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

Announcement:  I have recently moved my blog to www.notaprettygarden.com.  Please click here to get to this post on my new site!! Thank you!!

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!

Finally I'm Keeping One Of My Tea Pots

Tea pots are thrown in several parts: the body, the lid, and spout. Then trimmed and put together. Lastly a handle and lid handle. Needless to say it takes a bit of time to get it all right. These two personal sized pots are glazed in Rutile blue and ohata khaki glaze.  I'm keeping the blue but will gift the other! 

Clove Oil & Cucumbers-- Bad Match

I recently blogged about my foiled plans to use water and clove essential oils to attack a terrible powdery mildew issue with my snow peas and how I could have killed my neighbors koi fish. I decided to try a different method to administer the clove oil to the mildew. This time I added a few clove oil drops along with wintergreen and rosemary essential oils to a couple cups of water. I soaked a rag and administered the concoction to each leave. But my cukes were growing along side my peas so inevitably the cukes got a bit of the potion too. Well, the next day the cukes had white splotches where the potion had splashed. Some leaves turned brown and shriveled. Lesson learned! Stop using essential oils on my plants! In other news, the koi are still alive. 

Powdery Mildew and How I Could Have Killed My Neighbor's Koi

Snap peas are in full effect (actually snow peas: I bought seeds from a small seed business in Old Town asking for sugar snap peas and apparently they thought it was find to give me snow peas instead.  Bummed out a bit about it.  Sadly I doubt I'll ever buy seeds there again.).   My dad and I constructed my first excellent trellis from nails, old wood and string.  Awesome.  Planted my peas.  It is lovely.  Then.... attack of the powdery mildew.
Being the quasi-hippie that I am, I googled how to kill powdery mildew with essential oils.  My search led me to believe that misting the leaves with clove oil diluted in water was my solution.  I had clove oil in my stash, so i was ready to go!
As I'm happily spraying away and enjoying the smell of cloves in the evening and thinking to myself how clever I was, my neighbor arrives home.  Now, I live in an apartment and my garden is only 6 feet from  my neighbor's very cool koi pond.  It is in one of those barrels that frats use to keep their natty ice cold on a hot day, so not a very large koi pond.  But it is very nice to look at and adds a lovely fountain sound just outside my bedroom window.
I was promptly informed by my neighbor that clove oil kills fish! Great.  I was in the process of misting clove oil only feet away from innocent fish that could easily be euthanized.   Seriously, who knew?  I'd have been less likely to kill the fish from round-up pesticides.
Luckily I hadn't used all that much and after all I wasn't actually administering the concoction to the fish water.  However, had I used the spray every day, there is a good chance I could have damaged his fish.
Lesson Learned: no playing with essential oils when there are fish nearby!
So, I still have powdery mildew taking over my peas.  sad.

Handmade Custom Pottery for Nespresso

So, people who own the Nespresso maker are obsessed with their machines.  All those commercials with Salma trying to sell the machine using her mass sex appeal are no joke.  For folks who like this stuff, it is probably on the same level for them.  Case in point would be by BF who lives for his Nespresso.  His milk frother just malfunctioned and stopped working, and he is bummed out big time!  I really wonder how many of these drinks he makes on a daily basis.   

He got his machine as a gift, it is the one that doesn't have the extra little latch that pulls out to place the cup on to catch the espresso as it drips, it is the one with the built in non moveable little shelf.  Unfortunately the little shelf was too small to fit any of his mugs, so for the last year or so, he just uses those cute little hard plastic disposable cups that he gets every time he restocks his pods at Bloomingdales.  Though I am glad those single use cups are getting so much use, there really had to be a better option.  These little cups are my answer to the problem.  I brought the plastic cup to my pottery class and threw a set of mugs to mimic the look of the little plastic cups and to fit perfectly in the Nespresso. 

Dehydrated Pineapple & Tomatoes

Just one pineapple will fill up my Excalibur dehydrator. Dehydrated pineapple is basically candy it is so sweet and delicious. My self control is nothing standing up to these treats. The tomatoes were getting so ripe, I dried them too. I intend to grind them up to a nice powder for seasoning, but they are just so pretty I thought I'd admire them for a bit first.