Why? Because you can! And pickle, and jam, or otherwise celebrate the resurgence of the domestic arts our forebears held so dear. Put on your best apron and step into our kitchen, won't you?
At the last food swap I went to I got a large box of indigo rose cherry tomatoes. I was going to dehydrate them but then I decided to make tomato paste & dehydrate it.
My Aunt & Uncle have a huge raspberry patch and they always seem to go out of town each summer during part of the harvest. They let me pick while they are away and that makes for a lot of raspberries!
Last year one of my friends raised chickens to order so I got some beautiful, heritage chickens from them. This year they moved into town and couldn’t raise meat chickens so I talked my Dad into getting some :)
This is a simple jam that can be made plain but I wanted to add some of my lemon thyme since it is growing so well. Plus the green flecks look really nice when it’s spread on toast or swirled into yogurt. I’m going to keep experimenting...
I want to start this post with a little… “OH MY GOODNESS, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED” blast from the past. This is an excerpt out of canning pamphlet that was my Great Grandma’s. I’m not sure who printed it as the cover and first few pages are missing.
This spring I picked wild rose petals & leaves to dry for tea & wanted to wait until later in the year to finish the tea with some of the rose hips. So this fall I gathered up a few colanders of rose hips & put them to use in a few different ways.
When a Facebook friend put out the word that she had some apple trees that needed picking I got super excited; yes, I would love some apples! And being that it was my birthday I actually talked my husband into going and picking some with me...
... A week later my 19 lbs of Lapins arrived and they were gorgeous, sweet & huge! I quickly went to work putting them up for wintertime use so I could get back to picking huckleberries :) ...
... I noticed the birds were eating the nanking cherries so I grabbed a container and filled it up! Since they are such a small fruit it’s best to juice them and make something with the juice...
