Kitchen Stuff

This is kind of mish mash post. We've been really busy in the kitchen of late. Then I picked up Salmonella from something (still not sure what exactly... but something outside..) and that took me out of commission for some time. Let me tell you , Salmonella is NO fun. I wanted to die. And I think I had a pretty mild case actually with none of the usual symptoms except possible hurling my guts out. ANYway, moving on, I am better, several pounds lighter and willing to look at food again. I've had enough energy to do things for a few days then I overdue it and have to crash for a few days. But it is so good to be able to DO something when I can that maybe I get carried away. Anyway, I'm thankful for whatever I get.

Isn't this weird? I thought the leaf coming out of one was weird but this is definitely weirder... is that a word?

I'm not sure what variety these are because they don't look like anything I planted. Except for the one on the right which is a Poona Kheera.

Blueberry ice cream. It looked very strange. But it tasted very good. Now we have no more blueberries because I used them all up.

A Hillbilly. A fat one. I was very proud.

TWO Fat Hillbillies.

They are going to bury us soon ...

But we are fighting back by sucking the life out of them in the dehydrator .

Fermenting apple juice .

This tastes better..

Well look what we have here.

I was just leaving....

Pardon me...

I love red. Well, when it is on tomatoes and stuff.... I can't wear it.

More squash.... Elly May chops it up for pickles. I think we canned 19 pints of stuff that day.... I didn't get a picture because it got put away before that happened. And by then I was too sick to care about anything.

Still not enough for ketchup though...

But we did make tomato soup.

Then I made Minnesota Chili Sauce which is some old tomato relish type recipe I got a long time ago. It is really good on meat . First you have to scald and peel tomatoes though. Not my favorite job. So Elly May did it. ;-)

And I chopped.

Pretty.....

On to the beans. We've been saving them up for days til we had enough to do to make it worthwhile to heat the kitchen up with the canner.

I wish the purple ones staid purple after they got cooked... It would look so much nicer...

One batch down...

For the next batch we actually had flowering dill heads .. FINally....

And I put some of our yellow peppers in.. just because they looked cute.

Voila.... Phew! I feel very accomplished. And tired. There are still more tomatoes... More squash... but they can wait. Especially since we have a major heat wave hitting us now with some triple digits. The pool is very nice about now.

Apple Sauce Time

We've finally managed to eat our way through three years of overly enthusiastic apple sauce canning (my fault entirely... I must admit.. they were FREE for cryin' out loud. You have to accept free apples ..... or else.... or else..... well, they get wasted and just dumped in the dumpster. So I rescued them. But then I had more applesauce than any family in their right mind or appetite would consume. But we've finally reached bottom. So, it was time for more. )
First we wash de apples.

Er.. we.. well.... Elly May. Thank you Elly May. I love you to pieces.

Then you whack them all up with a sharp knife. Taking out the bad spots if you are dealing with seconds and rotten apples.. as we were. We meaning both of us this time because I did chop them up. (I don't make her do everything...)

Then you cook them down until they are really soft and then, if you are really really lucky , a friend from out of state just happens to drop by and say hi for a few minutes while they are in town and are kind enough to assemble your food mill thingy you haven't used since you were twelve because you insist on using IT this time instead of your mother's completely dependable and ancient Kitchen Aid sieve thing that is made, sadly , of aluminum. Anyway, she puts it together and saves the day and then disappears again. SO, you spoon, pour all the apple stuff in and Elly May eagerly volunteers to turn the crank so she can continue to build up her butch Cinderella biceps . We run the stuff through twice to get all the good stuff. This food mill leaks just as much as I remember. So we just stuck small bowls under the leaky parts and that seemed to work fine. So there you tempermental food mill!!

May we have some?? I think not.

Then it gets dumped (well ,carefully , you know... ) back into the heavy, precious , blue pot with cinnamon sticks and is cooked down to the desired consistancy. Which just happens to be when we have had enough of this apple cooking down/canning business and want to leave the kitchen and have it be over with already.

The apples were really sweet so there was no need to add sugar. Galas make the best sauce in my opinion... but I haven't had a lot of opportunity to use a zillion different varieties in my kitchen trials. But Galas are better than Fuji or Pink Lady.. but .. we had Fuji and Pink Lady today so.. so that is what we used. We are opportunistic canners .

Aren't they all pretty?

All done. Yay.. no more. This should last a few weeks. It is really good on toast in the morning. And way healthier than apple butter which is mostly sugar anyway. We are indebted to the guys at our farmers market who unload all their culls on us so generously each week.

Cider Pressin' Time

We get apple seconds from our local farmer's market and they had enough for us this past week that we could do a cider pressing to have fresh cider for our Thanksgiving meal. We did the pressing earlier in the week because it is a rather labor intensive project and we were going to have enough to do later in the week.
Being seconds.. we have to cut out the bad spots and so forth..

The giant apple.

J.B. wants to see what is happening .

Let's go bobbing for apples!!!

Ready for pressing.. How about that table cloth eh? Actually it is an old sheet someone gave us from the 60's or thereabouts. I can't imagine waking up and looking at them on my bed. I think it would give me nightmares.

My prized possession

Some are not usable.....

Poor Punker Man injured his shoulder somehow and has been limping this past week. So he was watching from the porch and being miserable.

Liquid gold!!

Mmmmmm... if you've never had fresh pressed cider... you've really missed out in life. It is like nothing you have ever tasted and absolutely NOTHING like apple juice from the store.

Me hanging out and resting with Punker Man because I was supposed to be taking it easy... I did try.

Finished product. It went over really well at our Thanksgiving celebration. As apple season goes on and there are more and more seconds , we ferment a large portion of it into hard cider and then turn in into vinegar. We have about 20 gallons of the stuff turning (hopefully!) into vinegar in an oak barrel right now. We shall see how it turns out. We've never put it in a barrel before , just fermenting it in jars. But I had the barrel.. so we are now using it. So there.