German Cucumber Salad. 7.21.2021

 There were leftover cucumbers, onions, and dill do I added salt, pepper, lemon juice, yogurt, tomato, to make a German cucumber salad.  It was very good.

Cucumber Harvest. Making Fermented Pickles. 7.20.2021

 The pickle cucumbers have been producing quite a few cucumbers.  They all add up.  I try to harvest at 3 to 5 inch size, but some are sneaky and grow larger before I see them.  Most of these are from the seeds I saved last summer and planted this spring.  Also, dill, garlic, onion, grape leaf.  Add brine, mustard seeds, celery seeds, turmeric, and I set up two batches of fermented pickles.  I also added some sugar to one, to see if that would speed the fermentation, and added so e uncooked sauerkraut juice to both as a starter.

Beginning to Harvest Onions. 7.16.2021

 Most of the onions are falling over and drying.  A lot are dramatically large.  Raised bed seems to work very well.  The seeds that I started in Jan did the best so far, although the sets did OK.  The  New York Early are huge, the Yellow Spanish are also very big.  Not all, but some of them.  The shallots from seeds also did surprisingly well, huge shallots.

Zucchini Pickles. 7.16.2021

 These are from Costata Romanesco zucchini, an old Italian heirloom variety.  They are bearing like crazy.  I have to check every morning so I catch them at a relatively small (9") size.  

First, I tried a cold pack method, using a packaged Bread and Butter pickle brine and spice product.  I had to calculate lower sizes, but I think I got it right.  Unfortunately, during the canning process, the slices shrunk and floated, so the bottom half of the jars is just pickle juice, mainly vinegar.  Since these are vinegar and brine, I think they will keep, but they are not how I wanted them.

So I decided to use a hot pack method, which pre-cooks the pickles so they do all their shrinking and lose their air before packing.  I followed the USDA canning method as exactly as I could.  I did have to make a half recipe due to my canner size.  I also added very thin slices of my fresh harvested Music garlic, sliced on mandolin. 

These are presoaked in brine before cooking them, then heated to a boil in vinegar/sugar/spices which are mustard seeds, celery seed, and tumeric.  The yellow slices are from one yellow zucchini that I harvested yesterday.

Then they are portioned into jars and carefully canned per the USDA instructions.

These portioned out almost exactly. I did have to boil 1/4 cup of vinegar to top off the last jar, which I will use up first. I tasted two pickle slices before canning. They had excellent flavor and texture. I imagine they will be softer after canning, which I will find out when I open the first jar.

Methley Plum Harvest and Jam. 7.16.2021

Methley plums are completely ripe. Those are the purple ones. The yellow ones are Shiro, almost ripe.

I picked two giant size bowls of plums. One bowl should be about one batch of jam.

To make a jam, I skinned them. The skin is loose, like a slipskin grape, very easy. The stones are clingstone, which is a lot more work to get off. I sliced the flesh off the stones, into a large measuring cup, until I had seven cups. Then I followed the directions on low sugar pectin to make jam. It should have been 8 half pints, but I over compensated for boiling loss and it was 9 pints. Still, it gelled and the flavor is incredible, like some kind of tropical candy. These will help me through the winter. It helps make growing fruit more worthwhile. These plums can't be bought in any store, and processing them in a factory doesnt seem like an easy thing. So home made is the only option.  This is one of my all time favorite jams.