Peach Harvest 2013

Our little Peach tree loves to produce peaches. It's just a dwarf peach tree, but it puts on so many peaches that we have to do some major thinning.  That's hard to do, I'm always afraid we'll take off too many and not have any peaches. Well, not to worry, there's always plenty! This year we did more thinning than last year and the peaches were bigger.

This morning was the day to harvest the peaches. We got a couple of buckets worth, enough to make some yummy things to eat. We'll make jam, and since we got a dehydrator last year (and made some awesome plum fruit leather) we're going to try some peach fruit leather.

So, I think the jam came out great! Still waiting on the fruit leather, but I've been checking it and it looks good. Now I'm sure you want recipes, but since I'm so new to making jam and canning I follow the Ball Blue book of home canning. This peach jam recipe is the one that I used. Now, I did make one little change, I pureed the fruit. So maybe it's not really jam, I don't know, but I do know it tastes delicious. Still waiting on the fruit leather.

Oh, yeah, we have enough peaches left to make another batch of jam and probably another batch of fruit leather. I love that little tree!

Update: Well, the fruit leather came out great. I made a second batch on Monday, made it a little thicker...first batch was a little thin, but it was good. 

The Promise of Things to Come

Lemon blossom buds

      So, about five years ago I bought a lemon tree. It's a dwarf Eureka Lemon. I planted it and took care of it, and every spring it would get a couple of blossoms on it, and every spring they would fall off, not even coming close to being fertilized. Well, last year I decided it was just not a good spot where I had planted it, and we transplanted our little lemon tree.
     We dug around the tree trying not to hurt the root system, then we pulled it out of the ground. We really didn't have to worry too much about the roots, there really wasn't very many. Poor little lemon tree! Finding a better spot for it, we planted this stick with sparse roots in it's new home. And it lost all, I'm not exaggerating here, it lost all of it's leaves. Kevin pruned it and we gave it some fertilizer, and then I basically kept my fingers crossed.
     Soon it started growing leaves again, and in spring it had a ton of blossoms; I counted around 300. But all  the blossoms fell off. That was last year.

     

Lemon blossom and buds

     This year with an abundance of blossoms I began to hope that my little lemon tree would someday bear fruit. And through the storms and rain and wind they held on. We started to see little tiny bulges where the blossoms had been. Tiny lemons? Oh, yes, tiny lemons.

 

Tiny Lemon

           Some of them grew bigger and some stayed tiny and eventually fell off. Today there are five lemons on my little lemon tree. the first time ever this little tree has carried the weight of fruit on it's branches! Now I can only wait to see if they can hold on until they're ripe. But I'm thinking even if they don't make it, the tree will only get stronger in it's new location and next year will be even better.

Springtime!

     Yes, it's spring! Finally, I've waited all winter for this; I love spring. We have a good portion of the garden planted already, but still have much to do.  The tomatoes are moving this year, they were two years in their last spot, time for crop rotation. We still have to prepare the ground for the tomatoes, and build a fence so Fred won't destroy them.

The strawberries are looking good! And I so can't wait to eat some. Same goes for the lettuce, yum!  What I'm really looking forward to though is making some fresh salsa from the garden with home grown tomatoes, onions, chilies and cilantro.

The Boysenberry is so loaded with buds I am looking forward to some Boysenberry jam this summer.

It all takes time...

In December we adopted a dog. He has taken up a quite a bit of everyone’s time, and I think we have finally settled into a routine. His name is Fred and we love him like there’s no tomorrow. He was 10 months old when we first saw him at the SPCA.  I was worried he wouldn't get along with our dog Talula; really I was worried he would be too rambunctious for her. But she showed us she can put him right in his place.  Unfortunately he wants to play with her and she never really was a playful type, so he does end up barking at her a lot. And then she snaps at him and he runs and gets really low to the ground. But Fred is a real sweetheart, and he does love to cuddle. 

Fred

Talula

Fred loves to run!

We like to think that Fred is a happy dog now; we know it must be hard for a dog to suddenly be jerked from the home he's always known and taken to a place with a lot of other noisy animals. And then go home with someone else. It takes a while to adjust; just because what he's always known as his home may not have been the greatest it was his home. A dog's got to wonder. I'm just glad his previous family knew that they were not the best for him, so now he's got us and we've got him!

Wow! It's been too long.

So much to tell, but right now I just want to post a picture of what I've been doing in the backyard. This is my Strawberry tower. I've wanted to build some kind of strawberry tower for a while now, just had to wait until someone removed the crab apple that used to occupy this spot. I can't wait for strawberries!

Why dirty a pie plate? Save time, make a crostata!

My morning started out really great, with a plan. Well, I think we all know how that turns out; the best laid plans…

Here was the plan: make coffee, make breakfast, take Talula to the park and walk. Coffee got made; move on to breakfast—the breakfast plan was to make these spinach pinwheel pastries from the back of the puff pastry box. The puff pastry had been in the refrigerator too long; it didn't look too good. But I’d already grated the cheese and mixed it with onion powder (the recipe called for green onions— didn't have any), defrosted and squeezed dry the spinach and cracked the egg and beat it. So I had to be like Winnie-the-pooh and think, think, think.  What to do with all these ingredients so not to waste them?  Make a quiche!

I’m not into perfect pie, it’s a beautiful thing when someone else does it, I simply can not do it, but a crostata I can make!

I threw all the ingredients for pie crust into the food processor, made the crust and put the cheese/spinach mixture in the middle, crimped the edges and them poured in the egg and milk mixture that went from one egg to five. Then I baked in 350° oven for 30 minutes. It came out great!

Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to make a quiche crostata, but for thinking on the fly, so I didn't waste food, I think I did good.

Florentine Crostata

(Also, I think the lesson here would be to check and make sure all you ingredients are edible before you start).

Time To Make Cookies

I walked by the cookie jar today and it was empty; it's been empty for a few days.  So, I thought it was a good time to make cookies.  I make these delicious cookies that are filled with so many yummy flavors that they have become my favorite cookie. I call them my Orange Chocolate Chip Cranberry Pecan cookies, now I know that's a mouth-full, but, really, so are the cookies. They're not huge, I don't like to make huge cookies, but I think they are just perfect. Here is the recipe:

Orange Chocolate Chip Cranberry Pecan Cookies

Orange Chocolate Chip Cranberry Pecan Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter softened

½ cup granulated sugar

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Zest from 1 orange

2 cups chocolate chips

2 cups Craisons

2 cups chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Combine chocolate chips, Craisons, chopped pecans in a bowl and mix.

Combine dry ingredients:  flour, baking soda, salt. Then add zest to dry ingredients, mix in with fork or whisk.

Cream butter and sugars until fluffy; add eggs one at a time beating well after each egg. Add vanilla extract, beat in.

Add ½ dry ingredients to butter mixture, beat at low speed until combined. Add the rest of dry ingredients, mix at low speed until combined.

Now add ½ of the chocolate chip mixture at a time and mix until combined.

This mixture will be thick and may try to climb out of your mixing bowl.

Line two half sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment. Using a small ice cream scoop(the one I use is 1 1/2") drop onto sheet pans about 2 inches apart.

Bake 12 minutes. 
Remove cookies from oven.

 Let cool on sheet pans for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool.

 Cool completely. Now fill the cookie jar!

This recipe makes about 5 dozen 2 inch fat cookies!