canning and garden update

I wanted to make a batch of bread and butter pickles and some relish, but didn't have enough small cucumbers from my garden.    We went to the local "farm market", which is a shop which brings in local produce, rather than a farmers market because it's only open on Saturday morning, and the timing was wrong.   It was $8 for a small basket of pickling cucumbers and I'd need 4 baskets for the 2 recipes.  There was a half bushel for $30, which was less than the 4 baskets so of course being frugal, I got the half bushel.   

I made dill pickles.

I made cucumber relish

I made a second batch of dill pickles, these ones sliced into rounds instead of spears.

I made bread and butter pickles, my favourite!

I gave 3 lbs of cucumbers to my daughter so she could make pickles.

I still have enough pickles in the fridge to make another batch!

We have more pickles in the pantry than we can eat in a year!  I even started canning some in small jars as give aways!

Last week the blackberries started ripening. They don't all ripen at once, so it's not an onerous task.   If you leave 3 days between picking, or sometimes 4, then it's worth the effort.   This is including the fact that I neglected to weed out the nettles earlier in the season, and keep forgetting to wear long pants and sleeves, resulting in tingling legs and arms.   Anyway, I've got just over 1 kg of blackberries frozen, for use later in the season, when the weather cools down a bit for more comfortable processing.  There are still quite a lot of berries left on the brambles though, so I'm guessing several more pickings before I give up and leave the rest to go to seed.

I also pruned the tomatoes back to get rid of a lot of excess leaves and hopefully aid the fruit in ripening.   I'm not sure I cut away enough of the excess leaves though.  They are still pretty full. The plants have quite a lot of fruit on them, but it's all still very green, due to another summer of less than adequate sunshine.    I may have to buy some tomatoes just to make sure there are some canned in the pantry for the winter.   I use all of the 1/2 bushel that I put up when I have to buy them, but could easily use more.

I have herbs to dry, mainly oregano, basil and parsley this year, and potatoes to harvest.  The tomatoes are wait and see.   The cucumbers are still producing and I'm getting one or two pickling cucumbers a day, which I generally eat for lunch, along with whatever cherry tomatoes are ripe.  The zucchini is still producing, but they are just starting to get a bit of mildew on them, so they'll be done soon.   Peppers, hot Hungarian banana peppers are growing fast and furiously this year.   I will need to harvest soon and I'll likely have to pickle them for winter use too.   They are pretty delicious.  

What's happening these days?

The socks with the really yummy yarn are coming a long.   It's a waste to do them in plain stockinette stitch, but they are so soft and thin, I'm not unhappy with them.   I did the eye of partridge heel.   It doesn't fit my skinny heel as nicely as the regular old slip stitch heel, and it's fussy.   I won't be doing that heel for my own socks again.  It is pretty though, so it has that going for it.

I love the whole process with this yarn.  It has a lovely twist.  It isn't splitty.  It's soft and lovely to handle.    I love the colour.   It comes in a whole range of colours and varigated colours, which weren't in the little shop where I found this.   They had a very small selection of the Holst Garn Highland.

The tomatoes are ripening well this summer.    I've been canning them, one batch at a time.   I may not
have to do my 2 day canning marathon this year, with purchased tomatoes because every couple of days I get a canner load full and am done.   This is an enjoyable way to do it.    I've only had one jar not seal properly and it ended up on some mac and cheese (real, not boxed) for supper and was really good.

 The yellow tomatoes are a variety called Yellow Boy ( I think).    They are really delicious and work nicely in a sandwich.   My son in law has a basement set up for starting his tomato plants so I happily benefit from his generosity, when he passes some my way.  

This scarf is on the loom right now.   I pretty sure I don't like it.   The yarn weaves nicely although it's an acrylic that has a soft but a bit plasticy feel too it.    When I bought it, the store lights showed the orange as a bit more softer and toned down and not this bright pumpkin orange.   I'll weave it off as it's a fairly quick weave since the yarn isn't sticky.   I'm really not a huge fan of orange though, at least in broad stripes like that.

On top of this bright orange fiasco, I needed a tape measure quickly, so borrowed the one from this scarf.   Then I shoved it into a project bag with the socks when I was volunteering and needed some handwork.  I forgot to put it back on the loom before I started weaving again.   I didn't notice that until I had advanced the loom several times.  Now I have no idea how fabric I've woven, or how long the scarf is.

How Time Flies!

I wanted to knit a new winter toque.   The pattern called for a heavy worsted weight yarn.    I tried with a commercial yarn but it wasn't heavy enough, plus the colour didn't rock my world.   The pattern has a wide, cabled band.  I hunted through my stash and found some merino which I thought was an appropriate grist, which I'd spun worsted.  A worsted spun yarn would give really nice definition to the cables.   First, I dyed the white yarn to a mottled ecru colour.    It was nice and I liked it.   I started knitting and the cables looked wonderful.  By the time I was at the final 10 rows, I was questioning my choice.  The yarn was obviously just a tad bigger than needed, so even with my choosing a smaller size, the hat was too big.   Plus, this was a robust yarn.   My hat was really heavy!   So it's been frogged, with nary a photo for remembering it.

I made and canned salsa.  The recipe said it should thicken up with about 10 minutes of boiling.   It took over an hour.   Next time, I'll just run all the veggies through my food processor to rough chop as hand chopping took forever.  I have enough for half our winter needs though.

Apricot jam made from an 1832 recipe for Apricot Marmalade.   It's very delicious.   Apricots were crazy expensive at the market this year so it's also the most expensive jam I've ever made.   It's a good thing it's so tasty!  Just to mention that I've no problem using grocery store fruit, but I only found imported apricots this year and no little baskets or containers of local apricots.   I was happy to find them at the market.

This bowl of garden fresh tomatoes and basil became a really good marinara sauce.  I didn't peel the tomatoes though.  I just chopped them up, added some onion, garlic, parsley, carrot, zucchini, and a bit of dried italian spice.  I tossed everything in the slow cooker and set it on low.  I stirred it twice, otherwise ignoring it.   About an hour before it was done, I shredded and added the basil leaves.   I liked it as is, although hubby added some chopped leftover hamburger patty to it.  It was good day one, but it was spectacular on day two.   There are several meals of pasta sauce in the freezer too!

This is a bad photo of this year's bounty of canned tomatoes.   I ended up with 38 pints.   I actually ran out of clear jars and had to use a green glass jar, so one of the jars looks like it has ugly brownish tomatoes in it.  I'm aiming to using that one first.

Hubby has been chopping and splitting wood.  Not only did we get several loads of logs delivered, but a huge willow tree dropped a couple of branches on the neighbour's field, so he was out there cleaning up that as well.   The neighbour is in his 90's.  It really seems like there are not a lot of young independent farmers out there.

 

Filling the Pantry

 More flax has been spun and more is being spun.   I'm still spinning it as singles.  It's still enjoyable spinning.  I'm almost done another 100g bag of long flax.   It's going fairly quickly, but as I'm wet spinning it, I need to take breaks to let my fingers dry out or they get all wrinkly and uncomfortable.     I checked my container of hand spun linen skeins and I'm pretty sure I have enough to weave something.  I just need to decide what to weave.

A friend called up and asked if I wanted her excess garden produce as they were heading out on holidays, and didn't want to leave the veggies to grow too large to use.    I ended up with a ton of cucumbers, zucchini and some beans.

First, I found apricots at the market, so ended up making an 1832 jam recipe for Apricot Marmalade.  It's very yummy.  Then I made cucumber relish.   I'm still trying to decide whether to make a second batch or not.   It's a bit time consuming though.   

After the cucumber relish, I made bread and butter pickles and finally zucchini relish.  We should be set for a while.

Tomahto, Tomayto, Tomato

Over the past few years, our garden tomatoes haven't done well.   We've had droughts, blight, more blight and one year the birds and bugs got to virtually every tomato before I did.   I almost didn't plant tomatoes this year and hubby had said why bother since we rarely get to harvest any.  However, I planted 4 plants.   There was hardly any choice of varieties at the garden centres and at one place, they already looked like they were stressed and diseased. 

 Our local feed store always carries a few starter plants, with very limited varieties since they are a small store.  I was told they purchase from a local grower.  I picked up a pot of 4 paste tomato plants.  They were 90 days until harvesting, so late at ripening.   Then we had the drought and a huge issue with blossom end rot.   I dedicated my watering to the now 3 tomato plants.  I don't know where the 4th one went.  One morning it was just not there! 

some of the tomatoes harvested from this year's garden

The watering got rid of the blossom end rot.  The skies opened up and we've had enough rain to make the garden and weeds grow.  A couple of weeks ago I harvested enough tomatoes to hot water bath can 3 jars.   Thinking that the rest of the green fruit would possibly not ripen, I picked up a box of tomatoes on sale at the grocery store.  Then I harvested what I thought was a few tomatoes in the garden.   It turned out there was over 1/4 bushel of ripe tomatoes to add to my store bought bounty.

I'd purchased 3 boxes of lids last fall when they were on sale.  I hadn't realized that I'd used most of them on jams, relishes and for the little canning jar bottles of milk that end up in the guys lunch bags when they want cereal for breakfast at work. I had popped out the the local hardware store, where I regularly purchase my supplies because they are a Canadian owned store, with great service.  I had two of the employees tell me that so many people decided to take up canning and preserving this year they had no supplies left, and no idea when they'd get more in.   Hubby came to my rescue by sourcing some at another store and picked them up on his way home from a meeting.  They were expensive though at some like $4.19 a package and he brought me home 4 packages!

Tomatoes are a borderline acid food and thus with a little lemon juice added to make them safe, they can be hot water bath processed.   I've never had luck with cold pack method for tomatoes, so I use the hot pack method.  This requires heating up the tomatoes first and boiling them for 5 minutes to heat them through.  The downside is that heat and chopping start to break down the tomato pectins.  This causes the juices to release and that separation of fruit and liquid in the jars.  It's safe, just looks a bit odd in the jar.

Over 2 days, I processed 30 pint jars (500 mls) of chopped tomatoes.   Yay!

1- Scald, peel and chop the tomatoes.  Put them in a large pot and slowly bring to a boil.  Boil for 5 minutes.

2- Using a canning funnel, ladle the tomatoes into clean, heated jars.

3- Follow the modern directions for hot water bath processing.  This meant for me, adding 1 tbsn lemon juice to each 500 ml jar and hot water bath processing for 35 minutes, timed after the canning kettle came back to a boil after adding the jars.

4-  Let cool over night, remove the bands, wipe down the jars to make sure there is no residual bits of tomato and they aren't sticky.  Write the date either on the jars or lids.  Some people use sticky labels, but I find they are really difficult to remove when you want to reuse the jars.   I write the date on the lid so that I know that the lid has already been used.   Tomatoes don't need an identifier as well because they look like tomatoes, unlike miscellaneous purple jams and jellies :)

5- Store with the ring part of the lids removed  because moisture gets under the rings and can rust the lids on the inside, making them difficult to remove.   Also, if a seal isn't perfect, it will pop and you'll find it before you use that jar.   Without that seal, the contents will go mouldy and toxins may develop.  Nobody wants botulism from their pasta sauce!

Cucumber Relish Making

 It's not really the time of year to make relish.   Relish uses up lots of veggies that are in surplus at the end of the summer.  You can use those big field cucumbers because they are peeled and seeded.  You add onions, peppers, celery and even carrots, all which are in abundance in later on as well.    This one is spiced with celery seed, mustard seed, a bit of pickling spice and white vinegar.  It's really good with cider vinegar, but I was almost out.  Being a relish, it also uses sugar. However, we'd been out of relish for weeks, and sometimes you have got to do what is necessary.

We've had hot weather, too hot to do any canning if you don't have air conditioning (we don't).   Finally we had a coolish day.  Not only that, but it was grocery shopping day and there were baskets of cucumbers in the grocery store.  Plus there was local celery and onions.  I added all these items to my cart of groceries and when I got home, I started chopping.

I've chopped up a batch of relish by hand before.  It makes  a lovely chunky relish, which is pretty to see as the colours stay distinct and it is very tasty.   It also takes for freaking ever!   Since then I've generally just put the veggies in the food processor and pulsed it a few times to chop them up.   They don't retain  quite as much colour or texture but the savings of hours of standing there chopping is worth it.   I will need to make 2 more batches, so the next batch I'll run through the food grinder to see if there is a noticeable difference.


The nice thing about relish is that it doesn't take hours of cooking and stirring, if you salt the veggies first.  You layer picking salt with the ground veggies and let them sit in a colander for 2-4 hours.   All the excess liquid drains off.  You then rinse the veggies, to remove as much of the salt as possible and then squeeze them well to get the remaining liquid out.   I like using my jelly bag for this as it works the best.  Several layers of cheese cloth would work, pressing them against a sieve or even just squeezing handfuls until the liquid is out.  Beware, it looks really awful at this time and a bit grey, and mushy.

After boiling up the vinegar, spice and sugar to make a syrup, you add the ground, drained veggies and cook for about 10 - 15 minutes until it is heated through and boiling.   Add to hot canning jars, wipe the rims and add the lids.  Process in a hot water bath canner for 10 minutes, once it gets to a boil.   I have to admit that homemade cucumber relish is so totally off the scale in the delicious factor than store bought relish.  It was worth making it in a hot kitchen, just to make sure we had some for the rest of the summer.   

When canning, check out the local regulations for times and specifications.   Elevation, and local rules can cause processing time and procedure differences.


Cucumber Relish

7 cups chopped, peeled and seeded cucumbers
2 cups diced celery
1 1/2 cups diced onion
3 cups diced mixed green and red peppers
1/2 cup picking salt
3 cups vinegar -
2 1/4 cups sugar
3 tbsn mustard seed
3 tbsn celery seed
 1 tbsn picking spice

Sometimes I also add a cup of diced carrot because it adds a lot of colour.  I don't really like cooked green pepper much, so sometimes I substitute red for the green.

Gooseberry Jam

This year I actually got to the gooseberries before the Orioles and the Red Winged Blackbirds ate them all.   I've had the gooseberry bush full of berries, just starting to ripen one day and the next morning, the bush has been stripped clean.  These are green gooseberries, from an ancient bush which probably needs to be replaced.   They are quite small and the the bush quite prickly.    I'd like to replace it with a modern hybrid with those big, fat, juicy berries!     However, I was able to pick 932 g of berries, just starting to ripen, with a few of them even deep red and quite ripe.

 I topped and tailed them, cleaning the blossom and stem ends from them, rinsed and tossed them in the freezer for future use.    This past Sunday at Westfield, I made gooseberry jam on the Happy Thoughts Range, wood cookstove in the Misener house.    I found an old advertisement for the Happy Thought Range model, similar to the one in the Misener house.   The stove in the Misener house is from 1890.   It has beautiful scroll work and details on it.   This model with the water reservoir sold for between $65 and $90, depending on what sort of details you wanted.  

Victorian Gooseberry jam recipes call for anywhere from 3/4 lb of sugar per lb of fruit to 1 1/2 lbs of sugar per lb of fruit.   I pre-measured 932 g of sugar and then in a separate bag, had another 415 g of sugar, in case it was needed.    The instructions say to cook the fruit with a little water for about 15 minutes.  Then add the sugar (stirring to dissolve it completely) and cook until when a few drops on a cold plate leave a trail when your finger runs through it.   

Since gooseberries, like currants, contain a lot of natural pectin, this was a fairly fast process.   I made sure the stove was loaded up with wood before I put the jam pot on.   The berries were added to the pot with 500 mls of water and cooked for about 15 minutes, coming to a boil.   They softened and were easily mashed, releasing the little black seeds and crushing most of the berries.   A few berries remained whole, which looks lovely in the jar.

The sugar was added, stirred well.  Adding the sugar not only increases volume but draws out liquid from the fruit, reducing the pulpy look to the jam.   The jam was brought back to a boil and after another 10 minutes or so, I did the cold plate test and it was almost ready.   The next check was 5 minutes later, and the jam was perfect. 

I let it cool for a few minutes because if you bottle the jam too hot, the fruit will rise to the top rather than be suspended.  From start to finish, it took about 45 minutes to have lovely, bottled jam.  

Results:   This is amazing jam.   It has a great texture and it is so very tasty.   It is slightly tart and very fruity.   It is also a very pretty jam.  I can imagine how lovely it would look if I had more fully ripe berries.

  I highly advise people to plant a gooseberry bush in their yard.  They require little care other than occasional feeding and pruning.   It's not like you can run out to the market and pick up a basket of gooseberries around here, so it's the only way to get your own supply.

A busy weekend and a full pantry

I'd planned to go to a local SCA demo called Middle Ages on the Green and life decided to intervene.   First, the menfolk decided to start shingling the garage.   I wasn't 100% comfortable about going off to play while they were slaving away on the roof and having to cook their own supper, but I thought I could toss something in the crock pot for them, or make sure I was home early enough to solve that problem.


 Then 50 lbs of tomatoes dropped into my lap on Friday.  I knew that my play day on Saturday was to be put on hold.   After running around doing errands in the morning, I spent the afternoon and part of the evening, canning.   That was blanching, chopping, heating, crushing, bottling and hot water processing all those tomatoes for hours and hours.   Thirty seven jars later, I considered that I didn't think I did quite so many tomatoes last year.    We'll be eating tomatoes all winter!

I also had some blue prune plums, the kind with the yellow flesh and dark purple skins.   I turned them into jam as they all ripened exactly at once.   I wish I had a photo of the before and after of this jam.  The before was this ugly yellow mush with dark flecks.   As it came to a boil though, the dark flecks of the peel, started to dissolve and the plum jam ended up a beautiful dark ruby red/purple colour.  Sooooo very pretty and incredibly tasty too.

I was at Westfield again today.  I was in the Misener house, which has an awesome wood cook stove.   I was going to make gooseberry jam but after all that canning, I was plumb tired of processing.  Instead, I dug up some carrots and beets from the Lockhart garden and tossed them in a pan with a piece of beef and some potatoes.  I brought them home for dinner so that the hardworking shingling menfolk had supper, but I still got to get out and play.   Those freshly dug carrots and beets were so delicious!  It was crazy busy today at the village though, with lots of interesting people out.  The day just flew by. 

Kitty update, Victorian knitting project

Kevin and Phil made friends fairly quickly.   After about 3 days of ignoring one another, there was a day of sniffs and growls, then a day of sniffs.  That night they were playing, chasing each other around the house and general wildness.   After a day or two of hard playing, Kevin's cranky leg gets sore and he starts limping again, so he takes it easy for a day or two until he's good to go again.   If I'm not around to provide Phil with a lap to sleep on, the two of them sleep on my bed.

I made some pickles last week at Westfield, in the Misener house.   The beets and cucumbers from the Lockhart garden were ripe.   The beet recipe was strait out of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, I had to adapt the pickle recipes somewhat as I didn't have a crock to store them in.  I didn't run them through a hot water bath, so they are refrigerator pickles.

 I decided to do start another knitting project as I wanted a shawl or wrap to wear in the cooler weather at Westfield.   This pattern is in the November, 1864 issue of Godey's Ladies Book (vol. 69).  I downloaded a facsimile and was able to print out the pattern instructions.  Someone has very nicely put the instructions on Ravelry as well.  The article in the magazine says the original was made with a varigated violet and black centre and fringe with black and gold contrasting stripes.   It says solid colour yarns are cheaper than the varigated colours and natural colours are the least expensive.  You can use any weight of yarn for this and the article points out that if you use strong yarns, it is suitable for charity knitting.   This is an easy to knit, utility shawl, but it isn't mindful, careful knitting.  It's garter stitch, garter stitch and more garter stitch, with a few increases tossed in.

I was originally thinking that a cream or light grey shawl with brown and grey stripes would work nicely.   However this white tweedy yarn was on sale - super sale really, with a packet of 5 skeins for a bit less than the price of 2 skeins.   That really made the choice of colour a moot point.   However when I knit it up, the white had no life to it.   It is a cold, dull white and the black bits just looked unappealing.    So into the dye pot it went.   I decided on blue though, in an attempt to minimize the black bits.    I was going to use woad or Japanese Indigo, as I have lots ready to use in the garden, but I didn't have enough time in one stretch available.  Instead I used acid dyes and I'm pretty happy with the way the colour turned out.   I have a lovely grey marl for at least one of the stripes. I might still go with the brown for the other.    I only dyed 6 of the 10 skeins I'd purchased for this project, so I have 4 left to dye another colour, if I need one for the stripe.

Two weeks crammed into one post!

 I've been making jam.   In the middle of July, I brought home  container of strawberries, my son brought some and so did hubby.  In the end there were 4 lbs of strawberries in the fridge.   After my son made cheesecake and we gorged on a bunch, I still had enough left to make a batch of jam. 

I'd looked at our market, but the vendor from Niagara with all the baskets of fruit, isn't there this year.   We were going to do a run down to the area to get apricots, but my sweetie found some locally.  I was thrilled to be able to make a batch of apricot jam.   I used pectin and was checking out recipes.  To my surprise, the recipe on the Canadian Certo packet insert is different than the U.S. recipe on their website.  Not just a little different either.  There was more fruit and a smaller fruit to sugar ratio for the same amount of pectin in the U.S. recipe.     Presuming the product is the same, I mean it's pectin, then that means the info about making sure you keep the fruit and sugar amounts exact isn't actually that important.  Obviously you need enough pectin for it to gel with the lesser cooking time and you need enough sugar to keep the beasties away, but there must be some flexibility.   I tried the U.S. recipe.  It's fruitier, not as sweet and way better than my previous apricot jam which was good to begin with.

There is also cherry jam - so yummy.   I found some frozen cherries in the back of the freezer.  I tossed them into the food processor a bit at a time and pulsed them until they were chopped up finely.   Jam is a great use for that bit of uneaten frozen fruit.  This batch is pretty and so tasty.   The bread is gluten free from the freezer section.  It's by Little Northern Bakery and it is really pretty decent for a gluten free bread.  So much so that the two little sections in the store freezer are often nearly empty or empty of the loaves.  It is so much better than the big name gluten free bread - really so much better.

We took a day trip on Saturday.  We went to Port Stanley but just kept on driving.  It was a little too touristy for us.  Just down the road though was Port Bruce.  We parked the car and took a trip over the sand dune to the lake.   I'd taken my shoes off and ouch, the heat off the sand was unbelievable.  The sand is  quite dark in colour.   It was absorbing the heat something fierce.   I had to put my shoes back on or walk in the water, which was a little too pebbly for my tender tootsies.   However, with a pair of water safe shoes, the beach would be great.   It wasn't crowded at all, despite it being a gazillion degrees out side - hmm, maybe 30° with a humidex of something more.   It was pretty and picturesque.  The water seemed clean and I'd definitely go there for a picnic and some beach play.   The town is tiny though.  I think it had only a cafe and an ice cream stand.  

We ended up in Port Burwell where we toured the HMCS Ojibwa, a retired diesel submarine.  Most of the inside of the submarine is controlled, so despite the fact that the technology is very old, we could look but no photos were allowed.  I'm standing at the back of the boat, looking toward the front.   It was an hour long tour, which was really interesting and well done.   The tour guide had the coolest Doc Marten boots on as well.

Today, at almost stupid early, the guys came from the eco metal recycling place in Hamilton to remove our oil tank.   They were here at about 7:30 am and were gone by 9 am, along with our old oil tank.   I hardly saw them, though there was a bit of grunting and gentle cussing when they had to haul it out of our basement.   At noon, the tree service dumped a chook playground in the driveway.  There were 4 of them sitting in various spots on or in the pile of logs only 10 minutes later.  

I've been hunting around for something called Gum Tragacanth - used in candy making.  So far I haven't found any locally or reasonably close.  This will take more research...

Apple Jelly

 I checked several different 19th century cookery books for apple jelly recipes, sticking to the 1830's, since the apples came from the Lockhart house at Westfield.  Generally, jelly and jam recipes seem to be similar, in the vein of 1 lb of fruit to 1 lb of sugar or 1 pint of juice to 1 lb of sugar, but a few recipes have slightly less sugar for apple jelly.   The Cooks Own Book (1831) suggests 14 oz of sugar per pint of juice.  That works out to about a 1:1 ratio of sugar to juice.   The recipes also use lemon juice or peel.

I used 3/4 cup of sugar to each cup of juice.   The apples weren't very tart, and I was worried that the extra sugar would be just too sweet, plus modern canning info suggests that is the right amount for less tart apples.

Then they say to cook the apples until soft.   My problem was that the Lockhart apples didn't really get soft. They were hard, hard, hard and then all of a sudden, they were apple sauce, all thick and goopy and trying to burn to the bottom of my pot :(    So when the instructions said to strain off the liquid, there was no liquid to strain.  I think that if I had strained them at the above stage, when the apples were still quite firm, but a few were starting to soften, it would have been perfect.

None the less, I lined several bowls with colanders and cloths on the limited counter space.  I filled them up with the thick, goopy apple sauce and set them to strain.   It took hours.   I had 3 big bowls set up like this one, plus a small mesh strainer over a 4 cup measuring cup.   I had 4 1/2 cups of juice in the fridge before I left them for the night and by the morning I had another cup or so.  

The apple sauce then became breakfast for the chickens.

I used 4 cups of juice.   As there was a bit of sediment on the bottom of my juice container, I just strained off the clear juice and left the not so clear juice behind.   I added the sugar and the lemon juice.   While the waterbath canner was heating up, and my jars warming, I started boiling the jelly mixture. 

It probably took less than 10 minutes for the jam to set up.  I tested a couple of times but I knew when it was done because the mixture suddenly changes slightly.  The bubbling froth is somehow a bit viscous and feels different when you stir it.   I had spoons chilling on a bowl of ice and when dipped in the jelly and set back on the ice to cool, they showed the jelly was set.

I poured the jelly into jars, sealed them and popped them into the hot water canner for 10 minutes.  I figure that getting a good seal and lessening the risk of botulism is worth the time, energy and effort of the few minutes in the canner.

I got only 4 cups of jelly, plus enough to put on some toast for a snack.  It is a lovely, pale amber and quite clear, considering how much I pounded and squeezed those jelly strainers.   Better yet, it is really tasty.  Not in your face flavour like raspberry jelly, but a softer, milder flavour which hints of things autumnal.

4 cups apple juice   ( you could use unsweetened bottled juice too)
3 cups sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon

I think I want to try this again!

I almost tripped over Kevin last night.   Someone  forgot to put the vacuum hose away and since he was a kitten, it's been Kevin's favourite toy.  He still likes to sleep in it if he gets the chance.

Processing the garden

 Half a bushel of tomatoes, canned and in the pantry - yes

One bottle did a weird thing, when it foamed up with about an inch of watery, white foam at the top.    You could see the bubbles rising from a tomato core as it was cooling.  I've never had that happen before, but then I also usually put up plum tomatoes and these are just regular ones.  Still trying to find an answer but I tossed out that jar of tomatoes, just in case.

 Cutting old t-shirts into continuous rags for rug weaving - yes

Without even bothering to cut up anything but the body of the shirt, each t-shirt yields about 15-20 yards of continuous rug weft.   I think it is well worth the bit of time and a great way to re-use old, worn t-shirts which would otherwise be trashed.   But, we don't wear out our t-shirts fast enough to keep me in t-shirt yarn, so unless I can convince others to save them for me.......

Making apple jelly - yes, maybe?

Yesterday I picked some apples from the Lockhart farm house at Westfield.   I picked a bit over half a grocery bag full, which is all I could reach.  Today I have chopped them up, with the intentions to make apple jelly.   You know the instructions for processing the apples for both jelly and home made pectin are remarkably similar.   Guess what I seem to be getting? 

I will wait for the end results after hours upon hours of endless dripping of the cooked apples before doing a more complete post on what hopefully will be focusing on success and not what looks to be shaping up to a complete turn around on my results.

Just sharing

 I've been taking a bit of a break from washing the new fleece.  Well, I took a few days off from washing.  I've been spinning it up.  It is lovely to spin.  I've processed it several ways including combing, hand carding, drum carding, and flick carding.  My favourite so far has been drum carding the flick carded locks.  Just opening the locks a bit manually, sort of fluffing them out a bit before drum carding is almost as nice.    

I have 2 weaving projects in the works.  One is some woven scarf blanks for a woven shibori dye day that the guild is having and the other is some yardage for a sacque coat or cloak.   However, I am not sure I have quite enough yarn for the latter.   I was sure I had calculated it when purchasing it but now, I am really uncertain that I have enough for the needed yardage.   I had planned a plaid pattern, so running out would indeed be a minor disaster, since I cannot get anymore of this particular yarn.

 We were driving to a nearby city the other day for an appointment and I noticed a roadside stand that said they had cucumbers.  Usually this time of year, it is only hot house cucumbers and a few field cucumbers left.  But I decided that we needed to stop by on our way home.   They had the last of the pickling cucumbers there, so I was able to whip up a batch of relish.  
They also had Russet apples!  Tart, green, with leathery skins, I haven't seen them in several years.  They had only tiny baskets but one came home.  If I could have gotten a much larger basket, I would have made applesauce.  They make the absolutely best applesauce!

 Knitting this beast of a sweater in August and September was very slow, sweaty work.  When it was really warm outside, it was just too uncomfortable to knit more than a few rows at a time.   I seem to be making much better time now that it is cooler outside.   I may have made it a size too large though.   I'm living with it, since I have absolutely no desire to rip it out and start again.  It is supposed to be a generously sized sweater anyway.

This is my son's hobby.   Every once in a while he brings home a shrub, buys some tree seeds or finds a seedling to dig up.   He trims roots, re-pots and prunes.   I daresay soon there will be a forest of Bonsai trees sitting on my deck during the summer and hibernating in the sunporch during the winter.  It is pretty cool though.

Preserving for winter

This week I've canned tomatoes.  I use the recommended hot pack method.  I only did up 1/2 bushel this year.   Canning is pretty easy, although time consuming.    A lot of time is spent blanching and peeling.

  I also did a single batch of peach jam. We don't eat a lot of jam so one batch will last us for the whole year.  I process the jars in a hot bath canner and the fruit starts to float.   I haven't found a way to stop that from happening yet. 


Last year I had been given a whole bunch of excess produce.  I tossed 5 cauliflowers and almost 10 lbs of carrots in the freezer.  Then carrots went on sale for super cheap, as they tend to do this time of year and I put another 20 lbs in the freezer.   I'd never bothered to freeze carrots before but found them incredibly convenient last winter after my hip replacement.   When they went on sale this week, I put 20 lbs in the freezer.  Not really a money saver but a huge time saver on those busy days.

 Beets were also on sale.  I didn't have many from my garden this year so I was happy to find them at the store for such a good price.  Nobody else in the family really like beets, so I froze a bunch in small packages and the rest I pickled, mostly in smaller jars.  This way, I can get my beet fix and not have to waste any.

I am almost out of freezer space!