peaches

I planned on splitting one 20# box with a friend. Circumstances & misunderstandings left me with one and a half 20# boxes.

Starting early in the morning, I dutifully blanched 20#s in one day. It took hours just for that step.

Blanching is supposed to make the skins easier to remove. Ha! I'd say 25% of them were easy to remove. Maybe I need to work on my blanching skills. In any event, blanching 20#s of peaches in my tiny kitchen was quite the feat!

First up was cardamom peach pie filling. Then I went to my two favorite peach jams: peach cardamom jam, and peach jam with brown sugar and rum.

But I still had so many more blanched peaches leftover! So I dug into my fridge and found about 2 cups of raspberries that had been macerating in sugar for awhile. I used those to make a peach jam with raspberries. So much jam was made that day! Everyone is getting jam for presents. Maybe I'll take some jars to school and put them on the staff table with a "free to a good home" sign. I still have about 5#s left (I sent a few peaches home with anyone who would take them).

Let this be a reminder to me for next summer: small batch canning. Small batch. No one needs 30#s of fruit all at once.

a few things

:: I had the pleasure of reading this book by one of my former coworkers Megan Morrison! A fun adventure story that is a bit of a twist on classic fairy-tales. I bought two copies at her book signing: one for me and one for my school, since I work at a K-8. I think this book would appeal to 5th grade and up.

:: So far I've really enjoyed my weekly CSA box. The CSA season runs through October, so I have many more to come. This week, while looking at the contents, I think I see a plan: bruschetta! There are other things in the box that I'll need to plan for: carrots, potatoes, kale, and something completely new to me... fennel.

:: This year I've only made two small batches of jam. The first one was strawberry balsamic, and the second one was blackberry apricot. My blackberry apricot recipe is adjusted from here to be a small batch. I have a bunch of raspberries in the fridge that need to be processed today, but I haven't decided just what to do with them yet.

Blackberry Apricot Small Batch Jam with Cinnamon

• 4 cups fruit pureed (roughly 2 cups blackberries, 2 cups apricots)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 10 minutes in the boiling water

4. Those tomatoes have really taken off. They are now taller than the tomato cages and don't show any signs of slowing down. There are countless blossoms, and many baby tomatoes, growing on each plant. There are three plants, in three colors: red, orange, and yellow. I can't wait for ripe tomatoes fresh from the garden.

changes

What's New?

I cleaned up my 'porch' area today in our 80* Seattle heatwave (I know... just roll with it). I got a new bistro set, and a plant stand for my herbs. Of course, it's too hot outside to sit out there, but I hope to enjoy it soon. Maybe I'll have breakfast outside tomorrow.

I used up all my u-pick strawberries making this jam, this jam, and this tasty dessert. The strawberry-honey jam is by far my favorite. It set up very nicely and has a pure strawberry taste (as opposed to traditional strawberry jam which kind of tastes like strawberries and sugar).

I've been so completely busy the past two weeks, it feels like my summer vacation will never start. I've been working at school on my room and my ProTeach portfolio (which is finally finished!), getting my placement file up-to-date (it's been seven years, after all), and staring at all the projects I need to tackle at home. It's a bit overwhelming, really. I'm going camping next week, which will help me unplug and unwind, and it can't come soon enough. I hope to emerge a more rested and centered person at the end of that trip.

Currently Reading

• The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

On the Needles

My Leaflet cardigan is almost finished! I have 10 more rows to complete before starting on the ribbed edge. Then, of course, I still have to do the sleeves, but those will go very quickly as they are only half-sleeves.

Looking Forward To

1. camping with Kristi & Tyler

oh-so-important labels

Finally got around to labeling all my summer canning projects. From L-to-R: raspberry jam, apricot-rosemary jam, cherry pie filling and a ton of strawberry jam.

raspberries

Last weekend I went raspberry picking with Joe, our friend Kristi, and my teacher buddy Blea. We picked raspberries at Biringer Farm, then headed over to Bryant Blueberry Farm to pick blueberries. I didn't pick many blueberries, but I'll probably go back for more. I have just enough to make blueberry boy bait a couple times.

My jam turned out runny again, even though I followed the directions and measured everything carefully. I think that's okay, though. I plan on switching from vanilla to plain yogurt (and possibly making my own... we'll see), and having plenty of runny jam to mix in will be nice. I also made raspberry fruit leather for the first time. I don't have a dehydrator, so I used my oven. The lowest temp on my oven is 170 degrees F, which was a bit more than the recipe recommends. What can you do? It's very tart and sticky, and absolutely wonderful. I think I'm going to make more fruit leather once I get my hands on a flat of apricots. I love apricot leather. Yum.

strawberry day

A week ago yesterday was strawberry day. Strawberry picking, strawberry jamming and strawberry cake-making. Smitten Kitchen comes through again, with a delicious recipe for Strawberry Summer Cake.

making vanilla extract

I finally got around to buying some plain vodka to make vanilla extract. My extra vanilla beans from the vanilla syrup project were going bad, so I ordered more from the same seller.



Vanilla extract is so simple to make. I cut the beans lengthwise (leaving the top and bottom attached), put a handful of these cut beans in jars, then filled the jars with vodka. I keep them in a dark cabinet, and every now and then I give them a shake.



Here they are just five days later.

I'm thinking of letting these steep until the winter holidays. Might make for interesting homemade presents.

peach salsa

First you need some peaches.


I used three and a half in order to get six cups (don't worry, the other half found a good home).


Add some chopped onion, red bell pepper and jalapeno.


Oh, and don't forget the cilantro.


Add some vinegar and honey, and give it a good stir.


Raw pack into jars, filling all the way to the top (it cooks down).


Process in a water bath canner for 20 minutes.


This recipe yielded 4 pints of salsa. I was worried about spiciness, so I didn't add the jalapeno seeds. My salsa turned out very high on the tasty scale, but very low on the spiciness scale. So next time I'll add the seeds.

Peach Salsa
6 cups pitted peaches, diced
1 1/4 cup diced onion (I just used a whole onion)
4 jalapeno peppers, diced (seed these if you don't want it too spicy)
1 bell pepper, preferably red, diced and seeded (though any color will suffice)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro or 1/4 c dried
3/4 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoon honey

This peach salsa recipe is from a Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op blog post.

vanilla syrup

Using this recipe, I turned sugar, water and vanilla beans into tasty, tasty vanilla syrup.

Apricot-Blackberry jam

Following this recipe, I made two batches of apricot-blackberry jam yesterday.


The first batch tasted great, but didn't firm up enough. It's not so runny that I would call it syrup, but it is a runny jam. I think I rushed the recipe a little, letting it just boil, instead of hard boil. I couldn't help it, though; I was excited.


I didn't have enough blackberries for the second batch, so I ended up using 2 cups blackberries and 2 cups raspberries (from our u-pick experience).


I bought the apricots from the Lake City Farmers Market. Which means that while I harvested only half of the fruit in this jam, it all came from either local farmers, or in the case of the blackberries, a public park in Seattle.


I was patient with the second batch, and it turned out runny as well. Not sure what I did wrong, but at least it's tasty.

Raspberries & Blueberries!

I had a great time this weekend with my husband and our good friend Marion. We went back to Biringer Farm Saturday, but this time for raspberries.


Back at home, Marion and I made raspberry jam.


Unlike my earlier attempt at strawberry jam, this time I carefully followed instructions, and the jam firmed up nicely.


Aren't these itty jars cute?


At Bryant Blueberry Farm, we each headed out with a bucket.






Besides feeding them to the goats, and snacking on them ourselves, I'm not sure yet what I'll do with the blueberries. Maybe some blueberry muffins?





What do you like to make with fresh blueberries?

Strawberries!

Perfect way to spend a gorgeous Saturday.