These Two Hands

Those cukes keep rolling in… thus far I’ve given away several pounds to neighbors and I’ve got about 10 more pounds in the fridge. We’re having a pool party tomorrow, so cucumber salad and cucumber water are on the menu!

I sampled the sandwich pickles I made not long ago – I made buttermilk no-knead bread into a loaf of foccaccia and filled it with butterflied grilled chicken breasts, deli ham (none for me though), swiss cheese, honey mustard and my pickles. MMM! They were so sweet and tangy and the nice fat long slices were just perfect for sandwiches. I quickly decided that five pints – now only four – were definitely not enough.

So when the garden gave me five pounds of cucumbers this morning…

I knew just what to do. Six more jars ready and waiting!

(I love these pickles but I wish I also knew a way to preserve cucumbers that would really capture their fresh, watery, cool taste. In gin maybe? Though we’re not big drinkers so maybe a kind of sorbet or something?)

I made three and half pints of peach salsa at the same time – isn’t it pretty? Alas, it has nothing homegrown in it, but at least it’s all seasonal stuff from the farmer just down the road. I’ve never made peach salsa before, but decided to try after we had this great appetizer on one of our rare restaurant outings: coconut fried scallops on a bed of peach-habañero salsa. Since I make coconut shrimp at home sometimes I thought I could easily pull off something similar to impress friends.

Well, it’s got a lovely fresh and vibrant taste… but I wish I’d sampled it before canning (even as gross as hot bubbling salsa can be). The recipe called for no salt at all. I added what I thought would be the basic amount necessary. I wish I’d added three times that much, because this recipe needs some zing to it! Also, though the hot Anaheim peppers I bought smelled so deadly that I debated adding them all (again, shoulda tasted), there is no bite to this at all… nada. I used the recipe in the Ball Complete Book, but next time I think I’ll use this recipe here which is nearly identical with some essential tweaks like lime juice… and salt.

I may just uncan the whole batch, mix it up to where I love it, and reprocess it… because when you don’t grow it yourself, this stuff can get expensive!

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Crafts, food, homesteading, preserving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.