A Walk in the Park

Since I'm stuck at home, I have some extra time on my hands. I can go for walks so I did that today at the park near my house. To my surprise, I found not one, but two hen of the woods clumps! I brought one home, cleaned it up, and have been freezing the pieces. Once they're frozen they can be vacuum sealed, so I'm sealing them in 2 ounce packages. The whole mushroom was fairly small, about 8 ounces in total. But as I've never seen them in the park before, I'm pretty excited about all this rain. 

Crabapples at Work

At my new(ish) job, I get a lunch break. It's still a novelty. I've taken to going for walks. The loop around the building and the parking lot takes about 15 minutes so it's just enough to feel refreshed. The other day, while walking, I discovered a couple of crabapple trees. After work, I went back and picked all the crabapples that looked reasonably okay. They're not as large as the ones I picked years ago which were at an apartment complex and better cared for but they're still crabapples and they will still make jelly.

Today I took the 7 cups of crabapple juice I extracted and made jelly. I haven't bought pectin in forever and I don't have any currently so I did this the old fashioned way, using the natural pectin in the apples to make the jelly. It seems to have worked. I ended up with eight jars of jelly. For six of them, I placed into each jar a star anise pod, half a cinnamon stick, one clove, two peppercorns, and a dried cayenne pepper. 

In case I do enter them in the fair, here's the recipe:

7 cups crabapple juice

7 cups sugar

1.5 T lemon juice

Boiled until 220˚F

There aren't too many other forage-able things at work that I've identified otherwise, so this may be the only work related project for a while. 

Wild Blueberries

Another thing that's been missed for the past few years has been wild blueberry season. We did find some when we were camping last year, but we hadn't trekked out to our favorite spot since 2017. Apparently, in the interim the bushes were sprayed again and have started to come back but aren't up to their usual bounty. 

Yesterday we went fairly early in the morning to go pick - partly because it was the coolest day of the week and partly because it was a weekday and hopefully not as crowded. As we're still fairly busy and everyone has been tired lately, we set a limit of two hours of picking. At the end of that we had just under 6 cups of berries. Last year I had made blueberry jam from the regular berries we picked in NH, and still have a bunch, and this was enough to freeze some and make a batch of scones. 

This morning I made a full batch of scones which made twenty. In addition to the blueberries I tossed in a bit of crystallized ginger. I froze a dozen and the rest we had throughout the day. Although they were at their best still warm from the oven, with soft butter. Mmm. 

Elderberries

It's been four years since I made elderberry jelly. For some reason, I am always busy while they are in season and their season is relatively short. This year, I managed to catch them between travel and work, and so got enough berries to make a batch of jelly. Just like before, 5 cups of elderberry juice, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 6-1/2 cups sugar and 1 box of powdered pectin. If I decide to enter things in the fair this year which, so far, is going ahead as scheduled, I will enter this.

Admitting Defeat

My mulberry tree has been super productive these past few years. Since I still have a lot of jelly from last year I decided to make syrup instead. I have picked several batches of berries and juiced them, setting the juice aside to make the syrup in one big batch. Well, between the storms that have not given the berries a chance to ripen or knocked off the ripe berries before I could get to them and the birds, chipmunks and squirrels that eat them even before they are ripe, I don't think I'm going to get any more. 

Squirrel, hanging by its back feet

So today I mixed the roughly 8 cups of juice with 10 1/2 cups of sugar and made syrup. Seven pints plus a 4-oz jar for my gift stash. The fauna in the yard can have the rest of the berries.

Spring Dinner

Yesterday we went for a walk at one of my favorite conservation lands, which has meadows and forest and lots of beehives. My top bar hives, which I gave away last year, ended up there, and there are at least four other collections of hives. There is also a Victory Garden and some marshes. As you might imagine, there are lots of birds and lots of foraging. 

I'd hoped to snag some garlic mustard to make a risotto to go with dinner, but I'm a little late; the garlic mustard has already flowered and would likely be [more] bitter. But I did see nettles just starting to come up, right when they are at their best. 

Despite my lack of gloves, I picked the tips off about a cup's worth of nettles, tossed in a few violet flowers, and brought them home. My fingers definitely got stung, and they tingled quite a bit for the rest of the day. Worth it -

Once I got home, I made a nettle and field garlic risotto, using the field garlic from the yard (you know, the stuff that grows everywhere that looks like chives). This was served with chicken piccata and a salad garnished with those violets I picked. A fresh tasting dinner to celebrate Spring!

Proctor Hill Berries

The place I used to go horseback riding is called Proctor Hill. I was given permission to forage there; there were nettles but, mostly, there were berries. All sorts of berries. Over the years, I foraged wee little amounts of black raspberries, red raspberries, wild blueberries, a handful of blackberries, and wild grapes. These were tucked into the freezer, waiting until I had enough of them. I had always intended to make a mixed berry jam or jelly as a gift for my riding instructor. 

Time has marched on and my instructor has left that farm for a place that better suited her current needs. I haven't ridden for over a year, after a spectacular fall made me question whether I wanted to continue. I was just getting ready to consider Western pleasure riding instead when the pandemic effectively made the decision for me. At least, for now. I do miss it; spending an hour or so a week without a cell phone in sight, only focused upon the immediate challenge of convincing a very large living and opinionated creature to do what I wanted. It got me out of my head in a way that nothing else seems to do. 

In the process of moving out and then back in to a freezer, I found all those berries. It was clear I was never going to add to the stash so it was time to make jelly out of what I had. The grapes are the dominant flavor but the raspberries do add something, I think. I cooked down the berries with water, extracted almost six cups of juice, let the solids settle, and then made jelly. Ultimately I ended up with about nine cups of jelly, enough for 12 small jars for my gift stash and a few extra just for us.

Farm Share Mixed Radish Pickle

The farm share always has radishes and Hakurei turnips the first few weeks and, since I'm the only one who likes radishes, even with just half the share they build up. (Note to self, they are not great on pizza.) But last week also had small Daikon radishes so I thought to mix all 3 into a quick radish pickle using rice wine vinegar and ginger. This is a recipe in Preserving by the Pint which I've made before, just not with all kinds of radish/turnip at once. They made exactly 1 pint, good for sandwiches and salads.

Another thing I had in abundance was fava beans so following another recipe in Preserving by the Pint, I made a fava-parsley-walnut pesto, using foraged black walnuts instead of regular ones. This made over 2 cups of pesto; I froze one cup, and baked chicken breasts coated with some of the rest. All of us ate it, some of us liked it. The rest were just very polite. 

Unintentional But Funny

Yesterday we went for a long hike through Dogtown, the abandoned colonial town in Gloucester, MA. It was good to get out, particularly in this time of social isolation. One of the odd findings in Dogtown are the Babson Boulders, a series of inspirational admonishments carved into the glacial erratics which are scattered all over the area. We found all but the last five which would have involved crossing active railroad tracks, something we felt it would be prudent not to do. Babson probably would have approved of our prudence.

Along the way we found huge patches of wintergreen, some with no berries at all and some with TONS of berries. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) We picked a lot. The elderchild asked if we could make them into muffins. Easily done!






This morning I used this recipe but without the chocolate chips and made a dozen chocolate-wintergreen muffins. Which look a lot like those pictures of the coronavirus. I promise, it was not intentional. But it seems apropos anyway.

A Different Technique

Last year I foraged a lot of black walnuts, ran them under the car tires to get the husks off, and left them to dry in the garage. Then I forgot about them until they were rather unpleasant to deal with. I decided that this year, if I did get more black walnuts, I would be more proactive.

On Thursday I foraged about 5 dozen nuts. I was lucky to find a branch that had fallen off the tree but was loaded with nuts which, while not fully ripe, are hopefully ripe enough. I tried driving over a few and crushed the nuts entirely so I had to find a different technique to remove the husks. I found a suggestion to blanch them and then they would be more easy to slip off. I guess that is if the husks are fully ripe. However, I did blanch them and used a paring knife to remove the husks and they are now drying on the boiler in the basement. In a month I will try to crack them open and see if it was worth it.

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!

Wild Blueberry Ice Cream

Blueberry creme anglaise chilling

Today the elderchild and I put together the blueberry ice cream. First we made the base: I puréed a cup of berries and topped off the volume with milk to get 16 ounces. To this we added 6 ounces cream, 8 egg yolks and 5 ounces of sugar to make a creme anglaise. It was a nice purple color. It rested in the fridge until later in the afternoon when we ran it through the ice cream maker, adding the half-cup of frozen blueberries I'd set aside yesterday. This then waited in the freezer until it set and it was time to have dessert!

I'm very pleased with how the pie filling worked this time - it wasn't runny and since these were fresh wild berries they held their shape well. It didn't look as though the filling was jam which is how I think store bought blueberry pies often look, due to being made from frozen berries.

Not the best photo, but you get the idea...

New Toy

As early as we could manage, the elderchild and I went to pick wild blueberries. I'd purchased a new toy in the hopes that it would go faster: a blueberry rake. It was also going to be 100˚F today so we left the house at 6 am and were done picking a half-gallon of blueberries by 8:30 am. It was already 90˚F when we left!

Anyway, the rake worked fairly well when the bushes were almost completely ripe. If they weren't, the rake would pull off the unripe berries as well, so I resorted to hand-picking when I came across a bush that was not entirely ripe. It did well even though wild blueberries are smaller. I'd been worried it would miss a bunch of berries or they'd fall out after but it seemed to work just fine.

Over the course of the day, the elderchild and I made a pie out of most of the berries (6 cups worth) and I set aside some to make blueberry ice cream tomorrow. The pie is for dessert tomorrow with the ice cream. Mmm.

For the filling, instead of tapioca I made a base of cornstarch, water, sugar and spices and then poured it over the berries. This seems to have worked much better than the tapioca; my main complaint had been that you could still see the little pearls with the tapioca. This crust is half butter and half shortening as I wanted to see what it does for the texture.

I taught the elderchild how to make a proper lattice, and now the pie is cooling and smelling wonderful!

Foraging Benefit

This morning we had waffles, which is exciting enough just by itself. However, I dressed them up with bananas and maple syrup that had been infused with black walnuts. These have been hiding in the fridge for a while, and they do seem to last forever! I guess maple syrup is a good preservative. Anyway, the walnuts are soaked in syrup and are very sweet but with that strong black walnut flavor. The syrup brings a more subtle amount of that black walnut flavor to the waffles. Perfect.

Now, what to do with those maple-infused black walnuts?

Elderberry Jelly

A month or so ago, I noticed a lot of elderberry flowers on a road nearby. They were on the edge of a marsh, a perfect place for elderberries to grow and grow well. I made a mental note to check them again toward the end of the summer. Usually around here they ripen in late August or early September. Not this year! I happened to be driving by yesterday morning after taking the youngerchild to camp and noticed lots of dark purple berries. Yesterday afternoon I went back and picked a whole bunch.

After I got home, I washed them, got them off the stems, and juiced them. I got a little over 5 cups of juice so I let that sit in the fridge overnight for the solids to settle. This morning, after a run to the hardware store for more jars, I made a batch of jelly. I used all the juice I had and, since it was more than the standard recipe (4 cups) I tweaked:

5+ cups elderberry juice

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 package powdered pectin

6 1/2 cups sugar

The yield here is 9 cups plus a little bit. As soon as they come out of the canner, I'm going to pick some more peaches.

And, since this jelly won in it's class last year in the fair, I think I won't enter it this year.

Another Post About Peaches

Last night was my first overnight shift in over two years and, thankfully, it went well enough that I had energy this morning to do things. Like go to my riding lesson. And pick peaches. I pulled another 4 pounds off the tree (up to 38.3 pounds and there are probably another 6 or more pounds on the tree, at least that I can see) and brought a few to my riding instructor. The rest went into a peach-wild blueberry cobbler which we just had for dessert with peach ice cream.  I used the last cup of wild blueberries that we picked on Saturday.

I did spend a few minutes after my riding lesson to go hiking up the hill behind the stables for berries. Last year I started a long term project of foraging whatever berries grew at the stables and, when I get enough, I plan to make some sort of jam or jelly with them. Last year I filled a quart sized ziploc with blackberries, black raspberries, wild blueberries, and grapes. Mostly grapes. They're in the freezer. This year so far I've found both red and black raspberries, wild blueberries, and some blackberries which are just getting started. Most likely the bulk of the project will be grape based, but there will at least be a variety of berries in there to add some interesting flavor. Generally each week I get about 1/4 cup of berries. (This project is neither quick nor easy. Yes. I am patient.)

Switching Gears

Today's blog post is not about peaches.

It's blueberry season, and this is the first weekend day we've had to go pick them in a while. So I dragged the family out of bed with the promise of muffins and we went to "our spot." Sometimes when we are there we see an older Ukrainian gentleman who is picking as well but we didn't see him today. We did see lots of people walking through there, more than previous years. They knew exactly what we were doing but no one seemed to care. In a little over 2 hours many busy hands gathered 20 cups of wild berries and got out of there before the rain came.

At home, I sorted and washed the berries and pulled off all the little stems that stayed behind. Then I made two batches of blueberry jam back to back so for the purposes of making labels I'm lumping them all together. Twelve jars in total, each batch was six cups of berries, four cups of sugar and a package of powdered pectin.

Six more cups of berries were set aside in the freezer for pancakes or other baking projects. The rest are being saved for tomorrow when I can make blueberry scones.

Maybe I'll toss a peach in them for good measure. 

Better Year

It's shaping up to be a better year for fruit. We've had a lot of rain, and now the sun and heat are making things sweet. While I don't get a lot of strawberries from the front yard, after 5 trips to the mulberry tree in the back I extracted enough juice to make a batch of mulberry jelly. Just like before, I used 4 cups of juice, 3 T. lime juice, 5 cups of sugar and 1 package of powdered pectin. I think I may set aside jars of this for the fair. Now I can let the birds have the rest of the berries; whenever I went to pick they'd sit in the higher branches and squawk at me.

We're hoping to go strawberry picking tomorrow, bright and early. Well, I am hoping to go picking. I am bribing the family with gigantic muffins so they'll get up and come with me.

Also today, I'm making bread so by later tonight I should have three fresh loaves. I'm still managing to make that commitment; I truly haven't bought a loaf of sandwich bread since February of 2016. That makes me very happy.

Latest Projects, Frozen and Fresh

Yesterday, partly because it was Saturday and partly because my husband had just returned on a red-eye flight, no one really felt motivated to do anything. Sure, we went for a walk in the park, and did some chores, and I mowed the lawn, but no one had the energy for the grocery store. So I raided the freezer for dinner...

I took some garlic scape pesto and bittercress pesto and mixed them together with a little heavy cream, to make a sauce. There were portobello ravioli and butternut squash ravioli; I thought the pesto would go better with the portobellos. The youngerchild, not being a fan of mushrooms (or squash, for that matter) got steamed pork buns instead. It was a successful meal, and I even used the pesto sauce to dress up the plate for the buns. Just because it came from the freezer doesn't mean it can't look pretty!

Part of the reason I was tired yesterday was I spent a fair amount of time making brioche dough and pastry cream in anticipation of making cinnamon rolls this morning. The brioche dough, after it's fermentation, is refrigerated overnight to develop flavor. This morning I rolled it out, spread the pastry cream on it, added cinnamon, rolled them up and voilá:

Out of Practice

Preparing the Violet Infusion

Today I made the first batch of jelly for the season - violets. I'm really out of practice. I don't think I've canned anything for quite a while. The violets came from my yard, they finally bounced back from the landscaping work we did in the front of the house. It still took 4 separate gatherings to get enough violet infusion to make jelly.

Four cups of infusion, 1/2 cup of strained lemon juice, a box of powdered pectin and five cups of sugar. Yield: 12 4-oz jars of violet jelly plus some in the fridge for now. The youngerchild will be pleased.