Autumn Haze

I love Autumn. The dusty, musty smell of the soil winding down in the garden for the year. The low slung golden light filtering through leafy trees just beginning to give in to the inevitable lack of light that will turn their trusses into a fiery crown. Falling to the ground, their beauty spent, their leaves will nourish the next flush of  green with the warming of days next spring.

The early morning garden had started shrouded in fog. I now look across this little farm where the holly hocks stand guard at the garden gate the setting sun  turning their blossoms into little panes of stained glass more beautiful than any church window. Beneath them between the lavender and the rosemary I can see divots in the soil where the chickens spent the afternoon happily tossing dust a foot or more into the air as they took a languorous dust bath. I make a mental note to repair them. For what purpose I don't know. They will only be at their happy destruction again tomorrow. I don't mind. I love having animals that are so obviously happy and healthy. I call the masses home with a "chook chook chook" and lock them safely into their run. They seem to  visibly relax once tucked inside, searching for bits of food or just resting in a corner, waiting for the sun to tell them it is time to go to bed.

Picking up my basket I head for the garden to see what the days offerings will be. Tomatoes perhaps.  Green tomatoes for sure but I'm not quite ready to give up on the possibility of a late flush of ripe tomatoes and another Caprese Salad (recipe follows) before cold weather takes these little beauties. If there are enough I can dehydrate them for using on pizza in the dead of winter. Yum! Summer in January!

Zucchini would be great too. I discovered that my family will eat all the
zucchini I can grow when I make baked Zucchini Fries. (Recipe to follow) I see spots of orange peeking out from under giant prickly leaves and make another mental note to write in my garden book to plant more pumpkins next year. They are so much fun and a versatile calorie dense vegi that stores amazingly well if not allowed to get too cold.

Green beans dangle from tangled vines and I pick the garden's offering. Pencil thin and straight french fillets and big fat Blue Lake beans. There is also tender wax beans and a collection of long purple beans. They will turn a deep green when steamed but it is always fun to bring a basket of multicolored beans into the kitchen. Boring vegis are not in our repertoire of daily fare at this time of year. The beets I planted in August look gorgeous with their ruby colored stems glowing in the setting sun and the ferny foliage of new carrots as a backdrop. They will be a tasty dish this winter. The beets need thinning in order to have room to become beets so the "culled" leafy greens will  be dinner tomorrow. I leave them until then.

Walking back toward the gate I spot some small pear shaped tomatoes hiding under the skirts of a protective branch. I pick one and pop it into my mouth enjoying the sweet acidic explosion on my tongue. I haven't any lettuce or greens big enough to make a salad but decide a small bowl of plain naked tomatoes would be just the ticket. Better than a candy dish without the guilt.  

Picking up my basket I trudge toward the house with my booty wondering if we will get tired of green beans before they are done for the season and if they will taste nearly as good when I use the frozen beans that I have put by.
In the kitchen I pour the beans into a large bowl to sort into beans for dinner and beans for pickling. Shining jars of peaches have cooled and sealed on the counter and are waiting to be labeled and added to the growing larder in the pantry. Partly ripened tomatoes are covering every available surface including an extra table that I have set up specifically for that purpose. Not trusting the weather I brought in all the tomatoes except the Pear and the Pacino's to ripen in the house. This year I am going to beat the blight to the harvest. I place these tomatoes into a zip bag as they ripen and place them in the freezer to be turned into sauce later. The smell of blackberry jam is still heavy in the air and reminds me of my mothers late summer kitchen. All this is a lot of work now but so easy this winter when I need a jar of something to round out a meal and I don't even have to go to the grocery store. I take the peaches out to the pantry and admire the colored jewels preserved in gleaming jars.

 I'm tired after the days work but it is a happy contented tired. The kind that means you will fall asleep tonight and sleep clear through until morning and wake up ready to do it all over again. Perhaps tomorrow I will try making green tomato relish right after putting out eggs and a few bags of green beans for my customers that make the long trek down our dusty driveway. It's fun to share the harvest and see the appreciation on other peoples faces. My only regret about the waning summer is that I didn't find the time to use the hammock set up in the front yard. So tomorrow morning I will make it a point to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee on the front porch and admire the turning of the season before starting my day.

Baked Zucchini Fries

Italian seasoned bread crumbs
Grated Parmesan cheese
Seasoned salt
Zucchini
Olive oil or egg whites (depending on your diet egg whites can be used in place of oil)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil
Combine bread crumbs, cheese, and seasoned salt in a pie plate. 

Cut the zucchini in half length wise and remove seeds. Slice into 1/2 x 1/2 x 4 inch pieces and place in a large bowl. Drizzle oil over the zucchini and quickly toss with your hands. (Zucchini absorbs the oil)

(Or beat egg whites just until frothy and toss with zucchini).

Press zucchini into crumbs gently shaking off excess and place onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake in preheated oven until the fries are golden and tender about 15 minutes. (I find that a convection oven makes them even crisper.)

Serve with catsup, sweet chili sauce, or just plain.



For those that don't know what a  Caprese Salad is here are some directions. (my youngest calls this leaves and cheese)

Caprese Salad

Fresh garden tomatoes sliced about 1/4 inch
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh Mozzarella cheese slice about 1/8th to 1/4 inch
Your favorite olive oil and vinegar type salad dressing. (ceasar works)

Alternate tomatoes, leaves, and cheese in a circle around the edge of a plate piling left overs in the middle to make an attractive display. Drizzle with dressing. Let marinade for at least 15 minutes before serving. You can also drizzle a thin line of balsamic vinegar along the salad.

After Apple picking days.....

We made apple cider...without a press.
My juicer worked pretty good for this. Now we have
apple juice to make apple butter with. 

Apple washer extraordinaire

and apple peeler extraordinaire. 

Apple butter maker extraordinaire. In addition to
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and Allspice I put a little Cardamom
in for a little taste flair. 

Only one didn't seal. It was yummy on toast this morning.

Also apple dumplin' maker extraordinaire.

Her first attempt at pie crust was a raging success! (with a
little direction from mom). She rolled out four squares
of dough. Small apples are peeled, cored and wrapped
 in pastry after adding sugar and spices and a pat of butter.
Then the four corners are gathered together on top.

These were so surprisingly good that we have been talking
about them all day! Tempted to make them again.  However,
we have something else waiting to be made tomorrow so
we are saving our calories for that. I hope they are as yummy!
OH! What are they? 

Raised Apple cider donuts. Yum!

homesteadrevival preparedness-challenge

Potato Experiment Update

Trench on left, tower on the right

I just harvested the last two potato plots in the garden. Both were experiments of course because I just can't leave well enough alone. I had russet potatoes that never got into the ground until the first week of July. Even though I was waaaaay late and my other potatoes were well on their way I decided that I could let the russets rot then throw them away or just plant them and see what happened. I opted for the latter. TA DA! Another experiment is born. I built one more potato tower and planted 5 potatoes in it. Two more than my normal 3 but what the heck. I had plenty. Then because I saw this on another blog I decided to build a potato trench.

trench-click to enlarge

Here are the results. I slipped the chicken wire basket off the potato tower and quickly and easily ran my gloved hands through the soil. The potatoes were perfect! A little small but what do you want when you plant in July. This took me less than 5 minutes.
Then I went into the garden to harvest the trench. The idea of the trench was to be able to pull the chicken wire lining the trench up and have the potatoes roll out of the soil. It wasn't that easy. The wire was hard to pull, cutting into my hands and the soil so heavy that I finally just dug out the excess soil in the trench until I found the potatoes. This took over half an hour and a lot of work and sweat. A couple potatoes had grown into the wire in spite of the straw lining. But the potatoes in general were just as beautiful and small as the potatoes in the tower.
Potato tower 7 lbs. Potato trench 12 lbs.

Since the trench was about 6 feet long with approximately 15 to 18 potatoes planted in it I will say it was equal to three (2 ft diameter) potato towers in size. The total for both plots was 19 lbs of russets. Not a bad haul for planting them in July. However if you compare the two techniques the trench should have produced 21 lbs. (not 12) to be equal to the tower. Given the fact that the trench was so much more work and produced less I will continue using the towers. BTW. The russets are really good.

My other conclusion is even if you have missed the normal planting date for your potatoes plant them anyway. These are an easy, delicious, and calorie dense crop that anyone should be able to grow and the biggest bonus of all? No pesticides! Potatoes (along with celery and strawberries) are one of the dirtiest chemical laden food you can buy at the store. Do yourself a favor and limit your families exposure to them and grow your own lovely potatoes.  http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/

Strawberries, Canning, Gardening, Ducks, the Milk Man and a Berkey!

When I was a kid we had a milk man. It was normal to have milk delivered to your doorstep and put in a little insulated box every week. As a kid I never gave it a second thought. The Smith Brothers Dairy was just a few miles from our house. When I became a teen some of Smith Brothers Farm was bought and a really big shopping mall was built on some of the best and richest farmland in the valley. We stopped getting milk on the porch and the dairy moved several miles further south in the valley. As an adult I moved in the same direction only up on the hill above the valley and I still didn't have milk delivery. The store was so close. Now I live several miles north and west on an island and guess what I just discovered I can do? Ya! Milk delivery! Half and half and buttermilk and anything else I might want. And who have I chosen to get milk from? You guessed it. The same dairy I grew up with. And why?  Because I am tired of wasting my money on dead ultra pasteurized milk.

 I'm also tired of lugging home that yummy milk in the cute heavy glass bottles that cost twice as much and that requires a deposit. Then you have to remember to return the bottles. Not to mention the occasional broken 1/2 gallon of milk in the bottom of the grocery bag and the fact that the nutritional value of milk is depleted when it is exposed to light.  Smith Brothers delivers for nearly the same as the grocery store charges, delivers in cartons that are made of recycled material and the milk is fresh and NOT ultra pasteurized. This means I can actually make cheese out of it too! Haven't tried it yet but I am about to. I will let you know how it works.

Strawberry season is finally here. In a good year the season would have started the last week in May. A normal season starts sometime in the first 2 weeks in June and only last a couple of weeks maybe three.  I know this because it was always so easy for me to miss it. The last few years strawberry season has been extremely late due to wetter and cooler than normal weather and has actually been overlapping raspberry season. Around here we have a saying that summer doesn't start until the 5th of July. I never minded that it was wet for the 4th. I figured it just cut down on fire hazards. But this berry thing is getting a little hard to manage. I need the time between strawberries and raspberries to get another pay check. Not to mention Bing cherry season is in full swing. I can a lot of cherries. It is very handy to open a quart of cherries and put them on the table with dinner in the dark of winter when you need to round out a meal. At any rate

strawberries are finally here. I bought two 12 lb. flats two day ago. I made jam, canned ice cream topping, and froze the rest. They weren't the greatest tasting berries I have ever had. We have had way too much rain and way too little sun so they were big, plump, and watery tasting. Now that the 5th of July is here (and so is the sun right on que) I will give it a week and go see if they taste any better.
Notice the picture of my jam to the right?  In the background is a gift from my man. Recognize it? Ya! A Berkey water filter! I have been complaining about the taste of our water since we moved here. For the first time in years we are on city water and it is very chlorinated. It taste awful and sometimes it taste like dirt. Nothing like the clean fresh tasting water we use to get from our well. Even our finicky cat hates the taste. I have also not been too keen on having to rely on the water company in the event of some catastrophe to provide clean potable water. With the Berkey we can filter the pond water if we have to. This could come in handy since the Cascade earthquake fault runs right in front of our four acres. In the mean time I'm going to drink water that resembles the good stuff we are use to.

The garden is finally almost under control. (if that is possible) I will be harvesting sugar snap peas this week and from the look of it we should have a bumper crop. The tomatoes have some size to them and I was smart enough this year to space them far enough apart to have room to grow. I did get the out of control section of garden weeded and the squash, pumpkin and zucchini plants all put in. I bought those as starts so

they should be taking off here in the next week. The potatoes are huge and I have pulled a few out here and there for a couple of meals. They were nearly the size of my hand. The plants are still green and growing so I will keep hilling them up in my potato towers and see what I get. I planted green, wax, and purple string beans about three weeks ago and the plants are about 4 inches tall. The day time temperatures were still in the forties to low fifties so I was a little concerned the beans wouldn't germinate. So far so good. Cucumbers are not very happy. I didn't have much luck with those last year either. The lettuce in the cold frame finally bolted but we had several salads from that. I pulled the rest out and fed it to the geese and replanted bell peppers and cherry tomatoes.
I'm on to planning a winter garden. I am hoping to convince the man to help me with a small hoop house/row cover to plant broccoli, cauliflower, beets and other fall crops.
The geese and ducks are all doing well and seem to have got past what ever was making them sick. I still don't know what it was for sure that was doing it and I still can't help but look out the windows and count heads every hour or so. That is my update. Now I am  going to try to switch to the updated blogger interface so if I disappear you will know what happened. Blogger ate me.

Canning and the Stupidest Person on the Planet

Canning and preserving season is going to be upon us before you know it. Those of you in the south are probably already putting by. Preserving healthy chemical free food for your family and feeling pretty darn good about it. Right? Canning for healthy food is exactly why I do it. It isn't because it is cheaper because other than the garden most of the stuff I can I purchase. I do wait until I find a killer deal and the food taste better than the canned stuff you get at the grocery store and usually canning a quart of something even if purchased is cheaper than buying a 14 oz. can of something if you don't count your labor.  (have you noticed the cans are smaller than they use to be?)

Lately I have been hearing a lot more about BPA contained in the white lining of commercial cans and plastic containers. It is suppose to protect the steel can from corroding especially in high acid foods like tomatoes and pineapple. It is very difficult to limit your exposure to BPA since most everything is made with plastic or has BPA in it. Even most of the cash register receipts that are handed to you at the store are made with BPA if they are the thermally printed type. (Not the ink type)
abcnews story BPA (please excuse the ad)
BPA is linked to cancer, obesity, hormone disruption in both men and women, early maturation in kids, and heart disease. (Especially in men) Now I don't know about you but that is not something I want for my kids and I would like to have the man hang around a little longer. BPA has been banned in Canada, and Europe but not here. I suspect big money has something to do with that. Long ago I took a look at the plastics in my house. Especially the cheap plastics with the number 3 or 7 on the recycle symbol. I have known for years that you shouldn't micro wave food in plastic. I had a co-worker that was poisoned by doing that and when is the last time you read directions that said "cover with plastic wrap and microwave..."? So I got rid of plastic milk containers when my kids were much younger. If I don't buy milk in glass I get it in paper cartons. I have got rid of all or most plastic containers that hold left over food and switched to Pyrex. It is more expensive initially, cheaper in the long run, re-usable and doesn't eventually fill up the land fills. I am canning more and more of the foods we eat including oranges. Ya oranges. When they are on sale. Pineapple not so much but I limit how much canned pineapple we use and prefer fresh. (ya I know it is shipped in using that stuff called petroleum but in truth we don't eat a lot of that either).

So now why am I feeling like one of the stupidest people on the planet?


Take a look at my canning lids. I love a good sale on lids and buy them when I find them. It never occurred to me that they would contain BPA but there it is in all its glory. Take a look.

The ubiquitous white lining on the inside of my canning lids and golly gee guess what I do with these things? Exactly what you aren't suppose to do.  Expose them to heat. Especially pressure cooking! I don't have a whole lot of lids left thankfully because it is the beginning of the season right now and the stuff in my pantry is low so I am looking for and finding an alternative. They are out there and here is one.
Lehman's reusable BPA free canning lids
This is just one company and you may find some that are less expensive. Just Google BPA free canning lids and a lot of resources come up including some for prepping. The best part of these lids is that they are reusable and can be used with the screw band that you already have. You also wont be throwing them away, filling up your local land fill or polluting the environment when it eventually breaks down.

I'm sure some of you already know about this but for those who don't give me a shout out. I really need to know that I am not the last person on the planet that didn't know about this.

P.S.- I have been looking around about lids since I published this post. Do your homework. Some re-usable canning lids have problems with sealing failure and contain formaldehyde. They seem to be the one piece lids so far.