A couple of weeks ago, I was scouring the farmers market looking for inspiration. My spring canning class was coming up and I wanted to show the class something a little bit different in the pickle category – something that might inspire them to think of vegetable pickles “outside the jar”.  Something that would lend itself to use beyond a sandwich garnish.  My eyes landed on some beautiful, stripey, baby eggplant, and I knew immediately what I would do.

Two years ago, while participating in the Can Jam, I created a recipe for pickling spring onions and green garlic in balsamic vinegar and red wine that was so versatile, I used it as part of an antipasto plate, on cheese sandwiches, and even used the pickling liquid as a dressing for salads and caprese picks.  That recipe was even chosen to be included in Sarah B. Hood’s book, We Sure Can!

I thought that something similar would work for this beautiful baby eggplant, so I gave it a try.  And yes, it was worth it! The eggplant became tender and smooth – almost unctuous – contrasting in texture with the still firm onion, and the sweet/tart balsamic brine works beautifully as a dressing, alone or mixed with melted butter and/or olive oil.

One of my serving suggestions in class:  Melt 2 Tbs butter, add 2 Tbs olive oil, then add a one pint jar of this pickle, including the liquid.  Heat gently for just a couple of minutes and toss with hot pasta, long or short, of your choice. Instant supper! If you use short pasta, toss the hot pasta with olive oil and this pickle, and you can also serve it as a cold pasta salad – refreshing on a hot summer day. The possibilities go on and this recipe is easily doubled if your eggplant crop starts getting out of control, this summer.

Melanzana Balsamica
(Balsamic Eggplant)
(Makes about 3 pints)

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ lbs  baby eggplant
• 1 large red spring onion
• 3 large cloves garlic
• 1 cup red wine (preferably Italian)
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp canning salt (or 1 ½ tsp kosher salt)
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)
• ¾ cup balsamic vinegar (5% acidity or higher)

Preparation:

Fill the canning pot with water and bring to a boil.  Place 3 pint canning jars and their lids into the pot and sterilize for 10 minutes.  While this is happening:

Wash and dry the eggplant, cut off the stem caps, and slice lengthwise into quarters.  If using a less-tender-skinned variety of eggplant, you may wish to peel it first.  Peel the onion, cut off the ends, cut in half lengthwise and cut into thick slices, also lengthwise.  Peel garlic cloves and smash with the broad part of the knife blade.

Put the vegetables into a medium non-reactive pot, add the wine, water, and salt, and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat to medium-high, and allow to cook for 5 minutes.

Add the balsamic vinegar and cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Canning:

Divide the hot vegetables equally between the 3 hot jars, pressing down firmly.  Add the hot liquid to each jar. Release trapped air bubbles with a chopstick or any thin, non-metallic tool (such as a plastic knife), allowing the liquid to fill the space.  Leave ½” headroom at the top of each jar, removing any excess liquid with a spoon.

Clean the jar rims well with a wet paper towel, place lids on the jars, screw on the rings finger-tight, and return to the canning pot. Bring back to a rolling boil and process for 10 minutes.  Turn off the heat and allow the jars to remain in the water for an additional 5 minutes before removing them to a covered surface to cool. Listen for the ping!

Allow to meld for a minimum 1 ½ – 2 weeks before using.  Of course, it gets better with age.

I’m entering my slaw in the “Can You Can It? Yes, You Can!” contest at

Eve’s The Garden of Eating Blog! The roundup will be posted on August 22nd,

followed by a week of public voting. You’ll vote for me, right?

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*The winner of Sarah Hood’s new book, We Sure Can!, as chosen by Random.org, is Comment Number 6: Elle! I think you’ll love it, and hope to hear about your new canning adventures in the future! Thanks for playing, everyone! We Sure Can! is now available through Amazon.com, too – you should get it anyway. *

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Let the Pickle Party begin! And like any good party, I’ve got a prize for one lucky reader! But first, you have to read about my Pickled Chayote Slaw recipe. I’m sneaky that way.

Pickled Chayote Slaw

All across the world, foodies and food bloggers are posting pickles. We want to show you that it’s not as hard and scary as you think to “put up” some of nature’s bounty – whether you grow it yourself or run across an incredible deal at your local farmers market – and take back some control of the food you put on your table. I chose to make a citrusy pickled chayote slaw for the Pickle Party.

At first, I thought I’d pickle some cauliflower for you, since that’s one of my husband’s favorites and he still hasn’t forgiven me for trading the two jars we had left, at our recent Miami Food Swap. Since I started selling my jams at the South Miami Farmers Market every other week, though, I’ve had the opportunity to get in on some very cool produce at very reasonable prices. Last weekend, I was gifted with half-a-dozen chayote squashes.

Not familiar with “chayote”? Read this:

“The chayote (Sechium edule), also known as christophene, vegetable pear, mirliton, christophine (in France), chouchoute (in Vanuatu), choko (in Australia and New Zealand), starprecianté, citrayota, citrayote (Ecuador and Colombia), chuchu (Brazil), chow chow (India), cho cho (Jamaica), Sayote (Philippines) ,güisquil (Guatemala, El Salvador), or pear squash, iskus (इस्कुस) (Nepal) is an edible plant that belongs to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae along with melons, cucumbers and squash.” — Source: Wikipedia

All parts of the chayote are edible. It can be eaten cooked or raw and is a great source of Vitamin C. The texture of chayote is crisp and slightly starchy and it has a very mild, slightly sweet flavor that is perfect for soaking up the flavors of whatever you choose to cook with it. It can be cooked like any other squash and is frequently shredded and mixed with lemon or lime juice for a slaw-like side dish.

This recipe was created for the “boiling water” canning method and will yield about 5 pints of pickled slaw. For detailed information on safe canning practices, please visit the link for the USDA Canning Guides that’s in the “Places I Like To Visit” section of the far-right sidebar. And check out the links at the bottom of this post, too! – This weekend, we’re going to be Canning Across America! Canning parties and live streaming videos from my friends at CanningAcrossAmerica.com!

Pickled Chayote Slaw

Ingredients:

6 chayote, halved and cored

1 medium onion, peeled and halved

3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into thirds

4 cups white vinegar

1/3 cup lime juice (I used Key Lime juice. ‘Cuz I’m a rebel.)

1 cup water

1/4 cup sugar (see *Note, below)

1 Tbs. canning salt

Cumin seeds

Celery seeds

Brown mustard seeds

Small dried hot chili peppers (such as Thai chilies) – optional

Preparation:

Fill your boiling water canning pot with water and put it on to boil. While it’s heating, start prepping the vegetables and pickling liquid as follows:

Shred the vegetables, using the medium shredding disc of your food processor or the large-holed side of a box grater. Set aside.

In a 6 quart, non-reactive pot, combine the vinegar, lime juice, water, sugar, and canning salt. Heat to boiling, over high heat, stirring until the salt and sugar are dissolved.

When the liquid boils, add all the vegetables to the pot, stir to mix well, and return it to a rolling boil, and turn off the heat.

Heat your jars and lids in the boiling water canner.

Fill each jar with the hot vegetables to one-inch (1″) from the top. To each jar, add 1/4 tsp of the cumin seeds and mustard seeds, and 1/8 tsp of the celery seeds. Add one of the dried hot peppers, if using. Fill each jar with the hot pickling liquid to 1/2″ from the top. Poke around inside each jar with a long, thin utensil, such as a chopstick or fondue fork, to release any trapped air bubbles. This has the dual effect of distributing the spices.

Top each jar with a new canning lid, twist on the ring, finger-tight, and, making sure that the water covers the jars by at least one-inch (1″), process in the boiling water canner for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the jars to sit in the canner for an additional 5 minutes before removing them to a surface that’s been covered with a dish towel or newspapers.

Allow the jars to sit, undisturbed, for 24 hours and check your seals. Any jars that didn’t seal properly should be refrigerated. The slaw should be ready to eat in a day or two.

*Notes: Make sure to taste your pickling liquid before adding the vegetables, to make sure you’ve got the sweet/tart balance to your taste.

What I was going for, was something like a cross between a vinegar-dressed cole slaw and sauerkraut. It came out tart, only the slightest bit sweet, but still retaining a slightly crispy bite – very much like a cabbage-style slaw or kraut. You can eat this as a side dish with any kind of sandwich, or pile it on your favorite hot dog, as I did here:

(Why yes, I did neglect to take a photo of the chayote before I shredded it for my slaw. If you’d like to see what it looks like in the raw, go here.)

Now for the even more fun stuff! If you’ve visited here in the last several weeks, you might have noticed this badge, over there in the sidebar:

I was surprised and delighted when Toronto food writer, veteran canner, and fellow Can-Jammer, Sarah B. Hood, asked to include one of my pickle recipes in her new book, We Sure Can! I tell you up-front that I was paid a grand total of $50 plus two copies of the book as compensation for my contribution.

Well, I just got my copies of We Sure Can! last week, and it is beautiful! Great photos and over 100 great canning recipes from respected and talented food writers and bloggers in whose company I am more than humble to find myself (including Sarah, herself). Seriously. Read more about this fabulous book and everyone who contributed, on the publisher’s page.

So, what am I going to do with two copies, hmm? To celebrate the Pickle Party and the official launch of We Sure Can!, I am going to give my extra copy to one of you! To enter:

1. Leave a comment telling me about a favorite food memory and what you’d like to preserve; AND/OR
   
2. If you’re on Twitter, tweet this: “I entered to win a copy of “We Sure Can!”, the new canning book by @SarahBHood, from @RJFlamingo. You can, too! http://bit.ly/qpwnsm” Then leave a comment saying that you did. AND/OR
   
3. If you’re on Facebook, please “like” Flamingo Musings, and leave a comment here, saying that you did. AND/OR
   
4. Post on your Facebook wall “I entered to win a copy of “We Sure Can!”, the new canning book by Sarah B. Hood, from Flamingo Musings. You can, too! http://bit.ly/qpwnsm”, and of course, leave another comment here.

The winner will be selected by Random.org on Sunday night, August 14, 2011 at midnight. Please make sure there is a valid email address attached to your comment(s) so I can get in touch with the winner. If I don’t hear from the winner by Tuesday, August 15th, another winner will be chosen. Please limit your tweets to once per day – I don’t want you to annoy your friends!

P.S.: Did I mention that this is open to everybody, everywhere? What the heck – it’s my nickel, right?

We Sure Can! is now available through Amazon.com, too!

If you want to learn more about pickling and preserving, don’t forget National Can-It-Forward Day, this Saturday! Check out the links, below:

National Can-It-Forward Day

Streaming Can-It-Forward Demonstration Schedule

CanningAcrossAmerica.com

Happy Pickle Party!

Now that I’m back from my travels, I’m going back to the farmers market for inspiration, both for personal use, and for Freakin’ Flamingo.

I love pickles. I can’t think of any meal that a pickle can’t perk up. You know that I’ve made pickles before – pickled asparagus, pickled carrots, pickled spring onions & green garlic, even pickled cantaloupe. What I haven’t pickled yet, are cucumbers. Mostly because I hadn’t seen pickling cucumbers around here that are local and worth the effort.

That’s changed. I recently found a vendor at the South Miami Farmers Market with some of the prettiest – and tastiest – local produce I’ve ever had. Seems I can now get limes and key limes grown locally, not from Mexico or Guatemala. And I can now get pickling cucumbers! In my latest outing this weekend, Laura tossed a few cukes into my box so I could try them out before buying a boatload next weekend.

So, I canned up a quick quart and this is what I came up with:

Spicy Garlic Pickles
(makes 1 quart)

Ingredients:

2 cups white vingegar
1 cup white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tbs. pickling/canning salt

4 pickling cucumbers
1 serrano chili pepper
1 tsp. whole black peppercorns
1 tsp. whole coriander seeds
1 tsp. whole dill seed
1 large clove garlic

Preparation:

Bring the vinegars, water, and salt to a boil in a 2-quart pot.

Slice the cukes in half, lengthwise, or leave whole if you prefer. Heat (or sterilize) a one-quart canning jar and fill the hot jar with the cucumbers (stuff ‘em in there!). Make a long slit in the serrano pepper, give the peeled garlic clove a good whack with the flat of your knife blade, and insert those into the jar, followed by the whole spices.

Fill the jar with the boiling brine, leaving 1/2″ of head space, wipe the mouth of the jar with a clean, very damp paper towel, top with a new, heated lid, and add the screw-on band, tightening finger-tight.

Place the filled jar in a boiling water canner, or even a tall stock pot with a rack in the bottom (make sure you have at least 1″ of water over the top), and boiled, covered, for 15 minutes.

Allow to meld for a minimum of one or two weeks before eating.

Notes:

If you don’t want to boiling water process these, you can put the jar in the fridge after it’s cooled, but it may take a bit longer for the flavors to develop. Also, they have to live in your fridge. One of the benefits of water canning process is that you can leave them in your pantry for months.

I’m going to pop these babies open next weekend, and I can’t wait!

Hey – stay tuned for some special announcements, including some promotions for Freakin’ Flamingo!

Cucurbits. You’d be right in thinking “cucumbers,” because they are a major part of this family of gourds. I’m betting you’ll see a bunch of pickled cucumbers in this month’s Can Jam, and honestly? I probably would have made some myself if they weren’t out of season down here. We’re a little out of sync with the rest of y’all.

But what we are getting, are melons! Cantaloupe (and their brothers and sisters of the musk melon sub-family) and Honeydews. And thanks to the USDA Canning Guide, I actually found a method of preserving them, using our required hot-water bath method. So, for this month’s Can Jam, I bring you something (I think) weird and wonderful.

I bring you:

CANTALOUPE PICKLES (makes about 4 pints)

Ingredients:

5 lbs of 1-inch cantaloupe cubes (about 2 medium underripe* cantaloupe)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 one-inch cinnamon sticks
2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
4-1/2 cups cider vinegar (5%)
2 cups water
1-1/2 cups white sugar
1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

Select cantaloupe that are full size but almost fully green and firm to the touch in all areas including the stem area.

Preparation:

Day One: Wash cantaloupe and cut into halves; remove seeds. Cut into 1 inch slices and peel. Cut strips of flesh into 1 inch cubes. Weigh out 5 pounds of pieces and place in large glass bowl. Place red pepper flakes, cinnamon sticks, cloves and ginger in a spice bag and tie the ends firmly. Combine vinegar and water in a 4-quart stockpot. Bring to a boil, then turn heat off. Add spice bag to the vinegar-water mixture, and let steep for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Pour hot vinegar solution and spice bag over melon pieces in the bowl. Cover with a food-grade plastic lid or wrap and let stand overnight in the refrigerator (about 18 hours).

Day Two: Carefully pour off vinegar solution into a large 8- to 10-quart saucepan and bring to a boil. Add sugar; stir to dissolve.

Add cantaloupe and bring back to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until cantaloupe pieces turn translucent (about 1 to 1-1/4 hours). Remove cantaloupe pieces into a medium-sized stockpot, cover and set aside.

Bring remaining liquid to a boil and boil an additional 5 minutes. Return cantaloupe to the liquid syrup, and bring back to a boil.

With a slotted spoon, fill hot cantaloupe pieces into hot pint jars, leaving 1-inch headspace. Cover with boiling hot syrup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel. Adjust lids and process 15 minutes.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like Pickled Cantaloupe, and was glad to see that I was able to perfectly halve this recipe and made two pints. But you know, what? They’re pretty good! Chilled and served as a side-dish, they compliment barbecued chicken, really well.

Surprised? I was!

For the May Can Jam, we were given the choice of either asparagus or rhubarb. Rhubarb being one of my absolutely least favorite vegetables – right up there with fennel (I wanna know who decided these things are vogue. Sour and licoricey. Bleah.) – and asparagus being one of my all-time faves, the choice was a no-brainer.

Now, what to do with it.  Since the rules say we must use the boiling water canning method – and I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout pressure canning (yet), pickling is the default position.

I love pickled asparagus. In fact, I served Oxford Falls Asparago Conservuto as part of the antipasto at my mom’s birthday party a couple of months ago. Best I’ve ever had!  So I turned to my Twitter buddy Jim (@oxfordfalls), and asked if he would share his recipe with me.  He’s such a sweetie, he said yes! And dutifully e-mailed it to me.

What he didn’t tell me, was that it was literally his usual recipe.  Any recipe that starts with “Two 11# boxes of asparagus” and uses a gallon each of water and cider vinegar, is a bit beyond my current resources.

So, after consulting with various canning books to get something less than commercial proportions, and a bit of weeping when I realized that my pint jars are not really tall enough to get the long, graceful spears I was after, here’s what I came up with (recipe used with permission):

Pickled Asparagus (makes one pint)

Ingredients:

1 lb. thin asparagus, trimmed to fit 1/2″ below the rim of a pint jar (reserve bottoms for other use)
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1 Tbs. pickling salt
1/4 tsp. coriander seed
1 dried red chili pepper
1 large clove garlic, peeled
1 sprig fresh dill

Method:

In a medium saucepan, bring the vinegar, water and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt.

Sterilize the jar and lid appropriately, and arrange the raw asparagus spears “heads” down in the hot jar.  Insert the chili pepper, garlic clove, and dill sprig. Add the coriander seed.  Fill the jar with the hot brine, leaving 1/4″ head space.  Cover with the lid and jar ring, and boil for 15 minutes.

Allow to meld for a week or two before use.

Note:  I love this recipe for its simplicity and the great little zing you get from the chili pepper and garlic. This pickled asparagus makes a perfect little stirrer / garnish for bloody marys, or as a side with meat, or a snack with cheese.

As a side-note, I actually made a double-recipe of the brine, intending to pickle some jalapeño peppers and some Central American long peppers my husband bought.  The jalapeños were fine, but this is what happened to the Ball jar the other peppers were in:

Yup, the bottom fell out.  Literally.  I still don’t know why, but after consulting with some canning mavens on Twitter, determined that it wasn’t me. Just something that happens sometimes.  I’m just grateful that it wasn’t the asparagus!

Yes, indeedy! Alliums. According to Webster’s: any of a large genus (Allium) of bulbous herbs of the lily family including the onion, garlic, chive, leek, and shallot. Another low-acid food was assigned to us for this month’s Tigress’ Can Jam. But I love every member of this family, so I was pretty excited. And had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.

And then I went to the local farmers’ market and found

Colorful local spring onions, green garlic, and its big brothers! Who knew you could grow garlic in South Florida? In the same trip, I also scored some incredible balsamic vinegar and fig balsamic. Now what?

I read a lot of recipes, got my proportions straight, and created:

Pickled Onions & Green Garlic al Balsamico

You know I made that up, right?

Ingredients:

6 spring onions + 4 green garlics, washed well & sliced thinly (white & light green parts only)
(totaling about 5 cups)

1 cup red wine (I used a Montepulciano)

1 cup water

1 tsp. salt

3/4 cup good balsamic vinegar

Method:

Put the onions and green garlic in a 4 quart saucepan with the red wine, water and salt. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower to a simmer for about 5 minutes, or until the vegetables soften slightly. Add the balsamic vinegar and return to a simmer for another 5 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare 2 pint jars and their lids for boiling water canning and get your canning pot up to a boil.

Divide the hot, cooked vegetables between the two prepared jars and fill with the hot balsamic/wine liquid, leaving 1/2 inch head space. You might have some liquid left over.

Clean the rims of the jars with a wet cloth or paper towel, put lids on the jars, finger-tighten the lid rings and process in boiling water for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to sit in the hot water for another 5 minutes before removing the jars to cool.

Allow to sit for at least a week before eating, and of course, refrigerate after opening.

I made 2 batches of this – one with the regular aged balsamic vinegar, and the other with the fig balsamic. We served the fig balsamic version with other pickled vegetables (including last month’s Baby Carrots in Honey, Vinegar & Dill) as part of the antipasto at my mother’s birthday party, last weekend, and it was simply delish with my homemade Italian bread & parmesan breadsticks. It goes well as a pickle side dish for chicken, too.

The pickling liquid was so good, I drizzled some of it over the Mini-Caprese Picks I made for the party, instead of the balsamic dressing I usually use. The crowd went wild (insert roaring stadium noise in the background, here)!

For the Mini-Caprese Picks, just skewer a grape tomato, a folded basil leaf and a cherry-sized mozzarella ball onto plastic party picks or even wooden toothpicks (which I did when I ran out of the plastic ones!). Much easier to handle in a party situation than the traditional caprese salad. Not to mention adorable!

Oh, and the tops of the green garlic? They’re perfectly edible and pack a pretty good garlic punch, too. For breakfast one morning, I quartered some leftover boiled new red potatoes, and rough chopped a medium onion and sauteed them in a large pan with a little olive oil, stirred in 4 beaten eggs and then about 3 tablespoons of the chopped green tops of the green garlic. Really tasty “Farmer’s Scramble”!

This one was fun and I can’t wait to see what everyone else in “The Jam” cooked up!

Print this post for your Moleskine journal!

Got that? Carrots.

When Doris and Jilly chose “carrots” as the February assignment for Tigress’ Can Jam, I admit to trembling just a little. Carrots are not exactly a high-acid food, and therefore more susceptible to going bad on you if you don’t know what you’re doing, preserving-wise. And I readily confess that I don’t know what I’m doing.

This is only my second time ever, canning anything, the first being last month’s marmalades. The warnings were issued: follow an established recipe to the letter! Don’t alter the ingredients, don’t get all creative if you’ve never done this before, because you might alter the acid-balance! Sure – scare me witless with the “B” word (Botulism, to you)! Okay, okay!

After last month’s positive experience, MJ came back from one of his numerous forays to the used bookstore with a couple more books on canning, and one of these little gems was Preserving the Taste by Edon Waycott. As this book is well out of print, I’ll share my adapted version of Ms. Waycott’s recipe for

Ingredients:

1 pound baby carrots

1 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup water

2 tsp. kosher or pickling salt

1/4 tsp. ground white pepper

3 Tbs. honey

4 sprigs fresh young dill (I used 2 pinches of dried dill)

Blanch the carrots for 2 minutes in boiling water and drain. Pack the hot carrots into the two hot, sterilized jars.

In a small saucepan, combine the rest of the ingredients, except the dill, and bring just to a boil. Pour the liquid over the carrots, leaving 1/2″ of head space. Add the dill. Cover with new lids, screw on rings, and process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Well, so far, so good! After an agonizing several minutes after removing the jars from the boiling water, I heard the reassuring ping! of the lids sealing themselves into place. Now we wait. It will be at least two weeks before we can open one of these guys and see what we’ve got.

Now, what goes with pickled carrots? Hmmm? No, really. I’m asking.

The Can Jam Roundup is up! WooHoo!