The Fruits (and Vegetables) of My Labor

This has been quite a canning season for me. I've been canning for quite a few years now, but spurred by the vegetable garden outside (I'm guessing, because who really knows where the obsession comes from), this is probably the busiest one I've had. I'm realizing that I've written about canning here, here, here and here. Hmmm.... well, here's another post about canning, and where I fess up as to what I canned.

Okey dokey. When I left you in suspense, I was working on a peach/plum harvest that we did at a local farm. We had a blast that day, and the kids are champion fruit pickers. We had gone on Sunday, and then I spent Monday and Tuesday (and Tuesday night) canning (and freezing a bit) what we had picked. This is what that looked like: Curious??? Wanna know?? Me too, actually, 'cause there's a lot there. Ok, here's the rundown.

Out of the plums (11 pounds), I put up:

3- 1/2 pints of Spiced Plum Butter. Wow, try this one. The smell is unbelievable, and the taste is out of this world. Seriously good!

4- pints of Plum Jam (which was really 5 pints, but I only had 4 pint jars ready, so the extra went into a reused jelly jar in the fridge.) This jam is surprising-tasting, which is the only way I can think to describe it. You think that it's going to be really sweet, like most jams are, but then it's got a really fresh taste to it with the sweetness, so the sweetness kind of goes to the background. Every time I taste it, I am surprised. It's very good.

6- pints of Sugar Plums. Meaning, whole plums in syrup. There is no spicing with them, just plain fruit in sugar water. The plums we picked this time around were small reddish plums. They easily fit in the jar, and they were so pretty. So instead of chopping all of them up, I picked the nicest ones, poked them with a fork and preserved them in medium syrup. They float, which seems to be my curse when preserving fruit, because no matter how I pack them, hot or cold, tightly or not, any type of syrup, they float. But they are pretty, and I know they're going to be delicious, so who cares??

Ok, I started with the plums on Monday. You know, as a warm up. On Tuesday, I tackled the peaches. 32 pounds. My kids like to pick peaches. :) That made:

6- 1/2 pints of Spiced Wine Peach Jam. (that's the first picture in this post) Ok, this one is very good, but it's because of the spices. I don't really taste the wine in it at all, which is a shame, because I used a good wine for it. I am hoping that if it mellows a bit, I may taste it more. When it's fresh, the wine taste is pretty nonexistent.

6- 1/2 pints of Lavender Peach Jam. Ok, yes, I can recommend this one. The lavender is there in smell and taste, and the peaches are a wonderful compliment to it. Neither one is overpowering. This is one of those frou-frou chic preserves you'd see in some store somewhere, selling for $12 for the 1/2 pint or whatever. So I think if you were going to can to give gifts to someone, this would be the one to make. And it's easy, which is the kicker. Very good, and very impressive!

2 pints and 1 1/2 pint of Peach Butter. This one is ok, but I think it would have done better with a bit of spicing, like the Plum Butter. I added a cinnamon stick during cooking, but it could have used a bit more....something.

6- pints of Honey Spiced Peaches. Yeah, more buoyant fruit. Oh well. These are peaches basically hot packed in a sugar syrup that uses honey as the sweetener. The spices are added to the jar, and then the peaches and syrup are put on top of them. It will need to mellow to get the spices to do their thing. I used cloves and cinnamon sticks for half, and star anise for the other half. All I can say about this one (because I didn't taste it) is this; if you enjoy mead, make these. We do, so I did. That's the smell from the honey syrup. It was good!
2- pints of Fruit Ketchup. It used peaches, tomatoes, and some other stuff. I was intrigued. I have tomatoes. I figured, what the heck?? It smelled good, but I have no idea how it tastes, because hot ketchup is not something I really wanted to try. I'll have to let you know about this one...

With the rest of the peaches, I was going to make canned peach pie filling, but the recipes I had for it either made a too-small amount (like 4 pints--what can you do with that? That's only 2 pies worth, so it's not really worth it) or a too-big amount (like 7 quarts--and I didn't have enough peaches left for that), so I just cut them up, treated them to prevent browning, and froze them. I can still make peach pie with them, and it was easier.

That took care of the peaches and all the fruit we had picked. But the garden had produced a bit too, so I put up:

3-pints of cherry tomatoes in water. No picture here, but trust me, they're floating. :)

2- pints of Gingered Zucchini Marmalade. Being as though I have some zucchini, and I have frozen a ludicrous amount, I thought "hey, why not? I'll try something different.". Famous last words. First, there was a marmalade disasterThis, friends, is what can happen when you leave to go pee. Don't do it. Just hold it in. Trust me, you'd rather hold it in than have THIS smell permeating your kitchen. Oh boy.

After the burned batch, and all the scrubbing I did to clean that pot, I tried again. It worked better, but I think I overcooked it. Then, not to give in, (because I won't be beaten by zucchini) I tried again. The third batch was the best. I stopped before I thought it was done, and it actually was the right time to stop. So go figure. I did have extra, and I have tasted it, and all I can say is eh. What a description, huh? The zucchini isn't there at all to taste, so that's fine, because that would be odd, and all you can really taste is the lemon and orange in it. I didn't taste ginger at all. Yeah, I don't know about this one. I think if you're going to make marmalade and risk marmalade disaster, make orange or something. Leave the whole zucchini thing out of it. I don't think I'll repeat this recipe.

Ok, after that whole thing, it was like 10 o'clock at night, and I was feeling like I needed an easy win, so I made Cabernet Franc Jelly.

This is the super-easiest thing to make, it's ridiculous. Get a good bottle of wine, a little sugar, and some liquid pectin. Voila! Wine jelly. It is good, it is fast, and it sounds super impressive, too. And it's good with cheese and crackers and also as a glaze for meats. Win win. :)

See the ridiculous jars, by the way? Those were the store's answer to "I just want a jelly jar, please". That was it. I went looking for those quilted jelly jars, and that's what they had. Wide mouth, "platinum" band. You KNOW I'll never find the tops for those things again, right? UGH. Plus, the shape is so weird, they just kept falling through the rack in the canner, over and over again. Oh well. At least the color is pretty.

Wednesday I spent cleaning up the kitchen. Thursday I took the day off (go figure). Friday we went tomato picking, because although I am growing tomatoes, I grew heirloom tomatoes, which don't all ripen at the same time, and cherry tomatoes, which you can't really sauce (though I may try it anyway). The kids picked plum tomatoes and some globe tomatoes which were so perfect my mom called them "Disney Tomatoes", and on Saturday, I tomatoed. On Saturday, I put up:

6- pints of Chunky Garden Salsa. I used the tomatoes, some jalapenos, some zucchini (go figure), some peppers, etc, and salsa'd. It seemed soupy to me. I haven't tried it yet.

6- quarts of Plum Tomato Sauce. Just plain, no spicing. I figure I'll do the spicing when I cook it up for dinner.

3- pints of Ketchup. This took a LONG time. A LONG TIME. I started with it, because I figured, what the heck, by the time the ketchup is ready, the jars will be warmed up, the lids will be ready, I can peel all the rest of the tomatoes, and it'll be good to go. I also should have added, and I can clean all the bathrooms, weed all the gardens, and read War and Peace, and THEN it'll be ready. That's how long it took. The result is good, really good. But I don't know if I will repeat this one. At least not on a day when I have other things I want to do.

Then, because I do have lots of ugly heirloom tomatoes in the garden, and because I didn't want to mix them up with all those pretty "Disney" hybrid tomatoes, I used them separately to make 2 different kinds of sauce, which I didn't can, but I did freeze. I made a Mexican Yellow tomato sauce with Chipotle peppers, and a red tomato sauce with basil.

I just reused old sauce jars I'd been saving for those. This was the easiest. Make the sauce, let it cool a bit, plop it in the jars, freeze. Good deal.

And that's it! I am done canning until apple time now. Or until I see a good deal on u-pick pears or something....

Oh, stop me now!!

I Be Cannin'

Be back.....eventually. :)

At Least it Wasn't 95 Degrees!

It was cooler (87 degrees--woo hoo)Sunday, so I did some more canning. That canner is getting a workout THIS year!



Let's just say I had a bounty of zucchini. So I pickled it.

I also put up some plum conserve, which is on the left in this picture. The 10 pints on the right would be the zucchini pickles. The middle loaf is zucchini bread. There were 2 loaves, but one had been "attacked" as soon as I took it out of the oven. My daughter has a previously undiscovered love of zucchini bread. So in total, I got 10 pints of pickles, an "overflow" jam jar of pickles (with the red top in the back--no I didn't put that in the canner--it would have exploded, methinks) and 2 loaves of zucchini bread, and froze a bunch. That was the harvest from the day before we left and the day we came back...... Did I mention I had a bounty of zucchini?

Finally the tomatoes are coming, so you see some in the front in this picture. I have a PLETHORA of tomatoes, but they are almost all still green. These ripened while we were away, so I picked them. They are a variety of cherry tomato called Chocolate Cherry. Bet you can't guess why I picked them, huh? Anyway, I grew them from seed, and the plants are now 6 1/2 feet tall, and loaded with tomatoes. And falling all over each other, which is a pain in my butt. My mission today is to buy some 7 foot stakes and get them off of each other. Then I may be able to walk in the vegetable garden again.

That's going to be my day today. What are you all up to?

All Because of the Apricots

It's 95 degrees out. It's hot. Yet I spent the day baking and canning. I believe I am insane.

Poor Percy. I understand, buddy, I really do.

The day became what it was after a planned trip to the farmer's market and a sleepless night thinking about organizing my freezer.

I know, have I nothing better to do than think about organzing my freezer all night? Well, yes, sleep would have been nice. Unfortunately, my inability to sleep as of late caused my brain to stay awake despite my best efforts of stopping it from doing so, and while it was looking for something to think about, it came about the abundance of summer squash we have and the fact that it has caused a bit of a traffic jam in the freezer.

Squashy devils. Oy!

So, having been fueled by stupidly-late night ponderings on what to do to clean up the freezer, I got up this morning to head to the farmer's market as planned, and then come home and clean up the freezer, in hopes of appeasing my brain, so MAYBE I'll get to sleep tonight.

Of course, things never go exactly as planned, do they? I find mostly not. I went to the farmer's market to buy carrots (to bake a carrot cake) and some lettuce for salads. That was it. Then home to clean. Well, I did get the carrots which were lovely, and I did get the lettuce,

but then my daughter spied cherries, so we got those,and then I spied a stand selling peaches and apricots.
We don't go to the farmer's market all the time, and you know how quickly things go in and out of season, so we bought a couple of pounds of peaches, and I eyeballed the apricots.

I like apricots. I like apricots in syrup, actually. But I shudder at eating the ones in the supermarket because of all the crap preservatives they put in those things. And fresh apricots are like $3.50 a pound or something ridiculous, and that's not happening, because what if I don't get them "syruped" and they go bad? What a huge waste of money. Plus, where are they from? California? Mexico? But these apricots were sitting there. And they looked nice. And they are very local. Plus, they were "seconds", meaning slightly blemished but still perfectly good and much cheaper. Well, I'm going to cook them, aren't I? Does it matter if they're not all that pretty? Not a bit. So, ok, no convincing here, I buy 5 pounds of "seconds" apricots for a total of--get this--- $4. Whoo hoo!

Ok, so I've got my carrots and lettuce and cherries and peaches and now apricots, and we head home. And on the way there I spy a sign that says "Blueberries U-Pick". I think about it. It's getting hot. Maybe it'd be best if we just go home. We were at the market a while. Little Boy wants a drink. .....But the blueberries will be a good price. The kids like picking things themselves. Or maybe they'll have some already picked and I'll just grab a couple pints and we'll go off home with little interruption. Hmmm...

The U-Pick won. We pulled in and since there were no already picked pints waiting for us, I asked the kids if they'd like to pick blueberries. They were extremely enthused. Kids after my own heart. Little Boy has forgotten he wanted a drink (he always does--he's SO 4), and we're off. About an hour later both in the sun and out in the shade, with the kids picking blueberries like champs, and Little Girl eating almost as many blueberries as she picked, we brought them back to the stand. Three and a half pounds of blueberries for--get this again---$4. Whoah!

Ok, really to home now. Fed the kids lunch, gave Little Boy his drink, and now to the freezer.

Messy, messy.

I pull everything out.

And attempt to put everything back in.

Ok, bit of cramming going on, but so far so good. I am nearly completely out of room. But I do have the "problem" that I just created for myself--those apricots and the blueberries. I have to do something with them. So I figure I'll can them. Apricots in syrup (yum!!!) and then I can can the blueberries in water, for baking later on. Ok, that's a plan. So I get the water going in the water-bath canner and get all my jars and such ready to go, and I prep the apricots. I get them going, make their syrup, then the jars are ready. So in they go, nicely as you please, and I pop them in the canner. But now I have to wait. 20 minutes. That's a while. So I figure, I was going to bake a carrot cake, so heck, why not?

So I do. And that goes so quickly that I have some time left, so I figure hell, I'll make some zucchini bread. It uses the same oven temp and everything. Kharma.

So I do. And then the jars of apricots are done (I got 4 pints-mmmmmm!!!), and the cake and breads are in the oven, and I'm going to get started on the blueberries. But I need to prep more jars and lids. So that's a little "down time". And I noticed that I had a frozen pie crust in the freezer that I really didn't have room for. So what if I just put together a little free-form and very rustic blueberry tart? I've got the crust. I've got the blueberries. Kharma again.

So I do. And I pop that in the oven just in time for the jars to be done, so I heat up the blueberries, get them in the jars nicely as you please and pop them in the water bath. Ok, 15 minutes of down time and now the carrot cake is done, the zucchini breads are done, and the tart is done.

And that's it. I'm done. At 5 o'clock. I only meant to clean the freezer, you know. Hmmm....

Darned apricots.

Summer Cookies

Happy Summer, friends!

We here in Orange County, NY are enjoying a lovely summer day with 64 degree weather! Yep, 64. Last night it was in the 50's. May was a warmer month, for the most part. Bizarre-o.

Well, in hopes that summer will arrive here eventually, and because it is the first day of summer after all, I made summer cookies. That's because I really like cookies. Have you noticed? It's not something I keep a secret. These cookies were in the recipe book for Christmas, but they used herbs, and what's more summery than that? To make them more summery, I used fresh herbs instead of dry and the strawberry jam I made earlier this week. Wow! They are so good! I think you will enjoy them. They are like little bites of freshness in a sweet/savory cookie. If you have some sage growing in your garden, and some jam in your fridge (homemade or not), try them! They do not disappoint.

Here's the recipe. It's from Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookies magazine 2007

Blackberry-Sage Thumbprints

2 c flour

2/3 c yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp. dried sage, or if you have fresh, 2 tbsp fresh sage

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 c butter, softened (2 sticks)

1 c packed brown sugar

2 egg yolks

2 tsps finely shredded lemon peel

1 1/2 tsps vanilla

1/3 c blackberry preserves ( I used strawberry for this, and it was very good!)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, cornmeal, sage, and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.

*** If you use dried sage, just crumble it up really well. If you use fresh, snip the leaves as small as you can. It just makes sure the sage goes throughout the dough instead of leaving big chunks in just a few cookies.

2. Beat butter in a bowl with a mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolks, lemon peel, and vanilla. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining by hand.

3. Shape dough into 3/4 inch balls. Place balls 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Lightly press the tip of your thumb into the center of each ball. Fill the center with 1/4 tsp of the preserves.

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Cool for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to wire racks and cool completely. Makes 60.

To Store: Place cookies on layers separated by pieces of waxed paper in an airtight container, and cover. Store at room temp for 3 days or freeze up to 3 months.

Enjoy enjoy! They are REALLY good!

Until next time, my friends! Have a wonderful day!

Putting Up Strawberries

I made some strawberry jam this morning. We had gone strawberry picking Saturday morning, and brought home 6 quarts. I hadn't realized how fast they go bad, and we lost 3/4 of a quart by this morning, so I knew it was time to make the jam, lest I lose all the rest of the crop.

Glub glub goes the jam

I like to make jam. It's work, but since the strawberries and sugar "jam" themselves, a lot of it is watching and checking to see if it jelled and tasting--that's the best part.

Smooshed strawberries, anyone??

With the 5-odd quarts of strawberries we had today, I made two kinds of jam. One just plain strawberry without pectin, and one strawberry-rhubarb.

Rhubarb is a pretty color

I got 3 pints of plain strawberry and 2 1/2 pints of the strawberry-rhubarb. The funny thing was, that I was expecting to LOVE the plain strawberry jam, and only like the strawberry-rhubarb. I wasn't really sure about it. I have had strawberry-rhubarb pie before, and I like it, but don't love it. So I figured the jam would be the same.

Well, I was wrong! The strawberry jam was good but sugary and didn't seem as "strawberryish" as it could be, but the strawberry-rhubarb jam was out of this world. Holy cow! Love it love it!! As you can see, my daughter agrees with me. She gave the strawberry-rhubarb first prize!! I could eat it all day. I think next time I do this, I'll try the pectin-version of the strawberry jam. Maybe all the cooking is what made it not as strawberry-ee. I dunno. But I will repeat the strawberry-rhubarb recipe. I think my mind's been changed. WOW!!
After I was done, I had a nice lunch of strawberry shortcake. (It's very nutritious, you know) MMMMMMMMM!! So good!!

Have a fabulously sweet day!!

A Sweet Experiment

I'm trying something a little different this year. I'm making my own Valentine treats. It's a bit of an experiment, because I don't know how it's going to work out, but I figured I'd give it a try.


I got the recipe from my Gooseberry Patch calendar. I've used their recipes before with good result, so I thought I'd try this one and see. This is a recipe for chocolate covered cherries. If you try it, please let me know how it turns out for you. I'll let you know how it goes for me!


Chocolate Covered Cherries
You need:
3 10 oz jars maraschino cherries with stems, drained
3 T margarine
3 T light corn syrup
2 c. powdered sugar
1 lb melting chocolate, chopped.


1. Drain cherries on paper towels for several hours.











2. Combine margarine and corn syrup in a medium bowl. Stir in powdered sugar.





3. Shape 1/2 teaspoon mixture around each cherry.
**To do this, I took a little of the mixture in my hand, rolled it into a ball to warm it up, then flattened it, and wrapped it around the cherry. Then I smoothed it out. It was time consuming, but kind of relaxing, once I got the hang of it.
















4. Chill for one hour, or until firm.
**Put them on something non-stick, because they will stick. Here I used a Silpat. Buttering or spraying the pan will work too, I think.








5. Melt chocolate in a double boiler over low heat. Dip cherries in chocolate and chill. Store in an airtight container. Allow candy to ripen 2 weeks to develop liquid centers. Makes 4 to 5 dozen.





I have a couple of notes to add to this recipe. First, I bought 2 16 oz jars of maraschino cherries. Since 3 10 oz are 30 oz, and 2 16 oz are 32 oz, and that was more cost effective, that's what I went with. I don't know if that 2 oz are just a billion more cherries or whatever, but I wound up with at least 7 dozen cherries, instead of the 4 or 5 dozen they were saying. Also, I couldn't find cherries with stems. Maybe that's why I had so many more? Anyway, because I did have so many more, I had to make the corn syrup/powdered sugar mixture twice. And I found that you need 4 to 5 tbs of corn syrup, not the 3. 3 tbs. leaves the mixture too crumbly to shape.

Right now, I have 80 some-odd little balls of chocolate sitting in the fridge. I made them on Sunday, so they won't have 2 weeks even to "ripen", but I'm still hoping for the best. I will let you know!

Abundance

Ding, dong, I am done! I'm all "cookied up". I thought I'd share some pictures of the bounty. I filled every tin I have and then some. Wow. There is just something about looking at all of that and knowing that it's all going to people you care about and appreciate to make you feel warm inside. That's what the holidays are all about, right?

I enjoyed every minute of the work. Enjoy your day!