Fire Cider

Fire Cider is apple cider vinegar infused with spicy stuff and used as a tonic/ preventative/ cold medicine. I have been taken it every day since December and I haven't gotten sick this year. Perhaps I've just been lucky though. Maybe fire cider makes you more lucky. It's spicy but delicious. It is medicine I look forward to taking. There are various slightly different recipes on the internet but basically you chop up every spicy ingredient you have and let it sit in vinegar for a month, while shaking it up every day.  Here's how I made it, based off of mountain rose herbs recipe:

Fire Cider

1 qt apple cider vinegar (4 C)

1 onion, chopped
1 head of garlic, crushed to remove skins
Lots of ginger, about 1/2 C after microplane                 zested
2 (carrot sized) horseradish, peeled, then grated           on a box grater
{whoops!! that was burdock! i realized when i found the real horseradish. i thought it was just old and weak...}
4 small hot dried red chilis, crushed
1 lemon, zested with citrus zester and juiced with         a reamer and strained
1Tbl turmeric powder
2 Tbl dried rosemary

1/4 C - 1/2 C raw local honey







Put all ingredients except the honey into a half gallon mason jar and cover with raw apple cider vinegar, like Braggs. Eating unpasteurized vinegar is a powerful restorative tonic in its own right. If using a metal lid, cover the jar first with waxed paper so the metal doesn't corrode from shaking up the jar. Let sit for a month. Shake every day. Strain into a clean jar and add 1/4 C or more raw local honey. Fill up dropper bottles. Take a dropperful every morning and every night as a preventative tonic.

I'll report back when I taste it in a month or so. The burdock may have made it quite bitter but we'll see.

Baba Ghanouj

I've been roasting eggplants lately. I have lots of late season eggplants in the garden still and tons of parsley, finally. (If you dont love parsley cut it back by half or omit entirely but I think it helps tame the raw garlic flavor and goes really nicely with the lemon.) I think the texture is greatly improved if you put out the effort to pick out the seeds. They all grow in little clumps and most of them can be removed easily. Its not necessary to pick out every single one but eggplants can have so many seeds that the texture is clumpy and crunchy and gross if you dont deseed them before making baba. Enough warning, do what you will. This is how Ive been making it lately:

Baba Ghanouj

3 eggplants; roasted, skinned, seeded 

(Yes 3, and yes "normal" big eggplants, I generally grow black beauty)
2 Tbl  tahini
2 cloves  garlic
1  lemon; juiced, about 2oz
2-3 Tbl  olive oil
1 1/4 tsp  salt
1 C  parsely; leaves only
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin seed; ground in a coffee grinder first




Grill, bake or broil eggplants until skin is blackened and blistering away from the flesh. I cut them in half and broil them, skin side up. I set the broiler to low and cook for between 20 and 30 minutes, moving them around so they cook evenly. I juice the lemon with a citrus reamer and pick parsley off the stems and grind up cumin seeds while they roast.

I keep the eggplants in a strainer over a bowl while peeling
 and picking out seeds. That way the majority of liquid in the
finished dip is from  lemon and olive oil.

When they are blackened all over and the flesh has softened and deflated, remove them from the oven. Flip eggplants over to help them cool and release moisture. Once cool, the skin should peel off very easily. The next part is messy but worth it for improved texture: With your hands, dig out the clumps of seeds. It doesnt need to be perfect but try to get out as many as possible. Put the remaining eggplant flesh into the blender or food processor. (The recipe is wet enough that I usually pick the blender because it is easier to clean...) After you pick through the eggplants, add everything else to the blender EXCEPT olive oil and parsley. Once the garlic and cumin is all chopped up and distributed evenly, slowly add the oil while it is blending on low. Finally add the parsley and mix it in briefly. (My last batch I forgot lemon until the end and really blended up the parsley so the baba had a greenish tint) Makes a big batch but it keeps well for at least a week. Dip bread and veggies in it or do anything you might do with hummus...

Jalapeno Carrot Pickle

I picked 5 lbs of rainbow carrots the other day and was slightly overwhelmed. So I canned some. Now I dont have to worry about them for awhile. I got the recipe from Put em up, this great canning/preserving/etc book that I love. I could only stand to wait about a day before I cracked a jar open. They're so good!! So much for preserving the harvest...

Spicy Carrots

 4 C white vinegar
1 C sugar
3 Tbl salt

2 lbs carrots
6 cloves garlic
2 jalapenos, sliced

In a small saucepan, bring first 3 ingredients to a boil.
Peel carrots and chop down so that they are 1 inch shorter than your jars.
Divide garlic and chilis between 3 clean pint jars.
Pack in carrots.
Fasten rims and put in a boiling canner for 15 mins
I didnt add the optional chili flakes of the original recipe. 
These are briney, sweet, spicy, crunchy and wonderful. 
Next time I will add double jalapeno, they give such a nice flavor without being too hot and the little slices of chili are super good too. There was enough brine leftover that I made a pint of beet pickles too, since I had the canner out and all. (Peeled and sliced beets, added all the dill seeds I just picked)

all the carrots came from this tiny row,
anise hyssop has recently colonized this bed
and the carrots didnt seem too mind