Juice and Jelly

70°f/21°C, humid but no rain. Mostly cloudy.

Buddy the dog barked almost all night. At what? Who knows, but perhaps the young doe who boldly grazed under the apple tree close to the back porch while we were out there working had come back looking for apple drops.  Pip was content to stay on the rug beside our bed, and let Buddy do the night shift.

So it took me four cups of coffee to get my motor running this morning. First up: start defrosting the big freezer. It was so iced up I could get very little out of it. Such a hassle! We had unplugged it the night before, so it was starting to melt already. We worked on it off and on all day as more and more ice melted, and now it is completely empty. After dumping all the out-of-date stuff, things that had lost their vacuum seal and so on, we were able to fit all the good stuff into the smaller freezer and the freezer in the extra fridge. Next job is to clean up the big freezer and see if we need to replace the gasket, as that may be why it iced up so badly.

In between working on that, I finished up the grape juice, ending up with 12 quarts. As a treat, I made grape juice floats, just grape juice with vanilla ice cream. Surprisingly good! 

Next I tackled the elderberry jelly. I had extracted the juice earlier this week and froze it until I had more time. 

I made 3 batches, ending up with about 12 half-pints. I added white wine again, as we liked that little variation very much when I made it last week.

The tomatoes I put in the dehydrator on Friday were ready to put away, so I did that next, and cleaned up the dehydrator--quite a job as the tomatoes are quite sticky as they dry. These I will use to thicken sauces, and I may grind them up into powder if I find time. This is a good way to use up a lot of tomatoes.

Larry picked a half bushel of beans I do not need, so I guess tomorrow or Tuesday I will can them. 

Unless I can find someone to give them to. Canning season is winding down now, just a few more tomatoes to deal with. I have no apples this year so we can't make sauce unless we can find some somewhere.  My oldest son is on the lookout in his area, where there are quite a few orchards. 

Speaking of sons, oldest just returned from his annual hiking trip, this time a week in the Sierra Nevada range; Derek was in Texas and Louisiana this past week, and Aaron was in North Carolina. Everyone is safely home now, but Aaron will be on the road again this week, this time to Norfolk, VA for a job on the USS Fort Lauderdale (doing what I have no idea, but something to do with boilers or heat systems for sure). He will get to visit his oldest daughter while there as she's in the Navy and stationed in Norfolk. 

A friend took this photo of one of the bad storms rolling into Ravenswood last week. This is about 16 miles from us.

More storms are expected this week. We seriously do not need more rain.  Last year at this time we were crying for it! Crazy, crazy weather.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Booths and Storms

69°f this morning after an evening and night of wild storms. Bad storms in the wee hours Friday as well.

It has been incredibly stormy and humid the past 2 days. Humid as in hard to breathe outside, stand still and pour sweat down face, neck, back and every single other body part. We have had 4" of rain, with more expected tonight. Lots of minor (thank goodness) flooding, trees down, branches everywhere.  

Yesterday evening we needed to go to the store because Larry was out of his zero beer and we can't have that! I needed a few things anyway, so I went too. But our young dog Pip would not come out of the house, and when I finally got him out, he jumped in the van. Now, he never gets in there, not even when we want him to. Not even when we bribe with treats. This time I could not get him out, so he went to town with us. And we ran into the most  incredibly powerful storm I think I have ever driven in. Couldn't even see the road. 

By then we were closer to town than home so we just continued on, slowly. Had to dodge one fallen tree, but we made it safely. Whew. (All because of beer---but this zero beer keeps him from drinking other alcohol, so it's important.) I guess Pip knew what was coming! He has become terrified of storms ever since that big branch fell on our deck last month. Poor baby. I am going to get him a thunder shirt, which is supposed to help with this fear.

Well anyway, I was going to do a booth update post this evening. We finally got to both of them this week. Here's a few photos from Ravenswood:

That sideboard I finished last week found its spot.

So did all the suitcases I emptied when I moved the DVDs I had stored in them into a cabinet. I am so in love with that Asian jewelry armoire. It may yet come back home with me!

These recipe pie plates have become suddenly hot items.

I re-did the display window, but my photos are terrible--too much reflection. I will take better ones this week.

This booth is messy! But people seem to like looking through the stacks of framed art. I will be doing a big tidy-up in there this week.

And here are some pictures from Ripley:

We moved in the dinette set today.  Hot, sweaty work! 

I like the way twinkle lights show off crystal. 

Oops! Caught a customer in this one! She was looking for doilies to make a balance in her kitchen.

I had these biscuit jars in my collection for a long time, but decided to let them go. Continuing a gradual downsizing!

The pink suncatcher sold right after I left today.

This planter makes me laugh. There is a green lizard across it, but to me it looks like an unhappy face!

Some pretty glass--Fenton cruet, L E. Smith Moon & Stars milk glass compote to the left.

Teapot paperweight.

I am not sure of the maker of the pitcher, possibly English though. The vase in front is Fenton.

Pretty Fenton basket. 

The green dropleaf table.

This box is for sale. I painted it about 8 years ago, and no one has ever bought it. So strange how some things just sit. It makes a handy container for kitchenware though.

Another of the dinette set. The table has issues so it's priced at $225 for the set. With a better table I would ask $400 because the chairs are almost perfect. Ah well. 

Before we worked on this booth, I went out to lunch with granddaughter Hannah and my friend Suzy. Hannah said the other day that she was craving salmon at the Yacht Club, and I knew she also just needed a little break. Mothering 6 kids is no easy task! Her husband was home and watched the children so she could get out. It was so nice just to visit. I dropped Larry off at our usual place so he could hang out with his buddies---his idea and I think he had a good time too. 

We came home to sweat---I mean work---outside for a while until it was just too unbearable. We have a big branch to cut out of our poor old mulberry and more branches and debris to clean up from the storms, but we made a good start on it. 

Tomorrow I will finish up the grape juice I started yesterday. To make the juice (some of you know this), you first strip the grapes from their vines, wash them, cover with water and cook til the skins are soft. Then after they cool enough to work with, you put them in a cloth bag of some sort and hang up so all the juice drips out without squeezing (squeezing makes the juice cloudy. Ask me how I know).  Then the juice goes into the fridge for 24-48 hours, then strained, sweetened to taste, brought to a boil, put in jars and processed.  My juice is in the fridge stage, so I am nearly done with it. This makes concentrate, and boy is it good.

Until next time!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Little Children and Tomato Pie

70°f/21°C, mostly sunny, quite humid. Reached 88° today.

Kitchen windowsill

I thought I was going to make grape juice today, but our son Derek called and said he was coming over with his daughter Hannah and four of her six children. So I scurried about making scones and moving anything fragile out of harm's way before they arrived.

We had a wonderful visit. Derek helped Larry work on the mower (progress, but slow) while Hannah and I chatted, and I got to hold new baby Sutton for ever so long. Heaven! Is there anything that smells as sweet as a little baby? He's a bit colic-y and upchucked on me a time or two, but who cares with such sweetness on their lap?

The other three, ages 5, 7, and 10, played, and played hard.  They hunted for treasure in the yard ---after living here for 50 years, there are all kinds of little odd things to be found, like a tiny pulley, a prism, a Guinness bottle cap with the harp on it, the missing end of my curtain rod, sea shells and more. They colored, raided the toy box for cars and trucks and generally kept themselves busy. They ate all the scones too! 

One thing they did not do was ask to watch TV. I wonder if this is a sign of the times? Most children have laptops and even their own phones these days, so do they still watch as much television as they used to? I think not.

I didn't take any photos, as I was quite happy just holding the baby, talking with Hannah and watching the children play. It was so nice to hear excited little voices here again. Although Hannah doesn't live too far away, packing up her crew is a job, and the baby is just one month old. 

After they left, I tidied up a bit, although these kids did a great job actually of doing that themselves. Then I made tomato pie. 

I had seen recipes for this last week along with a few videos, and it sounded easy enough. Funny though, the videos don't show going out to the garden to get the tomatoes, onions, and basil! That added a little time not included in their blithely estimate of prep time. Seriously though, this was easy to make. I basically used Paula Deen's recipe, but there are plenty of others out there. 

Basically, you pre-bake the pie shell for 10 minutes at 350°. Paula Deen did not say to do that, but others recommended it as a way to keep the crust from becoming soggy. She also said to blanche the tomatoes,  but no other recipe did that so I skipped that step. I did slice the tomatoes and laid the slices on paper towels to soak up some of the liquid,  and also patted them as dry as possible with paper towels. I used a mixture of yellow, red, black and pink tomatoes, just for fun.

Next, chop up the green onions, about 1/2 cup and I tore the basil leaves into smaller pieces.  Then mix the onions up with 1 cup mayonnaise,  1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, some salt and pepper to taste. I put a layer of tomato slices into the piecrust, then a layer of onions, then the basil. I did a second layer of tomatoes, then spread the cheese-mayo mixture over the top and baked at 350° for 30 minutes.

It was delicious! Runnier than I had hoped for and tricky to get out of the pan, both things mentioned in many of the recipes. But oh my, what goodness. 

I wish I had remembered to take a photo before cutting it, because it was so pretty. If you make tomato pie, do you have a trick to curb the runniness?

The grapes are still on hold. I guess that will be tomorrow's project!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.