Early Harvests

In the last couple of weeks we have started to harvest a few things in the garden and around it. Last Monday, August 16th Adam and I came out for the day to pick blackberries at my parent's place. Adam had fun with his own bucket full of berries- mostly supplied by me and Grandma!


We found a large grove of blackberries and my Dad mowed around the area and cut back a lot of them so that they were easy to get at. We managed to get a large bucketful. There will be many more ripe ones in the days to come! Below is a picture of our first berry harvest.


I took home this large bucket of berries and saved some for eating and then froze them on a tray to save for winter. I hope to get out to do more picking later on and freeze some more. We also are thinking about making some blackberry syrup and other things with the berries.

Other Garden Harvests:

My mom has been harvesting a few of the wax beans and freezing them so that later she can make a canned three bean salad with a couple of the other beans we planted. Also, she has been harvesting a few cucumbers and making small batches of pickles out of them.


The lettuces are looking lovely in spite of the heat. We are keeping them well watered and using t hem quickly. They have not started to bolt yet! In order to keep the lettuce very fresh we pull it up roots and all and chill it in the fridge until it is ready to eat. It seems to be fresher that way.The deer tongue lettuce and speckled romaine are very tasty and seem to be especially nice. They are part of a mix that we bought from Seed Savers Exchange. They are two that we'd like to grow again.

We have finished up making applesauce from the remaining Transparent apples. My mom made 22 quarts of applesauce the other day! There are other apples that are ready later on that we'll use for making more cider. She decided to can the applesauce outside using the campstoves just as we had done for the apple cider. It makes less of a mess (no sticky counters or floors!) and tends to be cooler than in the kitchen. She even brought her mixer outside to do the pureeing of the sauce.

We'll be back with more gardening news soon!

Berry Best Birthday Pie!

This Saturday, August 14, 2010 we celebrated my Dad's birthday here at our house with a barbecue and some lovely summer berry pie! I asked my Dad what kind of fruit dessert he wanted and he told me that he wanted a berry pie. When I went to the farmer's market this Saturday there were so many delicious berries I couldn't choose- so I chose to make berry pie that included strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries! It is such a treat this time of year to be able to enjoy all of these! Below is a picture of my Dad with my son Adam and his birthday pie!


Again, I made my all butter pie crust and some different heart cut outs for this pie. I decided to combine a couple of thickening techniques for the filling of the pie and I was very pleased with the result. I began to think of the rhubarb custard pie which has 2 eggs and just a bit of flour to thicken the filling, so I wanted to try something similar for this pie. I decided to use tapioca flour since it is so smooth and not lumpy as well as some eggs in the filling.

This pie set up really well, and it was delicious! It let the true berry flavor come through without too much sugar!

Here is the recipe and my notes:

Quadruple Berry Pie:

-all butter crust + cut outs for a 9 inch pie shell

1 cup blueberries
1 cup strawberries- cut up into pieces
1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 1/2 cups blackberries
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

All Butter Pie Crust:

Pie Crust: Makes 2 large (10 inch) or 3 small (8 inch) single crust pies. ( I prefer my crust to be fairly thick and have a lot of room for crimping around the edge.)

5 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pound- 4 sticks cold butter cut into small pieces
1 cup ice water

Mix dry ingredients together in a food processor. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs appear. Pour in ice water slowly until combined. Make 2 large disks out of the dough & wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. After 1 hour let dough set on counter for about 15 to 20 minutes until pliable.

May be frozen as dough or made into pie crusts & frozen.

After your pie shell and cut outs are made (I made little heart cut outs but you may use any shape you like) proceed with the pie filling:

Pie Filling:

1. Put all of the berries into a large colander and rinse clean. Make sure to drain all of the water out.

2. Then, pour them into a bowl and mix with tapioca flour and sugar. Let them sit for about 5 minutes.

3. Drain off 1/2 cup or more of extra juice after this process. Then add eggs and mix.

4. Pour this mixture into the pie shell, top with pie dough cutouts. Top the cutouts with sugar.

5. Bake the pie at 375F in a regular oven for 25 minutes or in a convection oven at 350F for 30-40 minutes. Make sure that the crust browns evenly but does not get over-browned.

When I made this pie I drained off extra liquid after I mixed in the eggs, but I think it would be better if done beforehand. I was pleased that the pie did not leak over the sides too much because I drained some extra liquid off.


Enjoy your pie!

Cider Rules!

This Friday, August 13th we-- ( my mom, dad, Adam and my sister in law Kim) decided to make some apple cider! We wanted to make the most of what we had in the orchard this year and used up the rest of the Transparent apples to make apple cider. There were about 3 more buckets worth of apples on the tree and we were able to pick those up off of the ground after my Dad shook the tree several times. Adam had fun putting them into the buckets!

Then, we took the apples in the house to wash them with soap and water since they had been on the ground near where deer and bears frequent the orchard looking for extra apples and other goodies. We wanted to make sure they were clean before proceeding.

After that my Dad fired up the motorized cider press that my great grandfather Ernest Huffman built long ago! It still works great! You throw the apples into a hopper in the top and they are chopped into small bits which go into a slatted wooden barrel. Later, after the barrel is full you turn off the motor and begin to manually press the juice out of the apples. Adam got a chance to throw an apple into the hopper! He seemed to enjoy watching the press work when the motor was on, but he was a bit afraid of the pressing part!


Here is my Dad Dale pressing the juice out of the apples:


Later, after you press all of the juice out of the apples then it is time to strain, pasteurize and can the juice. We did all of this outdoors with 2 propane camp stoves.


One stove had the boiling lids, rings and canning jars on it and the other one had the juice on it.


This system worked quite well! We ended up making 16 quarts of juice that day! My sister in law Kim also helped us. It sure was fun and the juice was delicious!

The Apple of My Eye

It has been a while since we have written about our garden because we have taken small vacations to the forest and the coast. However, we are back now to tell you all about our early harvests, preserving ventures and how are garden is growing.


Last Friday morning- August 6, 2010 I brought Adam out to visit the garden and orchard here at my parent's place and we decided to pick apples so that we would be able to make applesauce. The orchard did not do well this year due to our very wet and cold spring and early summer. The only tree that really produced anything was the Transparent Apple tree. Wanting to make the most of what we had, my Dad cut two large branches out of the top of the tree for us to harvest apples off of them and also to prune the tree and let more light in. Adam loved learning how to "polish" and apple on his shirt to clean it before he ate it and also had fun eating a small apple while we picked ours. We ended up picking three large buckets of apples off of one branch! One of the buckets of apples is pictured above. I took those apples home and so far out of one bucket I have made 5 quarts and 2 pints of applesauce! I plan on making more applesauce and some spiced apple butter this week with the rest.


This Tuesday, August 10th, 2010- my Dad Dale's birthday- I came out again to visit, take my parents out to lunch and work in the garden. In the morning we took a tour of the garden to see what progress had been made. It has been fairly cold these past few days- very unusual for August. It has been in the 60's in the mornings which is difficult for our garden plants- especially for the tomatoes and peppers. But, as you can see above, many tomatoes are forming on the vines.


Despite the cooler weather many plants are doing quite well and continue to grow. Our cabbages are starting to form in the centers. They look so pretty with their deep purple color.

Also, many tomatoes are starting to form and most of our tomato plants are very large. There are two or three varieties with tomatoes on them already- a good sign!


Our basil (pictured above) is smelling so good and is growing quite nicely in big bunches. Our lettuce, beets, carrots and kale are also coming along. Everything is a bit smaller than it would be had we been able to plant it earlier in the season and had we had a warmer spring and summer- but all in all things are doing well. Our beans are also flowering- many with pretty purple and red flowers!

The squash are really starting to bloom and look very healthy- so we have high hopes of harvesting many of them in the fall.


Also, our grapes are really starting to get bigger and hopefully later on we'll be able to make some delicious grape juice!


Luckily, even though our orchard only produced one kind of apple this year and no pears, plums or cherries- we will have plenty of wild blackberries. Adam sure had fun picking his own with Grandma's help as you can see in the picture below!


We are so thankful that we'll have plenty of berries to freeze and also we plan on making some juice and syrup from them. We will harvest as many as we can!


Suburban Garden Report:

My little suburban garden is doing quite well! The rhubarb continues to grow very well- I need to harvest some soon to freeze and perhaps make some preserves out of. Also, we are getting a few strawberries to eat almost daily- which is delicious and fun!


Our pumpkins are doing great! There are four large pumpkins on the vines and they are starting to turn yellow/orange! They are so pretty and keep getting bigger. My sweet potato plants in the same raised bed planter have grown a bit but probably don't like the cooler weather we've been having!


In another raised bed where I have some very young blueberry bushes all of the sudden a mystery melon or squash plant came up! It looks very healthy and has been growing a lot. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it! I'm guessing it grew out of something in some of the compost that we put in that planter. Amazing!

Happy Gardening...a post about baking/food will be coming later on!

Blueberry Bagels!

This week I really wanted to be able to add fresh blueberries to bread and still be able to toast it for breakfast. This is quite difficult but I think I may have found the trick in making these bagels.


I used a recipe that I found on the blog The Fresh Loaf which was adapted from the book The Bread Bakers Apprentice.

Here is my version of the recipe along with my notes.



Light Whole Wheat Cinnamon Blueberry Bagels-
- Adapted from The Bread Bakers Apprentice

Makes: 12-17 bagels (I made 17 bagels with 1 recipe)

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast
4 cups bread flour
2 1/2 cups water- warm from the tap

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
2 cups bread flour
2 cup whole wheat flour
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons malt powder
OR
1 tablespoon malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar- I used honey

Mix in struesel:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
6 tablespoons softened butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup frozen blueberries. ( I bought fresh ones, washed them and put them in a freezer bag when my dough was just about done- about 20-30 minutes later they were frozen enough to put into the dough)

Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon honey for the water
Cornmeal for dusting the pan
Egg wash for the bagels- 1 egg- beaten mixed with 1-2 tablespoons water

The Night or Late Afternoon Before:

Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for two hours. As you can see in the photo above the sponge gets very bubbly.- I let it rise slightly longer than two hours because I wanted to finish eating dinner before I made the dough. I think that any recipe that starts with a sponge is going to turn into a lighter, fluffier, more flavorful bread because it seems like the yeast gets a good head start in rising.

Remove the plastic wrap and stir the additional yeast into the sponge. Add 2 cups of the flour, the 2 cups of whole wheat flour, the malt powder or honey and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. You may need to work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to make the dough less sticky, either while still mixing in the bowl or while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.

At this point I also made the struesel by mixing together the butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

Knead each half of the dough for about 10 minutes on a floured board. After the dough is kneaded work in small bits of the struesel mixture and mix in well to create a "swirled" cinnamon dough.

Right after kneading, divide the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each. I used a kitchen scale to measure out each ball. If you don't have a kitchen scale, try to divide the dough as evenly as possible into 12-14 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes.

Shaping the bagel is very simple. Punch your thumb through the center of each roll and then rotate the dough, working it so that the bagel is as even in width as possible. As you shape the bagels "poke" in several frozen blueberries into each bagel. I left some of the bagels plain too.

Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan or pans, with an inch or so of space between one another. If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil or pan spray before placing the bagels on the pan. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.

After about 20 minutes of rising time, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator overnight. This will develop the flavor in the bagels. This time with the blueberry bagels I forgot to do the extra 20 minute rising, I think that is why they are not as round and puffy, but they are still yummy!

The Next Morning:

Preheat the oven to 500F. I decided to use the convection feature on my oven- so it was set at 475F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add one tablespoon of honey to the pot.

When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to flip them over and boil them on the other side.

Before removing them from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan. Remove them one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan. At this point you can top the bagels with seeds, etc. if you wish while they are still wet. Otherwise you can leave them plain, or brush an egg wash on them.

Place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, (or 425 in a convection oven) rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool. I let the bagels bake a total of 15 minutes with a couple of rotations because the temperature was a bit lower and I wanted them to brown a bit more.

Enjoy! Below is a picture of my split and buttered bagel. Yum! These bagels were very light, moist and flavorful. I might experiment with putting a blueberry compote in them or something else another time, but overall they were great!

Peach Love

I love this time of year here in Oregon when the farmer's markets are filled with so many local fruits and vegetables it is hard to choose and hard not to overbuy because everything looks so fresh and delicious! It is because of the local peaches that are now in season that I wanted to make this peach pie. Also, I was on the search for the perfect, simple peach pie recipe and I think I have found it in the one that I adapted which I'll share below.

I have wanted to bake more with honey and so I decided to try a honey peach pie recipe that I adapted a bit. I got the original recipe from a baking book my Mom found for me called "The Harrowsmith Country Life Baking Book"- edited by Sandra J. Taylor. Here it is:

Peach Honey Pie:

Makes: One 10 inch pie

1 10 inch pie shell + decorative cut outs for the top


All Butter Pie Crust:

Pie Crust: Makes 2 large (10 inch) or 3 small (8 inch) single crust pies. ( I prefer my crust to be fairly thick and have a lot of room for crimping around the edge.)

5 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1 pound- 4 sticks cold butter cut into small pieces
1 cup ice water

Mix dry ingredients together in a food processor. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs appear. Pour in ice water slowly until combined. Make 2 large disks out of the dough & wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. After 1 hour let dough set on counter for about 15 to 20 minutes until pliable.

May be frozen as dough or made into pie crusts & frozen.

After your pie shell and cut outs are made (I made little heart cut outs but you may use any shape you like) proceed with the pie filling:

Pie Filling:

3 pounds peaches- peeled and sliced
1/4 cup butter
2 tablespoons tapioca flour
1/4 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


Melt the butter in a large frying or saute pan. Add the sliced peaches and saute for about 10 minutes. Then, pour this mixture into a large bowl and add the tapioca flour, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Stir to mix well. Pour into pie shell. Top with decorative cut outs. Sprinkle the cut outs with sugar.

Bake in a 450F oven for 10 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to 375F and continue to bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the crust is light brown.

Enjoy! Below is a close up photo of the cut out and the lovely peach filling:

Raising Raisin Bread

This week's bread was inspired by a photo I saw in a bread book I got last week at a thrift store with my Mom. She found this wonderful British bread book for me while I was watching Adam in the appliance section of the store. The book is called "The Color Book of Home Baking" edited by Hilary Walden. It is an old book from 1978 and it is the kind of old cook book that I truly love! It has photos that really inspire you to bake the breads and try new methods of baking.

I was really in the mood for a bread that would make lovely morning toast and the picture of this bread really made me want to make it. Of course, I had to change the recipe I slight bit as always but I am happy with the end result- the loaf above. The recipe made 2 loaves and they rose very high in the oven. Below is a picture of my baker's apprentice- Adam- my son who loves to sift flour and put it in a bowl, dump it out, taste the dough, etc. It is great fun and such a joy!


The original recipe called for whole wheat flour and rye flour but I used unbleached white flour in place of the rye since I didn't have any and I don't really like the taste of rye unless it is for a deli type sandwich.

Also, the original recipe called for simmering the raisins in white wine, but I had some coffee liqueur that my mom gave me leftover from our Farmer's Tea baking business days and I thought that the raisins would taste really good simmered in that.

Here is the recipe & my notes on what happened and what I might do differently next time.

Whole Wheat Raisin Bread

Makes-2 small loaves- tall but narrow

2 cups raisins
6 tablespoons coffee liqueur + 3 tablespoons extra for mixing with the yeast
3 tablespoons yeast
2 cups warm milk
3/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup light brown sugar
4 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1. Simmer the raisins in the coffee liqueur on low for 20 minutes.

2. Mix the yeast with the 3 tablespoons of liqueur in a small bowl.

3. Pour the milk and butter over the molasses in a separate bowl and mix thoroughly. Stir in the brown sugar.

4. Mix the flours and the salt in a large bowl separately. Make a well or hole in the center and add the yeast, milk mixture and raisins. With a spatula mix the flours and the liquid until the dough comes away cleanly from the sides of the bowl.

5. Turn onto a floured board and knead for 8-10 minutes by hand until the dough is elastic and smooth. Put the dough into a clean, oiled bowl and cover with a damp kitchen towel. Leave to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk- about 2 hours.

6. After this first rising, knead the dough about 3-4 minutes then divide the dough into 2 parts. Form 2 loaves and place them into oiled small loaf pans. Make sure to oil the tops of the loaves. Then, place them in a large plastic bag (I used an "oven bag" used for cooking roasts). Set these aside for 30-40 minutes to rise a while.

7. Bake at 475F for around 9-10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 425F and bake for 30-40 minutes. After lowering the temperature put foil on top of the bread so that it does not brown so much. I did not do this but I recommend it because the bread browned a bit more than I'd like even though the inside is very tender.

8. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

This bread is heavenly as toast. One of my loaves has a hole in the middle of it and it is very tender in the center, but it makes fabulous toast! See the picture below of a slice of the bread. I love it!! Enjoy!