Garden Goodness

I've decided it is helpful

{and cute at the same time}

to pick produce with a basket.

A Restoration Garden

Look what I found driving down the street the other day!

A beautifully thought out fruit tree arrangement on a historical restoration project!

Love the symmetry and the pathways.

Gave me an idea for a similar idea at my house in the side yard by the wrap around porch. It could make such a delightful courtyard sort of effect between our two houses. Will have to work around the neighbors nut tree they just planted {not sure how big it will get}. I wonder if I could get them on board, but if not, I could probably figure out how to make it work just on my own side {though I think it would look better if we both did it}.

Hmmm.... this could be do-able. I will have to think about it some more.

The Windfall

Not necessarily the prettiest of apples with all the bruises and all, but man! It made some pretty tasty applesauce!

Independence Days: Windfall Edition

The wind blew a bunch of apples off our tree at the duplex. Since our renters don't seem to want the fruit off the trees, we went and picked them up.

Luckily for us, the old yucky apples on the ground had just been cleaned up {seriously, about 30 minutes before the wind!} so all that was left for us were the freshly fallen and somewhat bruised apples.

After a slight freakout session but with support from my food storage group, I ended up canning 24 pints of apple juice and 16 quarts of apple sauce. And it tastes YUMMY!

It doesn't sound like too much, but I figure one quart of applesauce a week will last us about four months. And 2 pints of apple juice a week will last us about three months. But I probably should do more still. I mean, there are still plenty of apples left. It just takes a lot of time.

Now I'm gearing up to do pie filling with apples off my moms tree. And soon my grandpa's other peach tree will be ready to pick {hopefully he will remember to call us when they're ripe}, and last night he gave us a few pears to eat too. YUM! YUM! And once we hit the first frost the grapes will be ready to juice! Can't wait!

Salsa

I was about to give up on this whole canning business after I made this salsa, but that's a looooong story that basically boils down to inexperience, not enough tomatoes, no food chopper to make it quicker and way too much time involved.

BUT!

Even though I went through all that just for a quart and a half of salsa, it was THE BEST SALSA I have ever tasted! No going back to store brands ever after that! Not even the store bought fresh pico de gallo salsas!


Zesty Salsa

10 cups chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes (about 6 pounds)
5 cups chopped and seeded Anaheim peppers (about 2 pounds)
5 cups chopped onions (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded jalapeno peppers (about 1 pound)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
3 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups cider vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Wear rubber gloves when cutting or seeding hot peppers to prevent hands from being burned.

Makes about 6 pints

Sing This During Apple Season!

More dehydrating madness!

Zuke Chips

Thinly slice zucchini. Then sprinkle with a little garlic salt and dehydrate about a day to a day and a half. Enjoy!

They are ultra-light and tasty! Satisfies my need for something crunchy like potato chips. I'm still playing around with the seasoning a bit. My sprinkle method results in some chips ultra salty and others hardly at all. So if anyone has any other seasoning flavor ideas or methods, I'm willing to try.

Btw, thats not a zucchini from my own backyard. Still! It's so depressing! I might try this with summer squash though, at least those are growing a little bit.

Banana Chips

Well, since I haven't been able to eat anything out of my own garden yet I've turned my attention to other things. Like trying my hand at dehydrating things. These are my banana chips.

What? You've never seen red bananas before? C'mon, when I was in Brazil I learned there were more than 20 different banana varieties and these happen to be the Strawberry Kiwi Banana variety! Sort of.

I don't think an actual strawberry kiwi banana exists {though there was a banana maca which means apple banana variety in Brazil}, I made this one into a strawberry kiwi banana by dipping the slices in strawberry-kiwi jello powder before dehydrating them.

Other upcoming flavors we intend to try out include:

Cinnamon Sugar banana chips
Honey glazed banana chips
Regular plain ol' banana chips
Maybe other jello flavors

Mmmm! Tasty snacks!

The State of My Garden

Wow, I haven't had an Independence Days update in quite a while. I'd like to say it is because I have been so busy in the throes of preserving from my bounteous garden. But really its because my garden hasn't been doing much. Literally.

I mean, I don't even have any zucchini for heaven's sake! Zucchini!! That grow like weeds!!! It's been making me very sad.

I haven't been able to harvest anything from my own yard yet. Everything I've done has come from someone else's garden~~my cherries were from my mom's house, as were the apricots I just picked yesterday. But my yard? Well, I have ONE yellow squash that is growing, ONE honeydew, a bunch of peppers {they're the ones doing the best out of everything!} and my tomatoes so far all turned out like the above. I don't know whats wrong with them. But I must figure it out to try and save the rest of my crop.

~Sigh~ What's a girl supposed to do?

Cherry Business

Through the course of all this cherry business, my cute husband passed through the kitchen and asked me, "Is it worth it?". With my hands hurting from the cherry pitting business, my feet and back aching from all the standing, I almost wanted to say no.

But really, it hasn't been so bad. I've developed a strategy. Not sure if it is a good one, but it has helped me make it through the mountains of cherries. First I dumped all the cherries to soak in the sink and get rinsed off. From there I just have to take out handfuls at a time to work with.

Then comes the pitting work. I tell you, a cherry pitter makes the job sooo much easier!

Then the cherries get divided into the blender in the correct portions for jam and fruit leathers and put in ziplock baggies for the freezer with notes on how much sugar, pectin and whatever I need to know as far as the recipe goes to finish them off later.

Some go whole {but pitless of course} into ziplock baggies for the freezer for either smoothies later on, or to pull out and dehydrate at a later time.

So pretty much, I haven't canned any of them yet. I've just been preparing them. But freezing them this way has put a lot less stress on me to try and make it through them before they go bad.

And now that they're all prepped and waiting for me whenever I'm ready, I feel like baking some bread. Go figure!

Of Course I Can!

I may be up to my eyeballs in cherries right now, but I can do this!

I think I can,

I think I can,

I think I can . . . .

"Mother Nature never tolerates bare ground.
If you don't plant something, she will!
And what she plants are weeds!"

~~Duane Hatch~~

Random Thoughts

Homegrown goodness from Grandma's yard

So I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole eating in season thing. It's definitely a different way of eating than just running off to the store whenever you want, to get whatever you need, no matter if its the right season or not.

I mean it requires a lot of effort, to monitor whats growing, needs to be harvested {or preserved} and a lot of creativity sometimes to figure out what to make out of it. It's like free-form cooking, or cooking without recipes!

And I always seem to have little bits leftover that are adding up in the fridge waiting to be eaten or dealt with because it seems there is always more coming right behind it.

So I think we either eat less than I thought, or are blessed with way more abundance than I ever realized. I'm going to go with the last thought. I think we're blessed.

I'm Honored...

Verde at Justice Desserts was so kind to award me with the prestigious Arte y Pico award.

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So here's the deal:

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1. Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
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So while I agree this is a bit silly, I would like to sincerely nominate:

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Michael at Wisdom From The 42nd Page -- because I love to read about all the interesting books he posts

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Jen at In The Image -- because she is one of my best friends from high school and I love that we're back in touch through this whole blogging business again! I love you girl!

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And my following neighbors because not only do they make living around here fun, but it is exciting for me to find them online: Nancy at Welcome to Pooh's Corner, Maren at AKA Maureena, and Rachel at Brent and Rachel's Family.