Crapplesauce (better than it sounds)

You can tell this is not stock imagery or a fine foodie foto, because there's some dried up crap on the stove.

Despite my best intentions, I sometimes end up with produce that did its producing months ago. This time around, it was cranberries I got at the Farmers' Market before Thanksgiving, and apples that my master bartering (again, not as bad it sounds) neighbor had decided were too old and dried out for juicing weeks ago when he gave them to me.

Procrastination and a healthy scientific interest in fruit mummification wanted me to just let it be, but frugality and fear of waste animated me, and I decided to combine apples and cranberries. OK, I admit, the cranberries entered the equation when my commitment to drying them waned. Dehydration by way of repeated low-heat oven exposures (while it may work out as the cheap man's way of heating the house), takes too damned long in a Pacific NW Winter.

So, core and chop apples, and toss them in with the cranberries into a pot on the stove. Add a little water, and avoid the temptation to get it done with fast. Simmer...add some water...simmerrrr...add a little more waterrrr. Listen to Hendrix (the dude grew up in Washington, so he must've eaten a lot of apples, right?)...stir. Maybe add some more water (yep, them apples was pretty dry).

After a while, the album (Are You Experienced) was over, and the apples still had not broken down, so I brought out maybe my most favorite electric kitchenland appliance ever: the immersion blender. And so red-smeared chunks of apple (complete with their old leathery skin) became the paste you see pictured above. It's amore interesting color than you can see on your screen. The flavor is slightly tart, and I added no sugar, so that in addition to being frugal, I could count myself smug over the healthfulness of this concoction.

I the tradition of the Mocavore Blog, I now offer to the gullible world a recipe for something that does not need a recipe:

Recipe for Crapplesauce (I should find a better name)

Ingredients
Apples - however many you feel like coring and cutting up
Cranberries - enough to turn the apples red
Water - small additions to keep from burning the fruit

Preparation
Combine all of the above and simmer until tinder, adding more water as needed and stirring occasionally. When the apples can be cut easily with your spoon, and you are bored with stirring, blend the cooked fruit until it qualifies as "applesauce," rather than "chunks covered in red."

Ozettes! (and Other Potatoes)

This has been a good garden year here so far, and mid-July brought with it a good harvest of potatoes. But I have a garden blog somewhere else, and it's the food that interests me here. Especially since this year was my first attempt at growing the Ozette potato.

Ozettes are what people call a 'fingerling' potato, mostly smaller than what you see here. This one has side sprouts, and looks as much like a Jerusalem artichoke as a potato. But that's the beauty of potatoes--a beauty hid from me for decades, growing up on nothing but Idaho Russets--that they come in so many shapes, sizes, and colors.

This variety gets's it's name from a place called Ozette, which also happens to be an archaeological site of huge significance. It's a site because Makah people lived there, and they've been growing these potatoes for centuries. Unfortunately, I don't have their origin story, but it's likely that Makah territory was one of the early landing points for the great Peruvian Potato Migration that spread tubers across the globe once Spanish ships started plying Pacific waters. But if the potato has not been here as long as the tribe, since time immemorial, it's been adopted by them for long enough to be a part of the culture now.

So yeah, it's a good variety for an archaeologist to grow, and it did well down here in the South Puget soils. And now that I have about 4 gallons of them, I'll get to try them in all sorts of ways. Ozettes, coated in olive oil and sprinkled with salt, roasted just short of crisp, chewy with a tough caramelized outer layer and a rich interior, mmmm. Simple can be best.

There's gold in them there hills.

The other varieties I grew this year were less interesting. Yukon Golds (above) were one of the first "other" potatoes available in regular American grocery stores of the late 20th Century, but to be honest the only reason I grew them was because I had some extra space and tubers that were sprouting. They're doing well, it seems like, but I haven't harvested them yet. When the time comes, they'll be the workhorse potato, boiled, mashed, roasted, whatever. Hopefully, they'll taste a little better for having been homegrown, but they're not exciting.

A basket of mascots.

The other kind of potato this year also came about as the result of profligate potato purchasing and the oversupply of aging tubers that follows for unambitious cooks like myself. This time, it was the only non-russet potato that I can remember way back into childhood: the Redskin. Yes, football fans, this is the way to use this word without being a racist asshole. I know, you don't want to walk away from your proud tradition (which has lasted, oh, not even 1/100th of the time Native people had their own traditions along the Potomac), and sports fans are not to be bullied by political correctness, but its mean and racist to keep calling your team that.

But yeah, redskin potatoes are fine. I'm looking forward to eating them. At least a few will go into sour cream and tarragon style potato salad. Tastes like summer.

And finally this year, there was a stealth russet, flourishing despite me. Potatoes actually came up unbidden last year from a previous renter's garden, but even though I hilled them up, they didn't produce. This year when it happened again, I ripped the shoots and thought no more. I did notice a survivor lurking among the raspberries, but didn't bother pulling it. Of course, I didn't bother helping it any, either, no weeding or hilling.

Then last week, because I wanted to clear some space for fall spinach, I did pull it out, and found about 7 pounds of potatoes hiding under the now luxuriant vine. I might not choose russets intentionally, but when a few meals worth drops in my lap, I'm grateful.

Now, all these potatoes (about 6 gallons and I have no idea how many pounds) are sitting in my archaeology screens in the garage, curing a bit before I stash them in the darkest coolest spot this hacienda has.

Northwestest Salt

A few weeks ago, I worked at Point Roberts, which is a landform (not a 5-4 decision written by the SCOTUS Chief) that is part of the Canadian mainland, but part of the US. It's the western end of Boundary Bay, and because it noses south of the 49th Parallel, is part of the Lower 48, if not the contiguous United States. It is the northwesternmost part of the US outside of Alaska, and therefore I resolved to make some salt from this place. 

Because I was camping, and because making a couple of international border crossings with a bag of white powder seemed like not such a good plan, what I brought back to Olympia were a couple of growlers filled with sea water. [Growlers being jugs--half a gallon in this case--that we Cascadians keep handy to fill with beer at the brewpubs spaced and conveniuent half-mile intervals throughout our land.] Customs and Border Patrol are unconcerned with this, although in the line-up I was wondering if I'd have to explain why I was transporting seawater.

Making the salt is pretty straightforward, as I've figured out before. It looks something like this:

This time around, I learned a couple of things. One is that you can burn salt. Set it to boiling, and get sidetracked by a phone call, and you end up with this:

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The grey crust at the bottom bothered me, so I scraped off the good part, added water, and filtered it before starting over, paying more attention to the boil this time. Eventually, enough water boils off to leave a bubbling white paste, which with some stirring can be relieved of most of its water.

But not all. The penultimate phase is paste. This goes onto a stone tile that I use for baking and pizza:

My favorite salt shot yet.

 I've kept salt (from South Carolina, in that case) at this paste stage before, and it' s actually a nice texture to work with. Fine grained but cohesive, easily dissolved into water or sauce. What makes salt at the penultimate drying phase best and most unique is that it is spreadable. Excellently easy for salt-crusting a piece of chicken.

But for whatever reason, I wanted this northwesternest US salt to be totally dry. So I spread it on the stone and cut furrows through it to maximuze surface area and make the drying quicker and more thorough. Popped it in the oven on the lowest setting, and when it felt dry left it in with the door open. It didn't take much. I'm pretty sure if I'd brought it across the border looking like this, I would have been arrested:

So, that's the story of making salt from the Salish Sea west of Boundary Bay. It's good,...salty. It came with less grit and arthropods than some of the salt I've made. Maybe not a fancy gourmet salt, no color or extra flavor, just the good clean merroir of the northwestest salt I could reach.