Saving Seeds

Last weekend, Agata and I spent a day putting the garden to bed for the winter. It was a gorgeous fall day (the first one without rain in almost a week), and we spent the day harvesting, planting garlic, saving seeds and getting the beds ready for the spring.

Agata has been saving seeds for a few years now, but like so many tasks in the garden this was my first time. It was a remarkably simple process really - by this point in the summer most of the plants had gone to seed, and in most cases, it was just a matter of snapping off the seed pods, and carefully shaking out the seeds into a bag and labeling them. If the seed pods weren't ripe yet we brought the plant home to hang dry.

(bachelor's buttons, also known as cornflower)

For tomatoes and cucumbers, the seeds need to ferment in their own juices to mature. We saved some of the tomatoes and cucumbers that were too far gone for eating (which is what you want - huge, orangey-yellow cucumbers and overripe tomatoes), separated out the guts and seeds and left them to rot in small dishes on the balcony, keeping each variety separate. After a few days, we separated out the seeds from the fermented juice and mold by rinsing them off with water.

The seeds that are good quality are heavier and fall to the bottom, and the ones that are not mature enough or bad in some way float to the top. We spread the good seeds out on some paper towel to let them dry, and then packed them away for next year. Not pretty, but effective.

Beans and peas were easier. We made sure to save some of the beans on the vine, letting them get thick and woody and dry out. Saving the seeds just involved collecting the varieties we liked, shaking out the beans at home and spreading them out to dry and cure.

(rattlesnake pole beans and cranberry pole beans)

We tried lots of different varieties of tomatoes in the garden last year, and made sure to plant each variety far enough away from the rest that they wouldn't cross pollinate, so the seeds would breed true the next year. Of course we can't know for sure if it worked, but I wouldn't mind trying some made-in-our-garden hybrids, either.

We saved seeds from the plants that had worked well in our garden this year. I like the idea of saving the same strains of plants, year to year, as well as trying out new ones. One of the things I'm really loving about community gardening is that the garden itself will stay the same, even if we move in the spring. Planting the garlic felt like a promise - after the snow, spring will come and we can do it all over again. I'm jazzed.

(some decorative cabbage. Not edible, but pretty.)

As a side note, we're still in the market for a black tomato variety we love: any suggestions?

Awesome!

On a recent trip to North Carolina, I got sucked into a little bookstore called Internationalist Books.
This poster totally won me over. Because, you know, I like canning and making out.

This little bit of awesome in a Nikki McClure design. You can buy her stuff over at buyolympia.com

Strawberry Balsamic Shrub

Ok, I know I'm not the first person to say this - but I've fallen in love with shrubs.

I was a bit slow to catch on. When friends started raving about drinking fruit vinegars, I'll admit, I was doubtful. Because you know, I clean with vinegar. Drinking it seems a bit strange, right?

Let me be the first to admit that I was wrong. Shrubs are the singular most delicious thing to happen to my face in a long time. It's like drinking summer. The taste is fruity and dry, and just a tiny bit tart, and so good.

Shrubs might be the newest internet stars, but they're hardly new players. They have a long history in Europe, waaay back before summer fruits were available year 'round, before refrigerators, when people were doing everything they could to preserve the tastes of summer for the long winter ahead. 

There seem to be an endless variation of shrub recipes, using any number of fruit, vinegar, and spice combinations. Our favorite so far is a strawberry balsamic vinegar shrub, which is super easy to make and pretty much caused a revolution in my mouth. Really, its that good.

Strawberry-Balsamic Shrub

2 cups strawberries (I think we caught the very last Farmers Market strawberries. hurry!)
2 cups sugar
1 cup apple cider vinager
1 cup balsamic vinager

1. Remove the stems from the strawberries and cut them in quarters.
2. Combine the strawberries and sugar, and mash them together with a potato masher to release some of the juice from the strawberries.
3. Store the mixture in the fridge overnight.
4. Add the vinegars, and give it a stir. Leave this mixture in a sealed mason jar on your counter for a few days.
5. Strain out the fruit, and voila! Shrub.
6. Combine the shrub syrup with soda water (vodka is nice too) to taste. Serve over ice.
(I would guess that I like a 5:1 ratio of shrub to soda water, personally - but play with it and see what you like.)

 (here is our strawberry balsamic shrub, posing with a raspberry shrub - which was also delicious)

Enjoy! 

Cola Magic

I visited some good friends in Toronto recently, where one of them (who is a kitchen genius, really) served me a drink that rocked my world.

She had made a cola syrup - from scratch! on her stove! - and after taking my first sip a number of miraculous things occurred. (a) COLA! and (b) woah. Because after the first second, the resemblance ends. Suddenly it tastes like vanilla and lavender and cloves and .. all of those things combined. It's incredible. It kicks Coca-Cola's ass. It's like learning what coke could be, and maybe once was, before artificial flavoring and high-fructose corn syrup came and ruined the party for everyone. This drink is complex. And it is good. 

Recipes like this really typify all that I love about doin' it yourself. Every recipe, every project feels like a chance to rediscover everyday objects, everyday foods that are otherwise taken for granted.  Suddenly, cola goes from a somewhat trashy indulgence to a culinary revelation. (I mean really, who cooks with lavender?)

Using vanilla beans was another new one for me. I loved that I had to ask for them behind the counter at my local bulk food store - I felt like I had ascended to new culinary heights. At $5 for two they felt like a seriously expensive addition my basket at first.. until I found out that vanilla beans are a kind of rinse-and-repeat miracle item. When they are done adding their vanilla-ness your cola, you can rinse them and throw them in a jar with a cup of vodka or rum, forget about it for a month or so, and bam! You never need to use artificial vanilla flavoring again. And even better? When it starts to run low, you can top it up with more booze, and repeat the whole process. Magic.

Cola Syrup - originally adapted from Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain

I doubled the recipe, because you're going to want to share this one. 

You'll need:

Zest of 2 medium oranges
Zest of 1 large lime
Zest of 1 large lemon
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
1 section of a star anise pod, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
2 teaspoons minced ginger
1 one-and-a-half-inch piece vanilla bean, split
1/4 teaspoon citric acid (I got some in the canning section of the bulk food store)
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon (packed) light brown sugar.

1. Combine 2 cups of water in a pot with zests, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, lavender, ginger, vanilla and citric acid. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer gently for 20 minutes.
2. Add sugar and stir until it dissolves.
3. Line a sieve or colander with a double thickness of cheesecloth and place over the bowl. Pour the contents of the pot through the sieve. Squeeze out the cheesecloth to get all the liquid.
4. Stir the syrup and let cool.

Add to soda water to taste and enjoy.