Sunday, September 30, 2018

Peach Pie Filling

A little bit ago I bought a whole lot of peaches. We ate what we could, I made a crisp and some peach melba jam, and there were a few left that were getting a little soft. I decided to try my hand at peach pie filling.

The first recipe I found had apples and raisins in it and I didn't want to make that. Then I found a plain recipe which was scalable. For 6 large peaches, first I peeled and sliced them and set them in a bowl of water with lemon juice (to stop the browning). Then I boiled the peach slices for a minute and set them aside to drain. The next step was to combine 1.5 cups sugar, 9 oz. water, just under 1/2 cup of Clear Jel, and a heaping 1/8 tsp. of cinnamon and bring to a boil. Then I added 3 oz. lemon juice and boiled for a minute. Then the peaches were folded in and cooked for about 3 minutes, and then packed into pint jars. This amount made 3 pints. They were processed for 30 minutes in boiling water.

While they were processing, I went to feed the bees and found that one hive (Phoebee's, who I was able to see today) finished their jar of syrup and the other hive (Beeyonce's) didn't. Not sure why that is, but I changed the one that was empty and I'll check again in a day or two. 

Saturday, September 29, 2018

Fair-ly Successful

Today we went to the Fair.

Yesterday I spent all afternoon making a Brazilian carrot Smith Island cake, following my notes from last year when I discovered I needed to make 1.5 batches to get 8 layers for the cake. Actually, I made 9, but that's because one broke and I had enough to make an extra. Each set of two layers takes 12 minutes to bake. I made the fudge frosting with bittersweet chocolate instead of semi-sweet, that way it wasn't as cloying. When I was getting it ready to go in my cake tupperware thing, I discovered it was too tall. Whoops! I found a plastic "crystal" plate and transported it on that, covered in plastic wrap. It worked.

After dropping off the cake, I checked out the canning competition. Of the 9 categories I entered, I placed in all of them! I got first place in pickled beets and in the conserve category (pear almond), second place in strawberry jam (for the balsamic strawberry jam), other jelly (rose petal), other jam (caramel pear), salsa, and other pickled vegetables (carrots), third place for bread and butter pickles and an honorable mention for the hot pepper sauce/chutney. I'm just grateful they didn't disqualify it for not being a standard chutney. Anyway, I think that's what I won; sometimes the ribbons are on groups of things and it's hard to tell. I'll find out for sure on the 9th when I pick everything up.

Next stop was the beekeeping department, where I was very excited to discover that my honey lavender cheesecake won in the cheesecake category! Consider I'd never made the recipe before, I'm so pleased. I visited briefly with my beekeeping mentor and then we moved on.

After exploring the fair with friends and checking out the bunnies, eating turkey legs, and otherwise just enjoying the really nice, sunny day, we went back to watch the judging of the "Favorite Dessert" category which is really basically cakes. There were seven entries and I could tell my 8-layer cake had done well when the judges fought over the piece. When they read the recipe and saw how I'd made the layers one said, "I'm intrigued." The other said, "That's really good," as they were moving on to the next one. After the judging was complete there was a tie for first place, my cake and another which was a peach crumb cake with bourbon caramel sauce. I think I can understand, without even tasting it, why that also won. I spoke with the judges a bit, the one who is a caterer said he planned to take my cake home with him. I'm not sure if he was joking? But they were impressed with the tiny little layers and the overall flavor.

We spent a little more time looking at all the fair things: the giant pumpkin (2,114 pounds!), the produce displays, the chickens and other poultry, and briefly stopped at a hot dog eating contest as one of the youngerchild's friends was interested. We did not watch the entire 10 minutes of that, everyone was kind of grossed out.

Now we're home and all of us are exhausted. I think I may take a nap!

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Bee Focused

This morning I drove up to Topsfield and entered a cheesecake in the Fair. This was for the Beekeeping Department's Baking with Honey competition. I discovered they had a category for cheesecakes and I'd recently received a cookbook from a nurse at work that was all honey recipes. The cheesecake recipe was four ingredients: cream cheese, honey, eggs and vanilla. Suffice to say I'd never made this cheesecake before, and probably making it and entering it in the fair was...brave? Something, anyway.

Making the cheesecake yesterday was a messy affair. First of all, the recipe was just for the cheesecake itself, no crust, and the pan was supposed to be set in water. I was having none of that, though. I made a graham cracker crust, prebaked it, and made the cheesecake batter. This is where things started to derail. In school we learned to pour viscous fluids like honey into little pouches of plastic wrap and then squeeze out through a hole in the bottom. Less waste. Evidently I squeezed too hard, and honey blooped out all over my hand, the outside of the mixing bowl, and the counter. I think a little actually ended up in the batter. I salvaged what I could. Not having a dishwasher is really a pain.

I'm not sure what it is about baking for the Fair that draws out the chutzpah and clumsiness in me all at once.

Anyway, I baked this cheesecake for about 65 minutes at 300˚F and let it cool. And it cracked. Not much I could do about it now, I guess. This morning I drizzled it with honey and sprinkled it with lavender buds and drove two hours round trip to get it there. Fingers crossed? Maybe?

This afternoon, rather late in the day, I changed the feeder for the bees again. I only have a few more weeks to build up their stores, after all. They were remarkably docile, both hives. I take that as a good sign.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

All Coming Together

For many years, I've dreamed of a new kitchen. We've done a lot of work on the outside of our house, most recently a new roof (last week, somewhat unexpected), but I've been planning for a new kitchen for ages, it seems. Last spring we hired an architect and started making plans. We were supposed to start construction last June, but that didn't happen. So we pushed it off to the fall, aka NOW, but that's not happening, either. At least, not quickly.

Two weeks ago, I went to the cabinet makers our architect recommended. They're coming in another few days to do a consultation in the space, so we can decide what to build and where. I knew what appliances I wanted and decided to wait to buy them until I had a better plan. But the universe decided otherwise. Exactly a week ago, our dishwasher died its final death. It'd been leaking for a while and we'd managed it, knowing we were going to get a new one eventually. Well, that eventually is now. I've been told not to cook anything that involves a colander until the new dishwasher is here.

Monday I bought a dishwasher. And a fridge. And two stoves, and a hood. I'll actually have a vent that goes outside! So exciting. We'll take delivery on the dishwasher next week (one more week of hand-washing...) and they will hold on to the rest until we're ready. Which is going to have to be soon.

It's time.

In the meantime, it's been really rainy on most of the days I've wanted to get into the hives so even though it was cold and overcast yesterday it was still a reasonable time to get in and change the feeders. I didn't do any inspecting; I decided to make it quick.

Today I went to the farm share in the rain, again. This time, instead of warm summer thunderstorm rain that pelts you like hail as you stand knee-deep in green beans and wonder if the lightning will decide you're the tallest thing around, it was that cold, raw, steady rain that chills you to your core. I skipped on some of the PYO part of the share, opting instead to get as many tomatillos as I was willing to work with. And cilantro. So I made a full batch of salsa verde.

The sauerkraut in my fermenter was finally done; after I canned the salsa verde I shoved it all into 6 pint jars and canned them as well. Lastly, I started a batch of bread.

Currently the dough is rising in the mixing bowl rather than smaller bowl, so there is one less thing to wash.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Peach Melba Jam

My last attempt at this particular jam was in 2010 when I broke my hand. I vaguely remember shoving everything one-handed through the food mill and coming up with jam that was mostly raspberry and very little peach. This time, I had an immersion blender and I reversed the proportions of the peaches to raspberries so it was 2 parts peach, one part raspberry. It's still pretty heavily raspberry, though.

The berries came from my farm share and the peaches from that place near my parents' where I often get the half-bushel for canning. I was in the neighborhood last week and got two 4-quart boxes of peaches, and now one is completely finished.

Using the Sure-Jell recipe with 4 cups of puréed fruit and 5.5 cups of sugar, I made 7 cups of peach melba jam.

The rest of the berries will likely get consumed tonight with a little cream and sugar. They won't last long. The residual storm that was Hurricane Florence passed through and was gone by the time I got out there, but that rain was intense. And it wasn't even at hurricane level - I cannot imagine what the people in the Carolinas have been through. At the farm, they basically said that if you were brave enough to be in the fields, everything was unlimited, so I picked about a quart of berries, a whole lot of green beans, the largest bunch of parsley I dared to get, and whatever peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos I could find.

I hope to make some salsa verde tomorrow. Actually, I hoped to make some today, but SOMEBODY fed the cilantro to the rabbit. I even ran to the store just now but they were completely sold out(?!). Apparently, cilantro is on everyone's menu but mine.

Friday, September 14, 2018

Crabby Bees

Actually, they weren't too bad. I decided that every time I feed the hives I should alternate which one I inspect. It was time to inspect the original colony, the one that's been a little crabby whenever I try to get in there. I steeled myself for their anger and proceeded.

First, however, I installed a mouse guard on hive #2, and I should get the insulation panels in the next week. I quickly changed their feeder and peeked in on them through the window; all seems to be well. Still in a good mood.

Then I inspected the original colony and changed their feeder. I was able to see all the bars this time, despite having a bunch of angry bees climbing all over my gloves and trying to fly in my face. Thank goodness for my bee veil! I'm happy to report I saw Beeyonce today; she's rather hard to find but I found her on the second bar in from the front. There was definitely new brood, lots of worker bees, very few drones, and they're building up a lot of honey now. All very good signs.

The other thing I did today was visit a few of my black walnut spots and harvested a bunch of walnuts. It's better when I can get them straight off the tree so the bugs haven't had time to get in them from the ground. After crushing a few accidentally with the car as I got the soft outer husk off, I have a good amount (maybe 20?) drying in the garage. I also picked up some peaches today and will likely bake a few things this weekend!

Friday, September 7, 2018

Double Thick

Since it's September and I have about one more month to feed the bees, it was time to make double strength syrup (2 pounds sugar per pint of water) to really fortify the honey stores for the winter. It's been either super rainy or super hot this week and today was the first chance I got to get into the hives safely. As before, Beeyonce's hive was mildly annoyed, but I checked a few combs and saw some honey, including some capped cells of honey, a very good sign. Phoebee's hive was very polite, and I was able to look at all the combs. I saw signs of honey production, nothing capped yet, but did see Phoebee and a decent amount of brood cells. Things are looking good.

As I continue to manage the huge amount of food from the share, I made another batch of salsa verde; I had about 20 ounces of tomatillos to start with and ended up with just under 2 pints worth of salsa. That's now canned and all set. Thankfully, now I have nothing currently sitting on the counter to be cooked except one spaghetti squash. I do have a few things left in the fridge, though this week we got through a lot of produce.

While the salsa was in the canner I prepped all the jars for the fair drop-off tomorrow. They needed address labels and ingredient labels. I think I now have everything all organized for tomorrow!

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Adding Flavor

In yesterday's farm share we received more cabbage. I already had 3 heads in the fridge and had been meaning to make sauerkraut, but forgot. This cabbage reminded me about that. There were also leeks in the share. I wondered if I could add leek to the fermentation? After all, you can add garlic, or seeds (usually caraway, which I don't like), so why not a leek?

After cleaning everything up I set to slicing. The 4 heads of cabbage took up a LOT of space in my crock but I expect by this afternoon when it's time to add the wine they will have compressed a lot. I mixed the leek in as best I could. This should take a few weeks to ferment fully. And then we'll see!

In other news, the deadline to enter canned things in the fair was yesterday. I have ended up with 9 entries. I still plan to bake something but that deadline isn't for a few weeks. Saturday I will take the canned goods up to Topsfield. It'll be nice to head up there - it's very pretty up around Topsfield, particularly in September. Maybe we'll even go to the beach.