Whirlwind

These last few weeks have been a whirlwind and my appreciation for ladies in my grandmother's and great-grandmother's generation has grown immensely.  The shelf above my kitchen cabinets are full of lovely canned goods from home grown produce and many mornings spent preparing and processing all of the fresh goodness from God's great earth.  But these cans being stored are not being done out of urgency that what we canned will be what we eat for the winter, as I'm sure my grandmother and great-grandmother experienced.  I cannot imagine the countless hours of work and preparation they did in the summer to prepare for winter.  Amazing, hardworking women of those generations, for sure.

Maybe I went overboard.  Probably.  Most likely.  Yeah... I have a produce buying/picking problem.

Justin he has been such a loving husband as he has put up with my buckets of tomatoes or apples or grapes all around the house.... and onions hanging in panty hose in the garage and tomatoes lining our windowsills.  And the swatting of fruit flies because of it all.  And endless amounts of basil pesto making and salsa making and the sound of the canner processing away on the stove with an endless bounty of dirty dishes in the sink.

He has only made fun of me a few times and laughed when I had most of the kitchen covered in grape juice/pulp after a juicer explosion.

Yes, he loves me still.  What a guy!

The following is a run-down on what's been going on...

Peaches:  

• Purchased a box of peaches {yes, a box, not just a few, an ENTIRE BOX} at a Colorado Farmer's Market on our drive home from Estes Park, CO after a family vacation. 
• We ate a bunch, made peach crisp dessert, and ate even more peaches.
• After getting tired of just eating them, a sugar syrup was made, the peaches were skinned, sliced and canned.   6 pints worth.
• A bunch of peaches still left.... let's make peach preserves!  Turned out delicious... 9 half pints made.
• Thank the Lord the peaches are all gone.  :) 

San Marzano Tomatoes:

• Was at the local farmer's market with the little boys just browsing around... saw a box of San Marzano tomatoes... the same ones I am/was/trying to grow to make spaghetti sauce with. 
• Bought 2 boxes.  
• Used my fresh herbs and bell peppers and onions with the tomatoes to make a bunch of cans of spaghetti sauce!  
• Did that ever wear me out! 

Apples: 

• Saw an ad on craigslist one afternoon, a lady posted that she had 2 big apple trees with tons of apples and anyone could come pick, and only a mile from our house.  
• Called her, loaded up the boys, got my buckets and off we went.
• The boys played with her little boy on their swingset while I picked 2, 5-gallon buckets of apples.  {again, WHAT was I thinking?} 
• Justin arrives home later that evening and laughs at my buckets of apples at the bottom of the stairs.  
• 6 quarts worth of apple pie filling; 7 1/2 quarts of applesauce; and 1 1/2 quarts of apple juice later... and I never want to peel or slice an apple again.  

Grapes: 

• Went over to have dinner and a movie at a friend's house (she was living with her grandmother), before she headed off to graduate school this August.  Noticed many a grape-vines trailing the long fence in her grandmother's backyard.  Asked if she'd like some help picking grapes and told her I thought it would fun to make some grape jelly.  
• She calls, we set a date, and Justin comes too.  We told her we'd prune back the grapevines as we picked (her husband had just passed away a few months before and he's the one that always dealt with the massive grapevines).  We picked two, 5-gallon buckets of gorgeous purple Concord Grapes.  Gave a bucket of grapes to her and we kept the other.  She gave me the run-down on how to prepare the grapes to get the juice to make jelly.  Seemed simple enough...... 
• Enter the FUN part--   
• Pick every single grape off the vines.
• Wash grapes, process in food processor, then simmer in large stockpot for 10 minutes or so to get the juices going good.  
• Push through food mill to extract juice and eliminate pulp and seeds.  
• Strain through cheesecloth--- no one said it was going to take FOREVER!  I read later that most people stop there, and put it in fridge to let it continue straining overnight.  I wasn't patient enough.  
• Justin ran to thrift store, we thought a juicer would be better.  
• $4 juicer = old = doesn't work so well = grape juice splatters out everywhere = tape paper towels around spray zone and keep going.  
• Finally finish juicing the grapes and ended up with 1 gallon plus 1 quart of grape juice.  
• Make 2 batches of grape jelly (that was the easy and fun part) = 18 half pints of jelly
• Process 3 quarts of jelly in canner to save for later jelly making.
• Make a sugar syrup with some water and add to the last pint of juice and we all drink it.  
• VERY VERY thankful the grapes are DONE!  What a mess that was. hahaha!  
• The grape jelly is amazing though, talk about a labor of love!  Whew! 

No more produce buying or picking for me... I'm done!  Though the basil is still running rampant and I had to make another big batch of pesto today and I really need to make another batch of salsa. Our cherry tomatoes plants are producing like crazy.  In 3 days we probably picked 8 cups of cherry tomatoes!!  Still the carrots and potatoes need to be pulled; the other herbs need to be picked for drying; the green beans are still producing... the frost will kill everything soon enough so I better just keep trucking along.

Between being 7 months pregnant (8 weeks away from the due date already!!) and my legs aching and the shortness of breath from this little one taking over my torso space... the gardening stuff has me beat.  I will be glad when it's done this year.  

Thankfully I've had a great helper and I'm sure he's glad gardening will be over soon too.  These grasshoppers scare him silly! 

Summer days

These summer days we are soaking up the gorgeous weather and having some family time... finally! Paul and Josiah are always entertaining us. Paul loves to sit up now. He will sit and play with toys for a while and he watches what Josiah is doing.

He gives me this look when I put him on the floor... like 'no way mommy do I want to crawl'. I think he will go from sitting up to walking, I'm not sure he'll ever even try to crawl!

We've been spending a lot of time outside, as evidenced by the 4 of us all having sweet farmer's tan lines. The garden is growing good and I have had a superb little helper. The green bean plants have flourished and produced a nice bounty of beans. So far Josiah and I have canned 14 cans of beans! He loves snapping and washing them, and putting them into the cans for me.

When he sees me pulling the beans out of the refrigerator, he starts getting really excited, pulls the chair into the kitchen and says,

"Mommy, I help you, I do good job; It will be fun Mommy, I wike to help you."

Now how could I pass up such cute help?!

Booger pickin' and bean snappin'

Awesome combination. ha!

Our carrots and potatoes are FINALLY getting ready to be picked. It was fun pulling some of the carrots out of the ground, I was all excited to pull them. When I pulled the first carrot and a REAL carrot came up I held it up in the air and yelled to Justin, "Look, it's a carrot! HOW COOL IS THAT!" He just looked at me like I was a little crazy and said, "Uhh honey, it is JUST a carrot." ha ha!! It's the small things in life, right?

We made a delicious potato soup with these home grown potatoes and carrots.

Paul is finally starting to tolerate being away from me for longer periods of time (longer as in like 25 minutes), so he and Justin have been bonding.

Aren't they so precious in this picture!!

Recently Josiah got viral pharyngitis, that's medical terminology for a really bad swollen and sore throat with fever and pain that you can't take antibiotics for because it's viral so you have to let it run it's course illness. Sorry for massive run-on sentence.

Anyway, he didn't feel good for about 3-4 days. He would play a little, then go lay down on the couch, he didn't sleep very good, wouldn't eat or drink anything and if he did he would scream and grab his throat. He was just miserable. I felt so bad for him. Thankfully none of the rest of us got it!

Being sick requires naps with your favorite person... Daddy!

We've also been working hard in our yard and flower beds. It looks 100% better than it did. I also talked Justin into letting me plant some edible landscape... like plants that produce something other than green leaves or flowers... something you can eat!! So we got a few grape vines and also planted strawberry plants in the flower beds. Super cool!!

Here are us three goofy heads resting in the garage while Justin was working and sweating in the yard.

So that is a little of what has been going on lately. I wish summer lasted longer, we are really enjoying our days in the sunshine and warmth together. Winter will be here soon and I'm not ready yet!

Strawberry Preserves

Recently I got some fresh picked strawberries from a local farm. Ohhh my, were they delicious. They were small, but they were red all the way through and soooo sweet.  I really love strawberries, especially juicy sweet ones.  I got 2 lbs of them so I decided to make some preserves.  It is really easy and the result is wonderful! 

You just put the strawberries in a pan with some water, sugar, and pectin. Let it boil a bit and you are also supposed to stick your nose way down into the pot and smell it too.  It is heaven on earth. Justin kept laughing at me because I couldn't stop smelling it. 
Next, get your canning jars washed, lids boiled and ready to go. Pour the strawberry mixture in the jars, leaving 1 inch headspace.
Process the jars for about 15 minutes in a boiling water bath, take them out and let them sit for 12 hours.  Thankfully all of my lids sealed! 
Now comes the BEST part.... eating it.  I made some biscuits for church the following morning and we ate the preserves on them. Oh my, were they ever good! It was sweet and bright red from the fresh strawberries. I am so glad I didn't mess them up this year!  It is delicious! 

Is your mouth watering? Because mine is! 

Adventures in Canning

You know you have gone off the deep end when there are 4 kids running around your house (and it's an utter disaster!), tomato sauce everywhere, tomatoes everywhere, the sound of a pressure cooker steaming, boiling water on the stove, mason jars in the sink, and 3 women in the kitchen. This is what this past Monday looked like at my house! Two of my friends and I bought veggies in bulk from a local farm. I bought 75 lbs of tomatoes, 30 lbs green beans, 30 lbs cream peas, 60 lbs purple hull peas, & 30 lbs butter beans! I have either canned or frozen it all. Anyway, back to the events of Monday... I am the only one out of my friends who has a pressure cooker, so they all came over to my house so we could work on it together. We blanched, skinned, cored, & diced nearly 100 lbs of tomatoes! (none of us want to see another tomato for a while)  From those we made tomato sauce & canned diced tomatoes. It was messy and a lot of work. We also canned green beans and purple hull peas.  All of this while 4 children under the age of 3 played & roamed around the house, us trying to get them to nap at various times and feed them! It was fun and we all look forward to doing it again next summer. I am going to have fresh veggies to eat all winter. How cool!! 

Staci cutting tomatoes

Pouring purple hull peas into a pillow case to be frozen (a tip from her grandma)

Stephanie blanching and cutting tomatoes

Our tomato sauce boiling

Diced tomatoes..yum!

We are all trying to eat better foods, more organic fruits and veggies from local farms, and making many things from scratch. Stuff really does taste better when it's made from scratch with fresh ingredients. One day Josiah (and my future children) will be in the kitchen learning and helping to can, freeze & preserve fresh veggies. I hope to be able to teach them many things about cooking, gardening, homemaking, ect, so they can be more self sufficient when they become adults.

Today I am going to attempt to make some strawberry preserves... I'll let you know how it goes! :)