An Evening of Swapping - October Swap Recap

Welcome! Check in! Eat!

For our October swap we tried something different.

Instead of meeting during a bright, sunny Sunday we gathered for an early evening weeknight swap. Maybe we were influenced by the change in seasons, or maybe we just wanted to mix it up...but it definitely delivered a festive, lively atmosphere.

Conversation at the potluck table

A blue moon ago – before we had held even our first food swap event – Patricia Algara contacted us and offered to host a swap at her edible landscaping/art sculpture workspace in the Mission.

We met with her and visited both the Foodscaping office and her permacultured urban farm in Berkeley where we met bees and chickens, learned about mushroom spores and more. If you were at the June swap, you might have even been lucky enough to take home some of her delicious honeycomb!

Anyhow, as these things go it took a while for us to sync up our calendars and actually hold a food swap event in her space – so the fact we made it happen made the evening special as well.

Swappers setting up and sampling

As always, the potluck table filled up with items as exciting and different as the swappables. We indulged in salads, quiches, savory dips, baked goods and more.

We drank wine and lavender lemonade (and even mixed the two for an herbal white wine creation).

A lot of swap talk

We chatted amid candlelight instead of the sunshine, and it was still glorious.

Of course, throughout all this time, we were also setting up our swap stations, cruising through the tables to sample and ogle all the homemade goodies.

Each swap has been very different in terms of what people bring, but there seem to always emerge certain themes, and this time it was: jam & kimchi! Lots of both, but of course each quite different and unique. One kimchi was meant to be eaten fresh, another strongly fermented. And the jams, jellies and marmalades ranged the realm of fruits and spices and flavors.

Kimchi and empanadas

Assorted jams & jellies

We also had pie crusts and chutneys, salt rubs and pancake mix, tomato paste and spicy sichuan oil, fruit butters and infused liqueurs, kraut and pickled radishes, biscotti and empanadas. And that wasn't all!

Teas, doggie suds and boozy marinara

Kombucha mother & hummus

Pancake mix with jam for two, granola and muffins

Cranberry relish

Biscotti, butters and preserves

Salt rubs, marmalades and more

Swap discussions

Patricia's take-home

My swap scores

A month later, I am still enjoying my krauts and kimchis, have one pie crust and the marinara sauce in the freezer, am slowly sipping my teas and liqueurs, and haven't even cracked any of the jams yet! Stay tuned for what I'm going to do with those though...grand plans, grand plans I tell you.

Photos are a mix of my own and Patricia Algara's (thank you!). To see more, go to the Facebook gallery here.

Update: You can also read about this swap on The Bold Italic, and see some of their photos here.

A few good things

Today was an excellent day for food swaps!

First, fellow swap cohorts (Kate Payne of ATXswappers & Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking, Bethany Rydmark of PDX Swappers, Emily Ho of LAX Swappers, Meg Paska of BK Swappers, and Kim Christensen of MPLS Swappers) launched a fantastic swap resource, Food Swap Network, a worldwide place for swappers – and swappers to-be – to connect and share ideas, information, resources, news and inspiration. The site design is attractive, clean and easy to navigate, but individual swap groups are still uploading their information, so expect to see this community grow, and grow, and grow.

Especially with the help of great features like this showing up in places like the December issue of Martha Stewart's Whole Living Magazine!

How awesome is this?

And since SF Swappers is linked to from the website listed in the magazine, as my co-host Stephanie said, "so that means we're one degree of being in Martha?". Yes, that is exactly what it means!

So now you're all super pumped for the December Holiday Food Swap, right? Tuesday, December 13th from 6:30-8:30 pm. Stay tuned for full details and the registration link on Tuesday, November 29th.

Until then, Happy Turkey Day. I hope you have much to be thankful for and are spending the holiday with those you love, enjoying delicious homemade food!

Meyer Lemon Love Affair + Meyer Lemon Lavender Marmalade

Fragrant Meyer Lemons

I was torn. I had earmarked local kitchen's Lemon Lavender Marmalade recipe a while back, and was eager to put my swap lemons to good use, but I was too busy having a love affair with them. They were fragrant and vibrantly yellow and I moved them onto the coffee table like an art piece because I couldn't take my eyes off them. I let this go on for two days, and then decided to invoke my practical side and use them up before we left for Hawaii in case they weren't as lovely when I returned.

This is my first year preserving, thus my first foray into marmalade. I was excited and eagerly began scrubbing and slicing the lemons.

Yellow on yellow - yay!

Slicing begins

I'm always especially pleased when I have all the required ingredients for a recipe at hand. I had circumstantially bought a bunch of organic lavender from McEvoy Ranch one evening after getting off the ferry, just because it smelled so divine. It graced my bedside table as a bouquet for a few weeks before it dried out and was slotted for culinary use.

Organic lavender from McEvoy Ranch

Ingredient line-up

Cooking down

Mixing in the lavender

Ta-da!

The best part? I was almost equally satisfied with my new table art.

Last Swap + Next Swap

Yes, it is October and I am just now getting to the post on our August swap...but, to my defense I went to Hawaii for 10 days right after the swap, and you know how the tropics can take their toll. [wink wink]

Before we dig in to recalling the summery swappables of August, get your calendar out and mark the date for our next food swap event on Tuesday, October 25th from 6:30 - 8:30 pm. Tickets (free) will be available starting at 6 pm on Tuesday, October 11th. Stay tuned to Facebook or Twitter for the event link.

Our August swap was hosted at EHS Pilates, a most excellent studio if you are looking for one. Being our third swap, it was exciting to see – and taste! – the evolving seasonality of things people were bringing and making. What could be more summery than Tomato-Nectarine Bruscetta Spread, Zucchini Relish and Plum Jams? And there was so much more...let me show you!


(Didn't have great light for photos, so had to use my flash which is a pet peeve of mine, so apologies in advance for image quality)

Spicy + Mild Muhammara by Angela

Edible Perfumes & Essences by Yosh

Chile Honey Spiced Nuts by Lisa

Nutella by Lia

Tomato-Nectarine Bruschetta Topping by Jenna

Fresh Made Ricotta by Jenna

Farmer's Cheese & Moroccan Pickled Lemons by Olga

Nam (Thai Fermented Pork Sausage) by Jim

Meyer Lemons from Sophia

Assorted Cookies by Laura

Chipotle Aioli by Stephanie

Mountain Apple Rings & Spiced Fruit Leather by Jennifer

Sorrel Pesto & Salmon Empanadillas (not shown) by Christina

Assorted Relishes, Jams & Chutneys by Susan

Infused Vodkas by Jessie

Assorted Pickles, Jams & Jellies by Yours Truly

And if all that good stuff hasn't whet your appetite enough, there are a few more pics, including potluck creations here. Also, if you have any additional photos from the August swap please send them to the swap email or add them directly to the Facebook album!

Swap Booty at home - oh yeah!

Coming soon: Meyer Lemon Lavender Marmalade made from the swap lemons and more!

Jalapeño-a-go-go

I admit I may have overdone it a bit on the jalapeño front during a recent u-pick adventure with my friend Jennifer. Partly it was because we made our trip out to Brentwood a little late in the season, and in general there wasn't that much on offer that we could pick ourselves. After checking out a bunch of different farms, we scored and landed at Smith Family Farm. First off they have a fantastic farmstand if you're not up for hitting the fields. Great variety, top quality and very reasonable prices. They did have nectarines, peaches, chard, herbs and LOTS of peppers available for picking - and everything is $1 a pound! This is always the price for u-pick, and they stay open to December, with a rotation of seasonal crops available at different times. I'm thinking pomegranate season might just bring me out there again...

Anyhow, we walked the rows of peach and nectarine trees for awhile, mostly just enjoying the inland heat and chatting. Occasionally we added a couple of fruits to our buckets, but really they were still virtually empty by the time we hit the rows of lush peppers.

A fraction of my u-pick pepper haul

The first four rows of peppers (jalapeños, anchos, Anaheim and poblanos) we were warned were all hot. Even with the typically milder varietals mixed in, they said we were not to be fooled. They also had bell peppers and another sweet variety I can't recall. They were all beautiful though and with a few pickling recipes in mind, I just couldn't seem to hold back. I picked a peck of peppers just like you-know-who.

After getting some chard and fresh sage, we paid up. Mine was $10, which for the amount of produce I had was ridiculously awesome, but also meant I had at least a good 8 lbs of peppers!

We picked up some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, garlic and pickling cucumbers from the stand and then drove off for a cold beer to compensate for all our "hard work".

Sweet Garlic Dills, Pepper Jelly & Pickled Jalapeños

Using a recipe from Ellie Topp's excellent book The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving which I had just gotten from the library, I turned my cucumbers into my first ever batch of Sweet Garlic Dills. Then I made a half batch of the Pepper Jelly I had gotten inspired by the Shibaguyz doing a live demo of during the Canning Across America Canvolution. Finally I turned a couple pounds of the abundant jalapeños into pretty looking pickled rounds.

That was Day 1 of jalapeños.

Day 2 had me set on making some Jalapeño Bread & Butter Pickles which I think the fabulous Well Preserved folks had recommended. After selecting more peppers from my stash, I washed them and then donned protective latex gloves. Never underestimate the potential pain of working with hot peppers! You may think they're not that hot or that it won't bother you, but slicing and deveining 2 lbs of them had me feeling it in my lungs and eyes just from the fumes. Luckily I had a chance to recover since my recipe came with a built-in four hour break while the salted peppers and onions chilled in the fridge. After that it was as simple as adding the spices, cooking a few minutes, putting them into jars, and processing in a water bath for 10 minutes. Oh, and let's not forget the most important step: standing back and admiring your work.

Freshly picked jalapeños

Salted & sliced

In the pot with spices

End result: Bread & Butter'd

I did have grand plans of making hot sauce, and roasting peppers, and all kinds of other good stuff with the remaining peppers, but had to turn my attention to other projects so into the dehydrator they went. I'm sure they'll find their way into an interesting recipe this winter though and will spice up a cold winter day or night just right.

The Jam Diaries, Pt. 1

Dear Diary,

I have a confession. While I most definitely like jam — a lot, really — we just don't eat that much around our house. On my toast I tend to prefer just butter or the addition of something savory (and fatty) like cheese or ham. We do use it frequently for our stand-by dessert: plain yogurt with jam mixed in — but beyond that we tend to have jars rattling around the fridge for a good long time.

Garden full of roses at my sister's place

I have discovered the exception to this rule. As part of my recent jam/jelly-making mania, I found my secret sauce: rose petal jelly.

Inspired not least of all by the incredibly fragrant blue magenta roses that fill my sister's backyard in Berkeley, and by memories of floral jellies in France, I had been wanting to make something with roses for a while. After my sister brought me a bunch of roses, I did some online research and settled on this recipe - mostly because it required about the right amount of petals I had on hand.

Preparing the rose petals

A friend had also brought me a bouquet of garden flowers which included a gorgeous pink rose, so once I enjoyed its bloom for a few days, I added that into the mix. And my sister's harvest had included a single red long-stem rose that totally looked like it had come from a florist (but smelled divine) - key difference here being that it was grown in her yard, organically and without pesticides. This is crucial if you are using rose or flower petals for cooking - you must use pesticide-free ingredients!

After removing the petals from all the roses, you wash them and trim off the bottom white part of the petal which can turn your creation bitter if used. This is the kind of jelly prep you dream of right? Snip, into the measuring cup, voila.

After steeping the petals in boiled water for 10 minutes, you strain the liquid, squeezing every precious drop of fragrant goodness from the petals. Apparently your infusion can at this stage have turned a muddied color, which magically is transformed with the addition of the lemon juice, but mine was actually already a lovely red/pink color strangely evocative of Hawaiian Punch (sorry, no picture) and didn't really change after adding the lemon. You then add the pectin and sugar, boil for a mere two minutes and get it into jars. Process for 10 minutes and you've got yourself a batch of incredible jelly.

Cooling jars

Aside from polishing off the small unprocessed jar that went straight to the fridge, I immediately gave my sister a big jar and have given a number of others away as gifts, so as I'm now readying items for this weekend's swap, I'm reluctantly assessing how many of these beauties I can part with. This stuff is like my own personal liquid gold after all.

Biting into jelly toast

Glowing like gems

Swap-ready