That was a whole lot O' Tomato

It has been a long time since I had to process tomatoes.  This is mainly thanks to my Amish friend Elsie's tomato plant.  That thing just produces it's head off.  I start a tray of them for Elsie each spring from seeds she saves.  She used to ask for 48 plants and now she asks for 15.  I can see why.  I've been planting this variety for a few years now and saving some seeds to add to hers to maintain some diversity in the strain and apparently we've bred a monster producer.  Also the plant grows eight feet tall!

I prepared about half of what I had and it just fit in my six quart cooker.  I cooked them down for about four hours, periodically removing liquid.  They cooked down to two quarts which I bagged and put in the freezer.

But I still had enough for another batch... 

Before supper I got those peeled and into the cooker.  They just fit.  I reduced them to two quarts also.  

So these would have produced 12 quarts if I had just gone ahead and water bath canned the quartered tomatoes.  I will use one quart of these per one pound of ground beef when I make my chili this fall.

Finished the Pears

 We finally got through all of the pears.  Four processing sessions and a result of 28 quarts!  That's fourteen quarts a piece for my neighbor and I.  The first canner full was a little intimidating.  We didn't really know what we would be up against.  Once we got our routine figured out, and could estimate our yield, the second batch was sort of fun.  It was taking us about three hours to process one batch at a leisurely rate.  One person would have had an extra hour of peeling on their own.  The third batch we delayed one day for weariness, but proceeded with resignation.  That one turned out the prettiest with our pears pure white and our syrup clear.  We were getting good at this.  

The fourth batch... well, we still had a lot of pears and told each other we'd come this far, we weren't going to quit now.  We'd better finish what we started.  The fourth batch took us the least amount of time because we knew exactly when in the peeling process to start the water bath pre-heating so it was ready exactly when we got the jars packed.  

While we were peeling the fourth batch, one of our other gardening friends happened to call.  Neighborlady put the phone on speaker and set it on the counter as we peeled.  

Friend: "Well, I just got out of the garden and I wondered if you would like to come over and make Salsa?"

Us in unison: "NOOOO!"

She hadn't, at that point, realized that she was on speaker phone and we were both there up to our elbows in pear juice for the fourth time this week, so she was a little taken aback at first.  You don't usually get a resounding Hell No! to an offer like that.   It really wasn't an off the wall idea.  We all have tomatoes and peppers and onions lying about and the past two years the two of them had made pretty nice batches of fresh salsa together.  We were just tired of peeling and chopping and rinsing.  And our fingernails are a funny color, and our legs are aching from standing at the counter.  We're done.

Canning Pears

Besides my own pear tree that is producing wonderfully this year, my mother has several pear trees.  Early last week she sent an S.O.S. for too many pears, and my husband loves canned pears, so off we went.  It was a rainy morning and we had to delay our plans over an hour waiting for the rain to clear.  I will not soon forget wrestling that pear tree in 90% humidity with rain dripping off of the leaves.  It was hot.  And the yellow jackets were trying to defend their fruit.  I swear those things will follow a ripe pear right into your mouth.  You have to be careful.  A few of them body slammed me but no one was mad enough to sting.  There was plenty for everyone.

You really want to pick directly off of the tree.  Pears ripen from the inside out and a pear that has fallen is not only likely to be bruised, but will also be too far along in ripeness to handle easily when paring.  If a pear is NOT almost ripe, you basically can not pull it off with a picker, no matter how hard you try.  My husband and I picked one bushel from the Bartlett tree and another bushel from an unidentified tree which I believe is a Seckel.  They are beautiful pears.  After being dragged through the wet orchard, and sweating from my eyeballs I had to do a Walmart run.  Man that all wiped me out.  This was one of the first times that "normal activity" made me feel old.  I had to take a nap.

My next door neighbor had offered to help me can pears.  Actually what happened is that I offered to bring her pears and she didn't skip a beat before saying "Misery loves company.  I'll do it if you do it with me." That's fine.  I've never actually canned pears and she has a gas stove which is so much better for water bath canning.  And I wanted to do quarts which my turkey fryer method is not optimal for because of the number of quarts it holds (doesn't hold).  Neighborlady used to can pears a lot when they lived down the road and had a pear tree.  And her mother canned pears so it was a nostalgia thing for her.  We spread the two bushels out in her barn to ripen and cull through.

 So far we have canned two batches of 7 quarts each and have used about half of these pears.  Pears continue to ripen at room temperature and we can choose the perfect stage to can them.  Also, as we got comfortable with what our yield was going to be, we got a lot more liberal will culling instead of trying to salvage as much as we could from a knotty or bruised pear.  

It is difficult to explain how to tell when a pear is the perfect ripeness.  It is that moment when the skin begins to feel alive.  The color also changes subtly from green to gold and the blossom end takes on a russet color.  (I've had a lot of practice because for several weeks I have had a basket of pears on my counter. 

 As soon as they mellow they go into the fridge basket to chill for eating.  A Bartlett pear must be a difficult crop to get to market looking pretty.  These all have some degree of sooty blotch on their skins.  And they are not particularly easy to peal.  Juice galore.  No wonder store bought canned pears have no taste.  They must have to process them green when they still have not developed any taste.

Well they all eat the same.

Nothing compares to the taste of home canned pears in light syrup.  For years I have gone to the county fairs and wonder how canned goods are judged.  Well!  I sure could judge the canned pears now.  I know exactly what variables there are.  Headspace.  Color.  Packing.  Purity of the syrup.  Spots on the pears.  I almost want to do one quart with the best pears just to see if I could turn out one at my personal best.  Below is my share of the first two batches.  We are taking a break today (Neighborlady processed tomatoes yesterday and she's a bit whooped) and tomorrow is another canning day.

I am no canning expert, but if you would like to know more about the process of canning pears, here is a link to a good YouTube video that will explain it well.

A Cool Pickle Day

 This week of July is typically the hottest week of the year for us.  And that's exactly when Pickle Day usually happens.  But today is rainy and cool with a breeze and right now, at 3:30 pm, it is only 62F (16C).  

We use the turkey fryer to process pickles so we can keep a lot of the steam outside, and we had to move the turkey fryer to the corner of the deck because the breeze kept blowing out the flame.

The turkey fryer basket holds seven pint jars which is perfect for the amount of pickles we eat each year.

I cut enough cucumbers to have two or three pints of refrigerator pickles and had brine left over which will keep for another week.  When I get more cucumbers, I will make a batch of dill pickles, and I will have the option of processing more bread and butter.

The refrigerator batches are my favorite.  They are so crisp because they have not been cooked and we have been out of sweet pickles for over a month now so these will go fast!

Strawberry Jam

 This is why we work so hard. The most perfect bowl of strawberries I have ever picked.  No slug damage.  None rotting in the soil.  None stolen by chipmunks or pecked at by birds.  And its not easy.  There is trimming and weeding and fertilizing and watering and outsmarting pests.

There is nothing better than fresh Strawberry freezer Jam.  This is my second batch this week.  I would like to make three and it looks like that won't be any trouble at all.  Last year the plants were too young and I only got one batch, had none to share and I ran out back in February.  I've been eating honey on my toast since then.

This makes the hard work worth while.

Sweet Pickle Relish

 My Bell Peppers finally started to color up so yesterday I canned Sweet Pickle Relish.  I followed This Recipe and added one large bell pepper for a little color variation.  I would have preferred to use a red one, but I only had yellow so I threw in one orange Havasu hot pepper because it was ready to use.   My total poundage for Cucumbers, Peppers and Onions (pre dicing) was 4 pounds and that yielded three pints plus a little leftover to use right away.  Three pints will easily get us through one year.

This didn't really make a dent in the backlog of pickling cucumbers that I have harvested but I have found that I am enjoying eating the picklers just as much as the big, burpless slicers.  They are very crisp, especially if you take the time to cut out the seeds.

Now I have only to wait for my Havasu Peppers to ripen so I can make pickled peppers and then my preserving will be done for the summer.  I have frozen two gallons of Beans and we are working through the second bed of Sweet Corn, freezing a little at a time.  The Gotta Have It Sweet Corn has been just as excellent as the Solstice was.

Pickle Season Has Begun

 My pickling cucumber vines have been producing very well.  It took three days of picking to gather a hydrator full of cucumbers.  There are four pounds here.  I also picked my first slicing cucumber today and there are three or four that will be ready in a day or two.   I like to pick pickling cukes quite small to get more small slices to cram into the jars.  A couple of them got away from me and got too big, but still not over ripe.

I wanted to put some onions in the jars this time.  I've never done that, but as a child one of my Mom's good friends made pickles with her grandmother every year from her own garden and my favorite part of the pickles were the little rings of pickled onions in each jar.

I just use Mrs. Wages quick process packets, but this year, since I have peppers and onions handy, I plan to experiment with pickle spices from scratch and make some sweet relish.  We do not use much relish, so two or three pints will keep us in relish all year.  But first I have to make the dill slices to store.

I made six pints to store, which is about how many we will use in a year.  There is also a seventh, lightly packed jar with some of the largest slices that I will open first to use,

Red-Spotted Purple Butterfly on Vanilla Marigolds

P.S. I just went out and picked my first handful of Seychelles pole beans for supper.  The Monte Gusto, despite being thriftier than the others, have just blossomed.  They should only be three days behind the others but they are lagging.

Rotten Dahlia

 

I went ahead and dug up that wilted Dahlia today.  Yup.  Complete mush.  

I planted a sprouted tuber in its place since I had them.  I did not plant it as deep.  The soil around it didn't seem any more saturated than I would expect so it could be that this tuber had a nick or bruise that I hadn't noticed that made it more susceptible to rot.

I got my strawberry freezer jam made.  Just enough berries today and plenty more to come.  It isn't raining today but it looks like something could develop at any minute.  Complete cloud cover.

That's the fun of living close to the Great Lakes.    Not only to we get unpredictable lake effect snow, but we get lake effect rain too.

...of Pickled Peppers

 Peter Piper Picked a Peck 

of Pickled Peppers.  

And when you have a peck o' peppers, its time to get pickling.

I am using my Havasu peppers for refrigerator pickles.  Now last year I ended up eating these fresh with hummus.  They have a nice thick wall and were not particularly hot.  Their cone shape makes them perfect to slice up for scooping dip.   This year they are hotter and I haven't enjoyed them fresh.  Last year I planted them intermixed with Sweet Banana Peppers.  There is a rumor out there that if you plant your sweet peppers and your hot peppers together, that the sweet will be hotter and the hots will be sweeter.  That would certainly be true if the plants cross pollinated and you planted the seeds. This year it is probably just the weather, but that is how rumors get started.  Maybe next year I will buy another pack of Banana Peppers and see...

Anyway, I have all of these (too) hot peppers and I had intended to try pickling them for my husband.  I chose a random recipe off the internet which used ingredients I already had on hand and hit paydirt on the first try.  These peppers are awesome pickled and they have been a big hit here for snacking with friends and neighbors for the past few weeks.  From the beginning I put a little twist on it of my own.

My ingredient list for one pint is:

1/2 cups white vinegar

1/2 cups apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon mustard seed

1 teaspoon celery seed

1 teaspoon of pink peppercorns

Mix the ingredients and bring to a boil.  Pour the liquid into a jar of peppers sliced in spears or rings.

I forgot the sugar in the first photo.  Sugar is very important.  The brine is wonderfully sweet, then you get the fresh crunch of pepper and finally it socks it to you with the hhhhhot.  The amount of hot depends on how much of the seeds and pith you remove when you are slicing your peppers.

The addition of Brazilian Pink Peppercorns was an inspired choice based on a pickle kit I've used in the past for dilly beans.  I can't get that mix anymore and was thinking I would just recreate it.  So I bought pink peppercorns.  I haven't gotten around to trying the horseradish beans and I have all these peppercorns...

I make these as refrigerator pickles because I like the fresh crunch.  There is no reason why you couldn't water bath can these to make them shelf stable.  I feel that the real merit of refrigerator pickles whether they are peppers or dill spears or dilly beans is that they are garden fresh and oh so crunchy.  My husband has declared these the tastiest peppers ever and they are so easy.

Freezing Beans

 This year has been a great year for beans.  Last year I decided I would never fiddle with bush beans again.  It's pole beans for me.  They keep on producing as the vines keep growing and you don't have to get down on the ground to pick 'em.

I have settled on two really good varieties. Monte Gusto and Seychelles.

I freeze my beans because I think canning is a lot of sweaty work.  I don't mind making pickles, but water bath canning or pressure cooker canning isn't any fun.  Freezing is simple and you can do it in small batches.  Have a handful of beans? (or peas or a few extra ears of corn?)  Pop them in the freezer.

Here are my steps for freezing beans.

Take the ends off the beans and chop them into bite size pieces.  Boil some water, take it off the heat, and throw the beans in for three minutes.

Strain the beans and have an ice bath ready.

Put the beans in the ice bath and leave them until the cubes melt.

Strain the beans again and spread the cooled beans on a tray and put them in the freezer for a day.  This means you have to keep your freezer organized well enough to be able to fit a tray in there.  When the beans are frozen solid, break them off of the tray and put them in bulk into a gallon bag.  It sometimes takes me three or four small batches to fill a gallon bag.  That's the beauty of freezing as opposed to canning.   It is simple and easy and can be done in small batches.  When you want to eat beans, get some water boiling, take a handful or two out of the bulk bag and boil for three minutes.

When I prepare fresh beans, I use a steamer and steam for ten minutes, but boiling frozen beans is almost as good.  Two gallons will get us through the winter just fine and by the time bean season rolls around again we will be out of frozen beans and wishing for the garden fresh version.

Preparing Horse Radish

 When I was digging potatoes I kept running into really nice horseradish root.  It is a little early in the season to harvest horseradish because cold weather brings out the flavor.  But its still good even if it isn't really hot.  So I don't waste it. I have three big clumps of horseradish along this bank.  Two of them stay nice and tidy and never try to wander off.  But this newest clump is next to a planting area which I am always digging up.  Not only is the soil soft and inviting, but it seems like each time you break a root it uses the opportunity to send up a plant at the breaking point.  

This nice little plant is not welcome here.

Whenever I come across a nice root, I dig as much of it out as I can.  Then I just pop it in a zipper bag and put it in the garden fridge.  My husband is on his way down the fall chores list and today he cleaned out the garden shed fridge.  Our house fridge was completely over run with beer and sweet tea and cabbages so it was a good time to deal with these roots.  This beats the heck out of digging them mid-winter when the ground is muddy and you're out in the snow with a pot of water trying to thaw the ground - but I do it that way too.  How else would we get fresh horseradish for home made cocktail sauce for our holiday shrimp?

The first step is to get a good veggie brush and scrub the roots clean.

These long, flexible carrot-like roots are my favorite to deal with not the coarse, gnarly type at the base of the plant.

Next, cut off the dirty, broken end and the little end that is too skinny to peel.

The roots are just like carrots.  There is no real skin to them, but you want to clean them up and inspect them.  The goal here is not to whittle them down to nothing.  Just scrape the discoloration off.

You could grate this by hand and if you want to  - more power to you.  But I use the food processor.  Here is also where they stop acting like carrots.  They are quire fibrous and tough to chop. You'll need a good chef's knife to dice the roots into something your food processor can handle.

Nothing special here, just a little 3 cup chopper.  I start with just a handful of root.

As the first ones get to a good consistency I keep adding more.  I put about half a cup of water in too to get the mixture moving.  You want to keep shredding until you get quite a fine mixture.

The consistency will begin to get pasty.  You can use vinegar instead of water if you want.  The vinegar will stop and stabilize the chemical process so the longer you wait to add the vinegar, the hotter your end result will be.  If you want more mild taste, go ahead and use vinegar.  This time of year before the roots go dormant the flavor is more mild anyway.

Use a spoon the remove the horseradish leaving the liquid behind.

I use a spoon to pack the mixture down bringing more water to the top so I can pour the liquid off.

Top off the jar with white vinegar.  I use the spoon to loosen the jar contents and allow the vinegar to percolate down to the bottom.  Some people add salt but its not necessary. 

Now you have a jar of nice fresh horse radish that will keep in the refrigerator.  I always date mine.  It will keep for three or four months but will start to lose its kick after about three or four weeks. We use it mostly for roast beef sandwiches.  When fresh it makes absolutely awesome cocktail sauce.  Just find your standard cocktail sauce recipe using ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice.