Chestnuts are dropping from the tree. 9.28.2021

The first chestnuts are dropping from the trees. The trees are about four years old. This year there are a few dozen chestnuts on the trees.

Serrano Pepper Hot Sauce. 9.28.2021

 Here is the fermented hot sauce I made from the Serrano peppers.  It came out pretty good.  Nice and hot but not hot enough to strip the paint from a 1963 Buick LeSabre.

Peppers after fermenting.

Then I processed them along with 1 tsp sugar and 1/3 cup of the brine. The sugar will ferment with time to help preserve the hot sauce.

This made about 2/3 of a pint of sauce. I did the same with the Korean peppers. That sauce did not come out as hot.

Also the Korean peppers were a bit wrinkly from sittin out a week before fermenting. The freshly fermented Serranos gave a much smoother texture.

Today's Apple and Green Bean Harvest. 9.25.2021

Some trees are already dropping apples. These are mostly Jonared and a few HoneyCrisp and King David.

In July, I planted bush green beans in the bed that I harvested garlic from. Now I'm getting a pretty good crop from those. It workd out perfectly.

I may need to blanch and freeze some green beans so they don't go to waste. A farmer's work is never done :-)

Dog Food Recipe. 9.25.2021

Rufus pretty much lives on this dog food. The recipe is based on one from "JustFoodForDogs.com" although it has evolved a bit. The main ingredients: 5 pounds chicken thighs. Remove and discard skin from 1/3. Water to cook chicken. 1 pound green beans. 1 pound carrots 1/2 pounds spinach 1 large or 2 small apples 3 cups of rice. I often substutute 1 pound of zucchini for the beans, or 1 pound of squash or pumpkin for the carrots. I also use substitute 1 cup brown rice for the white. Step 1. Cook the chicken thighs in 3 cups of water overnight in slow cooker on "slow". Step 2. Separate the juice from cooked thighs and remove the bones. I actually divide everything in half and make 2 batches, which fits my equipment. Step 3. Cook the brown rice in instant pot on high for 17 min, set 3 min, in 1 1/3 cup of the chicken juice.

Step 4. If using frozen veggies, thoroughly thaw before using. While brown rice is cooking, cut up anything that needs cutting. I keep the apple slices in a vitamin C solution so they don't brown. Step 5. When brown rice is done, combine with the deboned cooked chicken thighs. Step 6. In Instant pot, combine 1/2 of veggies, 1 cup white rice, 1 1/3 cup chicken juice. Cook on "rice" setting. Step 7. When that's done, mix with 1/2 of the chicken / brown rice mix. Put the remaining 1 cup rice, other half of veggies, 1 1/3 cup chicken juice into instant pot and cook same as first batch. Step 8. While that is cooking, mix together the first batch of chicken, rice, veggies.

Step 9. If there is remaining chicken juice, put into a bowl and let Rufus drink it. Even though Imonlynuse 3 cups of water to cook the chicken, I usually get 4 cups back (costco chicken) or 4.5 to 5 cups (Winco chicken). Step 10. Portion the mixture into containers, 1 cup each. That is amount for mature 45 pound Rufus.

add the covers and let cool. Step 11. Now the other half is done, so mix together and portion as for the first half. Step 12. Let cool. Six containers go into fridge (3 days of meals) and the rest into freezer, thawed a day in fridge before using. Total is usually about 8 or 9 days of meals. Step 14. Let Rufus lick the bowl. He's been waiting patiently for that.

I have this down to a pretty good routine. Most frozen veggies come in one pound sizes, which is perfect. Except some stores reduced the size to 12 oz so that's kind of sneaky. I want to give Rufus something that I grow, with each meal. I figure zucchini is a good substitute for green beans, so I have about 10 packages of blanched zucchini slices in the freezer. Also pumpkin or squash seems like a good substitute for carrots, so I use home grown for those. But not at the same time as the zucchini. Today I had fresh green beans from my garden, so a pound of those went into the doggie meals. The apples are usually from my orchard. Originally, I used quart freezer bags but the environmental aspect seemed wasteful, so switched to plastic containers. Plus I'm cheap. Being a child of depression era parents, I started saving "plant butter" containers (ie., margarine for okd people like me), similar size but cubic shape so they take less freezer or fridge space and are actually a bit more durable. The original recipe was all white rice, but Rufus got kind of constipated with that so I substitited 1/3 brown rice which did the trick. Brown rice needs longer cooking but this recipe takes care of that. I've seen recipes that did the whole thing in one slow cooker cooking step, but it came out gloppy and not at all pleasant looking. As it is, this is a (bland) wholesome meal,for anyone who is not vegetarian.

Venus Grape Harvest And Juice. 9.25.2021

This is the last of the Venus grapes.

I didn't need more grape jelly. So I made grape juice instead. Clean the grapes and remove stems, putting the grapes into a solution of one 500mg vitamic C tablet in 4 cups of water. i got 8 or 9 cups of grapes. I teansferred them into a pot along with 1 cup of vitamin C solution, mashed with potato smasher, blended with immersion blender. Brought to boil, boiled 3 min, filtered through a seive.

This juice is yummy and satisfies my desire for sweets. I think it will last a few weeks in fridge.

Planting Seeds For Fall Greens And Root Crops. 9.21.2021

Here are the seeds I planted, except I decided against the Swiss Chard. We do eat the lettuce,turnips, spinach, and radishes. I like growing Swiss Chard and the idea of it, but usually don't eat most of it. Most of these are fast, cool weather crops. I planted them where I cleared out the dying Roma tomatoes. Those were a great crop this year.

Tomato Soup. 9.21.2021

With such a good Roma tomato crop, I made some tomato soup. Saute about 1/2 onion, chopped, 2 cloves of garlic, add a buillon cube, about 3 cups of sliced Roma tomatoes, a pepper. cook until soft. Add some Italian herbs, salt, pepper. Blend with an immersion blender. Top with some chopped croutons. That came out very good.

I won't describe the squash I cooked, maple syrup, butter, walnuts. Red Kuri squash. Dry and mushy, bland, not good at all.

Planting Forsythia Starts. 9.21.2021

These are the first of my forsythia starts to go into the ground. They are good sturdy healthy starts. I'm glad to have them in their new homes now.

Planting Garlic. 9.21.2021

Today I planted the first few batches of garlic. I bought two heads of a soft-neck Italian veriety, called "lorz". This is described as a good keeper, strong flavor, good grower, big heads and big cloves. I planted them in the half wine barrel planters that had the pickle cicumber plants until this week. I supplemented the soil with compost, wood ashes, coffee grounds, and eggshells. That made for an excelkent crop this year.

I also planted a batch of red skin garlic from plants that had survived from previous years. I don't know which variety. These are in circle planters basically in-ground. Same supplementation.

I also planted the largest of the little bulbs that I grew from tiny bulbils this year. Probably about 20 of those. These are the variety "Music", the best growing, largest and strongest so far.

The majority of the garlic crop remains to be planted, in one of the main raised beds.

First Rain since June 3.5". Freezing Sweetcorn. Canning Pears. 9.19.2021.

Today was the first rain since June. We measured 3.5 inches. I think it was needed. I picked more pears. I didn't plan to can more, but did after all. It took about 7 pounds for 4 one-pint jars. I ran out of commercial fruit-fresh and there was none in the store. With Covid Im only going to the store every other week, so I ordered vitamin C tablets and citric acid on Amazon. from what I read, 6 500-mg vitamin C tablets, crushed and dissolved jn one gallon of water, will prevent browning. So I used that, adjusted for just 4 cups. There was no browning. I also added 1/4 tsp citric acid to each jar, per an online recipe. Canned per Better Homes and Gardens Canning Guide recipe. I'm getting better at it.

I also harvested most of the rest of the sweetcorn, and blanched and froze 7 ears. Drop into boiling water, boil three minutes, transfer to ice water, chill, slice planks of kernels off the ear and freeze in freezer bags.

Red Peppers Harvest. 9.17.2021

I harvested the red peppers. There are still quite a few green ones. Most are serranos and Jalapenos, but there are also some cayennes. Ning grew Korean peppers. I started some hot sauce fermentation, one batch with Serranos and one batch with Korean peppers. After these ferment about 10 days, they'll be separated from the brine, pureed, some brine added for the right thickness, and kept in the fridge. The recipe: 2 cups water, boiled. While hot add 1 1/2 tbsp canning salt and 1/2 tbsp sugar. Cut up 2 1/2 pounds of the peppers, a small shallot, and 4 cloves of garlic. Place the garlic and shallot into fermentation jar, add the peppers, then pour on the brine. I also added 1 tbsp sauerkraut juice to the cooled brine before adding to the peppers, as a starter. I'm using water filled pplastic bags to seal the tops and exclude air until they are fermented.

Another Tomato Pie, with Improvements. 9.17.2021

I made some changes in how I made the tomato pie. This time, I used a pyrex pie plate. I covered the edges of the crust through blind baking and through the pie baking. After blind baking at 375, I removed the lining foil and baking marbles, and baked for additional 10 min. Five min might have been better, it was slightly more brown when I wanted, but was still great. I think this one came out looking and tasting great.

Squash Harvest. 9.13.2021

The squash vines and leaves are starting to turn brown, so I don't think they can give much more nutrition to the squashes. This year the vines produced about double what they did last year,and many of the squashes are bigger. Some are much bigger. I think the "Illinois" squashes look like Al Capp's Shmoos. Others in the photo are Pink Banana Squash (the big oblong ones), Red Kuri (like small-ish pumpkins) Galeux d'Eysines (Warty, salmon pink pumpkins) and some ripening zucchinis. I don't know yet what I'll do with all of them. The Illinois and Pink Banana squashes are over 18 pounds each. And there are at least a half dozen more to harvest. Puree for pies, freeze chunks for doggie food, roast, bake, make soups. No wonder they were a staple food for first peoples.

Canning Tomato Sauce, Grape Jelly, Pears. 9.10.2021

 I learned that home grown fruit isn't solely for fresh use.  Freezing is great, still home grown flavor and quality.  No comparison to grocery.  But freezing takes up too much freezer space, so it needs to be limited.

The jellies are also better than store bought.  I think even when sugar is needed, it's better in flavor and healthier than the damn high fructose corn syrup.  Plus the tree or vine ripened fruit is more flavor, and not fertilizing and watering too much also helps.

I made jelly from "Venus" grapes. Easier than expected.  I used the "low sugar" pectin.  

Using extra grapes, but leaving out the sugar, pectin, and canning step, makes for a very "grapey" flavored grape juice. So that is more benefit and less waste. I did this a few days ago. Canned pears, also last week. I made 7 pints. That's about what I buy for 7 weeks, so not too bad. Plus the same amount of peaches.

Last night I canned 4 and 1/2 pints of Roma tomato sauce. No spices or garlic, I add those when I use it. Per USDA recommendation, each pint has 1 tbsp lemon juice as a preservative. Also, they recommend pressure canning instead of boiling water canning for better quality and nutrition for tomato products, so I did. If the 1/2 pint jar is good on tonight's pizza, I can can some more. I'm not sure if that lemon juice will impact the flavor.