The Inadvertent Farmer

Drying Tomatoes, Dehydrating How To

We are simply being over run with tomatoes...and I mean that in the very best way!

I had so many hopes of canning hundreds of pints of tomatoes but alas they all decided to ripen just when we are starting homeschool, soccer, and swimming lessons.  Not to mention all the harvesting going on elsewhere in the garden, corn, blackberries, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and more!

So I have decided to use to easy go-to methods of preserving tomatoes.

Freezing and Drying.  Today we're all about drying or dehydrating...

This can be done in warm areas outside in the warm sun under cheese cloth...unfortunately if I did this they would drown!

You can also dry tomatoes in the oven set at 200 degrees.  Either use a non-stick mat or spray cookie sheets so they will not stick.

But I'm going to use my dehydrator.

 

Start with fresh clean tomatoes...

 

Half or quarter (or smaller with BIG tomatoes) your tomatoes and place them skin side down on your oiled tray...

 

You can leave them perfectly naked or do what I do and season them lightly.  I use a custom made mix of sea salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  This takes them from delicious to simply heavenly!

Italian seasoning would be great too as well as seasoning salt or any number of spices you love with tomatoes.

 

Dry them until they are leathery but no longer tacky or sticky to the touch.  This takes a minimum of 8 hours in my dehydrator and up to 2 days if they are really big pieces.

 

I just throw them in a freezer bag.  You can also preserve them in olive oil in the frig for up to three weeks but I have no time for this...none!

All winter I will add them to soups, rice dishes, and pizza...perfectly wonderful and perfectly easy...

Just the way I like it!

 

Yellow Plum Spiced Syrup Recipe Tutorial

Its Monday and here is another recipe that I've been using lately.  I just finished the final batch of plums from my sister's.  I've spent over a week canning nothing but plums for goodness sake!

This can work for purple plums, nectarines, peaches or any other stone fruit.

8 Cups of prepared fruit

4 Cups of Sugar

1 tsp of Cinnamon

1/4 tsp of ground cloves

1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg

Wash and chopped plums...

Put it in a large heavy bottomed pot.

Cook them until soft enough to do this...

Put them through a food mill over another pot.

You end up with this sunny yellow plum sauce!

Add sugar...

Look in you handy dandy Flavor Bible and see what spices you want to put in your syrup...

WHAT you don't have a Flavor Bible?  Well if you are even a slightly adventurous cook you will love this book.  I looked up 'plums' and it gave me a huge list of ingredients and spices that go well with them.

For my jam I chose vanilla, for this syrup I chose cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg...all on the list.

I do seriously recommend this book...hundreds of pages of delicious combinations for your tummy! I did a in depth review over at Not Dabbling in Normal if you want to read it.

You can either reduce you syrup by stirring it over low heat for a long time until it is the desired consistency.  Or you can bring it up to a full and rip roaring boil till it reaches the syrup point which is 230 degrees F. or 110 degrees C.  This is the route I chose since I had a lot of plums and not a lot of time to be standing around supervising a slow simmering pot of fruit all day.

After it is cooked whisk in your spices.

Put it into hot pint jars and process in a hot water bath for 20 minutes

It is incredibly scrumptious.  The tart of the plums melded with the warm flavors of the spices makes for a rich syrup to use on pancakes, or oatmeal or even ice cream!

I love to see the itty bitty bits of spice floating so lazily around in the syrup.  If I can get a hols of some organic peaches I will certainly be using this recipe on them too!

So what is your favorite fruit flavor combinations?

Maybe raspberry with almond...or strawberry with cream...or maybe even peach with brown sugar.

Do tell and maybe I will can it!

*****

I'm also over at Not Dabbling in Normal today talking about bartering for goods and services...or how I got free applesauce this year with on little power tool!

Fall Garden Prep and Cleanup

Although we are still in full harvest mode we are also getting some fall prep and clean up done around here...

 Baby Boy is helping my in the bed that soon will cradle our precious garlic...

We LOVE garlic!

We have planted a fall cover crop in some beds while others are soon to be covered with hay and manure.  Rototilling will soon commence in a new area of the garden in preperations for next spring (in the Northwest it is way to wet to till in the early spring).  After the ground is turned I will cover it will hay and compost thick enough to discourage weeds.

Some things are still growing like mad...

I have more pepper, eggplants, and tomatoes than I can just about handle!

(Come back tomorrow and see what I make with this basket of goodies!)

There are also a few beans, lots of kale, onions, and some swiss chard.

 

The flowers are still blooming.

Some purposefully planted, some not...

 

 

We are not the only ones hard at work...

Even the yellow jackets are!

If you want more bug photos and a little story or two I'm over at Not Dabbling in Normal exploring whether yellow jackets can be considered art!

 

Of course there are the jams and jellies to be made this time of year!

 

How about you?  What are you doing to get ready for change of seasons?

Sunshine in a Jar...

One of the greatest things about gardening is geting to enjoy the taste of summer even though it is dark and dreary outside...fruits and veggies put up from your own garden are gifts you give yourself that will keep you smiling until next spring! 

 

Fruit, apricots to be exact, carefully harvested (thanks mom!), prepared with great anticipation, canned and put up with forethought and purpose.  Just so in the bleak days of winter you can open a jar and spread sunshine on your bread!

 

I got to crack open my first jar of this year's jam today...ohhhh the simple and delicious pleasure! 

(Note: I canned over 100 jars of various jams and jellies this summer... you all may be seeing a lot of jam pictures, lol!)

My Eternal Quest for the Perfect Applesauce...New Recipe

I have been making applesauce for way longer than I'm ever going to admit here!  In all those years I have tried many different variations and ingredients.  Let's see, there has been cinnamon and cloves added.  Vanilla has often joined the party.  Lemon for kick, brown sugar, white sugar, and honey have all lent their sweetness.  I even made applesauce once when I first got married that had the surprise ingredient of red hot candies , made the whole batch pink and spicy!  Other fruits have co-mingled, apricots were tangy, peaches sweet, cranberries were lovely.  Still I'm always searching for something better...yes I am a fickle sauce maker.  Here is the latest recipe in a long line of recipes in search of the perfect applesauce,

You'll need:  Apples (duh!) a lemon or two, cinnamon sticks, , whole cloves, brown sugar, white sugar, salt, water

I used:     15# of apples

                    2 lemons

                    4 cinnamon sticks

                    5 whole cloves

                    1 cup packed brown sugar

                    1 cup white sugar

                    1 tsp salt

                    3 cups water

Peel, core and cut apples into large chunks...any kind you apples you like

Put them in a big pot, add enough water to keep the suckers from sticking...this will vary depending on how juicy your apples are

Add a few pieces of lemon peel...I used 10 pieces that I removed from the lemons  in long strips with a veggie peeler

Squeeze the lemon over the pot adding the lemon juice...try not to add the seeds!

Put in a cinamon sticks  (powdered cinnamon in a can works too but I couldn't tell you how much since I always use cinamon sticks...you'll have to guess!)

Add Salt

Stir once in a while so the sauce doesn't burn on the bottom...burnt bottoms are no fun!

Cook until soft.  Remove lemon peels and cinnamon sticks and cloves.

Eat warm or cold,  can it,  freeze it,  take off your shoes and dance in it...whatever turns your crank!

Taste Test: This is one kick ass applesauce!  I don't say that lightly either since I don't usually cuss,!  The first thing I thought of when I tasted this is "this is one intensely cheery applesauce"  the lemons give it such a bright kicking taste that it is truly sprightly!  I know part of the reason for the intensity is the apples I used.  They were straight from the orchard and there were 5 different kinds and none of them especially sweet and certainly not bland...no Red Delicious are allowed in my orchard, lol!  I like apples with a snappy taste.

It is intense to the point I'm not quite sure I would sit down to eat a big bowl of it unless it was tempered with say yogurt or better yet vanilla ice cream.  Next time I might put in fewer lemon peel strips and see if it mellows  at all.  I will definately make it again.  I will can it in pints as opposed to quarts like most of my applesauce since a little of this goes a long delicious way!

Breakfast this morning, fresh applesauce, organic vanilla yogurt and a slice of homemade pumpkin bread...yummy!

If you have any wonderful applesauce recipes let me know because I have lots of apple left!

White Grape Jelly...recipe and pictures

 

This turned out almost too pretty to eat...but too yummy not to!  I love the color it almost glows a pinkish apricot color.

This is made from the grapes I harvested a couple of days ago from my old grape vines that are so neglected I'm surprised they produce at all.  They not only produce with no pruning, watering, fertilizing but they produce almost more grapes than I can handle!  I shutter to think how many jars of jelly I would have to can every year if I took care of the properly!

WHITE GRAPE JELLY...low sugar

4 Cups Grape juice

1 box no sugar pectin

2 cups sugar

Stir pectin into juice in large saucepan.

Bring to full rolling boil over high heat stirring constantly

Add sugar, bring back to boil, stirring

Boil for 1 minute, stirring

Pour into hot sterilized jars, put on hot lids, screw on rings

Process 10 minutes in water bath (approved method) or 12 minutes in steamer canner (the method I use...for jams, jellies, and fruitsauces only)

Makes 5 1/2 pints

I love how every batch is a little different color depending on the color of those particular grapes in each juicer full!

 

Over 70 jars of jelly in the past 3 days! Blackberry/Grape Jelly and White Grape Jelly. Next is applesauce!

Blackberry Grape Jelly...newest recipe experiment!

Every year I experiment with new types of jams and jellies.  I had an over abundance of both grapes and blackberries so I have tried 3 different recipes for Blackberry/Grape Jelly in the last two days.  I finally came up with the one I liked best.  It is lower in sugar so it has some 'zing' which I like in a jelly.  It has a nice firm set and a beautiful color.

Blackberry Grape Jelly

5 Cups juice (approx 1/2 grape and 1/2 blackberry)

1 box no sugar pectin

2 1/2 Cups sugar

Stir pectin into juice in large saucepan...stir well to prevent lumps

Bring to a full rolling boil over high heat stirring constantly, then add sugar

Stirring, bring back to full boil and boil for 1 minute

Pour into sterilized, hot jars.  Put on hot lids, screw on lids (don't overtighten)

Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes (approved method)  or 12 minutes in a steamer canner (the method I use but only for jam, jelly, and fruitsauces )

Makes 6 1/2 pints

Note:  you can use a higher juice to pectin ratio than in a typical 'no-sugar' recipe because of the natural pectin in the blackberries.  Just make sure your juice is at least 50% blackberry juice.

      

      

Juicer making grape juice                        Steamer working away

 

YUMMY!

Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday...but never jam today

 

"The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday...but never jam today."  Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass

 

That is exactly how I feel this time of year!  Yesterday I made jam. Tomorrow I will make jam. But is there time today to enjoy a piece of toast with jam?  Certainly not, I've got too much jam to make!

These are the grapes we picked last night...I'm guessing when I add them to the blackberries I should get at least a dozen batches of jam.  Yes I will be chained to the stove all day and well into this evening!

This winter I'll sit down next to the woodstove with my warm piece of toast and homemade jam and remember why I do this every year. 

But for today I've gotta wonder...