Preserving

     When I left for San Francisco, there was nothing to eat in the garden. Actually, that's not quite true, because I'm learning that a lot of weeds are edible, and they grow almost all the time. But it was slim pickings - the spring lettuce and arugula had become too bitter to eat in the heat, and the summer plants hadn't started producing. But when I returned I had eggplant, broccoli, cucumbers, basil, and zucchini.
     Because of this, the stocking of the winter larder has begun. For the first time on my own, I canned. The four quarts of pickles in the middle were the result. There are several ways to screw up canning: you can get the pH wrong, the food can be insufficiently heated so the pathogens aren't killed, or you can fail to make a seal on the lids. (This leaves out pressure canning, used for meat and low-pH foods, but I don't pressure can.) I felt okay about pH and heat - that's just following a recipe. So, just to be sure, I had my expert canner friend C come over and check that the lids sealed properly. Now, if I gift you some pickles this year you can be almost sure that they won't be moldy when you open them...
     I made a few quarts of refrigerator pickles, using the same garlic dill pickle recipe. I wanted a chance to test these pickles soon - what if I made two dozen quarts over the course of the summer and the discovered I hated the recipe?
I also bought some cherries and made rum-soaked cherries. Boozy fruit, as I've heard it called, is a revelation to me. I love the idea of easily preserving fruit and making deliciously flavored alcohol at the same time. I hope these are as delicious in real life as they are in my imagination, but I'll have to wait until they're ready at Christmas to find out.