Monday, August 2, 2010

Best layed plans

In my last post I told you all the things that I was going to be preserving this season. It seems like I just had to get started doing some other things first. Well, I guess that is why I always leave room for change! My mom, picky monster and I went berry picking. We were able to get Blackberries and raspberries. The blackberry bushes were taller then me and I am 5'9" and they had thorns that were huge. I have the scrapes and pickers to prove it. (Sorry I didn't think to take pictures of the boo boo's).
 
We got 4 quart of blackberries $3.99 each, and the raspberries were $3.50 a quart for 7 quarts. Mom got 12 half pints of blackberry jam and 5 pints of raspberry jam. I got 5 pints of blackberry jam, 5 pints of raspberry jam and 5 pints of Chocolate raspberry dessert topping.

Then I got on to cleaning out some of my freezers. I know I was suppose to have done this months ago. I still have more to get out but I did get out some of the pecans and made 3 half pints of praline syrup. Two bags of cranberries also needed to be used up. I got 5 half pints of jellied cranberries. 



When I was looking for other recipes, I came across two more that I can use up freezer stuff for. The first is Black Forest Topping using the bing cherries I froze months ago. I will be making strawberry jelly, also. This will be the first time I have made this type of jelly. Really, I don't know why I haven't made it before. But Grim will be very happy!
Grim was able to get the kitchen finished. Here is a before picture to remind you what it use to look like.

And here is the finished product.

We also changed out the counter, it is a multi-colored brown. The stems you see in the corner of the picture is all of the garlic. It is purple hard neck. I am hoping that I will be able to use some of these cloves to plant for next season.


 Lots still to do!

Gotta Run,
Yart

2 comments:

brandi said...

~unreal and amazing for you and your family...blackberries always come with pain but oh so worth it...i have jam envy over here...wishing you and yours a belated lammas...warm wishes and brightest blessings~

Katidids said...

LOVE the berry jams! I end up leaving mine on the counter for a few days as I really enjoy looking at the jewel tones. We cheated and planted thornless but, fighting the thorns seemed to make the jam that much sweeter. The end of my kitchen table is covered with canned tomato sauce & peaches.