Category Archives: Canning

Preserving the Season, Basil.

The local growing season is winding down, and it’s time, before the first frost, to preserve your herb garden. I’m gonna start with basil.

Genovese Basil in my garden.

Every year I plant a lot of basil; “a lot’ is a relative term; it’s a lot for my personal use, usually in the range of a dozen plants. This year was no different. I planted 8 Genovese (Sweet Italian) Basil plants, 2 Thai Basil and 2 Piccolo Basil plants.

Throughout the growing season, I pick leaves and use them as needed. Genovese in salads, on pizza, sandwiches, and whatever Mediterranean-style recipe calling for fresh basil. The Thai basil gets used in, you guessed it, Thai dishes as well as other Asian style stir-fries, salads, or wraps I happen to make. The Piccolo, I mostly use for dried basil; I will probably write about this in another upcoming “Preserving the Season” blog about drying herbs.

Throughout the season, as the plants produce buds, I pull them off and place them in little bowls on a sunny windowsill in my kitchen to let them dry, before placing them in airtight containers for use throughout the year.

Basil buds drying on my windowsill.

The bulk of the basil that I grow goes into making pesto. Using the Genovese basil, toasted pine nuts, Parmigiano Reggiano, EVOO, garlic, and salt, I make big batches. After making the pesto, I separate it into 4-ounce cups and freeze it for later use. As of now, I have about 30 of these 4-ounce pesto cups in my freezer, ready to go.

We will be having a lot of pesto-based meals in the future; this is not a bad thing. Pasta with some veggies and pesto can be made in the time it takes to cook some high-quality dried Italian pasta. A delicious, inexpensive 20-minute dinner is at times just what is needed.

Don’t limit the pesto use to just pasta; it’s also great on chicken, pork, salmon, in sandwiches, with burrata, drizzled on a rustic soup, in potato or bean salads. It’s very versatile; just use a little bit of imagination and run with it. If you’re adding pesto to a dish, you’re bound to be making that dish better.

My go-to recipe uses pine nuts; you don’t have to, they tend to be expensive and sometimes hard to find. I have seen them at Costco, in bulk, 2-pound bags, at reasonable pricing. You can substitute other nuts with great results. I have made pesto with almonds, walnuts, and hazelnuts in the past; all were great.

Preserving the Season: Dill Pickles.

An early peek at my dill pickles.

At EVOO, we always had big buckets full of dill pickles. At lunch, we served them as a side on our sandwich plates; we also used them in whatever recipes called for dill pickles, such as roasted pepper-pickle relish, which we sometimes served with grilled meats. I also remember an olive-pickle compote that paired very well with grilled striped bass. Another favorite is potato-pickle salad, which I still make regularly. Of course, we would use these delicious dills in tartar sauce. We would also serve them as an accompaniment to many of our homemade charcuterie items, such as smoked bluefish pate, country pate, and liver mousse.

I miss these pickles.

That’s why I decided it was about time to make them at home.

I figured if I bought about 8 lbs, that would be sufficient to get me through until next year’s harvest.

Once again, I headed off to my local farmers’ market; the Arlington Market is my go-to on Wednesdays. I picked through the bin of pickling cucumbers; I favor the small to medium-sized firm cucumbers. In my opinion, they make the best pickles. If they’re too big, they tend to be soft and seedy. I like to pick cucumbers all around the same size, so that they all pickle evenly.

The first thing that I did was to trim the blossom end off of the cucumbers. There are some enzymes in the blossom end that will soften the pickles; I like firm, crisp pickles.

Be sure to rinse the cucumbers thoroughly under cold water.
All the ingredients are divided into 2 each 8 quart containers. Well, almost all the ingredients are in there; I still need to add a couple of grape leaves to each container. The grape leaves are tannic and will also help keep the pickles crisp and firm.
The Pickles are all set to be placed in the back of my refrigerator for at least a month before I give them a try; this I am looking forward to.

An added bonus to this recipe is that the onions and garlic are delicious pickles in their own right. At EVOO, we often batter and fry the pickled onion rings. I also recall making pickled garlic aioli that we used on several different dishes, including on a few versions of our “Burger of the Week” as well as an accompaniment to fried seafood. The pickled garlic is also great sliced thin and put on salads; the pickling takes the hot bite out of the garlic, leaving a nice crisp, flavorful garlic pickle.

Preserving the Season- Tomatoes.

Once again, it’s that time of year; where did the summer go? It’s time to preserve the summer’s local bounty, starting with canning tomatoes.

Here is a pictorial of how I canned more than 2 cases, about 50 pounds of local tomatoes. 40 pounds came from Verrill Farm in Concord, MA; the remaining 10 pounds were from my backyard garden.

First, using a small sharp knife, I cut the core out and put a shallow X, just through the skin on the opposite side of each tomato.
I then blanched the tomatoes, in several batches, in simmering water for not more than 30 seconds, then I placed them in an ice bath before removing and discarding the skins.
A bucket full of peeled tomatoes.
I then cut all the tomatoes in half along the equatorial line.
I then gently squeezed out the seeds, reserving and straining them, pouring some of the strained liquid into the pot with the peeled and seeded tomatoes. I wanted to have some liquid in the pot for when I started to cook the tomatoes; this will cut down on the possibility of burning the tomatoes before they break down from the heat in the pan.
50 pounds is a lot of tomatoes! This 4-gallon pot is almost full and all set to be cooked.
The tomatoes are on the heat and are starting to break down.
After about 45 minutes on medium-high heat, the tomatoes were fully cooked and mostly mushy. At this point, I ran them through the coarse die of a food mill.
Hot milled tomatoes are ready to be placed in mason jars.
All jarred up, in a simmering water bath for 15 minutes.
50 pounds of tomatoes worked down to 13 quart jars.
Jars are dated only with the year. I won’t be doing more tomatoes this year, so the year is the only date that I need.
Put-up in the cellar for use throughout the following year.