People keep on learnin'

As we look forward to a new season in the garden, now seems like a good time to revisit our growing/preserving from last year, see how it's held up, and consider what we might do differently.

Spring on Tres's childhood farm, 1984

Canning
Let's go in order of seasonality. First up, strawberry balsamic jam. I stand by my opinion that this is a delicious recipe, but my earlier assertion that it ended up at all jam-like was really untrue. Choosing to deviate from the recipe and keep the syrup (rather than just canning the berries) meant that it was just that, thick syrup with berries. This year, I think I'll can the berries and syrup separately. The berries will be less messy for spreading on toast, etc. and the syrup could be used on pancakes, waffles, ice cream, yogurt, etc. 

Next up are the amaretto cherries. All in all, these remained quite delicious after canning. They did get a bit softer than they were originally, so I definitely think picking them a bit under-ripe was a good choice.  I also think I'll add a little more amaretto this year, as the flavor became a bit subtler with canning.

We made a variety of  pickled items last summer - cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers in a traditional dill flavored brine and bread and butter pickled cucumbers. They all turned out quite well and have been a nice taste of summer in these root vegetable-heavy winter months. While the food processor was a nice time saver, it was hard to get the cucumbers uniformly sliced with it; I think that I might just quarter them all in spears this year, although that does make it difficult to wrangle them on a sandwich. . .

I'm really happy with how the peach butter came out this year. I think slow cooking it in the crock pot gave it an additional depth of flavor and, I won't lie, it also cut out my least favorite part of the process (standing around stirring the pot while it cooks down). I've surprised myself with how much I've enjoyed the canned peaches this winter too. I always think that I won't be that into them, but homemade really are so much better than store bought (although I will always have a soft spot for that favorite dessert of my youth, I'm not sure that I'd actively seek it out today) and a welcome treat when fruit is scarce to be had.

Ah, tomatoes. While we're not into fresh tomato season yet. I think I can fairly safely say  that (unless we go on a major binge in the next few months here) we finally canned enough tomatoes last year. Having a pretty much infinite supply (at least more than we could possibly eat ourselves) from the garden that stretched out over months definitely helped. That said, I'm not sure if we'll can as we go again this year or just do a couple of big batches. I suppose circumstances and the cooperative nature (or lack thereof) of a certain small someone will likely play a role.

Now, applesauce on the other hand, is something I could definitely have done with more of this winter. We're technically not out yet, but I'm trying to ration the six jars I have left, as I can go through one in about 3 days. What can I say, I love the stuff and I hit a certain point every winter (say February or so?) where I want to eat fruit all of the time. It would be worth considering other fruits for preservation this year, so that we can have more next winter, especially since I'll have some competition from Silas by then. The McIntosh and Cameos really did make superior sauce to the Fujis; hopefully we can get our hands on some more of those this year.

As always, Tres's sauerkraut turned out wonderfully. We didn't blog about it this year, but he followed the same method as he has the past few years, to continued success. If you think you don't like sauerkraut, you should see if you can get your hands on some that's been homemade - it just might change your life (or at least your opinion on sauerkraut).

Freezing
Wow, freezing the blueberries in jars worked out really well. They take up more room in the freezer, which can be a bit of a pain, but they stayed really fresh. I mostly used them for baking, but also made a few sauces and even ate some straight out of the jar and not only was the flavor excellent, but the texture was great too. The berries were still juicy and the skin stayed firm (none of that leathery-ness I've experienced in the past). I will definitely be doing this again next year.

I was also really happy with the cucuzzi bread (pretty much zucchini bread, but with a slightly different squash) that we froze. As someone with a serious sweet tooth, it's been really nice to have something we can just pull out of the freezer, toast, and eat when a craving strikes, or when we've run out of bread and need something for breakfast. While not quite the same as when it's fresh, this comes about as close as anything on this list to maintaining its original deliciousness after freezing (I just pulled out one of the last loaves this week, about 6 months after it went in, and it's still great).


 While the frozen dinners we put away over the summer were really nice to have after Silas was born and lasted us a good while, they weren't very impressive. I suspect it's my technique that's lacking as much as anything, but the vegetables (tomatoes and squash in particular) got pretty watery and we lost a lot of the flavor from our spices in freezing. Were I to do it again, I think I'd add fresh garlic, onion, and spices when reheating (rather than freezing them along with the rest). I'm not sure what could be done about the wateriness, other than maybe cooking it down a bit more before freezing? My biggest change, though, would be to put in the extra few minutes and skin the tomatoes (dipping them in boiling water and peeling, like when we're canning). The skins get really chewy and unappealing once they've been frozen.

Well, despite my best intentions, I have yet to use any of the eggplant I froze. Somehow, after our extravaganza over the summer, I haven't had much of an urge to use more this winter. Who knows, though, there's still time!

I've roasted, pureed, and frozen pumpkin several times in the past, so I was pretty confident in my technique this time around, but I'm still happy to report that it served us well throughout  the winter. Despite our disappointment at our poor harvest, 5 pumpkins yielded plenty of pumpkin for us this year.

 I also froze some eggs (following these instructions), in anticipation of our hens slowing down their production to molt, but molting has come and gone and the slowdown has yet to take place. I'm curious to see how they kept, so I may just use them anyway (to be clear, I only plan to use them in cooking/baking - I can't imagine they'd be anything but disgustingly rubbery if you tried to eat them scrambled, fried, or in an omelet).


Etc.
The sundried tomatoes have been a delicious surprise. They're quite flavorful and have held up very well over the winter. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is that we haven't come up with much to do with them. Tres has made a delicious pasta topping (basically pesto, but with the tomatoes instead of basil and no nuts - I'll see if I can get a recipe for it up here in the next few weeks; it's awesome) and we've just eaten them plain, but that's about it. They're so great, definitely a different, more intense flavor than the canned tomatoes and relatively easy to process, that I'd like to find more uses for them; hopefully we'll get more creative here in the months before we have fresh tomatoes back on the scene.

Phew, this has turned into quite the epic. It's also a bit repetetive, I realize, as I revisited a lot of these activities in my earlier post about the past year. I hope it was at least a little interesting - it's definitely been helpful for me, in thinking about this year.


And because this one's too good not to share:

Conked out on St. Patrick's Day with his papa's cousin William

And he shows them pearly white

I started a long post on how our various preserved food items have lasted the winter way back on  the 28th but, as you can see, have not yet managed to complete it. It's not that things are so busy around here that I haven't had the time, per se. It's more that my attentions have been elsewhere, often day and night, for the past couple of weeks. A certain someone has been hard at work on his first two teeth (one has emerged and the other seems to be following quickly on its heels), so I'm hoping to be out of the fog shortly. In the meantime, a few sweet pictures of aforementioned munchkin and the news that the first seeds are in the garden (Tres couldn't resist taking advantage of the extra hour of sunlight when he came home from work yesterday)!

 The hat is just too much, isn't it?

 He certainly didn't inherit his post-sleep attitude from me

We had some really nice weather last weekend

He never drank water, he always drank wine

From the Recipe Box

This week's recipe is also of unknown provenance to me, although I suspect it was my Oma's and came from a friend or family member. It's another one we ate regularly growing up (what can I say, winter brings out the home-y instincts in me) and that I've adapted a bit to what we tend to have on hand.

Lentil Soup (it really comes out more like a stew)

4 strips of bacon

1 medium onion, chopped

3 carrots, chopped

1/2 teaspoon celery seed (the original calls for 1/2 cup celery, which you can certainly use instead)

1 quart tomatoes

1 cup lentils

1 pound ground pork (the original recipe calls for 1/4 pound sausage, which is also delicious), browned

2 1/2 cups water

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon marjoram

1 tablespoon sugar

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper, to taste

Fry bacon and set aside. Cook onion, carrots and celery seed (or celery, if using) in bacon grease until tender. Add tomatoes, lentils, cooked meat/sausage, water, and spices and bring to a boil. Lower to a simmer and cook, covered, for about 1 hour (or until lentils are cooked).

This soup is delicious and I highly recommend it, but I will admit that it has come out a bit blah sometimes this winter. I think our tomatoes are a bit more watery this year and kind of diffused things. In the future, I might try adding stock instead of water and or adding some spices (fennel, cumin, etc.) to make it taste like I had added sausage instead of plain ground pork. On the other side of the spectrum, it's easily made vegetarian. You could make it as described (sans meat, obviously) or add potatoes to give it a little extra volume. I would recommend being a bit more adventurous in the spice department (garam masala? curry?), to make it a bit more exciting too.

Pictures of your mama, taken by your papa, a long time ago

This week, I've been working on a project for Tres and his sister, using her snazzy scanner to transfer and store all of the negatives from their childhood photos online. I'll admit that I've become a bit obsessive in working on this (in my defense, it's been too cold for me to want to take the baby out for our daily walk, so it's been a pretty quiet week), but it's been so fun to see these sweet photos. I see so many of their little expressions in Silas. It's really the first time that I've identified with the parents in these photos (or behind the camera, as the case may be) rather than the children; I'll admit that it feels a bit strange, but wonderful too. The cyclical nature of human experience has been striking me a lot lately. Anyway, enough about me, here's what you should really want to see:

LOVE this picture - look at her curious little face!

If there's anything in early resemblance,
there's little doubt as to who Silas will
grow up to look like . . . 

 He-e-e-ere's trouble

 His son makes this face all the time

We had these plates too!

What a sweetheart

If this one doesn't miss you long

for carefree childhood days. . .

little farmers

I totally want this sweater

pom pom hats!

I suspect that this won't be the last you see of this project - it's all I could do to keep myself from posting all of them (well, maybe not all - there are over 500 thus far and we're only up to January 1985 - but lots more). Gosh, they just make my heart squish. Of course, this guy does too.

Here's to March and hoping that spring is on the way!