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!

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 garden groweth!

The garden is doing GREAT right now. The only problem I've been having is with my broccoli and cauliflower getting eaten by bunnies, though I still have several broccoli crowns growing.

 

No brussels sprouts yet, but the plants are doing great and growing like mad. I'm just waiting for the little sprouts to start- the time is near!

The squash plants are all growing a lot too. I do have some growing already, which are a couple inches long, though most are just vining like crazy now. I expect a lot more soon.

While I don't eat pickles, I accidentally ended up with some pickling cucumbers one day, so planted them with the intention of making pickles for Ben & my sister and whoever else wants some. There are massive amounts of tiny cukes growing right now. I think I'll end up with a huge harvest of them. It's hard to see in the picture but they look really small and spiny.

 

The tomato plants are also growing at a rapid rate. You can really smell them when you are in the garden. I have 4 varieties of tomatoes growing and two varieties have small fruit on them, while the others are blooming now. See the tiny green tomatoes? Even though I don't like tomatoes, I plan on trying them from my garden.

Today I was surprised to see lots of small peppers growing. I hadn't noticed them before. This makes me happy!! I can't wait!!

Raspberry Adventures!

Lakeview Farms, take two! After being turned away so early last Saturday and not being able to pick, I decided I would attempt to drag myself out of bed early one day this week to go try to pick again. Wednesday morning, I did just that! Anyone who knows me know that getting up at 7am is difficult. Even on a work day. But I did it!

Arriving at the farm, I noticed it wasn't too busy. Score! One cool thing about this farm is that instead of going on a picking free for all, they give you your own area to pick in. That way, no one is infringing upon your territory and they can keep track of where has been picked over so the next person who comes to pick goes in an area with riper, not yet picked berries. That's a good model in my mind!

I started picking. The pickings were great! Lots of ripe berries to choose from. I really dug in there to get good ones. Raspberry bushes are prickly so it got a bit uncomfortable, but was worth it!
In no time, I had filled up several containers.
Looking to the west, the sky was ominous. I started picking like mad, worried that the skies might unleash upon me at any minute. People started fleeing to their cars. Dangit, I was going to fill all of my containers. If I got a little wet, it wouldn't do me any harm. I finished just as the sky looked like this:
I wanted to strawberry pick, but the lady where I paid said they would probably close so I decided to leave. I ended up with 8 containers. Total cost? $15.
Yummy, yummy berries! This much would've cost $24-36 at a store! So what did I do? I turned these into this:
And this:
DELISH!

To make the jam, I used 6 containers, about 1 cup of agave nectar, juice of 1 lemon, and a squirt of honey. Used my immersion blender (what a handy tool!!) and boiled it for about 30 minutes. Then followed standard canning procedures. I saved a cup of jam to make the raspberry oatmeal bars. Here is the recipe I used. It turned out great!! And I feel good that I hand picked the raspberries at a local farm and turned it into these yummy treats. I might go again tomorrow. I'm addicted!!

Strawberry Jam Canning Session!

Saturday morning, I woke up early (7am), which is very uncharacteristic of me. Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE sleep and sleeping in! Why the motivation, you ask? Strawberry picking! I decided to go to Lakeview Farms, pretty much the only place within 45 minutes where I could find (non-blackberry) berry picking. A couple girls from Yelp met me at my place at 7:30am and we headed off after enjoying some delicious bagels.

I had done extensive research on the farm before going, and decided to go that early so they wouldn't run out of berries. I also called the day before, which they said to do to make sure there was still picking. There was.

We finally were nearing the entrance and drive up, only to see a sign that says "Sorry, we are closed" in the entrance. WTF? We pulled over and called and they were already picked out! BUMMER. We had to turn around.

Now, I had my mind SET on making jam/preserves that day. So I cheated and bought some strawberries from a local produce stand and got started!

I wanted to go chemical free and sugar free, so I found a great recipe on the internet using agave nectar instead of sugar. Here is my ingredient list:

- 3lbs Strawberries
- 2-3Lemons
- 1/2 cup Agave Nectar
- Squirt of Honey
- 1 Apple



I also bought a water bath canner and many jars to preserve my stuff from this season in:



Here are the steps I took:

1. Sterilize five 1/2-pint jars by boiling them in a hot water bath for five minutes or so.
2. Wash and stem strawberries.
3. Put strawberries in a bowl.
4. Stir berries, lemon juice (start with 2 lemons, adjust to taste), agave nectar, and grated apple together in a pot over medium-high heat.
5. You can mash the mixture with a potato masher, but I decided to use my immersion blender to get it more liquified but still with some chunks.

6. Bring to a full, rolling boil and boil at least 10 minutes, or up to 15 minutes. Adjust sweetener to taste after 5 minutes and again after 10 minutes. To test for jelling, put a white plate in the freezer when you start cooking the jam; when ready to test, put a teaspoon of jam liquid on the plate, and return to freezer for one minute. You should be able to make a line in the jam with your finger that doesn't fill back in at all. Mine did after awhile but I don't mind a little liquid!
7. Remove a jar from the water, ladle hot fruit mixture into jar leaving 1/4" headspace, wipe threaded rim of jar clean, and attach lid and band. Repeat until all jars are full. I had EXACTLY enough to fill 5 half pint jars.

8. Process in a boiling water bath for 5-10 minutes. Leave undisturbed overnight or until completely cool.

9. TIP: Being a canning rookie, I wasn't sure if the seals were properly sealed when I pulled out the cans. After about 10 minutes, they all popped and were definitely concave!

New Obsession + My first Harvest!

New kitchen toys are finding their way to my cocina!

It's Ben's fault... he started it by surprising me back in March with an awesome new Kitchenaid mixer. The kind that mixes on its own, has many attachments, and has a bowl that comes with it. It's pretty much totally fabulous.

I've just added a couple more things to my kitchen repertoire. First, a food processor. My first goal: to make pesto with the abundant basil I have growing.

Second, a canning kit. Which leads me to my new obsession! CANNING! My next kitchen gadget will be a water bath canner. This weekend, I'm heading to Lakeview Farms to pick strawberries and raspberries. Then I'm having a canning party! Do I have much of an idea of what I'm doing? NOPERS! But I don't care. I'm gonna give it my best shot! Stay tuned for how it turned out...



On another note, yesterday I harvested my first item for consumption: lettuce! I made a delicious salad with it.

Home grown, organic lettuce. Plus some other stuff (not so organic or home grown!)

Paired with some Dr. Praeger's veggie burgers (the only ones that I will eat) and some Trader Joe's sweet potato fries (TO.DIE.FOR), it made the perfect warm weather meal!

These sweet potato fries are THE BOMB!

The garden is growing like mad - way bigger than in the last pictures even. I haven't complained about how much rain we've had because it's been beautiful for my garden. While weeding the other day, I realized that I have a small berry patch growing that I DIDN'T PLANT! Crazy. My squash is blossoming like mad and I even have fruit on one of the plant. Can't wait til the squash starts coming - we'll be up in our ears with it! Want some? Come on by!