Grandma Club

Krupnik (Spiced Honey Alcohol)

Donovan's (soon-to-be) husband found an interesting recipe for a Polish cordial called Krupnik and suggested we make it for Grandma Club. We thought it was an awesome idea and quickly enlisted him and Cinnamon's husband to help us create this alcoholic mystery.

We used a recipe from the hairpin article, "How to Make Krupnik, an Old-Timey Polish Honey-Spice Cordial." We all LOVED how this recipe was written. The steps were clear, the writing tone was hilarious, and the photos were helpful.

There is a lot of peeling, chopping, and weighing, so get some friends to help you to get through all the prep work. After all that, there is a lot of sitting, waiting, and skimming of foam. Again, with more people to take turns, the work is easy.

We ended up making a triple batch since there were three households present during the making of the liquor. This was a great way to get a usable yield with so many helpers. I will warn that the fumes from the liquor are strong, so please reduce the face time you have with the mix once you add the rectified spirit. Another handy note is that the spices are STRONG. When the recipe linked above suggest you only let it mellow for a day, seriously only let those spices seep for a day. I forgot about my mix and the spices seeped for a whole week. Good gravy, my version of the booze is STRONG. I've been cutting it with gin, which is a hilarious sentence on its own.

This is a spicy and sweet drink that is great for cold nights. If you don't like dessert-type drinks though, you may want to skip this one.

Worcestershire Sauce

  

When we initially came-up with the idea to make Worcestershire  sauce we had no idea the recipe was something that took 4 hours. We paused at this information, but decided to go ahead and set this as our next grandma club activity for one reason: This recipe is from the chef at Big Jones. Donovan claims this is the best Southern food she's tasted in Chicago and Cinnamon can't stop talking about how good the food is (I have yet to experience Big Jones), so we decided to make a full day of it.

There is a lot of chopping and skimming of foam involved, but there was four of us (my friend Katie joined us), which made for easy and quick work. Here is the recipe, courtesy of Big Jones. (Thanks for letting us share it!)

Worcestershire Sauce
Yields 3 quarts
·        1 Tablespoon corn oil
·      12 ounces fresh horseradish, peeled and coarsely chopped
·        4 pounds Spanish onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
·        2 lbs mushrooms, coarsely chopped (portobellos are best)
·        2 teaspoons crushed red pepper
·        3 ounces garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
·        1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
·        2 quarts cold water
·        1 gallon distilled white vinegar
·       2 quarts amber sorghum, or dark corn syrup
·        2 ounces anchovies packed in oil
·        1 Tablespoon allspice berries
·        1 Tablespoon whole cloves
·        8 bay leaves
·        4 tablespoons kosher salt
·      2 lemons, peeled and chopped
·        14 ounces wet tamarind (one block,) crumbled

In a large stockpot, heat the corn oil to smoking. Carefully but quickly add the horseradish and onions, and sauté over high heat, stirring often, until lightly caramelized to an amber color.

Add the mushrooms, red pepper,  garlic, and black pepper and continue sautéing until mushrooms are thoroughly sweated. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

Bring to a boil over high heat. Skim the surface of all foam and films throughout the cooking. Once boiling, reduce heat to low boil and boil, stirring occasionally, for four hours.

Remove from heat and allow to settle for one hour. Carefully pour off top liquid and strain solids through a fine sieve. Return to stove over high heat. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface often, and reduce heat to a low boil. Reduce liquid to three quarts. It should be syrupy and coat a spoon well. Check seasoning and add additional salt if desired.

Will keep indefinitely refrigerated in an airtight container.

  

Some notes about the above recipe:
·        Tamarind can easily be found in an Indian grocery shop.
·        Notice the yield - 3 quarts. This will make A LOT of sauce. It is best to do with with a group to make the work easier and so you can split up the end result. Either that, or plan to give this away as gifts. Even though this sauce lasts indefinitely, a little goes a long way.
·        Your kitchen will smell weird. Your clothes will smell like steak. The vinegar stews for those four hours, basically pickling your entire kitchen. I don't mind the smell on my clothes at all, but the vinegar fumes did make my eyes water from time to time.

Some history on the sauce:
The sauce was originally a formulation of a nobleman who spent some time in India. He fell in love with this sauce and reproduced it back home in Britain in a shire he owned. John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins approached the nobleman to purchase the sauce recipe from him to produce commercially. The nobleman laughed at their idea, saying no one would purchase sauce when they could just make it themselves and sold the recipe for cheap. Years later, Lea & Perrins had their popular sauce in groceries and markets.

  

We had four hours to kill while the sauce was doing its thing, so we decided to work on a puzzle. (This one with an illustration by Edward Gorey.) We finished the sauce before we finished the puzzle, but by gum we finished that puzzle between the four of us! We had a lot of fun being super grannies the whole day and ended up with a great kitchen staple.

Spoon Oil Reviving

Oh, hello. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well we are reviving Grandma Club with a lovely new face! Cinnamon Cooper has agreed to join Donovan and I on our Drunken Grandma adventures. Yay!

The first thing we got together to make was mustard and spoon oil. Mustard takes three weeks to cure, so I will write about that process when we have our mustard tasting in a few weeks. So, let's get to the spoon oil.

I'm sure you are wondering what the hell spoon oil is. It is a mix of beeswax and mineral oil and is used to condition wood surfaces, like wooden spoons, cutting board, wood counters, and so on. I got turned onto the idea of making spoon oil years ago when I saw this post on 3191 Miles Apart. We used Stephanie's recipe to the letter, so I would check out her instructions on that post.

Donovan got a pound of beeswax at the local art supply store. She found it with the bookbinding supplies. We initially attempted to cut the beeswax with a knife, but that really wasn't working, so we busted out the cheese grater. That went slowly, but we split the work between the three of us and we quickly got to 1/4 lb of shredded wax ready to melt.

We put the wax in a large mason jar and put it in a hot water bath. When the wax was melted, we put the mineral oil in the bath as well to warm it up a bit. Then poured the mineral oil in with the wax and mixed it together.

We poured the spoon oil into three smaller mason jars (so we each got one) while the mixture was still liquidy. We then let it solidify in the mason jars, which took about 30 mins.

I haven't had a chance to condition any of my spoons or cutting boards with the finished oil, but we did use a wooden spoon to mix up the concoction while it was in the water bath. Whew, it did a darn good job, especially when compared to the sister spoon of that particular set of mine.

To use the oil, just rub the the spoon oil into the wooden item with your hand, let it sit for a few hours, and then buff it with a towel. Super easy for amazing results. All us grannies are super excited to use this oil to revive our wooden kitchen goodies. My wooden spoons are so beat up, they have definitely been needing some love!

We'll be back in a few weeks with our mustard recipes. Happy holidays and have an awesome new year!

Maraschino Cherries

Oh hi...it's been a while, hasn't it? Well, Donovan and I finally found some time to resurrect Grandma Club for a sweet and boozey recipe. We decided to get together to make some maraschino cherries. We used the recipe from Cupcake Project, but there are plenty of others online.

    

There is very little that goes into this recipe and it is also one of the shortest tasks we've ever had. So short, in fact, that while we were waiting for things to cool, I ended up making some currant buns. If you don't have a cherry pitter, I would invest in one for this project. I got my semi-automatic one for around $30 and use it about 2 to 3 times a year. That to me is worth it, especially considering how fast I can de-stone cherries with this thing. Also, the splatter it creates is much fun.

  

What this recipe creates is not the neon pink confections that we are used to from the bar. No, these are dark red and rich with flavors like the best pie, flowers, and holiday time. We highly suggest you try this recipe out while cherries are still in season.

If you need any further convincing, these taste great on some ice cream, in a whiskey drink, or with some waffles!

Caramel Corn

This post is a very long time coming. Has it really been four months since our last post? Sheesh. Well, on the same day that we made candy apples, we also made caramel corn. Yes, it has taken us that long to write this post. We are very sorry and very busy ladies.

We bought a bag of corn kernels from the farmers market and I will admit Donovan & I stared at them for a few minutes wondering if we really could just "pop" them ont he stove top. Yes, you really can and there are no special tools needed. Just a pan with a lid and oil. It is best to use a larger pot so your kernels have more space to pop about.

Coat the bottom of the pot with a thin layer of oil, vegetable oil or sesame oil is best. Before adding the kernels, heat the oil on medium heat until it's hot. We ended up using up half of our bag, making them in batches, pouring in enough kernels to cover the pot bottom in a single layer. Cover the pot with a lid and after a minute gently shake the pot to move the kernels around. You should start hearing some popping within a few minutes.

 

We used the same rule as with microwave popcorn: if the popping slows down to 7 secs between pops, take it off the heat. The fact that my pots have glass lids made this process really fun, and I really haven't gone back to microwave popcorn since we did this. It is pretty quick and you can tailor the popcorn to your taste with butter, seasonings, and melted cheese. But, we aren't making savory popcorn, no...we are making caramel popcorn. So, instead of covering this batch with buttery goodness, we poured them into a bowl to let them cool. Donovan did some quality control, picking out the un-popped kernels and burnt ones while I started on the caramel.

We weren't sure what type of caramel to use. Do we have to look for a hard caramel coating recipe specifically, or can we just use a caramel sauce? We ended up just going with a caramel sauce recipe I had in my Art of Simple Food cookbook. We figured that even if it didn't harden when it cooled, it would still be freaking yummy. Luckily, this recipe totally worked out and the caramel cooled and dried very well. Before making the caramel, line a few pans with parchment paper.

  

Caramel Sauce
(Makes about 1 cup. From Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food.)

3/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Put sugar and water in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over medium heat, without stirring, until the sugar starts to caramelize. Swirl the pan gently if the sugar is browning unevenly.

When the caramel is uniformly golden brown, remove from heat. Stand back from pan and add 1/4 cup of the measured cream. Stir slowly with a wooden spoon, until combined. Add the rest of the cream along with the vanilla and salt.

- - -

After we made the caramel, we poured it while still hot over all the popcorn and fold to cover every little pop. We then spread the covered popcorn in a layer on the parchment-lined pans and let it cool. Every once in a while, we would break apart popcorn clumps and shift around the cooling caramel corn to dissuade the popcorn from sticking to each other.

These turned out really freaking delicious and was crazy easy. I wish I could tell you how long this keeps, but both Donovan and I gobbled our batches up with a week. After the popcorn has cooled, keep it in an airtight bag or container and enjoy each little morsel.

Candy Apples

Hi folks. We're sad grandmas now that Noel has gone off to Baltimore. Still, we do try to keep making things. Kathy and I got together last month {or maybe in October} and made caramel corn. There'll be a post up on that soon. In the meantime, I made some candy apples with the last of my Farmer's Market apples. I was astounded at how very easy they were. Food wise, you only needed apples, sugar, corn syrup, water and food coloring. Equipment wise, you need a candy thermometer, heavy bottomed sauce pan, and a greased, parchment lined raised-edge baking pan.

I think the hardest part {hardest being relative here} was selecting my apples. You don't want an enormous apple for candying. I was looking for a small, sweetart apple with a nice crunch. I picked up some Macintosh at the market, but decided they were too soft. I rejected the traditional Granny Smith since my boyfriend dislikes them. In the end, I went with a Gala apple.

I started by washing the apples and then ramming a bamboo skewer through them. Skewers are what I had available, but you could use a popsicle stick or other stick-like object. Then I arranged them on a raised-edge baking sheet lined with parchment paper and sprayed with Pam. After that, I assembled all of my ingredients and put them in my sauce pan. Then I waited for the sugar to come to 310 degrees, or the hard crack candy stage.

It's important not to stir the sugar because that might cause it to crystallize in places you don't want it to. When the candy is ready, dip in your apples, swirling to coat and let dry on the parchment paper lined baking sheet. Tip the sauce pan so you have a deeper candy pool in which to submerge your apples.  I had A LOT of candy and not so many apples, so I poured the extra over the tops of the apples where they hadn't fully submerged in the syrup.

As you can see, each apple ended up in a puddle of candy at the base, but it was easy to snap off and good enough to eat all by itself. They are ready to eat as soon as the candy has hardened. It took all of maybe 15 minutes to do and 20 minutes for the apples to cool down. Super easy, tasty and fun.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup light corn syrup

3/4 cup water

2 cups sugar

1/2 tsp food coloring

8 - 12 apples

Preserving Tomatoes

 

August is the peak of tomato season. Those of your lucky enough to have gardens are probably rolling in the round, red globes, but some of us aren't as wealthy in the produce department. Fortunately, Kathy and I were able to finagle our way into some "seconds" at the Farmer's Market. "Seconds" is the term used for any fruit or vegetable deemed to be less attractive, and, consequentially, less expensive, but still perfectly good. We each scored over 10 pounds of tomatoes for $10.00.

The only other thing we needed for canning tomatoes was our canning supplies, lemon juice and optional salt. That's it. It was a really simple process and really economical. Far simpler than my original plan of canning actual tomato sauce. That was a lot more work and a lot more supplies {and a lot more expensive}. All told, the time we spent was mostly waiting for things to boil or process. If we do it again, we'll be sure to have a puzzle around to occupy our time.

After gathering the supplies and starting to sterilize the jars, the first step was to bring a pot of water to boil and set up a bowl full of ice water. Douse the tomatoes in the boiling water for 30 - 45 seconds and then put them into the ice water. This will make the skins of the tomatoes easy to remove. Next, core and quarter your newly naked tomatoes. 

For 20 pounds of tomatoes, you're going to need a lot of bowls to hold all of your cut-up tomatoes. Start cooking your tomatoes by crushing up enough tomatoes to equal two cups and bring that to a boil in your pan. The recipe we used is from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It says to slowly add tomatoes to the pot until all tomatoes were added. Well, having 20 pounds of tomatoes meant we did this in two batches. It also said you didn't have to crush the tomatoes you were adding because the heat would break them down, but some of our tomatoes were less ripe than others, so we crushed them anyway.

After the whole pot of tomatoes has boiled for 5 minutes, you can start ladling it into jars. It's recommended that you take the jars out of sterilization and fill them one at a time, minimizing the danger of contamination. To the hot jar, add 1 tablespoon lemon juice for each pint of tomatoes. You can also add 1/2 teaspoon salt if you wish. Unsurprisingly, I opted for salt in mine. Ladle in your tomatoes and wipe the rim of the jar. Then cover with a clean and sterilized lid. Process pint jars for 35 minutes. We also did quarts which should be processed for 45 minutes, take 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of salt. Our 20 pounds of tomatoes yielded 12 pints and 3 quarts of crushed tomatoes with about a quart left over we didn't have jar for. Kathy put that in a plastic container and put it in the freezer.

All told, it was a super easy project and, provided we did everything right, this will be a great way to get the feeling of fresh tomatoes in the upcoming Chicago winter.

P.S. Grandma Noel is off to Baltimore for some higher education. We will miss her greatly and are looking forward to her reports from afar. We think we can convince her to try to make her own beer.

Canning Party Downloads

The grannies are gearing up to go pick some peaches this weekend, but in the meantime, we recommend you take advantage of these adorable, and downloadable, invites for your very own canning party. Summer is prime time canning season; so take advantage of it and invite some friends!

Apron-making

This is Grandma Donovan reporting on the latest Grandma Club activity. Kathy and I got together in the evening last week to make aprons. It ended up being just one apron, but that was because it was decided Kathy had enough aprons and I needed extra help. I had never used a sewing machine and was only experienced with hand sewing in a straight line.

I brought my own fabric in an air mail motif, because I just can't help myself. The first thing to do was decide on a style. I wanted an apron with full coverage because I am a messy person. For pattern ease, we simply traced around one of Kathy's existing aprons. Kathy, being a veteran seamstress, had some amazing scissors to cut the fabric. The fabric was cut carefully, leaving about a half inch on the outside of the pattern line to create the hem. On the curved lines for the arms, Kathy showed me how to cut out notches so that the fabric curved nicely. We cut the bias tape for the ties after trying it on for size and seeing where it was comfortable to tie the apron on. I don't think we ever used a tape measure. It was all done by feel. 

Next, we pinned down the hem. I have always pinned things long-wise, but Kathy showed me that if you pin the edge so that the pin sticks out, it's easier to remove them as you feed the fabric through the machine. I never would have thought of that since I do all my sewing by hand. After all the hems were pinned, Kathy had me quickly sew in the ties by hand just to keep them in place while we sewed the hem. Then it was on to the machine.

As I said before, I had never used a sewing machine.Having Kathy there was a miracle. The act of threading the machine is such a confusing conglomeration of seemingly incorrect movements that I never would have done it on my own. That said, after Kathy showed me how it was done, it was much clearer. She had me try out the machine on a couple of test pieces of fabric to start, and then we went right to the main event.

I had a bit of trouble remembering to put the presser foot down, but overall it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and fun too. Having been a hand sewer all my life, I was amazed by the speed with which I finished the hem. After the hem was done, the apron was essentially complete, but I was feeling adventurous. It was time to add a pocket.

Using the scraps that were cut out for the arm holes, Kathy helped me create the pocket. The tricky part was we wanted to make sure the design all lined up correctly. She basted {which is a loose line of stitching} the two pieces together first and then I followed that line through the sewing machine. This gave us a large enough piece to make a pocket from. I then pinned it and hemmed it just like I had done on the apron. We marked out where the pocket should go using a mirror {the lines of the fabric helped as well}, and then I sewed it on. Viola! I had an apron.

More pictures of the process can be seen on the Grandma Club Flickr page.

Chicago Honey Co-Op Tour

Our first hot day finally hit Chicago on May 23rd, and wouldn't you know it, it was also the day the Grandmas had planned to tour the Chicago Honey Co-Op's apiary and urban farm. We all donned our sunscreen and bonnets for bee protection {or borrowed them} and had a fun time trying to find the right clothes in our wardrobe to render us bee-free for the tour. The Co-Op had recommended hats, light colors, and long pants and sleeves. None of us got it exactly right.

All of the original Grandma crew was in attendance plus some bonus Grandma action with Denise and Grandpa Jason! After becoming properly fortified by brunch at local favorite FEED, we scampered off the the North Lawndale neighborhood to the Chicago Honey Co-Op. 

Housed on land that was once the warehouse for the giant catalog operation of Sears Roebuck, the apiary and farm nestles neatly into its disheveled environment. There are no fancy signs, just a glimpse of bunches of white boxes and various crops behind some chain link fence. We drove past it at first, but a sighting of a woman in light clothing with a wicker basket promoted us to turn around. The Co-Op isn't about being fancy; it's about work and working. Besides, they know to put the "pretty" where it counts in their packaging. Plus, I know I found the trees growing up through the cracks in the asphalt and the rusting train tracks to be quite lovely in their own way. We took a whole bunch of pictures.

Our tour was led by two lovely ladies, Harmony and Shawnecee. Harmony showed us around the farm portion of the Co-Op and let us know a bit of the history of the site and the group. The Chicago Honey Co-Op was started in 2004 by three of Chicago's urban bee keepers. Their goal is to provide jobs to the under-employed and to have a small, sustainable agriculture business raising chemical free honey and related products. People from the community can come in and garden on the plots, the only rule is that you don't use any chemicals. There was even someone working on a plot while we were there. 

 

In addition to the field growth, the Co-Op is also experimenting with raised beds on the asphalt. Heaping mounds of stable cleanings and other compost materials are festooned with garlic, leeks and soon, sweet potatoes. The heat from the asphalt provides a prime growing environment for the potatoes.  While there are all kinds of plants growing on the Co-Op farm,Harmony said they don't really plant with the bees in mind. Part of what makes the Chicago Honey Co-Op honey so special and good is that the bees are able to forage on so many different flowers from peoples' gardens, from parks, from window boxes, and from the nearby Garfield Park Conservatory. But enough about plants, we came to see bees!

Shawnecee was our bee keeper for the day and we were amazingly lucky to be shown two different types of hives; the top bar hive and the langstroth hive. After prepping all the equipment and getting the smoke right, we started the tour at the top bar hive. A top bar hive sounds like what it is; a hive consisting of a box with all of wooden bars at the top. The bees then build their comb off of the bars. According to Shawnecee, this mimics what hives look like in the wild. 

Around this time, she also mentioned to us that she was, in fact, allergic to bees. Bravo, that woman! I was impressed before this, but that shot it out of the park. She then explained to us what the bees do with the different cells. Some store pollen, some nectar, some honey, and some hold brood, or bee pupae. You can tell if there is brood or honey because the cells are capped.

Then she took us to look at a Langstroth hive. Langstroth hives are so named for their inventor and are based around the concept of a proper "bee space" of 3/8th of an inch and also ease of honey collection for the bee keeper. Instead of having to trim bits off like you would with a top bar hive, the Langstroth has a frame which the keeper can remove in its entirety. Large bee keeping operations tend to use Langstroth hives because they can throw the whole thing into a centrifuge to extract the honey and still be able to reuse the frames.

Shawnecee and Harmony told us that we were the only group to get to see both types of hive at the apiary, and we were certainly happy about it. After that, and a few more random bee fact questions like "How many bees are in a pound?" {The answer is around 10,000}, we went over to the shade for a tasting. We then purchased all the honey they had as well as some candles. Sadly, they didn't have just straight bees wax for sale. Both Kathy and I were looking to buy some to make spoon oil.

We all learned a great deal and had an excellent time. Thanks to everyone at Chicago Honey Co-Op for the work they do and especially to our guides, Harmony and Shawnecee. If you're in Chicago, we definitely recommend the tour, and we recommend the honey if you're anywhere!