Spartan's I Can Make This Thread

[The Spartan]

So am I. And it looks relatively easy; I just need 5 cups of fresh OJ. Which sounds like a pain, but I happen to know a grocery store around here that squeezes fresh orange juice on the weekends.

[The Spartan]

Well, I've done the Orange Jelly. I'm not entirely certain that I have jelly as opposed to orange syrup, but so far it seems to be jellying(?).

Here's the pic:


The flavor isn't quite as orange-y as I'd hoped, but it's enough for my tastes and it lacks the weird texture I don't like about marmalade. Maybe after some more experience I can refine that. Or maybe after it cools and I eat some I'll love it. Either way, what bliss.

In the meantime, I've got the tomatoes in my crockpot cooking down with some brown sugar and honey; they'll probably be ready tomorrow morning when I'll stir in some spices (which I don't feel like typing out right now) with some lemon juice and zest.

[The Spartan]

Here's the Tomato Butter. I'd describe it more as a jam or ketchup-without-vinegar.

During the long simmer I added to the 5 pounds of canned tomatoes 1-1/3 cups honey and 1/2 cup brown sugar and the before canning I stirred in 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1/8 tsp cayenne, the zest of a lemon and 1/2 the juice of a lemon. I haven't tried it yet; I need it to cool down. Tomorrow though, I have some sweet potato fries in my freezer so I'll make some of them and try the tomato butter.



Oh! And while I'm at it, it looks like that orange jelly has jellied, so yay!

[The Spartan]

Do your part to support the war effort: Starve the Hun out by eating all of his sauerkraut!

[The Spartan]

So I've fallen behind a little in keeping up with this thread. Going back to the past three cannings I've listed:

-The orange jelly was over cooked and is almost like a gelatin than a jelly. The instructions weren't clear; they said that you should reduce the juice "greatly" and that the idea was to get it to 220F. I ended up reducing by half. In the future, when I do that again, I'm going to just get it to temp and then add the pectin.

-I tried the tomato butter. I ate it with sweet potato fries and it was a lot like eating a savory, slightly spicy hot sweet potato pie.


-The sauerkraut, well, I'm not entirely sure I got it right. I don't think there was enough brine because the kraut is kinda dry. That said, the flavor was good and with a little refining and practice I can make it correctly consistently. Maybe make some brine to further submerge the cabbage...

I also made a recipe out of one of my books: Raspberry Jam with Lavender and Mint. I don't really like it. It's not bad, it's just not really my tastes. When I make raspberry jam again I'm either going to just go plain or find a completely different way of flavoring.

Looks like this:


Anyhow, I don't have any projects immediately planned, though I'm probably going to be making another batch of beer within the next couple of weeks and I'm debating whether I should make mead next weekend. Right now, if I do any food, I'm probably going to make cortido (think spicy sauerkraut) or can a sauce like a homemade ketchup or BBQ sauce. Although... cherries are starting to show up at the supermarket so maybe maraschino cherries...

[The Spartan]

Alright. So, for my reference and convenience, I'm going to layout the projects I intend to work on, in no particular order and with no particular time frame.

Beer:
Gose-a salted German ale spiced with coriander. I only just heard of this and I'm curious to try it.
Rauchroggenbier-a combination of a rye pale ale and a rauch (smoked) beer that I'm trying to develop.
Cherry Wheat-another beer I'm trying to develop myself.
Misc-just whatever is easy that I know I like and that I can share. Kolsch and Amber ale are popular, as is hefeweizen.

Mead:
I have one in the fermenter right now that's just about ready to bottle. Then I have a fall spice mead I want to try and a "royal metheglin" recipe. No rush.

Food:
Pretty much what I said above.
-Cortido
-Homemade BBQ sauce and/or ketchup
-Maraschino Cherries (and I may add brandied cherries to that)
-Might also try to make bread.

[The Spartan]

I'm a little late with this update, not that it matters. Anyhow I had a busy weekend with cherries. I got 10 pounds of them, pitted each one and made:
-a batch of holiday cherries (two pounds of cherries; 2 pints after cooking and a pint of flavorful syrup),
-brandied cherries (three pounds; 3 and a half pints after cooking) and
-maraschino cherries (four and a half pounds of cherries; 4 pints after cooking and four pints of what I had hoped would be jelly but didn't set and became maraschino syrup).

I'm munching on some of the brandied cherries right now. Yum...

[The Spartan]

Had a busy weekend. I made some more brandied cherries, a batch of steam beer is in the fermenter, a batch of BBQ sauce (great heat and just the right about of smoke flavor), I've got some mead fermenting (though I might have mucked up, I'm not sure yet) PLUS! I just made bread.


Barbecue sauce!


Singing fresh out the oven.


I already ate the half on the left...

And the only mistake I seem to have made was that the bottom of the loaf was a little burnt. I think there was some residual oil from the cast iron pot I baked it in after I last oiled it. Otherwise it's amazing. Delicious with a hard crust and soft chewy interior. So happy.

[Oxymoron]

Your bread looks really cool. Almost the kind of thing you could find in a bakery around here.

[The Spartan]

A bakery or good restaurant are the only places around here I could get bread like that. I got the technique and recipe out of Jim Lahey's My Bread; I'm already planning on doing more of the specialty breads out of the book. It was that good.

[The Spartan]

I made more bread this weekend, but it wasn't good at all. The bread itself was great, but it was rosemary, Parmesan, sun-dried tomato bread. Well, the rosemary was too strong and gave the bread a resin-y sort of taste and the Parmesan didn't add a cheese flavor, to me, it just made it taste salty. The sun-dried tomatoes were great though.

I'll try it again, but I'll omit the cheese and rosemary this time around.

[The Spartan]

No picture yet, but I made some more kraut this morning. This one is a little different and I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

1 head of red cabbage
1 head of green cabbage
3 Tbsp of kosher salt
Juice of a lemon
About a tablespoon of grated ginger
A couple cups of water.

Shredded the cabbage, tossed it with the salt and then poured the water/ginger/lemon mix over it in the fermenting container.

This one should be ready in about a week or so.

[Oxymoron]

"Kosher Salt" ? What is this ? How does that work ?

[The Spartan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_salt

[The Spartan]

Here's the kraut I just made in the fermenting containers.



I added too much brine to it, but it's not quite as bad as it looks because the container I'm using to press the cabbage down is raising the level substantially.

[The Spartan]

New loaf of bread. Just plain white bread this time. It's really good. I'm eating a nice thick slice right now with some butter.

[The Spartan]

And soon I'll be making things that aren't meant to be eaten. I have a couple ideas, I just need to find the materials I want/need.



I didn't put it together alone, I had my dad's help. He knew I was looking to build a workbench from scratch and had seen a Harbor Freight Tools advertisement for this one, which was somewhat less of a hassle and a little less expensive, surprisingly. So I bought it and we brought it home and put it together. It's surprisingly sturdy; I'm actually pleasantly surprised for how well it's put together.

So maybe next weekend I'll have a project to post pictures of. See how plans sort out...

[The Spartan]

News on the latest batch of kraut: the brine was actually the perfect amount, but... there's too much salt.

I think I'll make this one again, but I'll cut the salt back by a tablespoon.

Edit: Oh! And I'll add more ginger to it. I think that'll really brighten it up. I was "supposed" to add up to 3 Tbsp, but I only added one.

[The Spartan]

New loaf of bread! Irish Brown Bread (with raisins):


It's really freakin' good. The raisins in particular. The sugar in them caramelized and since there was no where for it to go it's like little balls of a sweet, baked custard in every bite.

I also added a peg board to that workbench I built:

[The Spartan]

So I bottled the batch of mead I mentioned in passing waaaaay back in the OP.

It's delicious. I love it.

[The Spartan]

So, I decided to make trail bread. Mostly thinking it might be a nice thing to have along with all that jam I made just in case a hurricane barrels through town.

It's basically a really-easy-to-make hardtack muffin. Which is what intrigued me about this particular recipe since most are like crackers. It's a cup of AP flour, a cup of whole wheat flour and a cup of corn meal mixed together with 2 cups of honey, portioned into a muffin tin and baked at 350. I made them double size from what the recipe called for so instead of the 15-20 minutes in the recipe it took 40.

I've not tasted them yet, but they are definitely little rocks now that they've cooled. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

[The Spartan]

Was kind of bored last night, so I threw together a batch of bread to bake today. An experimental one. It's similar to the rye up above, but instead of bread flour and some rye, I used half whole wheat flour and half rye. It didn't rise very much (which I understand is something ryes tend to do), but it's tasty.


I'm munching on the crumb and top and Shadow's eating the bottom crust. She's liked my bread ever since I fed her the slightly burnt bits from my first loaf.

Also, it's not much, but I did my first project with my work bench (aside from putting up a peg board) and since I had posted about that I'd post it.

I had a... I think it was a 2x6 and some landscaping timbers lying around from back when I bought my house and I wanted to put them to use and built a bumper for my car. That's what you see above. (They're held together with wood screws)

I made it so that, well, obviously my car would stop before I ran into the workbench, but also so that once I parked, I could close the garage and still be able to get to the workbench.

[The Spartan]

OH! I almost forgot.

I started a batch of maple wine. Yeast nutrient, yeast, 4-12.7oz bottles of Grade B maple syrup and water to make a gallon. I don't know if it's working right, but well, fingers crossed.

[Phantasee]

That bumper is pretty clever.

Personally i've always just used a mark on the wall or window to guage how far up i am but physical stops take the guess work out of it.

[The Spartan]

Thanks.

My parents always had spare timbers in the garage and over the years they eventually started putting them there on purpose. I would have just stacked landscaping timbers, but I wanted to be able to park my car, close the garage and reach the workbench so I used up the 2x6 that I had to make spacers, so to speak.

Edit: which I had already explained... whoops!