Limoncello

I finally had a chance to deliver some of my homemade Christmas gifts to my friends and now I can tell you about what I made.  I made Limoncello for the first time and gifted bottles of it to some of my friends.  You can find all sorts of recipes for limoncello on the internet, so I'm not going to post one -- just the basic idea.  

I used approximately 20 lemons and 2 - 750 ml bottles of everclear (grain alcohol).  You only use the zest of the lemons -- I used a very sharp paring knife to be sure I didn't get any of the white pith.  The pith will make your limoncello bitter.  You could also use a zester but then you have to use filters to get the particles of zest out of the alcohol.  Anyway, I let the lemon zest soak in the strong alcohol for one month to infuse the alcohol with the essence of the lemon.  

After one month, I made a simple syrup (about 4 cups of water and the same amount of sugar dissolve over heat) and blended the syrup with the alcohol.  Immediately the alcohol gets a nice cloudy quality to it.  I love the way limoncello looks!  I purchased bottles from specialtybottle.com and bottled the limoncello right away.  The limoncello mellows with age, so it is nice to let it rest for another month if you can resist drinking it right away.  The limoncello should be served ice-cold.  I'm tucking a bottle of it away for a hot weekend next summer -- I think it would be splendid in the heat of summer.

That's all you have to do to make an amazing liquor beverage that is great to give at Christmas time.  It is not cheap, but it is easy (besides the hours spent to peel all those lemons).  When I was done peeling, I wasn't sure what to do with all of the lemons.  I ended up juicing them and pouring the juice into ice cube trays to freeze.  After freezing, I put the cubes in a freezer bag and dated the bag.  I figured I could then thaw them as needed throughout the year for any recipe that calls for lemon juice (I'm suddenly hungry for tabouleh salad - yum!).  

As it turns out, a couple of weeks later I decided to start making wine.  Making limoncello is the reason I chose to make lemon wine in the first place -- to use the abundance of fruit juice that I already had on hand.  As an update on the wine -- today I syphoned the wine into a new glass jar to get rid of some of the sediment at the bottom of the bottle.  I also tested the specific gravity and it is almost done.
Today I am also starting to venture into fermented tea -- or "Kombucha".  My good friend, Jen, gave me a chunk of her "mother" (the mushroom culture that turns tea into kombucha) yesterday when I visited.  I gave my dear friends limoncello and walked away with some of her amazing apple butter and some fungus (and got to try their cranberry wine too).  Stay tuned for more info on kombucha.

Spicy pickled carrots

Back when I was in college, I had the chance to experience some carrots that had been pickled with jalepenos.  The professor in the photography department held his office hours on Thursday nights at a local bar/restaurant called "Chico's".  They would serve you homemade tortilla chips and salsa and a small bowl of carrots.  These carrots have just the right amount of "kick".  I pulled a handful of jalepenos out of my garden the other day and decided to give this a try.  There are plenty of recipes for mexican pickled carrots on-line so I am not posting a technical recipe -- I just want to give you a general idea...

Use approximately 2 cups of carrots, cut 1/4 inch or less.  I also diced up 4 jalepenos, 1/4 of an onion and a few cloves of garlic.  In a sauce pan, dissolve 1/4 cup sugar in about a cup and a half of white vinegar.  I also added a splash of water (1/2 cup?) because some of the liquid is going to evaporate while heating.  After the sugar is dissolved, add the veggies to the pan.  No need to boil anything here, just let the veggies heat a bit in the vinegar to get the flavors combined.  I left mine on the stove about a half hour on very low heat.  Carefully fill a clean jar -- I re-used an old pickle jar.  These should be fine in the fridge for about 2 months.  There are recipes out there that will give you more exact directions if you would like to can preserve them.
Give these a try -- they are very refreshing and because they aren't really "cooked", the carrots stay slightly crisp.  They are delicious and pair nicely with a cold beer on a summer day.

pickles and things

I finally took the plunge and bought the water canning equipment I needed to try my hand at canning.  I started with dill pickles - they seemed like one of the easiest things to do.  And they were!  I'm hoping they turn out tasty -- the recipe said to wait a couple of weeks before trying them.

I want to try bread and butter pickles, tomatoes, and tomato sauce, and perhaps some gifts to give away at Christmas time.  Next year I should be able to make cooked jam instead of freezer jam and free up some room in my freezer for other stuff (Charlie said he might take up hunting again if we get deer on our new -hopefully- property).

Here are a couple of photos from an art fair that took place in Frankenmuth a couple weeks ago.  I surprised myself and found the artist below to be my favorite.  Something must be wrong with me to like these fish so much -- my tastes are changing.  They are pretty cool though - don't you think?
This guy was making fire pokers out of iron.  I just like the photo.
And here is a photo from the garden.  I have harvested all of the onions and am putting them by.  I've heard that they can be put into panty hose for storage.  Just put one in, tie a knot, add another one, another knot, etc.  I'm gonna have to try it to see if it really works.
We are busy trying to buy the home that I wrote about on my last blog.  After our offer, their counter offer, our counter to their counter, and finally their counter on that counter offer - we seem to agree on a price for the home.  An additional acre is being added to the deal - so we will have 2.91 acres (that back acre is wooded).  We have to get an inspection now.  Well, actually, the seller has to sign our offer, then we sign and have 10 days for the inspection.  We are hoping everything goes smoothly from here (with the bank, etc).  It will still be a while before we can move in, but if things go smoothly, we are looking at the end of October or November (hopefully before snow flies).

I have to get going today.  We have to do laundry (oh, it will be SO nice to not have to go to the laundromat any more) and go to my sister-in-laws 40th Birthday celebration at their favorite pizza joint.  I am also trying to get together with a friend to see a movie tonight at the old movie theatre in Vassar, MI.

strawberry jam, asparagus and morels

I made my very first strawberry jam last week.  It is freezer jam and was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  It is delicious too!  If you can get some fresh strawberries this year from a local farmer or the farmers market, I would recommend trying it.  Just buy a box or two of sure-jel and follow the recipe provided.

As I mentioned previously, we didn't have much luck looking for asparagus.  The one in the photo below was really thick in diameter.  I shot this photo to show what asparagus looks like in the wild.  Notice the pale dried up stalks from last summer's growth.  The old stalks are one of the better ways to find a patch in the Fall.  All you have to do is remember where they are in the Spring and you have free veggies!

Most of the asparagus we found was already branching out as seen below.  Eventually, they become quite large and look like wispy Christmas trees.  When we found a few like the one below we still checked the area for smaller ones.  We found plenty that had already been cut by someone else.  Oh well.

My friend from work brought me some morels today.  They are gorgeous and we can't wait to eat them.  These are cut in half and soaking in water to get rid of the bugs and dirt.