Tales From The Harvest Market

The last farmers market of the season in Beaverton is the harvest market. I've been there previously, it's the Saturday just before Thanksgiving. People bring down the last of their fruits and vegetables. It's a good time to get fresh items for your Thanksgiving dinner and to stock up. This year, since I haven't blown up my house yet, I can can (jar) the last items of the season. Over the past two years, when I have gone to the harvest market I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to stock up for the winter, but that changed this year. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

My wife and I arrived about 9am, she went to get some coffee or cider or hot chocolate (or a mix of the three I think) and I decided to walk around and see what was there. There was one less aisle than usual, but the market was still full. Being a choosy shopper I looked at the prices and the quality. My first good deal was cauliflower. I bought two large heads from a woman who was taking them off a truck. They were two dollars for large heads and three for monster sized. I got two of the monster sized and then got a hernia carrying them with me.

To add to that weight I got two red cabbages that were 39 cents a pound, cost about five and a half (done the math yet?) dollars. Also grabbed a brussel sprout tree for half the price of what other boots were selling for. By this time I had no room in my bags so when I found my wife we walked back to our car and got some more bags. They were then filled with apples, Italian artichokes, cherry tomatoes and I can't remember if there was anything else. My mind was on the cauliflower and cabbage that I snagged at a great deal. Time to start canning.

But first let me talk about how the other items were served. The brussel sprouts were cut from the stalk, to clean remove any part of the outer leaves that look worn or spotty, just like a cabbage. I then split them in half, top to bottom not across the center, and then steam them for about five to ten minutes. The cabbage should be tender but not mushy. I also sometimes add some chopped garlic to steam as well. Remove the brussel sprouts from the steamer and drop into a hot frying pan with olive oil. Saute for a minute or two and then add balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, lemon juice, Italian seasoning and mix well. Lower heat and simmer until the sauce begins to thicken.

The Italian artichokes, only different from the standard artichoke in that the leaves are more meatier, were boiled for about twenty five minutes. They were eaten plain since they were so fresh and tasty, why smother the flavor? The apples, at least five different types ranging from sweet to super tart, were used in an apple pie. May I add that it was with a cheddar cheese crust. One problem with the pie, since I made it on Thanksgiving and prepared it in a hurry to get it in the oven right after the turkey came out, I forgot to add flour or corn starch with the apples and sugar (half cup white and half cup brown, so much better that way). So the crust was a bit soggy on the bottom and you almost needed a spoon to eat it. The one thing that everyone said was "The pie is good but these apples are the best I have ever tasted!" The tomatoes were eaten pretty much every time we walked by them in the kitchen.

Now to the main focus of the post, using my newly acquired skills as a canning ninja to can the cauliflower and the red cabbage. I weighed them both, there was eleven and a half pounds of cauliflower and fourteen pounds of cabbage. I figure that's enough to last through the winter. I put the cabbages into the garage since I know that they would last the week and that I need to make sure I had enough red currant jelly since that is part of my basting sauce for the turkey. I decided to pickle the cauliflower and make German style red cabbage, I knew I had enough jars since I had been stocking up on them over the past few weeks whenever there was a sale.

My good friends, and pretty much unrelated family, Rene and Wayne brought with them over the summer pickled cauliflower for my wife and I. It was a bit too salty for her, I was amazed. Trying to recapture that wonderful flavor I decided to use the same brine that I had left over from the pickled tomatoes but used cauliflower instead. I also had a bunch of really, really hot peppers one of my co-workers dropped off at work from his garden. I decided to mix them in with some of the cauliflower. It is a hot water canning method that I used, see here for how I did the tomatoes.

Of course since I am learning, I had to make a mistake. Today's lesson, as I hear J. Walter Weathermen in my head, "...and that's why you always fill your jars with hot liquid." I heated my brine, as well as the jars, filled them with cauliflower and sometimes with peppers, lots of garlic (did you think otherwise) and some dill seed and peppercorns. I turned off the heat on the burner for the brine so when I got to the last jar it had cooled to room temperature. I went to check on the jars just before the water was to boil and noticed that one of the jars was floating near the top. This is strange since I had at least three inches of water over the top of the jars. Upon closer review I saw that the jar split on the bottom. I fished it out, removed the broken base and threw them out. I was debating reusing the cauliflower but my wife offered wisdom by stating that who knows if there are any bits of glass in the mix. Good point and now I know that's why you always....(blah, blah, blah)....hot liquid.

The red cabbage I knew would take longer so I waited for the Friday after Thanksgiving. While I was making turkey soup I also made red cabbage. The recipe I use is from a German cookbook that I've had for years, I had to start making it since it's almost impossible to find it out here in Oregon. Back in New York it was everywhere, seriously. I remember once back in the early 90's going into a C-Town (supermarket chain on the east coast) in Harlem on 125th street and buying a jar of red cabbage. It was everywhere back there but nowhere out here. So I have to make it. It is a bit of a time consuming process, but one that is well worth it. I always make a batch for my birthday and usually around Christmas, Easter and whenever I get the craving. So if I make fourteen pounds of red cabbage, it'll save me time through the rest of the year. Right! Right?

First the recipe I used:

Ingredients
Red Cabbage
1/4 lb bacon
1 Tbs sugar
1 Apple chopped (peeled and cored)
1 Onion minced
1 cup beef broth
3/4 cup white vinegar
Salt
8 to 10 oz Red Currant Jelly

1) Remove outer spotted leaves from cabbage, quarter and remove core. Slice cabbage and set aside.
2) Mince bacon and saute slowly until it melts, when it begins to brown add sugar and mix.
3) Add chopped apple and minced onion, mix, cover for 4 to 5 minutes.
4) Add cabbage and stir around to get it coated and add vinegar. Add salt to taste. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes until cabbage becomes bright purple.
5) Add beef broth, allow to boil and then reduce to simmer and cook until cabbage is tender, about 90 minutes to 2 hours.
6) Stir in red currant jelly about an hour before serving.

I used my pressure caner since it would be large enough to hold everything. I let it cook all day, transferred it to a smaller pot and some on the side since we were having dinner guests on Saturday. Got up Saturday morning and started to can. I spend most of the previous day looking for an official recipe for canning the red cabbage. Officially there is no approved method of canning plain red cabbage, no problem with me. The only recipes I found were either pickled cabbage or spiced cabbage, which was basically pickled cabbage with allspice. Since I couldn't find instructions I started to use logic. 1) You buy it in the store in a jar, so someone in a factory or nuclear power plant is putting this into a jar and I haven't died yet, not that I am aware of. 2) Seeing that there is a process, using 11psi for twenty five minutes will kill all the bacteria. It could kill the flavor too, but I wouldn't die of botulism. 3) Other people mentioned that they do this too, so I decided to thumb my nose at the USDA and can my cabbage.

Guess what, I made another canning mistake. I followed all the steps like when I used the pressure caner for my diced tomatoes, see here for that post, and all looked well. None of the jars exploded, they looked like they sealed well, I was going to have seven quarts of red cabbage. I then noticed something shortly after the cabbage came out of the caner. It wasn't red or purplish, it was brown. I'm starting to panic and think what has happened to my beautiful cabbage, but since I've never done this before I decided to just wait and see. That night at dinner my friend Peter told me that when you can fruits or vegetables like that you need to add a preserver. He wasn't sure what it was called but that they sell it next to the canning supplies in the supermarket. He said by adding small amount of that it will keep the color. I asked about the flavor and he told me that it will still taste the same just not look the same. A second d'oh is that I didn't season with canning salt but regular table salt. The amount of salt is minimal in the recipe, but since it was going to end up in a can it should have been seasoned with canning salt.

Anyway, it was good practice using the pressure caner and I do have a bunch of food to last all winter and probably next spring as well. One thing I want to add is a preserving e-book I found while looking for a process to can red cabbage. It's called The Beginners Guide to Preserving, click the link to see the pdf. It talks about the history of canning, how to can, how dry, how to freeze, just an over good online guide.