Archive for the 'Harvest' Category
Some things seem to be drawn together organically, like the flavors of blood orange and raspberry. It’s citrus season here now – the only time of the year blood oranges are available. Since raspberries are abundant in late summer this jam recipe has been in progress for 6 months. Despite having very different seasons the tie between these two fruits is undeniable. When I first tasted the blood orange juice it was kind of, well, blah. Not as sweet and vibrant as an orange, albeit the juice is beautifully rich to look at the flavor lacks punch. But what I did taste was a slight hint, a murmur maybe, of raspberry. It was immediate and undeniable that these two fruits must go together. Hence this blood orange and raspberry jam recipe was born.
First made last winter, the jars were quickly gobbled up as it is my all-time-favorite jam of all time. Then in the summer when raspberries were ripe and ready, I hunted for blood oranges. In this day and age of abundance I though someone might stock a few. Nope. I settled for making the recipe with cape gooseberries and it was good. Just not my all-time-favorite of all time.
But now it’s time, my friends, time for blood orange and raspberry jam. Finally. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
- enough blood oranges to get 4 cups freshly-squeezed juice
- 4 cups raspberries
- 3-4 cups sugar (this really depends on your preferences and how sweet the fruit is) I used 3 cups and my jam is perfectly sweet and tart
- cheesecloth
Directions:
- Put a couple of plates in the freezer.
- Juice those bloody oranges until you get 4 cups. Take all the membrane and seeds out of the peels and tie into a square of cheesecloth (I used a 4-ply thickness of cheesecloth, i.e. a large square folded in half twice). Tie the ends of the cheesecloth around a large wooded spoon. This is your pectin bag.
- Add juice to a large pot with the raspberries and sugar and bring to a boil on medium-high. Stir frequently. Hang bag of orange guts from the edge of the pot. I rigged up something with a chopstick and a clip on the side of the pot, but the large wooden spoon works great too.
- When boiling, reduce heat to medium-low and continue boiling and stirring until reduced. Remove pectin bag and let cool. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the bag so that a creamy gel comes out of the pores of the cheesecloth – that’s your pectin! Scrape the pectin back into the jam and stir. Then you can discard the bag and membranes.
- Jam is ready when it passes the gel test: put a spoonful of the jam on a plate from the freezer. When the jam has cooled, drag your finger through the middle of the glob. If it spreads back into a puddle, it isn’t gelled yet. If your finger mark stays put, then your jam is ready to be canned.
- Process 125ml (aka 1/2 cup) jars for 5 minutes, or 250ml (aka 1 cup jars) for 10 minutes in a boiling water canner.
In other news, just as these flavors came together organically, it seems that right at the same time I’m all ramped up about citrus, I have a few new Garden Therapy Handmade pillows to launch. This one seemed particularly fitting to announce today, given the citrus-y color of the crocosmia blooms. For those of you who haven’t yet, please visit the Garden Therapy Handmade shop and take a look at all the bright-colored blooms. Hopefully they will bring some cheer to your winter’s days.
I’ll be linking this post to these wonderful parties.
January 14 2012 | Canning and Garden Therapy Handmade and Harvest and Projects | 7 Comments »
If you haven’t yet tried preserved lemons, now is the time. Primarily used in Moroccan cooking, this unique salty citrus flavour quickly makes an amazing dish out of chicken or fish and adds lift to sautéed vegetables or beans. This recipe has only two ingredients, so choose them wisely. Organic lemons are the only ones I ever use for preserving as the rind will have less junk (pesticides, etc.) on it.
Ingredients:
- 12 organic lemons
- coarse Kosher salt
Directions:
1. Scrub the lemons under running water with a vegetable or nail brush to get the rind nice and clean. Then cut the stems and ends off the lemons.
2. Score each lemon into a star: start by making a cut through the lemon from the top down to almost the bottom, but don’t slice all the way through. Leave enough remaining so that the lemon stays attached. Cut again twice more, to get a star shape.
3. Pack the insides of the star with lots of coarse salt. Don’t be afraid of the salt it’s not going to become overly salty if you use too much. Just go for it!
4. Now pack the lemons into clean, sterilized jars. Really squish them in there so that the juices start to cover the lemons. Add extra fresh lemon juice if you need to top each jar up so that all the lemons are completely covered. Keep squishing down the lemons over the next couple of days to get more juices out and covering the fruit.
5. Let sit for a month in a cold place like the fridge until the rinds soften.
To use the preserved lemons, rinse under cold running water and remove the pulp. The pulp can be squeezed for it’s juice, but generally the rind is what is used. Slice or dice the rind to add to recipes like this one: Chicken Tagine with Green Olives and Preserved Lemon. Yum!
January 07 2012 | Canning and Harvest and Recipes | 10 Comments »
Making fragrant jars of homemade bath salts couldn’t be easier. In vintage mason jars, bath salts look beautiful on display and make wonderful gifts. Here is a recipe to make your own as part of the Natural Skincare Series.
Materials:
- Epsom salts
- 100% pure lavender essential oil (not fragrance)
- dried lavender
- vintage mason jars
Directions:
1. Fill each mason jar about halfway full of the Epsom salts.
2. Add just 10-15 drops of essential oil, replace lid, and shake.
3. Remove the lid again, add 1 tablespoon of dried lavender flowers, replace lid and shake (again)
4. Add more Epsom salts to full the jar then (you guessed it) replace the lid and shake shake shake.
December 16 2011 | Flowers and Harvest and Projects and Recipes | 9 Comments »
Every year we like to hang a different wreath on our front door during the holidays. We’ve amassed a collection of wreaths to match the holiday season trends of sparkly red berries, Christmas ornaments, peacock feathers, and square-shaped boxwood but my favorites are most certainly natural, fresh wreaths.
A fresh wreath makes for an individual work of art that smells as good as it looks. Florists and garden centers are wonderful places to find one to suit any style but if you are feeling adventurous, a homemade wreath made with garden clippings or purchased greens, can be most gratifying.
Given the current popularity of lateral space gardening, there are supplies available for all sorts of wreath plantings. Evergreen, succulent, moss, and flower wreaths are beautiful micro gardens that will suit most any style or climate. Care will vary depending on what type of planting you decide on, but many will last for months, if not years, with a couple weekly squirts of a spray bottle.
Here’s how to make one:
Materials:
- evergreen foliage
- grapevine wreath
- pruners
- gloves
- twine
- berries, twigs, pinecones, ribbons (optional)
Directions:
p
p
Step 1: Gather a variety of foliage, berries, twigs, pinecones, ribbons, and anything else you want to add to your wreath. Some of the evergreen cuttings that work very well are: holly, cedar, contoneaster, yew, pine, pieris, boxwood, laurel, camellia, fir, cypress, and magnolia. I like to contrast needles with broad leaves, and vary the color, but a wreath made of entirely one type of foliage can be incredibly dramatic. Also, think about tucking in herbs like rosemary, sage, lavender into the foliage to add another delightful aroma.
p
p
Step 2: Using a grapevine wreath as your base, start by choosing a firm branch with stem thick enough that it will not bend easily. Add other cuttings of different foliage on top and gather the bunch in your hand. Snip off any long stems.
-p
p
Step 3: Using the twine, wrap around the bunch and the grapevine wreath together a few times until secured. For the first bunch, tie a knot in the twine to hold it in place but do not cut the end of the twine.
p
p
Step 4: Gather a second bunch of foliage. Lay this bunch overlapping the twine securing the first bunch to the wreath. Wrap twine around the base of the new bunch a few times and set down. Continue adding foliage to the wreath by overlapping the previous bunch and securing with twine until there are no more gaps to fill.
p
p
Step 5: Secure the final bunch by gently lift the foliage from the first bunch and tuck the stems under it. Secure with twine and tie off the final bunch with a few knots.
p
p
Step 6: Now take a last look at the wreath. You can tuck in a few more greens to even out the design or add a few embellishments such as pinecones (using florist wire to attach them), berries, ribbons, or even ornaments.
p
p
p
Step 7: hang and enjoy!
p
p
The final word on making a perfect wreath: just have fun with it. Experimenting with different foliage will allow the wreath to become tradional or modern, contained or wild, themed or everyday. I loved the look of the magnolia leaves with their velvety bronze undersides. There wasn’t much else this wreath needed to make it perfectly stunning and completely different from my holiday wreath.
p
p
p
A special thanks to the wonderful neighbourhood gals who provided all the foliage, wine, and treats that go along with the annual wreath-making afternoon.
December 03 2011 | Gardening and Harvest and Photography and Projects | 40 Comments »
Did you know that British Columbia is the 3rd largest producer of cranberries worldwide? BC produces about 17 million kilograms of cranberries annually on about 50 family farm operations. Just a short drive away from Vancouver there are cranberry bogs that you can check out. They are just beautiful in mid-autumn when the bogs are flooded and all the ripe cranberries float to the top of the bog, get corralled in, and are harvested. Each year we head down to Fort Langley and buy bags of cranberries straight from the farm. They freeze well and are a delicious addition to baking and savoury cooking alike.
With American Thanksgiving coming up this week, I thought I’d share my homemade bourbon cranberry sauce recipe. We gave jars of this away to each of the guests that joined us for Canadian thanksgiving back in October. The recipe is intended for canning so you (and your guests if they are lucky enough to take a jar home) can store in the cupboard until Christmas or Thanksgiving next year. Don’t forget to dress up your jars with some adorable canning labels you can download and print on label paper. Here is a custom design for this recipe: Garden Therapy Bourbon Cranberry Sauce Labels.
Ingredients:
- 6 cups cranberries
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1/2 cup bourbon
Directions:
- Combine sugar, water, and vinegar in a tall-sided saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.
- Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add cranberries.
- Return to a boil, then reduce heat and stir rapidly uncovered for 5 minutes until cranberries burst.
- Stir in bourbon.
- Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/2″ of headspace. Process in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes for 250ml (1 cup) jars.
Makes three 250ml (half pint) jars or six 125ml jars.
We’re participating in these linky parties or blog hops.
November 21 2011 | Canning and Harvest | 19 Comments »
For this weekend’s project, we took a bunch of golden hops and tucked them into grapevine wreath. With a crow nestled in it has just the perfect balance of “festive” and “ominous” to become Halloween décor.
Without the space to grow hops in our small, urban garden, we were excited to receive a gift of freshly cut hops from the country. the Golden Hop Vine (Humulus lupulus ‘Aureus’) is a vigorous-growing deciduous vine and the prettier sibling of the common hops used to make beer. The cone-shaped flowers are green in the summer but when it’s time to cut the vine back in the fall, the flowers start to turn. The flowers arrived a pale yellow, but have dried to a rich golden colour. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on some hops, here are the instructions on making your own Halloween Hop Wreath.
Materials:
- grapevine wreath
- golden hop stems
- scissors
- Halloween decoration (crow or other)
Step 1: Pick out strong stems 3″-6″ long with clusters of hops at the ends. Snip off the leaves and flowers at the base of each stem, enough so that the stem can inserted into the wreath and hold.
Step 2: Starting at the inner bottom edge of the wreath, tuck each stem into the web of grapevine branches, enough so that when the wreath is hung they will not fall out. Insert the stems around the grapevine wreath from inner bottom edge of the form to the upper top edge. As the hop flowers will hang once mounted upright, this will ensure that the wreath will look symmetrical. A good practice is to periodically lift the wreath to its finished position to check the arrangement. Give it a light shake at the same time to remove any flowers that are loose.
Step 3: Use your creativity to decorate the wreath for the season. We used a crow but a spider, rat, or even a severed hand would have been just as compelling.
Step 4: hang your wreath and enjoy the flowers as they deepen in colour and release the most delicious hop aroma.
October 22 2011 | Flowers and Gardening and Harvest and Projects | 4 Comments »
This past weekend we served up freshly harvested apples as mini pies topped with dulce de leche ice cream and caramel sauce. Personal-sized pies offer modern take on apple pie and ice cream that adds just enough flair to top off an elegant autumn dinner. And, really, who doesn’t like getting a whole mini pie all to themselves? Here is the recipe for 12 of them:
Basic Pie Crust
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup salted butter, cut into small cubes
- approximately 1/2 cup ice water
Directions
Cut up the butter into cubes, lay them on a small plate, and stick them in the freezer. The longer in advance you do this, the flakier your crust will be. We like the butter to be fully frozen when we use it.
In a food processor, pulse the flour to mix, then add the butter and pulse about 10 times (until the mixture resembles a coarse meal with chunks of butter still visible). Add ice water, a tablespoon at a time and pulse to mix. Combine just until the dough holds together when pinched with your fingers and there are still butter bits visible although no larger than small peas.
Turn the dough onto a floured surface and gently form into a large square and cut into 16 evenly-sized pieces. Gently and quickly so that you do not melt the butter or overwork the dough, form the 16 pieces into disks and wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Mini Apple Pies
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 8-10 mixed apples (some tart like Granny Smith, some sweet like Gala)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 egg, beaten
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Roll small disks of dough on a lightly floured surface, into an 8” circle, handle lightly and keep cool in the fridge until ready to roll each piece. Carefully fit 12 of the disks into jumbo muffin tins or wide mouth canning jars, gently lowering dough into bottom and sides of pie plate without stretching. Gently fold and pinch the dough so that it creates a cup form with a thick edge. Refrigerate.
Place lemon juice in a large bowl. Peel, core, and slice apples 1/8 inch thick, tossing them in the bowl as you work. Add sugar, cinnamon, flour and toss to combine. Transfer apple mixture to pie crust, pressing in firmly.
Roll out the remaining 4 disks of dough and cut into 4” strips. Layer four strips per pie in a lattice pattern and brush with egg. Bake until golden and bubbling, approximately 25-30 minutes, Cool before serving.
We also made the dulce the leche ice cream and sauce, but those recipes will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, try out our absolute favourite vanilla ice cream recipe.
Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton,Bags by Bloom and Harvard Common Press
October 16 2011 | Baking and Harvest and Recipes | 7 Comments »
It’s no longer possible to deny that it’s autumn (no matter how hard we try) so perhaps it’s best to start winding down along with the temperatures and light. Hanging some dried lavender around the garden could be just the aromatherapy needed to help de-compress after a long day, or perhaps it will just make you smile. Regardless, it’s a quick weekend project that will leave you calm enough for an afternoon read or a good night’s sleep.
Materials:
- wire coat hanger
- scissors
- twine or wire (in a colour that matches your flowers*)
- dried lavender
Instructions:
The best part about this project is that you don’t need any special materials beyond what you can likely find around the house. Start by bending a wire coat hanger into a circular form. The hook of the hanger will be hidden when the wreath is complete, and it makes it easy to hang the wreath when finished.
Gather a bunch of dried lavender and snip the ends with the scissors to get a nice neat edge. Secure the bunch to the form by winding the twine around it a few times and tying a knot. (*We’ve used green gardening wire for demonstration purposes, but a twine or wire colour that matches your dried flowers will have a much cleaner look in the end.)
.
.
Leaving the twine on the roll, wind each new bunch to the form as they are added. Continue adding bunches until you complete the circle. Tuck a final bunch under the first bunch, and secure with twine and tie off.
.
.
Be sure to work on a table or tarp where you can collect the dried flowers that fall of in the wreath-making process. Those wonderfully scented blooms are great for
lavender sachets, cooking, or soap-making. We keep a big jar in the house over winter for a variety of uses.
.
October 15 2011 | Flowers and Gardening and Harvest and Projects | 8 Comments »
The race is on. It’s the time of year when you encourage (plead) with tomatoes to ripen before they succumb to the horrors of Late Blight.
It first starts with a few yellowing leaves. Yikes. Remove these right away!
Then a few brown leaves and whitish-grey powder (spores) can be seen. Ack! Remove these immediately! At this point you could also top the plants by cutting the main runnier to prevent more flowering and send the plants energy into fruiting.
Sadly, there will start to be grey-brown spots on the stems which means the race has heated up. Cut off the stems that you can, and if the blight is widespread, begin defoliating the plants to allow all the plants energy into ripening the tomatoes.
It all happens so fast. You can go from lush green plants with many hidden tomatoes (August 2011), to sad looking sticks with ripening fruits (September 2011) in no time as seen in these photos of our raised bed tomato garden and self-watering container tomato garden.
Generally, we win the race and see late blight as a reality of growing tomatoes. Taking the proper precautions in the beginning of the growing season will greatly improve your odds.
- Rotate tomatoes to different parts of the garden each year. It takes 3 years for the fungus to leave the soil.
- Grow healthy plants: start plants off strong as seedlings, and feed and water them well through the season. Healthy plants are the best defence to disease and pests.
- Keep the leaves dry by watering the soil below as opposed to top watering.
- Grow plants undercover such as under a greenhouse, plastic dome, or roof overhang.
- Wash tools every time you use them, particularly when snipping off the blighty bits.
If you must remove green tomatoes, many can be ripened on a warm windowsill.
.
.
When they are ready, those that haven’t been gobbled up fresh, made into sauce or salsa, can be wiped down and frozen whole for a winters’ worth of recipes.
.
.
So far blight has taken about 5 of our tomatoes, out of the hundreds that we have harvested off 40 plants. Take that, Blight.
September 19 2011 | Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest | 2 Comments »
Since many of us out there are elbows-deep preserving the late summer bounty into jams, jellies, pickles, and sauce, we thought it would be a good time to create some new canning label templates you can download and print for free. Ta da!
Templates:
Supplies:
- Full page shipping labels or heavy-stock, glossy paper and spray adhesive
- Colour laser printer
- 2″ and/or 2.5″ round hole punch or scissors
Steps:
1. Print the labels on a full sheet shipping label or on a nice heavy-stock, glossy paper. Buy the best quality shipping label you can find. We like glossy paper for these. Printing can be done on your colour laser printer at home (do not use an ink jet printer as that will smudge when wet) or by taking the file to a printing house.
2. Use a 2″ or a 2.5″ hole punch (available at craft stores or online) to cut out each label or if you don’t want to invest in one of those fancy tools, cut by hand with sharp scissors.
3. If using plain paper, cover the back of each label with spray adhesive according to directions on the can, or use another type of fairly dry glue (don’t use white glue or the label with pucker).
4. Apply the labels to your homemade creations and revel in the beauty you have brought to the world.
For more ideas on how to dress up your canning creations, check out last year’s canning label template project and canning label inspiration contest.
September 14 2011 | Canning and Growing Food and Harvest and Projects | 5 Comments »
Next »
