Laboring on Labor Day

My Faculty Review documents were due that tuesday, soI did a bit of office stuff on Labor day. In fact, I worked all weekend putting up produce, because summer is in its last hurrah and the panic is starting to set in for me. I get weird about veg.

We are getting a bumper crop of lemon cucumbers, which is crazy since we only planted ONE of those things! So I did 9 jars (pints, pint and a half, and one full quart) of dill pickles. I did another 2 pints of experimental cantaloupe pickles, which I'm not too sure about.

In addition, I cooked a half bushel of tomatoes down to 18 cups of tomato puree  and 24 cubes of tomato paste to freeze. We had an extra 10 ear of corn, so those went into the deep freeze as well!

Then on labor day, I charred and froze a quart of habenaros, started on my first ever batch of sour kraut, and dug one barrel of potatoes. That, and work on my portfolio :-(

The peppers, charred and cooling before the skins are removed and they're slipped into their freezer bag

Berry Picking and a Day of Putting Up

As I'm sure I've mentioned one million times, I missed raspberry season this year. It was early because of the heat, short because of the rain, and I just missed it completely. Raspberries are one of my favorite foods, and I used to purchase 20 frozen bags of raspberries per year to mix with yogurt or granola, bake into fruit crumbles, or just eat like candy.

I now understand that these raspberries from Dole are grown in Chile or somewhere equally far from home, by people who make 20 dollars a week, on land that should be used to grow food for people nearby. I understand that the price of 4$ per half gallon is artificially low, paid for by government subsidy and human exploitation.

SO: raspberries have become a luxury. You can imagine, then, how horribly sad I was to have missed them. Particularly because most farmers I spoke with don't expect a fall crop this year either because of weather. I've been calling U Pick berry farms in the county, and most are closed this year because the season is so bad, but I finally found an open one at Reilly's Summer Seat Farm!

Alex and I picked six pints of raspberries today and two pints of blackberries!! It was a berry miracle. It was hard work, so I understand why the berries are so expensive at market. The ones we picked ourselves were still expensive, since these berries are pretty much the only game in town, but so worth it. I made four pints of raspberry jam today (out of half pint jam jars as per usual) and one pint of blackberry. They look glorious cooling on the counter.

I also needed to deal with the abundance I bought at the market yesterday, so I cooked and froze 12 ears of corn (just the kernels,) and put together a pico de gallo salsa for the freezer. I had a lot of cilantro left, so I hung one bunch to dry, and chopped and froze the other in ice cube trays to be added to soups and indian dishes all year.

I still need to deal with another 6 ear of corn we bought today, and a dozen HOT red chile peppers that I think I'll roast and freeze to add heat to dishes all winter. I had a terrible time drying peppers last year - our air is too damp. It broke my heart to toss them when they molded.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Make Lemon Curd!

Yesterday we got an incredibly exciting package in the mail. A relative who lives in San Diego sent Alex (and I) a huge box of his home-grown lemons. These things were big, and their juice is so delicious. Since they weren't from the store, I know they aren't waxed, and so they won't last very long. I'd never made lemon curd before, so I decided to give it a try. Particularly since this is what our fruit bowl currently looks like:

We have a lot of lemons!

What a Thoughtful Treat!! I may have promised to play video games in return for these puppies, though.

I halved the sugar in the recipe, and used local eggs for the custard. Yuuuum! It is delicious and tart. This is no mild, namby-pamby lemon curd you get at the specialty food store. It's bright and gorgeously yellow and it will add flavor and creamy texture to shortbread and pound cakes all year! I'll probably do another round to give as present, but I didn't have enough butter on hand to make it happen this morning.

Add 1 cup lemon juice and 1 T zest to double boiler

Add 1 1/2 sticks butter, 1 cup sugar, and 4 eggs and whisk constantly until it thickens

These are the eggs we just picked up from the Phipps Farmer's Market

Strain through a mesh sieve if you want, but I always skip that in any recipe.
Laddle into jars and process 10 minutes.

Lemon curd is great because it employs both the juice and the zest. The spent lemon peels didn't go to waste either, because I mixed up a batch of lemon cucumber water as well. It's like the spa is right in my kitchen! For people who don't like drinking water, this is a great way to feel luxurious while you're hydrating.

First Canning of the Season

Nothing too major, just a small batch of strawberry jam from the gorgeous strawberries we found this weekend at the farmer's market. We were visiting my parents in Virginia, where the growing season is a little further along, so the berries were just right.

Those that were blemish free were mixed with sugar and left in the fridge a few hours to release the juices. The bruised ones weren't wasted though. They went into the strawberry sauce pot. A jar of strawberry sauce is now at the ready in the fridge. I poured it on my granola with yogurt this morning, and it was glorious.

For those who want to try jam making without a ton of sugar, I'd suggest trying Pomona's Universal Pectin instead of regular pectin. It's activated by calcium powder instead of sugar, so you don't need to add so much. It's a little more expensive than the other stuff, but it makes a lot of jam (I'm still on my box from last year and I canned 12 jars worth) and lasts forever. This small batch filled three half pint jars, which is pretty exciting. That's probably all the straight strawberry jam i'll put up this year. If there are gorgeous berries I can't resist at the market, i'll either make strawberry vanilla jam next, or half and freeze them for smoothies all year long.

Other scores from the farmer's market in VA included english peas, which I'll use to make cheesy pasta tomorrow, radishes, which I'm going to use for refrigerator pickles, spicy onions, southern sweet potatoes, mint, and a fruiting blueberry bush I got for 20 bucks. More on that later.