Perch, Peach, Pierogi & Polka Festival

When I heard about the Perch Peach Pierogi & Polka Festival in Port Clinton Ohio, I had to go. Sometimes I am drawn to things for unexplainable reasons, although alliteration always appeals. My family was already planning to be in the area for our annual Labor Day campout.  We often take at least one day trip away from East Harbor State Park and this year the festival became our outing.

On Saturday September 4, my mom and I battled 15 - 25 mph headwinds to bike our way there, a little over 8 miles.  The rest of the troops arrived by car.

The festival was just getting started when we arrived so we took the opportunity to order food in short lines after paying $3 per adult admission.  The menu was limited to nearly exactly what was advertised: perch dinner or sandwich, pierogis, peach cobbler, a few beverages, and, strangely, pizza.  Patrons bought tokens for each food item and then delivered tokens to the cafeteria style service tables.

The pierogis were delicious, if only of the standard potato and onion variety.  Very uniform in appearance, they were either frozen from a big manufacturer or possibly fresh from a smaller place. I found myself wanting for pepper to cut the heavy butter sauce.

The perch was fresh caught Lake Erie Yellow Perch, perfectly deep fried.  The accompanying fries were fresh too.  The complimentary side of coleslaw was over sweetened but edible.

We debated the homemade-ness of the peach cobbler.  The peaches were undoubtedly fresh and probably from a local grower.  The pie crust tasted less homemade, but thick and buttery to be sure.  The dessert large enough to share was topped with your choice of vanilla or peach Tofts ice cream, a creamery local to Sandusky Ohio.

I would never consider myself a judge of polka music, but the band playing when we were there was well synched, in tune, and fun to listen to.  Surprisingly the polka was the most enjoyable part of the festival for me; there were some serious and perhaps competitive dancers who were a joy to watch.

Will I hit up the 'quad P' fest next year? Most likely not. It was an entertaining afternoon but no part was so outstanding or exciting that I feel a need to return soon. However, if you happen to be near Port Clinton on the first weekend in September, it is worth a stop at least once.

How to Make "Sun" Dried Tomatoes

A carefully dried tomato can carry the taste of summer's sweet abundance through many seasons.  Dried tomatoes provide a distinct chewy texture and richness to pan sauces and stews.  They can be eaten as is for a quick burst of vitamin C.  Making your own during is not hard at all. Equipment

Dried tomatoes are generally made in one of three ways:

• in a solar cooker or sun dehydrator
• in a very low temperature oven
• in a dehydrator

A solar cooker is great because it saves energy.  You can find simple plans to build them at Mother Earth News and elsewhere.  The downside is that they take more monitoring, including bringing in at night if the temperatures drop and cause dew.

Sliced tomatoes can be dried in a single layer on a cookie sheet in a very low temperature oven (125 deg F maximum).  This temperature is best achieved by leaving the door shut with a gas pilot oven lit.  Unfortunately many modern ovens do not keep the pilot light lit and do not allow such a low temperature setting.

A home dehydrator is the more reliable method for creating great dried tomatoes.  We use an American Harvest model scavenged from my parent's basement.  We set it at 125 deg F and leave for approximately 24 hours.

Method

Slice your tomatoes in half or in 1/2 inch to 1 inch slices, depending on your preference and equipment.

Remove the core and at least some of the liquidy pulp.  I don't mind the taste of a few dried seeds so it doesn't bother me to leave some in.

Place tomatoes in a single layer in your desired drying apparatus.  It is not necessary to leave much space in between tomatoes because they will shrink significantly.

Start drying.  Monitor regularly, especially with a solar dryer or oven.

Test for doneness by breaking a tomato in half.  You should see no beads of liquid.

When tomatoes are done, remove them from the drying apparatus and allow to cool to room temperature.

Package in an airtight container.  You can store at room temperature, in the fridge, or freezer.  Because they take up so little room, I place mine in small plastic bags in the freezer until ready to use.

To cook with dried tomatoes, rehydrate them for 15 - 45 minutes in water, red wine, or broth.  Chop if you wish and toss in a sauce.  If using for a stew, cut dry tomatoes with scissors and then add to your recipe.

Keys to Great Dried Tomatoes

• Use a fully ripe paste tomato.  The variety pictured in this post is Amish Paste, one I grow at home.
• Be sure they are fully dry before storage.  Nothing breaks a cook's heart like finding a moldy batch of preserved food!
• Prepare for shrinkage.  Tomatoes lose approximately 75% of their volume when they are dried.  Approximately 10 pounds of tomatoes will dry down to 4 cups of dried tomatoes.

This post added to Two for Tuesdays.

Sexy Homegrown Tomatoes Bare All

Oh, Julia Child, you dear pink tomato.  Your blushing beauty covers your spicy inside, tempting gardeners for decades. Cherokee Chocolate, dark enchantress of the bunch.  That Christmas colored skin of yours yields to a dark juicy flesh, dripping with sunlight transformed to sweetness.

Then there's you, Rutgers.  Your pleats, your bulbous inundations, inspire a thousand delicious thoughts.

All together, you are a brothel of diversity, a color, size, and flavor for every preference.

Sliced raw, you bare your internal beauty, solid flesh giving way to juicy pulp and life renewing seeds.  Your eclectic flavors and textures are inspirational, a summer sensual feast.

fo/mo/deep & Soul Food at Goodale Park Music Series Sunday!

The free Goodale Park Music Series continues this Sunday August 15 with fo/mo/deep, a funky soul band. The band will play from 12:30 - 2 pm at the gazebo shelter.Last year, a potluck naturally evolved during these concerts.  This year the food sharing is more formalized and I am honored to be one of the food blogger hosts for the potluck.  Anyone who wants to partake of the potluck is asked to bring a dish in the soul food theme (or any theme you want) and plates and silverware for yourself.  Get comfortable with a lawn chair or blanket too. I will pull kale from our garden for a big batch of greens with Alex's home-cured bacon.  I plan to make a vegan black eyed pea salad as well.

All concerts are free and family friendly.  Alex and Lil will be with me - we hope to see you there!

Here's what other food bloggers are saying about the potlucks and concert series:

CMH Gourmand (2009)

CMH Gourmand (2010 with hotdog talk)

Columbus Foodie

Hungry Woolf

Itinerant Foodies

Restaurant Widow

Taco Trucks Columbus

Berryhill U-Pick Farm in Xenia Ohio

Our frozen blueberry stash was not replenished this July as in years past.  To remedy this situation I have been hunting for an opportunity and location to pick berries.

The timing worked out this past weekend when we were visiting family in the near-Dayton area.  Searching through PickYourOwn.org revealed Berryhill Farm south of Xenia Ohio.  We made plans to stop there before lunch at The Winds in Yellow Springs and dinner with relatives.

Picking at a new farm is always a bit of a risk.  Will the fruit be tasty and low chemical?  People friendly?  Prices reasonable?

Berryhill delightfully exceeded expectations.  Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries were all abundant, ripe, and extraordinarily tasty.  Signs labeled the bushes pesticide free, which I have to believe based on the diversity of plant and insect life in the field.

The fields were very well maintained with wide rows for easy picking.  Blackberries and raspberries were trellised up off the ground.  There were only two other parties picking last Saturday morning.  Even with many families the spacious farm would not seem crowded.

The Elliot blueberry variety planted at Berryhill is relatively small in form, yet easy enough to pick with a little stooping.  It actually is the perfect variety to tag-team as a parent-child group where the child sits on the ground below picking the low fruit and an adult can stand over gathering berries from above.

In less than an hour's time we picked eight pounds of blueberries and three pints of raspberries for a total of around $20.  Cash and checks are accepted.  Pre-picked berries and a small variety of other fruits are also available as are raw honey and ice cold water.

Berryhill has abundant parking and a friendly staff.  They are lacking public restrooms.  If you are traveling a distance in the heat of summer it's a good idea to bring a cooler with ice to keep your berries fresh on the way home.  From our home in Clintonville, we arrived at Berryhill in just under and hour.  They are just 20 minutes from Dayton or Yellow Springs.

Raspberries and blackberries should be in season for another three weeks or more.  Blueberries are likely to only last through the next week.

Lillian, our almost five year old, summarized the trip well: "The blueberries are very yummy there."

This post was added to Two for Tuesdays.

Canning Vegetables

In Canning Week 2010 day 3, I share a bit about canning vegetables.  View a lesson on pectin and recipe for peach jam from earlier in the week.  Tomorrow I'll discuss pickles. The massive harvests are starting, and they aren't limited to sweet fruits.  Something has to be done with mountains of tomatoes, corn, green beans, and more.

Canning is one useful option to preserve the harvest.  Vegetables are a bit more tricky to can than fruits because they often contain less acid, so one has to rely on recipes.

Low acid vegetables must be canned in a pressure canning system.  As I'm a bit afraid of my pressure cooker and I don't like the texture of most canned vegetables, I don't have experience pressure canning.  There are recipes on Fresh Preserving to can fresh low acid vegetables including green beans, carrots, corn, and onions.

Tomatoes, high in acid, are commonly canned in a water bath.  You can can them whole or in pieces.   I prefer to can much of our harvest this way because it is most adaptable.

If you follow a recipe to maintain the correct acidity, you can also make and can pasta sauce, pizza sauce, barbecue sauce, ketchup, salsa or paste.  We usually make a large batch of spaghetti sauce and several smaller batches of other tomato products throughout the late summer.  I wrote about some of these options for the tomato tonnage last year.

I will be making a basic tomato sauce and canning it next Wednesday, August 11, from 6:30 - 8:30 at the North Market Dispatch Kitchen.  For $12.99 ($8.99 for Slow Food Columbus members), participants will go home with a jar of sauce and confidence to preserve their own at home.  Buy a ticket today and join me!

Basic Water Bath Canning Method

Use for tomato pieces, whole, or tomato-only sauce.

1. Blanche tomatoes by dipping whole tomatoes in boiling water for 1 minute and then immediately transferring to an ice water bath.

2. Remove skins from tomatoes.  (Skip the blanching and removing skins if you don't mind them.)

3. Chop into desired pieces or use a food mill to make sauce.

4. Pack into sterilized jars.

5. Fill jars to exactly 1/2 inch of the top of the jar.

6. Use a thin knife or chopstick to gently release any air bubbles.  Add a bit of extra tomato juice to top off the jar if necessary.

7. Add 1 teaspoon lemon juice per pint to adjust acidity and preserve color.

8. Top with sterilized lids and rings.

9. Place in boiling water bath for 40 minutes for pints, 45 minutes for quarts.

10. Remove from the water bath and allow to cool thoroughly before storing in a cool dark place.

Learn To Can This Summer!

Harvest season is almost upon us.  Vegetables and fruits which are just now surprising us with their ripe sweetness will soon be piling in from the garden, the CSA, or the farmers market.  Make the most of the bounty by putting up stores for the winter.

I will lead two basic canning workshops this fall to help people learn to preserve.  Both will be hands on events where participants will leave with a jar of canned local foods.

Jam Making at Wild Goose Creative, Sunday August 1 from 7 - 9 PM

Dispel your fear of canning by attending the Jam Party! Participants will make a batch of jam with fresh local peaches provided by Wayward Seed farm. You'll go home with a jar and the confidence to preserve your own throughout the seasons. Cost is $10.

Tomato Sauce Making at North Market Dispatch Kitchen, Wednesday August 11 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM

Tomato season is coming!  In a hands on workshop, I will guide participants to make and can sauce from local tomatoes.  I will demystify the canning process, offer tastes of preserved tomato products, and provide recipes in conjunction with Slow Food Columbus.  $12.99 ($8.99 for Slow Food members) gives you admission and a jar of sauce to take home.  Buy tickets here.

I hope to see you at one or both workshops!

PS.  There are still spots available in the August 3-5 Kids Cook Dinner day camp and August 16 - 20 Open Heart Art Food Camp!  Register now to end your child's summer with an awesome food experience.

Meal Plan July 18, 2010

We are home from an exhausting, challenging, beautiful Canada canoe trip.  I am processing nearly one thousand photographs and a multitude of emotions while settling into our everyday routine.  The garden greeted us with ripening fruits and vegetables, many of which are featured in this week's dinners. Monday - Braised goat ribs from Stratford Ecological Center, mashed sweet and homegrown cranberry red potatos, homegrown Parisian picking cucumber and Clint Eastwood tomato salad.

Tuesday - Pan fried ricotta gnocchi (Steamy Kitchen's recipe) with homegrown tomatoes and basil

Wednesday - Rachel volunteering and eating with Ohio 4-H/Labo international program, Alex and Lil make chicken, rice, and garden salad

Thursday - Rachel volunteering and eating with Ohio 4-H/Labo international program, Alex and Lil make spaghetti and sausage

Friday - Homemade pizza

Saturday - All day birthday surprise for Alex!  I told him where we are going and he already forgot.  We're perfect for each other, seeing as how I can't keep a secret and he can't remember plans!

Sunday - family birthday dinner for sister Megan & Alex: Grilled Red ribs, chicken wings, and brats, Ohio sweet corn, potato packets, green beans