Urban Foraging

I live in Davis, a town where a lot of urban foraging is available. There are fruit trees all over the place that yield wonderful results in the summer, community gardens that put out their excess grapes, squash, and herbs when they have then, and the barn where I ride is lined with walnut trees that I have yet to take advantage of, but trust me, I will. (Especially because moldy walnuts are a risk to dogs and horses, so we have to clear them out anyway.)

Since discovering the concept of urban foraging, which I had previously just thought of as quasi-pilfering, I've come to love the idea of it. Discovering Hunter Angler Gardener Cook has made me even more enamored of the idea. Free food that you make into even more delicious things?! The best.

Since reading Hank's post on olive curing, I've been smitten. Olives are incredibly plentiful in Davis, and with a friend I collected three half-gallon jars full of them. Some of them are the biggest olives I've ever seen in my life, and I was so amped to get started. Only the entire town of Davis seemed to be out of lye!

Down to plan B. I threw those olives into half-gallon jars and I've filled them with brine. The brine is approximately 1/4 cup salt and 1/2 cup vinegar per gallon of water.



I topped the jars off with a little bit of cheesecloth to keep all of my olives submerged, and left them in the laundry room to cure. I'm not completely sure what it means to brine olives, but when I've figured it out, I'll be sure to tell you.

Dulce de Leche!

Or, heaven on a spoon.

I've been seeing dulce de leche recipes all over the place, and while I was desperate to make some I was somewhat turned off by the fact that you have to boil the cans for three hours. Or bake the sweetened condensed milk in the over for three hours.  Really, anything that involved three hours I wasn't into.

But then, then, I found this gem of a recipe.  It involves a pressure cooker and mason jars, both of which I have because, well, I am an impulsive consumer. And I make jam.  But the point is that this is an excellent and quick way to make dulce de leche, and if you have access to a pressure cooker and want some dulce de leche, you need to make it.

The first thing to do is get your supplies together. Pressure cooker, rack, can lifters and lid tightener-gripper thing, magnetic lid picker-upper, hot mitts, jars, lids, and rings.




Oh, and your sweetened condensed milk. I think I had ten cans. Perhaps nine.  The next thing I did was fill my measuring cup with the sweetened condensed milk, as much of it as would fit. I wanted to use the measuring cup as an in-between because I didn't think I could successfully get all the sweet nectar out of those cans and into the jars with any accuracy. A spatula is a necessity here, it was very useful for getting every last drop of sweetened condensed milk out of those jars.

I watch hulu while I'm cooking. Don't judge me.

Start filling your jars to about 1/2" headspace.



It's hard to take photos that aren't blurry when you're pouring sweetened condensed milk into jars in poor lighting. It's unfortunate.

When you think you have about 10 minutes of jar-filling left, throw your rings and lids into a pot of boiling water for that time. This will activate the seal on the lids and allow you to actually seal your dulce de leche. This step is not necessary if you're planning on refrigerating your dulce de leche immediately, but I let mine sit on a shelf for a little while*.

When all your jars are filled, put on the lids and screw on the rings. And put them in your pressure cooker.



At this time you can go ahead and fill your pressure cooker with 3 quarts of room temperature water. Do not use hot water, because your jars are cool and your sweetened condensed milk is, at best, at room temperature, and if you fill your pressure cooker with boiling water (like you would when canning jam or jelly), you run the risk of breaking all your jars and making a hot mess of sweetened condensed milk all over the place.

Attach the lid of your pressure cooker and turn on the burner. Vent the pressure cooker for 10 minutes, and when that is done turn it to 10-11 lbs pressure. For my Presto pressure cooker that's the highest setting and it's fine.  Cook it for 20 minutes, maintaining that pressure, and then turn off the heat and allow your pressure canner to de-pressurize for at least 10 minutes. After that, you can help your pressure cooker along by opening the vent, and allowing the steam to leave the cooker. After the steam is all vented once again, you may open your pressure cooker, and you should be greeted by a most magnificent sight!



Seriously. Beautiful.

Now, your dulce de leche and jars and the whole setup there will be nuclear hot at this point. Observe:



One of these things is not like the others. And it's the bubble rising up through the focal can in the second picture. My dulce de leche was literally still boiling at this point, and you do not want to go touching those jars anytime soon.

At some point, you can take them out of the canner and allow them to cool in a draft-free area, but I would recommend waiting at least 30 minutes until you do this.  Try to wait for your dulce de leche to cool completely before opening the cans. I don't know what would happen if you tried to open the cans prematurely, but I can imagine all kinds of nasty hot caramel going everywhere in a worst case scenario.

* The USDA does not actually recommend canning milk products. But, as my source recipe points out, there are a few things about this recipe that make me think it's safe to can dulce de leche this way.
1. The sweetened condensed milk came out of a can in the first place, which is theoretically hermetically sealed, and if your jars are clean and you work quickly you will minimize bacterial exposure. Of course, quickly is all relative in bacterial terms, and the difference between one minute and five is probably negligible. What I mean here is don't let your sweetened condensed milk sit around all day at room temperature while the cat walks on the dining table.
2. There is so much sugar in this stuff that it's practically sterile on its own. Well, not necessarily sterile, but there's a hell of a lot of sugar in there.
3. You can can meat products in a pressure canner when taking the appropriate precautions.

So while I can't necessarily condone this, I can point out that I have, since making those six cans of dulce de leche, given away all of them and nobody has fallen ill. Make your own judgment on this one.

Want the recipe? Visit No Empty Chairs!

vodka infusions, and a new blog

I've toyed for a while with the idea of starting a food blog for myself. I like thinking about food, making food, eating food, and taking photos of food, so I figured it was time for all of that to come together.

We'll start with the vodka infusions I made last week. Of course, I have no idea whether or not they'll be delicious, but they're here, and waiting. Most sets of instructions I could find online said that within a week the infusion would be ready to drink, however other sources suggested that the longer you leave the flavouring in the vodka the more delicious it becomes.

My first problem was finding a container to put my new vodka infusions in. You can buy stoppered containers from Ikea for $3 each, but they're a little bigger than I wanted (at least for my first try), and that would necessitate a trip all the way to Ikea. I settled on these little numbers from Cost Plus, although mine are obviously in a rectangular shape. I liked the smaller size (570 mL each, so you end up with about 500 mL of your flavour of vodka), and that it had a nozzle for pouring the vodka off eventually also (I don't like things that glug too much, it makes it difficult to pour accurately!). I wasn't too worried about the bottles being airtight, since no particulate could get in anyway, and many of my stored bottles of alcohol are hardly airtight anyway.

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I made blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry last week. Today I made two more, one with vanilla and one with coffee, so we'll see how those go also. The blackberry, by far, had the prettiest colour at bottling, but now the blueberry bottle has become a beautiful purple -- the same colour that leaks into blueberry pancakes -- that is so pretty. My blackberries were on the border of overripe and freshly picked, so I didn't bother to add any sugar. However, the blueberries were store bought and the raspberries, though freshly picked were a little tart, so I added just about a teaspoon of sugar to each of those bottles before adding the vodka.

Eventually I'll drink these, although I don't know in what or with whom. Probably for my birthday next month, as they should be good and delicious by then. I'm also hoping to make a bottle with chillies (probably dried, because then I'll get some delicious smoky flavour in there too), and perhaps some other fruit. Oh, and chocolate! There's a great recipe for chocolate liqueur on Epicurious.

Infused Vodka "Recipe"

(This is more of a set of generalised instructions than a recipe, pieced together from various sources on the internet.)

Start with 750 mL of your choice of vodka. Some suggest using a premium grade vodka because it will be the smoothest in the end and have a better overall flavour. Others suggest that anything that is at least triple-distilled is adequate. (I settled for Kirkland vodka, because it is relatively inexpensive and comes in large bottles.) I would say use anything that you're happy to drink yourself.

Add to a seal-able glass bottle or jar 1 cup of your fruit or flavouring of choice. This amount is, of course, variable. If you're adding vanilla to your vodka, use a bean or two, and if using something strongly flavoured like coffee beans, add a little less than a cup. I choose to err on the side of more flavour, because you can always dilute your infusion with a little more vodka of your choice, but it's hard to concentrate a flavour more. For whole fruits, chop them up so plenty of surface area is present, as greater surface area will allow for great flavour infusion. (My current infusions are blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, vanilla, and coffee, but I hope also to make chocolate, lemon, orange, and chili at some point in the near future; other websites suggest making infusions with lemongrass or garlic for more fancy flavours).

Let your jar sit in a dark place for at least a week (for strong flavours, such as berries and vanilla), and up to a month or more (for milder flavours, like lemongrass or melon). You can check on it every once in a while and shake it up, or just set it and forget it and enjoy your end result when you remember again!