July has come to an end. Kind of sad, isn't it? With August comes the beginnings of harvests and to me (I grew up in Texas *shrugs*) the beginning of school and fall. My mind has been a flutter with thoughts of Carmel apples and pumpkin picking. The rest of me however has been occupied with friends, work, and food preservation! I've made stewed tomatoes, brined pickles, plum sauce, frozen zucchini, frozen green beans, frozen corn, and dried zucchini. Yes, I know it doesn't sound like much but add in my half-brother's passing (rest in peace Jeremy :( ) and all the day to day work I do as a housewife and I'm impressed with my accomplishments.
I think one of the more exciting parts of this past weekend was finding my dehydrator! I've been wanting one, but they add up in cost quickly and I wasn't 100% sure I would even use it all that much. I have fallen in love. We found my dehydrator at a garage sale brand new and never opened for (now get this) five bucks! I was extremely excited to take it out and play with it all day Saturday (we had other errands we were doing while we were garage sale shopping and then guest for dinner). When I finally did get a chance to open it, I pulled it out, read the cleaning instructions and tossed the book aside (not literally). I cleaned it and started slicing some of the zucchini in my fridge to put on there. I looked in my Ball's Canning guide for their directions on zucchini drying and began. After I had started the process, I then took the time to read the instructions for the machine. It was a special edition one (apparently packaged for Wal-Mart specifically) and it came with a starting jerky maker set. I'm not that brave yet, but one of these days I will be!
I got an order for some more of my blushing peach jam! I'm really excited :) I love making it (and eating it). Two jars are ordered and the rest will go in the pantry for now. I still have to find raspberries for it though. When I was out and about picking up tomatoes and things to preserve, each place I went was sold out. I'm going out to look some more tonight.
Things I learned this weekend about food preservation:
1. Two people cutting up 10 lbs of tomatoes goes a lot faster than one
2. About two ears of corn blanched equals a pint bag half filled in the freezer.
3. 5 or 6 hours of dehydrating time seems epic when you are excited and anticipating the process, but in reality it's really not that long.
As for my garden (I really need new pictures up >.>) we went ahead and bit the bulled and pulled our potatoes up. We had the mole living in a burrow in them (it finally made it's way to the garden) and between the June bug problem we had and the hail from the storm earlier this year, the plants themselves weren't looking too spiffy. We got 5-10 lbs of potatoes from our little plants (even with the pulling up early and everything else that happened to these poor guys) and there were still lots of tiny little baby potatoes we could have had if we had let them keep growing. Oh well! We're excited with what we have and I'm planning on turning them into freezer french fries (the kind that normally cost an arm and a leg in a store that you bake in the oven to eat!). We also thinned out our green bean plants. Some of them were looking worn so we went ahead and pulled them up to make room for the ones that aren't as beaten up. The honey dew melons look like little fuzzy green baseballs! I love them! I can't help but rub my fingers over them when I'm out in the garden at least once. I hope it doesn't hurt them! The main reason for the garden work however was that our tomato plants out grew their cages! We had to buy stakes and tie them up over the weekend. I didn't know they would/could do that! I guess we should chalk it up to another lesson learned! Of course, after we spent a few hours in the garden, another severe storm rolled through! Thankfully we didn't get any of the hail they had predicted with it. I still have more pickles to make and a few beans to freeze and the french fries to prepare, but besides that, I think one of the next things I want to try is home made hot pockets! In the Ball's Canning Guide they have directions for making ham and cheese ones, so I'm going to try and adjust it for peperoni ones! Wish me luck folks :)
I don't think there's much else really worthy of posting about (I'm sure after I finish this I'll thing of 101 things I should have said but that's just how it goes) so I'm just going to wish you all a wonderful weekend!
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