Wood cutting

This is not an area where I can claim much expertise, but I have found a few things that work.  I have a wood-burning stove, and have wood from a variety of sources:  fallen dead trees, trees cut down because they're too close to the house or have other issues, and trees (usually dead) cut down by the power company because they are close to power lines.  The latter are usually cut into fireplace- or stove-length logs for me, but the others are very long and need to be sectioned.

 Shown above (the one on the left) is a tree that was leaning over the house last spring.  It was damaged in an ice storm, developing a crack in the main trunk, so I wanted to pull it down in a controlled way rather than risk having it break apart in a storm and fall on the house. So I asked someone to help me get it onto the ground.

Once it was down, it was as shown below.

 

It wasn't terribly large in diameter, but was pretty long and was blocking the area where I normally park, so it had to be cut up.  Below is a view from the other end.

It could be cut up with a manual saw, like a bow saw that can be bought at any hardware store.  However, it would take a lot of time and probably be pretty fatiguing to cut up that much oak by hand.  I used a chainsaw.  Since I don't use the saw very often, I have a battery-powered one (so I don't have to mess with 2-stroke engines, fuel stabilization, etc.).  Battery-powered saws are also a lot quieter.  Nice ones are made by Stihl, Husqvarna, Oregon, and others.

First I cut off most of the smaller limbs then began making cuts to the trunk, using cubits as a rough guide to length (my stove will take 20" logs).  Eventually I had just a long section of trunk and used a timber jack to lever it up off the ground for remaining cuts (I got mine at Northern Tool).

 

Timber jacks are easy to use.  Just set the hook, pull the lever toward the ground, and the trunk--even a very heavy one like this water oak--pivots up.  It starts to get harder to do as the remaining amount of trunk is reduced; eventually, some other support will be needed to do the last cut (like a saw horse or two concrete blocks).

The finished result (with some unrelated pine logs in front) is shown below.  It took less than an hour to cut the tree up (and as can be seen, the interior of the trunk was rotting).

From this point, to make firewood, the larger logs need to be split--using a gas-powered splitter, wedge and maul, axe, or other method.

Whole Wheat Bread Success Story

As I have previously written, I sometimes do 100% whole wheat loaves using the no-knead approach described in that post.

The picture at right shows the same white/soft whole wheat loaf as in the previous post.  There's a decent amount of rise but it's overall pretty dense and the crumb structure shows small gas pockets (versus larger ones obtainable with some mix of white flour).

This is typical of whole wheat loaves, and it's true even with added vital wheat gluten (VWG)--as the one at right has.

Fast forward to this month, and I baked a whole wheat loaf using standard red wheat flour.  I forgot about the VWG and left it out.  I realized that too late to add it, but was committed at that point and went ahead.  I expected an even denser than normal loaf, but the end result was pretty good:

This is impressive.  One key factor is that it has gotten cold here in Georgia (comparatively), so I'm now heating rather than using air conditioning.  I have a seasonal temperature swing of about 10 degrees (79 summer, 69 winter) and I have previously observed that I get better results in the winter. During the day the temperature drops even lower, to as low as 63.  As one of the instructional videos at Breadtopia notes, counter and oven rises are to some degree offsetting: a vigorous pre-baking rise usually means less oven spring, while less rise during the fermentation time leads to a more dramatic rise in the oven.  That's part of what probably happened here.

The flavor is not impacted either way, and the individual slices are still pretty dense.  A 100% whole wheat loaf (particularly with red wheat) is not something everyone will like.  I like it okay although I wouldn't want to eat it all the time.  As noted in the other bread post, I usually use a near-50/50 split of whole wheat and white flour.  It gives consistently good results, although it is also affected by the seasonality issues mentioned above.

Cornmeal Brownies

First, an apology:  the fonts on this may be messed up on your screen.  For whatever reason, I can't get them to save in anything other than micro type.  I tried a few things, but haven't found a fix.

Cornmeal brownies?  Seriously, yes.  Although the concept may sound a little gross, they are actually pretty good.  I found the recipe one day at Grit magazine's site. I adapted it a bit to make it a more conventional brownie recipe (black walnuts are okay for brownies; peanuts are not so much).  I ended up with this:

1/2 c cocoa powder (I used dark)
1 stick of butter
1/2 c flour (I used white flour)
1/2 c cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c nuts (black walnut, but almost any other nut would be fine--and 1 c will also work with the same baking time as described below)

I mixed it all up and found that I had to bake it longer than the recipe suggested: I left it in for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.


This shows a cutaway view of the first pan (I have now made two)--the flavor is nice.  There's definitely a texture of granularity because of the coarseness of the cornmeal, but what I tried tasted basically like brownies.  Of course, the black walnuts may impact that, too, since they are fairly strongly-flavored.  In the second batch, I used 1 cup of nuts and it worked well.


One other note is that I tried a new cooking fat to grease the dish beforehand: tallow.  I'd read about it and wanted to try some, so hunted down a jar online.  It's definitely pricier than the partially-hydrogenated lard I have been using.

When I opened the jar, I was greeted by a faint, unmistakable, and not necessarily welcome beefy aroma.  It had a slight flavor to it, too.  Crisco and processed lard are very neutral.  I may have more to say about tallow in the future.  It worked and it is no longer perceptible in the finished product.


Overall, this recipe has definite potential.
 

Scalloped Oysters

This is a recipe for a dish I remember from Thanksgiving and Christmas when I was growing up: scalloped oysters.  Pretty much only my mother and I would eat them.  When I was trying to recreate that dish as an adult, I looked around online.  There are a lot of recipes, most of which are a variation of this:

2 cups cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (2 sticks) butter (3/8 cups also works, and some recipes call for 1/4 or 1 stick)
1 pint oysters, liquid reserved (which I don't deal with; I just dump it)
1/4 tsp Worchestershire sauce
3/4 cup half & half
3 tbsp fresh chopped parsley (or 3 tsp dried)
Salt and pepper as desired




Melt the butter and pour over the crumbs, mixing well. In a small (I use a 6x10 Pyrex) dish, put 1/3 of the crumbs, followed by half the oysters, then another 1/3 of the crumbs, and the rest of the oysters.  Then put the half and half mixture (with parsley, Worchestershire sauce, and 'oyster liquor' [if used; I omit this] added) on top of the upper layer of oysters, followed by the rest of the crumbs.  Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, or if doing with a turkey, 325 for about 50-60 minutes. I grease the dish beforehand, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

This is similar to what I remember.  I don't add any salt or pepper, and I don't add any alcohol--some recipes call for wine or sherry.  As noted above, I also don't add in the excess liquid from the container of oysters.  The dish is oyster-flavored enough and doesn't need an extra boost. Mixing the parsley and Worchestershire sauce in with the half and half works fine (some recipes call for 100% cream, but this is fatty enough without that).

It's pretty easy to do.  If done together with everything else that commonly goes with a Thanksgiving meal, it comes at a hectic time in the process, when everything else is nearing completion--so it pretty much has to be easy or it couldn't get done.

A bonus:  leftovers freeze well.  Back in the day my mother and I were the only ones who ate these; nowadays it's just me.  So I have a lot to put away for later.

Cranberry Sauce, 2016

I just did the annual canner run of cranberry sauce.  I followed the same general procedures described last year, but this year started with more berries. I missed out on the three-pound bags at one warehouse club--they were only there one weekend and my refrigerator was full of other things--but another club had two-pound bags.  I got five.

As I have done previously, I started by culling bad berries. There are always some that have a few soft spots, and some are profoundly bad.  It takes a bit of time and I'm sure I miss some even with the sorting; nonetheless, it improves the finished product.  FWIW, making cranberry sauce on your own rather than buying what's available already canned makes sense for this reason alone: some of the bad berries may be removed at canneries by quality control procedures, but some probably make it into the finished product.

I spent close to an hour picking through the berries, and at the end I removed 21 ounces' worth.  Last year I noted that I had an 18% fail rate; this year was better--only 13%.

That left me with a lot of berries, and I knew I'd have more than one canner load (eight quarts) of sauce.  I upped the water and Whey Low by 12%, using 12 cups of each. 

Given the increased quantity, I used my big stock pot, which has a capacity of 20 quarts. It fit everything with ease.   After picking through the berries, the only other thing I do to them before pouring into the pot is rinse them in a colander.

I let the syrup boil before dumping them in; some rupture immediately but some take a while.  Probably 15 minutes elapsed between pouring the berries into the pot and having a finished product ready to ladle into jars.  I got about ten quarts.  The last quart jar was only about 80% full, so I didn't process it--I just stuck it into the refrigerator.  It's mostly syrup, anyway.  As the picture below shows, I still have trouble balancing berries and syrup in the jars. I don't worry about it--they all end up being edible.

Out of curiosity, I checked the pH.  It looks to me like it's about 3.0, maybe 3.0-3.5.  Everything's looking good.

Apple Pie Filling

This is a straightforward application of the recipe at the NCHFP:  Apple Pie Filling.  I mix up the seven quarts recipe.  Apple cider or juice are both fine, and I used Whey Low instead of regular sugar (although the company says it can be used as a sugar substitute, there's no research on it as far as I know--however, I made a very heavy Whey Low syrup sample and tested its pH; it was comparable to what I get with straight tap water as discussed recently...so it seems to be fairly neutral as is sugar).

The fist step in making apple pie filling is to peel and chop the apples.  I could do it the same way I did the pears, which was pretty slow, but I used my apple corer/peeler/slicer.  Models are sold by various vendors; essentially it's something that is cranked and it quickly slices, peels, and cores an apple.  I then cut the rings into quarters for pie filling.  After that, I dunked them into a bowl with some ascorbic acid to reduce browning.

As can be seen (though not well) in the picture, there is still some peel attached to the top and bottom of the apple.  I snapped those bits off and ate them while I worked.  I suppose I could've manually removed them or just left them on, but I went for a somewhat-cleaner look (and ate the equivalent of one apple during the processing because of it).

The filling mix itself includes clear jell, which is corn starch with some level of special processing so that it will be well-behaved in recipes.  The clear jell thickens the mixture.  Initially, when mixing the sugar, clear jell, cinnamon, water and apple cider, it's very thin (I skipped the nutmeg).

As it starts to heat, the clear jell begins to clump together as shown below.  Eventually, it sets up and assumes a very thick consistency.  I stirred it almost constantly during this time.  When it starts to boil, it's like magma: large bubbles pop, flinging bits fairly high.  I got some on my arm and one finger, which caused minor burns.  A minute of that was enough.  I dumped in the 3/4 cup of lemon juice and quickly followed with the apple slices.

 The NCHFP recipe calls for blanching the apple slices, but that didn't seem necessary to me: after all, it will be subject to boiling during the canning process.  I have made this one time before, as briefly noted previously, and did not blanch that time, either: the finished product the first time around was good.

One caveat: the NCHFP calls for one inch of headspace, which is a lot, but it's necessary.  I tried to leave that but a couple of jars overflowed during the canning process nonetheless.

Using this stuff is pretty easy: dump a jar into a pie shell, put a top crust on, and bake.  It's something nice to do when you have a surplus of apples.

Random Observations on pH

This post has very little substantive content, but it's something I have observed a couple of times before and thought was interesting.  Most fruit is acidic enough to be processed in a boiling-water bath (BWB) canner (i.e., pH of 4.6 or lower).  Foods that are low in acid or basic can be BWB processed if enough acid--generally vinegar--is added to drop the pH below the threshold at which the bacteria that causes botulism can grow.  This is how pickled vegetables are made safe for BWB canning (though just tossing some acid into a jar isn't satisfactory; it has to be enough to lower the pH of both the solids and liquids to no greater than 4.6).

I have pH test strips and sometimes check the level of things I'm making--though this can be difficult if the food in question is strongly-colored (e.g., sauerkraut made with red cabbage).  Recently I canned pears.  As is often the case, I had some left over that didn't fit into a jar for processing, so I tossed them into a container and put them in the refrigerator along with most of the leftover syrup.  A week later, I checked the pH of the syrup out of curiosity.

As can be seen, the pH was 5.5-6.0.  This is not acidic enough, but the pear-to-syrup ratio in the container was much lower than in the processed jars.  For comparison, the pH of the water from my kitchen faucet is fairly neutral:

The few peach slices in the container acidified the syrup, but only to a point: this has implications for lightly-packed canning jars.  The fruit slices themselves will be acid, but if there aren't enough, perhaps the syrup will not be.