New Testingstan

I've not made anything until yesterday because 1) I didn't need to and 2) I was on vacation and it's hard to make stuff when you're in Munich and not at home.

Anyhow, to make up for it, yesterday I made 2 batches of beer: an altbier and a Märzen (Oktoberfest) that are now fermenting away. The Märzen is currently in the chest freezer I got for my birthday (along with a thermostat controller) to control the fermentation temperature. The Altbier is just in a fermenter though I had to switch over to a blow out pressure relief because it was foaming out of the air lock.

Today I made another batch of BBQ sauce of about 10 cups. The plan is to make a batch of Spiced Strawberry Jam tomorrow as well as a batch of Salsa Verde.

That's the plan anyhow... I also bought a pressure canner today, but I won't get a chance to use it until next weekend at the earliest.

Here's the BBQ sauce and Salsa Verde. The BBQ sauce I didn't change, but I went with a different salsa verde this time. The first one was very mild and didn't have much flavor. This one has a ton of flavor and some nice heat to it as well.


And here's the jam. Like the sauce, I didn't change it. It's just so good. Hell, I'm even getting requests for it!

I am canning apples as I speak.

Well, the cans are sterilizing and the apples blanching.

Meh. To-may-to, to-mah-to.

We may do apple butter again, probably going to need more apples.

The big ones are for emergencies and the little ones for school lunches. This is just the first batch, I've got several quarts of apples laying about.

Nice. I just bought a pressure canner and think I'll try my hand at maybe soup if I can find some time in the next few weeks. Might have to wait until mid-October though because I'm going to be otherwise busy for the next few weeks. Except for maybe Saturday.

We've been making soup out of whole chicken carcass, rice, corn and peas. It was pretty bland but filling.

I'm going to try it with a turkey and maybe some chipotle.

I've noticed that a lot of the savory stuff for canning has a tendency to either be really salty or really bland. That's the problem I ran into the first Salsa Verde I made: blandness.

I ordered a couple of Pickl-it containers today. A four liter and a five liter.

The latest batch of 'kraut didn't turn out, so third time was not the charm. That said, I'm going to figure this out. The container's can be sealed, but have a hole drilled in the top with a grommet for an airlock like the ones I use for brewing. I think that will keep the kraut safe from beasties while still allowing for the fermentation.

Bottled the first batch of maple wine tonight. Got a bit over 4 fifths worth out of it. Maybe four and a half. I need to wait for the wine to settle in the bottles before I try it, so I'll post when I get a taste.

Currently working on a batch of Ball's Roasted Tomatillo-Chipotle Salsa. Slight change to their recipe though: I couldn't find dried chipotle peppers so I had to go with the canned variety.

Smells really good; have to wait and see how it tastes.

Edit: It's pretty good. Good smoke from the chipotles; plenty of heat, but not to much from those and the dried chilis I put in. I needs some time to sit and let the flavors blend together and I need to leave it chunkier next time, but I'm calling it a success.

Here it is:

And here's the newest batch of Orange Cinnamon Mead (See my picture from August 15th) after I bottled it. Managed to get just about four full gallons worth.

Dude. You do the coolest shit.

Fuck, I wish we could source the exotic chillis & peppers more easily in Australia.

That salsa recipe sounds great, but just not viable - hell, it's hard enough to get tomatillos, let alone chipotle or cascabel peppers.

The chipotles and cascabels would be easy enough to order, since their preserved as dry chilis (or in adobo sauce for the chipotles). Having the dry ones shipped to you from an online source would presumably be expensive from the shipping, but easily available. The tomatillos though, yeah, I use those fresh and, of course, they're easy to get here since they're an integral part of Mexican and Southwestern cuisine. Not so much on your side of the world.

Try this one, it depends on canned items so it won't be as good as one made from fresh ingredients, but it's (I'm assuming probably) doable for you. The tough thing will be the fresh jalapeno or serrano. But if you can find an Asian pepper of some sort that's medium sized and medium heat you could substitute it. You could also substitute a small, but hot pepper if you can only find that. Can you get a hold of fresh Thai chilis? One of those is hotter, but would make a good substitute.

Ingredients for Southwest Salsa
• 3 - 28 ounce cans whole tomatoes
• 1 - 7 ounce can chipotle peppers
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 large onion, diced
• jalapeno or serrano peppers as desired
• 1 bunch cilantro (i.e. fresh coriander leaves)

Mixing Directions for Southwest Salsa
1. Saute the onion with a little olive oil until soft. If using jalapenos or serranos, seed and chop and add with the onions. Hint, the seeds are the hottest part of the pepper. If you want HOT salsa, leave the seeds in.
2. Place all ingredients except the cilantro in a blender or extra-large bowl and add sauted onion and optional peppers. Add the adobo sauce along with the chipotles.
3. Blend in the blender until chopped and blended, but not a thin liquid. If ingredients are in a bowl, use a hand mixer to blend the ingredients. Stir through and make sure no whole tomatoes remain.
4. Finely chop cilantro and stir into salsa.
As with many foods, the flavors blend and mellow as the salsa sits.

Canning Directions for Southwest Salsa
1. Ladle salsa into sterilized canning jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
2. Place lid from simmering water onto top of jar. Apply band and tighten to fingertip tip tight.
3. Place finished jar in water bath with at least 1 inch of water above the lid.
4. Boil jars of salsa for 35 minutes.
5. Remove from boiling water and let stand over night.

RyanThunder wrote:Dude. You do the coolest shit.

Oh, I know.

Oh, and if you can, roast the canned tomatoes and chilis under a broiler. It'll help get some of that roasted taste into them and help disguise the canned nature.

Also, full disclosure: I've not actually tried this recipe yet....

Speaking of chili peppers, what's the best way to dry out and preserve fresh habaneros? I have a bunch of them that I'm not gonna use soon. I don't want them to go bad.

Importing food (especially fruit/vegetable products) is a minefield in Straya. Thankfully, our growing obsession with Mexican food here is meaning that some specialty retailers exist. But they're all the way over on the far side of the city.

So you're saying there's a growing market for documentaries about burritos?

Fuck yes there is.

Straya has discovered that Mexican food is not just "tex mex" El Paso brand tripe.

However, this has led to a tragic overload of food hipsters.

Metatwaddle wrote:Speaking of chili peppers, what's the best way to dry out and preserve fresh habaneros? I have a bunch of them that I'm not gonna use soon. I don't want them to go bad.

I haven't the foggiest idea. Drying is not something I've ever done. Preserving in cans is still pretty new to me.

weemadando wrote:Straya has discovered that Mexican food is not just "tex mex" El Paso brand tripe.

Good!

However, this has led to a tragic overload of food hipsters.

There are always trade offs for the good things in life.

@Ando: Sometimes Tex-Mex can be very good. Red's sister has a cookbook called The Homesick Texan, and I drool over the recipes every time I see them. (The author has a blog here)

I guess we are spoiled for Mexican food in the US. Even my cheapo supermarket has 5+ types of chili peppers and a decent Goya section, and there aren't that many Latino people where I live (an extremely minor city on the East Coast). But you guys can probably get Southeast Asian ingredients more easily than me.

Maple wine.

It's... good. Really good. I don't know how to adequately describe it. Best I can do is say that it's like a drinkable candy with alcohol in it.