Fiddleheads have a very short season, just a week or two and those cute little curls unfurl and the moment has passed. How do you enjoy fiddleheads all year long? Quick and easy fiddlehead pickles are the answer!
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Food Preservation
Dandelion Capers
Capers are a staple of our home cooking, and we eat them enough that I decided to learn how to grow them myself. I was disappointed to learn that they need a long growing season and lots of heat to thrive, so no luck in Vermont.
Traditional capers are the pickled flower buds of a heat-loving Mediterranean shrub, but there are a number of other pickled flower buds that taste remarkably similar.
Dandelions produce a small, caper sized flower bud early in spring before the stem shoots skyward and opens into a flower. If picked small enough, dandelion buds can be made into convincing dandelion capers. That’s a homemade caper that just about anyone can grow!
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Mango Wine ~ Small Batch Recipe
Mango wine has a reputation for capturing the very essence of mango in a light and sweet summer wine. I’ll ferment just about anything that’ll fit in a carboy, but somehow I’ve never gotten around to making it.
After 10 years of home brewing, adding yeast to anything with even a hint of promise, we always make our first batches small. I’ve made a few too many toxic 5-gallon batches to waste ingredients before I have a winning recipe. Single bottle quart batches are a great way to refine a recipe before investing a lot of money in homemade wine.
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Wild Ramp Pesto
Pesto is one of those things that you can make with just about anything green. Wild weed pestos can be made with just about any green that has enough flavor to give a pesto character. Ramp pesto uses flavorful ramp greens to make a spicy, garlicky pesto to get you moving in the spring.
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Preserving Ramps
Ramps are a spring ephemeral, which means they’re only here for a very short time. A short harvest window helps us appreciate natures bounty, but sometimes its just not enough. There are simple ways to preserve ramps to enjoy them for a little bit longer.
My baby girl holding an arm full of ramps.
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Pickled Garlic Scapes – Recipe for Canning
If you’re growing enough garlic to feed your family, you’re also growing enough garlic scapes to feed an army. When the garlic scapes start popping up, it’s hard to use them all fresh. Sure, they’re good in scrambled eggs and they make a spectacular fresh garlic scape pesto but even after you’ve used them every way imaginable, they’re still coming…
It’s time to pull out the canner and make pickled garlic scapes. Home canned pickled garlic scapes taste like extra garlic-y pickled dilly beans, with an extra crunchy snap. While green beans can sometimes get a bit soggy in the canner, garlic scapes barely even feel it, coming out crisp and flavorful every time.
Garlic scapes are long, and it’s a shame to cut them down to size for canning jars. Try using extra tall pint and a half jars for a more dramatic finished presentation on the table. They also make really pretty gifts that way.
I’ve found that you can pickle them in two shapes. The long straight stems can be cut to length for tall canning jars, but the curl above the straight portion fits perfectly into a wide mouth jar. Try canning up both versions, the straight pickles and fun curly Q’s.
Canning Pickled Garlic Scapes
Pickled garlic scapes preserve short-lived garlic scapes for year-round eating.
Ingredients
- 1 pound garlic scapes 3 to 5 bunches if you're buying them at the farmers market
- 2-3 teaspoons dill seed one teaspoon per jar
- 1 to 1.5 teaspoons whole peppercorns 1/2 tsp. per jar
- 1 to 1.5 teaspoons whole coriander seed 1/2 tsp. per jar
- 1.5 cups apple cider vinegar
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tablespoons pickling salt or kosher salt
Instructions
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Start a water bath canner and bring it up to a boil.
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Trim each end of the scapes, removing the blossoms and reserving them for another use, and trimming the tough bottom end off. Start with a single scape, and trim it to the size of your jar, fitting it in with just over 1/2 inch of headspace. Use this as your measuring stick, and trim the rest of the scapes to the same length.
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Pack the scapes into pint or tall pint and a half mason jars. Add 1 teaspoon dill seed and 1/2 teaspoon of peppercorns and coriander seed to each jar. For spicy pickles, add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional).
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Mix the water, cider vinegar and salt together in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir to incorporate the salt.
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Pour the hot vinegar brine over the garlic scapes in mason jars, filling to within 1/2 inch of the top rim.
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Seal with 2 part canning lids and process in a water bath canner: 10 minutes for pints and 15 for pint and a half or quart jars.
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Wait at least 2 weeks for the flavors to infuse before eating. I find they're best at least 6 weeks later, so try to be patient.
Recipe Notes
Yield: Roughly 3 pints (or 2 extra tall pint and a half jars) Canning Method: Water Bath Headspace: 1/2 inch Process Time: 10 Minutes for pints and 15 minutes for 1.5 pint or quart jars
How to Can Everything ~ 100+ Recipes from A to Z
It can be tough to hunt down canning recipes in the middle of summer when all your crops are coming in. I’ve collected all the best canning recipes for putting up the harvest all in one place, organized by crop.
Here’s how to can everything from Apples to Zucchini, including recipes for less common canned goods like meats and soups. I’ll be adding to this list as the season progresses, so bookmark it or pin it for later.
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Refrigerator Dill Pickles – Quick and Easy Recipe
It’s hard to find a crisp pickle these days. To can crisp pickles, you need to find tiny cucumbers, about the size of your pinky finger. They’re almost impossible to buy unless you grow them yourself. For the rest of us that want a crisp pickle from farmers market cucumbers, refrigerator pickles are the best option.
Refrigerator pickles quick pickle cucumbers without canning using salt, vinegar and spices. They won’t keep in the pantry all winter, but they’ll still last for months in the refrigerator.
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Homemade Lemoncello Recipe
We love to make maple lemonade in the summertime. Just a bit of maple, some fresh lemon juice and a can of seltzer if you want to get fancy.
With a cup or two a day, that’s a lot of lemons. It seems a shame to let all that tasty lemon zest go to waste, so why not make limoncello?
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Best Winter Storage Apples
Keeping apples fresh all winter is easier than you might think. While most store best at around 34 degrees, a cool basement is sufficient to get nearly the same results without the effort of refrigeration or building a separate root cellar.
Simply wrap each apple individually in newspaper and place into boxes, with space between each apple. Check in on them periodically for discolored paper, indicating that an apple is spoiling. Every once in a while, unwrap a few to see how they’re doing.
I’ve successfully stored Newton Pippin Apples, one of the very best keepers, for 14 months using this method. Just a box, some newspaper and a basement. No special tools necessary.
Many varieties don’t really come into their own taste wise until they’ve been stored for at least a few months, but once they do they’re well worth the wait.
Newton Pippin apples in late March, after 6 months in storage.
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