Farmer's Markets and Home Grown

[Dicentra]

Ahhh... Fall. It's harvest time!

I recently harvested an entire tree's worth of pears... Then another tree's worth of Asian pear/apples... Then another tree's worth (our own) of apples. Free food! Some got made into jam, some frozen, some will be pie filling and some was dehydrated.

In addition, my MIL and I have been hitting the local farm stands... Getting gorgeous in season produce for next to nothing. This week is all about winter squashes. Acorn, butternut, delicata... All of which are in the dehydrator right now. Fresh picked corn on the cob for dinner tonight...

Next up is blue elderberries (for jam, syrup, booze?) and rose hips (jam? tea? I haven't decided yet) - harvested in the "wild" of our own property. We have choke cherries too, but not enough to do anything with this year.

This is great way to stock your backpacker's pantry on the cheap! Free or low-cost foods. A little effort. A little prep and you can have a ton of yummy meals quickly. I've been using the crock pot like crazy, then drying stews etc.

What are you harvesting or finding right now? Did you have a garden? What are you doing with your harvest?

[sarbar]

Teresa knows what I love harvesting most of all - Huckleberries! But alas, the first snows came this past week meaning not many left that would be good picking. Oh well. Still good eating when frozen. If it warms up this week they will start turning - alchy bombs is whats I calls them!

I have a big stash of purple carrots I got this past weekend from up in the foothills. Need to head up to the Island to pick Rose Hips. And I need to go pick apples and pears before the first frost happens here. It hit the mid 30's so I have to get it done this week.

[Mountain Maiden]

Ahhh... Fall. It's harvest time!

I recently harvested an entire tree's worth of pears... Then another tree's worth of Asian pear/apples... Then another tree's worth (our own) of apples. Free food! Some got made into jam, some frozen, some will be pie filling and some was dehydrated.

In addition, my MIL and I have been hitting the local farm stands... Getting gorgeous in season produce for next to nothing. This week is all about winter squashes. Acorn, butternut, delicata... All of which are in the dehydrator right now. Fresh picked corn on the cob for dinner tonight...

Next up is blue elderberries (for jam, syrup, booze?) and rose hips (jam? tea? I haven't decided yet) - harvested in the "wild" of our own property. We have choke cherries too, but not enough to do anything with this year.

This is great way to stock your backpacker's pantry on the cheap! Free or low-cost foods. A little effort. A little prep and you can have a ton of yummy meals quickly. I've been using the crock pot like crazy, then drying stews etc.

What are you harvesting or finding right now? Did you have a garden? What are you doing with your harvest?

'SHROOMS!

Found a 7 # 'hen of the woods' aka maitake (nothing compared to others' finds!), white puff balls--so cute and so yummy! Have dehydrated them (love that room in the attic!) along with some wonderful chanterelles, black trumpets and others I found this summer. They make for super light, super delicious and super nutritious trail food and add a gourmet touch to any meal.

Anybody ever do anything with 'autumn olives?" Ever dehydrated spaghetti squash?

S:sun

[Dicentra]

What are autumn olives?

I should try the spaghetti squash! I'm on a squash kick now. I bet it would be great!

[Tinker]

What are autumn olives?

I should try the spaghetti squash! I'm on a squash kick now. I bet it would be great!
Autumn olive grows all over the place around here. Here's a link to the berries. I'd never thought to try eating them before now.
http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/2008/10/02/on-autumn-olive-berries/

[Dicentra]

Autumn olive grows all over the place around here. Here's a link to the berries. I'd never thought to try eating them before now.
http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/2008/10/02/on-autumn-olive-berries/


Where is "here"? We don't have anything like that here. They are pretty though.

[Farr Away]

Autumn olive grows all over the place around here. Here's a link to the berries. I'd never thought to try eating them before now.
http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/2008/10/02/on-autumn-olive-berries/

Hmm, those look like something my parents in upstate NY used to call snake berries. They also said they were poisonous though, so maybe not. Or maybe they just didn't know if they were edible, and wanted to make sure we stayed away from them. :D

[Ladytrekker]

We just canned tomatoes and also made some pepper jelly. But I am going to buy myself a hydrator for Christmas and start playing with that, I have a lot of thoughts of what I want to try.

[ShelterLeopard]

Ahhh... Fall. It's harvest time!

I recently harvested an entire tree's worth of pears... Then another tree's worth of Asian pear/apples... Then another tree's worth (our own) of apples. Free food! Some got made into jam, some frozen, some will be pie filling and some was dehydrated.

In addition, my MIL and I have been hitting the local farm stands... Getting gorgeous in season produce for next to nothing. This week is all about winter squashes. Acorn, butternut, delicata... All of which are in the dehydrator right now. Fresh picked corn on the cob for dinner tonight...

Next up is blue elderberries (for jam, syrup, booze?) and rose hips (jam? tea? I haven't decided yet) - harvested in the "wild" of our own property. We have choke cherries too, but not enough to do anything with this year.

This is great way to stock your backpacker's pantry on the cheap! Free or low-cost foods. A little effort. A little prep and you can have a ton of yummy meals quickly. I've been using the crock pot like crazy, then drying stews etc.

What are you harvesting or finding right now? Did you have a garden? What are you doing with your harvest?

Tons of apples! So many apples....I love apples! Around here we have lots of farm stands and apple stuff, cider, apple cider homemade doughnuts, apple pie, apple butter, apple everything! And now begins pumpkin season. Pumpkin everything too- pumpkin pies, muffins, preserves, pumpkin ice cream. I LOVE FARM COUNTRY IN THE FALL!!!!!

[ShelterLeopard]

Oh, an careful with those autumn olive berries if you don't know your plant identification like the back of your hand- those look similar to a poisonous berry I've found around where I live, and I think it would be easy to get them mixed up if you're not sure.

[LaurieAnn]

I have done red pepper jelly this year and I'm doing further experiments with my tea jellies and marmalades.

Here's my red pepper jelly recipe...

craveable - red pepper jelly (http://craveable.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/red-pepper-jelly/)

[ShelterLeopard]

Hey laurie- do you have any recipes for apple jam or apple butter? We've got so many apples here, I'd like to do something with them (apart from the usual pies, cider and apple sauce)

[Dicentra]

Hey laurie- do you have any recipes for apple jam or apple butter? We've got so many apples here, I'd like to do something with them (apart from the usual pies, cider and apple sauce)

I made ginger pear butter (http://www.recipezaar.com/Ginger-Pear-Butter-181146) recently. This would work with apples too, I think.

[Jan LiteShoe]

Digging sweet potatoes out of the garden this week.
It's like finding buried treasure, or Christmas from below-ground.

Red ones, white ones and oragnge ones. We use the white ones as a lower-glycemic "mashed potato" potato, since the hub is diabetic and can handle the starches in lower-carb sweet potatoes better.

Fall to us is a nightly sweet potato roasted in the over or microwaved and then a liberal application of butter, or baked with apples and cider, or...

sweet potato pancakes:
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/sweet-potato-pancakes/
Super easy if you have access to a food processor. I suppose the shreds could be dehydrated.

[Dances with Mice]

Hey laurie- do you have any recipes for apple jam or apple butter? We've got so many apples here, I'd like to do something with them (apart from the usual pies, cider and apple sauce)I have a great recipe calling for one gallon apple cider, 2.5 pounds of honey and champagne yeast. It's nearly a no-cook recipe but does require a few special implements and at least one year before it's done.

First batch of this year is bubbling away on my kitchen counter now. I like fall.

[LaurieAnn]

Hey laurie- do you have any recipes for apple jam or apple butter? We've got so many apples here, I'd like to do something with them (apart from the usual pies, cider and apple sauce)

I'll phone my Mom and get Grandma's recipe for you. It's pretty yummy.

I make a mean Harvest Pork and Apple Stew that rehydrates beautifully on the trail too. I can send you that if you like.

[Jan LiteShoe]

I have a great recipe calling for one gallon apple cider, 2.5 pounds of honey and champagne yeast. It's nearly a no-cook recipe but does require a few special implements and at least one year before it's done.

First batch of this year is bubbling away on my kitchen counter now. I like fall.

Hey DWM,

Where do you get your "special implements?" I tried to make some muscadine "recipe" this year, first time, with a baggie over the bottle to keep the fruit flies out, but of course it blew off before I could vent it the next day. :)

Is the "recipe" good for anything at this point? Is useable vinegar a possibility? Or is it a science experiment gone horribly wrong. :banana

[Dances with Mice]

Hey DWM,

Where do you get your "special implements?" I tried to make some muscadine "recipe" this year, first time, with a baggie over the bottle to keep the fruit flies out, but of course it blew off before I could vent it the next day. :)

Is the "recipe" good for anything at this point? Is useable vinegar a possibility? Or is it a science experiment gone horribly wrong. :bananaJan, we're drinking last year's vintages now, I only did 1 & 2 gallon batches. None were vinegar but a few came out as wine cooler material but most came out wonderful. And I kept notes! One thing I learned was that muscadines do not get riper in the fermenter and if you start with green'ish grapes your wine will always taste like green grapes. But all the recipes using ripe fruit and honey have a nice residual sweetness and have been a hit at parties where I've asked some serious wine snobs to taste my efforts. I only got one wrinkled nose, most asked for another glass.

For small scale vintnering I use a 3 gallon clear glass cookie jar from Kroger as a primary fermenter. It has a heavy glass lid. Plus some empty one gallon glass cider or jug wine bottles. The special implements are fermentation locks, sounds like what you need, rubber stoppers sized to fit the gallon jugs, and a hydrometer which looks like a glass candy thermometer only it floats and tells you the specific gravity of liquids. And some tubing for siphoning.

This isn't the forum to go into a lot of wine-making detail, so this is the nickle version: For apple - honey wine: Add 1.5 gallons cider to the cookie jar, heat one remaining quart on stove and add honey, stir to mix honey. Pour honey-cider syrup into cookie jar. Test specific gravity. Heat 1 cup sugar to 1 cup cider (you should have a quart left, right?) to make a strong syrup and add to jar, repeat until specific gravity is 1.13. It took me 2 gallons cider, 2.5# honey and 2 cups sugar to hit that mark.

Real wine grapes yield juice approximately 1.13 S.G. which ferments out to wine with enough alcohol to prevent spoiling. Muscadines and fruits need a help to get to that level.

Then wine stuff. Add 2 tbs yeast nutrient and 3 Campden tablets and let sit overnight. Next day add 1/4'ish packet of champagne yeast. Close lid.

Fermentation will start, it will bubble and foam. A week later siphon the liquid off the debris on the bottom into the gallon jugs. Top jugs up to within an inch of the top of the bottle, add honey-water syrup if needed to fill. Close with stopper fitted with fermentation lock. Haul them into a dark spot in the basement. 1 month later pull them out, siphon the liquid off the gunk on the bottom into clean bottles with 1 Campden tablet, top up with honey-water syrup and put'em back in the basement. Repeat about 3 months later. Repeat 3 months later and I did mean to write that twice. Then a couple weeks after the last racking simply replace the cork/fermentation lock with the jug cap that you carefully saved somewhere. The wine has been fermented dry but will still have a nice sweetness. The honey adds a great body.

I froze muscadines as I picked them and used about 3-5 pounds per batch to make 2 gallon batches, honey added to get a S.G. of 1.13 again. Or 3'ish pounds of raspberrries or blueberries. The raspberry has been our favorite but, dammit, I only made one gallon of it last year. Be sure to crush the fruit - a potato masher works great. Just put the fruit in the cookie jar and smash. For fruits I added 1 part honey to 2 parts water to make the sweetening syrup.

The fermentation locks are the $1.25 3-piece, the corks are size 5.5, and I have the triple scale hydrometer. I can drive to the local brew shop but they also ship orders. (http://www.winecraftatl.com/equipment.htm)

You can't drink any until you start to make the next year's batch. It's a rule.

[Dances with Mice]

Is the "recipe" good for anything at this point? Is useable vinegar a possibility? Or is it a science experiment gone horribly wrong. :bananaOh, I didn't answer your question. If the blowout occurred in the first week, no problem. The brew is blowing out so much CO2 that contaminants probably won't get in. If you've kept it sealed and clean after that then it's probably ok.

[cowpoke]

Well let me see...we put up about 100 jars of strawberry-fig preserves and 100 jars of peach-fig preserves...and about 50 jars of "old-fashioned" fig preserves. Vacuum packed about 15 quart bags of blueberries, 10 bags of cut peaches, 10 bags of cut necterines and 25 jars of cut pears. Plenty of yellow squash and zuchinni squash cut and vacuum packed. Put up about 50 jars of zuchinni relish and 20 jars of egg-plant relish and about 20 jars of salsa and 20 jars of pickled okra and 20 quart jars of pickles....plus about 10 jars of "bread and butter" pickles. Bunch grapes didn't do all that well this year but what we had was good. Still picking tomatoes, okra, green peppers, and egg-plant. Pecans are starting to fall but don't think this will be a good season for pecans. And last but not least we put 700 lbs of home grown beef in our freezer this year and next years angus steers are grazing out back. We grow what we can and try to buy local as best we can.

[Jan LiteShoe]

Oh, I didn't answer your question. If the blowout occurred in the first week, no problem. The brew is blowing out so much CO2 that contaminants probably won't get in. If you've kept it sealed and clean after that then it's probably ok.

Hey, thanks for all that, really! Your typing finger must be really sore. I prescribe raspberry wine, PRN for pain. :)

I copied your post for future use. That link is really useful. Fermentation locks are what I've been looking for. I should have lots of blueberries next spring, so I'll restart there.

Here's to ya! (Tipping glass...) Next round is on me.

[ShelterLeopard]

So many good recipes, so little time. I'll just need to make some! (Time, not recipes- though I could make some of those too)
By the way, raspberry dessert wine is wonderful.