Blueberries For Me

Earlier this summer (much earlier) we did some blueberry picking.  (Just file that under the list of posts that never got written.)  You know we love our seasonal pick-your-own outings.  Blueberry picking is especially fun for me.  Blueberries are my "obviously God love me" treat.  The little blue fruit is one of my absolute favorite foods.

A few years ago I got to take a lovely trip to Maine.  I had blueberries with every meal, except one, and that meal was sad indeed.  On the last night of the trip I ordered blueberry pie with my meal, like I had at every other meal during the trip.  Shortly after ordering our waitress came back and told me that they had run out of pie.  I almost started crying.  Seriously.  I love blueberries that much.

Now I admit, a Maine blueberry and a Southern blueberry are two different things.  But each is wonderful in its own way.  If you've never been blueberry picking before you really have to do it at least once.  Though I promise you'll be hooked once you've gone.  There is nothing quite like eating a blueberry picked right from the bush.  Hot from the summer sun, it's a burst of sweet juice in your mouth.  Absolutely delicious.

When we pick blueberries I can't help but quote "Blueberries for Sal" as I move along.  Not only do I love the book, it also turns out that my kids pick blueberries much like Sal.  Three blueberries in the bucket...kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk. And three blueberries in their mouth.  Then they eat the three blueberries that were in their bucket as well.  All the while, I'm working silently, filling my own bucket, thinking about ways to preserve the blueberries so that we can enjoy them for months to come.  I guess Robert McCloskey knew a thing or two about mothers picking blueberries with their children.

Even with the children eating their weight in blueberries, we managed to come home with three gallons of fruit.  It helped that my mom and grandma were helping us pick. One adult per child made the chances of getting home with a decent amount of berries a little greater.  All in all it was a wonderful day with very delicious rewards.

Strawberry Lassi

I don't think I'm going to get to make strawberry jam this year.  The sprite's have just about eaten all of the strawberries!  Yes, that means 20lbs of strawberries were eaten in a week!  In their defense, we did have strawberry shortcake twice. And we've also tried out a few other strawberry related recipes that I've found through some of my favorite blogs and websites.  Our favorite, the one that's been repeated almost every night this week, is called a Lassi.  It's a traditional Indian drink usually made with mangoes.  But this recipe calls for strawberries.  It's kind of like a smoothie.  And it's wonderfully refreshing and delicious!  I always think about taking pictures too late so all I'm left to show you is this:

Personally, I think the fact that our glasses are always empty is a testament to the recipe.  This is one you have to try.  And try it now, while the strawberries are in season.  Strawberry drinks are always best with fresh, ripe, sweet berries.  

You can find the recipe at Ambrosia, an easy to follow food blog that I like to check into occasionally. 

 And now I must leave.  I have a little blonde sprite pulling on my sleeves and asking me to make another pitcher.  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 

Strawberries For Jam

Three berry

Four berry
Hayberry
Strawberry

Finger and pawberry
My berry, your berry

Strawberry ponies
Strawberry lambs
Dancing in meadows
Of strawberry Jam

-from Jamberry by Bruce Degen

It's strawberry season! So we took our annual trip to the strawberry patch. Lot's of strawberries were picked. Strawberries for jam. Strawberries for strawberry shortcake. Strawberry milkshakes. Strawberry pie. Strawberries and cream. And just plain, sweet strawberries piled high in a bowl and eaten while hammock swinging in a nice spring breeze.

Apple Preserving Days

I disappeared into the kitchen a few days ago. I finally came out this morning smelling of cinnamon, cloves, and tart apples. I've been apple preserving.

I love preserving. It connects me to the generations that have come before me. I'm going through the same motions that hundreds of women before me have gone through. I love the beauty is such tradition.

When I start setting out mason jars, I am instantly in a hundred year old farm house. I can see the linens on the clothes line out of the window. A chicken coop stands behind it and a fishing pond beyond that. Of course there's a vegetable garden. And everywhere there are wildflowers. Very old school, I know. But this daydream sings deeply to my spirit. I love to let myself sink into it.

Preserving seems daunting to some people but it's really quiet simple. It goes a little something like this. First you open the last jar of apple butter from last season and realize it time to go apple picking.

Then when you get your wagon load of apples home and once you've tired of tripping over the bags, it's time to get out the Ball jars. I find rows of steaming clear jars to be very beautiful sight.

Then you spend the next two days peeling and cutting up apples. Alright, that might be a bit of an exaggeration. But just a bit.

Then you start to cook them into whatever form you like. The whole house starts to smell delicious.


You stir until your arm threatens to fall off. After all, you spent two previous days peeling and chopping. So you bribe your daughter with candy corn to get some help. Oh, like you don't bribe your kids with candy. (Note how fast her arm is moving. She's obviously much better at it anyways.)


If you're making apple butter or apple sauce, eventually your apples start to look something like this. If you're just canning apples, you're already done. I recommend just canning apples. Then again, apple butter is so very good for your soul.


Once your jars are steamed, filled, and processed you are left with all kinds of sweet, apple goodness. We have apple butter, apple sauce, apple pie filling, and cinnamon apples. Mmmm. Can you taste it? Nothing daunting about it. Just a little work with a big pay off. And if your like me, you'll have a lovely little daydream to carry you through.

Apple Picking Day

Saturday was spent in an orchard. A day before the weather decided to drop to a reasonable temperature. But also a day before the rain came.

The sun was high in the sky by the time we got there but the trees provided shade as we plucked ripe apples from burdened branches. Free roaming chickens scratched for bugs in the ground around our feet. Roosters called their disapproval at our disruptive presence. The fattest pigs we've ever seen were eating the rotten apples that people had left behind. Jokes were made about delicious apple bacon being the farmer's winter feast. The pigs were too busy eating to overhear their predicted perilous fate.

Even with the animal distraction we managed to pick two bushels of Stayman Winsaps from those trees. Tart yet sweet, and not at all grainy, just as we like them. Perfect for the pie and the butter and the sauce. Or for taking a big, juicy bite of, especially while it's still sun-hot and crisp.

We bought a gallon of fresh pressed cider on the way out and dispersed cups to hot kids waiting in a van that quickly got a pungent aromatic mix of sweat and earthy apples. We rode home in the noisy excitement that comes from spending a day on a farm. Energized by sun and dirt, animals and a little hard work. Stories told of orchard adventures and plans made for the apple goodness that's coming our way. It's one my absolute favorite ways to spend a day.

Weekends Are For...

Trips to the farmer's market. Especially summer weekends when the produce is abundant and the market smells of fresh cut watermelon and early peaches. It's even better if Knob Creek has made it out with some homemade chocolate ice cream straight from the dairy. Far and away some of the best ice cream you'll ever put in your mouth and sure to leave the scene scattered with happy children, chocolate still dripping from their chins.

Never Say You're Busy

I made the mistake of saying I was busy out loud.

As soon as I hit "publish post" Tuesday, I started feeling a little sick. I can't say it came out of nowhere. I was woken up on Mother's Day at 3am to Chris throwing up on my pillow and spent the rest of the night sitting up with him. So when Sicily and I caught his stomach bug on Tuesday I wasn't surprised. I certainly wasn't thrilled either. The two of us spent all day Wednesday in bed with cold wash clothes on our eyes. Analiese joined us that night. If there is anyone I'd choose to be sick with it's these two sweet girls. They like to cuddle, which is good when you're feeling a little blah and need an extra hug. And blah is the right word. Blah and Ughhh. It's a yucky thing to have, especially when you have a ton of projects rolling around your severely pounding head.

Luckily it seems to be a 24 hour thing so by yesterday afternoon we were all feeling better. That's when I went into the kitchen and found the languishing strawberries that we picked last weekend. I immediately cleared space and got to making jam. Then, when I got light headed, I realized that might have been a bit ambitious coming off of a day spent in bed. So this morning I finished making strawberry jam. And it was well worth the wait. It's sweet and yummy. I can't wait to break into it with some fresh bread. More than that, this jam kicks off the preserving season. A perfect start to the years provisions, I think. And the perfect spring comfort food to warm up the appetite after a few sick days spent in bed.

Strawberry Picking at Hall Family Farm

Oh, strawberries. Red, sweet, and delicious. This lovely fruit is the first produce available for pick-you-own around here. I've had this weekend circled on the calendar for months. All week I have watched the farm's website for picking updates and the weather to make sure it was going to cooperate. All of the factors came together beautifully to give us a wonderful afternoon of strawberry picking. After a couple of hours in the field we came away with twenty pounds of strawberries and red dyed fingers that suggested juicy sweetness was in our future. They are, oh, so sweet and delicious. Half of a container is already gone and we've been home for less than an hour. I've reserved one box for jam and one for freezing. And Steven has kindly asked for at least one pie, though I suspect there will be a few pies coming his way.

If you've never picked your own produce, I highly recommend it. There is nothing quiet like a piece of fruit eaten directly from the vine. Warm from the sun and full of juice that trickles down your chin. It's good to know where your food comes from and how hard those farmers work, not that two hours in a field can truly tell you the countless hours a farmer will spend making that fruit ready for your brief stay. But it's good to be reminded, or for children taught, that food doesn't magically appear in the grocery store. It gives us a chance to teach our children the process of seed to flower to fruit. Plus there's something about standing in a hot field breathing in the earth and the ripening fruit, letting the sun wash over you, that's good for the soul. Or maybe that's just me.

Friday Favorites...Jamie's Food Revolution and The Art of Simple Food

We have spent the last two months eating recipes from this cookbook, Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver. It is exactly what it says: simple, delicious, and affordable. In the past two months we have eaten out less and honestly eaten better than we would at most restaurants. And I'm no chef. (Though if I'm completely honest, a vast majority of my day dreams involve owning a bakery in a small town. Kind of boring day dream, I know. I'm not the superhero type.)

The recipes are really easy to follow. I've learned to make Indian curries, my husband's favorite, that rival a few local Indian restaurants around here. (Is my humility bursting from the page here or what!) I repeat, I'm no chef. I give full credit to the recipes. A lot of the recipes use similar ingredients so by staying stocked up on those staples I save money. My kids are eating soups full of veges and loving them. It doesn't hurt that the pages are full of the Naked Chef himself. Ah, crush.

It's just simple stuff, like pastas and how to roast a chicken the right way. But sometimes simple is best. I think home cooks fail a lot because we try recipes with terms that are way over our head. Then we think we can't cook. But you can, you can cook good, nutritious, pure earth food. You just have to know the basics. I've pared my little culinary adventure with this book:

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters really breaks it down. Each chapter tackles the absolute basics of good cooking. I'm talking technique, like how to cook fluffy rice and dried beans. How to make chicken broth, polenta, and custard. And most importantly I've learned what a poached egg is. Some of you might be laughing but I didn't grow up knowing any of that. This has been a wonderful learning process for me. Knowing the basics, I feel like I can cook anything now. When Steven and I go out for a date I can tell what's in our food and how it was cooked. I love knowing that. And I love that it's so incredibly simple.

Both of these books allow you to go to the farmer's market, know what you're buying, and go back home to prepare a lovely, delicious meal. You can finally make peace with your oven. Who doesn't want that?

Produce Co-op...

Charlotte is a horrible place for growing things. We are cursed with layers of red clay void of nutrients. So to get fresh produce you really have to count on the farmers coming to you at a farmer's market. Or you can drive out of town to join a CSA or pick your own. We like to pick our own so we're willing to drive. But that's not really practical for every day meal planning. I need produce on a weekly basis. Thankfully, last summer I finally found a wonderful co-op. One woman, frustrated with the options for getting produce, decided to start a co-op. She has a big crop of produce delivered and we all meet to sort it and take home what our family will eat. It's wonderful. We get fresh, in-season produce every two weeks. The kids love helping with the sorting. And most importantly they are learning that fruits and vegetables come from hard working farmers and not just grocery store aisles. I'm always thrilled with the selection and we're learning to cook things that we wouldn't normally buy. For example, I had never cooked beets until we got some last fall. This week we got some yummy greens. Mmmm. We love greens. We are going to have happy stomachs this week.

Apple Preserving Day

The apples were starting to overtake my kitchen. And I was having apple dreams. So I decided to make Saturday apple preserving day. I divided apples into ones that would go into the fridge for eating. I froze five bags of apple pie filling. Then I made another round of sauce. Finally I was left with a random assortment of varieties and somewhat bruised apples. Perfect for making apple butter, so I read. I've never actually made apple butter before. I decided to go hard core old school and actually can the apple butter. So I started with a lot of reading.



I like the Ball Blue Book. As I have ventured into more canning and preserving this year this book has become my go to book for recipes and technique, including the recipe I ended up using for this batch of apple butter.

For the butter making, first recruit two eager helpers for the washing and the peeling.



Then prepare to be in the kitchen for the next three hours. One of the distinctions of fruit butters is that they are cooked slowly until they thicken enough to roll up on the spoon. I didn't realize how slowly until I was standing over the same pot for the second hour. I recommend recruiting another helper at this point.



I don't recommend having a boy with the flu calling you from the couch. If you do have a boy with the flu on the couch, I recommend turning on the Arkansas game so that he can be disappointed by them and not by your lack of attention.

Once you've stirred until your arms are about to fall off, you've sterilized all of your jars, you've waited an additional forty five minutes for the processing pot to boil, and your helpers have quit, you are ready to fill the jars. Now your work is done. It's incredibly satisfying. To put that much work into something and know that your family will enjoy it for the rest of the year is well worth it. And enjoy it we will. For my first time I think I did alright. It's a bit sweet but still pretty good. An afternoon well spent.