Category Archives: Food

Tomatoes

Canning, Food,

Behold...the tomato!

These are some pictures that we’ve taken recently and, for some reason, I just really like them. Tomatoes are going full steam right now so we are making salsa and pizza sauce and debating about making spaghetti sauce. We don’t really have a good spaghetti sauce recipe so we have been hesitant. I sort of have fun just arranging piles of tomatoes and staring at them. I wonder if I have a problem?
Piles of tomatoes!

Tomatoes and zuke pickles!
different types of tomatoes!

Anyhow, we planted around 50 tomato plants that we started from seed this spring. I can’t remember the exact mix but we have some ox hearts, mortgage lifters, romas, WV hillbillies, and yellow amish tomatoes.

I really must do better next year about keeping track of which is which!

 

Zucchini pickles

Canning, Food, Garden, ,

zukes!

We planted only a half row of zucchini fearing the plague of fruit that usually follows.  I think it was a wise move as we haven’t been overrun with the stuff but we had plenty to make a couple of batches of zucchini pickles.  I found the recipe at Achorn Farm’s blog.  Anyhow, we made a dozen pints of the stuff.  They are delicious…but a little potent!  The pickling juice also stains…even clear plastic measuring cups.

Topped with onions

Ready for lids

zucchini pickles!

The end of blackberries

Canning, Food,

WV BlackberriesWe seem to have come to the end of the blackberries.  When we started picking at the end of June, we could easily pick until our baskets were full.  I never weighed the berries we picked but we harvested a lot of berries.  All together, we made 54 half pints of jam, 10 pints of syrup, three pies and we froze around 8-10 more quart-sized freezer bags.  We went a few nights ago and the berries have surely dwindled (or else someone else found our spot!).  We got enough to fill a quart freezer bag but no more. Although a little eariler than planned, we had figured on stopping picking sometime around the end of summer. There is an English wives’ tale that goes something like this…

When the Devil was kicked out of Heaven on October 11(the date of Michaelmas though I have seen it posted as September 29 also…one is old Michaelmas and the other modern Michaelmas I guess), he landed, cursing and screaming, on a thorny blackberry bush.

He avenges himself on the same day every year by spitting (or some say, peeing) on the berries, which makes them inedible.

Apparently, there is some truth to leaving blackberries alone in the Fall.  The climatic changes of Autumn apparently are ripe for mold to breed which may make the blackberries unsafe to eat.

There is another English tale regarding blackberries…
Once upon a time, a cormorant (a seabird that dives for fish), a bat, and a blackberry bush entered the wool business together, buying, shipping, and selling wool.  Unfortunately, their ship, loaded with wool, sank on its first voyage, and their business went belly-up.   Ever since, the cormorant dives into the sea looking for the ship. The bat hides from his creditors in a cave, venturing forth only after dark. And the blackberry bush grabs wool from any passing sheep, trying to replace his loss.

 

I found all sorts of interesting stuff about blackberries here and here.

I also found an interesting site that has some explanations of old traditions associated with the Celtic season/month

Smoked Ribs!

Food

Smoker in action!
We had some friends over last night and decided to smoke some ribs on the smoker. We were gifted this smoker by a neighbor in TN. Anyhow, Emily bought 2 full racks of ribs which we covered with a dry rub. We used to get a rub mix in TN called “Butt Rub” but got something else here in WV. Anyhow, we rubbed the meat with it and waited for the charcoal to get ready. I always apply a generous dose of lighter fluid to the charcoal before I light it. I wait for it to burn down and then add another generous dose (don’t try this at home…I now have significantly less hair on my right leg as compared to my left leg). Once that flare up burns down, I add a pan of water, the meat racks and the meat. Ribs take around 5 hours to smoke if all goes well. I add hickory chips pretty often but not obsessively so. Sometimes I soak them overnight and sometimes I don’t. I don’t see too much difference really. Anyhow, the fire never needs tending…except to add more hickory now and then. We smoke a lot of different meats including whole chickens, salmon, pork chops, and steak. I haven’t found anything I don’t like on it. The meat is never dry (that’s why we add the pan of water) or tough. Most times, it falls right off the bones in fact. The only downside is that it takes a long time to cook, it can be hard to start a fire in the rain, and neighborhood dogs may become curious (who can blame them?)Smoked Ribs!

We had a debate last night regarding the benefits of dry rub versus wet sauce. We definitely prefer dry rub as it just seems more civilized. Ribs are pretty messy anyhow, but wet ribs are the worst. The compromise we worked out last night was to provide bbq sauce for anyone who wanted it (the uncivilized few!)