Tag: heavy metal

Debauchery Strawberry Jam

WFMH

Listening to: Slowly We Rot – Obituary

Two batches of jam and one batch of vinegar experiment, see bottom of post for details.

Strawberries are here for a few weeks, let’s make some tasty jams!

Save the tops! I’ll explain after the pics of alien-looking strawberries!

Strawberry Jam – Yields 9 half-pint jars

  • 3 lbs smashed strawberries, tops removed
  • 1 lemon, zested
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 6 Tbsp pectin, no/low sugar powdered form
  • 3 cups sugar (or 6 cups if using regular pectin)

Special Equipment: water bath canner/large stock pot with lid and rack for the bottom, jar lifter or tongs with rubber bands

0. Prepare the water bath canner, fill with enough water to cover the jars by at least 1″, bring to a boil. Put a small plate in the freezer, to check for jelling. Have the clean jars with lids and bands ready to go.

1. Combine strawberries, lemon zest, and lemon juice in a 6 qt heavy bottom saucepan or pot on high heat. This is usually when I smash the strawberries, I don’t mind if they’re a bit chunky. Add the pectin and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

2. Dump all the sugar in and stir to combine. Bring it back to boiling. As tempting as it may be, don’t stick your finger into this molten lava. Boil hard for a minute or so. Bust out that plate you put in the freezer, drop some jam on it. Push it with your finger, if it wrinkles then it’s set. If not, put the plate back in the freezer and keep cooking the jam for another minute or two and check again. Worst case scenario your jam doesn’t set and it will be a great topping for waffles.

3. Ladle the jam into the jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Give them a lil rim job, place the lids and bands.

4. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove the jars and let them cool. Listen for the pings, they energize you as much as this Florida death metal.

Adapted from a USDA tested and approved source.

You’ll notice the fruit chunks float to the top of the jar. If you don’t like that for some reason, you could purée the fruit instead and that would help. You could go the extra mile and strain the seeds out with a fine mesh sieve to make jelly if you wanted to. You do you, bud.

We picked a flat of strawberries and enjoyed the carnage leftover.

I am privileged to live near some great farms. Enjoy these fucked up local, organic strawberries I canned:

I shrieked when I found this chungus.
Looks kinda Aborted, doesn’t it?
There’s a surprised face on the right side if you look closely.

What’s with the container with strawberry tops?

I’m attempting to make a fruit scrap vinegar with the tops. You know how you can find those boutique fruit vinegars and they’re expensive as hell? I’m trying to make some of that. This is essentially a low-cost and zero waste way to do that. The tops have a bit of fruit on them, and as long as there aren’t any moldy pieces, it should work.

I cut the tops off of 4 flats of strawberries and added them to my 4 qt container. I added water and 1/4 c sugar, and covered it with a piece of cloth and a rubber band. I’m going to keep an eye on this and stir it every day for a week or so until the water turns a bit dark. If it gets moldy I’ll pitch it, but if it doesn’t I’m going to strain it and let the mixture acidify for a month or two. Eventually it will form a scum layer that is known as a “mother of vinegar”, like the kind you see at the bottom of Bragg’s unfiltered apple cider vinegar. It’s different from a kombucha SCOBY, but kind of the same concept.

I’ll update either way. I’m hoping to make some strawberry vinegar to use as a base for salad dressing and for mixed drinks.

Pardon my basic bitch Snapchat photo, but I wanted to show you the comical amount of strawberries I processed. I ended up freezing most of them to process at a later date, more posts to follow.

Some Images From a Wholesome Outing to Pick Fruit

Picking berries is a nice activity, even for your local misanthropes.

Chopping Block Chicken or Turkey Stock

WFMH

Listening to: The Bees Made Honey in The Lion’s Skull- Earth

No two batches of turkey stock will look the same.

Whole turkey or chicken make for a few great meals and then gives the gift of bones for stock. Get in the habit of saving bones from your bird meals, including rotisserie chickens, but maybe not fried. It’s okay if there’s some meat or connective parts on the bone, it makes for a more flavorful stock.  

Make a whole bunch to pressure can for shelf stable goodness or freeze if you don’t have access to a pressure canner. 

Turkey or Chicken Stock- Yields 7 qts

  • 3-5 ziplock bags of bones you’ve saved up in the freezer
  • 1-2 ziplock bags of vegetable scraps you’ve saved in the freezer (onion peels, carrot peels and butts, celery butts, non-cruciferous odds and ends). If you didn’t save scraps, use a few whole veggies like onions, carrots, and celery.
  • Aromatic herbs of your choice: a small handfull of peppercorns, bay leaves, a bouquet of thyme or sage. Whatever you have on hand will be okay.

Special Equipment: Large stock pot, pressure canner (or lots of tupperware for freezing), chinois or other kind of strainer.

0. Have the foresight to save bones from turkey or chicken. Any meat or fatty bits on there add more flavor. Like in the Vegetable Stock recipe, save some veggies too. If you don’t have freezer space to hold your would-be compost, you can scale this down significantly. 

1. Roast the bones in the oven at 400F for an hour or two. Break the smaller bones for bonus points. This is an optional step, but deepens the flavor of your stock. 

2. Place the bones and veggies in the stock pot, cover with water. Set it on medium-high or high setting to get it simmering. It shouldn’t boil, get that sucker on low and slow to keep the temp just right. Simmer that stock for at least 6 hours, some people go for as long as 48 hours. I usually find a happy medium at 12-16 hours for my stock. 

3. Strain the stock into heat-resistant containers. Discard the veggies and herbs into your compost pile, and bones in trash. Skim some of the fat off the top of the stock. Save that shit, that’s shmaltz! Use instead of butter or lard in other recipes. If you wanted to get all of it off, refrigerate the stock for a few hours or overnight. The fat comes right off. The broth should be gelatinous and wiggly when it’s chilled, that means you did it right. All of that collagen is what the hipsters pay up the ass for in their expensive little bottles of “bone broth”. 
At this stage you can freeze the broth into pint containers or in ice cube trays for a tablespoon at a time. It keeps in the fridge for about a week, any longer and it gets fizzy in my experience. Continue on if you want to learn to can your magical fluids.

4. Prepare the pressure canner according to manufacturer instructions. Bring the fat-skimmed stock to a boil. Ladle the stock into the clean jars , leaving 1 in of headspace. Give them a lil rim job with a towel and place the two piece lid. One full canner load is usually 7 quarts or 10 pints, use whichever jars will work better for your needs. Pressure can for 20 minutes for pints, or 25 minutes if using quarts. The clock starts when you hit the psi needed for your elevation, 0-1000 ft is 11 psi. Let the canner depressurize on its own and remove the jars. Listen to those beautiful lids ping, it makes your bits tingly. 

Adapted from a test and USDA approved recipe. Normally when you can vegetables, peels are removed to prevent bacteria from growing, but since these peels are strained out, they are safe to use.

Well it’s been a long goddamn time since I’ve posted anything, my b. It’s a snowy day here in WA, so enjoy and make Turkey Soup or something with this recipe.

Cherries to Demolish Your Adversaries

WFMH

Listening to: Fate of Norns – Amon Amarth

Bing and Rainier cherries to be enjoyed in the colder months of the year. 

Cherries have lots of vitamins and minerals in them, so let’s beef them up with a bunch of sugar to preserve them. Open a can up before you plan on bludgeoning your foes so you have extra strength. You could also make a pie if you’re not into battling. 

Cherry season is short, usually in the early summer, so stock up for the rest of the year. You’ll be happy you did. I only can sweet cherries, but sour cherries are good to can, too. 

Cherries in Light Syrup- Yields 9 pints

  • 12 lbs sweet cherries, pitted- I have access to Bing and Rainier cherries here in WA. 
  • 2 cups sugar 

Special equipment: water bath canner/large stock pot with lid and rack for the bottom, cherry pitter OR paring knife and pastry tip

0. Prepare the water bath canner, fill with enough water to cover the jars by at least 1″, bring to a boil.

1. Take the stems off and pit the cherries. It’s not *crucial* to do so, but it’s nicer when you open the jar. This is a pain in the ass to do without a cherry/olive pitter, but I found that using a paring knife held in the forefinger and thumb to cut and a round pastry tip wedged on the middle or ring finger to scoop the pit out works too. Use gloves either way, or be prepared to have sticky hands. It’s not that bad if you’re going for an intimidating blood-stained look!
Keep the cherries in water once they’re cut so they don’t start to oxidize. Once the cherries are purchased, try not to move them around too much or they will become bruised. This doesn’t affect their safety as far as canning goes, but if they’re lighter colored Rainier cherries, they might not look as pretty.

2. Prepare syrup: I prefer to can fruit in light syrup. You could use organic fancy juice, water, or heavier syrups, but I feel those affect the flavor of the fruit too much. Just using water sucks any sweetness out of the fruit, which totally blows. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil with the sugar until it is dissolved.  

3. Add the cherries to the boiling syrup. Boil for 5 minutes. Listen to The Pursuit of Vikings during the step, you won’t regret it. 

4. Ladle the cherries into the  clean jars with the syrup, fill to 1/2 in from the top. use a thin spatula or knife to de-bubble the jars. Adjust the headspace if needed. Apply the two-piece lid and ring on gently. 
You’ll probably have extra syrup that’s now flavored with cherries, don’t throw that away! 

5. Process in the water bath for 15 minutes for half-pints or pints, or 20 minutes for quarts. You COULD use a pressure canner for this, but it would probably be best to raw pack them because of the higher temps. Cherries are acidic enough to be processed in the water bath safely. 
Remove from the hot water with tongs with rubber bands or a jar lifter if you’re fancy. Listen for the pings, they’re as beautiful as that melodic death metal you’ve been jamming out to. 

Adapted from a USDA tested and approved source.

Bask in the glory of your hard work. 

These will brighten up your canning closet. You need to hide these from anyone living with you (including yourself), because these are so good you’ll want to just snack on them right away. Save some for the winter to have an out-of-season cherry pie, or on top of ice cream. For the cherry pie, use some of the liquid in the jar with the thickener of your choice (corn starch, Clear Jel, flour, etc.). I believe in you. It’s only about a billion times better than store-bought canned cherries in the off-season, like this one I made for my metalhead buddy Jesse for his 21st birthday four years ago:

Make your friends a birthday pie, with a pie dough you cut-outs of your stenciled hand. This was a hit, even though I used store-bought canned cherries in April. It’s the thought that counts. 

Like I mentioned earlier, you could use any kind of sugar/sweetener solution, but I prefer light syrup. It helps the fruit retain their color and flavor without it being liquid diabetes. I might look into steam juicing cherries in the future and canning them in their own liquid, but only if I found a good deal on cherries or found a tree to pick.  Here is a guide I follow for ratios. 

This summer my canning habit really took off with cherries. In Washington we get good quality Bing, Rainier, and sour cherries in particular, they’re a really good deal at ethnic markets and at the stands scattered around, usually run by Native women. I realized how I don’t really care for them too much during the short season they’re available, but I always want them in the winter and spring. They’ll laugh at you for buying and processing a goofy amount of cherries, but will be silent as you pull out your little jars of sunshine when it’s cold out. 

Future pie material for pals made with superior, canned-with-love cherries. 

Sourdough Starter- A Different Kind of Pet

WFMH

Listening to: Rituals- Rotting Christ

My SD starter, lovingly-dubbed Rodger, straight out of the fridge.

Step up your baking pleb, it’s time to learn to use sourdough.

This simple magical goop is made of flour, water, and wild yeast that grows on every surface. Pioneers usually made it by accident by leaving out dough and letting it ferment, this was how bread was leavened before commercial yeast was available. Ask me for a piece of my starter, I am happy to share. If you’re far away, you can make your own. Soon it will become a part of your family and will keep you company. Name your new friend and feast upon its cooked flatulence.

Rodger, 8 hours after the first feed right out of the fridge. Right after this pic was taken, he was fed a second time.

Why keep a sourdough starter if I can just get yeast at the store?

Yeast at the store is just fine and works quickly. Sourdough is much less convenient, but the taste it brings to your baking can’t be matched. There’s so much to learn with sourdough recipes and see how you can make more homemade items. The starter I use isn’t particularly “sour” as with commercial bread, but I can taste the tang when I made crackers or pizza dough. 

If you enjoy experimenting with baking the slower, more old-fashioned way, this is for you. Many recipes will call for commercial yeast as well as starter, so don’t dump your packets or jar of commercial yeast just yet!

How to take care of a starter

  1. Find a good sized glass, ceramic, or food-grade plastic crock for your goo to live in. Depending on how much you need, try for at least 1 or 2 qts. 
  2. “Feed” the starter: Use a food-scale to tare your container and set the units to grams. Add all of the starter you have, add equal parts water and flour, in that order. Add the water first, as you can always remove some if you add too much, THEN the flour, as it it much more difficult to remove once it’s incorporated in the mixture. Make sure to mix it very thoroughly until there are no lumps of flour. The yeast that is in the starter now has food, and will start to foam up. 
  3. Keep an eye on the starter. Sometimes it will open the lid to its container and shit all over your counter if it’s really excited. Once it’s really frothy and bubbly, it’s ripe and ready to use. This can take a few hours, depending on how much it’s been fed. 
  4. Keep the starter in the fridge when you’re not going to use it for a few days. Chilling the starter will let the yeast remain dormant if you’re not going to bake for a while. Make sure to bust it out at least the night before you plan on baking and feed it. 
Rodger, 8 hours after the second feed. At this point, before feeding again I discarded 4.5 cups to make waffles for dinner. Fed what remained a third time.

I have too much starter, wat do, WFMH?

Fear not, young headbanger. For baking purposes, you might only need 100g or so of starter, depending on your recipe. You’re going to have a lot extra. Don’t dump the excess, you savage! Plenty of recipes call for “discard” sourdough or unfed starter. I make focaccia, waffles, crackers, popovers, and plenty of items that use the discard. Those recipes will come in due time, my dude.

The only time you want to throw away your starter is if it gets moldy. That, my brutal buddies, is no bueno. If your starter has been in the fridge for a while, you’ll notice that some of it has separated, a sort of black liquid \m/ on the top, which can just be drained off.

Overnight after the third feed, Rodger is getting frothy and light in texture. Fed for a fourth more time after this pic was taken. 

Bread is an expansive topic and can merit its own metal-themed blog, so I’ll only post the basics and my favorite recipes and let you do the rest of the research if you want to get more into it. King Arthur Flour is definitely an authority I refer back to time after time. You can get as fancy and into the hobby as you want, or just do the basics and you’ll still have homemade delicious bread.

Day 2, from fridge to frothy after 4 feeds. This is where you want the starter to be for baking bread or things that need a strong yeast presence, especially if you don’t want to add commercial yeast.

I acquired my starter from the bakery I used to work for and have since shared chunks of my starter with at least half a dozen pals. I named mine Rodger, he is a part of my little family. 

If your bread isn’t perfect the first few times you make it, don’t worry, just repurpose it. Seasoned croutons, bread crumbs, bread pudding, or French toast are all options to reuse sub-par bread. Worst case scenario the bread isn’t great but your house smells like a home.

Grape Jelly

WFMH

Listening to: Surgical Steel – Carcass

Find a vineyard to pillage to make some condiments for your morning toast.


Grape Jelly- Yields eight 1/2 pint jars

  • 5 lbs grapes, green or red, make sure they’re good
    OR 5 cups of grape juice (fuck Welch’s, get the flavorful organic bullshit). I’m gonna assume you’re using fresh grapes, learn a little bit ya dig?
  • 7 cups of sugar (less if you use the no-sugar pectin)
  • 1 package of Sure Jell pectin, regular or reduced sugar. Keep a second package on hand in case your jelly doesn’t set in the allotted time.
    Special equipment: sieve or jelly bag, heavy bottom stock pot, stock pot or water bath canner

0. Get the water bath ready: Fill the stock pot or canner with enough water to cover the tops of the half pint jars with at least 1 in of water.
1. Prepare the grape juice: a) Pick the grapes from the stem. If there are little pieces left, that’s okay because they’ll be strained out later. b) Mash the grapes in the heavy bottomed stock pot with the blunt end of your favorite battle axe. Add a little water to cover the grapes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer for about 20 minutes. This softens the skins to release more juice. c) Strain with a sieve or jelly bag. Get something to catch the juice, even better if it holds the strainer by itself. Mush most of the juice out, but don’t go crazy. Discard the leftover solids, throw them at an ex or neighbor you don’t like. Wash out that stock pot you just used, you’re about to use it again.
2. You should have about 5 cups of fruit blood, any more and you’ll have to scale up the amount of pectin and sugar you use. Not my problem bud, figure that out yourself. Bring the juice to a boil and add the pectin, mix that for a few minutes. 
3. Add all of the sugar to the pot and bring it to a hard boil. It should look like the most barbarous mosh pit of your life. Cook for about 5 minutes, carefully use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides to prevent any scorching. It should start jelling at this point,keep a metal \m/ spoon in the freezer in little dish of water to see if it sticks to the spoon. If not, add more pectin, or accept that you’ll have grape pancake syrup. Skim the foam off. It won’t hurt anyone to keep it on, but if you’re doing all this work, might as well do it right. It’s not A E S T H E T I C to open a jelly jar with foam. 
4. Ladle the hot jelly into the clean jars, leaving 1/4 in headroom. Give them a quick rim job before placing the two part lids on, securing them finger tight. Process in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Listen to the song of the lids popping, it’s your new anthem. Store with the rings off in a temperate, dark spot. 

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source

I have never had grape juice or grape jelly that I enjoyed until I finished this recipe. I’m thinking more and more of either jury rigging or buying a steam juicer for next year, so I can make all sorts of juice and expand my scope of projects.

My jelly didn’t set until the next day when th jar were all the way cool, but I should have kept more pectin on hand for times like these. I was willing to accept grape waffle spread, and not the perfect jelly texture. I live a charmed life, I picked my grapes for free from my day job so I wasn’t too worried overall about wasting money on this project. I was also ever-so-slightly blazed and kept focusing on Jeff Walker’s tasty jams, not on the jelly.

Pictures don’t do the color of this grape juice justice. This was one of the best homemade items I’ve made to date.

Seriously though, try this out. Find some nice grape juice or go the whole nine yards with making the juice and make yourself some jelly. Gotta have something to eat before your photo shoot in the woods with your favorite black metal buddies, right?