Tag: home cooking

Heavy Metal Nettle Pesto

WFMH1 Comment

Listening to: Thornsmoat by HVØSCH (the soundtrack to my untimely death)

What’s more BRVTAL than going out to the forest and picking stinging plants with your favorite bandmates? Okay, I can think of a few things, but this is pretty badass. Stinging nettles grow pretty much anywhere, I collect these from the bog 2 blocks from my house. 

Stick that green shit on everything!

Nettle Pesto- Yields 1.5 cups 

This recipe is *not* for canning, due to the dairy and oil. You could freeze it in an ice cube tray or something else to portion it nicely.

  • 1/4 lb of stinging nettles, leaves only, which for me was one small produce bagful. It might look like a lot, but it will shrink down considerably when blanched. 
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan or grana padano 
  • 1/4 cup walnuts, or pine nuts if you’ve got the dough
  • 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup olive oil, probably more as needed
  • 3 Tbs salt
    Special equipment: Blender or mortar and pestle or food processor

0. Collect the nettles. I recommend using gloves, maybe you’re more TRVE than I am. Pick only the new growth top 3 or 4 leaves on each plant. Rule Number One of foraging is “Don’t Be a Dick” and leave some for others, even when it’s a pest plant like nettles are. You never know who wants this garbage other than your crunchy ass. 
1. Blanch the nettles: Boil water in a large pot. Prepare an ice water bath, keep in the fridge until it’s needed. After washing the nature out of the nettles, plop them all in the boiling water, or in batches if you have a small pot. Boil the nettles for about 2 minutes and use tongs to dunk them into the ice water to stop them from cooking any longer. This deactivates the stinging part of the plant. Taste the blanched nettles, don’t be a pussy. Know your raw ingredients. Remove the nettles from the ice bath and wring out the water. All of the nettles you collected should be the size of a baseball. Roughly chop these, no need to get fancy with it.
2. Add the cheese, nuts, lemon juice and zest, salt, garlic, and about a third of the olive oil into the blender until it moves by itself and is in smaller chunks. Take a break to enjoy the devastation HVØSCH is unleashing on your earholes.
3. Add the nettles and slowly add in the rest of the oil as it’s processing until it moves by itself. If you’re doing this by hand, godspeed. It should be a little bit chunky, not a purée. Adjust lemon and salt to taste.

Look at this poseur with gloves and scissors to decapitate the local delicious pests. Probably also picked some öyster mushrooms to saute with the pesto pasta.

This goes really well with homemade pasta, or regular ass pasta too. I’ve even made pasta with a tablespoon of this pesto in the dough for flavor. You know I like to go all extra when I do stuff like this. It would be nice in a layered pasta bake, pizza base, or even just as a dip. 

Nettles are one of those strange items I never thought I’d eat, but working in the kitchens taught me otherwise. We would receive these in the summer and have an all-prep-crew picking party, where each of us would triple up on nitrile gloves and pick the leaves from the huge bundles we’d receive. Three pillow sized bags would yield about 8 qts of leaves, which would yield about 3 qts of blanched nettles for service. They were served on a pizza with a cheese base, probably with chicken and sun-dried tomatoes. I loved snacking on the blanched nettles, they taste “green” like chlorophyll and earthy on their own. 

I’ve always been extremely cautious about foraging since I’ve moved to WA. When I lived in Southern California, a barren wasteland, there wasn’t much to pick that wasn’t on private property that wasn’t citrus. Since moving to WA, I’ve found myself identifying and picking mainly fruit trees, berry bushes, and a few varieties of mushrooms. I’m still learning a lot about our environment up here and what can be used. Always ask permission on private property before picking, and follow the rules if it’s a national park. I’ve found that everyone and their mother has some kind of a fruit bearing tree in their yard, so ask your local Buy Nothing or neighborhood page. I do what I can to divert produce from rotting on the floor of someone’s yard while simultaneously saving myself a lot of money for my hobbies.

Woah Black Berry! Bramble Jam

WFMH

Listening to: Salt- Khôrada

Ignore the dumb “Elizabeth Sylvester” name on there, Well Fed Metalhead made this!

Here in the Pacific Northwest, Himalayan blackberries are invasive and every summer we need to do our part to prevent their prickly take-over by stealing their fruit, mashing them up with sugar and lemon juice and making condiments for your toast. 

Blackberry Jam- Yields 12 ea 1/2 pint jars

  • 9 cups of raw whole blackberries, mashed should yield 5.5 cups of fruit. Pick these yourself or you’ll be paying an arm and a leg at the store.
  • 1 package of Sure Jell pectin 
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice, from a bottle. Heresy, I know. The pH is more consistent store-bought. This is optional, but it’s recommended for additional acidity and preserves the beautiful color.
  • 7 cups of sugar, less if using no-sugar pectin

Special Equipment: Heavy bottomed stock pot for the jam, stock pot with a rack on the bottom or canner.

1a. Gather your metalhead buddies, arrange for a nice wholesome outing to gather the fruiting bodies of the pest plants. Compare your battle vests and do your best to not get the berry blood on there or it might stain, alternatively you could stain the vests to look more badass than you already are. Be sure to wash the berries thoroughly and remove any stems. Take turns punching the berries until they’re a mash.
1b. Fill the canner with water, 1 in higher than the top of the jam jars, bring to a boil. Put a plate in the freezer. Sounds weird, but stick with me here.
1. Deicide if you want to de-seed the jam or not, thus turning it into jelly. I choose not to. If you do, heat the berries until they’re nearly boiling and run them through a food mill or fine mesh sieve. Discard the seeds. 
2. Bring the fruit blood to a boil with the lemon juice and pectin, stir them vigorously to make sure the pectin doesn’t clump. Use a wooden flat-bottom spoon or a rubber spatula to stir, making sure there are no spots to burn. Cook for a few minutes.
3. Dump all of the sugar in at once and stir it until it’s all combined. Bring it to a hard boil for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat.
4. Skim off the foam and save it in a side dish for snacks. It’s harmless, but is not A E S T H E T I C when opening a jar. If you’re going this far, might as well do it right. 
5. Test for jell. Remove the plate from the freezer and drip some of the jam on there. If the jam wrinkles when you push your finger through it, it’s good to go. If not, cook for a few more minutes and try again. Worst case scenario it will be a bit runny and still make your waffles taste great. 
6. Fill the jars using a funnel (if you have one), leaving 1/4″ headspace from the top. Give those jars a quick rim job to ensure a good seal. Place the two part lid on there and place them in the canner. Process for 10 minutes in the boiling water. Remove them and listen to that sweet song of the lids popping, it’s what keeps you going.

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source
I happen to like processing my jars a little longer than the recommended 5 minutes, I’m a bit more conservative that way.

This is why I look forward to August: blackberry picking season. When I first moved to the PNW in 2011, one of my relatives who lives on the Washington peninsula introduced canning to me via applesauce, pears in syrup, and blackberry jam. Canning seemed like such an intimidating process, but I took home some of her jam and plotted how I could do it with limited resources. I made 72 ea 1/2 pint containers of blackberry jam this year, and is how I got sucked into the hobby. Most of these are given away as gifts, but my spouse definitely has a good supply for a while.

I started canning as a way to give my friends and relatives inexpensive homemade gifts, and I’ll admit I didn’t really know what I was doing for the first year or so. This is a fascinating hobby for me, as it’s a whole different style of cooking than I’m used to. My Xmas list is all set this year. I’m happy to share my hoard and would like to monetize it at some point in the future with a license and all that.

Water bath canning is a great way to get introduced to the hobby. Jam, jellies, and acidified foods like tomato sauce are good starting points. Pressure canning isn’t necessarily “advanced” as much as it is getting over the fear of blowing up your kitchen. That literally won’t happen unless you leave the heat on full blast and go take a walk.

Follow tested and approved recipes from NCFHP.edu, pickyourown.org, Ball Canning Book, etc. Don’t bother with Pinterest and mommy blogs unless they site a source for their recipes. There’s a lot of bad advice out there. If you want to go “off book”, make sure you understand the science behind canning and learn WHY there are rules. I agree to some extent about the “gubbment” trying to destroy grandma’s recipes, and things that are not approved for canning probably just haven’t been tested for safety. I choose not to fuck with it too much. I’ll clearly mark  my “rebel canning” things here the rare times I do. Your kitchen, your rules, but if you’re a first timer listen to the tried and true recipes first.

Edit: It’s only fitting that I was listening to Khôrada while making this jam, because I have celebrity endorsement from Don Anderson (guitarist for Agalloch, Khôrada). Here is his breakfast after I gave him a jar at the Seattle show. He had previously helped me with a paper for an English class in 2015 and I promised him a thank you gift, I’m glad I was able to meet him to do so.

Chopping Block Vegetable Stock

WFMH

Listening to: By The Light of the Northen Star- Týr

No two batches will look or taste the same. 

Vegetable stock is a staple in any pantry. This is made for pennies, unless you monetize your time like a capitalist pig. Save your vegetable scraps in ziplock bags in the freezer until you have enough to fill the stock pot, simmer, strain, can. No two batches will taste the same.

Do not water bath this recipe, non-acidic products need to be pressure canned. This holds up well in the freezer if canning is not an option for you. 

Scrap Vegetable Stock- Yields 6 qts

  • 3-5 ziplock bags of veggie scraps
  • salt to taste
    Special equipment: Large stock pot, Pressure Canner (or lots of pint containers for the freezer), sieve or strainer

0. Have the foresight to save your vegetable scraps from your regular cooking activities. Washed and not-moldy: potato peels, onion/garlic papers and butts, carrot peels and butts, celery butts, discarded bay leaves, etc.; basically anything that would normally be a candidate for the compost pile. I don’t add squishy veggies like tomatoes and try to limit the amount of cruciferous veggies that end up in the bags. Depending on what is in your scrap bags, add some bay leaves or peppercorns. 
1. Dump the ziplock bags into the large stock pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil with lid closed, as this helps it heat up faster. Bring the heat down to a simmer for 4-6 hrs. 
2. Strain the stock, using a fine-mesh sieve or strainer. Most importantly, get the big chunks out of the stock, if you want it more clear don’t push the excess liquid out of the veggies. There will be some sediment, but that shit is delicious, don’t worry about it. Discard the cadavers of the vegetables. I wash and reuse the ziplocks and store them in the freezer for future batches, I’m a bit crunchy like that.  You may reduce the stock further by simmering for another hour or so, but do not add more water to dilute it. It’s wonderful as it is and so are you <3.
3. Salt the stock. This is important, folks. The stock is *okay* on its own, but it needs a bit of salt. Start with 1/4 cup for 6 qts of stock and go from there. You don’t want to go overboard here because when you open the jar or defrost the stock for cooking with it, you want it as neutral as possible. 
4. Store the stock: 
a) Portion the stock into food-grade pint containers and let cool for a little while before putting the lids on and placing them in the freezer. Stores well for up to a year.
Pro: No canning required. Con: Plastic container, defrosting required, and takes up freezer space.
b) Prepare pressure canner per your manual, in the last 1/2 hour of cooking the stock before straining. Pour broth in sterilized jars leaving 1 in headspace. The top left jar has just a little bit too much space. Process at 11lbs psi at altitudes less than 1000′: Pints 30 min, Quarts 35 min. Let the canner de-pressurize on it’s own, do not attempt to open it or “help it” go faster. This could break the glass. Listen to the sound of your people, those lids popping is your ultimate goal. Store for up to a year, but I bet it won’t last that long. 
Pro: Shelf stable, no need for defrosting. Con: Must be kept in cool, dark place for maximum shelf life, requires pressure canning which is not feasible/accessible for everyone.

Use within a week or so of opening the container. Boil grains in it instead of water, add to one-pot dishes for flavor, make a gravy, you’ve got a brain to Google what else to do with it.

This is the well-versed cook’s secret to making any dish better. A good stock will make even the congealed brains of your enemies taste pretty good.

I started making veggie scrap stock after reading a post on Reddit. I have always made chicken stock, but I don’t go through carcasses \m/ often enough to make it frequently. I have always used fresh vegetables, which is a perfectly valid way to make flavorful stock, but I realized how much life is left in the scraps when other people mentioned this method. I cook nearly everything from scratch, so most of my household waste is compostable. Unfortunately we don’t have commercial composting services here and I live in a condo where I don’t really have space or a yard to take care of it, so I do what I can to reuse the scraps once before discarding them.

Living a lower waste lifestyle has been crucial in my personal development over the past year. Rethinking what we throw away, looking at alternatives to individually wrapped everything and packaging in general has developed my home cooking into more labor intensive, but more fulfilling food. The more you cook from scratch, more fuel for your veggie stock! Chicken stock will be a separate post because I have a different method for that. 

Finally a post without a shitload of sugar. Diabetes isn’t metal. 

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?

Don’t Wince at Quince, Pt. 2

WFMH

Listening to: Terminal- Bongripper

Last time we had a look at quinces, and made some jelly. Maybe you don’t have all the equipment, time, space, balls, or patience to deal with that. I get it. My feelings aren’t hurt. You can still enjoy this gnarly fruit ovary even if you’re a lazy butt. This is easy as shit to make: chop fruit, make syrup, boil. Read the recipe, though. 

Quince Pieces in Light Syrup- Yields 9 pint jars

  • 11 lbs quince, washed and de-fuzzed.
  • 2 cups sugar
    Special Equipment: Large pot, large stock pot or water bath canner.

0. Prepare the water bath canner or large stock pot with a rock on the bottom to prevent the jars from having direct contact with the heat source. Add enough water to cover the jars plus one inch. 
1. Prepare the light syrup in the large pot: add the sugar and 6 cups (1.5 qts for your math challenged ass) and bring to a boil. You could make medium or heavy syrup or even nice fancy organic fruit juice to pack the fruit in, but Dio’s unholy spirit (RIP) told me directly that quince is better in light syrup. 
2. Peel the quince. This is a bitch and a half because the fruit is so damn dry and stupid shaped, but hang in there. Slice those suckers in half and scoop out the core with a metal \m/ spoon. Cut that into slices however thick you want, I prefer them about 1/4 in. Keep these in a bowl of water with a bit of lemon juice to prevent them from browning while you finish your task.
3. Hot pack the quince: Drain the quince slices, and add them to the boiling light syrup, cook them for about 4-5 minutes. It’s handy to use a jar funnel to shove the slices in the jars when they’re done cooking, pack them tight. If you think you have too much for the nine jars, you’re probably not packing them tight enough. 
4. Ladle the hot syrup into each jar, leaving 1/2 in headroom. Use a small rubber spatula or butter knife down the sides of the jar to get air bubbles out. At this point you’ll find you can probably cram more fruit into the jars and add more syrup, minding the headroom.
5. Place the two piece lid on, and set those jars in the water bath. Boil for 20 minutes.  Alternatively you could pressure can these at 6 psi for 10 minutes. 
6. Remove from the canner and listen for the beautiful sound of the lids popping. The color might have changed during processing, I generally get pink hues. That’s perfectly fine and normal.

Adapted from a tested and USDA approved source .

You saw this last time, now you know what both are.

I hope you like sliced quinces in light syrup because you now have a metric dick ton of them. “BuT wHaT dO I dO wItH ThEm??”, you might ask yourself. You could arrange the pieces in a tart or pie, have some with roasted pork, top some ice cream, sacrifice some to your favorite fallen metal hero, or maybe you could fucking Google it.

Like I mentioned, I prefer light syrup to juice or heavier syrups, because I have more flexibility when I’ll eventually open up the jars. Some people pack their fruit in water, which is technically okay, but it steals the sweetness of the fruit and generally sucks to eat. If you’re concerned about calories, use the pickyourown.org link above to find out how to convert Stevia or other kinds of sweeteners for the syrup.

No more talking, Bongripper is on. Feel the devastation run through you and report back with how you did.

Welcome to Well Fed Metalhead

WFMH

Listening to: Nordland I- Bathory 

Greetings, viewer. This is the Well Fed Metalhead. I am a Washingtonian who enjoys cooking, canning, and most importantly, heavy metal of all flavors and styles.

My style of cooking is generally pretty simple with as many homemade elements as possible. My influences are Jacques Pépin, Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain, Ted Allen,  my grandmas Renée and Shirley, my dad Charlie, and all of my crew at Purple Café and Wine Bar, where I used to work. I have learned so much form each and every individual I worked with, for better or or worse. 

This is mainly a spot for me to find the recipes I’ve made. Almost all of my canning projects are done by the USDA guidelines and will have links to the recipes, I just want to type them out in a fun way so I can refer back to them. 

I’m making a promise to myself to keep the blah blah blah short so no one needs to scroll through thousands of words about my mundane existence to get to the recipes, talking directly to you boring-ass mommy bloggers.