Spring Has Sprung

Heading out this morning to do the beginning of the spring cleanup, I was instantly elated by the signs of spring. The first Eastern Phoebe was heard calling. The woodpeckers were drumming their mating tune. The wind has sifted, bring a touch of warm, southern air.

 And the crocuses were blooming in the beds that are snow free. It's amazing that such a tiny flower is the first one to stick its head up from the recently thawed soil. But a welcome sight they are. Spring is here, for sure.

The 5x5 Garden Challenge

If you're into gardening and you've never checked out the blog Chiot's Run, you are missing out. Filled with fantastic advice and gorgeous pictures, it really is my go to gardening resource.

To make Susy (the blogger) even better, she has now started The 5x5 Garden Challenge. Her goal is to get more people involved with gardening and to build an online gardening community to help each other. I'm taking part, even though I'm working with WAY more than a 5x5 foot garden. Every chance I get to learn more about gardening (and to help others learn) is a chance I want to take advantage of. I suggest if you garden (or would like to garden), you should participate too! If you don't have a spot for a garden, you can even get 5 pots to act as your garden. There really is no excuse to not growing some of your own food. Many vegetables are so easy and take very little time.

Click on the badge above or to the right to go check out The 5x5 Garden Challenge! (And check out Chiot's Run!)

Try Again

For a year, I've debated what to do with this blog. From last April until November, I was at the happiest time in my life. But because it involved working two jobs (which meant some weeks I worked 60 hours), tending two gardens, canning, traveling back and forth to NY, and attending several weddings (we're at that age where friends and cousins are all getting married), there just wasn't anytime for blogging.

Now that I'm back in NY, I can tend to my garden here full time. I have grand plans for companion planting to maximize gardening space. All kinds of new edibles going in. Flower beds to dig out and start over. A lawn in need of some TLC. A greenhouse to build. And did I mention chickens? This year I'm staying in NY, and I'm focusing my energy toward our little homestead. With it, I'm going to give a go at blogging again.

Now, if it would stop snowing, I could get outside and get some work done.

Cranberry-Orange-Clementine Marmalade

 If you saw my last post you would know that I was drowning in citrus several months ago (has it really been that long?!). Knowing that a marmalade is a must for citrus season, I set off one Friday evening to tackle my foe. You see, last year I tackled two marmalades, a traditional orange and a four citrus variety. Both failed in terms of consistency, being extremely hard. If you put the four citrus marmalade in the fridge, it needed to be heated up before it was spreadable. Needless to say, it was only used in hot oatmeal.

 One of my favorite flavor combinations is orange and cranberry. Cranberry-orange muffins? To die for. I made a killer cranberry "sauce" at Thanksgiving, which left me with no leftovers. Instead of making a batch of straight cranberry jam, or straight orange marmalade, I thought I'd combine the two. I also had some clementines that needed used up, so I threw them into the party as well.

I pulled all my canning books off the shelf, spread them across the kitchen counter. Then I searched the internet (this couldn't possibly be a new idea). I didn't like any of the recipes (either because of technique or flavoring or whatever) so I thought, "I'll just make my own recipe!" After three years at this and a good understand of acidity, I figured I could make something that tasted good and that was safe for canning. These two high acid fruits were perfect for a newbie recipe maker.

I used multiple recipes from several books to get an idea on how to best deal with the orange rind. The rind is what makes marmalade so much more tricky and time consuming than a normal jam. But it is well worth it. There's two methods I used for removing the bitter white pith from the flavorful orange rind. After scrubbing the orange in hot water (to remove the silly wax they put on it), you can either cut the pith and rind off together then trim the white pith off, or the easier method (I learned) is to carefully remove just the rind, leaving the pith attached to the flesh, then removing the pith afterword. Deal with the pith only for the oranges, not the clementines. They don't have as much pith and it would be a pain to attempt to remove it.

The other tricky maneuver is sectioning the oranges. This is simply done by using a paring knife to cut on either side of the membrane (the white line between segments) so that the pieces slip right out. Be sure to do this over a bowl to catch any juice that drips. Squeeze the remaining membrane to extract all the juice, then combine with any seeds in a little cheesecloth bag. The seeds and membrane contain lots of pectin that will help the marmalade to jel.

The recipe goes as follows:

2 navel oranges (15.75oz)
5 clementines (15 oz)
About 3 cups cranberries (7.5oz)
4 cups filtered water
3 cups granulated sugar

After removing pith from rind, VERY thinly slice the rind into strips (do this for the clementine rinds as well). Combine rinds and water in a pot, cover, and boil gently for 20-25 minutes, or until the rinds are soft. Add citrus segments (I cut the clementine segments into thirds), cranberries, and cheesecloth bag containing the orange membrane and seeds. Cover and cook for 10 minutes. Remove cheesecloth bag, stir in sugar. Cook until desired set, approximately 20 minutes. Ladle into sterilized jars and process for 10 minutes.

Makes about 5 half-pints and one 4oz jar.

Did I mention that it's really good? It's REALLY good. Try it. Now. Before oranges go out of season. (I hope you frozen cranberries in the fall.)

Baked Grapefruit

Being that it's winter, I felt the urge to buy a ridiculous amount of citrus. (It's funny how this happens to me every year.) This year, I decided that I wasn't going to go all out, preserve everything and then be stuck with way too many jars filled with things I wasn't going to use. I decided that I should eat more of the citrus fresh then preserved.

Oranges and their relatives are no problem eaten fresh. But grapefruit? I've never been a fan. They are to bitter and sprinkling sugar on them didn't make a difference to me. But Susy from Chiot's Run posted at the Ethel Gloves Your Day blog about baked grapefruit. So I gave it a try.

Let me tell you, it converted me to a grapefruit lover. It's so easy as well. Cut grapefruits in half, then try to trim off the bottoms so they sit level in a glass dish (make sure you don't trim to the flesh. The pith will hold in all the delicious juice). Cut around each section. To do this, identify the membrane that defines the edges of each segment. Cut with a sharp knife along those membranes, and around the edge by the outside wall of the fruit. This step is slightly time consuming, but it makes it 100x easier to eat. Each segment will pop right out.

With the halves in their dish, you can add your toppings/spices. See Susy's post for all kinds of ideas. I've found that I like to coat the tops in real maple syrup and a dusting of cinnamon. (Having level halves keeps the syrup from running off.) Then you just bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

Trust me, you'll feel elegant eating baked grapefruit halves with a fork. That is until you eat all the segments and realize there is a lot of juice still floating around in those halves. Don't worry, no one is watching. Just pick one up, fold slightly to make a nice funnel shape and slurp that juice right out.

How do you like to eat grapefruit?

Garden Tuesday - Indoor Herbs

I'm going to try to get back in the habit of joining Pam from Sidewalk Shoes in her Garden Tuesdays posts. Head on over to her blog to learn more about Garden Tuesdays and see what's going on in other gardens.

Although winter seems to have never come, it's still February. Which means the garden is still quite. Indoors, on the other hand, I still have three herbs growing by the sunny back door. The oregano hardly grew all summer, but once I brought it inside, it went crazy. The parsley is still hanging in there, even with the neglect I show it. And somehow, the chives are still alive. I thought they were dead, but when I gave the whole mess a haircut, I saw some green still. I let it go and they've sprouted up.

What do you have growing inside your house?

Cheese Making

My coworkers think I'm crazy. I make my own bread? Crazy. Yogurt? Preposterous. Now cheese? They've never heard of such nonsense! They really are just jealous because I won't share.

The first attempt at mozzarella was only mildly successful. There was some cheese, but not enough curd separated from the whey. Then Dan insisted I brine it (because he read it in the cheese book he bought me). It started melting in the water. Fail.

I thought it was the milk, so I hunted down some real good milk and tried again. When I did some more reading I learned you need to use 1/2 a tablet of rennet (which coagulates the milk), and we'd only used 1/4 in the last batch. So it wasn't the milk, it was the bad recipe (or recipe reading).

This time, success! Fresh mozzarella is so good and it makes you feel so accomplished. The only problem is, you suddenly have a huge ball of cheese. That's really good. And you're all alone. Don't eat to much cheese, it might come back to haunt you.

If you'd like to get into cheese making, it's really easy and you can use milk from the grocery store (as long as it's only pasteurized, not ULTRA pasteurized). It seems that the best site for information and supplies is the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. Dan bought most of my supplies through there.

Dan does a lot of research before buying anything, and cheese making books are no exception. He came to the conclusion that Artisan Cheese Making at Home: Techniques and Recipes for Mastering World-Class Cheeses by Mary Karlin is the best. Honestly, I haven't read through it yet, but it is packed full of information and all kinds of recipes. It'll be great for the basics, but it seems to have fancy-pants recipes. I'll most likely pick up a more laid back cheese making book at some point.

Do you make cheese? Do you have any cheese making books to recommend?