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

Quick Update

I finally got the purple hardneck garlic in the ground. 33 cloves, I am hoping that they come up next year. So that is what I put into my fall garden, I also found a couple of onions that I missed. So in the garden they will stay until spring.

DH and I took a drive last night. First time we have gone out like that in awhile. I wanted to go out to this little run down place that sells onion sets in the spring. Well, low and behold they are now a U-Pick. We didn't have the time or the patience last night to pick but I will be going back before the season is over. We also found a house that was for sale. I called on it and it is way out of range but it has a 3 bedroom house with a natural fireplace, 3 car garage and a barn..... oh and 6 acres.... 6 acres can you imagine the farming dilemmas I could get myself into with that much land. So needless to say I went to bed last night praying to the credit fairy and the lotto gods.

My new mantra "Chickens & Goats & Bees, Oh my" I figure if I say it enough some will get tired of hearing it and grant me a farm... LOL! It doesn't hurt to try!

I have tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic cooking down on the stove right now. I finally found a food mill at the resale shop so I am going to puree it. Then put it in jars and can them. I will add salt and lemon juice to each jar to make sure there is enough acid, so I can water bath the jars.

Still have 2 jumbo zucchini to do some thing with. I think that I am just going to shred and freeze in recipe size bags. But that will have to wait till next week and so it might change. DH took me to one of the orchards around here. We got a bushel of McIntosh and a bushel of Wolf apples. This weekend I will be making apple sauce and apple pie filling. I get to use my clear jel! Yeah! I also have to can up the sauerkraut this weekend.

Well, now the tomato concoction is done and gone through the food mill. I am waiting for my canner to heat up.

Gotta Run,
Yart