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Preserving It

Busy Summer Days

Well, like everyone else in the summer, we tend to throw the household into ‘overdrive’ because so many things need to be done and can only get done when a) they are in season and b) the weather is warm and dry enough to do them. So, this week has been super busy, starting out mid-week when our eldest daughter called me when I was coming home from work to announce that a local apple grower also had sweet cherries and they were ready to pick and would I like to come along (Would I?!). In Upstate New York, the fruit schedule goes strawberries (and we are just about done with that), then sweet cherries and raspberries, then pie cherries, then early blue berries, then maincrop blues and black berries and early apples, then late blues and early peaches and plums and more apples and on it goes through the fall with apples until nearly November, when all we basically can go out and do ‘you pick’ for is Northern Spy apples which are great for baking. (more…)

Grape Jam, or My Kitchen Aid is Busted

The DH and I have been at this marriage/housekeeping thing for a very long time, but even we have not done everything. This year, I became very sensitive to the whole ‘is there no food that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it?” thing and decided that since PB&J is the “go to” lunch at Chez Siberia, that I’d make grape jam. Since we live about an hour from one of the great grape growing regions in the United States, we decided to go up this morning and pick grapes. (more…)

Overwhelmed with tomatoes?

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Garlic Update

As you might recall, Aunt Toby found some lonely little lost forgotten garlic plants last year and scrubbed out a little area and planted them.Second chances And promptly forgot them until they came back up in the spring. One of the wonderful thing about garlic is that they really are like potatoes, since you can’t see exactly what is going on; you have to just keep them weeded and watered and hope that you get something good when they are ready to dig up. (more…)

Royal Burgundy – Beans, that is

We’re pretty loosey-goosey here at KCE; Aunt Toby doesn’t tend to promote or recommend products. A lot of that has to do with the fact that what works here at Chez Siberia just might not work for readers where in particular you are. But I’m making a special case here with Royal Burgundy Beans. For those of you in the UK, I know Thompson and Morgan has a type called “Purple Teepee”. (more…)

Plum-ing the Depths

We were gifted recently with some plums from the local farmers market that was left over at the end of the day. The DH got first pick to make some plum wine (which is still percolating away in its jugs in the corner of the kitchen, under a box to protect it from the light) and I was faced with a whole lotta plum love. Invariably, a great deal of fruit or veggies arrive when I have the least amount of time to deal with them. In the old days, before Aunt Toby ‘got religion’, I’d putter along trying to do a little every night to get them done.

And a got a little done…and a lot ended up, shamefully, on the compost heap.

So, for today’s plums, because I’ve got a million things (like everyone else), I did this: (more…)

WMD: Zucchini Time

When Aunt Toby and the DH first set up housekeeping in a real house (versus their first year of marriage as students, AKA “Annus Horribilus”), we lucked upon a landlord who not only allowed us to rip up a good bit of the lawn, but also encouraged us to do so. One of our ‘challenges” was a humungous maple tree which dominated the backyard and only allowed sun to hit the prime gardening spots for a limited number of hours during the day. And being beginning gardeners, we chose things that we thought would be easy to grow: green beans, broccoli, tomatoes and zucchini.

Unfortunately, the DH’s method of making sure that we would get some zucchini, even if the only space left for the seeds was at the deepest, darkest end of the garden, hovering right underneath the maple, was to plant – six hills of the stuff. So, needless to say, by the end of the summer, we were looking for more ways to enjoy it. (more…)

Oh, Snap!! (Peas, that is)

Although I’m really someone who likes to have food put by, I’m not into just freezing or canning just to freeze or can. The point really is to produce something that you and your family are going to want to eat later on. For the longest time, I made the big mistake with freezing veggies of blanching them far too long and then when we reheated them from the frozen state, they turned to mush. Made it hard to get the Little Siberians to eat their home grown veggies in January. (more…)

Loose Ends and Housekeeping

If you are (ahem) old enough to recall the Ed Sullivan Show, then if I mention the words “Italian acrobats with spinning plates”, you will know exactly what I’m talking about. For the less ‘elderly’ among Aunt Toby’s readers, suffice it to say that this family group had a hilarious act whereby they set up poles with plates spinning at the tops and they ran about the stage, back and forth, making sure the plates were spinning and not falling to smash on the floor. The big finale was their all picking up the poles and catching the plates. Voila!!

Well, sometimes, Aunt Toby feels that way about KCE. I have to make sure to keep some of the ongoing things up in the air and revisiting them from time to time before they..well, they won’t go smash on the floor, but the story may not be fresh or interesting any longer and all of my little buggers might lose interest.

So, this post is a bit of a catch up. (more…)

Last thoughts on a Strawberry Weekend.

Getting the most out of 23 pounds of strawberries would be a challenge for anyone (unless you were doing it to fill your freezer with just strawberries), but this past weekend, during the ‘Strawberry Special’ we made it a goal to do as many different things with strawberries as we could within the confines of strawberry-ness. Which means that we froze, ate fresh, made jam and started strawberry wine but did NOT dry. Dehydration does not do a whole lot for strawberries. We’ll save that for when the cherries come in next month (woohoo!!). (more…)

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