70°f/21°C this morning, cloudy all day. High of 81.
This weekend has been a kitchen kind of time. The corn is ready, the elderberries along the road are ripe, and a fruit farm in Ohio announced that it is now blackberry picking season.
So Saturday morning we started working up the corn. Larry shucked it, and I cut it off the cobs and vacuum-sealed bags for the freezer. Push rewind, as we did the same thing today, ending up with 12 quarts so far. There will be more, but this is most of it, I think.
I had those elderberries we picked Friday evening to deal with too. I stripped the berries from the stems (which takes a long time), washed them, put them into a pot and covered them with water, brought to a boil and simmered them for about 10 minutes to release the juice. Funny how some turned red when cooked, others stayed black. There are some green ones in there too, as the berries don't all ripen evenly, but they won't hurt anything; if anything, they'll increase the pectin content, which is good for making jelly.
Next step was to strain the berries through cheesecloth. I put the resulting juice in the fridge to make into jelly, or maybe syrup, tomorrow.
Yesterday, after putting up the corn, we drove over to Ohio for the blackberries. We picked more than I had planned on, but I'm happy with that! When we got home, I cleaned all leaves, etc, from the berries, then popped them into five gallon bags for the freezer. These too will hold until I can make jam and pie filling this coming week.
We ended our Saturday at the firepit, something we haven't been able to do for a while due to the heat.
It was such a pretty evening, a perfect way to end a busy day.
While working on the corn today, I made a quick casserole with veggies from the fridge. I sautéed yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, celery and onion, mixed these with leftover boiled potatoes, added what was left of a package of grated Mexican cheese, a jar of Alfredo sauce, and some leftover ham that I cut up. Popped this into the oven for about 20-30 minutes, sliced some tomatoes, cooked some corn on the cob, and that was dinner.
Tomorrow we have tomatoes to deal with, and I will make the elderberry jelly, I hope.
It's the time of year that the garden does its best to overwhelm us with its abundance, but I think we are keeping up with it pretty well so far. I am not complaining! I appreciate how fortunate we are to have so much, even if it does mean a lot of work.
When I look back through my blog for posts made around this date, I see the same theme. And if I go back before 2020, the garden posts are intermingled with storytelling research, grandchildren coming to stay, travel and performances. Busy, busy times.
I think back to when I was a child, and how much easier food preservation is now. Back then, we children would be out in the garden right after breakfast, picking whatever we were told to pick. If it was beans, we'd sit under a tree or out on the porch and snap them, often squabbling about who was going too slow. If it was corn, we were the shucking crew; if tomatoes, we had to help peel them or cut them up, depending on what Mom was making.
We lived in town, but every single family on our block had a garden, except Miss Mary next door, whose gardens were let go after her uncle who cared for them passed away. Everyone else gardened and canned. No one had pressure canners, and I am not sure when those came into use. So beans, corn, beets, and other low-acid veggies were processed in waterbath canners for 3 hours or more (which we know now, really wasn't safe, but fortunately we all survived). There was no air conditioning, of course, so the kitchen windows would be open, with fans trying and failing to relieve the steamy heat. How well I remember Mom's red sweaty face, her apron stained and glasses all fogged up!
We took Mom's work for granted, of course, being kids, but now when I remember those days I really feel for my mother, working so hard to feed us, and often as not pregnant with yet another mouth to feed. I won't say she didn't complain, because she'd have been a saint if that was the case. But she worked hard, and our pantry would be lined with filled jars, a testament to her hard work.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Comments are moderated so may not appear immediately, but be assured that I read and enjoy each and every word you write, and will post them as quickly as possible.