Mid-Summer Abundance

Despite, or perhaps because of, the great heat wave and dry spell the Niagara area has been experiencing, my garden's bounty has begun in earnest.

I've been collecting little odd bits here and there, a few basil leaves to make pesto, a bit of kale to add to potato salad. But the last couple of weeks things have really begun to produce. We had friends over for dinner the other night, and though I didn't get to offer them any tomatoes yet, we did have cucumber salad, fried baby zucchini and a killer Swiss-Chard Tart ( stole the recipe from Laura Calder).

The mulberries! You can't pick them by hand or else they will burst. So I laid out a vinyl tablecloth (a tarp would work too!)  under the tree, shook the branches and watched as all the fully ripe berries fell. It was easy, and I love that I've got a harvest of something for free!

It all kind of started with the discovery last week that we had a Mulberry tree in the front yard. I googled all kinds of Mulberry recipes and had decided to just make them into another liqueur. Then I finished gathering them all up and wouldn't you know it, they are just about the most delicious berry I have ever tasted. Needless to say, they did not get turned into alcohol and are tucked away in the freezer so that I can grab a handful of them to make frozen yogurt or throw in a smoothie or on oatmeal.

Layered out to get frozen. Once frozen I threw them into a baggie and now I can grab them as I please.   Leaving them frozen means that if I want frozen yogurt, I grab the frozen berries add them to a cup of greek yogurt and blend with my immersion blender. Instant delicious!

This week the tomatoes are beginning to ripen, and they are delicious. I was worried that all this heat and no rain would make them super tough, but they are sweet and juicy and delicious! ( I threw the cup or so I collected tonight into my Pesto Quinoa Salad with Tomatoes, Olives and Cucumber...mmm...yum.) And I've had to begin checking on the zucchinis everyday now, as I had a couple that got so big they had to be shredded for winter consumption ~ hopefully in the form of chocolate zucchini cake!

Today's bounty. From the left: Collard greens, kale, massive zucchini, snowpeas, basil, cucumbers, jalapenos (and one large red chilli) and the first of the tomatoes.

I was also able to pick a large bowl full of snowpeas - the vines are taller than me now and full of peas. The cukes are coming along steadily, I can eat at least 2 of them a day now (and by "can" I mean I have to eat 2 a day just to keep up with them.) I also picked about 10 jalapenos off the bushes and they are HOT!! like super HOT! My fingers are still burning! I cut them all up and froze them, so I can crack open a bag of them whenever I need jalapenos. I've also had to start paring down all the greens I planted. Both the collard greens and the kale got wrangled down to size today, blanched and frozen.

Thankfully, my mom got me a FoodSaver for Christmas and though I didn't open it until last week, it is now getting put through its paces.

And this is what I ended up with! Go Foodsaver Go!

I spent the evening (4 hours!!) blanching and chopping and grating (with the food processor, thank goodness!) and foodsaver-ing. But now I feel incredibly good about having begun to store the excesses of summer for the winter when I'll be craving all those fresh from the garden veggies.

Next up, Tim and I will be making pickles. I'm not sure he's aware he'll be helping yet, but considering his only concern has been being able to make crunchy pickles, he's got to help out. Although I might have to send him out of the room when I start boiling vinegar (he hates the smell!).

Ch...ch...ch...cherry bomb!!!

Can you tell what this post will be about?

With that obscure reference to The Runaways, you probably think this post will be about music. And while I am still rocking out to 70s and 80s records (cuz our record player now works!!!) this is actually going to be a post about making Cherry Liqueur.

Note the cherry juice everywhere! I tried to protect the kettle in the background with a dishcloth...didn't work so well.

Thanks to the high high temperatures and low low amounts of rain we've been getting the cherries are ready and ripe and delicious and sweet in the Niagara region. And thankfully I live in the heart of it and so can just walk up the concession and a basket of cherries. Or if my mom is here, we'll drive up the concession and buy two, like we did this Sunday past.  With the plethora of cherries, I started to look up recipes to use them in (of course I've also gorged on them - ripe and raw- as it were.) Everything was some sort of sugary baked good, not really what I'm in the mood for in the middle of the summer of deadly heat. So, I thought I'd make sugary alcohol, because I'm sure I'll be in the mood to have sugar in the middle of the winter when the alcohol will be ready.

Cherries and sugar and vodka...not really any more complicated than that.

I also just happened to be reading a book called Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris (she wrote Chocolat as well) about the German occupation of France during World War II that had a recipe for Cherry Liqueur in it.  And after reading the following, I couldn't not make it:

The secret is to leave the stones in. Layer cherries and sugar one on the other in a widemouthed glass jar, covering each layer gradually with clear spirit (kirsch is best, but you can use vodka or even Armagnac) up to half the jar’s capacity. Top up with spirit and wait. Every month, turn the jar carefully to release any accumulated sugar. In three years’ time the spirit has bled the cherries white, itself stained deep red now, penetrating even to the stone and the tiny almond inside it,becoming pungent, evocative, a scent of autumn past. Serve in tiny liqueur glasses, with a spoon to scoop out the cherry, and leave it in the mouth until the macerated fruit dissolves under the tongue. Pierce the stone with the point of a tooth to release the liqueur trapped inside and leave it for a long time in the mouth, playing it with the tip of the tongue, rolling it under, over, like a single prayer bead. Try to remember the time of its ripening, that summer, that hot autumn, the time the well ran dry, the time we had the wasps’ nests, time past, lost, found again in the hard place at the heart of the fruit… 

So I spent all of last night pitting cherries (which is a juicy job!) and making liqueur that will hopefully be delicious in a couple of years...and if not, at least it will have been a helpful patience builder for me.

Cherry stained fingertips!

After reading a couple of recipes, I did change it up a bit from recipe in the book. I have to say that I am not patient enough to wait 3 years, so I pitted the cherries (thus opening up the cherries to the alcohol and hopefully speeding up the process a bit). I did break open the pits and remove the intensely almond flavoured seed inside, to include in the batches - to hopefully create a layering of flavours. 

Cracked open cherry pit with the little nugget of almondy-goodness in the middle. There were cherry pits flying all over the room until I got pit-cracking down to an art. I ended up using wire-cutters~the pliers ended up just squishing everything.

But like the passage from the book I did layer the cherries (plus about 8 cherry pit seeds per jar) with sugar, probably about 3/4 of a cup per jar and then topped up each layer with vodka, until I had two jars that were 3/4 full of cherries and sugar and then I just topped it up the rest of the way. Then I labelled them both with their official open dates!

Notice, I am a little short on patience. One is to be opened this New Year's (I figure that they will be an interesting addition to the champagne). And I'll wait a full year and a half before cracking the second one.

And now I can't wait for New Year's!

Gardening and Thoreau (by way of Gaspereau)

With Tim in London for the triplets birthday this weekend I had little to distract me - so I put on my gloves and rolled up my sleeves and got down to weeding and doing some other gardening tasks.  I am happy to say that all of the things that I planted from seed directly into the garden are doing exceedingly well.

My scarlet runner beans (in the front) are growing like gangbusters! I'm hoping the corn in behind can keep up since the beans are supposed to use the corn as a support.

In fact the snow peas are doing so well that I had to scrounge about for the materials to make an impromptu trellis, as they are already putting out their little feelers.

The snow pea trellis, a.k.a. the Spider's Web. I didn't want to have to buy a trellis system so I scrounged around the yard for dead branches, stuck them in the ground and kitchen twined it up good! It's not pretty but its free and soon enough it will be covered in the snow peas so it will grow into a beautiful thing.

 I also thinned everything out in order to give seedlings more room to grow into big hearty plants - this was exciting for me, as it meant I got to have wilted baby rapini and swiss chard with garlic for lunch....mmmm mmmmm good.  It was delicious but its probably because I grew them myself.

There is just something so satisfying about the results of ones own labour - can you tell I've been rereading Thoreau's Walden. I was reminded how much I love the book by a recent lecturer at Willowbank Andrew Steeves- one of the partners in the small publishing company Gaspereau Press (in the news semi-recently because of The Sentimentalists).

He came to speak about the traditional methods that Gaspereau Press uses in the very modern world of publishing - yet the lecture had very little to do with the use of older technology and much more to do with taking great care in what you do. In Andrew Steeves case that means understanding the needs of the book that you are publishing - from the cover art or lack of it, to the font style, to the sewn binding, so that you create something that conveys the message of the book and will survive to do so for the next century or so. It is really about being respectful and responsible about what you create - which if you've read any novels recently, has not usually been the purview of the huge publishing corporations out there.

Steeves just mentioned Walden in passing within the lecture but it got me to thinking about the book again and how much I liked it when I first read it. I also figured that if I read it again now, it would help to put the summer in perspective i.e. the growing of our own food and saving as much money as we can.  When it comes down to it, I don't think I could give up as much as Thoreau did when he was living on Walden pond (although I don't think that's his point - since he repeatedly pleads for people to live authentically - the lives that they want to live and not the lives their families or society dictates.)  BUT I do think that I can do with much less than many people do and I think I've got my priorities straight when it comes to stuff. That's not to say that we don't have a lot of stuff (much more of it is Tim's than mine!!) but it doesn't drive our lives in anyway and there isn't much that I couldn't part with if and when we move into a smaller place.

On that note, here's a picture of one of the gorgeous peonies that are just beginning to wain from too much rain and wind in the front yard. They were gorgeous while they lasted.

The Garden...So Far

So down here in Niagara, April showers turned into May Showers and I've barely been able to get into my garden over the past month. On the few days when it didn't rain, we got out there, taking out the sod and putting up rabbit board along the bottom of the fence but its been slow going. Apparently all of this rain has been good for growth and flowers and all that, and all of the bulbs and perennials on this little plot of land have been coming up beautifully. If only I'd been able to get in there and plant my veggies a little earlier, alas, like the rest of the country I am waiting for the May 2-4 to plant all my veg (though in reality, because we will be in Orillia and London over the weekend it will likely be done on Monday or Tuesday of next week).

We went to a local nursery today to get our plants, because I know there will be a mad dash for them this weekend and I don't want to be stuck with slim pickin's after the long weekend rush. I had planned on starting most of my plants from seed but that was an experiment in FAILURE. After my first failed attempt, I thought that I had just left them under the clear plastic lid on the seed starting kit, but my second attempt hasn't been much better. I just don't think they've gotten enough light - its not that bright in here on the best of days and all the gloomy rainy days over the past little while haven't helped. I have not given up though, next year we will definitely try again but with a grow lamp.

Failed seed attempt #2. These are the basil and tomatoes, most of them are at least still alive, but they are still quite small. This is not even the worst batch, all the cruciferous veg I tried to start got really tall really quick, then they got all droopy and died. Boo.

With all of our plants bought and sitting on my kitchen table. I figured that I had best do what hardscaping I needed to do in the garden before the long weekend, because I won't have much time afterwards before the plants all need to go in. Thankfully, it was a nice day today - we didn't even get any of the scattered showers they were calling for and it was even sunny in the late afternoon - hurray!! So I got to work organizing stones and turning over soil. Yes that's right you heard me - organizing stones.

Here is the garden pre-hardscaping and with bags of composted manure all ready to go. It's a good picture that shows the rabbit board we've put around the garden (all sawn by my own hands I might add) and the potato planter outside the garden - apparently potatoes don't like amended soil so, I've put it outside the garden and filled up a couple of buckets of soil for when I start hilling the potatoes.

I was determined to keep this garden on as low of a budget as I could by seed starting (fail) and by using free materials when I could. Luckily, I was able to get old barn boards from a barn that was being torn down and have used that for rabbit board. And as you'll know from all our house pictures we've got a big stone ruin in the back yard that has provided us with piles of stone (don't worry heritage friends, they had all already fallen out of the wall and were in various piles about the yard - or buried in the garden), so I was able to build a little pathway and a bit of a dry stone retaining wall to keep the slope where the melons and squash will grow from tumbling down into the rest of the garden.

 A nice sunny after picture in the afternoon. My pretty little path and all freshly turned over soil. Unfortunately I've run out of stones, so my other paths will have to be leftover barnboards. Not as pretty but it'll have to do.

Another view that better shows you the wee stone wall - it's only about a foot high. 

Now all I need to do is get the plants in and then we can begin to weed in earnest. Tim has no idea what he is in for!

Rose hip syrup... why I can't wait to get the sniffles.

We had my best friend and her husband over for dinner tonight along with their 1 1/2 year old. It was great to be entertaining again. We had a great meal, which I neglected to take pictures of but it was an Italian feast of risotto, balsamic glazed pork loin, stacks of roasted vegetables and homemade baguettes. I decided to make Panna Cotta for dessert, which will be my go-to for every occasion now that I know how simple it is and that it can be made ahead of time.

I wanted to make the panna cotta special though, so I decided I would use up some of the rose hips on the gigantic rosebush we have growing outside. I had read about making rose hip syrup somewhere and thought it would be just the right thing to add a little country flair to my Italian dessert. I didn't really use a recipe, I just went with what I've done before to make fruit syrups, though I had to modify my approach to the very hard rose hips.

First I picked about a pound of rose hips and rinsed them thoroughly three or four times since the ends where the interior of the rose would have been were really quite prickly and fell apart easily.

I cut the tips and bottoms off of each rose hip and then covered them with water and set them to boil for about 15-20 minutes. Once they had absorbed all of the water I was able to mash them.

Once again I covered the mash with water and set it to boil for about 10 minutes and then let it steep for half an hour. I then strained the pulp out, added a 1/4 c. of sugar and let it simmer away until it was a nice syrupy consistency.

I let this cool and was left with a delicious tangy sweet but very subtle syrup that was the perfect compliment to the rich vanilla panna cotta. We dug into them so quickly that I didn't get a picture of the final dessert but here is a picture of the finished syrup:

During WWII the Ministry of Food in England suggested parents make rose hip syrup to give to their children for an immune system boost. Apparently rose hips are very high in Vitamin C, and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. So now I have an excuse to make up another batch and keep it around to crack open when I start getting the sniffles.

A Country Side Note: Bunnies and Banded Garden Spiders

Our first week in the country hasn't been spent indoors painting and painting some more. We've taken breaks to play with the dog and take drives along the concessions and parkway - gawking at vineyards and mansions.

In fact one of what will be my most memorable moments about moving in will have to be Tim's first countrification (I made up that word!) moment.

I'm from Northern Ontario - a city in Northern Ontario, mind you - but Northern Ontario nonetheless. I grew up spending the summers at my grandparent's camp ('cottage' for all you Southerners), playing with garter snakes and grass snakes that my brothers caught. Tim equates my childhood to being raised by wolves and as such believes that I am already countrified. And by contrast this is true, Tim is very very much a Southern Ontario city boy. This was confirmed this week when we had an issue with bunnies.

I'll start this off with the most disgusting part. Ulli loves bunny poop. Apparently it is an unbelievable succulent delicacy. To her it's like truffles and she even snorts around looking for them like a truffle-seeking pig. This past week she hit the mother-load of bunny-truffle-poop. We had been so proud of her because she seemed so interested in the outdoor dog kennel that came with the house. Retrospectively, she was interested in the kennel because it was housing bunnies and more importantly was a bunny poop snack bar.

While we were puttering around in the yard - praising Ulli's interest in her kennel - we heard a high pitched squeaking sound, which was followed by a great bit of excitement on Ulli's part. Her nubbin (our name for what's left of her tail) was just a-wagglin' and her snout was upon the source of the squeaking. She was totally thinking that a real live squeak toy, was like the coolest! Tim quickly ran into the kennel to see what was going on, he pulled Ulli back and lo and behold there were two itsy-bitsy bunnies squeaking before him. Both bunnies made a dash for it - one through the fence and into the vineyard - the other straight into the lily leaves in the middle of the yard.  This caused Tim to go into hysterics:

T- What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?!?!?!?

C - I don't know.

T - Well, we can't just let them go off, they'll get eaten by coyotes.

C - What do you want me to do?

T - Get the one in the vineyard. I'll get the other one.

C - Okay.

C -Now what?

T - Get the cat carrier, we'll put them in there. 

C - What?

T - The cat carrier, and then we'll bring them to the humane society.

C - What?

The bunnies spent a warm night in The Witten's carrier in the garage, while Tim came to terms with the fact that going into the city to bring them to the humane society was not a solution as they'd just as likely be euthanized there. Most likely they'd also laugh at us for bringing them in. I certainly got a great chuckle out of it. Tim even appealed to my desire to have livestock, which was a good try on his part. Except when I explained that he'd have to help me when it came time for killing them, he back pedaled quickly. So in the end, Tim trudged off into the vineyard to release the bunnies and I swear there were some watery eyes. But he did it. The bunnies are quite likely in a coyote's belly now. But Tim's just a little bit more country for it.

Ulli still goes into the kennel to see if the squeak toys are still there or  alternatively have left her some new truffles. The bunnies den was actually tucked right up beside the igloo. Some bunnies just love to live dangerously I guess.

The day after that was my turn. For all my being raised by wolves and such, things still surprisingly creep me out. But I think everyone would be creeped out by this on your door screen:

I'm usually okay with spiders. They are good for the garden and catch flies and all that, but this was different. Tim, on the other hand, hates spiders, which is something that I usually bug him about. But, this was the mother of all spiders. It was the most gigantic spider I'd ever seen, it was a good inch in the body and 3-4 inches with its legs. Uggh, it was gross, and the evil yellow and black on its body looked like a creepy little face. Our field guide said it was a harmless Banded Garden Spider, but I was not buying it. 

For the rest of the morning, I would fling open the door to let the dog outside praying that it didn't fall off the screen or - God forbid - jump on me! Eeek! By mid-morning, I'd had enough and insisted that Tim get rid of it. He owed me for all the spiders I'd gotten rid of for him. He very bravely got a shovel and attempted to move it elsewhere. It promptly fell through the cracks on the back stairs and now we get to live with the thought that that mother of a spider is living beneath the stairs! I've definitely been putting shoes on to go in the backyard ever since.