A glut of plums.

We decided today that it was time to gather in our harvest of plums. We had quite a few of them. There were a few that were damaged by insects so we gave those to the chickens.



My wife did most of the heavy lifting in making this sauce. I was more of an adviser. First she cut the plums in half and put them in a saucepan with just a pit of sugar.




After a bit of stewing and breaking them up with a wooden spoon it looked like the following.




That was looking pretty good but once you have made tomato sauce using a food mill you start to look for other things to put into it as well.



The finnal sauce ended up glossy and smooth. We left it mostly unsweetened for use in sauces and possibly sorbet. I am thinking of making a batch of barbecue sauce with some of it.



After all that we still had all these plums left over for fresh eating and cooking with.

A food weekend in pictures.

We made and processed a bunch of food this weekend.

Friday evening we started by mixing up a couple of batches of no knead bread. One was destined for for pizza dough and the other was to be baked for bread.


Saturday was a bit busier.
First my lovely bride made a batch of scones.





We then processed a batch of tomatoes into tomato sauce.







We also worked on canning some cucumber relish.








We also made a gallon of quick vegetable stock. I didn't get a picture of the stock vegetables simmering but here is the extra stock ready for the freezer.



We decided to make a recipe for corn soup that I can't find the source for now. It is basically a fresh corn minestrone.

First we cut some corn from the cobs


Then we then put the cobs into the vegetable stock to simmer.



After the vegetables were added to the stock it really started to look good.



We had the soup with a bit of the no knead bread.



We also made pizzas with our fresh vegetables and our home made tomato sauce. I didn't get
a good picture of those either but they turned out fairly well.

Jess started another batch of heirloom tomato sauce Sunday afternoon.






Soon we will have to make sauce from our abundance of plums.



All this and we cleaned house and the garage and the pole barn a bit. Can you tell that the internet was out for us almost all weekend?

Rick

Great video

I found this video over on Permaculture TV that touches on many important topics like sustainable farming, peak oil and permaculture. It is worth your time to watch all 5 parts.

Update

Well we are finally starting to get our tomatoes. It seems like they are starting a bit late this year. We had a cool first half to summer this year. No days in the 90"s since May up till this month. For Minnesota that is quite cool. But now that we have moved into August the temps and humidity have come up to our usual summer standards. We also started the the growing season this year as quite dry and now we have had rain almost every other day. This has resulted in a few split toms and a bit of mildew on the squash. Nothing fatal yet but I am ready for it to dry out a bit.
I am hoping to make a lot of tomato sauce this year. I hope to make a bit of heirloom tomato sauces a la Hank at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

In other news the insulation and siding on the house is nearly finished and should really help cut down our energy bills this year.

Rick

Dragon Tongues

This year we are trying a few new types of beans. One of the new beans is the Dragon tongue beans. The have a great color and are so easy to harvest. The purple really helps you to spot the beans in the plants. They are an heirloom bush bean. The have a taste reminiscent of wax beans but better.



We decided to can some according to the dilly bean recipie in the Bells Blue book. You really need that book if you plan to start canning. We also added one of our small dried Thai peppers to each jar so I hope they end up extra dragony



Rick

Renovation

One of the challenges of moving to an old farmstead is the inevitable old farm house. Ours had som issues that had been concerning us for a number of years. Among them was the ancient siding and the lack of sheathing behind it. Well after years of paying massively every winter to keep the place above freezing we finally have the opportunity to do something about it. So a while back Jess and I set out to find a siding contractor to remove the old siding and then insulate before putting up sheathing and siding. We had heard good things about Twin Cities Siding Professionals. Well today was day one and I am impressed so far. The team showed up on time and set to the days work. They stayed in contact with us if they had any questions the asked us what we wanted to do and listened to our wishes. They removed the siding and the cellulose and deteriorated foam insulation underneath. There were also some repairs made to areas of the house that had some rotted wood as well.We had made agreements to have the house insulated with spray foam insulation and that was also finished today. We should definitely have a much warmer and more efficient house this winter.
If it all goes this well from here on out we will be quite happy.

Scarlet Runners

So a while back I was talking with my mom about the garden and the subject of scarlet runner beans came up. My mom had never heard of them. It occurred to me that possibly other people have not heard of them as well. Well the plant below near my lovely wife is a half dozen or so scarlet runner vines twisting up an obelisk.

As you see below the beans can be quite prolific. We have been picking them young for fresh green beans. But now that the dragon tongue and borlitti beans are coming along we have been letting them get a bit bigger.




We discovered that the beans can be shucked out of the pods and boiled quickly. It takes a bit of work and the skins toughen when boiled so you still need to slip them from their skins but they make a nice addition to three bean salads.



And since they look so nice before they are boiled here is another picture of the beans before they are boiled.



And after all that they can be dried and used in soups and cassoulettes as well.
So there you have it. Scarlet Runner Beans.

Coffee

You ever have the feeling that you are starting to know all the steps and then suddenly find out you are not even dancing to the same song as everyone else? Me either, I don't dance but I imagine it would feel about like I felt on Friday when we discovered Burley Coffee.
Jess and I had gone into town to run a few errands. We decided to stop in at the Ferndale market and see what was new. We picked up a few things and as we were checking out Jess noticed a small menu card for what looked like a sandwich place. The name said Burley but otherwise it wasn't too descriptive. We had to explore a bit to find the address until we came to some buildings near the old malting plant. We found a small nondescript green building with few windows and a sign that read Burley Coffee. Inside we found a bustling coffee shop and deli sandwich place. We asked the girl at the counter how long they had been open and she told us since December. Honestly Cannon Falls isn't that big and I had not noticed a sandwich place and coffee roaster located right on the main drag! I am so slipping. I guess they are trying to avoid publicity for some reason but it is just the sort of place we would like to see in business so I am telling all of you.

As for the garden things are really coming along. Jess and I have been cooking a meal almost everyday directly from the garden. We had some hail last week and that set things back a bit but it wasn't too bad. Some of the toms got beat up and so did the big leaves but otherwise things are looking good. Even my experimental pumpkin seedlings are coming up.

Nocino part deux.

First you have to start with some walnuts that are still green. These are the nuts we gathered down at the Callister farm on Wednesday.You then quarter the nuts and trim off any bruised or damaged areas.



The next three pictures are of us making vin de noix. This is the first time we have tried it but we had so many nuts this year as a result of the Callister's generosity it seemed like a shame not to try.







By the way that is the wine that I racked to secondary back in March.

We made a carboy and a large container of nocino on Friday after work. We ran out of containers and had to go get more bottles at Ikea at the Mall of America Saterday afternoon. I won't do that again.

Below you can see the difference between the batch we made on Friday and the one we made this afternoon. You can see how quickly it darkens.



And here is the final picture of all the batches we got started this weekend.



I think people may get some nocino for christmas this year.

Harvest

A picture of the first major garden harvest.
And if you look close you can see our first 2 apricots! We had them for desert !