 There is just something about the smell and taste of peaches. The smell is great in potpourri. The smell and taste are awesome in iced tea and are especially good in our Peach Cordial and Peach Berry teas. Peaches just have a heady fragrance that even draws you to the grocery bins with an invisible wave that says, “You HAVE to have some peaches!” We only have one peach tree. But more are going to be planted this fall. It is best to have at least two different kinds of trees – and we did – but one died. Oklahoma has many peach orchards, but the heat is brutal and it got our other tree. Actually, one tree is plenty for one family, but as I said, two make for better fruit. I was very excited to see all the fruit on our tree this year. It got bigger and bigger and then one day we noticed little, clear sappy things oozing from tiny holes. Arrggghhh. Oriental Fruit Moths had had their way with my peaches!!! How depressing. These beautiful fruits look so pretty, but when sliced, brown tunnels weave through the ripe and juicy meat. So, next year, pheromone traps will be hanging from the tree like Christmas ornaments! What fruit we did get has been incredible. It’s like eating peach candy and so I have been diligent at getting these precious peaches stashed away for future use. One thing I love to do is make pie filling. I use the same method as my Apple Pie Filling, but I adjust the syrup for peaches – a litle thinner. The following is the recipe that I use for peaches. To see how to make the syrup just click on the link for the Apple Pie Filling and directions and pictures are there. Mix dry ingredients together in a large pot and slowly add water, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Bring to a boil while continually stirring and allow to boil until mixture thickens and becomes more transparent. Remove from heat and add lemon juice. Stir.  Wash 6 – 8 pounds of peaches. In this case, I used more because I had to cut so much off of each peach due to those nasty Oriental Fruit Moths.  Peel peaches  I find the easiest way to slice peaches is to make cuts about 1/2″ apart, cutting at an angle toward the pit so that there is very little meat being pulled away from the pit. In the case of most of my peaches, I ended up cutting out chunks around the worm holes so this batch isn’t very pretty!! I slice my peaches into a bowl that has a cup of water mixed with a tsp of FruitFresh in it. I continually toss the peach slices as I cut to keep them coated with the citric acid mixture.  Pack the peaches into jars leaving a 1″ head space from the top of the jar. I’ll be rearranging peaches from the jar on the front right to distribute among other jars because it is too full. Add 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar to each jar of peaches.  Ladle syrup into jars leaving a 1″ head space of syrup. This prevents any from boiling out in the processing. I usually have around a quart of syrup left over and just use it for my next run or I can it and use it for fresh peaches in a pie.  Using a knife or canning spatula, run around the inside perimeter of the jars to release any air bubbles.  Wipe the rims of the jars with a wet cloth to remove any juices, oils or syrup which will keep a jar from sealing.  I like to place my lids in the water in a pan by alternating them rubber side up, rubber side down which helps to keep them from sticking together. The water is brought to just before a boil and then turned on low to keep the lids warm.  Using a canning wand or tongs, remove the lids from the water and place onto jars. Screw on the rings and adjust by tightening and then backing off just a smidge. Place in a water bath canner and fill with warm water to 1″ over the top of the jars. Bring to a full boil and boil for 20 minutes. Remove jars from canner and allow to cool. Listen for the “ping” pop that lets you know the jars are sealing.  These jars are ready to store. I will use one quart and one pint to make a pie, so this batch made enough for four pies! Just pour into your crust, top and bake at 400 degrees. Easy as…umm…peach pie!! |
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Posts Tagged ‘gardening’
Canning Peach Pie Filling
Tuesday, June 28th, 2011
WEEDS!!!
Saturday, June 25th, 2011
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I say this every year. I vow that I will go nowhere during gardening season. And then…invariably something comes up that requires travel and I come back to a garden disaster. Such was the case with this last business/pleasure trip of two weeks. Two weeks! Would you like to know what weeds do to a garden in two weeks when the gardeners are away?! They say, “Yay!!” and promptly make themselves at home. Mr. Fix-It and I have spent two nights in the strawberry bed trying to find our plants. The picture is of what we have accomplished so far and of what is left to do. See if you can find any strawberry plants in that jungle of grass! Mr. Fix-It very wisely soaks the ground and then we pull while wading in the mud. Makes for easier pulling. A mud pie fight may commence tonight!!  |
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Processing Onions for Long-term Storage
Monday, June 13th, 2011
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I love onions. Such a mundane little vegetable – but it has such a pleasant shape and flavor, especially the Vidalia variety. Georgia has a right to be proud of that little onion. There is no onion sweeter and you can eat it like an apple – if you like onion flavored apples, I guess! Personally, I think the onion is a necessity in cooking because it makes all the difference in the world…well…second only to tons of garlic. I bet you’d love to have an up close and personal conversation with us at the OPC™ digs, eh? Onions are one of the simplest veggies to put in a garden. Cheap too! A bundle of onions costs around $1.50 to $4 and offers you anywhere from 50 to 100 sets. I usually put out two or three bundles. Row furrows are dug, fertilizer is sprinkled down the center of the furrows and then chopped in and covered to make a raised row. I plant my onions using a stick in one hand to make a hole and then dropping an onion set with the other hand. I then go back and pull the dirt up around each set using both hands (yes, I wear gardening gloves) which also straightens the onions to standing. In my neck of the woods, I have to plant them deeper than usual because our soil is a sandy loam and dries out really fast in our stiff winds. Once the onions are established, I pull the dirt away from them to expose the top of the bulb. Turning the soil between rows can be done by using a hoe, a mantis or a tiller or mulch can be used as well. This year, we had a dickens of a time keeping a really weird grass in check. Hand weeding around each bulb was a not fun necessity, but this has been an unusual year. The only other maintenance that we perform on our growing onions is pinching off any seed heads if they form and a side dress of 10/20/10 fertilizer every three weeks if there has been much rain. Otherwse, a series of soaker hoses does the trick. The nice thing about onions is that you can pick them at any stage of the game. Small onions are great for salads and garnish as ‘green onions’. Medium sized onions are wonderful to throw in with green beans or pintos or they can be left to expand to slicing size.  At the later stage of growth, onions have the soil pulled away from the bulb to allow the bulb free room to grow.  Eventually, the green tops start to fall over.  After the tops fall over, the onions are left for about two weeks before pulling.  Onions are easy to pull out of the ground.  We use 5 gallon buckets to gather our onions. Makes for easy carrying.  I wash my onions a few at a time in a big stainless tub/bowl or in another large bucket. After cutting off green tops no closer than 1 1/2″ from the bulb, I submerge the bulbs in water and use my hand to wash them back and forth.  I separate out sizes of bulbs and freeze the smallest ones for seasoning beans, etc. or cut them up for dehydrating. These I prepare, after washing, by removing the roots, the stem and the outer skin.  The medium to large ones are left whole to cure on racks for use as fresh onions. The roots and the stem will dry up and will be clipped. These onions will stay fresh until as long as November or December, stored in a cool dark place.  The largest are sliced and frozen on cookie sheets covered with wax paper and will be put into freezer bags. These will be used for homemade onion rings, for cooking on the grill and for use in casseroles.  Onions for dehydrating are chopped by hand because the food processor makes the pieces too small. The chopped onion is spead out on dehydrator racks. I start the process outside because the smell is overpowering and keeps you from crying. 🙂 After about 6 hours, I move the dehydrator inside.  After drying about 15 to 18 hours, depending on the moisture content, these onions are packaged into jars. Here, I have dried some of both our yellow and white onions. Storage for these dried onions is years. They are wonderful for using in soups and stews but you can also use them in chicken or tuna salad or for seasoning a cooking hamburger by putting a tablespoon or two into a bowl, covering with water and then placing into the frig overnight. You will have rehydrated onions to use like fresh! That is actually what some restaurants do. |
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Roses and Berries and Grapes – Oh My!
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
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Plantin’ Taters
Friday, March 18th, 2011
  Spring has actually come to Oklahoma! The drab brown of winter is slowly turning into Spring Green! The Bradford Pears are glorious.  Dafodils are peeking out from emerald folage.  Nectarine blossoms seem to have escaped the 21º frosty morning at the first of the week and are lacing the trees as pink, cotton candy flowers.  The rows of strawberry plants proved that they could withstand one of the coldest, snowiest winters Oklahoma has seen in a very long time and are starting to grow and spread.  And the asparagus is poking through the soil like a finger testing the wind to see if it’s safe! Here at the Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ digs – no pun intended! – gardening season has hit with a vengeance. We plant pretty early here in Oklahoma and we can plant tomatoes as early as the first of March complete with water teepees to avoid any late frosts. The plants start early and grow hardy early. We usually have two growing seasons.  This week, in our garden, potatoes, onions and lettuces were put in while the wind blew 30 mph and out-of-control wild fires raged all around us. It’s been a tough week for many folks here. Our soil is very sandy and it drains really fast. That means that when there is little rain, the bermuda grass becomes the prime fuel for a wayward flame started by some idiot who drops his cigarette butt and pretty soon trees, pastures, houses and barns go up in smoke. After all of these years of fires out here in prairieland, you would think people would learn!! Anyway, here, I’ve planted the onions a little deeper than they will be later because in the sandy loam, it is easy to establish them and then pull the soil away when they have rooted. Planting them deeper helps them stay upright. It’s all these little suckers can do to battle the Oklahoma winds. As I said, the soil is sandy, but we have added, for the past 15 years, horse manure, compost, mulch and peat moss so that it is the richest sandy loam you ever saw. It smells so good!! And it is in that soil that I planted potatoes – a total of 104 cuts or 13 rows.  To start off preparing for spud planting, good quality seed potatoes are required. These can be found at any local garden shop and even in some grocery stores. There are all kinds of varieties – Yukon Golds, Pontiac Reds, Kennebec…these are the three that I like. My favorite is just the plain ol’ standard Pontiac Red. A couple of days before planting, I take each potato and locate the “eyes”. These are little indentions that have knobs sticking out of them. These are the buds. I try to get good sized seed potatoes so that I can cut them into pieces with two of the eyes per piece. And the pieces should weigh at least an oz. Cutting them this way, I get more plants per potato than just one.  I plant my potatoes differently here in Oklahoma than we did in Tennessee MANY years ago. There, we did mounds that would make for good drainage. Here, in this sandy soil, I have found that rows are more successful. I place each potato cut side or sides face down in the soil about 3″- 4″ deep. This keeps them from freezing if we have a wierd freeze and it keeps them from drying out in our Spring heat. Yesterday, it had already gotten to 86. I place the potatoes about 1 1/2 to 2 feet apart and place about a tbsp of 10-20-10 fertilizer on either side of each potato cut, being careful not to get it too close to the potato which will burn it.  After I get all of the rows done, I go through with a hoe and pull the dirt up to a peak over the potatoes to make an even, covered row. It’s hard to tell in this picture because of the angle, but the rows are also 1 1/2 to 2 feet apart. I’ll keep adding to this post as growing season progresses and you can see how they turn from cut pieces to wheelbarrow loads of potatoes! Stay Tuned! |
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Step-by-Step to Canned Green Beans
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
I’ve been out in the garden gathering green beans and processing them for the winter. The plants are huge this year and the leaves are so large, there is no more distinguishing rows. I always plant Bush Blue Lake beans because they do not have to be staked and they produce stringless beans. This year has offered a bumper crop with the cool, early, summer temps and late arriving heat.
There is nothing more relaxing than sitting on the porch or in the den with a big bowl of beans in your lap, snapping them into another bowl. Pop – pop – pop! You get into a rhythm and your mind is soothed by the tempo. And that fresh smell!! Every so often, you just have to sample one of the sweet, juicy pods and you eat the whole thing raw! Can’t get any healthier than that!
Below, I have dedicated this post to a pictorial demonstration on canning green beans using the raw pack method. Because beans have a low acidity, all beans must be pressure canned at 10 lbs pressure for at least 65 minutes. A pressure canner with a guage or a weight is required. They can be purchased at hardware stores, WalMart and other similar stores and online.
Step 1: Wash green beans several times until all dirt, sand and old flowers are removed. Snap the pods to create uniformly, bite-sized pieces.
Step 2: Wash all jars and lids in very hot, soapy water and rinse in hot water. Dry.
Step 3: Put raw green beans into jars to within 1/2″ of the top of the jar and include 1/2 teaspoon of canning salt or uniodized salt if desired. Shake the jars as you put in the beans to make the beans gravitate to the bottom evenly.
Step 4: Pour boiling water into each jar and over the beans to within 1/2″ of the top of each jar, leaving a 1/2″ head room. Run a plastic knife down the inside side of the jar to remove any air bubbles.
Step 5: Use a clean, damp cloth to wipe the edges of the jars. In a saucepan, cover the lids with water and bring them to a boil and remove from heat. Using tongs, carefully place the hot lids on the jars and put a ring in place. Tighten the rings just enough to call them tight. Too tight can cause problems!
Step 6: Place about 2 inches of hot water in the canner and place the rack on the bottom. Fill the canner with jars according to the capacity of your particular canner. Tighten the cover and if a weight is used, put the weight in place. I like a canner that uses a weight because it is more accurate and does not need to be adjusted. If using a canner with a gauge, please follow the instructions that come with your canner. Turn the heat on high and wait until the weight begins to jiggle. At this point, reduce the heat to medium-high and monitor the weight, which should jiggle about every minute or so. Set the timer for 65-75 minutes and continue to monitor the pounds of pressure by listening to the weight.
Step 7: When the beans are finished processing, turn off the heat and allow the canner to cool, unmoved, until the pressure has completely dissipated. It is very easy to get very severe steam burns if the canner has not been allowed to cool properly. When the canner has depressurized, remove the lid and carefully remove the jars, using jar tongs with one hand and holding the bottom of the jar with an oven mitt on the other. Soon, the pinging pop of jar lids completing a seal makes you smile because you know that you have been successful.
There is something very satisfying in neat rows of freshly canned produce in sparkling jars with golden lids. These are ready for the pantry and will be enjoyed for sure this winter!! I hope that you will take a stab at canning beans. If you don’t have your own garden, the local farmer’s market, health food store or grocery store has fresh beans that will work fine. Just make sure that they are crisp and not limp. Happy canning! It’s bean fun. 🙂
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