Saving Summer

Four simple ways to make the fruits of summer last well into fall.
By Sarah Keough

I always want to prolong the end of summer for as long as possible. I love spending late evenings in the garden, grilling veggies I picked earlier, and snacking on plates of juicy tomato slices sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil. I dread the wan, mealy, store-bought tomatoes of winter months almost as much as the cold weather. So I’ve taken it upon myself to learn a few easy ways to keep them around as long as possible. And since I pick up a weekly CSA box at my local farmers’ market, I had to figure out a way to use up the overabundance of fresh fruits and vegetables—not to mention the herbs—I haul home during the season, and bring a hint of summer freshness to my meals well into the fall.

Dehydrate

The simplest way to make the fruits of the late summer harvest last is to dry them. You can use the sun, a dehydrator, or an oven on a low setting. Eat dried fruit chips all autumn long and pull sun-dried tomatoes from the freezer to add to just about any dish. Dried fruits, especially tomatoes, have such intense flavor. It’s almost as though once they shrivel up, all the taste gets sucked into this smaller vessel. And tomatoes preserved in this manner keep their nutritional value, so the lycopene and antioxidants they’re known for—and we need—stick around. Most fruit works well in this slow-bake method—apples, pears, peaches. You can also experiment with making tofu jerky and veggie chips in the same way.

Confit

Another method of preserving foods is confit, a practice French peasants, who had no means of refrigeration, used to preserve meat. To confit something, you cook it slowly in some kind of fat, seasoned with anything you’d like—salt, herbs, chilies, for instance. For vegetarians, this means using a good canola or vegetable oil. Avoid olive oil because of its low smoke point and stay away from hydrogenated vegetable oils (like shortening). A confit yields a sweeter, saltier, richer version of the original food, as well as an infused oil to cook with or toss in salad dressings. Good confit candidates include garlic, tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms.

Pickle

This ancient method is probably the most well-known way of preserving food. You can pickle absolutely anything. Really. From pig’s feet and bologna to cauliflower, radishes, cabbage, and eggs—and it’s easy to do. Pickling involves soaking a food item in a brine, a solution of salt and water, usually with the addition of some kind of acid (vinegar, orange juice, or lemon juice). Sugar and spices, like mustard seed and cinnamon, are often added because they have antimicrobial properties and act as preservatives.

I discovered that preserving summer’s bounty, like most things I try in the kitchen, requires a little patience, a bit of experimentation, and a sense of adventure. The recipes here are straightforward, pretty easy to master, and very open to substitution and customization. You don’t need to know any canning techniques or buy any unusual supplies. Just start in your garden (or take a trip to your local farmers’ market), gather up your favorite foods, and get started.

Dried Apples

The whole process takes anywhere from 10 to 20 hours, depending on the water content of the apples, the thickness of the slices, and how well the air is able to
circulate around them.

Yields 2  cups

1. Get 5 pounds of apples (any kind will do; whatever’s local).
2. If you’ve got a fancy new stove, use the dehydrating setting. The rest of us should preheat the oven to 150ºf or its lowest setting.
3. Spread the apples out on wire racks, so they don’t touch each other. You could use cookie sheets, but then you’ll need to flip the apples once in a while, so you expose both sides to the drying oven air.
4. Sprinkle the apples with some spices—typically cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice—if you’d like.
5. You’ll need to check the apples periodically, rotating the racks and moving them up or down to get even heating.
6. When done, the apples should be flexible, like a raisin from a fresh bag—not brittle.
7. Cool the apples to room temperature and store them in ziplock bags with the air squeezed out.

Tomatillo Salsa

Yields approximately 2 1/2 cups

3 cups tomatillos, husks removed, rinsed and quartered
2 medium poblano peppers
2 cloves of garlic, minced
¼ cup yellow onion, chopped
½ medium jalapeño, seeded and diced (or to taste)
Juice from ½ lime (or to taste)
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste

1. Roast the poblanos under the broiler until the skin is cracked and blackened. Place them in a closed paper bag to cool.
2. Pulse the tomatillos in a food processor for 4 to 5 pulses, until they are chunky, and then pour them into a medium-sized bowl. Add the garlic and onion.
3. Once the poblanos are cool, peel the skins and remove the seeds. Chop the peppers coarsely and add to the mix.
4. Add as much jalapeño as your spice tolerance allows, along with the remaining ingredients, and stir.
5. Let the salsa sit for an hour at room temperature before serving.
6. Keeps for 4 to 5 days in the fridge.

Garlic Confit

I make this once every couple of months and use it in everything—as a substitute for regular olive or canola oil in cooking, marinades, or salad dressings. Smash the garlic cloves into anything you want.

Yields 2  cups

1 cup whole garlic cloves, peeled with the root end removed
2 cups canola oil

1. Place the peeled and trimmed garlic cloves in a saucepan and cover with the canola oil, making sure none of the garlic is breaking the surface of the oil.
2. Set the saucepan on a heat diffuser (or place it in a cast-iron skillet) to create low, even heat across the pan. Turn the burner on low heat.
3. Tiny bubbles will start surfacing from the garlic as the oil heats up. Adjust the stove temperature so that the garlic is never even simmering.
4. Cook for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cloves are soft all the way through.
5. Let the garlic cool completely in the oil. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a month.
6. Experiment by adding bay leaves, peppercorns, and some herbs to the oil. Just make sure to strain through some cheesecloth or a mesh strainer before you put it in the fridge.

Tomato Confit

If you have a ton of extra tomatoes from your garden, make this in batches and store in jars in the fridge or freezer. They’ll last for about a month in the refrigerator.

Yields approximately 2 1/2 cups

2 pounds tomatoes, halved
¼ cup olive oil
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste
A few bay leaves
5 garlic cloves

1. Pour about ¼ cup of olive oil onto a baking sheet—it should just cover the bottom of the sheet—and place the tomatoes facedown in the oil.
2. Add the garlic and bay leaves in between the tomatoes, and salt and pepper the whole thing.
3. Bake in a 350ºf oven for 45 minutes to an hour. They should be quite soft.
4. Discard the bay leaf and transfer everything else to a jar or a bowl. Use right away or refrigerate. They get even better after a day or so.

Parsley-Mint Pesto

I make pesto out of pretty much anything green—parsley, cilantro, basil, a mixture of mint and arugula—and freeze the extra in ice cube trays.

Makes approximately 3/4 cup

1 cup flat-leaf parsley, thick stems discarded
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves (or fresh basil, depending on your mood and menu)
Lemon zest from ½ lemon
3 to 4 garlic cloves (from the garlic confit)
¼ cup confit oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste
Sea salt and ground pepper to taste
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)

1. Finely chop the first four ingredients (or process in a food processor for several pulses).
2. Add the remaining ingredients and pulse until just mixed.
3. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

If chilled, return to room temperature before serving.

Spicy Refrigerator Pickles

Yields approximately 3 quarts

8 pounds Kirby cucumbers, cut in half lengthwise
¾ cup sugar
½ cup pickling salt
1 quart vinegar
1 quart water
1 bunch of dill
A handful of habañero peppers
Several garlic cloves

1. Wash and drain the cucumbers.
2. Combine the sugar, salt, vinegar and water in a large saucepan and simmer for 15 minutes, until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Remove from heat.
3. Pack the cucumbers into hot, sterilized jars, leaving a half-inch of headspace.
4. Add one sprig of dill, half a habañero, and a clove or two of crushed garlic in each jar.
5. Ladle the hot liquid over the cukes, leaving a half-inch of headspace. Remove any bubbles that surface (I usually use a chopstick for this).
6. Screw the lids on tightly, and then seal the jars by putting them into a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Make sure the jars don’t touch one another.
7. Store the pickles in the fridge for up to a month.

Did you know… that America was named after a pickle maker? It’s true. Amerigo Vespucci.

Sarah Keough is the editor of the Brooklyn-based art and food magazine Put A Egg On It.