditional Japanese citrus, used almost exclusively for its aromatic rind. Yuzu has an aroma that's distinct from lemons, limes, or any other Western citrus fruit.

Membrillo

It's a taste treat that I believe is originally from Spain - in fact, I can find it at the local grocery where my friend Pat shops each time I'm in Catalunya. I had about 14 lbs of quince, a few from my garden and many from the orchard, that needed to be metamorphosed. Check it out!
Here are the recipes I followed:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/membrillo_quince_paste/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/quincepastemembrillo_85978
http://userealbutter.com/2011/10/09/quince-paste-membrillo-recipe/

What's the difference?  
Know how truly lazy I can be?
I hunted for recipes until I found one that didn't require me to PEEL ten pounds of quince.
Seriously.

This is good stuff. A subtle, sweet, tad apple-y, complex flavor. But I don't overcook mine. I'm SO familiar with how well quince sets up, I'm sure not going to overcook it. I might try covering it in chocolate like Alejandra:
http://www.alwaysorderdessert.com/2008/11/day-14-chocolate-covered-membrillo.html

The Marmalades

Yes, there are other things in my life, but I have this urge to show you how PRETTY all of the citrus is after I've transformed it into preserves. I love citrusy colors in the first place - it's like playing with a sunshine palette.

Left to right, our marmalade candidates for Most Beautiful preserves of February 2012 are:
Sanguinelli (blood orange), Sarawak (pummelo), Bergamot (sour orange, where they obtain the perfumed flavor of Earl Grey tea), Bouquetier de Nice (sour orange), and Seville (VERY traditional sour orange for English marmalade).

I put up a total of 46 cups of marmalade this month. Hoo-ah.

Bergamots are Done

I have fought the good fight. The bergamots are done.

The two bergamot trees that I picked on the third Saturday in January have yielded:

• Two batches of curd - one with brown sugar, one white;


• Two batches of marmalade - one with wekiwa as the "lemon" juice, one with Kaffir lime;


• One quart of frozen yogurt, containing peel and juice;


• Four frozen cups of bergamot juice;


• Two quarts of infused sugar - one with grated peel, one with strips;


• One frozen bag of ground peel (over a cup);


• Two boxes of fruit that went to Allie in Texas;


• Several golden orbs that went with Tod to his 6-day cookfest last week;


• And last but not least (I will try it tomorrow) one quart of black tea infused with flavor from all of the white bits that are left after I zested the peel and removed the juice.

Whew. I am now sporting a blister on my right hand from using the potato peeler on 18 bergamots today. I am completely out of wide-mouthed jars, and had to grab a large box of 42 plastic containers and lids from Costco earlier this week.

My house smells like a bergamot festival!

Crack

Now, I don't want the DEA after me, so let's be clear here: I make crack out of SUGAR. Good ol' C12H22O11. I candy citrus peel (or, last month, fresh ginger, which made WONDERFUL crack) and then boil the syrup until it's at a crack stage. Gently empty the contents of the pan onto a cookie rack, with the Silpat underneath. Store the candied peel (usually in metal tins) and take the hardened sugar (rock candy, really) and break it into bits. Use it in hot drinks or whatever needs that particular flavor.

Here are photos of my most recent crack production - the peels were various orange citrus, which included tangelos, blood oranges and tangors.

Oh, yeah, the candied peel is lovely, too. In this case, it ended up brittle, so I can break it into little candied peel bits.

The Boozy Story

These are citrus peels steeping in straight vodka.

Everclear isn't legally purchased in this state, and I have friends in fruity, vegetable-y, nutty and meaty places, but apparently not in underground grain alcoholic places. But the vodka is nice.

All you do is strip as much of the white pith off the peel as possible, then infuse it in vodka for about a month (Hand of Buddha has no bitterness, so it just gets chopped up). Strain and add simple syrup. Allow to steep another month. Put in pretty bottles and give it away as presents, or use it in your cooking or summery drinks.

Left to right: Sarawak, Melogold/Yuzu Papeda, Hand of Buddha and Limonero Fino (Limoncello in the making). Hooo-ah.

Citrus Madness 2012

So here it is, most of the varieties from the annual trip to "Mecca", the UC Lindcove Experimental orchard past Fresno, California.

Featured in this photo are, large back left to right: Sarawak, Melogold, Oro Blanco, Chandler; bright orange are tangelos, then a Moro; two kinds of lemons, one small Michal mandarin, all flanked by Allie's favorites, the Bergamots. Total fruit picked and brought home was probably around 80lbs.

Who didn't show up for the photo? Yuzu Papeda and Hand of Buddha, who have all been processed, and the Wekiwas, Sevilles and Bouquetier de Nice were avoiding the camera.

So, what do you do with this much fruit? How do I love thee... let me count the ways:

• I do eat them. I put them in the kids' lunches. But for the first week I couldn't eat any because of my recent oral surgery, so I started processing right away.


• Lots of juice. I have actually drunk plenty of mixed fruit juice the past few days.


• Champagne sorbet with Limonero Fino lemon juice (more, with Oro Blanco, on the list).


• Candied citrus peel - Hand of Buddha and Yuzu. More coming. Must candy some Bergamot.


• Curd: Bergamot (2 batches - one with brown sugar and one with white - this is Best in Class so far this year), blood orange, Chandler, and Limonero Fino


• Frozen yogurt: Yuzu so far. Lemon tomorrow.


• Booze: Limoncello using Limonero Fino, Sarawak, Yuzu/Melogold, and Hand of Buddha. Still on the list: Bergamot and Grand Marnier. And I might just toss a bunch more lemon zest into the big Limoncello jar and double it. Who can have too much Limoncello?


• Marmalade: mixed blood orange and Limonero Fino. Lots more on my list.


• What I'm calling "crack". When I candy the peel, I save the sugar water that's left, and if it has reached the crack stage, it becomes brittle little infused pieces of goodness that go into my chai in the morning.


• Dried finely ground peel: Lemon, Pommelo and Orange.


• Dried peel from eating fresh fruit: I just toss this into my chai when it's simmering. Yum.

Some fruit has wended its way to Allie (YuminTum, who makes fabulous recipes and it's the least I can do for someone whose heart is in cooking while her head is in college textbooks), and some has gone to Tod, who is a fabulous chef who cooks at my annual knitting retreat in Ben Lomond each year. He picked his up personally, and was thus able to taste a bunch of the booze I made last year with the Mecca haul. He got half the Yuzus, because they're very loved by chefs, especially for Asian food. I had never picked the Yuzus before, and they began to rot rapidly. So you never know, maybe Yuzus will become one of my new favorites - the flavor certainly is distinctive.

Allie has lots of ideas, and I'll probably follow some of them. I have about another week of processing to go. Wish me luck...

Tomato-Peach Chutney

Hats off to Bernard Clayton for the inspiration (Bernard, your soup recipes ROCK but read like UNIX manuals) - this is cooking right now:

3c fresh tomatoes, chopped and peeled (and seeded if you're up for it - I'm not);
3c fresh nectarines and/or peaches, peeled if they're peaches and chopped (I used high sugar, low acid peaches and nectarines)
1c chopped green bell pepper (for me, this was 1 pepper)
1c packed brown sugar
3/4c sugar
3/4c white vinegar
1/2c golden raisins
1/2c chopped onions
1/4t cinnamon
1/8t ground allspice
1 jalapeno, minced and seeded
1/4c wild blackberries (this is totally optional - just happened to be sitting in my kitchen - see previous blog)

Combine all the ingredients into a deep, nonreactive saucepan.
Stirring frequently, cook over medium heat for roughly an hour or until mixture has thickened (or you've reduced it by about half).
Feel the love. The aroma should make your mouth water.
Ladle it into sterilized jars leaving at least 1/4" headspace; process for 20 min in hot water bath.

My guess is that this will make 4 half-pints. I'll post a photo when they're done.

Aleve is my friend.

My legs are covered with bruises. I counted at least 40 on each leg. At least I face my assailant: they are all on my ventral side except for one large one on my derrière.

Chipping hundreds of trees and thousands of tree branches is hard but rewarding work. There is a lot more light at Meadowood now, and room for another - dare I say? - small orchard. I'm thinking of fruits AND nuts this time. I'm envisioning a large macadamia tree, and some rare fruits that will be a taste treat at a Farmer's Market someday.

And I have perhaps seven cords of wood that I could sell. First I need to stack it into the neat little piles, 4 x 4 x 8, and it needs to cure a while. But I'm not selling the madrone wood - it's wonderful for fires and cooking. We didn't take down many madrones, but there was one large one that had fallen, and several that had died. PERSONALLY, although they're lovely, I'm not that crazy about madrones because in a bad storm the large ones can go down VERY unpredictably, but everyone I know thinks they're just fabulous. One of the largest ones on the property went down one night after weeks of rain, it sits there still while I contemplate what I might be able to do with it (floor planks?), and I'll never forget the sound it made when it fell, taking out two redwoods in its path. Its roots are LAME for a tree that big, reminiscent of a palm tree, why is that?

My right wrist is damaged from two days of handling my chainsaw (which has a new chain - the man at the Aptos Tool Crib was kind enough to show me EXACTLY how to replace it - and cuts beautifully). So I'm on the injured reserve list now.

I put the roof on the shower (well, it's not perfect because by then my right wrist hurt), and started the new sweater. I avoided using either the chainsaw OR the chipper without another person present. Because if you scream in the middle of the forest and there's nobody to hear you.... you don't make a sound. No philosophizing required.

I slept on the dance floor every night, and there were always shooting stars - even one morning after dawn, I saw a very large, bright one flash across the eastern sky. It was breathtaking - I've never seen one in the morning before.

My husband and boys returned from their family reunion, dirty and rested. The kids act like small, unruly animals after being with their pack of cousins. But they are SAFE. I am relieved and grateful.

While I was gone I received the results of the soil tests. Sunnyvale soil contains too much salt (I already knew this - this house is too close to the baylands to be unscathed - but now I have it and the requisite amendments on paper) and needs iron; Meadowood, surprisingly, is lacking in some trace elements and iron. Perhaps today the Demolition Team and I will make it to the store to buy some amendments.

How I got involved with the California Rare Fruit Growers

I've been with the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG), Santa Clara Valley Chapter, for possibly 10 years now (I simply don't remember). I am a Certified Master Gardener prodigal (didn't complete my required community hours - had to work!) who bought beautiful land in the Santa Cruz Mountains (named it Meadowood) who needed to know what kinds of fruit trees would grow there, and thus (I'll always blame Sini for this) I was referred to the CRFG group.

Now, I suspect EVERY group has its fanatics, but I have now been on a rescue mission to a San Diego white sapote orchard, have helped to develop new strains of peaches and nectarines, have one apple tree with about 30 different varieties grafted to it, and have no less than 60 rare fruit trees at Meadowood. And I know a select group of people who know how to find practically any kind of rare fruit you could want to grow, and a couple who know how to graft ANYTHING, and with high success rates.

Once I have completed my inventory, I'll post it here. But in summary, I have white sapote, avocado, plum, peach, nectarine, fig, pear, apple, grape, persimmon, apricot, several kinds of citrus, and cherry trees either at Meadowood or here in Sunnyvale, many of them not yet fruiting. One day they will all be of bearing age, and it will be Catie, bar the door.