Originally uploaded by leilanesson
The onions and carrots also came from the Goat Lady. And we picked thyme, oregano, and basil from the garden. I should end up with more than enough sauce to serve for lunch tomorrow, and stock both our freezer and our neighbors'.
I am doing the first round of limed watermelon rind pickles from a huge watermelon we bought last week. I still have half the melon in the fridge, so I will have to start a second round this afternoon. This melon has a perfect rind for pickling, with almost a full inch of white flesh between the red part and the outer skin. I cut the red flesh into cubes and served it fresh, and then trimmed and peeled the white part and cut it into little spears. I soaked the spears in a gallon of water with one cup of pickling lime overnight, and then rinsed them and soaked them in water twice for a few hours each time.
They are pickled just like a sweet cucumber--vinegar, sugar, pickling spices--but I like watermelon rind to be less sweet and more spicy than the cukes. I used 8 cups of cider vinegar, 7 cups of sugar, and about a tablespoon of mixed pickling spice. They cook in the syrup for about 40 mins, until they turn translucent, and then I packed them in pint jars.
We went to Walmart this morning to buy some baby stuff, and realized that all the melons were on super sale because yesterday was July 4. We never buy produce from Walmart, but it seemed like a good time to make and exception. We bought four cantaloupes, a seedless watermelon, and seven mangoes. I cut the cantaloupes into strips and stuck them in our food dehydrator. Commercial dried cantaloupe is always candied, which makes it delicious in very small quantities, and no good for kids. Home dried cantaloupe comes out leathery and perfumey. It is sweet, but not overpowering, and it is really good. I think the kids will love it, when their teeth are up to it. And I think it is great to serve to guests, because it is unexpected and reasonably healthy.
It will take a day or two to dry it out all the way, but once the melon is cut and the dryer is loaded, you only have to check on it once every few hours.
I may try to blend up some of it, maybe with some applesauce, and make it into a fruit leather. That way the kids would be able to eat it right away.
I finally have some good news about brined pickles. All of the cucumbers that I started two weeks ago were ready this weekend, and half of them came out very well. The Kick-Ass Barrel Cukes are the best, intense, spicy, and oniony. For me, they are too dilly, but many people seem to like them that way. I like the horseradish and hot pepper taste, and I think I may make a batch with no dill, just to see how they turn out.
The ones I made with just a few hot peppers and some mixed pickling spice are also very nice. I think I may spice up the brine even further to add to the effect, but they have a great texture, and a nice, clean taste.
The ones Hollie and I made from a recipe out of the Joy of Pickling are genuinely terrible. Nothing went wrong in the pickling process, they are totally edible, but they taste like Lemon Pledge. The combination of fennel and lemon with the sourness of the fermentation combines for a distinctively janitorial impression.
Finally, on Friday I put up this season's first batch of pickled green beans. The Goat Lady's bushes are producing like crazy, and we are having trouble keeping up with the harvesting. But these beans are great because they are raw packed. You only have to clean the beans and pack them into the jars with some garlic, red pepper, and mustard seed and then cover them with hot vinegar, water and salt. I didn't have any red pepper flakes available, so I used Texas Pete. I think that will work fine, because Texas Pete is pretty much just red pepper and vinegar.
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