Summer Pictures: Food

 

Finally, I had time to go to the library and upload all of the pictures I've been taking all summer.  Here are food related pics.  Travel pics coming soon!

 

 

The best salsa recipe ever is from Simply In Season - Favorite Canned Salsa.  Isn't that pretty!  I wasn't done canning until the wee hours of the morning, so no pictures of the finished product.

Thanks to Mama Jo for her idea of an applesauce party.  It was a real hit at our house!  Now, what can I bake so that they'll want to have a spaghetti sauce party?  I'm thinking bread sticks?

Washing apples

This pretty much sums up our summer - oceans and canning.

Cutting apples

How NOT to use a knife.  Don't worry... no injuries here!

Churning the sauce through the Victorio.  If you're still making sauce using a food mill, dig through the couch cushions and buy yourself a Victorio.  Only $40.70 on Amazon with free shipping.   It's so easy to use.  No peeling or seed removal in your prep work.  Just chop, cook, crank.  The good stuff comes out one side and the junk out the other.

Yum!  Gingerbread and warm, fresh applesauce.

I made 16 loaves of zucchini bread in one day.  I didn't make any last year because we were traveling and I missed having it.  It's nice to know that this full box is in the freezer.  We eat some kind of bread or muffin at least once a week for breakfast; it's so convenient to just pull one of these out the night before I know we'll have a busy morning.

Cranberry Orange, Pistachio, Chocolate Chip, Date Nut

I did a lot of small batch canning towards the end of the summer.  Here are some favorites.

Dilly Beans

Horseradish beet relish, hot peppers - two ways and pickled beets.

 

Peaches and Nectarines - Nectarines are easier to can because you don't have to peel them.

  Corn from the farm, fresh tomato pasta, roasted butternut squash with garlic and sage smothered in wild mushroom sauce.
 

 

September is such a good eating month.  We've been blessed with bushels of tomatoes, quite a few eggplants, and wild mushrooms from Mr. Mushroom ( a foraging friend at school).  It's made for some fantastic meals.

Summer Tomato Pie

Eggplant burgers (grilled eggplant with Gouda cheese, roasted red pepper, tomato and basil).

Leatherback mushrooms from my friend Mushroom Man.

Mushroom sauce with garlic, onion, butter, white wine (then I added cream and goat cheese).

Leatherback sauce, roasted beets with Asian dressing (sesame oil, soy sauce, lemon), Gazpacho tomato and peach salad.



 

Although this was a long post, I love seeing the seasons change through the food in these photos.  September is such a lovely month.  I walked out in the garden tonight and found more tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, and made mental notes to harvest the shell beans and sweet potatoes soon.  Hopefully we have a few weeks before the frost so I can continue to enjoy this dual season in the garden.  Happy eating!

North Mountain Trail, George Washington National Forest

The garden is going like crazy, so I'm still doing a lot of preserving and cooking.  We're fully back into the swing of our busy school life as well (karate, soccer, piano).  We're also making several trips to PA for fall festivals (Mountain Craft, Mother Earth News) and work weekends at the farm.  There will be pictures of all of these events, and a garden update at some point.  In the meantime, part of me is ready for the first frost and good fall hiking weather - the rest of me wants as many tomatoes and eggplant as possible before the big freeze.   In the meantime, here's a suggestion for a great hike.

This is another one of our favorite trails.  These pics are from a early summer hike, but it's one of our favorite fall hikes as well.   You get great views along most of the trail, and since it's a ridge walk it's a good, lazy Sunday afternoon hike.  The only drawback is the drive there - it's not for the faint of heart.  Judge Rye road is a narrow, dirt road with multiple switch backs, steep drop offs and no guard rails.  It's worth it though - just drive slow.

Shenandoah Valley looking toward Woodstock, VA

This hike has great rocks to climb!

Flip Flop girl came with us.

Wild Columbine

Western Virginia Hike 1: Big Schloss Cut Off Trail, George Washington National Forest

This is one of our favorite trails. It's fairly short, there are lots of rocks for the kids to climb, it's steep so you get a good workout, there's a good view at the top and it's only about 20 min. from our house.  If you're in the Western Virginia or D.C. area it would make a great fall hike.  I wouldn't recommend this for young kids. Wonderful views in both directions.

 

 

Mini mules make kid hiking easier.  They don't get thirsty.  Bright colored hats make them easy to spot when they run up the trail ahead of you.

I'm a little late posting about this hike.  These pictures are from late May.  Mountain Laurel is one of my favorite spring flowers.

We were fortunate to see wild Lady Slipper.  Wow!  I usually see this somewhere every spring and I'm always blown away.

Wild geranium

I don't know this one, but I thought it was pretty.

View from the top.

The Schloss (Castle in German) from the back side.



Not sure of these either.  I always forget to bring the flower books!

Food I (Almost) Never Buy - Part 3

 

I had hoped that today and tomorrow would be cool, rain all day, fallish kind of days.  I did all of my garden work on Friday (picked beans, hot peppers, corn, tomatoes and planted fall crops  - lettuce, turnips, rutabegas, kale, collards, mustard, arugula, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts and cauliflower) since the weather forecast had indicated rain for the next five days. 

 

This morning I started tackling produce.  I made a huge crock pot of chili, a double batch of corny corn bread (corn bread with corn in it - good for using up corn that is past its prime), and two huge pans for the freezer of Soccer Boy's creatively named "Mommy's Recipe" - which is just chili with corn bread and cheese topping in a casserole dish.  

 

Today's canning adds 9 pints pickled hot peppers, 9 1/2 pints of beet relish (can't wait to try this, it has horseradish in it!), and 6 pints of pickled beets.

 

 

Tomorrow is the last free day before the business of fall truly sets in, so no matter how hot it is I have bread to bake.  Here's hoping for a cool one.

 

 

 

My standard bread recipe is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. During the school year I typically make bread about every three weeks.  I make six loaves and a batch of hamburger buns at a time.  We rarely eat more than two loaves a week so this amount is about perfect. 

 

 

I am not going to try to give a bread making tutorial here.  There are many resources with videos and instructions.  People are frequently impressed/stunned/dumfounded? when they hear that I make almost all of our family's bread.   For some reason breadmaking is one of those things that seem to intimidate others. Bread making is not difficult or mysterious.  If you have any kind of skill in the kitchen you too can make your family's bread.  Here's how I do it. 

 

I do apologize.  Apparently, when I took these pictures, the day got away from me and I never did take a picture of a finished loaf.  I was probably too busy sitting with my feet up and enjoying it.

 

Some tips...

 

1)  I have a good mixer (Kitchen Aid) with a dough hook.   I don't knead anything by hand.  

 

2) I stick with one recipe.  Since I make it so frequently I almost have it memorized.

 

3)  I have a big freezer so there's plenty of space to put the extra loaves.

 

4)  I start early in the day on a day when I know I'll be around for the most part.

 

5)  I only use King Arthur flour.  I really think it makes a difference.

 

6)  I set up four mixing bowls (for the four batches) and add ingredients assembly line style to each as I go.

 

7) I measure all the wet ingredients into one mesuring cup. 

 

8)  I have a bread riser.  I don't know if you can even buy these any more.  It's a metal bowl with a domed, ventilated lid.  I bet Great Grandma had to bake bread more than once every three weeks!

 

8)  Practice makes perfect (or at least makes it go faster).

 

 

 

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread adapted from Deborah Madison

 

The Sponge:  This allows the bread to have a wonderful light texture.  This whole wheat bread is not heavy and dense like other whole wheat breads I have tried.  If you haven't used a sponge before you just mix it slightly.  No kneading until later in the recipe.  You can find gluten flour at natural food and bulk food stores.  Stir the following together and then let it sit for an hour.  No need to cover.

 

2 1/4 c. warm water

1 T dry yeast

1/4 c. honey

1/3 c. wheat germ

1/3 c. flax meal

1/2 c. gluten flour

2 c. whole wheat flour

 

The Bread:  Add 1/3 c. veg. oil

2 1/2 t. salt

3 1/2 c. whole wheat flour (1/2 c. as a time until you have a nice dough). 

Let rise for an hour.

 

Punch down.  Move to pans.  Rise for the third time.  Bake 40 min. at 375.  Cover with foil the last 20 min.

 

 

Slice one piece for everyone in your family and enjoy with butter.  An added side benefit is that the house smells fantastic.  The other five loaves get cooled and then put into freezer bags or wrapped in freezer paper and then put in the freezer.

 

 

Usually when I start making bread in the morning the house is a mess and the laundry is crawling into the washer, but by the time I'm pulling loaves out of the oven, dinner is in the crock pot, the house is mostly decluttered and the laundry is mostly finished.  Heaven!

 

 

Adding salt to the sponge.

Finished dough waiting for second rise.

My great grandma's bread riser with dough that has finished its second rise. 

Punching down!

In the pans, waiting for the third rise.

Hot dog buns and hamburger buns

Almost done!