I haven’t been posting much lately. I have all kinds of things I want to share with you, but with summer in full swing I’m prioritizing kid-time and project-doing. Speaking of projects…as I was walking around my kitchen a few days ago, I had to laugh. It was such a perfect snapshot of the total wonderful insanity that our home becomes at this time of year.
I figured you guys might want to play nosy neighbor and see what’s cookin’ in my kitchen right now. So here – I swear it – are a series of unstaged photos taken over the course of about an hour. I think they pretty much capture what I’ve been up to.
Smoked Copper River sockeye salmon in progress. These whole filets were cured in a mix of salt, sugar and five spice powder. Here I’ve got them set up with a fan blowing on them to form a pellicle before I move them into my smoker and finish them over applewood.
Right next door to the salmon station is my huge jar of kombucha. It looks like I’m preserving a creepy jellyfish for science. I let my kombucha lightly ferment then pull some off and bottle it for the kids. The stuff I drink just keeps going until it tastes like vinegar, then I add more sugared tea to the jar.
Shoved off to one side there’s a bunch of projects in mid-flight. From right to left: coconut flakes, raisins and sunflower seeds pulled out of the pantry to make granola; a half-gallon jar of lacto-fermenting romano green beans; my jar of DIY waffle mix, which has been a godsend over the summer since it makes super fun waffles almost as easy as scrambled eggs; a hunk of bread from an experiment in making bread with wild yeasts (still working on that).
On the stove I have the end bits and trimmings of meat being rendered for tallow in the small red pot, homemade apple cider that aged past it’s prime reducing for syrup (top left) and duck stock I’m simmering down before freezing or canning.
This is, shockingly, not a jar of frozen pee. That’s one of my jars of limoncello, before sweetening. We pulled it out from the freezer to test the final alcohol content. That’s why the hydrometer and refractometer are sitting there in the background, looking like props from a safehouse in Underworld.
A decent harvest of awesome and huge Triple Crown blackberries proved too much to eat fresh, so I popped the remaining berries in the freezer.
This summer has been the summer of plums. Here, I’m dealing with yet more of ’em. My Asian plum tree has been insane this year, and it’s all I can do to keep up. That box had about 15 pounds of plum in it, all far too ripe to keep for more than a few hours.
Which is why Homebrew Husband was, as I snapped all these photos, sanitizing carboys. All our hooch had to move one step along, to make room for those plums. So, the IPA in secondary had to move to the kegging system. The session ale in primary had to go into secondary. The first batch of plum wine had to go from open vat ferment to primary. The new plums had to be crushed and mixed with honey and water, to begin the first step of fermentation on their way to what will hopefully be a lovely plum honey cider.
A bit later, after the great booze shuffle, here’s the plum wine on the left and the session ale on the right.
And this photo is the crushed plums, honey, and water in the vat for initial fermentation. I know, it looks like a horrible placenta birthing scene. Sorry about that.
Our dining room table sits right next to the kitchen. Apparently I had to check something, because the canning book every single canner should own was sitting over there as if daring me to take on another project.
On the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, I have this set of sake cups, given to me by a friend ages ago. I love these as decorative items, so they sit out where I can appreciate them. A few months ago, my neighbor passed on some heirloom bush beans that have been in her family for generations. I planted half the beans to trial them, but saved the other half. After planting the first half, I just sort of plopped the remainder into this sake cup, where they’ve been sitting for a couple months.
The beans, by the way, are incredible – like a bright green French filet bean marked with light purple-brown stripes. Very tender and prolific. They also remind me that it’s time to get out and start planting again.
But garden projects will keep for one more day. Those plums won’t.
What summer preserving fun are you having?
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We’ve been freezing Romano beans, digging garlic, pickling beets, fermenting cukes, picking wild blackberries which I made 2 gallons of juice from. We don’t make wine but I’m sure it would make great wine too. Soon our 4 apple trees will need some attention. They are bearing a heavy crop this year since the last two years were bust because of the weather. And we both work full time and have tons of chickens to take care of. Something needs to give and I don’t think it will be our jobs. Sad that.
Wouldn’t it be awesome to just quit your job in favor of more DIY homestead-ish projects like this? Can I get an amen? I’m so jealous Erica of everything you are accomplishing, I’m doing my best, but it IS hard to find the time. Now since I know that 1) you have a good sense of humor and 2) have 2 kids, do you have a recipe to get them to stop whining this summer so I can make use of my blackberries and plums? What’s the trick here?
Boot camp.
Nah, just kidding.
It helps that my oldest is now 11 so she’s definitely more help than hinderance. Son is nearing 5 and very strong willed, but if I catch him right I can keep him happy picking and eating berries in the garden for a good amount of time.
Also, I totally let my kids play minecraft for hours on end. So, you know, tradeoffs? 😉
Serious advice: just throw whatever fruit you can’t get to into the freezer. Almost all processing like jam and wine and stuff works totally fine with frozen fruit. I’m doing almost no jam with my berries this year – just freezing. Simple, fast, no added sugar.
Wow – you’re inspiring, Erica! I thought I had a lot going on today.
I pitted some sour cherries to freeze for smoothies – I picked them for free on Sunday in my neighborhood. I’m about to go out to my front yard garden and harvest some herbs to make a few chimichurri sauces to freeze for winter meals. Then I’m headed blueberry picking at a local farm.
I LOVE summer!
I love chimichurri! I should totally make and freeze some. Parsley needs harvesting anyway. Thanks!
you are BUSY! I’m impressed and intimidated all at the same time (oh! and anxiously awaiting the arrival of my nephew, who is making his way into the world right this second!). I did strawberries over the weekend – jam & dehydrated – and am heading to a farmers’ market tonight to see what’s there. I’m determined to tackle pickles (dilly Beans + bread and butter) for the first time this year.
small edit – the third picture from the top (of your counter) you list the items left to right, not right to left.
thanks for the peek into your kitchen!
Oh, thanks for catching that!
I love dried strawberries – nature’s candy! Most days aren’t quite this crazy but we had a fun confluence of all the DIYS at once. 🙂
Do you have a recipe for the plum honey cider you’re making? Sounds delicious!
Plum honey cider sounds awesome! I too would love a recipe!
Ditto. I used to not like plums until I started eating them off the tree. A side effect of growing up in Alaska.
I pruned the fruit off my young trees to give them one more year to mature, but I am very, very excited about next year’s harvest.
If it works, we’ll tell you! Right now it is something of an experiment…I don’t want it to go on the record until we know the results are drinkable.
Seconding my husband – no idea if it will work. Will share recipe if it’s worth sharing! 🙂
I am now heading to lie down in a darkened room.. holy moley, you are one busy woman!
Looks like a very busy kitchen! This summer I’ve made strawberry balsamic jam, and yellow plum with bourbon will be happening this weekend. The plums are from a friend’s trees. My 4 year old plum trees have yet to bear fruit! They always have lots of flowers, but two plums two years ago on one of the trees is all I’ve seen.
Here’s the strawberry tale: http://pdxknitterati.com/2015/07/10/jamming-strawberries/
Yellow plums with bourbon? Hold the phone – that sounds like what I should do with all my yellow plums! Love the strawberry comparison with no pectin, Pomonas, etc. One thing I’ve done in the past is to do a modified no pectin. Basically, I follow my standard No Added Pectin Jam formula, but aften an initial simmer to collapse the strawberries, I strain them out and return all the juices to the pan. I reduce the syrup to something like the gel point, then add the strawberries back. This gives a caramelized, cooked syrup but very fresh tasting strawberries. Another experiment you can try someday if you want. 🙂
That sounds brilliant for the strawberries! I will file the idea away for next year; I have plenty of strawberry balsamic jam for this year. I think I’ll combine it with letting the berries macerate overnight to reduce the floating fruit syndrome.
I had plum bourbon jam on a Pip’s Original Doughnut (minis, made to order), and it was divine. A seasonal flavor, so just that once. But once was enough for me to throw over my usual ginger plum.
Wow! I’m exhausted from this post!
We’ve got cukes galore and will need to put up a batch every other evening to keep up. Green beans for pickling, as well. I’ve made raspberry jam and blueberry jam and rhubarb jam. I’m focusing on apricot jam right now. I’ve made three batches, have one batch macerating and just bought enough fruit at the farmer’s market for another batch. My dad decided that it was now his favorite so I’ll have to make as much as I can if I want to get through the year.
That’s enough for me!
That sounds like a huge amount!
Is there not going to be a July to-do list print out this year?
At this point, it’s looking like no. Sorry about that. Here’s last year’s July To Do.
I am jealous of your plum harvest! The squirrels got almost all of ours this year — we were out of town for a week and when we came back they were GONE. All that homebrew is super exciting too. Hooray for all the projects!
I’m sorry about your plums!
After the FB thread, I pulled all my shallots and soft neck garlic. The hard neck is still dying down. It was nice to know that I was not alone!
My shallots did not do so well this year….not sure why. The reason pre-dated the heat. The garlic did pretty darn well, though.
I am consolidating to preserve this year’s projects. Laying drip line where I haven’t needed it in the past. Fertigating everything else with a five gallon bucket. My harvest and actually eat rate is the best it had ever been. The goal for the rest of the year is to bring my current projects home. Except tomatoes, of course!
I lost about 6 new blueberry shrubs to that early season heat. Once I realized they were crisping, they didn’t have a chance. I think you are very wise to focus on irrigation, establishment, and the “bones” of the garden.
Well, I feel like a total piker right now!
(mostly kidding!)
How do you keep your kitchen clean through all this? My biggest roadblock is getting overwhelmed with clean up from projects and daily life with kids (eg. cooking all our meals) and all preserving grinds to a halt for days. I know I’ve taken on more every year between bigger garden, converting our yard gradually into more edibles, and now starting a non-profit that mobilizes volunteers into fields, orchards, and backyards to harvest fresh produce to feed our community so it doesn’t go to waste. My own food preservation projects have virtually stopped as a result, again mainly from falling behind on keeping the kitchen at the ready. If it can’t sit on a shelf or in a freezer for the winter, it mostly doesn’t get saved.
Yesterday as I ate the last slice of bread on toast I thought “I should make more bread”. Then I looked at the 25lbs bag of flour, 25lb bag of sugar, 2 5 gallon buckets with 36lbs of just harvested honey, 6 qts raspberries, 1 qt blueberries, and pressure canner strewn about the counters and floor and thought the better of it. And to think green beans, tomatoes, and corn haven’t come in yet up here….
Looks like you have a wonderful chaos going on!
I’m glad you have those lovely cups out where they can be appreciated and bring a little joy. It makes my heart sad when beautiful things are locked a way in boxes waiting for a “special occasion”.
The beans sound wonderful and seed saving is the cornerstone of true food independence Which is why I beg …really beg you to put those seeds in a tightly sealed glass jar in the fridge or freezer if you’re not planting them this year. And please do save some ( or new ones from the garden) for next year.
Do you normally save any seeds? Beans are easy as pie.
Our garden is not too insane this year: which is a good thing as we are halfway through remodeling our kitchen (DIY of course, sigh) and it just feels like any extra garden project tips me over into stressland. Like when we were drywalling and sinkless and picked 6 pounds of cherries off our tree on the same day(!) By the way, thanks for the cherry pitter tip, I’m totally getting that for next year. Now we’re getting a pound or so of raspberries every other day but thank goodness you can just pop those in the freezer. I’m just hoping we are done with the kitchen by the time the pears/apples/grapes come in, because it’s looking like an EPIC year, fruitwise.
So anyway all these stories just make me feel better, thanks everybody! 😉
Hi Erica,
I am having a plum dilemma. I moved to my new place in March. Was really excited as there are several plum trees in my back yard. I have been waiting to see what I get (had no idea of varieties or what to expect). One of the plums is exploding reddish to purple (not super dark purple/black) plums right now that are a clingstone and there are too many for me to try to process into cute little jars. So next thought, mash everything and make wine. I searched nwedible for your plum wine recipe and didn’t come across one. Do you have a recipe that you recommend (or fruit wine making book)? I have found so many conflicting recipes on the internet that I now have no idea where to start. Any advice/ recipe recommendation for a beginning fruit-wine maker would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Annalisa
So far, I’ve only done freezing. My baby-tomatoes are just, must starting to ripen over here, so while I have high hopes for canning All Things tomato (I’ve got something like 20 roma tomato plants in addition to my two cherry varieties), I’m still waiting before i count those jars. 😉
Right now (and since the beginning of June, if not earliER) i’ve been freezing blanched cooking greens of various kinds (including Borage – which I didn’t realize was borrage… woops – that’ll probably go with fish and dill or something…) as well as harvesting raspberries from our back alley and freezing them IQF style.
i have so many garlic-dills left over from last year that I probably won’t bother doing cucumber pickles this year (good thing, seeing as my cucumber plants aren’t doing so well). I’m hoping that I’ll get enough beans to try doing an “extreme bean” type pickle using tumeric, mustard, black pepper, and garlic (and bay leaves or grape leaves or something) for the spice. We’ll see if I get enough romano beans or scarlet runners to manage that.
My plan for this coming week is to find a choke cherry tree that’s starting to drop its fruit, and gather enough clusters to do a batch of choke cherry jelly – and maybe a choke-cherry syrup, too. But we’ll just have to see. If I can gather another litre or two of red currants, for freezing, I’d like to do that as well.