MMMMMMMMMore pickles

This moning my canner was still out on the stove from yesterday's canning project.  I thought I might as well get another small pickle project done before washing it up and storing it away.  Todays project is pickled carrots.  I like the italian style ones and Ben enjoys the mexican style ones, so I did both. The following recipe is enough brine to make about 6 pints of pickled carrots.

To start with, sterilize your jars.  Then you'll want to make a pickling brine.  This time I used this recipe:    
    5 Cups vinegar
    1 Cup water
    2 Cups sugar
    2 Tablespoons sea salt
    4 Tablespoons mustard seed (whole)

You will also need:
     Carrots (about 1/2 lb per pint jar)
     Garlic (1 clove per pint)
     Onion (1/4 Cup per pint of Mexican style)
     Jalepeno pepper (1/2 pepper per pint of Mexican style)
     Green bell pepper (about 4 cut sticks per pint)

Bring the brine to a boil.  In the mean time, wash-peel and cut your carrots.  For Italian style I made carrot sticks and for Mexican style I cut rounds. 

Peppers, onions and garlic add flavor and color to your pickled carrots

Start with Italian style pickled carrots. **It  is important to start with these because when you cook the Mexican style ones the brine will get too spicy due to the jalepeno peppers.**

Place a pinch of mustard seed in the bottom of the sterilized jars along with a pinch of whole leaf oregeno.  Add a whole garlic clove (I like to slightly crush them with the side of my knife first.)  Then add your raw green pepper sticks.

Place  your cut carrots into the hot brine.  Cook this on medium heat for about 8 minutes or until the carrot sticks are al dente.

You can fit about 1/2 lb of carrot sticks in a pint jar

Next add these hot carrot sticks to your jar using tongs.  Cover these with brine leaving about 1/2  inch of headroom in the jars.  Now put the lids and rings on jars and set aside on a towel on your counter.

For Mexican style pickled carrots:

Cut your cleaned carrots into rounds.  Cut jalepeno peppers in rounds and dice onions in large pieces.  Add these to the remaining brine and cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes or until al dente.

Cooking the mexican pickled carrot mixture

Add 1 slightly crushed garlic clove to bottom of each hot jar.  When the carrots mixture is cooked add that to the jar.  Be sure to include jalepeno pepper slices in each of the jars.  Cover with hot brine leaving about 1/2 inch of  headroom.  Add lids and rings.

Place both  Italian and Mexican style carrots into your water bath canning rack and waterbath for 10 minutes.

Remove from canner onto a towel on your counter and allow to cool.  Once completely cooled  remove the rings and label your jars.  Store in a dark cupboard for at least 1 month to allow for all the flavors to mature.  Ours should be ready to go for Thanksgiving!

Yummy Mexican and Italian pickled carrots!

What am I gonna do with all these little green tomatoes?

Pickling is a great way to preserve your

green end of season tiny tomatoes

We've had torrential rains for the last few days.  October in the Pacific Northwest is the wet cold season and now that the rains have started, there's no telling when they'll end. 

I still have 3 large yellow pear tomato plants in the garden that are producing. All this heavy rain is causing them to split as they ripen.  So today I went down and filled my pockets with tiny green tomatoes for pickling.  Then I grabbed the pruners and harvested a handful of anise flowers and oregeno from my organic herb bed along with about 8 garlic cloves that didn't get planted earlier this week.

Yellow pear tomatoes are about 1/2 the size of cherry tomatoes

When fully ripened they are a bright yellow, but these green ones

will be better pickled

Organic Anise flower from the boat garden

Garden fresh organic oregeno from the herb beds

These garlics didn't make the cut for planting but they will

compliment the small tomatoes for pickles

Back in the kitchen, I washed all of my items and pulled out the canning equiptment again.  First thing was to sterilize 4 quart jars and start the water to boil in the canner. 

In a seperate pot I brought these ingredients to a boil for the brine:

     *1 1/2 Quarts of white venegar

     *1 Cup sugar

     *1/3 Cup sea salt

As the brine was heating  I placed a pinch of mustard seed, corriander, and a few black pepper corns along with a few sprigs from the fresh herbs in the bottom of each jar.

No need to measure, just add a pinch to each jar

 Next I drained the tomatoes and packed them raw into the jars and added 2 cloves of peeled garlic in each jar.

So pretty!  The tomatoes and garlic cloves are the same size

Once the brine was boiled, I removed it from the heat and poured the hot liquid over the  tomatoes and herbs.  I left 1/2" of head room in the top of each jar and then added the lids and rings.  These went into a hot water bath canner at a boil for 10 minutes. Next I pulled the jars out and set on a towel on the counter where they will cool.

Pickling tiny tomatoes is quick and easy

Once they're cool I'll remove the rings, label the jars and place in the cupboard for at least 1 month.  After brining for a month these will be delicious little pickles and would make a nice garnish for bloody mary's or compliment any relish tray.

October garden: what's growing on?

With the bulk of my food preservation behind me, my thoughts turn back to my organic vegetable garden.  There are still a few veggies out there that will do fine up through the first frost.

 Now that the garden is sufficiently surrounded by netting, my carrots are starting to recover from their battle with the grazing deer. I hope to harvest them in November. 

I planted a new batch of lettuce about 3 weeks ago. Without the constant pruning by hungry deer this too is thriving!  It's going to be ready for a nice tender salad next week if the frost will hold off.

Tender tasty lettuce, the deer love it, but this batch is for me!

Some garden plants, like my everbearing strawberries, are self propigating.  I've got a nice patch growing in the bow of my boat garden.  With this years runners, there are about 12 new plants for next years berry season! The plants need very little coaxing to produce new plants.  All I had to do was arrange the runners so that the new florettes rooted in a suitable location.

Running on, these berries propigate themselves

The boat garden earlier this summer

Now that the weather has turned cool, it's time to get my spring bulbs in the ground.  I'm planning on a planting of daffodils and snow drops along with a  pot or 2 of tulips that will have to be protected from those deer.  I'll head into the nursery on Monday and pick them out.  Hopefully I can get my hands on some daffodil bulbs from Skagit Valley.

Skagit Valley daffodils spring 2009

 Flowers aren't the only bulbs that benefit from a fall planting.  It's also a good time to get next years garlic crop in the ground.  Garlic planted in autumn usually is ready for harvest a little earlier in the summer than spring planted cloves.

I have a basket full of garlic that I harvested in early September.  Because I use a frugal garden technique of planting the inner cloves of my kitchen garlic, some of the harvest was still a bit to small to use.  It was time to get those back in the ground where they will benefit from another couple seasons of growth.

A tisket a tasket a garlic bulb filled basket

Planting garlic cloves is just like planting any small bulb flower.  You'll want to pick a spot in your garden with nice loamy soil.  Space them 4-6" apart and about 2-3" deep.

small garden, no problem! Found enough room for 30 garlics!

I chose this nearly empty bed for my planting.  At the far end you can see I still have some celery growing here that I plan to over winter.  I use a square foot garden method because I have limited garden beds.  Using this technique, I planted some garlic amid the celery plants.

Garlic will grow well interplanted with many other veggies

I dug out 3 rows deep across my 18" wide beds.  This allowed me to get the most plants per square foot. 

It's easy to dig in this nice loamy garden soil

I chose my heartiest bulbs from the basket and set them in the holes.  It's important to plant them with the rooting side down!  Then I covered them with about 2" of soil and packed it down with my hands.  No need to add extra compost this time because this bed was already amended when I harvested the beans that had been growing here.  On that note, be sure to rotate your garden plants from year to year.  This will help reduce the chances of transfering any diseases that may be soil born.

From this tiny bulb I look forward to salsas stews and pestos for next year

Normally at this step I would water the bulbs in, but there was no need with a rainy weekend in the forecast.

Echo the eco-dog came to lend a paw.

Or maybe he just needed a hand with that toy?

That was easy!  Now I'll just let mother nature do her work.  The bulbs will start to root immediately and grow throughout the fall, winter and spring.  They should be ready to harvest at the start of next summer!

I'm sure going to miss my garden over the winter, but I'll get through those dreary months knowing that is still some action just below the soil.