Dinner straight from the garden!

 I'm harvesting a lot of fresh veggies from the garden this week. It's the best feeling to eat food that I picked an hour before! This year, I'm growing beans for the first time, thanks to my father in law building me an awesome trellis! I've eaten several but um... they usually don't make it inside! I have been letting up and picked these bad boys for dinner.

Because of how the trellis is, some grow inside of it and are hard to see, so grow HUGE!

Yes, you're reading that right. If I stretched it out it would be a foot long!!

The other thing that I have A LOT of is zucchini. They get big fast so I had a couple huge ones to use. I have bookmarked several zucchini recipes, but one that I've wanted to try for awhile is zucchini pancakes. This was the day. I love potato pancakes and zucchini ones sound a lot healthier! Now, to shred zucchini you can either do it by hand, or you can have a cool gadget to do it for you. I chose option B. I have the best attachment ever for my Kitchenaid mixer, the slicer/shredder. All you do it cut the zucchini into smaller pieces, get rid of the seeds, and put it in the slot and it shreds it for you!

Viola!

Then I mixed in some panko breadcrumbs- these ones were "Italian" style, and very tasty. I also mixed in garlic, dried oregano, shallot, parmesan cheese and 2 egg whites to keep it together.

I made the patties and put them in a little olive oil - not too much, didn't want to deep fry them! I tried them in the oven too but they didn't get the crispy edges and were more like burgers - fell apart.

Dinner is ready!

What to do with 20 pounds of blackberries? Part 2

First, I froze some. Then I made muffins. And I was still left with A LOT! So what did I do?

First you heat it...

I made jam. LOTS of jam. 12 pints and 3 quarts, to be exact.

Ingredients? Blackberries, lemon juice, pectin, honey and agave nectar. Yum!

Then you divvy it out...

Then you give it a bath...

Ta da!

What to do with 20 pounds of blackberries? Part 1

Whenever I have an ingredient that I want to use, I google it and recipe and see what comes up to help me think outside the box. One of the things that came up was muffins, so I did a couple more searches and found this recipe. It turned out to be the best fruit muffins I've ever had! I doubled the recipe and it made almost 4 dozen. I gave several away to my family and my in-laws, and everyone really enjoyed them. The sour cream and fruit made them extremely moist. I froze some fruit and can't wait to make them again!

Pickin'!

I'm totally on a seasonal eating kick right now along with the whole canning thing. Also, freezing. I'm buying a deep freezer this week so I can preserve some of the stuff from my garden and also produce from friends and farmer's markets.

One of the things that I lack in my own garden is fruit. Now, I am growing blackberries this year but they take a year or two to produce so I have a couple teeny tiny ones and that's it. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE fruit. When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey.  It's about picking blueberries, which I did often, living in Michigan. I've always loved going picking and have dragged various friends and family members to pick fruit, and have even gone on my own. If you have kids or have friends with kids, I HIGHLY suggest checking the book out!

Anyone who lives in St. Louis HAS to go to Eckert's to pick fruit. They have several varieties of apples, plus strawberries, blackberries, and peaches, varying from farm to farm. They also have pumpkins and Christmas trees for those seasons.

I knew I wanted to go peach and blackberry picking and got my mom to go with me last week on Friday. At first, she wasn't going to come at all because the forecast was HOT. But she came.We went to the Grafton farm and arrived around 11am.

See these rows? Empty. That's what 100 degree weather does!

No one was there so no competition.

There were a lot of unripe berries, but lots of ripe ones too. And they were HUGE.

My hand isn't big. But these berries were seriously gigantic.

We picked and sweated, picked and sweated. We were going fast and barely talking because it was so hot. In the end, we picked 20 pounds.

We picked peaches too, but... FAST. And no camera came out because we were sweating so badly. We ended up with 25 pounds.

That is a LOT of fruit!

I can't wait to go back to Eckert's... maybe even for peaches again, but definitely for apples.

Stay tuned for what I did with all this fruit!

I'm not the only one who loves Eckert's!!!

Pickles!

Anyone who knows me knows that my sister and I are complete opposites. My mom often tells a story about how when we were little and on road trips, we'd stop at a McDonald's and get a cheese burger - my sister would eat the meat and I would eat the bread and cheese. She's a vegetarian now (thanks to me!) but the same philosophy persists. One of her absolute favorite foods is dill pickles. She can eat an entire jar in one sitting. She is truly a pickle connoisseur. I however, am not a pickle fan. No surprise there. BUT I love canning and giving my goodies to friends and family, so I decided to make pickles!

Canning makes a huge mess and takes time. But when you end up with lots of goodies and start hearing those seals pop, it is worth it!

You need basic supplies for canning: jars with lids, what I call my cauldron, a pot deep enough to submerge the big jars, a funnel and tongs that will grip jars are the minimum.

Ingredients: Pickling cucumbers (this is a special variety, be sure to get them and not regular ones!), white vinegar, water, kosher salt, fresh dill, and garlic.


Quantities can really vary here. The below recipe made 12 quarts of pickles. I used 2-3 cukes per jar, depending on size and chip or spear style (spears take up more room).

Directions:

1. Fill your "cauldron" high enough so the water will cover your pint jars and start to heat so it's ready when you are. If it starts to boil too far in advance, turn heat off and it will boil more quickly when you are ready for it.

2. Wash jars in warm, soapy water. Set aside.

3. Sterilize lids and lid bands in a saucepan full of boiling water.

4. Make brine mixture: Mix 17 cups water, 4 1/2 cups white vinegar and 1 cup kosher salt in large pot. Bring to a boil and set aside.

Right, the "cauldron"; back left, the big pot for the brine, and left front, the saucepan for sterilizing the lids

5. In the bottom of each jar, put a layer of fresh dill. I used herb scissors to cut it into little pieces. Then put one garlic clove in.

6. Fill the jars with cucumbers, packing as many in as you can. Leave a little space at top. You can cut them like chips, spears, or leave them whole if you want, if they are small enough. Mine weren't!

7. Put another layer of dill and another garlic clove in the top.

I made chips and spears! Fresh dill from the garden made it even better.

8. Ladle brine mixture into each jar, leaving about an inch of room in the top.

9. Put lids on and put into the boiling water bath. Leave in for about 5 minutes.

I didn't fill the cauldron up quite high enough so I had to tip the jars over!

10. Remove jars and set to cool. Check the seals to make sure they have sealed properly. Some might take an hour or two to seal.

11. Let sit for 2 weeks at least before opening to allow flavors to absorb. Turn upside down every other day during that period to mix.

12. Eat!

Pickles!

The best seasonal dessert ever!

It's one of my favorite times of year - peach season!

Peaches in season are unmatched in flavor. And we are lucky enough in St. Louis to have wonderful local peaches that you can find at any farmer's market! You can even buy local peaches at Schnuck's. Or, go peach picking at Eckert's!

One of my favorite desserts is my mom's peach crisp. Peach crisp is basically peaches with a crumble topping. I ask for this pretty much every year for my birthday instead of cake. This year, I tried it myself and we've had a steady supply of it! Everyone who has tried it is a fan. Here's how to do it:

1. First, you need to buy PEACHES! The amount really depends on how big they are. So prepare how many you think you'll need and you can always add more. Just buy a lot and eat whatever remains!

2. Peel and slice the peaches thin. Peeling is so easy! All you do is boil a pot of water and drop the peaches in. Leave them in for about 5 minutes (or longer - I usually leave them in while I peel one, then get another out). I take them out with a ladle and then dip them in cold water. The peel literally falls off. Then slice! This is a great recipe for over ripe peaches too - they work really well.

3. Slice enough so your pan is filled to about 2-3" from the top and fill up. This recipe is for a square 8x8 glass baking dish. I have also doubled the recipe and made it in a 9x13. You can't have too much crumble topping!

4. Mix in 1/4 cup sugar and 3 tbsp flour with the peaches.

5. To make the crumble topping, put following in a bowl and mix - my Kitchenaid works perfectly for this. Mix until it has a crumbly texture.

- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2/3 cup flour
- 1/2 cup oats
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 cup (stick) of cold but slightly softened butter

6. Spoon mixed topping over peaches.

7. Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes.

Word of wisdom: The peaches can get a little bubbly, so if you filled your pan to the top, you might want to put a cookie sheet with foil under the pan in case it bubbles over, because it can be a sticky mess!

Serve warm or cold with ice cream or without. YUM!

I'm back! Married and busier than ever.

In the last year, I got engaged, got married, started graduate school, and more. I haven't stopped my training, but I'm back to blogging about it!