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.

Prizewinners!

We went up this morning in the rain to spend the day at the fair. In addition to all the canned goods I entered, I decided to make cupcakes to enter in the baking competition. I am on a carrot cake kick so I made carrot cake cupcakes. I had to enter a plate of 6 of them.

When we got to the fair we immediately went to drop them off and check out the canned goods section. I did quite well, with first place for: soup, sauerkraut, and sweet relish. Second place for: the collection of three jellies (the ones with the wine that I banged out in a few hours the night before I had to take everything up), other pickled vegetable, Concord grape jelly and apple jelly. Third place for the strawberry jalapeño jam. Honorable mentions for: wild blueberry jam and ginger peach jam. Only three entries did not place: salsa, mulberry jelly, and apricot ginger jam.

We wandered around the fair for a few hours while we waited for the cupcake judging. We checked out the rabbits, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. I got nose-booped by a calf named Bella. We watched a little bit of the junior cattle show and visited the beekeepers exhibits. I held a 1-2 day old chick. Ate a bunch of fair food, ran into a few people we knew and shared a table with a few we didn't (but know now!). And we got back in time to watch them judge the cupcakes. We felt it was a very good sign that one of the two judges didn't want to give up the plate with my cupcake on it! And, at then end, I'd won first place!

Now I'm home, working on a beet and goat cheese tart for dinner with friends. And there are more of those prizewinning carrot cake cupcakes for dessert!

Grape Goodness

Today I finally had time to make grape jelly from all that grape juice I extracted the other day. First I made two back-to-back batches of grape jelly (per batch: 5 cups juice, 7 cups sugar, 1 box Sure-Jell) which came to 18 cups or 11 jars. I used some half-pint jars and some pint jars and will enter two of the half-pints in the fair.

I had just over three quarts of juice left so I added four cups of sugar and heated the juice. I'm currently canning three quart jars of juice in the canner and saved the rest for the youngerchild to drink with dinner.

It's my weekend (and holiday) to work, so that may be all I have time for until Tuesday!

Wee Little Beasties

It has been a very long day (note the time of this post...it's currently 1:00 am on Wednesday). My day technically started on Monday, when I worked an overnight shift. I did sleep a little, in between pages, and yesterday a little after 7:00 am I headed home. After I had some coffee I started a batch of bread dough using Legion (beastie #1: saccharomyces cerevesiae, aka yeast) and took another short nap. I got up to go riding but my lesson was canceled so instead I took the youngerchild to lunch. While we were out I got a text from a friend saying he had Concord grapes to share. When I got back, after a while I was able to muster up enough energy to make a batch of yogurt (beastie #2: lactobacillus) and a batch of granola while I waited for the grapes.

After dinner, my friend arrived with a half-bushel of grapes (plus beastie #3: drosophila, aka fruit flies). Apparently they are from his mother's backyard and she gave him about three times as much so he was sharing. As they had been picked a few days ago I needed to get them juiced right away But I didn't get started on washing until after 10:00 pm. I've just finished sorting through them, extracting over a gallon of juice from most of them (I still have another small pot full to make into juice tomorrow).

As soon as I got the grapes on the stove I punched down my bread dough and shaped the loaves. It's cooler this week so the bread took longer to ferment. I'm wondering if it'll be proofed by the time I get up tomorrow.

The yogurt is still hanging out on the heating pad. I thought about dealing with it now, but I'm just too tired and I don't think a few more hours of incubating will hurt it. At least, I hope not!

Working My Way Through

Today I started to tackle the apples my family picked last week. I made a double batch of apple cake which, unfortunately, suffered from me getting distracted by fixing the hive. There was a little singeing around the edges. Fortunately, it was easily cut off and the rest tasted fine. I might have to make another batch, though, as we ate a fair amount tonight and some is earmarked for work. What I need to remember (Hey! Note to Self!) is that the oven is too hot on the edges and I should not overfill it.

Why did I get distracted by the hive? I went to swap out the feeder and discovered the whole thing was significantly tilted and the legs had moved. My husband had been planning to swap some of the bolts in the legs for carriage bolts with locking washers so they wouldn't slip anymore. Now seemed like a very good time to get that done. I didn't mind being that close to the hive but he was not as familiar with having the bees inches from his nose. He seemed a little tense while he was shifting the hive back and forth as we leveled it. I think he was glad to get through that unscathed. Without his help, there was no way I could have leveled the hive and I'm so appreciative of his plan to fortify the legs of the stand.

Once we got that taken care of, and the cake out of the oven, I made a batch of applesauce - 14 larger apples made 3 quarts of sauce which is smooth (food mill) with white sugar. The last few things I did today were the second batch of grape jelly and then I warmed up the remaining almost 4 cups of grape juice, added some sugar, and then cooled it down so we could drink it with dinner.  For dinner, we grilled the last piece of venison from the freezer.

Late Night Bottling

After dinner this evening we bottled the beer we've been brewing. We'd split the batch in half and added fresh ("wet") hops to one half. After a week, it was time to bottle. First we tasted and bottled the half-batch without the extra hops, this was about 9 liters. Then we racked the half-batch with the hops into the other carboy and bottled that. Again, about 9 liters. The half-batch with the extra hops tasted smoother, almost sweeter, than the other. It'll be interesting to taste it again when they're ready to drink.

Also today I made a batch of grape jelly using 5 of the cups of grape juice I made a few days ago. I have enough for another batch which I'll try to get to in the next few days. I still have almost a half-bushel of apples to work with and some zucchini for another batch of chocolate zucchini bread but I just don't have those big chunks of time right now.

Now They Have Something to Protect

And getting into the hive just got harder!

Last night I went to a class about winterizing my hive. It was nice to see my beekeeper friend again, and meet new people with lots of experience to share. I learned some things about when to stop feeding, when to start putting the insulation on and how to manage things like mice. Yeah, that's right. MICE. I do not want to open my hive in the spring and find a dead mouse. I will be purchasing a mouse guard soon.

Anyway, they recommended I examine the hive again, now that I've been feeding them for a month, to see if they have made honey. This morning I put on all the gear and went out there. I tried the GoPro again but I still did it wrong and have no video! That's OK. I saw what I needed to see: that they are making honey, there were lots of capped honey cells and even more open honey cells. There are very few larva. I only saw one, but I only examined 5 of about 11 combs. The bees were getting fairly agitated and getting into my sleeves again so I decided I'd seen enough and left them alone. The false back got moved closer to the combs so it's just behind the feeder. And I got a little honey on my prying tool; it tasted a bit like the essential oils from the syrup I'm feeding them. If I can keep going with this for a while, then I think they'll have enough food at least.

After going raspberry picking with one of my coworkers this morning, I'm now getting the grape juice extracted from the grapes. I had 1.5 pounds of wild grapes and 6.5 pounds of Concord and Zinfandel grapes so I mixed them all together with 8 cups of water and they're simmering. I'll strain the juice overnight and then, depending on how much I get, will make 1-2 batches of jelly and maybe some canned juice.

The raspberries are for eating. The kids will be happy.

Fast and Furious

Everything is ripening on schedule this year which means all at once.

This morning I dashed off to a friend's house to pick her grapes. She has Concord and Zinfandel grapes growing on a fence and they are well established and do very well. Sadly, she is selling this wonderful house and yard! Knowing this was going to be our last year to enjoy these grapes, I picked over 6 pounds. We'll see how much juice they give me; right now they're in the freezer. I have too many other projects and they do well if you freeze them first.

After that, I immediately went to the raspberry farm and picked 3 quarts of berries in about 30 minutes. There are plenty more, and I do plan to go back next Wednesday with someone from work, but I wanted to get a batch of jam done as it's going to rain tomorrow. Three quarts was enough for a batch of jam, I left the seeds in for one of the quarts and strained out the rest so it's not too seedy but certainly not seedless. It is too late, however, to enter this in the fair, so I can't test my theory that the judges like their jam with seeds. Anyway, I was able to get 9 cups of jam (7 half-pint jars and 4 half-cup jars).

Yesterday's farm share was even more out of control than usual: blackberries and raspberries (eaten), a cantaloupe (also eaten), watermelon, 3 quarts of cherry tomatoes, 20 field tomatoes, 3 pounds of regular tomatoes, kale, collards, tat soi, parsley, 8 tomatillos, onions, garlic, 3 pounds of zucchini, golden beets, broccoli (eaten), a delicata and a spaghetti squash, and 10 hot peppers. I skipped the flowers, herbs, and husk cherries. After making the raspberry jam today I peeled and canned the 20 little tomatoes (I got the ones that you see in the store labelled "Campari tomatoes" so they were small and all about the same size). I was able to cram them into one quart jar. The other 3 pounds of tomatoes are in the freezer so they can be made into sauce eventually.

The mason stopped by tonight with gifts from his garden: celery, chard, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers. Yum! I can make more caponata soon!

Also on the agenda this week: tomatillo salsa, once I get some cilantro, chocolate zucchini bread, seeing how the hops and black walnuts are doing, and taking my once-every-10-years board recertification exam. Oh, and working the weekend. My husband will take my fair entries up this Saturday as I won't be able to get out in time. I've entered 7 classes this year: Dill Pickles, Bread & Butter Pickles, Sweet Relish, Strawberry Jam, Blueberry Jam, Apple Jelly and Other Jelly (Mulberry this year). The fair opens October 2.

Many Balls in the Air

Today there are a bunch of updates on several ongoing projects:

Bees: they are doing well. It appears they are about 1/3 through another comb. There are so many bees out foraging that they arrive back at the hive at a rate of about 3-4 bees per second. The pollen they carry ranges from white all the way to a deep olive green, which might be an aster species. I'm worried, though, that they won't have enough time to build up their honey stores before the fall. Unless something amazing happens in the next month, I will likely have to feed them over the winter.

Grapes: while we were at the Y last week I noticed some tiny wild grapes. This week I picked about 1.5 pounds with the help of my younger child. While not enough to do anything with at the moment, they are washed and in the freezer waiting until I have at least 3 pounds so I can make jelly.

Cornichons: the recipe for these said they would be ready in a month, so I made a date on the calendar for today. I thawed some paté and spruce paste and we had that, with the cornichons, cheeses, bread, grapes, and chilled steamed green beans in a vinaigrette, for our dinner. They were spicy and crisp, mmm! The grapes were weird - elongated pointy things called "Witch Fingers." Have you ever seen them? Well, as I've previously mentioned, I'm a sucker for unusual foods or if they have limited availability. They taste like any other grape. Which is a good thing.

Pickles and jam ready to be gifted.

Wintergreen ice cream: I made brownies today, partly for us and partly for the guys who are still toiling away on our water main. This morning they started to work in front of the driveway before I knew they were there and so I had to go rushing out and ask them to stop long enough for me to get my car out. They were kind enough to do so (my heart sank as I ran out and watched the backhoe take a huge bite out of the pavement...but not so much that I couldn't get my car over it) and I reciprocated with lemonade and brownies. As before with the zucchini bread, the empty plate and pitcher were at my door within about 2 minutes. Anyway, we had brownies and wintergreen ice cream for dessert.

Gifts: we have two sets of new neighbors, next door and across the street. I brought each of them a few of jars of jam and pickles. I hope they feel welcome. Moving to a new place can be pretty overwhelming!

Gearless!

Drinking some water off a mint leaf.

The last time I went into the hive I misplaced one of the spacer bars and I've been meaning to put it back in the right spot. However, I haven't really wanted to bother the bees, who are still transitioning through their various roles. Frequent peeks through the window have revealed that the combs are getting larger and they have been working on a new comb, although I don't see any evidence yet of honey or brood in it. Anyway, it was nice out today and I thought it might be a good time to fix that spacer but I didn't want to put on all the protective equipment. I figured, it was a small job, maybe I could go without the gear? Turns out, I could! I don't think I'd pull out a whole comb without gear or harvest honey or anything, but I can make a small tweak without too much fuss. That is nice to know.

Tonight for dinner I made the chicken tortellini with alfredo sauce but I ground up some kale in with the eggs so the sauce was green and full of kale. Even the 10 year old ate it, in small quantities. We also had sautéed zucchini, onion and garlic scapes to mix in, and the last of the carrots and most of the cucumbers from the farm share. I'm left with some turnips, one onion, 2 small cucumbers, cabbage and Napa cabbage, and a small amount of Swiss chard. The rabbit eats the chard and the regular cabbage so he's good for a few days at least!

Oh, and exciting news! We ate a few grapes off my Concord grape vine after dinner - they are ripening and we'll get at least a few more before the squirrels do, I hope.

Published!

It's pretty exciting!  A while back, Roxanne (my friend from the Topsfield Fair) let me know that someone was interested in publishing a cookbook of canning recipes that had won blue ribbons at fairs.  Since I'd won two (that was 2013), Roxanne suggested I contact the author, Linda Amendt.  Well, I did, and even though my recipes weren't much beyond the standard jam/jelly recipes, my Wild Grape Jelly recipe was included.  As was a little bio and photo.

The book arrived in the mail today, and I couldn't be happier.  There are lots of nice recipes in this book, variations on basics and interesting flavor combinations.  The best part, for me, is reading everyone else's bio and seeing the wide variety of people out there who have gotten into preserving for so many reasons.

Go ahead and check out the cookbook for yourself (I am not compensated for plugging the book, I'm just so excited to see my name and photo in print) - it's available for preorder.  While you're at it, go to Linda Amendt's website: www.lindajamendt.com.  Canning is but one of her many talents!

Do you know what makes it totally awesome?  Seeing the looks on my kids' faces when they saw my photo IN A BOOK.

Lamb Soup and Other Projects

This morning, after running out to the muffin store to get breakfast, I heated up the rest of the mixed foraged fruit juice, added 2 cups of sugar, and canned 3 quarts of juice.  Then we went outside to enjoy the beautiful day before coming back and doing more things around the house.

My husband spent the day preparing the walls of our 9 year old's room for painting.  It was a lot of work and they only got through part of the ceiling before they ran out of that paint and had to call it a day.  While they did that, I made a batch of chicken stock using the bones of a rotisserie chicken we had this week and canned 5 pints.

While the stock was in the canner, I brought out the Icelandic Lamb Soup I'd made yesterday and skimmed off all the fat.  Then I set it on the stove to warm up slowly and went outside to do some yard work.  You know that little strip of earth between the road and the sidewalk?  I've been trying for 11 years to plant things that grow.  Bulbs of various kinds, euonymus, daylilies, hostas.  Nothing really works out.  I have finally ceded control of that strip to the crabgrass that really wants to grow there.  So I moved the daylilies to other parts of my garden and cleaned it all up.  This way, I can mow it as often as needed and not have to dodge all the other plants.

After I finished up for the day, I went back inside and canned 2 quarts and 5 pints of the lamb soup.  This was happening around the time that my husband was running out of paint, so it seemed like a good time for everyone to stop and have dinner.  We had big bowls of soup with bread, sprinkled with some mushroom-infused Icelandic sea salt to round out the flavor.  

Autumn Mushrooms and Other Things

Yesterday while I was at the stables I found 2 good sized Shaggy Mane mushrooms that seemed early enough in their lifespan that I could pick them and use them today.  One of them turned inky overnight but the other was just fine.  I made an omelet with that one mushroom, some onion, and a little too much cheese.  Yum!

Also last night I made a batch of yogurt with a new container of starter.  It came out perfect.  The last batch I'd made was too liquidy so it was used up in smoothies, which the 9 year old really enjoyed.  I'm not sure why when I save some of my yogurt and start a new batch with it I have more trouble than when I use a new container every time.  I wish I could figure it out - maybe I wait too long between batches?

Omelet, also with foraged plum jelly on the toast.

At the stables yesterday I noted that all the autumn olives, which I'd been gathering for a while, had vanished.  I guess there was a point at which they were exactly right and the birds came and ate them.  All of them.  So I took what I had already frozen, which was a quart, and cooked them with the other foraged berries I'd been saving, and made juice this morning:  grapes, elderberries, a few blackberries and a few crabapples.  The juice will sit overnight and tomorrow I'll add sugar and can it.

Hardly Making a Dent

You should see my fridge.  Not only is the vegetable drawer stuffed with produce, the bottom 2 shelves are stuffed as well.  AND there is more in a basket on the table - all the squashes and potatoes and tomatillos.  Today I made another triple batch of eggplant caponata which came to 7 pints.  This is now in my gift stash.

A friend moved to a house that used to have a vineyard attached and has a lot of residual grape vines - Zinfandel and Concord, mostly.  Those Concord grapes were so sweet!  We brought home a bunch over the weekend and I've extracted almost 2 quarts of juice.  Later today I plan to heat it up, add sugar, and then put it back in the fridge for the kids to drink.  Grape juice is a bit of a novelty, since usually I don't buy juice.

Tonight for dinner I am going to make a soup with the head of escarole I got from the farm.  That'll be something new for us, and it'd be nice to eat some of the greens instead of giving it all to the bunny!

Foraging Many Things

Over the past few weeks I picked a lot of wild grapes at the stables.  In addition to a small bag of mixed foraged fruits (grapes, elderberries, and blackberries so far) I got over 3 pounds of grapes to make a batch of jelly.  Today I extracted the juice from the grapes and left it to drain for a few hours while I ran a few errands.

One of those errands was to check out the foraging on the bike path.  Last year I'd found hops growing wild on the path so I went back to get more.  I must have just missed the peak of the season as many of the flowers had turned brown but I was still able to find enough to add to a batch of beer.  I'm drying them now and then I'll put them in the freezer until we're ready to brew.  The other thing I grabbed was a bunch of black walnuts.  I drove over them with the car to get the husks off and brought them home to dry.  I got about 20 but I think a few might be bad.  I won't really know until they're ready to crack open.

After I got home, I finished the batch of grape jelly - 9 cups in total.  I only canned 8 cups, though, and the rest is in the fridge.

Springtime in the Backyard

We went to my parents' house for the weekend and, in our absence, the flowers bloomed.

Also, the mint has been growing, and my mom loves mint jelly.  Time to make a batch, with fresh mint!  And, by fresh, I mean, new growth, picked and immediately washed, ripped by hand and steeped in hot water for 10 minutes.  This is, I think, the reason my mint jelly is so...well...minty.  2+ cups of shredded mint leaves, 4.5 cups of water, steeped for 10 minutes, then strained.  Take 4 cups of that mint tea, add 4 drops of green and 1 drop of blue food coloring.  Mix with 1 package of the powdered pectin, and then 5 cups of sugar.  This makes 6.5 cups of jelly which is processed the usual way.  I've set aside 2 jars to enter in the fair; I would think this falls under the category of "Herb Jelly," don't you?

Lastly, I will leave you with this little bit of excitement.  About 6 years ago I planted a Concord grape vine.  And I've waited, and waited, and waited.  This year, for the first time, little tiny grapes!  We'll be watching their progress all summer.

Squeeeee!

Seedless Red Raspberry Jam

"Other" Grape Jelly

Rose Hip Jelly in the "Other Jelly" category

Happy Donna!

Forage-juice!

OK, now I'm just being silly.

Even so, every Wednesday I walk around the stables and look for foragable things.  Like autumn olives, and grapes.  Yesterday I discovered that the crabapple tree had actual crabapples, not the stunted little rocks it usually has.  I tasted one and it was pretty good even though it was a little sour.  I hit upon a plan (uh oh, we know how these things go....).

I combined the autumn olives (1 cup), wild grapes (1 quart) and crabapples (1 quart) in a pot and covered them with 5 cups of water.  This was simmered and crushed and strained through a jelly bag last night.  I got a little over 4 cups of pink, syrupy juice.  This morning I added 1.5 cups of sugar and another pint of water and made juice for canning.  Using the instructions for grape juice, I heated the juice to 190 degrees for 5 minutes and then put it into pint jars (3) and now will process for 15 minutes.  I'm trying to come up with a good name for it.  "Crabby Autumn Grape Juice" is so far the best contender.

Wild Grape Jelly

A few days ago my friend brought over almost 5 pounds of grapes she found growing wild in her yard.  This is the same yard with the violets and a menagerie of wild animals:  groundhogs, herons, hawks, mice, frogs and turtles, deer, and likely a fox or a coyote for good measure.  She has spent all year watching what grows and trying to identify it and the grapes were a surprise find.

I froze them until today since I didn't want them to go bad while I was finding the time to make jelly.  Today I brought them all out, added 2 cups of water, and simmered and crushed and simmered again.  Then I ran them through a jelly bag and got a little over 4 cups of juice.  I added enough water to get 5 cups, and then I made jelly with powdered pectin and 7 cups of sugar.  This made 9 cups of jelly and a little extra for tasting.  It's a little tart, just sweet enough, and a nice reddish purple color.  This is another one I plan to enter in the fair, under the "Other Grape Jelly" category since I am quite sure they're not Concord grapes.

Springtime at the Whole Foods

And they have my favorite grapes!

We've already established that I have an attraction to foods that are only in the stores for limited times, right?  One of those foods happens to be Muscat grapes, which are just so amazingly tasty and beautiful I have to buy lots of them when I see them.  Which is now.  I bought about 6.5 pounds yesterday and at least 2/3 of that have been eaten!  (Not entirely by me...)

Another thing I finally got brave enough to buy was a package of kumquats.  I see them all the time and decided that I should not be so timid.  My Brasilian friend says that the ones she used to have in Brasil were much sweeter than these, though.  So, after struggling through a few I decided I would candy the rest.  I cut them all in half and simmered them for 20 minutes in a simple syrup (1 cup water, 1 cup sugar) and then put them in a jar.  I did not process it, but it sealed anyway from the cooling of the syrup.  It'll go in the fridge, along with another jar of just the syrup, in case we want to make creamsicle sundaes or something.