Cranberry-Rhubarb Jam

Necessity is the mother invention, they say, and it was an overabundance of rhubarb that was the mother of this jam, my favorite. Rhubarb is tart, yes, as is cranberry relish, but they are tart in different ways. The rhubarb's "low notes" of tartness and the relish's "high notes" create a symphony on the tongue, whether you spread the jam on buttered toast or mix it with yoghurt.

Making this jam takes some planning. It's made with my Aunt Frances' Cranberry Relish, which I make with fresh, local cranberries in the fall, and rhubarb, which I pick in late spring. But the relish keeps beautifully in freezer bags, so when you make that in November, be sure to put extra in the freezer for the next spring's jam. The effort is well worth it.

The recipe below requires a quart of cranberry relish, but you can easily double it, triple it, or more depending on how much relish you put up in the fall and how much goodness you want to share with friends.

1 quart of Aunt Frances' Cranberry Relish

2 quarts of clean, chopped rhubarb

5 cups of sugar

In a large pot, combine the rhubarb and sugar. Let stand for 15-20 min. till the sugar has moistened. Bring to a boil and boil uncovered, stirring often. Add the cranberry relish and return to a boil. Can jars of it in a water bath as you would any jam. I prefer to put it up in half-pint jars.

If the jam is too much like a sauce for you, add dried fruit towards the end of the boil. I've made this with dried cherries, blueberries, and mango. All are delicious!

Cornmeal Waffles

In Maine, we are blessed to have access to locally grown foods, like Abenaki Flint 

A stack of cornmeal waffles. 

cornmeal from Songbird Farm in Unity.

One of two heritage cornmeals sold by Adam Nordell and Johanna Davis, Abenaki Flint is a native New England corn revived in recent years by Songbird Farm and others in the region. It makes delicious journey cakes and cornbread, but I thought it would be delicious as waffles, which can be made in batches, frozen, then popped into the toaster when needed.

The beauty of these unsweetened cornmeal waffles is that they can go sweet

BBQ fried chicken sandwich w/apple-spring greens slaw.

or savory. Eat them for breakfast with butter, banana, and maple syrup, sop up the juices from a plate of baked beans, or build a sandwich on top of them, like a BBQ fried chicken sandwich with tangy apple-spring greens slaw. 

Cornmeal Waffles (makes five 7-inch round waffles)

1.5 cups boiling water

6T vegetable oil or butter

½ cup cornmeal

3 egg yolks

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup flour (I used whole wheat)

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3 egg whites

Mix the boiling water, oil or butter, and cornmeal in a small saucepan, cook over low-medium heat, stirring, till the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat. Beat the yolks and buttermilk in a large bowl. Quickly stir in the cornmeal mixture. 

In one small bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients. In another small bowl, whip the egg whites to soft peaks. Mix the dry ingredients into the cornmeal mixture, then fold in the egg whites till incorporated. Cook in a preheated waffle iron. (One cup of batter makes a 7-inch round waffle.) Eat immediately, or cool and then freeze for future use.

Aunt Frances' Old-Fashioned Cranberry Relish

When I was a boy, back in the last millennium, we spent a lot of holidays with one or both sets of grandparents, as do many people. I have lots of fine, fond memories of those visits, and one of those memories was of the great family debate about what cranberry concoction to eat with the turkey on Thanksgiving. 

At the time, I was in the cranberry-jelly-from-a-can camp, while others wanted homemade cranberry relish. I must have been mesmerized by the jiggling, translucent jelly that still showed the lines from the can. Kids. Later in life, I came to appreciate cranberry relish, and during a visit to my Aunt Frances' house a few years back, I had the chance to go through her recipe box and make copies of whatever interested me. Things like hermits, haymaker switchel, and the family cranberry relish recipe. I've made a few minor enhancements of my own because, well, that's either one of my most charming traits or annoying ones. I bet you can figure out what they are, the enhancements and the traits.

Every two or three years, I take a trip Downeast to Lynch Hill Farms in Harrington. It's quite an adventure, but no one ever wants to go with me. Must be those annoying traits. Anyway, because it's such a long drive, it seems silly to leave with less than a 10 pound bag. Of course, a 10 pound bag makes 9 or 10 quarts of the ruby red deliciousness pictured below. I freeze nearly all the relish, saving some for use in the traditional manner, as a partner to what Ben Franklin thought should be America's national bird, but using much of it to make cranberry-rhubarb jams, which I think is pretty much the best jam I've eaten. So because I buy a 10 pound bag, the recipe below takes a 10 pound bag. I'll leave it to you to cut the recipe to suit your needs.

Cranberry Relish

Cranberry Relish

10 c water

16 c sugar

1/2 c triple sec

3 tbls. ginger powder

10 lbs. clean cranberries
10 navel oranges, sectioned, with thick ends removed, but not the peel.

Bring the water, sugar, triple sec and ginger to a boil. Add the cranberries, stirring to submerge them as best as you can till they come back to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Continue stirring until most of the berries have popped (cracked). You'll hear this clearly. This might take very little time, or it might take 5 or 10 minutes. I'd guess the quickness with which they pop depends on how fresh they are, and mine, coming straight from the farm, are mostly popped by the time they get to an even boil.

Next, stir in the orange pieces. They need to cook in the sauce for 5 minutes at 120 degrees Fahrenheit to kill certain enzymes. If the oranges aren't very cold, the temperature of the mixture may not drop down to 120 degrees, so your job might be just to make sure it all heats evenly and stays at or above 120 for the requisite time. Remove the pot from the heat and cool the relish a bit before processing to avoid any painful burns or heat-related spatters.

In batches, run the mixture through a meat grinder at a coarse setting if you have one, the meat grinder's coarse setting, not yours. Then process the relish in jars like you would jam or put it in freezer bags. That's what I do. Of course, if you make a small batch, you can simply cover it and keep it in the refrigerator. My guess is it'll keep for a week or two depending. 

If you don't have a meat grinder, you can use a food processor, but if you do that, separate the orange sections first and process them separately before adding and processing the rest of the relish. This helps to ensure a more consistent texture. If you put it all in together, by the time the oranges are well processed, the rest of it might be over-pureed, and some chunks of cranberry are a must!

Of course, this goes with turkey and pork, but it can be used by itself on toast, in oatmeal, or with certain cheeses. Uncertain cheeses should be avoided, as they are of dubious moral character. 

Black bean-butternut squash chili

Good food and good music go together well, but little did I know when my friend Liz Graves asked me to see The Mammals in concert in Belfast, that the music and food might come from the same people. 

Two of the members of The Mammals, Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar, are friends of Liz, so she was excited to hear them play at a summer evening show at The Crosby Center, but it was the opening act, Sassafras Stomp, that impressed me most. Johanna Davis (on fiddle and shruti box) and Adam Nordell (on guitar and banjo) played with skill and sincerity that captivated me.

Adam and Johanna on pick-up day at Songbird Farm

While engaged in stage banter, they told the audience a lot about themselves, including that they run Songbird Farm in Unity, a farm with an unusual farm share program. 

Most farm share programs deliver produce every week for the growing season, but Adam and Johanna's Pantry Share provides about a dozen locally grown organic grains and beans, including heritage varieties of wheat and Abenaki flint cornmeal, at the end of the season. They also offer a share of storage vegetables, like cabbage, beets, carrots, even Maine-grown sweet potatoes. 

Most weekly vegetable shares are too large for me to use by myself, but a winter's worth of grains and storage vegetables sounded great. I persuade a few friends to join me, and Liz and I picked up the shares in November.

Black bean-butternut squash chili

About a week after we picked up the shares, I was inspired to create this chili from the black beans and a butternut squash included in my share of the goods.

Here's the recipe. 

4 cups cooked black beans
4-6 cups of butternut squash in small cubes
2 tbl. olive oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp ground sage
1/2 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
2 tbl. olive oil
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
1 small, white or yellow onion, chopped
1 tbl. chili powder
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1 small can tomato paste
14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained


In a medium bowl, toss the squash with the oil, then the salt, sage and peppers. Roast the squash on a baking sheet in a 450 degree oven till just tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool. 

In a skillet, heat the oil on medium till it starts to shimmer. Turn the heat down to low-medium then add the garlic and cook, stirring, till the sharp smell fades, about a minute. Add the onions and cook them, stirring, till soft. Add the chili powder, oregano and cumin, mixing well. Stir in the tomato paste. When it is well blended with the garlic, onion and spices, stir in the tomatoes. Simmer the mixture, stirring occasionally, till most of the liquid has cooked off.

In a heavy-bottomed large pot, bring 3-4 cups of double-strength bouillon--I used beef--to a low boil. Stir in the tomato-onion mixture and the cooked beans. Bring back to a low boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally till the contents thicken, perhaps 10 or 20 minutes. Stir in the squash and cook till heated through. 

This chili is rich and complex as is, but feel free to dress it up to taste, perhaps with cheese, plain yogurt or sour cream. 

Note: oregano and cumin are already in most chili powders, but I added extra of both to enhance the vegetables in this chili. If this were a meat chili, I might not have done so.

Lemon pickled green beans

Fussy eaters filled my home when I was a growing up. My father, Ernie, known to many in Hancock County as "the potato chip man," grew up eating simple meals of meat and potatoes, and so that's what my mother usually put on our table, that and the occasional tuna wiggle. 

Along with pork chops or chicken or meatloaf, one of a short list of vegetables was featured: corn, peas or green beans, most often from a can. How did my mother prepare those vegetables? Let me count the ways. 1. boiled on the stove top with a pat of butter. 2. Uh, well, if boiling them on the stove was good enough for my grandmother, then it was good enough for us. 

Since taking my place in the kitchen, though, I have discovered loads of ways to prepare a bounty of vegetables. Green beans can be sautéed, stir-fried, roasted, steamed and even pickled. Pickling wasn't my favorite choice till recently, however, as the "dilly beans" I sampled from other people's pantries did not inspire enthusiasm. 

That all changed last year when I swapped some canned goods with my friend Abby Curtis. Her pickled green beans were a delight. I decided then that I would plant a patch of beans and put some up for winter eating, and I did just that earlier this summer. With the odd spring and summer weather, though, planting a second crop of beans on July 21 seemed like a good idea, as did experimenting with new seasonings. I'm now in the second week of harvesting those beans.

Lemon pickled green beans

After thinking about what flavors taste good with green beans (and make sense in a pickle), I settled on the following recipe. It's simple, with a prominent lemon note and otherwise balanced flavor. 

Here's the recipe for seven pints:
4 pounds of green beans, washed and cut to fit in the jars
6 black peppercorns per jar

1 Tbl. fresh chives per jar
1/2 tsp. lemon zest per jar
1/2 tsp. dried thyme per jar
5 cups of white vinegar
5 cups water

1/2 cup pickling salt

Fill the sterilized pint jars with the green beans, peppercorns, chives, lemon zest and thyme. Leave an inch of space at the top of the jars.

Start a water bath by putting enough water to cover the jars into a canning pot or other large, deep pot, and setting it on the stove on high to bring to a boil. 

While waiting for that watched pot, put the vinegar, water and pickling salt in a large pot over high heat, stirring to dissolve the salt. As soon as it comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and pour it carefully into the pint canning jars, leaving an inch of headspace for the food to expand. Put the sterilized lids and bands on those jars. They should be finger tight.  

Carefully lower those jars into the boiling water bath. Process them for five minutes from the time the water bath has resumed boiling. 

A lunch of whole wheat toast, cheddar and various pickles

Turn off the burner and remove the pot from the heat. Carefully remove the jars and set them on a cooling rack undisturbed till they cool. Once cool, tighten the bands and label them. They should be ready to eat in a week, but will keep for months or longer in a cool, dark place.

These lemon pickled green beans are delicious from the jar and make a great addition to a light lunch of toast, cheese and any other pickles you have on hand. Another great way to use them that many people just don't think about is as an ingredient in another dish. Think about it. You have green beans that are already pleasingly seasoned. They can be chopped and added to a cold potato salad, a stir-fry, fried rice or even an omelet with some parmesan cheese on top.

Enjoy!

Ginger pickled carrots (and my take on bahn mi!)

One of summer's joys is eating vegetables fresh from the garden. I fondly remember having lunch with my friends Phil and Chris at Chris' mother's place in Harborside. His mother is Barbara Damrosch, so fresh veggies were part of that meal. She went right out and picked carrots to eat in a salad.

Eliot Coleman, also at the table, said that to get the most nutrition out of fresh vegetables, they needed to be eaten soon after picking. That idea stuck with me, but sometimes I find a whole crop ready to harvest and can't possibly eat it all fresh. In that situation, I do my best to preserve the harvest for eating later in the year, perhaps in winter when summer is a distant memory or a promise of what's to come. 

Ginger-pickled carrots are the star.

Last week, I checked my garden charts and realized that it was time to harvest carrots to make room for another planting. They were ready, and I decided to pickle the bulk of them for later consumption. 

I had made ginger-pickled carrots before, but wasn't happy with the recipe or the process. That first recipe included mustard seed, which added a note that I didn't enjoy. It also involved blanching the carrots before canning them, but this softened the carrots, and I wanted mine still crunchy from the jar. I decided to follow a recipe I had used a few weeks earlier for pickled daikon, but with fresh ginger added in the hope that it would stand up to the sweetness of the carrots and the brine.

Here's the recipe for two pints of ginger pickled carrots:
enough carrots for 2 pint jars

1/2 tsp black peppercorns
8 or 10 matchstick sized pieces of fresh, peeled ginger
1-1/2 cups rice vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbl. pickling salt

First, prepare the carrots by washing and scrubbing them thoroughly. I don't peel them, but you certainly could if you like. Whether you cut them into sticks to fit the jars or into coins, I suggest they be no thicker than 1/4 or 1/3 inch. If you cut them into matchstick size pieces with bahn mi in mind, then those pieces are well below that thickness. 

Fill the sterilized jars with carrots. Add half of the ginger and 1/4 tsp. peppercorns to each pint jar.

Start a water bath by putting enough water to cover the jars into a canning pot or other large, deep pot, and setting it on the stove on high to bring to a boil. 

While waiting for that watched pot, put the vinegar, water, sugar and pickling salt in a saucepan over high heat, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. As soon as it comes to a boil, remove it from the heat and pour it carefully into the pint canning jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace. Put the sterilized lids and rings on those jars. They should be finger tight.  

Carefully lower those jars into the boiling water bath. Process them for 10 minutes from the time the water bath has resumed boiling. If it boils too vigorously, turn the heat down gradually. 

Turn off the burner and remove the pot from the heat. Carefully remove the jars and set them on a cooling rack undisturbed till they cool. Once cool, tighten the rings and label them. They should be ready to eat in a few days, but will keep for months or longer in a cool, dark place. I keep mine in a cupboard.

Once they're ready to eat, you can use them in a delicious Vietnamese sandwich called a "bahn mi," which I think just means "bread." I had my first bahn mi in Honolulu when I was in graduate school, and boy, did I enjoy it. It had a crackling crust, mayonnaise, pickled daikon, pickled carrots, curried chicken, cilantro and chili peppers. Oh, it was so good!

A venison bahn mi-style sandwich.

Inspired by that experience and knowing that I had both ginger-pickled carrots and pickled daikon in the cupboard, I decided to make a delicious sandwich with some venison I had slow-roasted the night before. You could certainly use roast beef or stick with chicken.

Here's how I made it. 

First, I bought a crusty baguette that was soft inside. Some "high end" baguettes can be too firm for our purpose. For the sandwiches in the picture, I cut the baguette in half and scooped out some of the bread to prevent the sandwich from sliding apart when you eat it. 

I smeared both pieces of baguette with wasabi mayo. You could use horseradish mayo, spicy mustard and mayo, or just mayo with sliced peppers on top, as is more traditional.

Then I put down a thick layer of pickled carrot and pickled daikon, draping an overlapping layer of meat on that. Thin-sliced cucumbers went on top of that, then 1/4 to 1/2 cup of cilantro leaves. I put the other half of the baguette on top, then cut it in half. Feel free to add more or less of something to suit your own taste. Mine was delicious, but it would have been more to my taste with extra wasabi in the mayo and more cilantro. Enjoy!

Baked ricotta gnocchi

When I was in graduate school its the early 2000s, I took a vacation in Spain and spent a lot of time with my old Maine friends Louise and Neil in Santiago de Compostela, where Neil was a student. My birthday came during that trip, and they treated me to dinner at a lovely restaurant in the old part of the city, where we both were staying. Seeing gnocchi on the menu, I had to have it. I'm a sucker for dumplings of any kind. These little, fresh dumplings were divine, tossed in a simple basil pesto. 

Many years later, I chaperoned a GSA trip to Italy, and when we got to the piazza del comune in Assisi, we broke off into groups for lunch. Two other teachers, Jackie and Rachel, and I decided to steer clear of the tourist-focused restaurants on the piazza, and within a few minutes walk, we found a place that looked promising: Ristorante I Monaci. After we settled in, I saw gnocchi on the menu and knew that I had to order it. I was expecting potato gnocchi, but when they came out, I realized that's not what I had ordered. These gnocchi weren't the small dumplings I was used to. They were the size of hens eggs, and they sat in a broiled casserole with sauce and a bit of cheese. When I cut into one of these gnocchi, the texture was incredible. They were soft, almost spongy, and absolutely delicious.

As the years passed, I realized that I wouldn't eat those dumplings again unless I made them for myself. I asked the restaurant for the recipe: no reply. I went online to find something that looked the same, thinking there'd be a recipe attached. I had no luck at first, but eventually, I found enough references to ricotta gnocchi that I decide to give it a shot. The recipes were inconsistent, though, so I set about figuring out the core principles for making ricotta gnocchi. Though these are not quite as spongy as what I ate in Assisi, they are still delizioso. Though it takes a bit of planning to make them, they are otherwise simple to prepare. Enjoy!

Baked ricotta gnocchi (serves four as a side or single course)

Ricotta gnocchi w/sauce and mozzarella

1/2 c. finely grated parmesan cheese
1 c. ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 c. flour
olive oil

2-4 c. tomato sauce
1 c. shredded mozzarella

Set a large pot of salted water to boil.

Set the oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Put the tomato sauce into the casserole, then slide the pan in the oven. Feel free to embellish the sauce. I start with crushed tomatoes and add garlic powder, a bit of truffle salt, basil, oregano, maybe a bit of crumbled Italian sausage--whatever I feel like.

As the pan and sauce warms, mix the parmesan, ricotta, and eggs well. I used a food processor, but a spoon or whisk will do. Transfer this into a large bowl. Fold in about one-third of the flour being careful not to mix it too much. The liquid and agitation activates the gluten and can make the dumplings tough. Gradually add the remaining flour. The mixture will go from being like batter, to being a soft dough that deforms, to being a stiffer dough that doesn't deform. That's what we're aiming for. 

Rub some olive oil on your hands, then take golf ball-sized lumps of dough and roll them quickly in your hands to make small balls. Set these on a platter as you go, but don't let them touch. After they are all rolled, put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a shallow bowl and put that near the boiling pot. Take the pan with the sauce out of the oven and put it near the shallow bowl. Turn the oven up to 500 degrees.

One at a time, drop the dumplings in the boiling water. After a couple minutes, they should rise to the surface. Continue to boil them for another minute or two, then using a slotted spoon, take several out, put them in the bowl with oil, and roll them around quickly to coat them with oil. Place them in the pan of sauce. Continue till all the dumplings are oiled and in the pan. Sprinkle with shredded cheese and put the dish in the oven. Bake till the cheese is well melted, about five minutes, then turn the heat up to broil. When the cheese has started to brown, remove the pan from the oven. Serve with the sauce and enjoy!