It’s a special time of year.  Foraging (something I wish I had far more skill with and am determined to learn more about) will start us out of the gate before the greens of spring and then summer led way to an explosion of crayola colours that will only fade to the cautionary colours of the fall.  If a year passed in the blink of an eye I’m sure that the Norther Hemisphere would look like a most amazing firework exploding before dissolving into the darkness of winter (though we preserve then as well).

I can’t emphasize the following enough:

• Learning the fundamentals of preserving amazing food takes no longer than a few hours.  Use trusted sources – The National Center for Home Food Preservation has a website that, to me, sets the bar.
• If you doubt the above, rest assured that I had passively participated in family food traditions through most of my life (other than when I was a teenager when I participated under duress and protest).  Preserving became a hobby in the last 5 years, an obsession in the last 3.    Dana and I moved to our apartment 5 years ago – if you had told us that we’d have a shelf with 400+ jars (and more stored elsewhere for a total of around 700 at peak season), we’d have laughed.  If you told me we’d redecorate to accommodate them, I would have laughed harder.
• Preserving cheats time.  I can pair the heat of a dehydrated local pepper with the freshness of  spring fiddleheads and cheat the seasons by mixing a fresh ingredient with a preserved one.  Jars are time machines for the kitchen.

All of that said, there’s a bigger picture; at least for us.  We’re preserving far more than food.  Each jar is a memory; the day we made it or the person who grew it or traded a jar with us or of other jars we ate from the set.

I’m going to make a difficult comparison for many people to accept in the following two paragraphs.

I hunt sustainable food.  It’s something I’ve struggled with for most of my life (an introduction to that is here and if you search for ‘Moose Hunt’ you’ll find a non-graphic account of our 9 days moose hunting this year).  The first time I ate an animal which I saw culled changed my relationship with food forever.  I used to throw out uneaten chicken with barely a thought.  I’m not trying to convert you – just suggesting that the reality of what is on the plate becomes a different kind of ‘real’ – at least for me.

Preserving does the same.  We haven’t mastered zero waste in our house yet but we’re very conscious when we forget a carrot in the crisper or when a bread fails.  I haven’t mastered my occasional binge on fast food or on pop.  But my relationship with what I eat has – and continues – to change rapidly.

Preserving to me, is about making a conscious choice, as to what I consume.  A simple dinner of rice and peas is intimately connected to 14 other dinners this year – all with the same batch of preserved peas from a farm just north of Markham made on a Sunday night after a great drive in the country and a wonderful visit with my parents.

We hope you’ve enjoyed some of the articles in this series and are inspired to try something from them – or something different altogether.  We’d love to hear from you and we really will get a swap event together later in the year – too many great tastes to simply hoard!

We would love to have any suggestions, requests, ideas or thoughts on what to feature in the summer article that we will be publishing in Edible Toronto.  Like this series, we plan to stay a bit off the beaten path of expected techniques or ingredients or at least offer some twists to them…

In the mean time, we’d love if you pulled up a chair and stuck around.  We’ll continue writing 7-days-a-week and share some of our spring successes and struggles as we go through them.  This year I’m going to remember to eat as much as I put in cans (something I did poorly last year ).

I am so terribly excited to experiment with Dandelions this year.  I have not preserved them before (the beech tree noyau and this are our `new`goals this spring to try) and am excited to share what we`ve learned about them as we`ve been planning for about 8 months to really have some fun with them.

A bit of context first.  Dana was reading about the Slow Food Movement and found an amazing story.  Several Italian experts were sent to South America to teach people better farming techniques.  The farmers had been struggling with their crops year-after-year.  Their families were struggling to eat and further challenged by a weed that would seemingly grow overnight and appear just about anywhere.   The Italians coulnd`t beleive what they were seeing – farmers starving and struggling to create a North American style farm while cutting and burning this weed on a daily basis.  The `weed`was actually an edible crop that was the basis of their diet hundreds of years ago and had since been forgotten as edible.  They were burning their best crop.

The mighty dandelion is much the same.  The greens are becoming gourmet delicacies (in salads or briefly blanched) and the flowers and roots are magically delicious.  Yet we see this master crop as a pain in the butt weed.

Let`s start bottom up:

• The roots can be dug, washed and dried in an oven.  A small clump of dandelions can share a single root and use of a shovel and knife are generally required.  This is a large part of why we consider Dandelion Root Coffee to be a very difficult preserve – finding a place you can dig in the city (ethically and legally) presents a problem – If we`re up north early enough in the spring we`ll be able to try this, otherwise, this may have to wait another year.The basics: dehydrate it (you can use a stove) until brittle, roast it dark and grind into grounds to make this coffee substitute.  A 5-gallon bucket of roots should make 3-4 quarts of finished product.  There`s full details on eHow to learn to make this if you want more detail.
• Dandelion wine.  I am told that this is super simple to make and that it tastes great.  It`s a curiosity as much as anything for me and amazing how many people I speak to who inform me that their grandparents made it at some point.  This relies on the flowers – avoid the rest of the plant which can turn your elixir into something bitter.  The petals are typically added to sugar, water and often a bit of citrus, boiled, strained and mixed with yeast to ferment before ageing 6 to 12 months.  The easiest explanation I`ve found is here.
• Dandelion Jelly. Petals, sugar, water, pectin and a bit of citrus.  You essentially prepare tea (using the yellow leaves only) by simmering the leaves to create dandelion water which becomes the basis of this jelly.  You will have to add pectin in order for this to set as there is little-to-no pectin in a Dandelion (I am guessing none but do not know scientifically).  This would be a great place to start if you`re a little tentative.  Here’s some details.

I love the idea of working with a “weed” that others walk past and am very excited to work with Dandelions this year.  Make sure you’re picking in a clean area that hasn’t been sprayed with a tonne of pesticide or other nasties!

Any favourite recipes or techniques out there for dandelions?

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

There are many different  for making a batch of preserves.  Sometimes it may be driven by a memory of something you ate, a time, place or part of your childhood.  It may be driven by something you read, heard about or want to try.  Perhaps you simply want to experiment or have a trusted recipe that comes with the season.  I occasionally make something because I think I can give it a funny name (`currant events`had me buying 3 different types of currants for jelly last year).

Sometimes I work a batch to simply learn.  This was the case with Lamb Jerky – it`s an impractical amount of work to endure unless you are  a wizard with a kitchen knife.  I am not a trained chef or butcher though I am very, very comfortable in the kitchen and found this to be a near-painful amount of work (though a lot of fun and super educational).

What`s all the fuss about?  When you make jerky, you want to avoid fat.  Fat spoils quickly and lamb has a lot of it.  It took several hours of work to yield about a cup for wonderful jerky.  Working with lean beef or game speeds this process up by thousands of percent (you can basically slice the right cuts with little need to trim).

We started with a shank:

I recently attended a butchery workshop at Cowbell (if you are unfamiliar with the restaurant or the workshop and are interested in a 100-mile Toronto restaurant or learning about restaurants cooking nose-to-tail, the series is here) and it helped a lot.  I recall Mark and Ryan emphasizing `different muscles are separated by layers of fat – follow the fat to teach you where to separate muscles.`  This piece of knowledge really guided me in the process and I was able to cut the shank down sufficiently like this:

From there, it was time to trim it out further and remove all layers of fat.  A sharper knife could have been a better friend but my sharpener was one-hour north of me.  I did what I could – further breaking down the cuts above and trimming the cuts out even further.

From there, the process of making jerky is fairly simple.  We followed the instructions of the National Center for Home Food Preservation which recommended marinating meat overnight (we went slightly longer) before dehydrating at 140 degrees – we added a final step that they also provided which was to cook the meat for an additional 10 minutes at 275 degrees on a cookie sheet.  The final product should bend and crack instead of breaking.  Rather than giving the full details and rewriting their very good article, click here to learn about the process in full.

Our marinade included soy sauce, salt, a touch of sugar, hot chilli flakes, Worcestershire and pepper (a basic recipe is also on their site at the link provided).

The taste and texture are awesome.  If you’ve only had store-bought jerky, this is very little like it.  The flavour is rich – hot, spicy and sweet all at the same time.  The earthiness of the lamb appears a few moments after the fiery sweetness of the “candy coating” kicks in.  It’s an addictive snack – I could eat the jar in a single sitting; about 4 hours of active work and 2 days of waiting could be gone in a moment.  I must practice restraint.  I must practice…

The final product is about 1-cup of jerky.  It will last for 2 weeks in a sealed container on the counter or longer in the fridge (of course some freeze jerky in air-tight bags for even longer storage).

We will be experimenting with jerky’s and sharing recipes through the summer and into the fall as we prepare to (hopefully make) Jerky with some of the game we harvest in the fall.

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

I was an adventurous eater as a child.  I loved to eat things that impressed adults and had a reputation as a kid that would eat anything.  I wasn`t a mini-gastronome as much as I was in love with the attention that came with eating things I wasn`t `supposed to like.`  Perhaps that explains my modern-day fascination with nose-to-tail dining though I like to believe I really have evolved to taste over reaction – it`s tough to see trough our own filters.

I remember picking rhubarb from the garden and biting in to it.  It gave bitter a weak reputation.  Rhubarb was enough to turn your face inside-out.  I remember dipping the ends of it in sugar and sucking on the stalk before double-dipping and chomping down (something I haven`t tried in far too long).  A simultaneous rush of sweet and then bitter (not the famous combination of bitter-sweet) would rush onto your tongue and through your entire body until it jarred your spine straight with the thrill of the combination.

Preserving, to me, is about more than food.  It is about preserving tradition, memories, flavours, culture and tradition.  I preserve rhubarb to being back the tastes of my youth as opposed to the taste of Spring.

We can also burst a few preserving myths by exploring rhubarb preserves:

• I have to make large batches of preserves
• A preserve is a finished product – like a jam.

We made 3 jars of stewed rhubarb last year.  This is, essentially, rhubarb, a bit of water and sugar.  Although it can be easily used as a side-dish for a hearty meal, you can also use it as the star of baking through the winter.  You can also mix it with other jams (such as strawberry to alter the flavours as you wish.  Click the following link for details on how to make stewed rhubarb.

I have learned that, when it comes to chutney, there are almost as many varieties as there are types of snowflakes in the world.  Many European chutneys are super sweet confections while preserves of the same name are a totally different product in the east with chutneys taking on the flavours of curries and spice and everything nice.

I don`t eat a lot of toast (it is ironic that I have a pantry with almost 20 flavours of jam and eat very little breakfast food).  I do love to create pairings and have been known to serve 8-10 courses of preserves paired with cheeses and other delights.

I haven`t made the following Apple Rhubarb Chutney but I love the idea with an old cheddar or other hard and strong cheese.  I love that this recipe cheats the seasons – apples are cellared from the fall to bridge the gap to spring when they join the young rhubarb to cross a generational gap of flavour (apparently I slept funny last night – you`ll have to excuse the imagery).

• 4 cups of diced and peeled apples – firm cooking apples (like those that make pie) are best.  Treat with a dash of lemon to help control browning.
• 4 cups sugar
• 2 cups rhubarb
• Zest and juice of one lemon
• one-half (0.5)  cup water
• one-half (0.5)  cup dried cranberries
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• one-half (0.5) teaspoon ground nutmeg

Don`t skip the spices – they will round this out to something special.

1. Bring the first 5 ingredients to a boil over medium-high heat for 15 minutes.  Stir often as you don`t want this to burn.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and gently boil for an additional 15 minutes until it allows you to heap it on a spoon (i.e. thickens considerably)
3. Fill hot-sterilized 8-ounce (1 cup or 250 ml) jars  and process for 10-minutes.  The detailed step-by-step case study in the preserving tab (top of page) will give you all the details you need if this is new to you)

The flavours in this chutney will likely develop for several weeks or months.  Be patient while the flavours get to know each other I often wait 6-12 weeks before settling in to a new concoction like this.  Alternatively, it can be a great deal of fun to open a new jar every few weeks and taste the progression of flavour.

We hope you are getting inspired by our tastes of spring.  We`ll be pausing tomorrow for Cheap Tuesday Gourmet before completing the preserving series later through the week.

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

When I started my journey into preserving I thought I was learning how to make neat things that would feed me later or make neat gifts.  I didn`t expect that there would be sustained learning as I progressed from hobby to obsession – after all making jam involves fruit, sugar, some acid and following a precise recipe.

I have found that there is so much more learning than I ever expected and that only part of that relates to technique and recipe.  I have learned more about culture, tradition, history, farming and about people from all around the world who are the `rock stars`of the jarheads (all terminology is made up ).

Pam Corbin and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall are akin to the indie-rockstars of their scene.  They are world-famous to a small amount of diehard followers and somewhat unknown to the rest of the world.  They started a restaurant named River Cottage that grew to include a local grocery store, farm, school, publishing arm and more.  They are based on of the UK though you can attend several of their courses online.  Their book, Preserves, is small but mighty and filled with amazing recipes (a warning to our International friends – all measurements are in metric).

I am also a sucker for scarcity.  When I am told that something is rare or limited, my spidey sense fails me and I suddenly am much more interested in that thing.  Preserving local ingredients feeds this indulgence.  Making a preserve with an ingredient which is available for only a few days every year is a thrill to me.  Knowing that a business trip has taken me out-of-town and I`ll miss an opportunity for an entire year is a bit heart-breaking.

With all that perspective aside, let us introduce the recipe we chose from the River Cottage cookbook on preserves: Beech Tree Noyau.  It`s a stretch to call this preserving but I get to make the rules here so infusion counts as preserving the spring flavours for later in the year.  If you`ve made tea before you should find this an easy recipe to make (we called this a difficult level of `2` due to finding Beech leaves).

According to the book, this was originally based on a French technique for infusing gin with bitter almonds or peach stones.  I`m going to have to do some more research on that since we preserve 20-30 liters of peaches per year and have a lot of peach stones that have only been touched by a knife.

The core of this recipe is young and tender beech tree leaves.  They are still a few weeks away but if you wait too long you will end up with a bitter cocktail that may be less than exciting.  Here`s the idea:

• Nearly fill a container (they claim 90%) with spring beech leaves.  Cover with gin taking care not to leave exposed foliage as it will turn brown with oxidation (that will risk changing the colour of your gin in a direction you don`t want it to go).  Leave to steep for 7-10 days and expect a change in colour to the gin (a golden-brown).  Strain through a microfilter or cheesecloth strainer to remove solids.
• Dissolve 300 grams of sugar with 250 ml (1 cup) of water.  You are essentially making a simple syrup.  Allow this to cool completely before adding to the gin – they also recommend adding a couple of caps of brandy at this time.
• Place a few fresh beach leaves in hot, sterilized mason jars, add the Noyau and seal via hot water bath.  I plan on heating the gin syrup (right to the boiling point) before adding to the jars to avoid thermal shock and furthering the preserving process.  You`re doing this to remove air from the mixture and processing for 15 minutes should be all you need (and more) to retain this flavour for up to 2 years.  It may darken with time.

We wrote about infusing vodka with pears and apples here and followed up with an article on what to do if your infusion gets too bitter.  Bears also like beech trees.

We welcome any questions or tips and would love to hear yours!

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

Asparagus are awesome.  We`ve learned a lot about this amazing vegetable in the last year and I really think it will taste different this year because of our excitement and knowledge.  The highlights:

• a new asparagus plant must be left to grow for several years before harvesting for the first time
• stalks have to be harvested by hand because asparagus reaches optimal eating size for about one day and each stalk grows at a different pace
• farmers must decide when to stop cutting – if they harvest their field for too long though the early spring it will not grow in the following year

We also learned an amazing trick to bring less that perfect Asparagus (aka `shriveling`) back to life here.

When it comes to preserving, one of the first considerations is a products acidity.  Most vegetables are not acidic enough to can in a boiling water method (most fruit are which is why jams and jellies are fine this way).  This means we have two options – turn them in to pickles or pressure can them.

The pickling process is very similar to the techniques for fiddleheads.  We use a different recipe and love to add garlic and hot peppers.  Pickled Asparagus may sound odd to the uninitiated but to those in the secret pickled asparagus society (SPAS) these are treasures in the kitchen.  I love them on the side of a hearty meal, added to a salad and Caesars will never be the same.

We shared our recipe and technique in an article last year that you can find here.  If you`re new to canning this is a great starting place.

Assuming that you don`t want to eat all of your vegetables as pickles, it is time to branch out into different preserving techniques.  Asparagus can be frozen after a brief blanching or pressure canned.  We haven`t dehydrated them before and I`m told they can make a great powder for soups (similar to awesome beet powder).

Pressure canning is more technical than water bath canning.  We essentially pack vegetables into sterilized hot jars (sometimes  after cooking briefly called hot-packing and sometimes without pre-cooking called raw pack).  The jars are placed in a pressure canner and processed under the additional heat and steam created by the cooker.  Steam (when under pressure) produces more heat than the typical boiling temperature of 100 degrees celsius (or 212 farenheit).  A small amount of salt is typically added to the jars along with boiling water.

The results are phenomenal – what you sacrifice in `crunch`is replaced by the thrill of tasting the flavours of your local terroir through the winter.  We preserved 3 types of beans and peas like this last year.  The flavours are stunning in the middle of winter and we`ll be significantly increasing our quantities of preserved veggies this year.

Pressure cookers and canners have come a long way in regards to safety and ease of use.  Learning how to pressure can would take more than a single article but spending 30-40 minutes on the website for the National Center for Home Food Preservation will get you what you need to know.  They have an introduction to pressure canning and details on how they recommend doing Asparagus.

Don`t be intimidated by people saying this is tough.  It takes care and it takes some research but it`s still basic cooking techniques – boiling liquids, cutting and cleaning.  Do your homework upfront and eat unbelievable food through the winter.

A final tip: if you are preserving a lot of asparagus, avoid the grocery store.  Talk to a farmer at a market before buying in quantity.  There`s a few ways this may save you some cash and help him or her out as well:

• Towards the end of a day they may be going home with waste.  Taking a large quantity from them  can save spoilage and help them out.  No one likes to see their hard work go to waste.  It`s also a bitter pill to sell it at a loss – I want them to be able to make a sustainable living by this and don`t try to pound lowest price.  I also tend to return with a jar of their own product for them to enjoy.
• Talking to a farmer and `pre-ordering` can be the best approach.  You may have to wait an extra week but you`re not pillaging his or her entire stock and leaving them with dissatisfied customers.  Asking to purchase a quantity the week before can allow them to plan for your purchase and this is often greeted with kindness.

We welcome any questions or tips and would love to hear yours!

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

They`re not here yet – but they will be soon – and they will disappear just as fast.

Fiddleheads are a big deal around here.  Dana loves them and I feel connected to my family when I eat them – my Mother is From Nova Scotia and these delightful little dudes and dudettes are staples in the Maritimes.  To cook them fresh is to briefly steam them; there`s nothing quite as good as a well-cooked vegetable and nothing quite as bad as it`s overcooked brethren.

Fiddleheads are essentially young ferns.  Make sure you `straighten` one out some time – you`ll get a far better understanding of what`s going on.  Fiddleheads disappear almost as quickly as they arrive as they are merely a small stop on the ride from sprout to fern.  Most of them will stretch toward the sun within a few weeks and lose their fractal appearance.

Once again, you can forage or buy these.  Some grocery stores carry them but they make a grand entrance at many farmer`s markets (including Wychwood, Brickworks and the St Lawrence Market in Toronto).  Foraging has obvious advantages ranging from price to personal satisfaction and one major disadvantage – you have to clean a small `scummy`husk off of them.  They are typically sold clean.  If you`ve never had them before, buy lots.  Lightly steamed with butter – I`m tempted to call them a better asparagus but I love it too much to do so. 

We haven`t pickled them before but I`ve heard great results from others – including local farmer Mark Trealout.  A considerable way to improve your preserving abilities is to share your successes (and struggles) with others and listen openly to theirs.  I will not have enough time in my lifetime to preserve all of the possible goodness that I want to so learning from others, trading jars and stories is an essential shortcut to a yummy end.  Mark had great success with his fiddleheads and they look stunning in his jars.

Many people think of pickles as limited to cucumbers.  There are so many other options to explore.  We pickled 6 pounds of garlic in September and we`re left with 3 jars – 1 is destined to a dear friend who loves garlic and if I don`t bring it to him soon he may have to wait until next year.  Pickled beans and asparagus are other sure-fire favourites.  They are great as a side dish, a treat from the fridge or added to a caesar.  We will definitely be trying fiddleheads this year.

Finding a good recipe can be difficult.   Untested recipes flood the internet and some are outright dangerous.  We are seeing more and more recipes for jams and chutneys that include considerable amounts of oil – in the best case these jars will likely spoil – in the worse case they may hurt someone.  Canning with tested recipes and doing your research (we introduced the National Center for Home Food Preservation here) is your best approach to guarantee safety and success.  We are very picky when we choose recipes off the internet – most come from books or friends who we believe have the knowledge and experience to guide us.  Ernest Miller (from California) is a certified master food preserver who co-runs a site called PreserveNation which can also provide some good guidance.

I have decided to use a recipe from the Internet this year for our fiddleheads.  The source is an author named Langdon Cook; he wrote a book called the Fat of the Land which I am currently reading and adore.  Mr. Cook was an executive at Amazon.com before he decided to leave the corporate world and move off the grid to a small cabin with his wife and son.  His writing is great, informed and humble as he shares his successes and struggles while foraging in the Pacific Northwest. I believe he has the experience and knowledge which is why I`ll go with this one.  And his results look stunning!  Rather than steal a recipe, here`s a link.  Check out his blog – it`s a lot of fun.

Well that`s all for today`s post in our Preserving Spring series.  We are continuing to write one per day as a follow-up to the article in Edible Toronto.  We`re continuing to do one-a-day until complete and you can see the entire series by clicking here.

Wild leeks are much smaller than their big domestic brothers.  You can acquire them two ways: forage for them or purchase them, assuming you can find them.  Wild leeks need care when you harvest – once a leek is plucked from the ground, it will not grow back.

If you`re harvesting them yourself, guidelines suggest you should take 5% or less to allow that patch of wild leek to remain sustainable. The difficulty with such a guideline is pretty straightforward – if everyone took 5% from the same patch, the patch would disappear.  I know of several places in or near my house that I could harvest them which I avoid for this reason.  We are spoiled with a sustainable hunting cabin North of the city and the patch of ramps (aka wild leeks) I harvest from is 13 kilometers deep into the forest.

Leeks have appeared at more and more farmers markets and even some grocery stores.  The ethics of purchasing them can again be challenging; after all if the vendor picked 100% of a crop, you would have no way of knowing.  My advice for overcoming this is to simply talk and build relationships with the suppliers and purchase from trusted sources who have a strong reputation.  Examples in Toronto would include Forbes Wild Foods and Mark Trealout (Kawartha Ecological Growers).  Both are regulars at Farmers Markets across the city and visiting one of our many fine markets will likely yield some results.

Here’s a picture of a wild leek from last year:

There are two parts to the leek which are preserved differently.  The bulbs will  withstand (and adore) the acid of a pickling treatment while the leafy greens will be best (in my opinion) frozen for additions to stocks, soups and sauces.  We live in an apartment with a tiny freezer so we are very selective when it comes to freezing – and this is a must every year.

Here’s a few recipes:

Frozen Leek Pesto

Freezing is one of my all-time favourite preserving methods.  It’s so simple and there’s little to clean up.  The disadvantages are space, energy and the use of a plastic storage bag or two.

The highlights: quickly blanch the greens of the leeks (i.e. seconds in boiling water and then dipped in an ice bath to cool) before adding to your favourite pesto and freezing in muffin cups to be used as single-portions later.

I rarely follow a precise recipe for pestos (another advantage of freezing) and have even frozen the leek greens which have been touched by a bit of olive oil with nothing else added, in which case the term “pesto” would be pretty loose.  I like this alternative because it retains the flavour of the leek and allows grater options later.  If you were looking for something more traditional, try this type of idea:

1/2 cup wild leek greens
1/2 cup basil (could replace this by doubling your leeks – for a twist you could begin growing the basil now)
1 tablespoon olive oil (if concerned with local, try canola and add a teaspoon at a time checking flavour)
1 teaspoon lemon zest (again, the locavores may want to skip this)
1/4 cup pine nuts (toasted)
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup Parmigiano Reggiano (a local alternative could be a very old; i.e. 6 year white cheddar)

When it comes to freezing you can take a lot of liberties (this is not the case when canning) so have some fun.

Pickled Leeks

On to the bulbs!  Our friend Tigress is running a 12-month canning challenge where 120+ people (mostly armed with blogs) are preserving a mystery ingredient every month.  Last month was Alliums (onions, garlic, leeks)  and you’ll find a lot of onion/ leek recipes there.

The most important thing to know about preserving leeks is that they are a vegetable and are low-acid.  This means that our options for canning become somewhat limited (although the term is completely relative) – generally this means we can pickle or pressure can (more on that later in this series when we tackle asparagus).

You want o use a tested recipe here – if you`re looking for help on how the process works, we`ve put a very comprehensive case study (grab a coffee or a beverage of your choice because it`s wordy) in the preserving section you can access through the top of the page.

Most pickling recipes are larger than what one would often need for wild leeks.  Consider reducing the quantity of brine or doing a small batch of pearl onions if you can get your hand on them this time of year (I have seen some from cellars):

8 cups of onions (loose packed; this is a guideline)
5.5 cups of white vinegar (must be 5% as most is – if your vinegar doesn`t say, move on)
1 cup water (purists would use distilled)
2 teaspoons of canning salt (you can use kosher salt; canning salt can be tougher to find and it`s only advantage is a potentially clearer brine)
2 cups sugar (this isn`t local but adds a sweetness that makes these pickles sing with cheese and other savouries)
8 teaspoons mustard seed
4 teaspoons celery seed

We also find that coriander seed can be a secret weapon; you can add hot pepper flakes if you`d like as well.  So much for secret. 

Simmer vinegar, water, salt and sugar for 3-minutes before adding the leeks (if you are doing leeks and onions, do the two separately).

Once you`ve simmered for 3-minutes, add the leeks and bring back to a gentle simmer for 5 minutes (start timing once you`r back at a boil).  Add into hot sterilized pint jars (leaving a half inch of headspace), remove any air bubbles and place in a hot water bath under a full boil for 10 minutes (the case study will help newcomers with this – if your`re looking for further help feel free to leave questions below).

You`re off to the races!

Leek Party

If you want to celebrate the wild leek to it`s extreme, there`s a legendary picnic at Eigensinn Farm each spring.  It`s not for the faint of wallet but was one of our major food events last year.  15 of Toronto`s best chefs cooked wild leeks and maple syrup dishes in the middle of the forest for a 4-hour feast.  We detailed our experience in 5-posts here.

More ideas

We did picked Garlic scapes and pesto much the same way last year (here).  Update: for more ideas on preserving wild leeks, we’ve added another article here (this includes my favourite preserve of all – dried leek roots).

We quietly asked several people for their ideas as well – Tigress reminded me of leeks which I make every year and had originally forgotten so a giant thanks to her as well!

The idea behind the articles is to share with people some options for preserving and broaden understanding that preserving can be done throughout the year (many focus on the fall for it) and share some ideas on what people could do with locally sourced food — from the farmer`s market, forest or their own gardens.

The article combines the best of both of us and a real collaboration of our efforts.  I`m very excited and can`t wait to see it in my hands (the magazine is on the streets of Toronto now).  The magazine is Edible Toronto, a quarterly feature on the local food community here.  Gail, it`s publisher, has been fantastic, supportive and helpful through the process; she  seemed as excited as we were with the article which was (and is) very motivating.

In the coming days we are going to detail recipes on each of the items below.  Some of them will be recipes we`ve used and loved and others will be from sources we trust and will be trying this year.  Each article will be tagged with wellpreservedediblespring and clicking that will bring you to all of the published articles in the series.

We tried to pick a very wide range of items to share ideas and would love to hear your favourite spring preserving ideas.

To see more of Dana`s design work, visit her portfolio here.  You may even see a few food products you recognize .

Lastly, if there are any bloggers (or others) that wish to print, share or post the article, please feel welcome to – I just ask that you let us know and clearly indicate that it is by WellPreserved.ca as originally printed in Edible Toronto (this is a requirement of printing it).  A link aback to us would be swell.

Click on the picture for a large version (if it looks small, zoom on in since that copy is massive )

Feedback is welcomed too – we`re already starting to grind on the summer article!  Any fave ideas for that?