Watermelons Growing in San Diego- Crimson Sweet Variety

Crimson Sweet just  3 days apart!

 I love watermelon.  LOVE.  So this year, now that I started garden boxes in a central neighborhood of San Diego, on a canyon with a whole lot of sun, I thought I'd try my hand at growing some.  I forget where I bought the seedling, but it was only 2 bucks.  I tucked it into the corner of one of my raised beds and thought it could grow over the side on onto the grown surrounding the box.  I figured it would be a sprawling plant, but didn't think it would take over the yard... which it did.  I took a few pictures below of the evolution of the watermelon vines.  I didn't take any snaps of them fully growing, but imagine double the size of the larger picture.
Crimson Sweet is the type of watermelon.  20-30 lbs when ripe.  So far, I've picked 4 big watermelons.  Two of them have been super sweet and amazing, the other two were amazing but not as sweet.  All good.  It is a trip having a watermelon with seeds.  Its like I had forgotten that they existed.  I can't remember a supermarket in recent history selling watermelons with seeds. Nutty.  You bet I am saving these seeds for next year.  It is late in August now and I still have several small watermelons growing on the vines, though I don't have high hopes that these will be as good as the first 4.  All in all, I've got about 100lbs of fruit off the one plant. Crazy.  It is possible, by the end of the season, I'll have harvested 200lbs from the one plant.

Crimson Sweet about a month old

Crimson Sweet 2.5 months old

 I'm pretty sure I'll grow these again, but they do go crazy with the vines. Any tips on pruning back watermelon vines?

First melon of the harvest.  (Please ignore the fanny pack and weird hat hair do)

Growing and Eating Padron Peppers in San Diego

Padron Close Up. 

Oh Padrons... it is as if you didn't exist until four years ago. Certainly, I'd never heard of the pepper and that no one else that I knew had a clue these babies existed until this decade.  Maybe I'm wrong.
It wasn't until Suzies Farm, here in SD started putting these guys in their CSA box that I got a first taste.  Admittedly, I wasn't sure what to make of these.  Then all the rage broke loose.  Even my bougiest hippster-esq San Francisco couple featured these guys at their wedding meal.  (Which is also funny when a guest would get one of the hot ones and start squirming and making silly faces.)  So basically this is the pepper to have if you were a foodie in California just three years ago! It is true.
Fast forward to now, and I think the peppers have lost their hip edge and have made it to the masses.  Let's just say that in Santa Rosa, I purchased a big bag of them at the 99 Cents Only store (yes, I'll get a CSA and buy produce at the dollar store).  These peppers made it to the dollar store.  Sure the dollar store was located in the famed Sonoma Valley, but nonetheless it was there.

How To Eat Them:
Best eaten young and under ripe, you can eat them raw for a crunch, or, the best way-- saute them in olive oil until just before blistery but taking on color, and then serve with a generous sprinkle of sea salt.  To eat them, grasp them by the stem and pop it in your mouth whole.  Most are totally mild.  But... beware, you will find a hot one.  Have a cold beer close at hand-- for real.  The hot ones are hot.  As the season gets later, the hot ones will be much more prevalent.

Growing Padrons:
Cruising Walter Anderson's Nursery here in San Diego (everyone cruises garden centers, right?) I couldn't resist the siren call of the Spanish Padron peppers.  Buying two 6-packs was a bit much, but turns out it was just fine.  I put the starts in the garden in April and was getting handfuls of peppers by June.  In fact, they are still giving peppers now, the production has slowed down a bit and the peppers are nearly hot peppers rather than the mild early season fruits.  They really impress guests when sauteed as talked about earlier and they are so stupidly easy to do AND you only need salt and olive oil.  Awesome for a last minute soiree.

By the way, the plant gets fairly tall, about 2-3 three feet tall. All the more pepper to love.  I've had zero bug issues and am so satisfied with these plants I'm going to do some seed saving to enjoy them again next year without spending the cash on starts.  Yippee.

Blackberry Syrup and Blackberry Black Tea Recipe

Making Blackberry Syrup.     January 2014

It is blackberry season here in Southern California.  Every supermarket is selling them for fairly inexpensive.  I even found them at the 99 Cent Only store in 6oz containers for only a buck (well, 99.99 cents).  (Ideally, they'd be organic, but sometimes the deal is just too good for food that is hard to find organic-- don't judge).  Having groovy teeth (yes, that is a thing), I tend to steer clear of berries with bigger seeds.  The seeds get stuck in my molars and not only is it gross to be sticking my fingers deep in my mouth to dislodge them, but they feel very unpleasant.  I've learned to eat the berries whole by very softly chewing, but I digress.  

Blackberry syrup was top on my list of ways to use up all the berries I bought.  After trolling the internet I decided to use the no added water method with the no press strain.  Here it goes:

1. Wash berries and weigh (or eyeball).

2. Add sugar.  As you can see from the scales in the photos, I halved the weight of the berries for the amount of sugar I wanted to use.  Feel free to use more sugar or a bit less.  My syrup is sweet and tart.

3.  Place berries and sugar in a good solid pan (do avoid scorching) and gently heat.

4.  Let the berries release their juices and gently stir occasionally.  Don't mash, gentleness is key.

5.  After about 30 minutes, you should have a beautiful soup of berries floating in a wine colored syrup.

6.  Strain.  Let gravity do the work, no mashing down.

Done, you have blackberry syrup.  You also have a bunch of super sweet blackberries left over.  You can mash them up and use them like jam for a few days, or make blackberry yogurt by mixing a scoop of berries into plain yogurt.

The syrup is uses are endless.  My favorite this week is putting a dollup in my black tea-- Blackberry Black Tea is the best!  Try it on ice cream and in your morning mimosa.  Or a dash to some sparkling water is so fancy.  

The syrup lasts about two weeks, freeze in ice cube trays if you don't finish it within that time.

Blackberry Black Tea

Homemade Crock Pot Corn Stock---So Very Simple

Making Homemade Corn Stock

Summertime is the time to make corn stock.  Use it to make risotto, corn chowder, summer soup, rice, and anything you'd otherwise use broth.  Corn stock is so much easier than making a veggie broth because you really don't need a whole lot of veggies to get good flavor.  At the minimum you only need corn cobs, husks, peppercorns, and salt.  I think adding a bit more to the stock enhances the flavor, but if you are making stone soup, you can do just corn cobs.

Here is what you do-- get a hold of corn.  Discard the outer husks (the funky dirty ones), but save all the rest.  Save the silk, inner husk, cobs, and of course, the kernels.  I don't use any kernels when I make broth. I save the kernels and eat them, but you can include the corn kernels as well if you'd like.  When you have about 8 cobs, you are ready to make stock.  If you don't have enough cobs, then bag up your goodies and throw them in the freezer until you have enough corn goodies (you can see my freezer bag of corn cobs and other kitchen scraps in the first picture).  When you have all your corn goods, then get your stock pot ready.

In to the pot or slow cooker goes the following:

- about 8-12 corn cobs

- the husks and silks of one or two corns (you can use more, but these start adding a lot of bulk)

- 5-10 peppercorns

-salt

-Other aromatics:  carrots, peppers (I save all the ribs and seeds from bell peppers and put them into my freezer bag stock stuff), celery, onions, garlic, bay leaves, herbs, squash, etc.

Cover it all with water (use enough to cover the ingredients but no more than an inch more, otherwise your stock will be weak) and simmer for an hour (or if using a crock pot, for much longer).  Strain out the solids, then do yourself a favor and taste it.  If it weaker than you prefer, put it back in the pot and boil it down (harder to do in a crockpot-- you will have to remove the lid).  Taste it again and add salt as needed.  I wanted my broth to be concentrated, so I plopped it into a pot on the stove and boiled it down until it looked just right.

You are done!  I'm going to make some corn chowda.

Watermelon Italian Soda Syrup & Watermelon Infused Water

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Watermelon Syrup (from an actual watermelon)

This syrup is so easy to make.  I had a small roundish watermelon that was just a bit to mushy to enjoy eating fresh, so I thought I'd try my hand at watermelon syrup. It turned out delicious splashed in sparkling water and also excellent splashed into sparkling wine-- YES a Watermelon Mimosa! Don't mind if I do!

Here is what I did:

1. Scoop out all the watermelon flesh and blend it all up in your blender.   Mine had lots of little seeds.  No big deal.  

2. After it is liquidized, dump it in a stainer.  I had to use a spoon to stir up the watermelon in the strainer to get as much juice as possible out.  I really wanted to use my muslin bag to get the juice strained, but, alas, I couldn't locate my bag.  (Don't throw that pulp away-- make infused water-- see below)

3.  Pour the strained juice into an appropriately sized pot and turn it on medium.  (I ended up with a quart of juice.)  You are looking to heat the liquid gently.  The key is to gently simmer.  DO NOT BOIL. 

4.  Squeeze in juice from a lime, and add 1/2 sugar (or none at all, the sugar is merely a personal preference.).  The lime and sugar will help the syrup to last a bit longer in the fridge, but this syrup is basically like a fruit juice and should be treated the same way.  

5.  Allow the juice to simmer down and decrease in volume by at least 25%.  Taste the juice as you go along and decide what you like.   (I ended up with about 3 cups of syrup).

6.  Decant into a jar, pitcher, etc.  Allow to cool and splash in a tablespoon of vanilla extract.  Refrigerate.

Now, for the fun part.  Add a 1/4 cup per cup of sparkling water for a sweeter soda or just a splash for a flavored water.  Or add syrup to shaved ice for a fresh snow cone, or a splash in sparkling water for a yummy mimosa.  

 Watermelon Infused Water

Making Watermelon Infused Water

BUT hold on!  That watermelon pulp still has flavor.  Make some watermelon infused water.  Pop that pulp into a pitcher of filtered water.  Let it infuse for at least 20 minutes.  Again, strain out the watermelon pulp and you will be left with a lightly infused watermelon water.  Refreshing, no added sugar, and that little bit of flavor for a perfect refreshing drink.

Small Batch Apricot Pineapple Jam

Simple Pineapple Apricot Jam-- Very Small Batch

Is it even appropriate to use the word "batch," even if prefaced with the adjective "small," when the result is but a single jar of jam?  Who cares about semantics if it tastes so good?

I bought a little tub of organic apricots at TJs and in the heat of my kitchen, they were already getting soft after just two days.  Coincidentally,  I was down to my very last jar of homemade jam from summers past-- the last of the Hopland grape and apple jam.  Seeing as there was no way that I'd stoop to supermarket jam after so many years of homemade freshness, I geared up to turn these quickly ripening fruits to jam.  Though a consequence of making jam is knowing exactly how much sugar it takes to make jam---it still pains me to pour in so much sugar (I try not to think about it).  

My mom left town in a last minute sort of thing and piled me high with a whole refrigerator of food that was either about to spoil, or starting to spoil. (thanks mom... I think?).  In a random yogurt container I found chunks of very ripe pineapple and honeydew.  So, obviously the next step was to make jam: Pineapple + Apricots + Sugar= jam!

I'm a new fan of the blog Food in Jars (where I got my pickle recipe), and followed her guidance to make this small batch.  

First, I removed the apricot pits (I didn't throw them out-- Nooo way.  I am saving them to make almond extract.  Read about it on my friend Samin's blog, Ciao Samin.  She is a fantastic food writer and teacher!), then I chopped up the apricots.  I weighed the apricots and pineapple and then added half as much sugar (it ended up being about 400g of fruit and I added 200g sugar).  

I plopped it all into a lidded Pyrex bowl and let it marinate in the fridge for a few hours until the sugar was dissolved.

Next, I poured the macerated fruit into a ceramic pan and cooked it for about 15 minutes start to finish, stirring often.  I cooked it until it was thickened and I could pull my spoon through the mix and it wouldn't immediately come back together.  I put a bit on a chilled plate when I thought it was done and looked to see if it resembled jam.  

Last, I turned off the heat, and plopped it all into a clean jar (disinfected jar and new lid if you want to make it shelf stable-- I actually just microwaved a damp jar for a minute.  I'm not certain if that is a good way to disinfect but because I was refrigerating the mix I wasn't worried).  I applied the lid, let it cool and then it went into the fridge.  It made a pint (this pic looks like a half pint jar, but the picture is deceiving).  

Bring on the fresh scones!

(Really) Small Batch Pickles

Pickling Cucumbers to Pickles

Every year I attempt to grow something new.  This year I bought Pickling Cucumbers and planted the seeds into my newly created long and skinny planter made from redwood.  The trellis is some kind of string that my neighbor contributed to the project.  I've been training the cucumbers up the trellis with strategic use of twist ties and unused orchid clips.  The plant is newly giving fruit and the bees are a'buzzing around all the blossoms.   

I picked the first two short and fatty cukes and two much smaller ones to encourage the two plants to fruit more.  With only 4 cukes, I figured why not just do a small jar of refrigerator pickles?  First I submerged the pickles in icy water for a couple hours (as the Internet recommends) and then I used the back of a knife to scrape of all the prickly spines (seriously, the cukes are borderline cacti-- Who knew?).  Then the pickles were ready!

I followed this recipe from Food in Jars and cut it in half, because my batch was even smaller.  I didn't include the onions, from sheer laziness, but next time I'd like to try the onions.  I filled the jar with the hot vinegar mixture, tightened the lid, and flipped it upside down for 15 minutes.  Then I let it cool and plopped it in the fridge.  I used dried dill and I kicking myself for failing to go fresh dill.  I otherwise don't prefer dill, but in a pickle I sing a whole different song.  I'll have to go to the farmers market to find some good looking dill.

The jar ended up sealing, but since I didn't properly prepare the jar, and I'm certain I used an already used sealing ring, these pickles are staying in the fridge. 

The pickles lost their bright green skin by the morning, but that is normal.  I'm going to let them sit for at least another day before digging in!