The Urban Farmer's Almanac

I was on such a canning kick early last week dealing with the blueberries and tomatoes.  Unfortunately it wore off quicker than I would have hoped and I was left with piles of tomatillos, corn and peppers and no motivation.  I shoved the corn and peppers in the fridge, but left the tomatillos on the counter thinking I would be reminded that they needed to be dealt with ASAP.  I managed to avoid looking at them until I noticed a gooey substance leaking from the bag.  I opened the bag and was horrified to find hairy mold growing.  I felt my big plans for a year’s worth of green salsa (my favorite) as well as the money we spent on them going into the compost pile.  I thought I might be able to salvage a few so I put on my industrial rubber gloves and attacked the bag.  I was happy to find that I only really lost 3-4 tomatillos and was able to salvage enough for a respectable batch of salsa.  I roasted some peppers from Yakima and followed another recipe from the well used Ball canning book and I have to say I am happy with the results.

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In addition to tomatoes we picked blueberries as a family in Yakima.  It was the end of the season and the field wasn’t really even open, but one of the workers let us pick after warning us there was not much left.  We were impressed by his sense of “not much” since we had no problem filling two large buckets in about 30 minutes.  That doesn’t even include the dozens eaten by our kids.  The best part was that he only charged us $1 a pound.  We picked 10 lbs and have been eating them steadily, however it was clear we were going to need to do some preserving.

We approach canning for a practical standpoint.  Whatever will attract the most fruit flies is attacked first, hence the tomatoes canned on Sunday.  Blueberries are the next priority.  Yesterday I made a blueberry pie (with lard crust) and today it was syrup.  We are so overloaded with jams and jellies I am having to try different ideas for fruits.  Pancakes are a regular breakfast food around here so I figured syrup would get used up fairly quickly (like before next summer).  It’s also pretty easy.  Just crush and boil blueberries, run them through a food mill and then boil again with sugar water.

I used 8 cups of blueberries and got 5 pints worth, which seems pretty good. I used the proportions in the Ball canning book which I recommend.  We got it from the library last season and I added it to my Christmas list soon after.  Its a great book for coming up with ideas and it has all the basic info you’ll ever need as well.   Tomorrow I may make blueberry juice or I might  just freeze the rest for winter cobblers.

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We took our annual trip to Yakima this weekend to taste wine, stay in a hotel with a pool, and buy a bunch of produce. Our favorite place to buy veggies over the last few years has been Imperial’s, who have a new, larger location this year, right next to their fields. We picked tomatoes and paid 25 cents a pound… that’s over 40 lbs. of tomatoes for $11.00. Plus, as the pictures show, the kids got a kick out of the whole thing.

We got home, and knew that if we waited, the project would loom over us all week, so we dove right in, canning them less than 12 hours after we picked them. We cooked down a bunch into a thicker sauce for pizzas, and canned the rest of them raw. The only downside to that method was the 45 minute processing time required for uncooked tomatoes.

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We recently remodeled our kitchen, and the photos have been piling up and not getting posted. So here are a few shots of making strawberry freezer jam earlier this summer.

One of the most memorable flavors (and colors – that red is so vivid) from my childhood is this very jam, made not from a secret recipe but from the back of the pectin box. Funny how often I ask my mom for a recipe and she says, “Buy a packet of onion soup mix – it’s on the back.”

I can’t help but overload a peanut butter and jam sandwich with too much of this tasty jam, the peanut butter preventing it from finding purchase on one side of the bread, so instead it runs down my fingers and I’m forced to wolf it down in 4 bites. It’s safest to eat it over the sink if you don’t want to have jam all over your shirt as well.

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We went to Yakima on our yearly pilgrimage for wineries, minor league baseball, and of course, fruit stands. We came home with way too much produce to deal with, including two boxes (20 lbs each?) of tomatoes. They sat on the counter for about a week, and finally we got motivated and got to work on them. We canned 15 quarts and 12 pints of stewed tomatoes, and what didn’t fit in our two huge kettles for stewing, we decided to dry in the new (to us) dehydrator. I am hoping this method works a little better than last year’s tomato drying experiment.

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