Fun With Food

After a couple of weeks with days in the 90’s (and two over 100), we are starting to see fruit and vegetables ripening in our garden. We’ve picked some cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Armenian cucumbers, onions, tomatillos, chilies, and plums. We’ve finally identified the mystery fruit trees: two are plum and two are pear. We’ll probably remove the pear trees because we aren’t big fans of pears and they are more dead than alive, but the plums get to stay. I tried one today and it was delicious.

Armenian cucumbers are popular in Fresno where I grew up, and they are my favorite cucumbers because the skin is soft and not bitter. My brother says I’m probably growing the first ever Armenian cucumbers in Idaho. I made a quick Japanese pickle salad with the first cucumber. The second one was added to tomatoes and onions.

Since our garden is not quite bountiful enough for canning yet, we took advantage of a sale at the local fruit stand. We purchased a box of Washington peaches, a box of Fuji apples, and a flat of California strawberries. From that we made:

4 quarts of unsweetened applesauce
4 pints of apple butter
4 pints of strawberry jam

The peaches are still a bit firm, so we will peel and can those later this week. The pigs and chickens are in heaven enjoying all the fruit and vegetable scraps.

Apples washed and quartered

After the apples are cooked, the food mill purees the fruit and discards the seeds and skins

Applesauce

A day’s canning

Fresh strawberry jam on a homemade sourdough English muffin

The laying chickens have finally kicked it into gear and are laying 4-6 medium to large eggs daily. The yolks on the fresh eggs are a deep yellow-orange and very thick. They make great fried eggs. I’m getting experimental making frittatas. Last night’s frittata included eggs, milk, jack cheese, bacon, breadcrumbs, tomatillos, onions, chilies, and garlic. Shawn approved. We aren’t sure what kind of chilies we picked, but they weren’t very spicy.

Last night, Shawn processed the last of the meat chickens (a.k.a. Frankenchicks). He had to do the butchering at night because the bees and wasps are rampant during the day and very attracted to the meat and blood. We now have a freezer full of chemical/drug-free chicken that should last us through the fall and winter. Raising meat chickens was definitely a learning experience, but I think Shawn has it mastered now and next year should be a breeze. (Check out his videos on YouTube.)