Another Fruity Day in the Kitchen

"There is rhythm to being a farm girl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Be sure to visit Lori's blog to see what Friday Farm Girls is all about!

Last week, I posted about freezing bananas.  This week it's all about grapes!

On our end-of-September trip to Stovers U-Pick in Michigan (read the details here), we picked apples--lots of apples.  And then we heard someone comment about the raspberries.  So Jacob picked a pint of those.  Then we saw grapes.  So we picked a bunch of bunches.  (We also picked acorn and butternut squash.)

But enough of that.  We ended up with the following on our counter:

It was a mixture of Concord grapes, champagne grapes, and green grapes.  I checked my Ball canning book and found a recipe for "grape preserves without added pectin."  I had never made/canned grape preserves (or any preserves) before, so I figured this was a good first recipe to try.

The recipe called for Concord grapes, but I figured a mixture would be fine.  First, Joseph and I picked every grape off its vine, and placed them all in the colander to wash off.

Then came the longest hour I have ever spent at my kitchen counter.  Joseph and I squeezed every grape, shooting the inner pulp into one pot, and placing the skins in another.  This is an important step, in order to save and use the skins, but also to get rid of the seeds while saving the pulp.  Below is the pot of pulp, before and during simmering on the stove.

Once the pulp was softened, we put it all through the food mill to remove the seeds.

The food mill awaits

To the pot of skins, we added enough water to cover (I think I added too much; more on that later).  Then we simmered them as well.

Meanwhile, Joseph measured out the sugar (we used cane juice crystals) we would need once the pulp and skins were ready.  Um, it was a lot of sugar.  Very sweet.  (More on that later...)

Joseph put the sugar in a large glass measuring bowl, and then we waited for pulp and skins to come to a boil.  I decided I wanted smooth grape preserves, so I used my immersion blender to puree the skins.  The recipe called for us to bring the whole mixture to a boil, and boil it until it reached the gel stage, or 220 degrees Fahrenheit.  Which it did.  But it didn't pass the "spoon test" for the gel stage--meaning it didn't sheet off the spoon.  What to do?  We let it boil five more minutes.  220 degrees.  Still no sheeting.  The Ball canning book did not specify how much time this would take...  We let it boil five more minutes.  Ditto on no sheeting.  I finally shrugged, and figured we'd just go ahead and can it (by now the water bath canner, jars, and seals were ready to go).

Waiting for the to reach gel stage

In all, we successfully canned ten half-pints of very sweet grape preserves.  Or, I should say, grape "sauce."  Since one jar didn't seal, we put it in the fridge (after it cooled, of course), and it remained sauce-like.  Hmm.  Thomas said it was still good--we all agreed that it tasted delicious.  After reading my friend Mary's blog post about canning crab apple jelly, I think we should have let the jam mixture boil for a lot longer than we did.  Or, maybe I added too much water to the skins.  Or, maybe using cane juice crystals instead of sugar affected its ability to "gel."  Too many ifs in my experiment!!

But the preserves were canned and sealed, and I was done with it.

The boys all agreed that we would certainly use the grape "sauce" on toast and even sandwiches.  Thomas encouraged us to "spread in thinly!"  My smart comment here:  My genius mind thought of another creative way to use it:

Sweet grape sauce on Andy's vanilla frozen custard!

This farm girl's taste buds were dancin'!!  What a sweet experiment we had, and what a sweet time I spent in the kitchen with my precious Joseph.  Next year, I'll be ready to try something different for my preserves, such as using agar agar as Lori blogged about.  Let's see:  ten jars--that means about once a month, I'll have a sweet reminder of this day, plus a sweet anticipation of trying this again next year!


Back to life,
Christine

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Pickin' Time!

Joseph, Jacob, Thomas, and I headed out last weekend to Michigan.  Berrien Springs, to be exact, to a place called Stovers U-Pick.  We went there for... apples.  Mmmmm...

We picked up one of my borrowed daughters, Gabrielle, and headed east and north, hoping the rain would hold off for us.

Well, the rain came.  And stayed.  Ironically, it cleared up just as we left!  We met several church families there, and we ended up spending most--well, all--of our day with the M. family.  Guaranteed good time.  :)

Jonathan was not too happy about the rain.

You'll be seeing a lot of umbrellas in my photos today.  So, we picked and picked, and picked some more, and helped others pick, too.

At least he has an apple named after him!

Jacob picked under the shelter of the tree.

No climbing allowed!

Thomas and Joseph were good pickers!

Typical scene.  No umbrella?  Use a tree.

Part of the M. family

Another part of the M. family.  ;)

Jacob helped out

So many apples...!

C'mon, it's girls!  I loved spending time with them.  I love that they didn't mind.  :)

Getting our apples weighed

Raspberries?  Did someone say raspberries?  A few were left, and I gave Jacob the task of picking every single red raspberry he could find.

Grapes?  Stovers has grapes?  We picked some of them, too!

Mr. M. picked some grapes for us.  :)

Squash?  Seriously?  Okay, we picked some squash, then got out of there quickly before we found something else to pick.

That bag of squash was heavy!

We left Stovers with the M. family, and instead of heading over to the Michigan dunes (we decided we didn't want to sit around on wet, cold sand?) we ended up in a caravan of two, winding our way around back roads until a better driver/navigator than I found the designated Bob Evans Restaurant.  We ended up having lunch around 3:00pm!  Lunch time was filled with laughter, friends, and good food.  We had a great day together.


Back to life,
Christine

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Goin' Bananas!

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

I promise the below story has more to do with bananas than with Jacob's Bible:

Jacob left his Bible at church a week ago.  A family picked it up and called us, letting us know they had brought it home.  They live pretty far away, so we were wondering how to get his Bible back.  The mom (Mom #1) ended up having an appointment near the area, but we were gone for the evening.  She decided to drop off Jacob's Bible with another mutual friend and church family member (Mom #2), and that lovely lady dropped off his Bible at our home for us.  In addition to Jacob's Bible, Mom #1 blessed Mom #2 and us with a whole lot of "going" bananas.  So when we arrived home that evening, Jacob's Bible and a plastic bag of very ripe bananas were sitting on our front porch.

I knew we wouldn't use all the bananas before they went bad.  Also, I had very little time for baking this week, so I couldn't even make huge batches of banana bread (my favorite).  I had heard that bananas freeze well, so that is what I decided to do.

I peeled the bananas and cut them in half, mostly because a few of the bananas were really bad and I threw out portions of certain bananas.  I laid halves of bananas together on Glad Press 'N Seal, since I still have some left and it seals things up nicely.

I pressed the plastic around each banana section, squeezing out as much air as I could.

After each section was sealed, I placed them all into a Tupperware container, which went into our freezer.

It's not a whole lot of bananas, but they'll do for smoothies and banana bread.  We kept some of the better bananas out and made banana blueberry smoothies for the guys.  I personally can't wait for banana bread.  It is one of the very few ways I'll eat a banana; I do not like them raw in any way, shape, or form.  'Tis true!  I love love love banana bread, and I have a banana cake recipe that is out of this world.  I love banana pancakes and banana muffins, too.  But I can't stomach just peeling a banana and eating it!  I'm so glad some of these bananas are earmarked for baking!


Back to life,
Christine

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Tea Talk -- The Generation of the Upright

Welcome to my home for Ruth's Tea Talk!

Sit and share a cup of tea with me as we encourage each other in the Lord.

To participate, click on Ruth's button above.

I'm having...a cup of coconut black tea, in my Gibson china tea cup.  I took this photo last week because I shared tea with...

...two of my "borrowed" daughters!  I'm so glad Helen lets me "borrow" them, especially for tea.

Gabrielle, Michelle, and I sharing tea time together!

I'm feeling...fine, and less overwhelmed than last week.

On my mind...is preparing for a trip!  I'll be gone for a mere seven days, which means I'll miss Tea Talk next week (no internet where I'm going!).  Though half the time I argue with myself that I should just stay home and try to get things done, a small voice tells me I need to go.  I will have precious chunks of time to read His Word, reflect, and pray, and even just sit and relax without distraction.  I'm definitely looking forward to that part of my trip.

I leave you with...the passage of Scripture that we are memorizing together for church.  What a promise the Lord has given us!

Praise the LORD!

How blessed is the man who fears the LORD,

Who greatly delights in His commandments.

His descendants will be mighty on earth;

The generation of the upright will be blessed.

Psalm 112:1-2 NASB

Gabrielle took this shot -- looking up into my drying cayenne peppers

May He be the spice in your week!


Back to life,
Christine

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A Happy Week

Last week was a happy week.  I know this because our anniversary was September 12, and I never posted this post!  I'm finally able to breathe a little--more on that later--so I'm posting this quick post (it was already a draft) so it's not embarrassingly overdue!

Fernando and I started the week by celebrating our anniversary.  He took me out to Francesca's at the Promenade, a yummy Italian restaurant close to home.

My husband is a gentleman.  :)

No more camera that evening.  We had a lovely dinner together, shared our food and great conversation, and shared a delicious dessert of profiteroles (think cream puff filled with pistachio ice cream, mmm).  We strolled on over to Helzberg Diamonds, since I received a card for a free pair of cultured pearl earrings.  Yes, they were free!  We had fun window-shopping for a bit, then continued walking around the block and back to our car.

Later in the week, Fernando surprised me with 24 roses--one for each year of marriage.

In addition to the red roses, he brought me a smaller bouquet of orange and yellow roses for my birthday.  Needless to say, he was extravagant.

Yes, it was a happy week indeed!


Back to life,
Christine

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Some "Sage" Advice

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl.

It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done.

It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work.

It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment."

Rene Groom

Thanks to Mary's blog and a few other websites, I decided to try drying some herbs.  I had never harvested the sage in my garden before, and just let the little plant grow each year.  But the leaves were so pretty this year, I figured it would be a good first attempt at drying.

Here is a nice pile of sage, all clean and dry and ready for processing.

All I needed was some string to tie the sage in little bundles.  I may have made the bundles too large, but again, this was my first attempt.  I still have a ton of herbs to harvest in my garden!

Fernando, dear heart, hung some long, thin wood pieces in our basement "bomb shelter and food storage" area.  I tied the sage bundles to them.

A few websites instructed me to place the bundled herbs in brown paper bags, and a few gave me permission to simply hang the herbs upside down to dry.  I don't have a lot of space for hanging, so I opted for simply hanging them.  Time will tell if this method really works--sources claim it takes about two weeks to fully dry herbs.  I also learned that high-moisture herbs such as basil do not dry well, so I went ahead this week and started processing my prolific basil for freezer storage.


Back to life,
Christine

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