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Oktoberfest celebrates 20 years - Mountain Mail News

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Page 14 • September 29, <strong>20</strong>11 • <strong>Mountain</strong> <strong>Mail</strong> • mountainmailnews.com<br />

HIGH COUNTRY GARDENING<br />

Salsa is easy to make from a variety of garden vegetables. Eat it fresh or can some up for a bit of winter sunshine.<br />

Photo courtesy of Anna Lear<br />

By Anna Lear<br />

Welcome, gardeners, and many thanks for the<br />

kind comments and letters recently! This month I’ll<br />

focus on two better bets: putting up summer vegetables<br />

and harvesting and storing winter squash.<br />

Freezing, canning, and drying are great ways to<br />

store garden bounty for the winter. This summer I’ve<br />

canned pickles and relish (using summer squash in<br />

place of the cucumbers I didn’t get this year), salsa,<br />

and tomato sauce, and I plan to dry my smaller<br />

roma tomatoes at the end of the season. Freezing<br />

works well for squash, beans, corn (off the cob), and<br />

other fairly solid vegetables; these will unfreeze and<br />

cook up much better than tomatoes, tomatillos, and<br />

other soft types. Peppers and onions freeze well if<br />

you chop before freezing and plan to thaw them and<br />

cook them until soft. Spinach, chard, and herbs also<br />

freeze well for later cooking, packaged either as<br />

whole leaves whole or chopped.<br />

If you’re not totally tired of summer squash, you<br />

can pick and prepare a bushel for freezing in just an<br />

hour or two. A food processor with a slicer/grater<br />

blade slices them quickly; layer two cups of slices<br />

into sandwich-sized plastic zip bags to freeze for<br />

winter calabacitas, goulash, and soups. I also grate<br />

my larger zucchini (a food processor zips through<br />

even the 7-pounders) and freeze it in 2-cup portions<br />

for zucchini bread and fritters throughout the winter.<br />

As inundated as I’ve been with summer squash lately,<br />

I know I’ll miss it in a few months… probably.<br />

Harvesting and storing winter squash correctly<br />

can take your crop (or those farmers market goodies)<br />

well into winter. Pick squash when a good<br />

thump makes a hollow sound and the skin is fully<br />

colored: grey for Hubbard, greenish-black for acorn,<br />

bright orange for most pumpkins, yellow for spaghetti<br />

squash, tan with no green stripes for butternut,<br />

and yellow-orange with dark green stripes for<br />

Delicatas. The stem should be hard; cut it with scissors<br />

or a sharp knife and leave four inches to prevent<br />

later rotting. Before storing, wash gently in slightly<br />

soapy water, then wipe with a weak (10%) bleach<br />

solution to kill remaining mold or bacteria.<br />

If the squash does not appear or sound ripe but<br />

the plant has died, bring it in (leaving 4+ inches of<br />

stem on), wash and rinse as described above, and set<br />

it in a sunny window, turning the green sides to the<br />

sun as needed, until it appears ripe. Store winter<br />

squash without stacking (if possible), slightly spaced<br />

to permit air circulation, in a cool, dark, dry, ventilated<br />

place, preferably where the temperature is stable.<br />

Check regularly for decay or freezing. The<br />

squash should last at least a few months, certainly<br />

long enough for lots of holiday cooking.<br />

In the meantime, we still have two or so months<br />

before the ground freezes to plant garlic, a fall crop<br />

of greens, perennials, bulbs, and trees. Next month<br />

I’ll write more about fall planting and maintenance<br />

for perennials and trees, including ways to protect<br />

new and established plantings from extreme cold<br />

and drought. Our sunny autumn days are perfect for<br />

gardening, and planting trees and shrubs now helps<br />

them grow strong roots before next year’s spring<br />

winds and summer heat, so get out there and enjoy!<br />

Anna Lear lives and gardens in Magdalena and is currently<br />

a family therapy intern at Southwest Family<br />

Guidance Center in Albuquerque. She blogs about gardening,<br />

photography, jewelry, and life in Magdalena at<br />

http://thelaughingraven.blogspot.com/.<br />

Ricotta for Rookies<br />

By Nancy Newberry<br />

The Internet is alive with articles about homemade ricotta. If you<br />

make your own cheese, you will astonish your friends. The process walks<br />

a path between magic and science, and you will feel like a genius. The<br />

ricotta you buy is not good, and contains weird ingredients that do not<br />

sound like food. This recipe has two ingredients, milk and buttermilk,<br />

and they are both available in the village. So why haven’t you made any<br />

yet<br />

I can tell you why not: Ricotta is a gateway cheese, a slippery slope<br />

to cheese making as a habit. You might be only one pot away from goats<br />

in the yard. I can just see some of you trying to talk Tom Kelly into raising<br />

Jerseys. I say to that: do it anyway. We can deal with the consequences<br />

later.<br />

How does cheese work All cheese begins as milk; the process of<br />

coagulating milk by adding acid or a bacteria culture segregates the protein<br />

and fat as curds; leaving most of the water and some remaining protein<br />

in the whey. Making the simplest of fresh cheeses, ricotta, only<br />

involves adding acid and heat to milk. In this recipe, heat works with the<br />

acidic buttermilk to curdle the milk.<br />

Some may carp that this is not a traditional ricotta. True, it’s a shortcut<br />

method. The old way is to make it from whey, and even the very word<br />

means “re-cooked.” And there are other easy methods; some ricotta<br />

recipes use lemon juice or vinegar. It’s my opinion that these acids produce<br />

a tougher curd, and it is hard to banish the tang and fragrance of<br />

lemon or vinegar from the final cheese. This buttermilk recipe is my<br />

favorite, adapted from Michael Chiarello’s recipe in the New York<br />

Times (5/28/<strong>20</strong>08).<br />

Try it. Make a cheese fanatic happy. And use it in any recipe that<br />

calls for ricotta, if you don’t eat it with a spoon before it’s even cooled.<br />

Homemade Ricotta Cheese<br />

Creamy, tender, and mild, this homemade ricotta is terrific.<br />

You may never buy another plastic tub.<br />

Makes 4 cups<br />

1 gallon whole milk<br />

1 quart buttermilk<br />

Line a colander with a layer of clean, tightly-woven cotton muslin.<br />

Heat milk and buttermilk together over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed<br />

pot. Stir slowly with a plastic spoon or spatula, gently scraping the<br />

bottom of the pot, just often enough to keep milk from sticking. Check<br />

the temperature of the milk mixture every few minutes using a stem thermometer.<br />

The milk will begin to steam and expand once the temperature reaches<br />

165 degrees F. As the temperature rises further, small flakes of curd<br />

will form and clump together. Stir rarely and very gently.<br />

At a temperature between 170 degrees F and 185 degrees F, the milk<br />

will break completely into fluffy white curds and whey, a mostly clear liquid<br />

with a yellowish cast.<br />

Ladle the curd tenderly with a slotted spoon into the cloth-lined colander.<br />

Allow to drain for about 15 minutes. Turn the curd into a bowl.<br />

Cover and refrigerate.<br />

Note: The whey can be used to replace water in some soups or bread<br />

making. Animals (and even plants) love to drink it, though, too, and it<br />

has lots of good nutrients for them.<br />

each month in the<br />

<strong>Mountain</strong> <strong>Mail</strong><br />

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