Peach Jam Recipes, Jon's new sweater, ice cream, and...moving again

Where to begin!  So much has been going lately with my family, the garden, and some big decisions.  We are moving again.  This time it is not a rush decision to get out of a bad situation, but instead a thoughtful decision to help Jon's family and finally be able to save up some money.  Jon's Gramma's house in Massachusetts needs to be looked after long-term.  I hate moving, and I'm not looking forward to being in Mass. again...but having a whole yard and house for very reasonable rent is too good to pass up.  Who wants to help me pack?!

And year, the garden seems to get ahead of me.  The apartment garden is right here, I don't need to get a ride, but I kinda gave up on it when I saw how slow things were and that I really should have improved the soil...which wasn't going to happen when I knew we would be moving sometime.  At my parents'...I should have been in there every day maintaining it, but that is impossible for me.  Squash bugs have now gotten all of my cucurbits (squashes, cucumbers).  Tomatoes are just starting to come in.  Rutabagas are the size of a cabbage.  I see two very large Amish pie pumpkins way out in the back.  Sunflowers are tall.  I'm not sure how it will work with moving and things still going in the garden.  I'm hoping to come back before a major frost.  I should have a very large quantity of winter squash, rutabaga, turnips, cherry tomatoes, green tomatoes and dried beans to share/trade if anyone is interested.  My parents also have tons of sweet corn, cukes, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes and tomatoes for sale!

Until I have my own orchard, I keep an eye out for cheap ways to get fruit and preserve it for the winter.  An orchard near Jon's parents', Breezelands Orchards, sells seconds peaches, a file box full for $10.  These peaches need to be used within 24 hours before they start to spoil...and this year, I got two boxes.  This led to a marathon of peach preserving that did nearly last 24 hours.  I took over my mother-in-law's kitchen and patiently worked over the stove, peeling peaches, stirring sugary mixtures, boiling water.  I still have no idea how many pints I ended up with because I have filled an entire cupboard.  Some of the nicer peaches were sliced and canned in a light syrup, the rest went to jam.

I do not use pectin when making jam, so I ended up taking a basic peach jam recipe and then making my own variations.

Base:
7 cups peach chunks
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups sugar

Variations:
Vanilla cinnamon: 1 tsp really good vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon
Blueberry spice: 1 pint blueberries (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp almond extract
Apricot: about 1 cup diced dried apricots -or- 2 cups cubed fresh apricots (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp almond extract, 1 tsp vanilla
Cherry:  about 1 cup diced dried pitted cherries -or- 2 cups cubed fresh pitted cherries (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp almond extract
Mango: 1 peeled, pitted, cubed ripe mango (then enough peach chunks to make a total of 7 cups of fruit), 1 tsp rum extract
Spiced peach: 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp allspice

*Try these at your own risk.  These are not proven recipes as of yet, just food experiments =)

I have also been experimenting with ice cream.  My favorite recipes come from David Lebovitz.  Jon's favorite ice cream is rum raisin, and he LOVED David's recipe so much that it lasted one day.  I can wait to try more of his recipes out (when getting the link I just stopped and stared at his recipes for ten minutes).  Maybe tonight will be avocado coconut...but for now, I'm working on Jon's sweater.  Again.  This time, I'm not pulling it out, now matter how silly it looks.  Pictures to come when it actually looks like something.

Butternut Breakfast Puffs

 

 Jon and I are addicted to doughnuts.  And not the cheap-easy-to-find kind.  We of course like the more expensive hand made ones that you find at farmstands or at Donut Dip.  These breakfast puffs are my attempt to recreate that taste at home, slightly healthier, and on a budget.

I had some frozen butternut squash from my parents' garden that needed to be used up, but no milk.  And I had a hungry husband looking anxiously into the kitchen.  I needed to come up with a treat using what I had! The result?

These puffs are BETTER than doughnuts.

(Adapted from Food52)

1/3 cup sea salted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cup a.p. flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 cup cooked, pureed winter squash -or- pumpkin

In a small pot, melt the butter over medium high heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until nutty and slightly browned.  Allow to cool to room temperature.

Cream sugar, egg, and squash.  Stir in room temperature brown butter.  Mix dry ingredients together, then add to wet until well combined.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin, and add batter evenly (I like to use the last drips from the melted butter pot to grease pans).

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  

Now, for the amazing part, which I discovered by accident.

Brown another 1/2 cup of sea salted butter (I didn't meant to brown it this time...but WOW).

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.

Dip each puff into the butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar.

Best when warm, but don't eat them all at once...if anyone is looking.

Makes 12.

17th Century Spice Cake

17th Century Spice Cake

I found this recipe while looking at the Plimoth Plantation website and dreaming of going back in time...It is more of a sweet bread than a cake.  I didn't have aniseeds or mace, so I used ginger and nutmeg instead.  I also substituted chopped candied ginger instead of raisins.  Looks and smells lovely, can't wait until it cools enough to eat!

Ratatouille, zucchini brownies, bialys, and soap

Easiest Ratatouille

1 cup tomato sauce in bottom of 10" casserole dish

Chop half an onion and a clove of garlic, sprinkle on top.

Drizzle olive oil over sauce mixture.

Slice zucchini (and/or summer squash and/or eggplant and/or bell pepper) very thinly or use a mandolin.

Arrange in a spiral on top of sauce until the entire surface is covered.

Season with salt, pepper and thyme, drizzle with olive oil.

Cut piece of parchment paper to fit inside to cover (I only had a small scrap of the paper left, and it still worked).

Bake at 375 for about 40-45 minutes, until veggies are as soft as you want.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.

Zucchini Brownies

1 cup white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp baking cocoa

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup honey

2 cups shredded zucchini

Mix wet ingredients and dry separately, then mix dry into wet.  Add more flour if needed.  Pour into a greased 9x13 pan, bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

 Bialys

Recipe by Smitten Kitchen.

 Melt and Pour Oatmeal and Honey Soap

I'm not a fan of melt and pour soaps anymore, because of their ingredients, but I had a bunch of the base leftover from a past project and wanted to use it up.

Melt down small amounts of the base at a time in the microwave or a double boiler (which is only for non-food use after this!).

Grind a small amount of oats at a time in your food processor until almost flour-like (or use oat flour).

Add a few drops of honey and as many ground oats as you want into the melted base a little at a time, making sure the base can hold the mixture- a little goes a long way!

Pour into molds and let cool until hardened.

Squash soup.

After I saw that I was only scheduled once or twice a week for August, and considering quite a few other factors, I quit my job at the ice cream stand.  It just wasn't worth it.  The small amount that I was making wasn't worth the drama and stress, especially when they suddenly cut my hours!  As for the people already asking me, 'So, when are you going to get a new job?!'...I have a job.  I'm still translating.  Yes, that's a real job.  And between jobs, I will be out in the garden, or making jam, or working on Jon's sweater, and not being lazy.  Most of the time.

My challenge recently has been to use up zucchini and summer squash.  I'm kinda glad that not all of my seed germinated, or we would have been eating squash for THREE meals a day, instead of two.

Here is my favorite recipe to use up the larger zucchini and summer squashes:

Squash Soup

Saute a medium chopped onion in olive oil until translucent in soup pot.  Add a chopped clove of garlic.  Dice up a couple of cups of zucchini and/or summer squash, as well as one carrot and one potato.  I've also thrown in turnips and beets.  Amounts don't have to be exact.  Saute a few minutes.  Add 3-4 cups of broth.  Add, to your taste, tumeric, cumin, paprika, ground mustard, cinnamon, cayenne (very little), salt, and pepper.  Keep in mind it will cook down, so watch how much salt you add.  When all the veggies are soft, use an immersion blender, or like me, pour small amounts into a blender and blend until pureed, being very careful- hot!!!  Add a tablespoon of butter -or- a splash of milk of your choice and stir in.  Enjoy!

This recipe is great for using up odd amounts of things.  I've been picking a tote bag full of squash every few days...seems to be the only thing coming out of the garden besides turnips!  Anyone want turnips?!  Seriously- let me know.  You can have all you want.

Gardening in the rain

If I haven't been scooping ice cream, I've been running to either my garden here behind the apartment, or my massive garden at my parents'.  This has been rather difficult, because if there haven't been thunderstorms, there is a drenching rain that makes it impossible to get anything done.  Rain gear isn't even an option at this point...there is so much moisture out there that I really don't want to risk spreading mold from ground to leaf!

There are some lovely flowers on my radish and spinach plants.  They bolted as soon as this heat started up. I knew that it was late for spinach, but the area is so shady!  Any other year, it would have worked.

Most of my seed came from the Seed Savers Exchange, which ended up being a big mistake.  Half their seed never germinated, their tomato seed produced very weak and susceptible seedlings, and I never received a response when I asked them about their germination rates this year or why I was having so many problems.

I was very fortunate to receive quite a few tomato, pepper, and one summer squash plant from some friends, as well as some new heirloom seed.  I also bought a flat of eggplants from the Agway.  Despite several evil woodchucks roaming the larger garden and more weeds than could ever be kept up with, the garden does look good.

This is what the apartment garden looks like.
This is what the farm garden looks like, mostly, I have generalized all of the tomato and peppers that were put in.

I'm off now to hopefully pull some more weeds before the rain starts up again!

We also got a guinea pig.  His name is Quwi.

Long summer

I keep telling myself, "This is going to be a long summer!" as a joke, and really, it is only June and I am looking forward to the fall.  Part of this is due to the heat, the rest to my summer job.  Scooping ice cream is fine.  I just didn't expect so much drama!

It really isn't that bad, well, except for a few things.  I am just very much looking forward to the end of ice cream season.  Maybe by then I will have saved enough to get a car!

I have planted two gardens again this year, one at my parents', and one behind the apartment.  The larger of the two needs some major weeding....which will get done sometime.  I was able to acquire some seed from a neighbor to make up for Seed Saver's Exchange seed not germinating, and I just found out today that I will be getting some heirloom tomato plants.  Most of my plants are heirloom this year.  Hopefully things turn out well!  I hope to post more about the garden later, but for now, I am exhausted once again and am off to bed.