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!