On Sunday, I ventured up to Lake Placid to visit my brother. He currently works at the North Country School as a Farm Intern--soon to be Farm Education Coordinator (or something like that). The North Country School is a very cool boarding school/summer camp set at the base of Pitchoff and Cascade Mountains in the heart of the Adirondacks. The school has an impressive farm which supplies the kitchen with all kinds of veggies, poultry, pigs, eggs and maple syrup. They also work to integrate the farm into the school curriculum. Think of a social studies class discussing regional/cultural cuisine and using food from the farm to prepare a meal, or a science class using the annual pre-Thanksgiving turkey slaughter as a lab. Pleasant thought I know.
When I arrived on Sunday afternoon, most of the farm staff was busy "processing food." By this I mean, they were pickling and canning fresh cucumbers, beans and beets for storage. This is all done for their own personal use, as the kitchen isn't allowed to serve canned veggies to the kids for health code reasons. I had never seen canning in action before, but it is a very cool process and inspired me to try it!
I was allowed free reign to take whatever I wanted from the farm, and boy, did I. My eyes might have been a bit bigger than my fridge, but I left with a pretty impressive haul of basil, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, beans, beets, sage, and thyme.
Now that I am back on a fairly normal work schedule, I decided to use my free time after work yesterday to start "processing" my loot from the previous day. My goal was to start by making pickles! Before you start canning, you have to wash and sanitize the jars. This can easily be done in the dishwasher, but because mine decided it was no longer going to work last night, I did this by hand. I washed the jars and then sanitized them in a big pot of boiling water. Heating the jars also helps prevent the glass from breaking when the hot brine is added later in the process.
The lids and rings must also be heated to soften the seal and sanitize--but be sure not to bring these to a boil, just a simmer.
While all of this was working on the stove, I made zucchini bread. My hope was to use up a massive zucchini, but I was able to get the two required cups of grated zucchini from just about half of the veggie. This recipe made a very large loaf, which I actually cooked in a bunt pan. Recipe note--I halved the amount of sugar. It called for 3 CUPS but because it's from Paula Dean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Once the zucchini bread was in the oven, I cleaned and sliced up four large cucumbers. I placed them in the sanitized jars and added dill seed, a glove of garlic, a slice of jalapeno pepper and some whole pepper corns. To that I added the hot brine which consisted of water, white vinegar (at a ratio of 2-1) and salt. It helps if you have a funnel to control spillage. I placed the lids and rings on the four jars and then put them into a large pot of water to process for 20 minutes. The "processing" time starts once the water has come to a boil.
For more information on the how tos of canning, jarring and pickling check out this website : http://www.freshpreserving.com/getting-started.aspx.
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