Quick pickled peppers over goat cheese with honey

Last weekend I quick pickled peppers at the farmers’ market since our central Texas farmers have a bounty of sweet peppers lately. Tis the season for entertaining so I served these quick pickles over goat cheese and then drizzled the dish with honey, a perfect appetizer or bright sunny snack on a winter’s day.

Quick pickling just means speeding up the process of regular osmosis infusing. Grinding your spices, cutting up the produce into smaller pieces than you would normally pickle, and simmering the produce and spices together all contribute to making these pickles tasty faster than the typical 1-3 weeks for refrigerator or canned pickles with whole spices.

Quick Pickled Peppers

yields 1 quart

1. Seed and cut 1-lb of sweet (or hot if you prefer them) peppers into thin strips that are about 2″ long.

2. Combine your brine in a large saucepan and put over medium low heat:

1.5 cups white vinegar

1 cup filtered water

1/4 cup sugar

2 Tbs kosher salt

1 tsp ground turmeric

When the sugar and salt dissolve, raise the heat to medium high.

3. With a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, grind the following whole spices into a powder and add them to the brine:

1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds

1/2 tsp dill seeds (not dill weed!)

1/2 tsp celery seeds

1/2 tsp black peppercorns

After all spices are in, reduce heat and simmer brine uncovered for 10 minutes.

4. Add prepared peppers to brine and simmer for another 10 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a quart sized mason jar or equivalent sizes of smaller jars. Store in refrigerator for up to 3 months. For best flavor eat within 1-2 weeks.

To make the appetizer:

Dice cooled pickled peppers and spoon them over your favorite goat cheese. Drizzle honey over the entire thing and serve with crackers. Sub any canned pickled peppers for the quick pickled ones if peppers are not in season where you live.

Grapefruit margaritas

Citrus season is officially here in Texas. I’m currently (happily!) elbow deep in Meyer lemons, grapefruit and tangerines from the Rio Grande Valley.

photo courtesy of TexaSweet

I received a complimentary box of Rio Star grapefruit from TexaSweet and decided to make grapefruit margaritas with these lovely fruits. Since they’re not certified organic and I wasn’t able to ask the farmer directly about their pesticide spraying practices I opted to just use the juice for this recipe below, but check out these ideas for using rind, pith and seeds for folks who do have organic fruit to work with.

Grapefruit Margaritas

yields 4 8-oz glasses

1. Start with 3 large grapefruit, juice them for a yield of ~1 cup juice (I don’t strain mine), pour into a quart-sized mason jar. I recommend using a quart jar as your shaker since this quantity of margarita will overfill your regular sized cocktail shaker. Pour a splash of the juice onto a small saucer if you would like salted rims.

2. Add 2-4 Tbs light agave syrup (depending on your sweetness preference) and 4-6oz of tequila (depending on how strong you’d like them to be) to the jar.

3. If you have bitters on hand, I’d add a few dashes of grapefruit, lemon or chipotle bitters to the mixture now.

4. Prepare your glasses. I’m a salted rims kind of gal. Scatter a few tablespoons of kosher salt onto another saucer. To get the salt to stick, dip your glasses’ rims in the grapefruit juice saucer or slide a wedge of any un-juiced citrus along the rim. Plop rim in salt. Get fancy like I did and dip them in grapefruit zest salt. Fill glasses with ice.

Take a potato peeler and shave off 4 strips of zest (carefully) from the remaining halves left from juicing. 

5. Cap the jar with your margarita mixture and shake! For pretty foamy top, toss into the shaker a few ice cubes (or frozen grapefruit juice cubes if you have them) and shake!

Pour mixture into prepared glasses, filling each glass halfway at first and then topping off to make four even glasses. Drop zest pieces onto the top of the foamy beverages and enjoy!

Tangerine cranberry marmalade: name that marm giveaway

Remember Maude Ellen marmalade? In yee olden days of the Can Jam, I determined that marmalades need names that reflect their flavor notes (and attitudes) and the winning name/note behind the famous grapefruit and chile marmalade is a prime example of what winning this name that marm contest might look like.

Well, we have a new marmalade on the scene, one that I’ve been making for the last couple years. It’s a trusty little holiday marmalade and uses the pectin power from cranberries to give it a boost in setting up. It’s bright and vibrant, bold and a little tart.

Enter to win by commenting on this blog post or on the above photo on instagram by December 15. US residents only please. The marmalade committee (my wife and I) will select a winner based on a collective look at the name offerings.

Tangerine Cranberry Marmalade

yields just about 5 half-pints

1. Wash with warm water 7-8 organic tangerines (2 lbs). Use a very sharp knife and slice off each end, cut the tangerines in half from end to end and then slit a ‘v’ in the inside of each half and feel with your finger to remove seeds. Slice halves into 3 or 4 sections lengthwise and dice each of those sections individually into triangles.

2. Combine tangerine pieces with 2-1/3 cups sugar, 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (the juice from ~2 lemons) and bring to a simmer in a medium-sized saucepan. While that simmers place seeds and pith from 2 lemons in a metal tea ball. Remove tangerine mixture from heat and pour it into a glass bowl to let cool on the countertop until you can cover it and move it to the refrigerator overnight. Place prepared tea ball into mixture.

3. The next day, place 6 half-pint jars in your canner pot, cover to just below the rims with water and bring to a boil. Prepare your lids by placing them in water in a small saucepan. Don’t turn them on to simmer just yet.

4. In a separate small saucepan pour 2 cups water over 12-oz bag of fresh or frozen cranberries. Heat over medium heat until cranberries are popping rapidly, mash and simmer for 5 more minutes.

Strain cranberry juice directly into your preserving pan and add refrigerated mixture; place over low heat until sugar dissolves and then raise heat to med-high. Skim foam as it cooks. Now is a good time to put your lids over low heat.

You’ll know your marmalade is done when the bubbles have spaced out, and they are larger and become darker in appearance. Depending on your pot, this will take anywhere from 12-15 minutes. The gel point is 221°F; remove the pot from heat when you begin testing for set and use a thermometer or frozen spoons to determine whether or not it has set.

5. Remove seed ball and ladle mixture into hot jars leaving 1/2”-inch ‘headspace’, the distance between the fruit and top of the rim. Wipe rims with dampened, clean cloth or paper towel. Seal with two-piece lids.

6. Process for 10 minutes in boiling waterbath.