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