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Sunday, October 24, 2010

Apples!!

Yesterday, Jewel, Ang and I spent the day canning.  About 10 hours of the day anyway!!  Needless to say, after an 8 mile long run, canning all day was super exhausting.  That said, it was also well worth it.  I'm going to have to carve out yet another shelf in the pantry - YAY!!!  When all was said and done, we ended up with 27 quarts of apple pie filling (2 quarts make a pie, 1 makes an apple crumble for 4), 27 half pints of apple butter and 31 pints of apple sauce.  

As you saw earlier, I picked up 120 pounds of apples on Thursday.  Friday, Jewel arrived at my house around 7 and we proceeded to peel, core and slice enough apples to fill three crockpots.  We let the apple butter crock overnight on low.  In the morning, we pureed them all with the stick blender and then cranked them up to high for a couple of hours while we met our Saturday Run Group for a run (for me) and a brisk walk (for Jewel).  This turned out to be a great time saver and the perfect method for a delicious apple butter.  

For the applesauce, we simply cored the apples before boiling them with some water until they were nice and softened.  From there, we ran them through a food mill and cooked them for 5 more minutes before canning and processing them.  

There is something to be said for having the right tools for the job.  For this batch of canning, I was thankful to Ty for setting up our outside processing pot again which managed to double our processing space and which was in use as heavily as the indoor pot for about half of the day.  I'm SUPER thankful to the Millers for both the apple peeler/corer/slicer machine and the food mill.  The day would have been a lot longer and more labor intensive without those ingenious tools!  

Friday, October 22, 2010

Apples!!!

In case you were wondering what it looks like to pile 120 pounds of apples into a Smart car...


After doing some research online regarding local farms stands and pricing, I called out to Justy's Produce because I couldn't find their pricing online.  I now know why - because Justy likes to help his customers and give each one the appropriate pricing.  Since most of my apples were for butter or sauce, sort outs and #2s would work perfectly giving me the best possible price and allowing him to clear out some of his lesser stock without taking a total loss on it.  Win/win any way you look at it!! 

So, after discussing canning and tossing him a few compliments, I inquired as to what he does with the stuff that he can't sell by the end of the weekend but won't last much longer.  His face lit up and I knew I was in business:).  They are closed on Sunday and all Friday and Saturday, he goes through his bins to keep the best product on the floor.  By the end of Saturday, he's ready to wheel and deal on this produce and, if I'm canning it, I don't much care that it might not be the prettiest stuff.  He gave me a magnetic business card and said to call at 5 any Saturday that I'd like to come by.  They close at 7 so he can tell me by then what he'll have and if it'll be enough to be worth my bother. 

After loading up my car, he quipped 'now you've got an uncle in the produce business'!  Yes, I think Justy and I are going to get along really well...  

Monday, October 18, 2010

Freezer!






On Wednesday, Ty and Kona are going to pick up a used upright freezer that we are buying from a friend.  This means that we can really stock up!!  Our first planned purchases are splitting a pig and a quarter cow with the Millers.  Not only is this a more economical way of buying meat but we can also buy from small ranchers who raise their animals without antibiotics or growth hormones and on an organic diet.  It just feels like the right way to live. 

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Bad Chickens!

Our chickens started eating their own eggs.  We think it started when we had a bunch of dogs over a couple of days in a row.  The dogs would go crazy racing around the coop and the chickens would hide up in their loft but still be wound up and flapping around.  In the process, eggs got broken.  They discovered that they liked eating raw eggs (ew, ew, ew) and that they could easily peck them open.  As a consequence, we haven't had many fresh eggs for the last month or more.

I did some research and, on Friday, I instituted some potential remedies.  First, I quit lining their roosting boxes with pine shavings and instead am using straw.  So far, it stays in place better providing the eggs with more cushion when they are being laid.  Second, I put a golf ball in the roosting box.  Apparently, they don't have to peck on that too many times before they realize that it hurts!!  Third, and lastly, I broke an egg into a glass, mixed it with Tabasco and red chili flakes and poured the concoction on the floor of their loft.  

The final verdict?  Yesterday, we got three intact eggs:).  I'd say it's working and those girls are saved from Ty's roasting pan...   

Friday, October 15, 2010

Ew...

Will you judge me to know that I put off the deep cleaning until I'm hosting an important event?  Molly's baby shower is tomorrow so I spent this evening cleaning and reorganizing the linen closet, pantry, fridge and under the kitchen sink.  There are so many areas of this house that I've never managed to get on top of in the three and a half years that we've lived here and, until now, the pantry was one of those areas.  It has always been a complete cluster of appliances, mixing bowls, serving pieces, food stuffs, entertaining supplies and other random crap.  Getting the chaos behind that door whipped into shape felt super duper amazing.

Once that was done, I moved on to the fridge.  That was actually pretty scary.  Over 80% of the condiments were expired!!  How does that happen?  I am feeling like a pretty lousy person about that...  but I am hoping to stay on top of it going forward.  Again, please don't judge me...  it is bad enough to know what my mother, grandmothers and aunts would say with total disappointment in their voices!!  Moving on, while I was wiping all the shelves down with vinegar, I discovered that they are all the pull out kind!!  Who knew they even made those for the fridge?  Not me!  Dumping all the contents and sorting the bottles and jars for recycling took a decent amount of time but it was well worth it. 


Lastly, I emptied out the cupboard under the kitchen sink and gave the doors and inside of the cupboard a good vinegary scrub down.  That is an area that gets rather grungy pretty quickly.  


All of these chores are things that really should be done at least twice a year but I somehow only manage to get around to them annually at best.  I'm sure there's lot of other things that I should be doing too that I just don't get to that would probably horrify the above mentioned mother/grandmothers/aunts.  I hope that those of you coming to tomorrow's shower don't think twice after reading this!! 

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Onion Goggles


No relation to beer goggles!!  Here's what happens when you have 12 large onions to peel and dice and/or you're near the cutting station when 12 large onions are being peeled and diced:).  

Fall Dinner

While I do eat soup year-round, there is something special about enjoying a good, hearty, home-made soup that evokes the feeling of Fall.  On Tuesday night, Ty whipped up a rich and delicous tomato soup.  He'd grabbed a bag full of brussel sprouts when we were at the store with no real plan - just because we love them, they are currently in season and they looked yummo!  So, these were a side dish to the soup.  And, just to round the meal out, he also added a garlic romano sharp cheddar grilled cheese to the plate.  Let the mouth watering begin:

Monday, October 4, 2010

More canning

 


Ketchup, quince and sauce prep

Jewel and I embarked on another canning extravaganza on Sunday.  The plan for this go round was to stick to tomatoes and just two recipes.  You know what they say about the best laid plans... and, in our case, they were set aside when our friend Susan gave us seven pounds of quince and 4 pounds of Asian pears.  We revised and decided to go for four recipes - quince marmalade, pear butter, ketchup and tomato sauce. 

We had done quite a bit of the produce procurement ahead of time.  We got 50 pounds of tomatoes from a local farm, 20 pounds in free discards from New Seasons courtesy of Isaac, 20 pounds from our CSA and another ten or so from Michelle's garden.  Jewel arrived at my house around 6 am on Sunday and we spent a few minutes double checking recipes and doing some preliminary organizing.  Then, we headed to the Lakeridge High School track with Onya to get in our 'formal' workouts for the day.  We make a quick trip to St. Honore for some pain au chocolate and Chai tea lattes so that we'd be properly fueled for the long day ahead.  From there, we swung by New Seasons to get the remaining ingredients, snacks and a couple of cases of beer.  It turns out that cold beers are a necessity when spending an entire day canning...

Once home, we set Ty to work quartering, coring and seeding those 100 pounds of tomatoes.  Oh, but first, he had to dice 12 onions and 5 heads of garlic for us.  Turns out that swim goggles come in quite handy when processing that quantity of onions (photo to follow)!!  Ty was such a trooper and the day went much, much smoother thanks to his hours of hard work. 


Quince, two batches of ketchup and Ty seeding

Our first recipe to hit the stove top was the quince marmalade.  While that was going, we also started the first batches of ketchup.  The quince came out well although it didn't attain the pink color noted in the recipe.  The first batch of anything is a learning experience so that's not all that surprising.  The ketchup takes a couple of hours and we were able to also make a batch of pear butter while we were working on the FOUR batches of ketchup. 


Three batches of sauce and one of quince marmalade

Around the end of the ketchup, we had Ty set up the propane tank and burner outside for all the processing and we managed to get all four burners on the stove going with various stages of tomato recipes!  It was a beautiful sight indeed.  Once the ketchup was done, we started in with what ended up being six batches of tomato sauce.  We finished the night with a second batch of quince marmalade since we had to wait for Isaac to arrive with more sugar (oops - my bad!).  The second batch cooked much longer because we were backed up from the sauce having to process for 35 minutes - but this time we got to the promised pink color! 



MONSTER bin of compost!

I haven't yet counted how many jars of each recipe we ended up with...  but I will soon and I'll post that too.  I know that I'm going to have to clear out another shelf in my pantry to store our bounty.  Jewel and I are a pretty fierce canning team - working well together and happy to jump in to help each other at any step along the way.  I'm really looking forward to apple canning day in a couple of weeks! 



This is the final haul - sauce in pints and quince, pear and ketchup in half-pints


Saturday, October 2, 2010

Crackers

My friend Krista sent me the link to the second issue of a very cool online magazine called Sweet Paul.  On page 50, you'll find a recipe for Fennel and Parmesan Shortbread.  I love cheeses and crackers so I found the idea of a home-made cracker super interesting.  I made them last night and they were AWESOME!!  A couple of tips for next time are to roll the log tighter and to use a thinner knife to cut them.  I also think I'll cut them a bit thinner and cook them just a bit longer.  Also, mine are darker than in the mag pic because I used whole wheat flour.  Overall, though, super delish and a fun alternative to store-bought crackers.  I'll definitely be making these again maybe even for Molly's baby shower!

The crackers before they went into the oven
The finished product served with cheese