eG Foodblog: Shelby--The Everlasting Garden...Canning...Canning...Canning...

[ElainaA]

Shelby, you are anything but boring.

[TicTac]

More, please!

[Okanagancook]

" A new garden spider has moved in across the garden from Matilda.  I think the webs are SO cool.-------------But I do love these girls (I don't know why I think they're female lol). ----"

 

Come on! girl spiders are nasty. They have nasty mating needs with male spiders.

 

dcarch

Yes, exactly.  Black Widow which we have many here.  Nasty girls. 

[Smithy]

Do you slice your cherries in half when you do that or keep them whole?

I leave 'em whole. That's part of the charm: they're so easy to prepare this way, and the flavor and texture are still great.

Took a picture of my storage area in the basement for all that I've canned. Can't remember if I took one in the last blog.

P8120413.JPG

Very impressive! Whenever I see something like that, I remember my friend in southern Minnesota who, at the heyday of her farming life, had such a storage area on the bottom floor of her house. A raccoon got in somehow. You can imagine the carnage. Decades later, she still hates raccoons.

[Shelby]

Hi Hi Hi!  I thank you for all comments and hanging in here with me.  I will talk to you guys much more about what you've posted while I was gone tomorrow morning.  

 

Really quick I will post my very late and very fast dinner.

 

I did a 6 minute egg--damn those things are good.  With a ramen type of noodle that I will tell you more about tomorrow.  I LOVE this brand.  They aren't fried first and are just SO good.  I put a chopped 'mater and some shredded nori in too....I'm sure not traditional but it hit my very empty spot since I haven't had a thing since my sandwich this morning.

 

 

I promise more interesting stuff tomorrow.  The peaches about kicked my ass today lol.

 

See you soon!

[cakewalk]

I just love those spider webs. Reminds me of when I was much younger and used to do macramé. Those are the patterns we would follow.

 

The photo of the shelves with all your canning jars on it is great. I never realized the quantity of canning you do, that frame holds a lot of jars! Will those shelves all be filled by the end of the summer?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

"Cherokee Red"

 

There are also Cherokee black, Cherokee green, and Cherokee purple. 

 

What do the Cherokees have to do with those tomatoes? 

 

Wonderful blog so far. Thank you!

 

dcarch

 

I just recently returned a book on heirloom tomatoes to the library.  As I recall Cherokee tomatoes have absolutely nothing at all to do with actual Cherokees -- which rather disappointed me as they are my father's tribe.

[nickrey]

Not on for a few days and look what I missed!

 

Shelby!!! Looking forward to this, now to read it from the start...

[Shelby]

I, too, love those spiderwebs with the zigzags. You've now got me thinking of ways to incorporate spiderweb-like patterns into a future knitted sweater!

 

The one year we grew eggplants, I was surprised that the flowers were such a pretty purple. And I was even more amazed to see that the eggplants were purple right from the beginning; it's not like tomatoes where they start out little and green, get bigger and green, and only then change colors.

I was surprised too.  I love watching the eggplants grow and yeah, they are such a beautiful shade of purple.  Ooooh , you knit!  I tried that a few times....not my forte lol.

 

I leave 'em whole. That's part of the charm: they're so easy to prepare this way, and the flavor and texture are still great.

Very impressive! Whenever I see something like that, I remember my friend in southern Minnesota who, at the heyday of her farming life, had such a storage area on the bottom floor of her house. A raccoon got in somehow. You can imagine the carnage. Decades later, she still hates raccoons.

 

  A raccoon!  I don't want to imagine what that poor woman's basement looked like.  How awful.

I just love those spider webs. Reminds me of when I was much younger and used to do macramé. Those are the patterns we would follow.

 

The photo of the shelves with all your canning jars on it is great. I never realized the quantity of canning you do, that frame holds a lot of jars! Will those shelves all be filled by the end of the summer?

 

I hope they will be full.  The last few years haven't been good tomato years so they have been a bit sad and bare.

Not on for a few days and look what I missed!

 

Shelby!!! Looking forward to this, now to read it from the start...

   Thanks for coming along!

[Shelby]

Good morning, ya'll!  It's almost Friday!

 

So, a bit of catch up from yesterday.  

 

My plan was to be done with the peaches around seven at the latest and then do an Asian themed meal of some sorts.  My husband had a dinner meeting so I knew I was on my own and could make something that maybe he wouldn't particularly care for like an all veggie/tofu thing.  But, we know how that turned out.  He got home about the time I was slicing into my six minute egg.  His meal wasn't very good so I shared my egg with him.

 

The noodles I ate are these .  I can't remember where I read about them.  It was either here or on The Ramen Rater.  There are two little packets that come with them.  A dry one and one that has an oil/paste flavoring.  I highly recommend them.  You can probably find them cheaper at a market if you live in a big city.

 

 

Early in the afternoon yesterday I made the recipe that Okanagan posted from Elaina.  I used a lot more cherry 'maters than the recipe called for, so I eyeballed and added more oil etc.

 

Before going into the oven

 

 

It smelled SO good after a while.

 

After about 4-5 hours in the oven.  

 

 

Wow, you guys were right.  Great flavor.  I was nervous about the skins and if I would like them...they are very soft and everything just melts in your mouth.  I am going to freeze it in containers this afternoon.  OH and I gave Ronnie a bite when he got home.  He really liked it too.  

 

 

[Shelby]

On to the peaches!

 

Ronnie got these for me at the used food store (our nickname for it).  It's a Mennonite run store that sells dented cans....stuff that other grocers want to get rid of etc.  The past two summers they have been getting cases of peaches from a farm in Palisade, CO.  They are super good.  There was a line a mile long of people waiting to get some.

 

 

The set up for canning peaches is almost like the 'maters except you:

 

1.  Make a sugar/water "syrup" first and keep it just barely simmering.  I put syrup in quotes because you can make it thicker like that but I prefer it to be light with less sugar.  You can see a bit of peach in there...I was using the spoon to stir the peaches too.

 

 

2.  You want to get your jars going in the dishwasher or boiling right away.  

 

3.  You either need a bowl full of water and lemon juice to put the peaches in or a can of Fruit Fresh.  I use Fruit Fresh.  This step keeps the peaches from turning brown.

 

You want to have all of this stuff ready because you don't really want your peaches to be in the hot sugar water for too awful long because they break down a bit faster than tomatoes do.  

 

So, I got my pan of water boiling in order to blanch the peaches real quick so I could slide the skins right off.

 

After blanching:

 

 

The skins come off easily.  Then I just hold the peach over the bowl and segment it off the pit.

 

 

 

 

As I went I sprinkled the Fruit Fresh over each layer and after what seemed like a decade of peeling and segmenting I ended up with this:

 

 

****A bit of a side note here*****

 

You also end up with another bowl full of pits and skins which I also sprinkled with a bit of Fruit Fresh. 

 

 

After I was done canning I had a bit of the sugar water left so I dumped the skins and pits in and boiled for about 30 mins.

 

 

I left it on the stove to cool over night and it's now in the fridge.  Tomorrow we'll make some jelly out of it.  I lifted the lid and smelled it this morning.  SO good and peachy.  

 

Back to the canning....

 

Dump your peaches in the sugar water:

 

 

Let 'em swim around in there for about 10 minutes or so to get them all happy and warm and cooking a bit.

 

Then, fill your jars just like we did on the tomatoes making sure that you get enough syrup in there to cover the peaches.  They don't have to be completely submerged.

 

 

 

Carefully lower them into the canner

 

 

I processed them for 30 mins.

 

All sealed up!

 

 

 

 

Edited to add:

 

Once again I found three jars when I took them out of the dishwasher that were unusable.   I still have more peaches to can...probably about those three jars worth.  It was so late last night that there was no way I was going to sterilize more.  So either this afternoon, or tomorrow I'll do the rest.  OR, I might just freeze them......yeah...that sounds a lot easier....

Edited August 13, 2015 by Shelby (log)

[Shelby]

We're caught up to this morning.

 

I got up at sunrise and had to take a picture from my front porch.  In the foreground is the garden.  The middle is the field corn.  Out where you see the "white" are the soybeans.  You can see my irrigation system poking through.  The white was a low-laying fog that was just on top of the beans.  It was pretty and peaceful.  The quail were singing "bob-white, bob-white".  

 

 

I did the dishes and a few other chores around here and then went to the garden.

 

Had to stop and tell Matilda good morning.  I've never seen such a fat spider.  Right below her she had a big 'ole grasshopper in her web.  She had a hearty breakfast.

 

 

Today's garden flower is from the pumpkins.

 

And today's gardenage.  That should be a word, too.

 

 

I keep thinking I'm making a dent in the cherries, but they just keep comin'.  I'm not complaining!

 

 

I'm not sure what this afternoon will bring.  I may attempt the jelly....I've never made it before except for the batch of sandhill plum that I did a couple weeks ago.   I need to figure out whether I want to can or freeze the rest of the peaches.... Or, I may just kind of take it easy and cook something fun for dinner.... 

 

I'm undecided.

 

 

 

 

[cakewalk]

Just to get an idea, about how long did it take you to pick today's gardenage? (Yes, it should be a word. And now it is. Anthropologists and linguists, take note!)

[Shelby]

Just to get an idea, about how long did it take you to pick today's gardenage? (Yes, it should be a word. And now it is. Anthropologists and linguists, take note!)

Oh gosh, maybe 45 minutes?  It's like a game of Twister in the tomatoes.  You gotta duck and shimmy and slide around.

 

 I peruse and pull a few weeds, take a few pictures...  My husband came with me this morning.  We could both probably have been done in 30 mins if we tried.

 

(Good deal.  I am glad you took care of the wordage for me   )

Edited August 13, 2015 by Shelby (log)

[Toliver]

I keep thinking I'm making a dent in the cherries, but they just keep comin'.  I'm not complaining!

What you're calling your cherry tomatoes look like grape tomatoes to me (oblong in shape), which I prefer over cherries. Sometimes cherry tomatoes are too big for one bite...grape tomatoes, not so much.

 

My mom would be so jealous if she saw your peach pictures. She used to always freeze summer peaches so she could make a nice cobbler for one of the autumn/winter holiday dinners. But she tells me the only peaches she's finding in her local grocery stores these days are as hard as rocks. 

 

Did you ever do anything with your black walnuts? Maybe you can strike a deal with those Mennonites and trade summer peaches for autumn black walnuts. I've said it before, but you've got gold in those Black walnut trees.

[Shelby]

What you're calling your cherry tomatoes look like grape tomatoes to me (oblong in shape), which I prefer over cherries. Sometimes cherry tomatoes are too big for one bite...grape tomatoes, not so much.

 

My mom would be so jealous if she saw your peach pictures. She used to always freeze summer peaches so she could make a nice cobbler for one of the autumn/winter holiday dinners. But she tells me the only peaches she's finding in her local grocery stores these days are as hard as rocks. 

 

Did you ever do anything with your black walnuts? Maybe you can strike a deal with those Mennonites and trade summer peaches for autumn black walnuts. I've said it before, but you've got gold in those Black walnut trees.

You're right about the little 'maters.  I have both kinds planted.  At first I got a lot of the cherry kind, now the grapes are prolific.  I just call them all cherries lol.

 

I'm searching my brain....your mom is out west?  I think?  Dang, it is weird that I can get good ones here and she can't

 

   I remember what you said about the walnuts and no, I haven't done anything with them.  They just fall of the tree and plop on the ground lol.  I'll try to get ambitious this fall .  I promise.

[ElainaA]

 

My mom would be so jealous if she saw your peach pictures. She used to always freeze summer peaches so she could make a nice cobbler for one of the autumn/winter holiday dinners. But she tells me the only peaches she's finding in her local grocery stores these days are as hard as rocks. 

 

 

I can hardly remember ever getting a good peach - or plum - in a grocery store. They are all as hard as rocks. The local farm stands have pretty good ones although they are not strictly speaking local - either from Pennsylvania ( I'm about 40 miles north of the state border) or from the farms north of Syracuse (about 45 miles north of me). This is the farthest south I have ever lived - I suspect much of our summer fruit is pretty wimpy compared to warmer growing zones. We do have great apples and pears in the fall though.

 

There were black walnut trees on my grandparents' farm - my mother always talked about both how much work it was shelling them and how good they were once they were shelled.

Elaina

[Shelby]

No breakfast today.

 

Right now for lunch I'm eating a chicken, lettuce and tomato wrap that promptly fell apart when I took a bite.

 

[rotuts]

speaking of small tomatoes ;

 

i used to grow tomatoes in my garden and some were cherry.  but many of them split and never really had 'tomato' taste.

 

Ive grown many kinds.

 

next year if you like, consider growing some Gardner's Delight.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=gardener%27s+delight&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CI0BEIkeahUKEwjjtu3X2abHAhXMbz4KHVhXDuw&biw=1141&bih=1066&dpr=1.2

 

they are a small tomato, a bit larger than Cherry, not so bright red as in these pics.  prolific they are and they taste like, well, tomatoes.

[ElainaA]

speaking of small tomatoes ;

 

i used to grow tomatoes in my garden and some were cherry.  but many of them split and never really had 'tomato' taste.

 

Ive grown many kinds.

 

next year if you like, consider growing some Gardner's Delight.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=gardener%27s+delight&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CI0BEIkeahUKEwjjtu3X2abHAhXMbz4KHVhXDuw&biw=1141&bih=1066&dpr=1.2

 

they are a small tomato, a bit larger than Cherry, not so bright red as in these pics.  prolific they are and they taste like, well, tomatoes.

I grow - and like- Gardener's Delight. But my favorite is Sweet Chelsea - very similar, a large cherry , prolific and very good flavor. But my usual sources (Pine Tree Gardens and Johnny's - I figure if the seeds grow in Maine they will grow here)   no longer carry the seed. If any one knows a source, please tell me! 

Edited August 13, 2015 by ElainaA (log)

[FauxPas]

I grow - and like- Gardener's Delight. But my favorite is Sweet Chelsea - very similar, a large cherry , prolific and very good flavor. But my usual sources (Pine Tree Gardens and Johnny's - I figure if the seeds grow in Maine they will grow here)   no longer carry the seed. If any one knows a source, please tell me! 

 

Stokes Seeds appears to carry them:

 

http://www.stokeseeds.com/product.aspx?ProductID=39882&CategoryID=1&checkCookies=1

[FauxPas]

Shelby, I was hoping that Newman the cat and maybe the other critters would make an appearance! Loved seeing Newman watching over those tomatoes on your counter. He's a very handsome cat. 

 

I was wondering if you have a favourite variety of cherry tomatoes? 

 

I adore your pantry storage. 

 

What do you do with all your pumpkins? 

[Shelby]

Shelby, I was hoping that Newman the cat and maybe the other critters would make an appearance! Loved seeing Newman watching over those tomatoes on your counter. He's a very handsome cat. 

 

I was wondering if you have a favourite variety of cherry tomatoes? 

 

I adore your pantry storage. 

 

What do you do with all your pumpkins? 

LOL, trust me, those cats and dogs are never far out of any picture.  They are not camera shy   .  Newman is in a pic I'm getting ready to post, in fact.  If there is a box around, the cats are in it.

 

I do have a favorite cherry 'mater variety, but I don't know the name of it.      I stupidly didn't keep track of what I bought.    

They are round and they get big--not so big that you can't eat them in one bite, but not small.  They look like a mini tomato and they taste very very tomato-y and they are juicy like a tomato.  Ronnie has been calling them Boomers...but I don't think that's right.      They actually might be the variety that Rotuts talked about earlier?

 

The pantry is very handy.  In fact the basement could be a LOT more storage if I'd get off my ass and organize and throw some crap away.

 

I am a HUGE fall decorator.  Halloween is my favorite holiday so the more pumpkins around the house and on the porches the better

 

The Hatch Chiles are here!  The Hatch Chiles are here!

 

 

 

 

When I opened the box the most wonderful chile smell filled the whole kitchen.  Makes me want an enchilada STAT.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Shelby (log)

[FauxPas]

Mmmm. I think i can almost smell those chiles! Will be interesting to see how they get used, also. 

 

And I see there is a cherry tomato variety called 'Baby Boomer' - maybe you have some of those? They sound very tasty! 

 

http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/cherry/tomato-baby-boomer-hybrid-prod003439.html

[Shelby]

Mmmm. I think i can almost smell those chiles! Will be interesting to see how they get used, also. 

 

And I see there is a cherry tomato variety called 'Baby Boomer' - maybe you have some of those? They sound very tasty! 

 

http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/cherry/tomato-baby-boomer-hybrid-prod003439.html

OH!  That could be it!  I did order from Burpee.  

 

Maybe my husband knows what he's saying after all.