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!

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)