ElainaA

Actually, on a nice day with a friend to talk to the picking was fun - that's why I picked so much more than I meant to. I like picking when I can do it without bending or kneeling. Stawberries are really hard on my knees. One of my books lists both blueberries and peaches as low in pectin. However this was a no pectin jam (recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation site - in my experience their recipes always work and are always safe) and it set perfectly after about 20 minutes of cooking. I like the taste of no or natural pectin jams better than those with commercial pectin plus they use less sugar. But they do take longer. The apricot, necterine and ginger seemed to take forever to reach set point. Elaina

On Friday I picked blueberries with a friend, then on Saturday I went to the Syracuse Farmer's Market. So I had a lot of fruit to process. I picked 9 lbs of blueberries! (I do get obsessive). So I made and canned blueberry syrup ( 9 half pints) and blueberry- peach jam (7 half pints). I still have more blueberries so I think I'll start some 3 fruit vinegar- I have cherries in the freezer and my raspberries are still coming in. (I have been told this is really out of fashion. I still like it.) At the farmer's market I bought apricots, nectarines, peaches (to go into the blueberry peach jam), ginger and some lovely baby eggplants that are not to be preserved but are tomorrow's dinner. And some tiny cucumbers that I am pickling in a four day brine. But today I made and canned apricot-necterine-ginger jam - this is my sister's favorite so that is part of her Christmas present done. I have apricots left over so I think I will candy them. The sour cherries that I am candying are almost done. White chocolate bark with candied cherries and apricots sounds good. Maybe some nuts too? A swirl of dark chocolate? Elaina

Wouldn't that be wonderful. And give them an appetite for voles too. I think your only hope is a cat. Elaina

That looks lovely I never thought of it as pizza sauce - that's an awesome idea. Elaina

And, come winter, that corn, frozen fresh, will taste SO much better than anything you can buy! Elaina

So, 4 ice cube trays of pesto just went into the freezer. Most of it is garlic scape and basil with pistachios. I ran out of both scapes and pistachios before I ran out of basil the the last batch is basil, garlic and almonds, I roasted the almonds and ground them with a little olive oil. i find prepping the basil a very boring chore. This year I used the Carolina Chocolate Drops as an accompaniment - nothing like fiddle and banjo to keep the energy up. And I found Rhiannon Giddens' tribute to the food she grew up on (Country Girl) something this northern born and bred country woman could identify with. Elaina

That's on my agenda for today. I freeze it in ice cube trays so I can easily adjust the amount I defrost - I have multiple ice cube trays used for nothing else. Since pine nuts have become stratospherically expensive, I have been experimenting with other nuts. Last year it was walnuts but I did not care too much for the result - there was a bitter overtone. This year I'll do some batches with almonds (which I have not used before) and some with pistachios (which I have used for garlic scape pesto and liked). Those of you who make pesto - what kind of nuts do you use? Elaina

Can I come for dinner? Elaina

I always grow too many cherry tomatoes. Here's one of my favorite uses: Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce with Basil and Parmesan. It takes along time to cook but it is worth it. Preheat oven to 250. Heat 1/4 cup olive oil. Add 1 large onion, diced and 6 cloves garlic, diced. Cook about 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 18 (yes! the recipe is this specific! You don't have to be!) shredded basil leaves and 1/8 t. red pepper flakes. In a deep roasting pan, combine 50 cherry tomatoes (I told you the recipe is specific - and I use more) with 2 t. sugar, 1 t. salt and onion mixture. Drizzle with 1/4 c. olive oil. Roast in 250 degree oven for 3 hours, stirring once. Serve over pasta with 1/2 c. parmesan and 1/4 c. basil ribbons. I like this with a mix of different colored cherry tomatoes - I grow red, orange,black and white cherries. None ripe yet so I'm still waiting. Enjoy. Elaina

Absolutely. Our cat is aging - I never had these problems when she was younger and hunted. Sadly our dog is also pretty old so all the vermin are getting bolder. I plan on getting a young cat or kitten to take over the hunting duties but currently we are cat-sitting for our daughter (an indoor cat - she is a city person) and our elderly cat is not taking it well. Once Izzy goes home, we'll see. Cats and dogs are by far the best vermin (and deer) control in my experience. Elaina

When we got married, my sister-in-law warned my husband to make sure I ate regularly because when members of my family do not we get very hyper, nervous and fly off the handle. It's true of me, my brother and at least one of my sisters as well as a niece. (Interestingly none of us were really aware of our tendency to turn into Mr. Hyde until my SIL pointed it out.) So I do eat three meals a day - I'm a much nicer person when I do. Breakfast is often yogurt and fruit or bread and cheese and fruit. Actually that's often lunch as well. My husband often works 11-12 hour days (there is little more demanding than running your own business as I suspect many regulars here know very well) and looks forward to a fairly traditional dinner although that doesn't mean meat and potatoes and a starch (what I was brought up on) - usually salad and pasta, maybe grilled veggies and chicken in summer. Elaina

Sigh. Whatever ate most of my beets last year came back for more. Most of the golden beets are gone and many of the red ones. I suspect voles and can't see any way to stop them. The usual advice is a 1/4" wire mesh fence 12" above ground level and 6-10" below. Since our land is basically all rock that is really impossible. I think I lost this battle. I'll pull most of the small beets tomorrow. At least the greens are fine. Elaina

That's our grill! We've had it for 5 years with no problems. We use it 3-5 times a week until there is so much snow on what we call the 'grill porch' that we can't open the door. (Sadly that was many months this winter.) We have had no need for replacement parts or adjustments - it works great. Elaina

Shelby - One year ,instead of all my jams, I concentrated just multiple kinds of jelly. I always send boxes of preserves and home made candy to my many, many relatives. I think that year I got more comments on the beauty of the preserves than ever before. If you use commercial pectin (and I do for many jellies) it is pretty fool proof. Even with natural pectins it usually works. And it it doesn't jell you just label it syrup. In fact I might just go put some raspberry jelly syrup over some ice cream now. Elaina

Weinoo - Thanks. I always make mixed vegetable mustard pickles but have never tried any other kind. Maybe its time to branch out. Shelby - Your jelly looks lovely. I love the clear colors of jellies. I went cherry picking with a friend on Friday. The sweet cherries were over but there were lots of lovely sour cherries. I picked about twice the amount I intended - it so easy to just keep going and going and going.... So yesterday I spent almost all day processing cherries. Six jars of cherry, raspberry and apple jam (my raspberries are just starting but I actually had some of last year's bumper crop in the freezer) and 5 jars of sour cherry conserve with orange and golden raisins. The first one I have made before and really like. The second is a new recipe for me, Luckily (!) there was just a bit that wouldn't fit in the jars so I had some this morning on toast - I like it . The recipe says to let it age at least a month so maybe it will get even better. There were lots more cherries so I made a cherry cake, got a big bowl started candying and froze the rest until I think of what to do with them. The pick-your-own place I go to has blueberries starting next week.........That should keep me busy. Elaina

My oldest and most treasured items are 3 cast iron frying pans (6", 8" and 10") and a cast iron 10.5" griddle that my mother gave me for my first kitchen. On the bottom they are stamped "Wagner Ware" and "Made in the USA". They are in constant use. I also still have some of the dishes that I bought with one of my first pay checks from my first "real" job (as a teacher in Vermont in 1972 - it wasn't much of a check but it seemed like a fortune to me at the time.) I bought 4 place settings of china, all in different patterns of blues, greens and grey. I felt exceeding proud to be so eccentric especially since two of my friends had recently married and their cupboards were filled with matching services for 8 or even 12 with all matching serving dishes. All of the dinner plates and 2 of the salad plates survive. All the soup/pasta bowls are sadly long gone. I also still have a set of silverware (well, silver plate), service for 8 in a pretty old-fashined pattern, that I found at a garage sale at about that time for $10. I actually felt rather sad to buy that - it seemed like the kind of thing one should keep. But that didn't stop me. Elaina

Weinoo - Those are beautiful pickles. I have had very mixed success with that book. Which recipe did you use? How would you amp it up? I agree that yellow squash is boring - however I've been growing a golden zucchini for the past few years that has much better flavor than most summer squash. Elaina

Aren't garlic scapes just so cute? I hate to let them know but these are going into the food processor to become garlic scape pesto for dinner. Elaina

Izzy came from a shelter in Trenton, NJ - a long way from Kansas! The watermelon radishes taste (to me) pretty much like the Easter egg radishes that I also grow - not too hot. I just love the way they look. Salad is a nightly staple here so I grow lots of salad greens. The first crop of mizuna and arugula are flowering so its time to pull them and replant. My spinach is also almost done but I'll have lettuce, cress, endive and chicories into September with replanting. I'm kind of a lettuce freak - this year I planted 12 varieties. I like the way it makes salad look. Last night on a cooking show someone said "You eat first with your eyes." I guess that's me. (Actually, the show was Chopped. Is that really about cooking? Real life cooking? I find it addictive.) I'm picking my beets early this year as last year either mice or voles ate 3/4 of the crop. I'd grab some nice looking greens and pull up a shard of beet covered with tiny tooth marks. Does anyone have any ideas of how to deter mice? The bowl was a gift from a niece quite a few years ago so I'm afraid its origin is probably lost in time. She lives near Boston so it is probably a shop there.The bowl is 3' long - you can't see it all in the picture. Great for parties. Elaina

Not that we know. We have only had her a week so our relationship is still evolving. Re: the critter issue - In my experience the only effective solution is a dog. As ours is aging the critters are getting bolder. Elaina

It is a recipe from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures. This has become my jam/jelly Bible. You use the green apple jelly in preserves with low pectin fruits instead of commercial pectin. It is a very simple recipe: 1.5 kg of VERY green apples (green as in not ripe -rather than apples that stay green. I have a former orchard on our land so there are lots of wild apple trees.), 1 kg sugar, 1.5 kg water, juice of 1 lemon. Stem and quarter the apples - do not peel. Cook with the water - bring to a boil, simmer 30 minutes. Strain the juice - I first use a fine strainer, then strain again through cheesecloth. Combine 1 liter (4.25 cups) of juice with the sugar and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, cook about 10 minutes. Skim. Check for set (221 F) Bring back to a boil, pout into jars, process 5 minutes. Ferber uses 7 oz for a batch of jam/jelly. Since my jars are 8 oz I usually use the whole jar. If you are substituting it for pectin, cut the sugar some since there is sugar in the green apple jelly. I love her flavor combinations so I usually use it in her recipes. So far this year all I have made is strawberry jelly with pinot noir, star anise and cinnamon - using green apple jelly. I'll probably use all of this batch before fall. Elaina

Shelby - Your cat looks just like Izzy, my daughter's cat that we are currently cat sitting. Here's tonight's dinner from the garden: Salad. watermelon radishes A few beets to go in the salad This also shows the very few stalks of broccolini that I was able to salvage. We were away for a few days and almost all of the broccolini burst into flower while we were gone. What I got was delicious. The jars in the background of the second picture are green apple jelly - apples from our trees - that I will use as pectin in other jellies and jams later this summer. Elaina

Very hyper regional indeed! I consulted Google - there is quite a story about this bread, including a lawsuit. The funny thing is that, although I have never heard of it by name, I have eaten it many times and actually know many of the people mentioned as the bread's developers. It seems the it is pretty much unique to the restaurant Pastabilities (and, through litigation, they are trying to keep it that way, suing a former employee who opened his own bakery and is selling the bread there. I can't find anything on how - or if- the suit has been resolved.). However, the story says it was first made at Rosalie's Cucina, a lovely restaurant in nearby Skaneateles. One of Rosalie's former bakers has opened a bakery in the town where I work, Cortland, selling bread that, to me, is identical to the bread at Pastabilites. It is not, however, called stretch bread. It is excellent bread, very similar to the pain a l'ancienne in Reinhart's The Bread baker's Apprentice. Elaina

Stretch bread? I've lived 30 miles from Syracuse, NY for 40 years and my husband has lived here all his life. My daughter went to school in Syracuse so I spent a lot of time there.Neither of us have ever heard of stretch bread. I thought I knew the city's food stores and bakeries well. What is it? Where do you buy it? Or is this an invention that is supposedly a "local" thing that locals have never heard of? Elaina

Rotus - If you want a jam that will wake you up in the morning, I have a recipe for "Peach preserves for a cold morning" - peach, orange and habanero. Not tart but as hot as you want to make it. And I think it would be fine even if your morning is not cold. Shelby - Putting Food By by Janet Greene was one of the first cookbooks I owned back when I lived in Vermont. It was first published in 1973 - aimed at all us back-to-the-landers - and is now in its 5th edition, having sold (according to Amazon) over 550,000 copies. I regret having lost my copy somewhere along the way. I needed it because while my mother did make jam she did no other canning. She froze vegetables from our garden. Dad (a VERY picky eater) did not like cooked tomatoes so she never canned them or made sauce. No pickles either. So I had to learn all that on my own. Living in the Northeast all my life, I suspect I have never had a really good apricot. I am very jealous of the tomato production some of you have. Do you have problems with fungal diseases? They are epidemic here - two of my friends lost all their tomatoes to late blight last year. I've had early blight and sephoria every year for the past 4 years which doesn't kill the plants but does decrease productivity. I use an organic spray (actinovite) but since it has rained hard most days for the past 2 weeks (and it seems will into the future) that is pretty much useless. I do put up a lot of tomato products - ketchup, chutney (from a family recipe), salsa and canned whole tomatoes plus making faux V8 juice, puree and sauce to freeze. I always can mustard and dill pickles and some quick-brined sweet pickles. I freeze a lot of pesto - frozen in ice cube trays, then popped out and bagged - so I can defrost however much I need. But my real love is jams and jellies. I have been working my way through Ferber's Mes Confitures because I love her flavor combinations and her techniques, especially the avoidance of commercial pectin and use of smaller amounts of sugar. Elaina