We have been the happy recipients of cherries! Lots of cherries! We have processed at least 50kg (110lbs) of cherries in the last few days. My fingers are an awful shade of brown-red from all the pitting and chopping. Pitting cherries is messy business and everything...
Today I preserved spinach from my garden. Last fall I planted Tyee spinach and it survived the winter. It was such a successful experiment that I plan on doing it again this fall. Not only have we've been eating spinach almost every day since April, but planting in...
Canning pears is a labour of love. It is by far the most time consuming of my canning projects. I do it because we love to eat home canned pears, nothing can compare.How many pears? A quart jar fits about 2.5 lbs (about 1 kg) of pears. To calculate how many...
As a child, I have distinct recollections of eating canned pears that were preserved by my mother. Sweet, soft and totally irresistible. I am always amazed how food can affect emotions and stir up memories. When I began canning, naturally I started with pears....
To most, pressure canning seems like a dangerous and complicated task. Something like detonating a series of fireworks without getting singed. There are stories that feed the fear of pressure canning. My husband's aunt suffered serious burns after a...
Around this time last year we were hard at work picking and pressing apples to make apple cider. With the recent passing of my Hubby's grandmother our apple picking plans got changed. We did gather several large buckets of apples from our own apple tress, but it...
In my perfect preserving world, everything I'd preserve would be organic, locally grown and cheap (or free). Living in the North makes it difficult to get certain fruit locally, never mind organic or even cheap for that matter. I was fortunate enough to can...
This past weekend we went to the local u-pick and scrounged up 4 lbs of raspberries. The bushes were pretty picked over by the time we arrived. Some deep bush diving was necessary and scratches and thorns were endured, but we filled one ice cream bucket....
I waffled on this one. I wanted to preserve cherries, Sweetpea got sick so I didn't want to anymore, then I came across some beautiful Okanagan cherries at the farmers' market and there was no turning back. Twenty pounds of cherries is a decent amount. Once you start...
It's hard to remain calm, collected and cool when you see something you really want at the farmers' market. Yesterday I spotted a large bin of garlic scapes. I practically jumped into it! But self-control prevailed. I noticed there was no advertised price...
When our Korean student left a couple months ago, I stopped making kimchi. Being the only person that would eat it, I figured it wasn't worth it. But, a few days ago I had a hankering for some kimchi and rice. I bought some napa cabbage yet forgot the daikon radish. A...