Tomatoes and Grapes

Tags

Concord, Cook, Fruit preserves, Grape, Herb, Home, Jams Jellies and Preserves, Sugar

And the food just keeps on coming.  We are so lucky to have such a wonderful harvest this year!

First off, the tomatoes.  I made our first batch of spaghetti sauce.  We use this recipe with a few tweaks:

• Use fresh herbs from the garden instead of dried herbs.  Use double the quantity of fresh herbs;
• Add any hot peppers we have been growing just to give it an extra kick;
• Cook it on the stove top instead of the slow cooker so that the liquid reduces more; otherwise, it’s too runny.

We have a crazy amount of cherry tomatoes this year.  They’re so lovely – sweet and delicious.  Almost like candy.

Second, grapes!  Our grape vines suddenly decided to produce for the first time.  We’re not sure if they’re Concord or Valiant (we got a vine cutting from a friend a few years ago), but I do know they make delicious grape juice and grape jelly.  If you ever make homemade grape jelly, do yourself a favour and use it in a PB & J sandwich.  Yum.

This was my first attempt at making jelly, and it worked!  I always make jams because it really doesn’t matter if a jam doesn’t set – you just end up with a fruity spread or preserve.  But if jelly doesn’t set, you’re kinda screwed, right?  But it worked!  Hurrah!  I’ve been using a no-sugar pectin this year so that I don’t have to overload everything with white sugar, but I’m not so sure about the final result.  It seems to add a flavour.  I think I can taste the pectin.  Has anyone else ever experienced this?  Or am I just crazy?

Anyway, the food keeps on coming, and I keep on preserving.  Back to the canning pot!

Peaches and Onions

Tags

Cook, Farmers' Market, Fruit preserves, Home, Onion, Peach, Peaches, Pinterest

Not together.  That would be gross.  But peaches and onions were the two things I preserved this weekend.

The onions I accidentally dug up as I was trying to weed the poor, neglected onion patch.  The onion patch is neglected because it is right beside the beehive.  Melanie didn’t want to weed there, so when we got back, the onions were indistinguishable from the weeds.  I pulled a few by accident while I tore away at the gigantic weeds.

Found this idea on Pinterest.  Tie them up in nylons and hang them in the cold storage.  I’ll let you know if it works.

I’ve put off buying peaches at the Farmers’ Market for the past two weekends, waiting for the case price to come down.  It hasn’t.  I finally caved and bought a ten pound case for $17.

They claimed to be Freestone Peaches.  Alas, that claim was FALSE.  Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it until after I had peeled the peaches and tried to cut them in half to pit them.  That’s when I discovered they are actually Clingstone Peaches.  So my plan to make peach preserves turned into a plan to make peach jam, and I ended up with something in between.  I diced the peach slices, but couldn’t bring myself to crush that beautiful, tasty fruit, so instead I made diced peach preserves in vanilla syrup.

In other news, Liesl has made an excellent recovery from being egg bound last week.  She has laid two eggs since with no problems at all.  Ginger has started to molt, so she has stopped laying and is shedding feathers EVERYWHERE.  Scruffy continues to produce like crazy.

Happy Monday!

 

Cheap Chicken Soup

Tags

Canadian Living, Chicken, Cook, Poultry, recipe, Soups and Stews

One of the best parts of working at Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan is the leftover food from Opening Nights, and the Medieval Feasts.  Last week, after the feast, two roast chickens made it into the trailer’s fridge, along with some roast beef and marinated onions.  Yummy stuff.  I waited a couple days until everyone had their chance at the chicken, and then I took the carcasses home to make a stock.  Luckily, there was still some meat left on them, so I turned it into a hearty chicken soup.

I used this recipe from Canadian Living, with a few adaptations here and there.  I like to use a mix of rice and barley and spelt (instead of just rice); plus, I add a can of lentils, too.  Otherwise, it’s a great recipe and creates a lovely broth.  (Also check out the Pesto Chicken Salad recipe – so delicious!)

The Radishes are Up!

Tags

blackboard paint, Cook, craft, DIY, Fruit and Vegetable, garden, garden row markers, Radish, rat tail radishes, sprouts

I don’t even like radishes, but they’re so satisfying to plant because they’re easy to grow, and they sprout so fast.  It’s almost instant gratification for the gardener, and a little infusion of hope.  If the radishes are growing, then maybe the rest will grow, too.

So my radishes are up, and so are the zucchini, the pumpkins, the butternut squash, the peas, and a few beans.  It’s a bloody miracle.  Every year I think, “This is not going to work.  How can this work?  How can this little seed survive?”

And yet it does.  It survives, it grows, and sometimes, if you’re attentive and a little bit lucky, it even thrives.

My garden row markers. I painted wooden shims with blackboard paint, and labeled them with a white china marker (won’t wash off in the rain).

Teeny, tiny radish sprouts. Hurrah!

Grow! Grow! Grow!

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