Cherry Time

In addition to my quilting addiction, I am also slightly obsessed with canning. Commercially canned food is easy to buy and it's so much cheaper than I can make it using all fresh, locally grown produce, but for some unexplainable reason, I enjoy the home canning process. 

Jam is my favourite thing to make and this week I made some delicious cherry jam. There are a range of fancy tools available for pitting cherries, but I still use my mother-in-law's old cherry pitter. After pitting a few cherries your thumb starts to sting and after you pit enough for a batch of jam, your thumb is really sore from moving that plunger up and down. But it's only once a year, so I power through. But next year I'm going to try this youtube method which looks too good to be true!


This batch resulted in a jam maker's disappointment called "fruit float". The consistency is okay (even though I never add the recommended amount of sugar), but perhaps I didn't cut the cherries small enough? Oh well, it tastes great and that's the main thing.

On the same day as I was pitting and canning cherries, I was hand quilting a cherry block for my Life is Beautiful quilt. 

What are the chances of that?!?

And now... for your smile of the day, hop over to quilt historian Barbara Brackman's blog post about the "alarming trends" she has noticed - click here.

Canning

I haven't written much about my canning efforts this year, because there hasn't been much effort put forth! In past years I have done a lot of canning, including trying dandelion jelly. It was not popular and eventually I had to throw it out since everyone refused eat it. Go figure!
I picked up 2 baskets of peaches at the market and when we couldn't eat them fast enough I decided to make some jam.


Even though I was a bit out of practice, it turned out just the way I like it... not too sweet, not too runny, with lots of chunks of fruit. 4 cups of chopped peaches made 5 1/2 jars of delicious jam. Unlike the dandelion jam, this batch is being devoured!

Sewing and Canning

Thank you to everyone who commented on Monday's blog post about the Christmas quilt. I got some good ideas, and decided to keep the "loud" mug in the quilt. 
I moved it to the bottom corner block and have proceeded with sewing the quilt top together. 

The kitchen has been busier than the sewing room around here this week. Night frosts are killing the plants, so all the garden produce needed to be cleared out. I made Zucchini Salsa and it turned out great. I can not tell you how satisfying it is to make something yummy, using only the vegetables I have grown in my garden...zucchini, onions, tomatoes and peppers. I also found these dissolvable labels to try this year, so I hope they are easier to remove from the canning jars than the labels I usually have to scrub and scrub and scrub to remove.

Gardening and Jam Making

My garden is finally planted and if we get some good sunny weather, the seeds might not all float away! I buy my organic seeds from Hawthorne Farm (click here for a great article about buying organic and local). This year my garden has 2 kinds of cucumbers, zucchini, 3 varieties of tomatoes, peppers, beets, carrots, 2 kinds of beans, onions, and snap peas. 
I am hoping for a better harvest this year...with less feeding of the local rabbit families and more feeding of my family! I built a bit of a fence to discourage the rabbits from using my garden as a restaurant, so I'll let you know how it goes. So far, so good.

We have eaten up almost all the jam I made last year, so I am in production again. My first jams of the 2012 summer season are strawberry rhubarb and are very yummy if I do say so myself!
I am really enjoying this great book that my cousin bought for me in a second hand bookstore. I read it at night and dream about all the recipes I am going to try this year...well, when I'm not dreaming about quilting patterns that is! And of course I am just dying to try a recipe I found on line for dandelion jelly!
What are you preserving this year? Any good recipes to share?

Apple Time

Every October I renew my love affair with apples. They are so fresh, crisp and cheap at this time of the year. And because I have braces on now, I can't bite into a yummy apple for a while! So I have been experimenting with some apple recipes that will allow me to enjoy the fall apples throughout the year (while not damaging the braces!)

First I made Judy's Caramel Apple Jam. It was yummy but even the kids thought it was too sweet. Maybe I used the wrong (not tart enough) kind of apples?


Then I made a batch of Judy's Apple Butter which is cooked in the crock pot and made the entire house smell delicious all day. I really cut down the sugar this time and used a little more than half of the recipe (2 cups of brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar). Just perfect! I could even sip this treat through a straw if worse comes to worst!

Garden Report

The weather here has turned cool, we've had our first frost of the fall, and the garden is almost finished. The carrots that the rabbit did not steal are still to be harvested, but everything else is done. I enjoyed the location of the cucumber plants this year...they extended themselves to climb the cedar hedges at the back of our property and it was fun to see the cucumbers hanging in the bushes.
Perhaps because of this ideal location, I had a ton of cucumbers to deal with. I tried a new icicle pickle recipe - click here to see it. We haven't tasted them yet, since they need to sit for a while, but I obviously didn't pack them properly in the jars...look at all the empty space on the bottom of the jars!

With the remaining cucumbers I used a Bernardin recipe for relish. It's a little sweeter than I like my relish to be, but the kids love it!
And in one of my random blog tours I found a post for canning potato soup mix (click on this link for "Likewise Ye Older Women" for the recipe) that I want to try out.

Blueberry Report 2011

It's time for my annual blueberry report. This year I went to the blueberry patch twice...once with my mother-in-law and daughter, and once with my brother and a friend. We enjoyed wonderful visits in the blueberry patch and we picked about 60 pounds of blueberries at $2 per pound!
When we came home I couldn't help myself and made up my first batch of 2011 jam. Half of the jars are pure blueberry jam and half are peach-blueberry jam. We haven't finished our  2010's jam yet, so why am I making more jam when it's probably cheaper, and definately more convenient, to buy commercially produced jams?
Reason #1 - I love blueberry picking! It's a relaxing and enjoyable outdoor activity, and it's quality visiting time with your fellow pickers...especially with my 86 year old Mother-in-law. She is her "best self" when she is blueberry picking, and we enjoy great conversation about her life and her family history while picking. She is a great berry picker, so we now have mountains of berries and I have to find things to do with them...jam, muffins, cakes, cobblers, pies, etc!

Reason #2 - I love blueberries! They are one of my favorite foods and the health benefits can't be beat! I put these 13 bags (each with 4 cups of blueberries) into the freezer for us to enjoy over the winter.
Reason #3 - I love to cook things from scratch. If I didn't work outside the home, I would make all my family's food from scratch.  When I make jam, I know every ingredient that goes into it. 
Fruit is the number #1 ingredient ...not sugar, or other weird ingredients and additives (have you seen this video about "blueberry products" that have NO blueberries?!) I think my jam tastes better and is healthier for us to eat. 
Anybody else out there an obsessive jam maker?!? If you have a good recipe to use up blueberries I'd love to try it!

Canning Efforts

I forgot to give the 2010 blueberry report...these are the baskets that I picked with a friend on one outing. I also went briefly with my daughter, but the mosquitoes were eating her up faster than we could pick the berries, so it was a short visit. (NB...not a single bite on this old girl's tough hide!)
I made a few batches of blueberry jam and one batch of blueberry rhubarb jam that turned out really yummy!
With that success, I tried a peach jam which was very disappointing. The fruit settled on the top and it was too runny and too sweet for my tastebuds.
However, I carried on with my goal of trying new recipes and made some pickled beets. I loved the process of skinning the beets, but I didn't love the taste, so I'll be on the look out for another recipe for my beets next year.
Then I tried a "summer salsa" with jalapeno peppers, red and green peppers, tomatoes, onions, peaches, pears, cilantro, and mint...all of which looked really pretty in the crock pot. It took several hours of washing, slicing and chopping the fruits and veggies to make this concoction.
But after all that work, it only made 3 1/2 jars of salsa, and as you can see, 1 jar has already been eaten! It was a real hit with my family, but I'm still thinking about whether it is worth all that time and effort.
Here is the result of my canning efforts that will be going to storage in the basement this week. I still have to deal with tons of zucchini, a few more tomatoes, and I haven't touched the carrot patch yet.

Tons of Tomatoes

I was so excited when my tomato plants started to do well this summer, especially since the rest of my garden was really struggling/dying. The tomatoes ended up taking over most of the garden and are now totally out of control! We have bowls of tomatoes to content with and I have tried many different recipes to use them up.

I tried making Salsa, which my family decided contained too many other vegetables - I was trying to sneak that past them! And they decided that it wasn't spicey enough to suit them. Hmmm...I might give it another shot this weekend. I made my favorite bean dip recipe with lots of tomatoes and that went over really well.

And I have made tomato quiche, which the kids flat out hated.

Okay, okay...here's the problem. I keep adding ingredients that the recipe doesn't call for. In quilting, I call that "making it your own" and "being creative". In cooking, my family begs me just to follow the recipe!!

Here's a photo of the tomato quiche...but I added spinach, feta cheese, peppers and a little leftover ham. I think that sounds delicious, but sadly, most of it is still sitting in the fridge!!

I hope to try Libby's Tomato Basil Pie - the recipe is on her blog (on September 15th) "A Simple Girl". Anybody have any good tomato recipes I could try??? I promise to follow the directions as written!!!
*Latest News*

Guess what happened last night when I went out to the garden to collect more tomatoes?!? This guy was guarding my plants!

Yep...it's a skunk! So I called the Mr. Animal Control guy and thankfully he came out "after hours" to help us with this problem. Mr. Skunk wasn't moving around, just laying there, but did not appear to be injured. We wondered about the possibility of the skunk having rabies. When Mr. Animal Control guy approached, Mr. Skunk 'sprayed' towards him, but not in the direction of my tomato plants! Eventually the skunk was chloroformed and wrestled into a bag...I didn't ask what would happen to Mr. Skunk since I didn't really want to know. The tomato patch is still smelling pretty 'ripe' today!

Other Creative Pursuits

Unfortunately I haven't done much quilting lately. I look forward to my kids going back to school next week and getting more time in my schedule for quilting.

During the Olympics I did do some stitching and finished my 7th Capricorn Quilts block and am now only 2 blocks behind. If the coverage wasn't so interesting, I'm sure I would have accomplished a lot more!

I did work on some creative culinary projects. I made peach jam with the leftover peaches from the market. It didn't turn out as good as my blueberry rhubarb jam, which my friend Judy calls "Blubarb" jam! This jam was a lot runnier...but does taste good.

I also made a blueberry coffee cake from Tanya's blog. It did not look anything like her cake, since I put almonds on the top (a favorite with my family) but it sure tasted yummy and was eaten up in no time. My family is always so thankful for anything I cook and I wish that I enjoyed it more and would do more of it. But I'd rather be quilting...or holding a baby!

And speaking of babies, a friend and I took a quick road trip to Michigan to see our friend's new baby. I talked about this miracle baby in this post about the baby quilt I made her. And here is baby Laura sleeping so peacefully and I must tell you, as an unbiased honourary Auntie, that she is perfect and absolutely gorgeous!

Here is a picture of me and Laura taken at about 11:30 pm in dark "please go to sleep" lighting, after a 6 hour drive! So I'm not looking real perky, but it reminds me of the hours I spent cuddling and singing...hey, maybe that's why she wasn't sleeping?!?!?!

Little Miracles

Yesterday was such a beautiful summer day here in Southern Ontario so I took the opportunity to head out to the blueberry farm. Blueberry season is a little later this year and I always go out to pick with whomever I can drag along with me. Last year I took my sister and her girls (see here). I used to make the kids come along when they were younger, but they flatly refuse to come now...too early for teenagers to roll out of bed!
I learned the love of picking blueberries from my mother-in-law. It has always been one of her greatest pleasures in life to pick berries and since she is 84 years old, it is getting harder for her each year. Considering we thought she might die last fall and she spent about 2 months in hospital too weak to even walk by herself, it was a miracle that she could be here this summer to pick blueberries. Here she is, sitting on a stool picking the low berries, and I picked the higher ones. This photo makes me smile because even though it was hot and I was sweating, she has a jacket on so she won't catch a chill! I picked 17 litres of berries and she picked about 6 litres to share with the other seniors in the facility where she now lives.
I find that I am getting more like her every year (shudder) and this year she has convinced me that I can make jam. Now, I come from a long line of domestically challenged women, so if I could actually make a tasty jam, that would be the second miracle for the day!
Secretly I have always wanted to be a jam maker/domestic goddess. I love all types of jam but my husband is very specific about the only jam he will eat (Smuckers Sugar Free). I know he won't eat this stuff because it has 4 cups of sugar in it, but if it turns out to be good, I'm sure the kids and I can polish it off in no time. I just made the refrigerator version since I don't know anything about how to seal/sterilize jars properly (that is next on the list of things I'd like to learn).
And here is the finished product...after hours of work...
ta da...7 jars of blueberry rhubarb jam made from rhubarb in my garden and berries I picked in the morning. My official taste tester told me "the flavour and texture and colour are perfect"!! I was so happy!! It really is a great feeling of accomplishment....unlike sewing borders on quilts!!!