Cooking – Page 11 – Cabin Crafted

From one type of busy to another

The heat finally broke today! I don’t think it got to 80 or just barely. We even took a walk. The past few weeks we have had Grandson 1 in residence, beginning with a basketball camp for a weekend, followed by having him here to visit and help out a bit. During his stay, we took a rail to trails 17+ mile bike ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail and took his almost 10 year old female cousin too. Another day we went to a very dry Falls of Dismal for a swim, there were still a couple pools deep enough for him to squat and immerse. Friday night, his Dad arrived for the weekend and toted down 3 kayaks on the top of his little car. Those kayaks were ours when we lived in Virginia Beach and often went kayaking, then they moved to the mountains with us and visited Claytor Lake and the New River a few times. Later those kayaks which weren’t getting much use here were driven to Son 1’s house as he could access the Shenandoah River and have gotten much use. Yesterday, those three kayaks, daughter’s two tandem sit on top kayaks and 7 of us ranging in age from 9 to 78 years old launched on the New River and floated a 5 mile section with a class 1 rapids. It was hot even on the water unless the breeze blew, but it was a great time. I enjoyed being back in the yellow boat with the yellow paddle I used to use.

The kayaks were loaded back up in the late afternoon for the trip back north today.

Before we left yesterday, Grandson helped me finish picking the peaches from our tree. We brought in a plastic tub full, most in decent shape to put in the fruit bowl, sent more than a dozen home with them, but the rest were very ripe, bruised, or had some damage. After they left, I began processing peaches. Excited that we finally got real fruit from the peach tree.

Three different peach jams were in the plan. I got the Peach Sriracha jam done and a second batch peeled and cut and realized it was time to prepare dinner for Daughter and her two kiddos who came over this evening, so that batch was doused in a bit of lemon juice and stashed in the refrigerator. After they left, the second batch became Ginger Peach jam and while it was processing, the last batch was peeled and cut and a batch of chunky peach jam was cooked and processed. The jars are all sitting on a towel on the kitchen counter until tomorrow and all the sticky peach juice has been wiped up. All three batches are low sugar jams and each tasted wonderful from the warm samples.

We will never eat that much, so I’m sure some of them will find their way to other homes. If the forecast holds true, we have several more milder days and a bit more rain that we finally got this evening, so I will tackle the two bags of tomatoes in the freezer and the bag of tomatillos and see what they become. The tomatillos will likely become Tomatillo/Jalapeno Jam and Tomatillo simmer sauce. The tomatoes may just be canned as plain tomatoes that can be later turned into pasta or pizza sauce or added to chili. I’m sure there are more tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries ready for me to pick as I haven’t harvested in a few days.

Very soon it will be time to harvest the apples and Asian pears, before the wild critters get them all. Though canning has gotten a late start this year, it will be nice to fill up the shelves for winter.

Another dry summer day

None of the predicted rain has found our farm in weeks and weeks. The grass is brown and crispy to walk on. Last weekend the temperature was mild for summer, but the heat is back. Today was HOT. We packed up the grand and headed for a location less than an hour from here that has a natural swimming hole at the base of a falls area. Depending on which sign you passed, it was either Dismal Falls, or the Falls of Dismal. The falls were so dry they was very little water going over. This is the image we were expecting.

This is what we saw.

I waded to upper thigh deep, Grandson 1 went all in. There were two pools deep enough for him to dunk all the way under by squatting down, but it was a nice walk in and back out, though the GPS took us well past where we should have been.

This morning before it got hot, I did a garden harvest, bringing in Cape Gooseberry (Ground Cherries), Tomatillos, Tomatoes, and a few cucumbers. After our trip, I decided to make a batch of Ground Cherry Jam. The recipe called for 3 cups of fruit, I had only harvested 2, so back out into the heat, I harvested another cup. I expected 3 cups of fruit, a cup of sugar, and the lemon juice to make at least two cups of jam. It only made 1 1/2 cups.

After dinner tonight, since the pot was still on the stove and still hot, I pulled out the tomatillos from the freezer, added enough to today’s harvest to make a pound and made 3 cups of Tomatillo/Jalapeno/Lime jam.

I hope the reusable lids sealed better this time.

Finally!

This year’s garden has not been the success of past years. The peas gave us fresh peas to eat, but few made it to the freezer. The first crop of bush beans provided quite a number of meals fresh and some are in the freezer and the second crop is about to bloom. I hope the bean beetles are done with their work and will let this crop grow. This morning, I pulled the dry skins from the onions to prep them for storage. About 1/3 of the crop are already mushy and will go straight to the compost pile. A handful are salvagable if I use them quickly. But there are onions to go on the hardware cloth shelf in the non climate controlled part of the basement.

Last evening after dinner, I went out to weed and harvest what I could. The ground cherries are forming and beginning to drop and as they do, they are being husked and frozen until there are enough for a batch of jam. The tomatillos are the same, forming and freezing until enough are gathered for simmer sauce and Tomatillo/Jalapeno/Lime jam. I planted determinate tomatoes this year as I started them to be controllable in granddaughter’s garden. The six I gave them failed and they ended up with indeterminate ones purchased from the nursery to have to deal with, but that means all of my tomatoes will ripen at about the same time. As they begin to ripen, they too are being frozen to make the skins easier to remove and to save up enough to can in batches of pizza sauce, pasta sauce, or diced tomatoes. The bucket was about half full of those goodies and several cucumbers. This is the first year we have gotten useable peaches from our tree. I brought in a basket full of them to eat and to make a batch of peach jam. After lunch, the canner pot was lifted down from it’s high shelf, the peaches peeled and chopped and 4 half pints of jam made. While it was canning, 3 pints of garlic dill pickle slices were packaged and they followed in the canner.

The popcorn is tasselling nicely and the squash underneath look healthy. They are a short vined mini hubbard style squash, but they are all developing long necks which makes me question whether they were properly packaged, but they are a winter squash and should keep well.

The one thing that is thriving is kale and hubby doesn’t really care for it.