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!

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Preserving the Last of the Basil

Tags

Basil, garden, Herb, herbs, Olive oil, preserving, Sauce, Soup, summer

 

This post should really be titled, “Preserving the Last of the Summer.”  I know the summer is over when it’s time for the last of the basil to be harvested.  Sigh.

Last summer, I chopped it up and froze it in ice cubes.  This is actually pretty awesome because during the winter, whenever I made soup or spaghetti sauce, I’d just toss a couple basil cubes in and it was like a burst of summer flavour.  This summer, I’m freezing some of it in olive oil (I saw it on Pinterest).  I figure it can still be used in soups and sauces, but also in stir fries and such.  We’ll see.  They sure look pretty anyway.

Related articles

• Pesto Party (dreambles.com)
• Freezing Herbs in Oil or Chicken Broth (janetshouse.typepad.com)
• Fresh Basil Pesto (and How to Save it For Later) (seattlefoodshed.wordpress.com)