Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Produce



12 comments:

  1. Stuffing the flowers at the end of the zukes? You also have the ingredients for one of my favorite dishes...pickled beets and eggs.

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    1. I have stuffed them, and also deep fried them as fritters. Good but rich. Pickled beets and eggs - expand please - we should have quite a few beets coming in. These are just the first.

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    2. Roasted Beets
      1 large red onion, frenched
      6 hard boiled eggs
      1 1/4 cup wine vinegar
      2 teaspoons Kosher salt
      2/3 cup sugar
      1 1/4 cup water

      Skin your roasted beets and slice thinly. Then layer beets onions and eggs in canning jars. Should do three. Mix sugar and liquids in a non-reactive pan and bring to boil. Pour in jars. These days most people just keep them in the frig, or you can process them. Wait at least three days before eating them to allow the eggs to absorb the full flavor. They will come out a pretty pink color.

      You can also add tarragon and bay leaves for extra flavor. These will keep for a month in the frig. This is how the Amish keep their extra beets and eggs it goes back to old country German and Polish roots. Some Amish add Allspice instead of bay leaves and tarragon. If you leave out the eggs the pickled beets alone will keep for three months in the frig. Processed at 20 minutes in quart jars the pickled beets can be kept for several years.

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    3. BTW: The National Center for Home Preservation (a service of the USDA) says you can keep refrigerated pickled eggs for up to three months. I err on caution because you can always Take a can of pickled beets and pour them over hard boiled eggs and a day later have them. You see them a lot around Christmas and Easter.

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  2. Not too shabby.

    Lisa S. in Seattle

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  3. Did you pick the courgettes at that stage so you'd have the flowers, or is that stage the best for eating them? I left mine and some of them are mahoosive, not really a good thing with veggies, they can end up so bland. Please advise! :-D

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    1. I pick by size - and with the ridged Romanesco courgettes, that is still while they have flowers. But ALL of them must be picked while they're less than 5 inches IMO. Even if you pick the pig ones and chuck them out - new ones slow down/don't grow, while the huge ones are there.

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  4. Thanks! Now, sorry to be a pain in the patootie, as my kids so eloquently put it, but: I have several which are at the stage of yours in your pic above. Does one just fritter the flowers, or the courgette-with-flower? (You could do a post on Courgettes For Dummies) :-D

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Bah. Hit publish by accident. I could :-) - but in the meanwhile the answer is typically the flower only, but I have used small fruit-and-flower,(or fruit cut in half) batter on flower, fork in courgette, dip battered flower in oil and fruit cooks a little too. Nice party piece. A bit of a pain in the patootie to do :-)

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  5. oh thanks! I'm going to try it :-) Granny's visiting from Oz, she'll be impressed!

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