Italian Plum Bread

Mmmmm...having to stop myself from going into the kitchen to eat more of this. My neighbors have an Italian Prune Plum tree...three years ago it put out massive amounts of fruit and I made jam and conserve with it. Every year I wait for these delicious plums. But since then...there haven't been many plums. Luckily this year we got a bunch in our Tonnemaker Farm CSA box. I looove having this fruit box. The plums weren't very good fresh...they were a little too mealy and the flavor wasn't as tart as I like. So I decided to cook them and found this recipe on food.com. My slight adaptation below:

1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1 cup walnuts
3 cups diced blue Italian plums

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well. Add vanilla.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, cinnamon, cream of tartar and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients and yogurt alternately to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
Stir in the nuts and plums. Divide the batter between the two loaf pans.
Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the pans cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn the loaves out of the pans and cool completely on the rack. Makes 2 loaves.

Peach Pancakes

We've had more peaches this year than ever before thanks to our fruit CSA box from Tonnemaker Farm.

Found a great recipe for Peach Pancakes courtesy of www.likemotherlikedaughters.com

2 eggs, at room temperature
2 ½ cups buttermilk, at room temperature (I substituted vanilla yogurt)
4 tablespoons oil
2 ½ cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ginger
Pinch nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
2 cups ripe, peeled, diced peaches

Blend egg, milk and oil. In a separate bowl blend dry ingredients together.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Gently fold in peaches. Let sit 5 minutes. Batter will be lumpy.

Heat griddle until drops of water sizzle. Grease lightly if needed.

Drop large spoonfuls of batter onto hot grill and smooth out slightly. Flip pancakes once pancakes puff and bubbles have formed, but before bubbles break.

Turn and brown on the other side, pressing down gently to make sure batter cooks evenly around the fruit.

Serve immediately with syrup.

Put Up 2010 Revisited

Of the list of stuff below that I put up last year, we only have left:
3 pints beets, 2 half-pints sundried tomato chutney, 3/4 pint apple cranberry chutney, half-pint apricot jam, and 3 half-pints apple onion chutney (looks like the latter never even made it on the list. It is a yucky green/brown color so not very appetizing looking. Definitely not something I'll do again.) Chutneys are definitely something we haven't found much of a use for so I won't be doing that anymore. The carrot salsa was awesome and we want more of that for sure, plus pickled carrots & cukes of all kinds. I made a ton more pickled beets than what is listed below. I must've made another 8-10 pints at some point that never got recorded. I think I'll try to make everything on the list again except the chutneys. I made a lot of on-demand salsas out of the crushed tomatoes (based on a Mark Bittman recipe). It was really nice to have the flexibility to use the tomatoes in so many ways instead of having too many pasta sauces or salsas. Speaking of pasta sauces, I made a bunch of bruschetta that also doesn't seem to be on the list below...probably 5 pints-ish. It was too thin to be a bruschetta that we liked but made a good base for pasta sauce, just had to add tomato paste to thicken it up. On the wishlist for this year is also corn relish and dilly beans. And I'd really love to do peaches or pears or some other sliced fruit again. They are sooo delicious in the middle of winter.

7 half-pints apple cranberry chutney
5 half-pints sundried tomato chutney
3 pints bbq sauce
4 quarts + 2 pints applesauce
5 quarts, 6 pints crushed tomatoes (all from my garden!)
4 half-pints tomatillo salsa
7 pints dilled carrots
1 quart bruschetta (freezer)
1 quart green beans (freezer)
1 quart broccoli (freezer)
6 half-pints carrot pepper salsa
5 half-pints + 9 quarter-pints apricot jam
5 half-pints raspberry jam
10 half-pints blackberry jam
6 half-pints blackberry sauce
8 half-pints strawberry jam
5 half-pints plum jam
3 pints spicy pickled carrots
3 pints spicy mixed pickled cucumbers & carrots
5 pints bread & butter pickles
2 pints pickled beets & onions w/ caraway
3 pints mashed strawberries w/ sugar (freezer)
2 quarts whole strawberries (freezer)
2 quarts blackberries (freezer)
3 quarts pickled cabbage slaw (freezer)
4 quarts vegetable broth (freezer)
2.5 quarts corn (freezer)
1 quart raspberries (freezer)
2 quarts blueberries (freezer)

Put Up 2011

Updated 7/31/11

Below is approximations of fruit we bought to what we did with it. There was lots of berry snacking in there too.

Strawberries (2 full flats) = 9 half-pints strawberry jam + 3 quarts frozen whole strawberries + 7 pints frozen strawberry sauce (7/11)

Raspberries (1.5 full flats) = 10 half-pints raspberry jam + 2 quarts frozen berries (7/11)

Apricots (3 lbs) = 8 half-pints apricot jam (7/11)

Blueberries (1 full flat) = 8 half-pints black & blue jam (includes blackberries) + 3 quarts frozen berries (7/11)

Cucumbers (3 lbs) = 7 pints dill pickles (7/11)

Pickled Radishes

Pickled Radishes

1 bunch red radishes
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon yellow or brown mustard seed
1/4 teaspoon whole coriander seed
1/4 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 medium dried bay leaf

Rinse radishes and trim off their leafy tops. Slice thinly with a mandolin. Set radishes aside. Combine red wine vinegar, sugar, water, salt, mustard seed, coriander seed, peppercorns, and bay leaf in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and let pickling brine cool for about 5 minutes. Pour brine over radishes. Let cool at room temperature for 20 minutes; cover and refrigerate. Use to top burgers, sandwiches, add to potato salad, etc.

Note: These will smell horrible but taste delicious!

NW Seattle Farmer's Market Calendar

There are so many farmer's markets cropping up.
Sundays - Ballard - 10am-3pm
Tuesdays - Swedish Medical Center Ballard Cafe - 11am-2pm (Private?)
Wednesdays - Wallingford - 3:30pm-7pm
Thursdays - Interbay - 3pm-7pm
Fridays - Phinney Ridge - 3pm-7pm
Saturdays - U District - 9am-2pm
Saturdays - Magnolia - 10am-2pm

Baked Onion Rings

We've gotten heaps of onions from the farm this year. Last year I chopped them in the food processor and stored them in the freezer. But haven't gotten around to that this year. So...we tried these Baked Onion Rings slightly adapted from Allrecipes.com. Quite good and could easily become a late night snack.

2 medium yellow onions (I actually did 3 and have tons of slices leftover that we didn't have enough crumbs for...could be that 1 is plenty)
3 egg whites
1 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp dried chipotle spice
1/8 tsp pepper

Slice onions ~1/4 in thick using mandolin (this is the thickest setting on my mandolin), separate rings and place in bowl. Cover with ice water, soak for 30 minutes. Drain.

In a small bowl beat egg whites until foamy (and starting to thicken). In another bowl combine remaining dry ingredients. Divide crumb mixture between 2 bowls. Dip onion into egg whites and then into crumb mixture shaking bowl till onion is coated. Place on a baking sheet coated with nonstick cooking spray. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.