Homemade Pickles - Refrigerator Pickles - Canned Pickles

This is one of my favorite parts of the summer, making homemade pickles! Last year I made my first batch after I was given a huge box full of baby cucumbers. I made about 13 jars of refrigerator pickles and ended up giving away most of them since they were refrigerator pickles, good for only 3 months. This year I'm hoping for more of the baby cucumbers from the same friend but while I'm waiting, I got four medium sized cucumbers (about 1/3 of the size of the cucumbers sold in supermarkers) so I'll make two canned jars - pint size - and one refrigerator pickles.

I always get a packet of seasoning and this time it recommended cutting the ends off the pickles, which I did, and letting the cucumbers soak in ice water for four hours. I only soaked them for about two hours. Then I mixed together the seasoning packet, six cups of water, and 2 1/2 cups of vinegar that I brought to a boil. I brought my water bath canner to a boil at the same time. I packed the cucumbers (without the ice water) into the jars, then poured the boiling seasoning juice around them. I immediately water bath canned the two jars for 15 minutes. The other jar I let cool, then capped and put in the fridge. I find I actually prefer the taste of the refrigerator style to the canned but obviously the canned will last a lot longer.

Follow up: I just tried these pickles today - excellent! The putting them in ice water first DEFINITELY makes them crispier! Too good.. I could eat the whole jar. I think I will definitely follow this style again!

Oranges - Orange Marmalade

Marmalade = Messy! Or at least that's how I made it last night! Rule #1 I've discovered is don't leave your oranges and sugar boiling while you start watching a tv show in the other room, it WILL boil over! Oops! But I did enjoy making it anyway. So I used 3 medium sized oranges and one lemon. I grated all the peel off (leaving the white on the fruit) and had the peels, 1/8 tsp. baking soda, and 1 1/2 cups water boil together in a covered pot for 20 minutes. (I've discovered you really do want a medium to large size pot on this, especially if you do as I do and leave the room while things are boiling... Ahem) While it's boiling you scrape all the white stuff off the outside of the fruit(I found it helped to section the fruit first). Then remove all the outer pieces so you just have the inner fruit (one book I looked at called it "membrane" which is a word that makes me think of brains for some reason - I prefer to call it the clear stuff that holds the fruit together and doesn't boil down... So I found it easiest to cut along the top part of each orange section & lemon section and pull out the insides, you will want to do this over a bowl since you want to use all the juices you can! If you have four oranges it's even better by the way.. I just happened to have 3. So after your peels have boiled for 20 minutes, add the juices & inner fruit and boil covered for another ten. Then add your 5 cups of sugar and bring to a boil (while stirring). As soon as you have a full boil (but don't let it boil over!) add your package of pectin and bring back to a full boil, stirring, for one full minute. Then put in your jars and immediately water bath can for 15 minutes. According to the directions I read, it will take two weeks for your marmalade to set so be sure to date all your jars (I always label everything I can!) and wait two weeks to enjoy!

I love the colors of orange marmalade in a jar!

Marionberries - Marionberry Cake

Today I was given two two pint baskets of beautiful ripe marionberries! Marionberries are native to Oregon. They were created at the Oregon State University as a cross breed from cross-pollinating two different kinds of caneberries (the chehalem blackberry and olallie). I froze one pint by rinsing them and letting them freeze flat on a cooky tray before placing them in a bag. The rest I made into a marionberry cake. The recipe was called Marionberry cheesecake but it's more like a cross between a scone and a cake - delicious! I followed the recipe but altered it slightly. I mixed together 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/3 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/3 cup soft butter, 2 egg whites, 1 tsp. vanilla, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and mixed it all together until well blended (I mixed by hand)Then I pushed it flat in a sprayed pie plate and placed a pint of marionberries on top. Baked in 350 degree oven for approximately 45 minutes until cooked through and edges just slightly brown. This would be great served with vanilla ice cream on top! See original recipe here. http://www.gingerich.com/recipes/marion/01cheesecake.htm

Canning Crazyness!

In my picture there are peaches, peach jam, peach butter, maraschino cherries, cherry pie filling, applesauce, canned pineapple, pears, salsa, and blackberry jam. You know you like canning when... Just got out all my cannning jars I have in my cupboard to see what I had. Yes, I really enjoy canning! This is from April of this year on and obviously I have eaten and shared some of my canning as well. Next up is Marionberries! Just had someone give me two pint baskets full!

Peaches - Peach Jam & Peach Butter

Tonight I made Peach Jam and Peach Butter. I just discovered yesterday they now make individual size pectin packages so you can make a very small jam batch. It's enough for 2 half pint jars but I made my jam to fit into just one full sized pint jar. I had 1 1/3 cups peaches, mashed them up in sauce pan. Then I added 3 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 1/3 cups sugar. Cook together first the lemon juice and peaches to a full boil, then add the sugar all at once and cook at full boil for one minute (directions from back of package. Then can for 10 minutes in hot water bath.

I actually started my Peach Butter yesterday by removing the skins and cutting up the peaches. I left them in the crockpot overnight with the lemon juice and put it in the fridge. The next day in my crockpot, I mashed down about 2 cups peaches, 2 cups sugar, and 1/4 cup lemon juice. I also put in about 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract and let it cook for 4-8 hours on low. When it was cooked down brown and bubbly I canned it up into two pint jars. (Canned in hot water bath for 30 minutes)

Peas - Frozen Peas

I absolutely love fresh peas from the garden and usually I eat every single one of my peas straight off the vine! This year however, I planted enough peas that I have a little extra so I am blanching and freezing them pea pods and all to be used in stirfry later on. Pick the peas, remove the tops and strings. Blanch by throwing in boiling water for two minutes, ice water for two minutes. Dry on paper towels, throw in a freezer bag, label, and place in freezer!

The picture is of the peas in the boiling water during the blanching process.

Apples - Apple Pie Filling

One of the best things you can do when you have a bunch of extra apples is to freeze them for later as apple pie filling! I just pulled a bag of frozen apple pie filling out of my freezer yesterday, defrosted, and now tonight I have an apple crumble or apple crisp, whichever you want to call it, cooking in the oven! Prep time today was less than ten minutes! When I froze the apple pie filling months ago, this is what I did: To prep the apple pie filling I cut the apples into the slices. You can dip them into lemon juice and water to preserve color if you want, I usually don't since I immediately prep and freeze.. Next, throw the apples in a bag with about 1 cup of sugar and 1 tblsp of cinnamon or the ratio you like best of sugar to cinnamon. Mix the sugar/cinnamon & apples together well. Last, label the bag, date it, and throw in the freezer! That's it! You can freeze it either flat or upright. When you pull it out later you can either make a pie crust or just add some crumble topping and bake as an apple crisp!

After I have defrosted my apple pie filling, I throw it juice and all into a sprayed glass baking tray (pie plate or casserole dish).

ready to bake! (see above) Apple Crisp Crumble: 1-2 cups slow cooking oatmeal, 2/3 cups brown sugar, 3/4 cup flour and 4 tblsps. OR half a cup(8 tblsps. of butter). Combine the oatmeal, sugar, and flour in a plastic bag and mix until completely combined. Melt the butter and mix with other ingredients in bowl or the bag(if not too hot) last sprinkle over the top of your apple pie filling and bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes until bubbly and brown. Cool, add vanilla ice cream as a topping, and enjoy! :)

Peaches - Homemade Peach Salsa

Next up, canning peach salsa! I love salsa and canning my own will guarantee that it is inexpensive while also making flavors I enjoy. I often go to the grocery store and find that most of the flavors there are either too bland or too expensive for my taste. My first time canning salsa I used a salsa seasoning packet. All I had to add to it were canned tomatoes and I also added canned corn since I like southwestern style salsa. I used the medium heat flavoring package and I really enjoyed it but I know I can make my own salsa equally as tasteful! I also want to use fresh tomatoes since I think this will add to the flavor of my salsa.

Since I don't have time this week to actually prepare the salsa I will need to freeze the peaches until I have time to work with them. First I removed the skins, using the method of dipping the peaches in boiling water for one minute, then dipping in ice cold water. I removed the skins, then dipped the peaches back in lemon juice & water to retain the peaches' color.

Next, I cut the peaches into workable slices for the salsa and I laid the slices out on trays to be placed in the freezer. I will let them freeze flat and separated for about half an hour before placing them in a bag so they will each be frozen individually and not become one big clump of peach!

Peaches - Fruit Leather

I decided to try making some peach leather with some of my extra peaches that were too smushed and pulpy to can. I mashed them together in a bowl with my potato masher and when they were pretty much pulp I spread them on wax paper on a cooky sheet. As you can see from my picture I spread it pretty thin and I really could have made it half this thick. I put the pulp in my stove on warm (170 degrees) for about 5 hours. The edges started to get leathery but since I had spread it so thick it took extra time for the middle to cook through (typical time for fruit leather is 3-6 hours on a low heat). So I had to take a couple days to cook this through. You can see the results below. Some recipes suggest adding sugar but my peaches were so super sweet any additional sugar would have been sickening sweet.

Cherries - Cherry Cupcakes

When I created my maraschino cherries I ended up with one jar leftover of cherry juice. I plan to use this juice (that smells wonderful, just like maraschino cherry juice only more like straight up cherries than alcohol since I only used a small amount of almond extract)for different cooking uses. So far I have used the juice for making cupcakes: I added about 1/4 a cup of the juice to a regular white cupcake mix, cooking as directed on the box, and made the yummiest cherry cupcakes I have ever had!

Peaches - Canned Peaches

I always forget how messy Peaches are! I let the peaches I picked ripen on the counter for about three days (I picked them hard) and they were soft to the touch when I decided to can them - I probably could have done them a day or so earlier so the fruit would be firmer in the jars but I was too busy and time slipped away.. So, I decided to can most of my peaches, about 6 pint jars worth. I also always forget how much of a process peaches are so it's good to do a bunch all at once. Oh yeah, and don't forget to put your cutting board and three bowls close together while you are removing the skins, dunking them in lemon juice so the color doesn't change in the peaches, and then dumping the pits in your compost bowl.. I had mine all in different places along the counter on both sides of my stove which resulted in a sticky floor and lots of mess! I will need to wash my floor again tonight! This was a fun blog for getting ideas about different uses for peaches: http://shannandesh.blogspot.com/2010/09/peaches-peach-sauce-peach-butter.html The ideas for vanilla peach sauce and freezing peaches make me want to go back and pick more peaches real soon! Basically the process I went through with my peaches was as follows: Blanch the peaches: Dunk them in boiling water for a minute, throw them in ice water immediately afterward, then remove the skins, they should slide off easily. Cut the peaches up and put in jars. Pour boiling sugar water (6 cups water, 2 cups sugar, I did a "light" syrup) over the fruit in the jars, put lids on and water bath can for 25 minutes.

Blueberries - Blueberry Muffins

With the U-pick Blueberries I got from Bear's Berries, I froze most of them for later use. I also threw some in the dehydrator since I love dried berries. Today I made some blueberry muffins using better homes & gardens muffin recipe http://www.bhg.com/recipe/sweet-rolls/muffins/ since it is one of the easiest around. Instead of lemon peel I threw in about a tsp. of lemon juice. I like adding poppyseeds as well if I have them on hand. You can see these look a little skimpy on the berries - my blueberries are medium sized to large so next time I will add more than just a cup, smaller berries go around a lot more!

So yummy having blueberries on my breakfast cereal! As you can see, I had blueberries in every bite this morning.

Cherries - Homemade Canned Maraschino Cherries

Next up, making homemade canned maraschino cherries! I had no idea what a process it was to make Maraschino cherries. I've been going off the recipe at http://homecooking.about.com/od/fruitrecipes/r/blfruit23.htm Day one: using 1 quart of water and 1 tablespoon pickling salt (notice I halved the water but not the pickling salt - I'm making a smaller batch about 2 small jars and figured the salt was important) bring to a boil, let cool, then pour over the halved & pitted cherries. Cover and let sit for 12 hours. Day 2: drain off the pickling brine (do not save). Set aside cherries in bowl. 2 cups water 3 cups sugar 1/3 cup lemon juice 4-6 drops red food coloring or until you've reached desire shade of red Mix all together, bring to a boil and stir until all sugar is dissolved. Pour over cherries in bowl. Cover (I put a plastic lid in the bowl to hold the cherries down in the water)and let sit for 24 hours. Day 3: Next, drain the juice and heat it in a pan on the stove to boiling. Mix in 1 tablespoon almond extract. Put the cherries in a jar and put the juice back in over the cherries and immediately waterbath can. My original two small jars turned into one small jar after my cherries all shrunk - I think I should have let cool the juice the first time around instead of pouring it hot on the cherries since that was when they shrank.

Cherries - Homemade Canned Cherry Pie Filling

Looking at what was left of my cherries, I decided to try my hand at making canned cherry pie filling. I will be making two jars worth since that is the equivalent of filling for one small pie. I went off the recipe at this site: http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/homemade-cherry-pie-filling-recipe/ Since I was making a smaller batch I reduced the recipe to the following: I used about 3 cups cherries, (halved & pitted) 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 2 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead of almond extract (not ideal but it was all I had on hand!). I followed the directions, mix all together, bring to a boil, immediately reduce heat to low, and stir until all cooked together. Then I poured into my jars and placed in my water bath canner. The type of cherries I am using are the "Royal Ann" variety from Detering Orchards. Sweet with a little bit of tartness.

Cherries from Detering's Orchard - Dried Cherries

Today was a fun day with friends at Detering's Orchard in Harrisburg, Oregon. We picked Cherries & Peaches (the other girls picked raspberries but I didn't want any). Some of the Cherries I've kept to eat fresh. For the rest, I put some cherries and some blueberries from an earlier trip to Bear's Berries in my dehydrator. I picked about 4 pounds of cherries which means I will probably do two rounds of dried cherries. I love eating dried cherries, cranberries, or blueberries on my breakfast cereal. The peaches I picked aren't ripe yet so I will wait until they are ripe to decide what to do with them.

This picture (see below) is of my dried cherries the next day. I left them in the dehydrator for about 15 hours on 115 degrees. I will have a pint sized bag worth when they are all done. The secret to good dried cherries is knowing they are done when they are no longer sticky and feel completely dried out through the middle. Otherwise, they can mold or not hold together well if in the bag for longer than a couple weeks.