Friday 21 September 2012

Indian Summer

Indian Summer

Summer hardly came here on Vancouver Island but fall has been terrific.  We have had a long spell of sunny days and cool nights.  The leaves are turning colour and starting to fall and so are the acorns and when they fall on the roof of my shed from about 50' up they make a noise that is quite startling - especially if you are inside the shed!
There has been a lot of work going on here, cleaning up the garden is only one small chore that was pretty much completed a week or two ago.  As I don't have a chipper/shredder I cut everything into small (about 6") pieces before heaping it on the compost.  The outside bush beans are gone but the ones I planted in the greenhouse very early are still producing.  They will probably go on until the frost gets them.  The variety was "Royalta", a purple bean that turns green when cooked.  We still have some beets and carrots to harvest and a late planting of peas are up about 6" already.  It will be interesting to see if they produce anything.  I guess it will depend on how cold it gets as they are pretty hardy.  The tomatoes are still producing and I guess there are at least 3 dozen good sized ones on the vines with half of those nearly ready to pick.  Some are about 4" across but have cracked at the stem end.  I think I mentioned that in a previous posting.
This is the time of year when one has to consider what to do with all the bounty that is available.
Here on Vancouver Island people have many fruit trees that more or less go wild and the fruit is not always harvested, but instead it just ripens then falls on the ground.  I hate to see this happen so I "shopped around" and found a few people who were willing to share rather than let the fruit go to waste.  I have been taking beans (which I had in abundance plus some donated by others) to the Cowichan Valley Senior's Centre here in Duncan.  The beans are done but now they have been getting plums and apples.
I have a Granddaughter who is really into cooking, preserving and eating healthy.  You may have seen the link to her blog on the right side of this page, which is "Cooking with Jax".  Our other granddaughter (Ashley) who lives here on Vancouver Island is following in her footsteps and I think would like "Jax" to be living closer so she could get together and compare recipes etc.  
Anyhow, Ashley has been working with Gramma Drew and learning the tricks and shortcuts when it comes to making jelly, jam, plum and apple pies and apple sauce.  In addition they produced a lot of apples cut in thin wedges, put in quart sealers and the space filled with a special cinnamon sauce so that all you have to do is make a pie shell and add the filling all ready made.  Yummy!

And if you think the special cinnamon sauce is only good for pie filling - I sure have news for you!
It is terrific on pancakes, waffles, ice cream - you name it!
I think Jax has the recipe for it so if you want it drop her a line.
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 Gramma and Ashley processing the plums.

After being washed & pitted, they go into the chopper then are cooked & made into jam.

We have also experimented with making what we call "PLUM DELIGHT".  It is sort of like Turkish Delight, or if you have been to Cashmere in Washington State you might have tried "Aplets and Cotlets" which are world famous.  This is a variation on what they make.  Probably not as good as the professionals make but we think they are winners!  (both the cooks and the product!)


 We ended up with two varieties of apples.  Don't ask the name of the variety - all I know is "the price was right!"...

The green ones were larger than the red ones and were firmer when cooked so they made very good pie filling.  The only problem with them was they were uneven shapes so the hand crank peeler didn't work too well.







Nothing earth shattering about this picture - it just shows the apples being cooked down.

Some were made into sauce using a food mill and some went into a cloth bag and hung up to drip the juice to use for apple jelly.  Or just plain juice. 




Another load of apples.  We gave away a couple of bags to a lady in Lake Cowichan who was making sauce for her baby, and the boxfull went to the Senior's Centre to be shared there.









Gramma & Ashley get started on peeling and processing apples.

A few jars of plum jam on counter.










There is a saying that "You can't get too much of a good thing"... well, when it comes to apples and all the work it takes to pick, wash, peel & process,  I can tell you from experience that after a few days of having my thumbs turn brown and cracked from splitting & pitting plums followed by cutting and trimming apples by the bucketful, I was getting to the point of "too much".  Ashley did accuse me of being "like a machine" because I  kept going and going.  At least she didn't call me the Energizer Bunny!



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GG







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