Jay's Jammin'

Momma sez ” Get busy!”  I haven’t posted for a while, I get to reading blogs & all kinds of articles.  Over the last few weeks I did manage a Minestrone soup,

Breaking in the new Rio soup bowls

the recipe of which is lost in the mists of time. All I recall is,  it had kale, bacon, potatoes and small sea shell pasta. The pasta was in place of canellini beans. I did learn something though, cook pasta separately and add to bowl at serving time, otherwise leftovers set up like glue.

One last batch of jam made was Cinnamon Cranberry Jelly.  Now comes the fun part, giving it All away!

Spent today cutting at some branches that blew off the trees out front. Larger pieces will go to Steve’s wood pile, smaller one to chipper for composting and mulch.

Sign of the times, the tractor goes in for transforming from mowing & towing to snow-blowing & towing on Monday

UPDATE:  With Momma’s help the recipe is FOUND!! I did change the beans to seashell pasta though.

My nephrologist says I must take a drug that comes as a chewable tablet. For reasons relating to teethe I can’t chew them, so she said to crush them and sprinkle them on applesauce. 4oz per meal, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year =4108 oz per year. Do you realize how many quarts of applesauce that is?  128.37500!!  I’d better get started.

But First

Clean this mornings mess from making cheese biscuits

Expert messmaker in action

First time making this recipe, not bad, needs work.  Still tasted good.

Now to the apples, we started with 3/4 bushel.

It went so well we got another bushel

It was actually 1 1/9 bushel box

It came to 24 quarts and 10 assorted small jars.  We’ve got a ways to go.

Ain’t it purty?  Rob and Sonya came over last Sunday and helped plant it. My soil is so hard we had to use the Mantis to loosen it.  Then I added some compost from the squash planter barrels and mixed with soil from the hole. Right now it is tied to the old clothesline pole.  I will move it down to a wire  and trim down the posts.

Pretty healthy

It should do well, i’s only one year old and already has grapes on it!

Rob and Sonya came over today to help do most of the work planting the grape vine.  Pictures to follow.

The other day we took some of the grape jelly over to Sonya’s. After talking for awhile we got ready to leave, her husband Rob offered me a grape vine.

Waiting for new home

He’s coming over later to help plant it.

We also took some jelly next door to Phylis, she asked if I needed any apples as she had just picked a lot off her Northern Spy tree. Me? Turn down future applesauce. We made 9 quarts and 1 pint of sauce. …

Picked up some green beans, garlic and dill from McDaniel’s yesterday and made 15 jars of  Dilly Beans.

Peeling garlic

There is a lot of cloves in a head and I had bought 4 heads. We use it slowly so I put the extra in a jar covered in olive oil. It’s safely stored in the freezer.

Safe from botulism

Cutting to fit jars

Dill, fresh off the farm

Lookin' good

Now to plant the grapevine, take jars & equipment down to the nether regions and rest.

Sonya asked us the other day, the price was right , so we said yes. Uh Oh!

All told, 1 full bushel

5 Hours of rinsing and stripping the bunches.

Manly hands, so gentle

Manly hands, belly, suspenders and OXO food mill

Wait a minute, wheres Momma?  Holding the camera!

Floating grunge that clogged the jelly bag

So much so that this 4 gallons of juice clarified to 30 cups

I must find a better way to juice grapes, this is too much waste.

Straining juice

Results after 24 hours

Finally 50 jars

All right! 16.jars spiced grape jelly and 34 of grape jelly

Couldn’t resist these over at McDaniel’s, hand chosen by Patty.

Really nice!

Momma tried the new peeler right away when we got home yesterday.

WOW, and no need for blanching

Momma tackled the 1/2 bushel and had them all peeled befor lunch.

No muss, no fuss

The ones she was looking for and the bottom of the basket

And DONE, 25 pints

What vacation?  Momma decided she wanted to can some plain(?) peaches, so off to McDaniel’s again.  We picked up a peck of nice Red Havens.

Love that Thin Skin Peeler!!

While there we decided to do some tomatoes.

Patty knows how to pick'em

We’ll do these Sunday, They’ll be salt free and Mexican flavored. After I get som Litmus paper to test acidity.

Turns out I didn’t need it. I called the farm & found out the tomatoes were the same canning variety they’d been growing for a long time, onward!

Readying for the canner

Every burner going, medium syrup, 2 canners and kettle for heating lid water.

I need more burners so I can sweep the floor at the same time

And the final product is…

Beautiful, aint they?

Now to heal my sprained arm from Momma twisting it to keep me from adding ANY spice.

Thank goodness the freight elevator is still working fine after 12 years.

This elevator goes down and around...

...to The Vault

The Goodie Cart awaits

About to leave the light of day

Jams & Jellies

Hot dog relish, pickled beets, pickles, various chutneys, pie fillings,

Cinnamon Pear and Peaches, jars, pots, peelers and The Squeezo

Pots and Tools go on vacation

Project for this weekend, clean these out

Tomatoes and peppers finished

Cucumbers and squash drying up

The trimmings, leftovers, dead plants, egg shells and other biodegradable waste will go here.

11 years old and stilllooks and works good

If I can crank it over it makes compost in3-4 weeks. I’m trying to work out how to motorise it.

This session ends with the last of the ground fallen pears going into Cinnamon Pears, 7 pints worth. All those last products took all day because the pears were small, gnarly and hard to peel even with the new peeler.