(morning writing)
The dehydrator is humming behind me, competing in volume for the cricket and other insect serenade. While the sun has come up over the horizon, the clearing is still in a shady twilight. The moon illuminated the deck as i set up this morning, and if i stood in just the right place, i could see Orion in an Orion shaped gap in the trees. I'm not sure where i am used to seeing Orion: the three stars of the belt were a sharp surprise for me.
Yesterday i took some very old "baby" carrots and chopped them up with my food processor, then blanched them for three minutes, preparing to dehydrate them. I also had a bowl of ripe Matt's wild cherry tomatoes (which self seeds), so i poured the boiling water off the carrots over the tomatoes (and caught it for broth). The carrots dehydrated so very quickly and were packed up within hours. The cherry tomatoes are taking their good time. I really wonder if its worth it, but the flavor in these tiny tomatoes is so intense already - i look forward to the punch this winter.
I made a yummy soup yesterday: the Maine kombu, some of the carrot, some of the carrot water, white miso, rice noodles. There's some shiso beside the orchard (which is an invasive plant that grows up and down the road to the creek). I need to collect at least the plants near the orchard and wonder whether it's worth trying to preserve. I spent some time reading about various ferments; some of the ferments sound barely fermented. Roughly: leave the leaves whole, salt and season between each leaf, roll up, and refrigerate? I'm leaning towards weighing the leaves, calculating the 2.5% ratio of salt, chiffonading the leaves and leaving that to ferment. I am thinking about doing that to basil, too.
I looked at fermenting the cherry tomatoes, but the ripe ones apparently go to alcohol very quickly. While the reference to tomato wine seemed uninteresting (as intended), tomato vinegar sounds interesting. I'm just not sure how much home produced vinegar i will use up. I haven't gotten in the habit of using it yet, and as it is of uncertain acidity, leaving it out on the counter doesn't seem wise.
Now to encourage myself to snack on the fresh bag of baby carrots instead of other sweets.
Also got new glasses lenses yesterday. Where it was hard before to use the progressives for distance, now they seem hard to use while sitting with my laptop. Fie. Maybe i will go back to straight bifocals.
post-tags: morning writing
Yesterday i took some very old "baby" carrots and chopped them up with my food processor, then blanched them for three minutes, preparing to dehydrate them. I also had a bowl of ripe Matt's wild cherry tomatoes (which self seeds), so i poured the boiling water off the carrots over the tomatoes (and caught it for broth). The carrots dehydrated so very quickly and were packed up within hours. The cherry tomatoes are taking their good time. I really wonder if its worth it, but the flavor in these tiny tomatoes is so intense already - i look forward to the punch this winter.
I made a yummy soup yesterday: the Maine kombu, some of the carrot, some of the carrot water, white miso, rice noodles. There's some shiso beside the orchard (which is an invasive plant that grows up and down the road to the creek). I need to collect at least the plants near the orchard and wonder whether it's worth trying to preserve. I spent some time reading about various ferments; some of the ferments sound barely fermented. Roughly: leave the leaves whole, salt and season between each leaf, roll up, and refrigerate? I'm leaning towards weighing the leaves, calculating the 2.5% ratio of salt, chiffonading the leaves and leaving that to ferment. I am thinking about doing that to basil, too.
I looked at fermenting the cherry tomatoes, but the ripe ones apparently go to alcohol very quickly. While the reference to tomato wine seemed uninteresting (as intended), tomato vinegar sounds interesting. I'm just not sure how much home produced vinegar i will use up. I haven't gotten in the habit of using it yet, and as it is of uncertain acidity, leaving it out on the counter doesn't seem wise.
Now to encourage myself to snack on the fresh bag of baby carrots instead of other sweets.
Also got new glasses lenses yesterday. Where it was hard before to use the progressives for distance, now they seem hard to use while sitting with my laptop. Fie. Maybe i will go back to straight bifocals.
post-tags: morning writing