Category: in the kitchen

homesteading, in the kitchen, Seasons

My Weekend

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I have a small problem with stubbornness. I plan to do something and by darn I’m going to do all of it. Even at the expense of, well, health and sanity. Which is why I spent Sunday stumbling around the house in a fog of exhaustion. Because apparently I don’t have the good sense to not start something at 5pm. Saturday: one batch of Pear+Ginger Preserves, one batch of Pear-Apple Sauce (using up the rest of the fruit from the backyard), freezing three bundles of spinach, and one batch of spicy Chinese Plum Sauce. It’s not Can-o-Rama by any measure. …

homesteading, in the kitchen, Seasons

Harvest Time

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These are not my tomatoes: Or rather, they are now. That is, I didn’t nurture these beauties. But my neighbors moved out and I rescued their tomatoes before the landscapers came through to ‘tidy up’. Isn’t it sad that productive vegetables aren’t considered a selling point in real estate? It’s harvest time in these parts. My tomatoes aren’t producing quite like these were, but I’m bring in a handful every couple of days. There are pumpkins on the vine and it looks like I might get a handful of green beans after all. (My garden is punishing me for going …

in the kitchen, Seasons

What to do with even more cherries?

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So, the cherry tree has out-done itself this year. I’ve gotten all kinds of comments from neighbors this year. There were so many cherries that if the tree wore a blinking neon sign, it couldn’t have drawn anymore attention to itself. What does one do with about 20 pound of homegrown cherries? Well, I put a bunch in the freezer for crisps and such. I made a batch of brandied cherries, since they sounded good. (They are!) And I made a batch of “Holiday Cherries”, which are basically an alcohol-free version of the brandied cherries, with warm spices instead. Prepping …

in the kitchen, Seasons

Summer Journal: Cherry Preserving

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A few years back, I put some Bing cherries in our dehydrator – you know, for science – and I’ve been drying cherries ever since. Uber-yumminess! They make great snacks, easy to grab on the way through the kitchen. I put them in granola and gorp, too. This is the first year that Caitlyn has gotten involved in the madness that is prepping 20 pounds of cherries for the dehydrator. That may have a lot to do with this being the first year that the box of cherries arrived at the house before dinner-time. Using the cherry pitter, naturally, was …

homesteading, in the kitchen, Seasons

Summer Journal: Strawberries

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Some people (I’m looking at you, elsie marley) can take a camera when they go strawberry picking and somehow get fun pictures of their kids picking/eating strawberries without (I assume) making a mess of the camera with their own strawberry-covered fingers. I know this is a skill I don’t have, so I didn’t bother with the camera. You’ll just have to imagine: A day that was forecast for rain and then didn’t… A field of strawberry plants, just to the right of the teeny tiny Christmas trees… Caitlyn and her friend actually filling their buckets, instead of bringing us 4 …

homesteading, in the kitchen

Pantry Inspection

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Once the farmers’ market starts up around here, it’s time to review the pantry. What’s left of the things I put up last summer? What did we run out of and what are we still eating? Do the storage goals for this year need to be adjusted? Will I be able to defrost the chest freezer before it’s time to start putting new things in it? I seem to recall that in previous years, this process usually produced a surprise or two. Dried carrots aren’t good for much more than soup, for instance, and that only grudgingly. Bing cherries are …