Fall Colors out by Mammoth

my favorite time of year in the mountains..

Moon Shot!

aspen leaves

Aspen Grove right next to our campsite!

i heart the mountains...

Analog...filtering made EASY!

well, i just got a new program that makes your photos look like the annoying retro photos that everybody is taking with their phones....except, it's not on your phone....so here a few shots from the food album that have been processed to the hilt (that i really mean with two buttons).

                                    annoyed yet?  :D

Salsa on the Brain!

No....i don't mean the dance, but the food.  :D

salsa fresca...with the tomaters from the garden

gotta figure out what to do with all those tomaters....


tomatoes, onion, garlic, jalapeños (yes, those came from the garden too), a little vinegar, salt, and cilantro.  fresh, tasty snack.

garden loot

The Summer That Was…Part IV

And....i did promise the Oatmeal Cookies with Stuff recipe


here it is!  (there will be photos soon....)

Oatmeal Cookies with Stuff

from Epicurious.com



1 3/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats 
3/4 cup all-purpose flour 
3/4 tsp cinnamon 
1/2 tsp baking soda 
1/2 tsp salt 
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter , softened 
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar 
1/3 cup granulated sugar 
1 large egg 
1/2 tsp vanilla 

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease baking sheets.  

   

 Stir together oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Beat together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined well. Add oat mixture and beat until just combined.  

   

 Drop dough by heaping tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets and flatten mounds slightly with moistened fingers. Bake cookies in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until golden, about 12 minutes total. Transfer to racks to cool.  

   

Note.....400° F at 3500 and above for 10 mins

the stuff i usually add to this cookie...walnut pieces, chocolate chips, and dried fruit (either blueberries, apricot pieces, or raisins)

The Summer That Was…Part III

So with the various canning sessions going on, it doesn’t leave time for climbing.  but i did get out some.  here’s some photos of other people climbing.  i did get out, didn’t i?  :D

Eagle Lake 

Dave Moeser on Space Walkin'

So back to the important stuff..food and canning.  I’ve done the typical stuff, ie. cold packed tomatoes, tomato sauce sans salt.  i kinda wanted to try making ketchup.  

first…the sauce. 

The Sauce

the ketchup.

i followed a sfgate recipe which inadvertently turned into spicy ketchup.  i wasn’t sure what they meant, but i had a lot of thin liquid that took me a long time to reduce.  And when the reduction was complete, the heat of the ketchup was ratcheted up a few notches.  kinda reminds me of a country ketchup where is supposed to have a kick to it.

Accidental Spicy Ketchup

SFgate’s Homemade Ketchup  (or The Accidental Spicy Ketchup)

•3 tablespoons vegetable oil

•1 onion, thinly sliced

•4 cloves garlic, sliced

•1/4 teaspoon cloves

•1/4 teaspoon allspice

•1/2 teaspoon chile flakes

•1/2 teaspoon ancho chile powder

•1 teaspoon mustard seeds

•4 cups tomatoes, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks or two 14.5-ounce cans chopped tomatoes

•1/4 cup brown sugar

•1/2 cup distilled vinegar

•1 tablespoon kosher salt

1. Heat oil over medium in a large saucepan. Add onion and sauté until golden, about 15 minutes. Add garlic, cloves, allspice, chile flakes, ancho chile powder and mustard seeds and cook for 1-2 minutes, until aromatic.

2.  Add tomatoes, brown sugar, vinegar and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a light simmer and cook 35 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from burning.

3.  Remove from heat and blend or process until smooth. Press through a fine strainer into a clean saucepan, pressing on the solids hard to push as much through as possible.

4. Cook over medium heat for another 15 minutes until thick, stirring to keep it from sticking. Cool before serving.  (NOTE:  i’d cook it for a long time)

The Summer That Was…Part II

Of course i wasn’t going to rely on our little garden to crank hard, so i hit up the farmers market hard for the goodies.   These three came almost in a row.  I did have help with the pickling.  Thanks, Kaichi!!

L to R: Roasted Peach Salsa, Pickled Okra, Pickled Green Beans

First canning proj… the Salsa:  I call this Roasted Peach Salsa

30ish pounds of bruised tomatoes

10 ish bell peppers

  20 ish jalapeños

5 ish onions

salt

lime juice or vinegar

cilantro, chopped 

chop tomatoes, peaches, bell peppers in half (with skins on).  deseed (or not) the jalapenos and chop in half. put tomatoes, bell peppers and the jalapeños on a roasting sheet.  chop the onions in quarters and toss in olive oil, put in roasting dish.  then roast everything, the onions below the other sheet, until the tomatoes, peppers, and peaches are kinda blacken.

put everything in a large pot. blend with immersion blender to desired consistency.  add chopped cilantro.  salt and vinegar to taste.

this rough recipe yielded me roughly 15 quarts.  lucky other half and friends…we got to eat some immediately.

i think those folks were either really hungry or they liked it, cuz what was out disappeared fast!

Second and third canning proj…the Pickles:  Pickles Veggies ala Lenny.

This would be for both the okra and the greens beans.  i did do an experiment with carrots…but we’ll see about that.

BRINE - need about 2 cups per quart of veggies  

 H2O x4  

 Vinegar x1  

 Salt x1/4  

   

 In to each quart container put  

 3 cloves peeled garlic  

 2 dry chipotle peppers  

 1 teaspoon of each of the following  

 dill seed  

 whole coriander  

 cumin seed  

 peppercorn  

   

 I usually just clean the green beans and roughly cut into 2-3" pieces so they fit better into jars. Into sterilized jars (I put them in the oven to sterilize), put the dry stuff at the bottom.   

   

 Then pack in the veggies; green beans and okra I put in fresh. (This recipe is awesome with mushrooms, but you need to cook the mushrooms first because they shrink a ton when heated.)   

   

 Then pour in boiling brine leave 1/4-1/2" space at top, and make sure bubbles get out. Then water boil 25-35 min depending on elevation.  

   

 10 lbs of green beans makes 10-16 quarts.  

   

 ready in 4-6 wks  

These are his words…

I can’t wait to try them.  Yes, i’m counting the days to when i can crack the jars open and eat!

The Summer That Was…Part I

ok.  I’m writing this as the cookies i’ve wanted to bake for a long time is baking.  Soon, folks you will have Oatmeal Cookies with Stuff.  so at some point in this many part series about the summer happenings (usually with food), the recipe and photos will be posted.  

This summer seems like it wasn’t long enough.  with snow falling in june and still snowboarding in july, it seems to me that i was more keen on getting the summer foods than climbing.  i really don’t have an excuse.  i’m not injured or injured.  i just wanted the garden to actually start doing something  (since the teaser was the garlic shoots).

So,with gusto, i started browsing the recipes i would use for canning and general eating.  then came up with none…except a pickling recipe that my friend uses for all his veggies (thanks, lenny!) and that we have sampled last year.

first up on the docket..the garden.. fooled ya, didn’t i?  well, tough luck.  

we spent a bit of time two summers ago making our garden plot and through the nice stretches of winter (in january and february) 

plot 1

Plot 2

well, Plot 1 has some grapes and some raspberries and some garlic.  what i really wanted to get going this year was the tomatoes and some herbs (mainly mint and sage….what for?  mojitos and roasted stuff)  so here’s some photos form mid summer (really that’s around mid-july)

the Garlic

raspberries

tomato fruit

tomato blossom

Hopefully, we’ll get a decent harvest this year.

just a note, the grape will probably take another year or two before they fruit.  

Testing out this app

Blogger's new iphone app...

What we do on those crazy snow days

Well, just me that is.  i was bored.  One can only surf so much of the interweb and read so much of Eating Animals (by: jonathan safran soer) at once. So, i decided to play with the white balance of my camera....finally...

some photos of white....

Food (one way of heating the house...)

Taking a break from the deep pow here...really, the last two mornings have been epic.  i guess anything is epic when one has had 30+ days on non-snow.  mother nature must of loved all the stoner white boy dances, cuz she rewarded us with some serious white stuff!  winter is back with a vengence!  yay!


that brings us to today.  yes, i need to post more.  yes, happy new year to you all, both western and eastern.  so, with that out of the way, i had some time to figure out what to do with some apricot paste ed bought on a trip doing to the bay area.  after much perusing of the interweb for doable recipes, i came across this one....Oatmeal Raspberry Thumbprints.  instead of using raspberry preserves, i used the apricot paste...and when i ran out...kadota fig preserves.


needless to say...ed said it's a keeper.  he also said...it's like eating granola...

Oatmeal Raspberry Thumbprints Epicurious | September 2002

by Tish Boyle
The Good Cookie

Yield: Makes about 36 cookies ingredients 1 1/4 cups walnuts 1 1/4 cups quick-cooking rolled oats 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 1 large egg yolk 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/2 cup raspberry preserves Confectioners' sugar for dusting 1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two baking sheets. 2. Place the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely ground, about 15 seconds. Transfer the nuts to a pie plate or shallow bowl and set aside. 3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, and salt; set aside. 4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter, shortening, and brown sugar at medium-high speed until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg yolk until well blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. At low speed, add the oat mixture, mixing just until blended. 5. Pinch off pieces of the dough and shape into 1-inch balls. Roll one of the balls in the ground walnuts, coating it completely. Place the ball on one of the baking sheets and flatten it slightly with your palm, then press your thumb into the center of the cookie to form an indentation. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of the raspberry preserves into the indentation, filling it. Repeat with the remaining dough balls, arranging them 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheets. 6. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, for 14 to 16 minutes, until golden brown. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely. 7. Dust the cookies lightly with sifted confectioners' sugar before serving. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. Source Information The Good Cookie

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/printerfriendly/Oatmeal-Raspberry-Thumbprints-107742#ixzz1ER2KIL00