Port Potager

Remember our tiny cranberry harvest? Back in October , this was the full extent of what we picked: According to the news , 2013 was an absolute bumper year for the Massachusetts cranberry harvest. While that may be true, our own cranberry plot is only a couple years old, so we don't have much to show for it just yet. Like blueberries , cranberries take several years to get established, so we should be pleased with our small handful (1/3 cup, to be exact) that has come in ahead of schedule. But what do you do with only 1/3 cup of cranberries? That's definitely a garnish-only amount, but we like to make sure that we celebrate each crop we harvest by making something special out of it (at least with the first picking — 7 zillion tomatoes later doesn't feel quite so special by late September).  So after some time spent flipping through cookbooks, I happened upon a Martha Stewart recipe for a peach tart with cranberry glaze. The original recipe calls for 1 cup...

First, a bit of insight into my blogging process. I often start drafts of posts and keep them saved to flesh out later. Typically these "drafts" consist only of a title and maybe a photo or two I took on the fly — just enough to remind me of what I was thinking about. Sometimes it takes a few days (or more) to gather the information and photos that document a process from start to finish; sometimes I just get busy and can't finish a post the same day that I did something interesting in the garden or the kitchen. Anyway, I was looking through my draft folder tonight and came across a post I haven't touched since March 24. (I mean, just look at how long ago March 2013 was!) Back then I was refining a lot of skin treatments and soap recipes in a series of Herbal Apothecary posts. One item that I made but never finished writing about was a spot treatment for occasional acne. You know the sporadic breakouts you might get on a monthly basis? For me, this was usu...

All the heat of the past week brought us great, big okra, cukes , and zukes. I'm staying on top of the harvesting pretty well: These are only slightly oversized — the one on the bottom is about a normal-sized zucchini. (Not sure why the one on top looks like Bam-Bam's bat.) Considering how fast these guys grow when it's warm and sunny, this represents total success at keeping the zucchini from getting out of control. Except that we haven't been able to keep up with the actual eating  of zucchini, since this is the current state of the kitchen: We still have all the appliances and most of the cabinets on the wall behind me, so it's not impossible to cook. It's just incredibly unpleasant, especially in the heat and dust. So instead of coming up with creative zucchini dishes, we've been ordering pizza. Despite the heat and the mess, I did manage to use up one of those lovely summer squashes yesterday to make zucchini bread. Why not bake ...

Remember when I made rosewater ? That kind was distilled, so it is crystal clear, with just the essential oils mixed in. Since then I have made another three or four batches, and at the bottom of these larger batches is left a really beautiful rose tea: Well, it's not all that lovely until you drain off the faded, mushy rose petals. Then it's this really beautiful liquid. It has a stronger flavor than the distilled rosewater — ever-so-slightly bitter, with just a plant-like flavor. Like a tea. (Duh.) That flavor should be fine for cooking sweets though, since any bitterness will be masked with sugar. The color is also a bonus. First up, rose syrup. This is just a simple syrup — equal parts sugar and the rose tea, brought to a boil and cooled. I suppose with more sugar and more boiling, this could be made in a much thicker consistency for pancakes or ice cream, but I am planning to use it in its basic form to sweeten drinks. I'm thinking rose lemonade a...

This year our rosa mundi  rosebushes are starting to fill in nicely and have come into bloom now that we've finally had a little warm sun: They smell wonderful, and look great, so I am somewhat ambivalent about the next step: Yesterday morning I picked al the petals off of all the open flowers to use them to distill some rosewater. I collected this bowlful, but there look to be many more flowers waiting in the wings, so I am hoping to repeat this process once or twice more this spring. Once the petals are gathered, I put a brick in our tall stock pot, and filled the space around it with the rose petals:  Then I covered the petals with enough water to reach the top of the brick (they float, so I had to push them under as much as possible).  A small glass bowl sits on top of the brick to catch the rosewater:  The idea here is that when the heat is turned up and the water with the rose petals starts to boil, the essence of the roses ri...