115: Chard Gratin

Keeping food in the work fridge is never an ideal situation, thankfully the only semi-casualties were the cherry tomatoes (which weren't in the fridge, but as I said in the Delivery 12 post didn't make it home) and the chard. Being in the back meant it got a little icy.

I'm not sure what to do in that situation. My logic was that as long as it hadn't been thawed/refrozen it was still good, just not crisp in those. I thought it best to just use it all up asap on something where crispness didn't matter as much, and settled on one of the gratins. I used that recipe as a base and did my own thing:

Ingredients:

1 bunch swiss chard leaves roughly chopped, stems thinly sliced

1 onion, diced

2 gloves of garlic, grated

1 rounded tsp flour

1/3 cup milk

~ 1/3 cup breadcrumbs

~ butter/oil, salt pepper

I didn't do it in this order, but I'll write it the way I'd do it next time.

Preheat your oven to 350. I semi-toasted my breadcrumbs per the recipe but not well. Do better than me. 

Start some butter or oil in a large-ish pan, when melted add the onion, some salt, and let it sweat. Add the chard stems and continue to cook until they're tender but have a little bite. 

Add the greens, continue to saute, add a little more salt to taste and a bunch of pepper. 

The original recipe has you blanch the greens first, I'd imagine to make the greens less unwieldy, but I just went in there with my tongs and did my best to handle. Had a lid on for a bit to help it along. 

Once the greens were almost there I added my flour, stirred to coat, then my milk. I recognized the semi-bechamel from my other gratin, and next time I might make it separately. It was hard to tell how thick the sauce actually got.

Towards the end I added my grated garlic. Why the end? I was still in the mood for that raw bite. Earlier if you're not a crazy person, or don't need to ward off vampires.

At the end I stirred in the grated gruyere and topped with the breadcrumbs. In the oven for ~20 minutes. Under the broiler a little longer to brown the crumbs. 

As I said I could've used more sauce, or thicker sauce. I'd imagine in addition to taming the greens, blanching would've helped them turn to a nice bubbly mass but this was still nice and comforting. Definitely a do again.

112: Curry Chicken Sandwiches

This is the last of the party food I'm going to post about. There was a tart, but I wasn't in love with it and I didn't actually use share ingredients for it. This one is tenuous as best (tomatoes and hot peppers), but it was soooo good I just have to share.

Do I have a recipe? No. Should you still try and make it, of course!

Originally the plan was to fire up the grill on the roof and make burgers or something. The grill grate was disgusting, and I was too lazy to clean, so I decided to make Indian. 

Actually no. The second string idea was to make some kind of pulled pork/chicken in my crock pot, that could hang out on warm for whenever people were hungry. But BBQ-flavoring required a ton of extra ingredients, so I said eff that and just did Indian. The best choice over all. 

I followed my standard Baignan Bharta seasoning profile, though I added some actual curry powder to make my life a little easier. The powder is apparently Jamaican style curry, so this may be more of a roti filling than straight up Indian, but it's delicious nonetheless.

I started this off with the chicken in my dutch oven. Eight thighs total, done in two batches to get a good sear and render off some fat. I didn't brown them a ton, but I did get a lot of grease out of them. Removed the chicken, placed in a bowl to cool for a bit and removed the skins before adding them to my crock pot.

Back to the dutch oven! Added a decent amount of hing to the rendered fat, then my spices (curry powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, a little smoked paprika). Let those fry up then added my onions and some of the hot peppers. Once the onions got soft, added garlic and ginger, then the tomatoes. Added some lime. Adjusted the spices some more, then added everything to the crock pot.

I was worried the chicken would dry out/not be completely covered, so I added some turkey stock. It wasn't exactly necessary, not sure I'd do it again if/when I make this again.

Set the crock pot to low, went on a bike ride and did some shopping.

After a few hours came back, removed the chicken (which was falling off the bone, yay!), removed those bones, and put the (very thin) sauce back into my super wide dutch oven. Set it to a simmer and continued my party prep while it reduced to a significant degree. Added a little additional diced hot pepper, as the heat had mellowed considerably. Shredded my chicken, put that and the sauce back in the crock pot.

It was so good. Letting everything cook for a while liquified the tomatoes and onions. It was like pulled pork. Part of me was hoping the flavors would be a little brighter- next time I could probably add the ginger and lime to the pan during that final reduction, but it's not entirely necessary. I did what I could with the sandwich toppings: some tomato and cilantro.

I ate like three of these during the party, the perfect sloppy drunk food. And then this morning I did the best thing ever, cooked two eggs over easy and made myself an epic birthday breakfast sandwich. I would like all my meals to be this, please :).

111: Roasted Salsa

Yet another dip, yet another recipe from Martha. This one I followed pretty much as written, though I only used two jalapenos as mine were especially spicy.

There was a little confusion in my brain about whether to keep or discard the skins for the tomatoes and jalapenos, which can come off easily after roasting. I ended taking off the tomatoes' (especially easy to remove) and leaving on the jalapenos as I was lazy.

This was devoured fairly quickly. Next time I'll probably roast the ingredients a little longer, just to get a bit more char on 'em.

It was also the inaugural use of my food processor, which I got for my birthday. It's HUGE, like way too big for my NYC kitchen. Thankfully it comes with a mini-bowl, which was perfect for this amount of salsa. Also it's pink, which is not anywhere near my favorite color, but apparently that was the only one available on amazon. I won't be picky. It's going to get used a ton regardless.

109: Chard and Basil Scrambled Eggs

This batch of eggs ended up being rather greens-heavy, but the end product turned out well.

Started a small onion (diced) in the pan with a little oil and salt. The heat was on a little too high so the onions browned kinda quickly. This pan isn't the best, so everything kept sticking. Still tasted fine, though.

Chopped up some chard and added that to the pan, once it wilted threw in some finely chopped basil, garlic and almost immediately after, the eggs. It was a nice change of pace, the garlic still had a lot of the raw bite, and with the decent grocery store brand "rustic" bread I picked up to make breadcrumbs (probably not happening), was getting a flavor flashback to the garlic bread we'd always buy at shoprite growing up.

A little lame but totally comforting. Lovely little breakfast.

106: Curry Beet Burgers

Chomp! Ok, so. Still haven't worked out the patty cohesion situation (you can see it smushing there), but definitely improved in the flavor department.

While working on my prior beet burger experiement, the thought occurred to me to do an Indian one. Not sure what sparked it, other than my always craving good Indian food. So I did that thing, and attempted some of the changes I'd mentioned in my prior post to help keep it together. Those definitely didn't work. Anyway.

Ingredients (as always, approx. as always, I'm a little sorry):

Pinch of hing

~3/4 tsp curry powder

~1/8 tsp tumeric

~1/8 tsp cumin

~1/8 tsp coriander

Pinch cinnamon

Pinch smoked paprika

~ salt, pepper

1 beet, diced

1 smallish onion, diced fine

1 jalapeno (or some kind of spicy pepper), mostly deseeded and diced

2 garlic cloves, grated

~1/2 tbs ginger, grated

1/3 cup spelt

1/3 cup cannellini beans

Spoonful of flour

1/2 beaten egg

Paneer

Cilantro

Similarish methodology. I started my onions and pepper  in a pan until they got soft. Then I remembered the hing, so I took those onions out, heated a little more oil, then fried the hing and most of those spices above. Added the onions back in, then the ginger, garlic and beets. Let that go for a bit.

Mixed and mashed my spelt and beans, then in an attempt to dry those out, added them to the pan for a few minutes.

Put that mix in a bowl, let it cool, then added the egg portion and flour. Cooked them up in a pan and topped with paneer and cilantro. Had a few bites then remembered that rest of egg, so fried that up and added that to the burger, too. Nom!

These fell apart pretty quickly. I'm always hesitant adding flour, as I feel it'll make the burger bland, but these were spicy enough that they could've stood up to a bit more binding. I used high gluten flour, too, but it didn't help that much.

After a quick search on the internets, I'm not sure if I did anything wrong, per se. I just need to toy around with it a little more. Suggestions: leaving it in the fridge overnight, cooking it in the oven- though I'd really like to not heat up my apartment every time. Using potato is an option I was considering, but I was running a bit short on time and didn't want to fuss too much with an extra step.

I had luck last time getting a good sear on the patties. A hot pan does wonders. These were in a low pan for a while, and it was obvious when flipped that they were only lightly browned, and already splitting a bit. a uniform patty shape would help, too.

Onto the good, though. They were DELICIOUS. Sweet and spicy (spices-wise) up front, then a nice building heat from the peppers. And oh how bloody and raw they looked. Definitely want to do this again in front of people, but not tell them they're veggie burgers and freak em out a bit. Unfortunately I'm out of beets. For now.

100: Baignan Bharta V4

Ok. So. Don't want to jinx it, but I'm nearly there. This smells spot on and it tastes very close. Looking at more and more recipes I've been noticing the general shape of baignan bharta, which ingredients are common and which aren't, so this time I didn't so much use a particular recipe as my favorites from each.

Things that still need adjusting:

- correct eggplant type: got a white eggplant from my csa, sweeter/lighter than the regular purple

- spice level: used just one small chili I'd picked up at Kalustyan's. No seeds. Still a little on the spicy side. Kamal's has a nice slow burn, may move back to jalapenos next time.

One benefit to this method is I more or less kept track of my ingredients. I'm listing them a bit weirdly, as the spices are especially iffy, but I think you can still follow along at home if you'd like.

Ingredients:

- 1 eggplant, roasted and mashed

- juice of one lime

- 3-4 Roma tomatoes, diced

- 2 medium onions, diced (one sweet, one regular)

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 1 green chili, minced

- 2" knob of ginger, grated

- 2 tbs cilantro, chopped

 Spices:

- pinch of hing

- 3/4 tsp cumin seeds

- 3/4 tsp coriander

- 1/2 tsp black pepper

- 3/4 tsp turmeric

- pinch of cinnamon (needed?)

- pinch of red pepper flake (needed?)

- salt to taste

Here's the game changer, people: Hing (so much easier to spell than asafoetida, and less threatening, too)

This is how I need to store hing. It's in its plastic container (from india, it looks pretty cool), in a plastic bag, in a mason jar on top of my fridge. No enclosed shelf spaces for this guy- I had it just in the plastic bag in my cupboard and overnight it was reeking up the place.

It's a very subtle but important flavor, very happy I picked it up the other day. Not sure how much importance to give it- as my last attempt was too spicy to really discern the flavors- but I don't think I'll try baignan bharta again without it.

Begin by roasting the eggplant under the broiler until the skin's nicely charred and the eggplant is soft. I usually cut mine in half and place it cut side down, then piece it all over with a fork. Once it's soft I put it in a pyrex tupperware container to steam and cool. Remove the skin (I find it easiest to lay it skin side down then scrape/scoop the contents out with a spoon) and mash with the lime juice. I'm thinking of cutting back on the lime juice next time- it mixed in with the rest of the flavors eventually but was very strong for a bit.

Sometimes I do the eggplant a day (or two) before, grouping it with another thing that needs to happen in my oven, but this time it was the same day. I don't think that makes a difference.

I started a little oil in a pan, added my cumin seeds and a little sprinkle of hing (you pierce a hole in the container and sprinkle the contents out, no measuring here). Let those sizzle a bit then added my onions.

Once those got soft/translucent added the garlic and chili, as well as the grated ginger. Next time I'll wait a little on the ginger, it can burn/stick pretty quickly. 

Then added the tomatoes and spices. Speaking of spices those are, at best, iffy amounts. A lot of the 3/4 tsp levels started at 1/2 tsp then I added (without measuring) to nudge the taste a bit one way or another.

I'm undecided if it needs the cinnamon. There was a flavor level missing, which it hit, but last night it smelled so strongly of it. I think it mellowed out with a night in the fridge, maybe cut that back a touch. It's best when you don't really know its there.

The red pepper flake, too, may not be necessary, given how hot those chilis are. Or maybe I could try just using the red pepper flake with no physical chili?

Anyway, after the tomatoes have been going for a bit (recipes usually say to wait until the oil separates- I've seen that once making this, maybe I'm not adding enough oil ha), I added the eggplant mixture, and let that go for a while as I did dishes, stirring occasionally so it didn't burn.

Turned off the heat, stirred in my cilantro and served on a little quinoa.

I'm really excited about this.

Too excited? Maybe. But given how much work I've put into this dish it's great to see it coming together.

99: Peperonata

Is there a way to photograph this so it looks as lovely as it tastes? Not sure. Would help if it weren't blurry.

I followed the same method as the last time I'd made peperonata. Or actually, let the peppers go with the onions for a bit before adding the tomato. But that didn't seem to make much of a difference. My sweet onions were a little smaller so used a whole one instead of half. Probably a little less tomato, but I have to split up my romas between this and another dish I'll post about tomorrow.

Kept the peppers on the al dente side, per my note for improvement last time, but I think they're actually better a bit softer. As these peppers were a little riper than the last set (noted by how nice and green they are), the whole dish ended up on the sweet side. A little extra pepper and red pepper flake fixed that nicely.

Used the last of my genovese basil and parsley on this as well.

I think next time I'd like to try slicing the peppers a bit thinner, and maybe cutting the tomatoes into wedges like the other ingredients instead of the dice, just to see how that works. I also need to remember to do this in a larger pan, as the peppers kept wanting to escape their delicious fate every time I stirred (aka made a mess).

Delivery 10

Beets - 1 bunch

Walla Walla Onions - 2

Sweet Peppers - 3

Red Russian Kale - 1 bunch

Eggplant - 1

Thai Basil - 1 bunch

Tomatoes - 6

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes - 1 basket

Leeks - 1 bunch

Hot Peppers - 4

Beets

No greens. Boo. Trying to be ok with that, but it's hard. Anyway, cake was fun the other week, but I don't think I'll make that again, even if there are recipe variations I can try. Still in the mood for something weird though- how about a burger? There are recipes from the NY Times or Macheesmo. OR, to use up a few ingredients, a salad with tomato.

Thai Basil

So much with the basil. I think I've used up more of the Genovese than I tend to, but still, man, I wish it weren't so tough for me to use up that much herbage. Thai basil will be a little tough, as it's got an anise-y flavor that, well, you remember fennel. Not the biggest fan.

Here's a recipe with kale and tofu. Oooh and basil pepper jelly (using sweet and hot peppers)- here's the same recipe on a site that'll scale for me (yay for no math). It's a shame they want me to steep the basil for two weeks in vinegar- maybe I'll do a batch after a week and (fingers crossed) if I get more peppers I'll try another at full strength. here's hoping I like it.

 

Red Russian Kale

In addition to the above: risotto with beans, bread pudding (the pic is KILLING me), or do something new (to me): kale chips. Busy week this week- going camping over the weekend- so maybe keep it simple and do another salad, or just cook it up with some spelt I bought on a whim.

Leeks

I loved the things I did with leeks the last time I got them, but definitely want to try something new. This would require a good bit of extra shopping but I am missing brussels sprouts. Leek fritters, modeled off the zucchini ones I loved from smitten kitchen. Leek confit, nom. Roasting with cheese if I want to turn on the oven.

Eggplant

Earmarked for baignan bharta. I made the trip to Kalustyan's and, well, it's surprising they didn't have to drag me out. So much variety. Pretty much any spice you can imagine, and a million things I had no idea existed. I opted out of buying their garam masala, will make my own mix, but I did pick up some hing. I also made the mistake of deeply inhaling some hing. Don't do that, btw.

Peppers

The basil jelly above will probably use up a bell pepper, and I'll most likely whip up a batch of peperonata tonight with the rest. I need to repeat recipes a little more to refine those skills. Any hot peppers not used up in the jelly will most likely be interspersed among other recipes, not enough to do anything crazy.

Tomatoes

Roma/plums already have homes in the peperonata and baignan bharta. Cherries (so proud of myself for bringing tupperware) may just get eaten as is, or that beet salad above.

97: Baignan Bharta V3

In case you were unaware, I'm on an epic quest to recreate my favorite Indian dish. Here are tries one and two. 

Did I do it this time? No. The recipe was a few steps away from the prior versions- mainly no garam masala- but the writer kept taking up the smoky flavors. Kamal's baignan bharta is not smoky, but I gave it a go anyway, hoping to see what the minimal spice would be like. Maybe if I got a sense of the inherent flavors in the dish I could see what needed to be added to achieve my desired result.

Ingredients (adapted from the link above):

1 lb eggplant
2.5 tablespoon oil, divided
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 jalapenos, diced
2.5 cups tomatoes, diced
1/2 tablespoon julienned fresh ginger (I didn't have ginger. Somehow)
salt to taste
3/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
Chopped cilantro

The recipe has fewer spices, but unfortunately the jalapenos I chose were INSANELY hot somehow. In the past I'd put a whole one in and gotten no heat, this time two makes this fairly painful to eat. Which makes me sad. I tried mixing in a bunch of yogurt- no dice. Still too spicy.

There will be a bit of a regroup before my next attempt. At the very least I'd like to stop at an Indian grocery store to pick up a different mix of garam masala, as well as a red chili powder. And maybe a different spicy green pepper.

A reach goal is to go back to Kamal and try theirs again/beg for a recipe. But it's a bit of a trip for a weeknight, and I'm not sure I have a free weekend until September.

91: Polenta and Kale

The goal was to buy wheat berries. But the Whole Foods I went to didn't have them in the bulk section, and I didn't have enough time on my lunch break to go searching the aisles, so I chose another grainy thing I'd been meaning to try- polenta! I found a Bittman recipe, but just used it to get my proportions right.My process was how I'd been taught to make amazing grits:

Heat up your liquid, butter and salt until it's at about a rolling boil- keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over. Rain in your polenta, whisking constantly. Keep whisking until your arm falls off or it's nice and smooth. You will get sweaty. Just deal with it.

I actually copped out a little early (my glasses are busted and kept falling off), so these are a slight bit grainy. 95% there though. I whisked in few pinches of pepper and some pecorino at the end.

For the kale I used some sweet onion I'd had left over from bruchetta, started that in a pan on high with some oil. Stirred frequently. Added the garlic and the kale, and let it go until things started to char a little. I could've let it go further with (I think) good results.

Topped the polenta with the kale. Nommed. Now I'm sleepy.

Notes for Improvement:
- Keep whisking next time, your arm was still attached.
- This method seems to need a bit more water than the recipe calls for- wanted to let it go a while on the burner to make up for my laziness, but was worried it would burn/dry out too much. Also I was hungry.
- Bonus to polenta on the dry side: make some freakin polenta cakes with the leftovers!!
- Add some fresh herbage to the kale next time

89: Bruschetta

Mmmm so obsessed with tomatoes. I think I've only ordered bruchetta once from a restaurant- and it was amazing, don't get me wrong- but it's so simple I usually just think "I can make that myself"...but then never get around to it. Finally did last night, and yum so good.

I winged this, so no recipe per se. It was a nice mix of:

- Cocktail tomatoes

- Sweet Onion

- Garlic

- Basil

- Savory

- Olive Oil/Salt/Pepper

Mixed everything up and let it sit out at room temp a bit to meld. Didn't sweat the proportions, and even forgot the olive oil until right before I ate. Toasted up some foccacia from SCRATCH, spooned the tomato mixture on and nommed. So good.

Not sure I have any notes for improvement- it was pretty damn good. Maybe a little more basil? Or to just make more I guess. Can never get enough tomatoes.

88: Peperonata

Dear Purple Bell Peppers,

Why you gotta turn white when I cook you?

Love, 

K

Seriously though, how awesome would that purple have been in this dish? When I cut them I knew it wouldn't last though- the purple color is only skin deep.

Anyway, I used a mix of the two peperonata recipes I'd mentioned in the Delivery post- probably relying on the more laid back Bittman version.

Sliced up my two peppers (for the record the purple was just bitter whereas the green had a bit more to it- a little grassy? probably not the right word), and half a walla walla onion. Chopped up a 1/4 cup of basil, some parsley and a little savory. Minced two cloves of garlic and diced a roma and cocktail tomato.

Started the onions in a pan, cooked until they got soft. Added everything else and cooked until the peppers softened as well.

Super good, very comforting and tomato-y. Needs some crusty bread. As do all the things.

Note for Improvement: Don't cook it quite as long, the peppers could've used a little more bite.

Update: I had cold leftovers for lunch and loved it. The peppers had a bit more bite to them than I remembered last night, and while the purple ones were still bitter, it contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the tomato and onion. I definitely want to do this again.

87: Mushrooms and Radish Greens

Only a very small part of this is from my share. So sue me. 

I'd picked up mushrooms last week, the morning before I worked my CSA shift and got bonus shrooms, so these had been languishing for a bit. I also needed a snack one day happening by a farmer's market near work, and picked up a nice bunch of radishes. Ate the radishes raw (nom!), saved the greens for a better use. Came up with this.

It's my standard greens + shrooms + quinoa deal. Used a little sweet onion I'd had left over from another use, and threw in some savory as I thought it would go well.

It did- it was just a little strong. Those leaves are so tiny, I kept convincing myself to add more. It's not bad by any means, just need to restrain myself a bit I guess.

Notes for Improvement:
- Taste before you add more (duh)
- Wash your greens better! These were a little gritty...

Delivery 9

Two months done! I'm due for another recappy post. Once I have time (tomorrow? maybe?).

Carrots with Greens - 1 bunch

Walla Walla Sweet Onions - 2

Peppers - 2

Summer Savory - 1 bunch

Orient Eggplant - 2

Genovese Basil - 1 bunch

Tomatoes - 6

Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes - 1 basket

White Russian Kale - 1 bunch

Bell Eggplant - 1

Tomatoes

So wonderful. Six roma/plum tomatoes (top), six cocktail tomatoes (bottom), and a container of sungold cherry tomatoes. I ended up eating my last batch of cherries as is. Really have to refrain from doing that with these. No promises. 

I'm thinking of using most of the plum on a new batch of Baignan Bharta. As for the others...we'll see. I do have basil.

My dad sent me a link to an awesome farmer's market/CSA recipe generator. There are a few good ideas for tomatoes, but most require lots of extra ingredients.

Carrots:

I've done dilly carrots before. Looking for something a bit new. Carrots lend themselves to a lot, and with a few other ingredients I have this delivery I could maybe make a soup? Anyway, I'm excited for carrot tops, here are a few recipes for those.

Kale

Yesss. Honestly a little in love with kale. Lots of options: Beans and smoked paprika, cornbread, with wheat berries, nommy salads. This one isn't as frilly as I'm used to, but it has that awesome bitterness. Having greens with stems also makes me happy, as they're just great to dip in hummus.

Savory

I haven't cooked with savory before- and it's proving a little hard to find recipes- but once I smelled it I immediately recognized it. It's used in a lot of things. With the carrots it's just begging to be a soup. I'd also like to buy chicken this week- either livers again, or thighs- and this would work very well with that. Bruchetta, beans, mushroom pate. The kitchn has a little roundup too- the simplest one would work well.

 

Walla Walla Onions

Honestly, while cutting these last week I was eating pieces raw. They are so sweet and delicious.

Googling these came up with a website - with recipes - dedicated to them. I guess there's a big Walla Walla lobby to combat the Vidalia onion lobby.  Oh, and the internet wants me to make bruchetta this week.

Peppers

Debating doing another jar of pickled peppers- hesitant as I'm not sure how that one turned out at all. I'll probably do something different. It's been a while since I've made a pizza. Peperonata look amazing. Here's a great recipe roundup from the NY Times.
 

Basil

I'm making a pesto this week. I have to. I always have so much herbage left over that just goes bad in my fridge, and it's making me sad. I'm determined to use this up.

Eggplant 

Baignan Bharta is a given. Part of me just wants to make that with all of this- though most likely I'll use the bell on it, and then use the smaller orient on other recipes.

84: Baingan Bharta V2

My last attempt was less than successful. Or was good, but not what I wanted. This time I used a recipe from the NY Times. Differences bolded below:

1 pounds eggplant
1 tablespoons lime juice (new)

1 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 fresh hot green chile like a jalapeno, diced
1/2 pound fresh canned tomatoes, chopped (less)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric (less)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt or to taste
1/4 cup chopped cilantro, thin stems included
1 teaspoons garam masala (less)**

**Due to a mistrascription I ended up adding a tablespoon...or more like two teaspoons as in the moment I had a feeling that was way too much

The other recipe had additional coriander, garlic powder and cumin, which this does not. I also added about a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger (I'm a fan, if you haven't figured it out yet). 

Honestly I don't think the differences between the amounted to much. I did a taste before I'd added the garam masala and it was nice, so I think the lime juice helped. Using canned tomatoes didn't appear to have much of an impact, but it could've contributed to the muddiness I want to avoid. Overall it was still too spicy (spices wise, not heat)- which is a lot my fault here- but I'm thinking there's more to it.

Notes for Improvement:
- Fresh tomatoes, more of them
- Keep the lime, add more ginger and jalapeno
- Garam Masala is a mix and varies depending on the brand. I'd like to go to an Indian grocery store this week and try another in the next batch. 
- OR: here are a few recipes with no garam masala
- Wouldn't hurt to make a trip back to try my fav version, and maybe sweet talk a recipe from the restaurant

81: Curried Summer Squash Pickles

I feel much more confident about this batch of pickles. I used the same recipe (from The Pickled Pantry) as the cucumber batch I made last week, only actually followed/was able to follow the recipe. 

Differences:

- Squash instead of cucumbers

- Sliced these much thinner

- Used pickle crisp

- Used raisins

It took a little less than the two squash I'd gotten in this week's share to make the 2.25 cups called for in the recipe. Sliced up half a walla walla onion as thin as I could manage (which was reasonably thin). Let those soak for (ok, let's be honest here) a little longer than the 2-6 hours the recipe says with a tablespoon of fine sea salt. 

As those drained I heated up a pint jar in my 4th burner pot, and mixed the ingredients for the brine:

- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

- 1/2 cup sugar

- 1.5 tsp curry powder

- 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

- 3 tablespoon raisins

Brought these to a boil once the jar was ready and packed, then poured in, bubbled, and topped off. It took all of my brine to basically cover. 

Processed- well started processing in a water bath before remembering that pickle crisp I had to try four stores before I was able to find. So I quick took it out, threw a new lid in the pot to soften, added the crisp, relidded, and processed for 15 minutes. The seal seems to have held, I'll let you know how these turn out in six weeks :)

Noted Improvement: the zucchini was much skinnier than the cucumbers, and cut much thinner, so were able to fit with the onions and everything into the pint jar. Doesn't seem to be floating, either.

Notes for Further Improvement: I'm worried I packed the jar too tightly, that everything may not have gotten covered by the brine. Maybe next time I'll leave a little extra room so there can be an uninterrupted layer of brine covering everything.

More notes will have to wait for tasting/comparison with the cucumber pickles.