Pizza Sauce

This year, between the farm share and my own garden, I saved up five gallon-bags of tomatoes in the freezer, waiting for the season to end so I could make some sort of tomato sauce. Over the past few years the most frequently used tomato sauce I've canned has been pizza sauce and so I put all 22 cups of purée into that endeavor. 

Twenty-two cups of purée cooked down to twelve cups of sauce which are now tucked away in eight 12-ounce jars. That should be enough for a year, maybe a little longer, depending on how often we make pizza. 

Recipe in Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving - tomatoes, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic powder and lemon juice.

The Generosity of Strangers

We spent a week recently on Lopez Island, part of the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. We rented a cottage near the ferry terminal, brought a car and a lot of groceries, and had fun exploring the tide pools for nudibranchs and other sea life. With the exception of the ferry itself, it was a relaxing week. 

On one of our walks, we noticed a sign across the street from our cottage: "Yellow Plums. Pick 'em and Take 'em." We followed the signs and found a single tree laden with yellow plums. We waved to the owners, who stayed in their house, and picked a bunch. They were delicious. 

I took enough back to make a small crisp. I didn't have all the ingredients (like sugar or flour), but I had butter, and maple sugar oatmeal packets, so I mixed those up and sprinkled that over the top. For serving, we had some maple syrup to drizzle over the top. 

How nice of those people to share!

Changes at the Blueberry Patch

It seems the conditions this year were right for the wild blueberries, and it was a cooler day than usual so my husband and I went to pick some berries. What we found was that the area near the blueberry patches is under construction - a very large new school is being built nearby. Since the berries are under major power lines, I am not worried that they will go away, but the usual trail has been widened, smoothed and graveled. So, while the time we were there was not quiet or peaceful in any way, the sheer amount and size of the berries meant we filled our half-gallon container in about an hour and half, which is quite fast, especially for just the two of us. And we didn't have to leave the first patch we found. 

We now have 10 jars of wild blueberry jam, and more in the fridge for now. 

Making jam did require some teamwork as I broke my right elbow last week and am not allowed to lift anything heavy. The canning pot full of water definitely qualifies as heavy, so my husband helped get it on the stove and was nearby if I needed anything. Fortunately, the rest I could do with my left hand - stir, ladle, close the jars, etc. I am out of work due to this injury and hopefully it won't take longer than six weeks to heal. 

Keeping Currant

One of the types of plants that we put in the front garden, which is an edible garden, were several red currant bushes. This is the first year the berries were plentiful. Enough to make a batch of jelly.

The first thing I noticed is that while I was preparing the juice it smelled similar to crabapples. Almost a little cinnamon-y. It's also very pink, which made a nice bright red (think Kool-Aid) jelly. One batch of jelly used 6.5 cups of juice, 7 cups of sugar and a box of pectin, and made about 10 cups of jelly. 

Also today, I made mulberry jelly from the juice of the berries I picked from our tree in the backyard. Four cups of juice, 3 T. of lime juice, 5 cups sugar and 1 box of pectin, made 12 half-cup jars and one 12-ounce jar. This is a good start to this year's gift stash!

Jellied Plans

The farm share sent along a bunch of mint. I don't use fresh mint a lot in my cooking, maybe I should, but the first thing I thought of was making mint jelly. I haven't made any in years, because both of the kids stopped eating lamb and that's generally what we would serve it with. However, the kids are spending a lot less time eating at home, so I thought making a batch would be nice. 

Mint leaves were steeped in 4+ cups of water for 10 minutes, then the resulting tea was combined with 5 cups of sugar, 1 package of powdered pectin, and 3 drops of green food coloring and one cup of blue. This made just under 6 cups of jelly.

My red currant plants finally started producing and I have enough to make a batch of currant jelly this year, which I will do when I harvest the rest of the berries. As I do with mulberries, I extract the juice and save it for when I have enough volume. So far I have 5 cups, I need 6.5 cups so I'm close. I also have about 5+ cups of mulberry juice, but I currently have 10 jars of mulberry jelly and 4 jars of mulberry syrup in my inventory so I'm not sure what to do about that. Maybe gift stash?

From Freezer to Cupboard

Making stock involves taking meat or vegetable scraps out of the freezer and converting it to canned, shelf-stable stock. This is helpful for so many reasons, but one of the big ones is that freezer space is limited. Shelf space, not so much.

After making a big batch each of chicken and vegetable stock yesterday, today I could skim the fat off the chicken stock and can it. We did use a little last night to make soup, but I had just enough for 10 pints. Now the pantry is full and the freezer is...not empty, but a little roomier.

Happy Mother's Day!

Added Benefits

For the past few months we've been getting a mushroom share from our CSA. Every other week we bring home about 2 pounds of oyster, lions' mane, and sometimes shiitake mushrooms, all grown locally. In addition to a lot of mushroom based meals*, I have been saving the trimmings with my other vegetable trimmings to make stock.

Today I made and canned nine pints of vegetable stock. We were running out, and the pantry needed replenishing. The addition of mushroom trimmings makes the stock darker, and it smells richer as well. I'm sure it will taste better, too. 

I also made a pot of chicken stock, since I had everything out. That's in the fridge, so I can skim off the fat. Tomorrow I'll can that, too. 

*In addition to the usual mushroom things (stroganoff, pasta, pizza), we have made mushroom steaks with the lions' manes, a mushroom scampi, and some glazed mushroom dishes. A lot of these recipes are coming from the NYT cooking app which is a tremendous resource of recipes. I'm not sure why I waited so long to subscribe.