Peach Pickin'

Last week we went peach picking at a local U-pick orchard. 

Rylan was absolutely in love with the orchard and came home with a perfect vision of how he wants his future orchard to look.  And I will say it was nice- the trees were all pruned and kept to a accessible height. Even Annika could reach a lot of the fruits.

 We picked a ton. In about 15 min. A total of 5 bushels- with one half bushel being nectarines.

 See that nectarine Cale is holding? They were huge! We had 3 carts full of fruit  to bring home with us.

Aren't the beautiful. I love the color! And the kids had a blast, and would have picked more if we had let them.

We also picked a gallon of blackberries while we were there. They had apples too, but those weren't quite ready.

Then I spent just over 2 days in the kitchen. Peeling and cutting and boiling and canning. In total I got 84 quarts of peaches. And the knife only slipped once! Which in my book is a success! We still have a fair amount of nectarines left for eating and a few peaches to make some preserves. 

If you've never canned peaches and are planning on it, I've written up the how-to over on The Free Range Life!

Roasted Tomato Sauce

Tomatoes are our big crop. I plant a lot of plants and we bring in more tomatoes than anything else. When it comes to preserving them though...I am not too fond of the standard process. Most canning guides have you boil them, ice them, skin them and take out the seeds. There are 2 things I don't like about that process. One, it takes way too long and way too many dishes. Two, it's a lot of waste. I want to use all the tomato.

I have been asked for my sauce recipe. I posted it a couple years ago, Val at Collecting the Moments has posted her version as well.

Here's what you will need:

tomatoes
garlic
onion
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
basil
oregano

And I will warn you, I am one of those process cooks as opposed to a recipe follower....

Step one is to halve your tomatoes and place them in a large roasting pan. I tend to over-fill mine. I use mostly Roma tomatoes as there is less water in them and more meat. But when I make this my pan looks like the picture below. And this is a large, Thanksgiving turkey kind of roasting pan.

Next add garlic. I use a whole head. I bruise it, take the skins of and cut the cloves in half.

Next up, onion. I use about 1 medium. Cut in quarters. You can omit it or add more depending on your taste.

Sprinkle liberally with [sea] salt, pepper, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Don't skimp on either of these.


Dig your hands in and toss it all up until everything is nice and coated. Then stick it in the oven for 45 minutes or so at 400*. You want the skins shriveled and starting to blacken in a couple places.

When it's done cooking, transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl. I use my crock pot. It's up to you whether or not to get all the juices. I find the sauce too thin when I add them all. So I just make sure to get all the onion, garlic and tomatoes.

Add a whole lot of fresh basil and oregano (I am sure dry would work too). Then blend it up. I use my immersion blender. I have used my food processor in batches too. Keep blending. Then give it a taste. Add more salt, pepper, balsamic, olive oil, a drizzle of honey...until it tastes how you want.

Then you can place it in jars, containers, freezer bags and freeze it for later. If you check out Val's page, she can tell you more about canning it....be sure to read the comments.

Then go out to the garden and repeat the process again.

Growing Season 2009-Wrap up

Last night we had the first frost. This afternoon the boys and I spent the afternoon pulling wilted plants and weeds out of the garden. I added up our final totals for the season

2009 total:


* 584.09 lbs *


That includes....
231.85 lbs of tomatoes
78.0 lbs of sweet potatoes
57.77 lbs or 101 cucumbers

30.99 lbs or 148 green peppers
29.4 lbs or 35 ears of corn
21.7 or 12 butternut squashes
24.0 lbs of strawberries

43.85 lbs or 21 cantaloupes
27.4 lbs of peas
and more....


We canned tomatoes,ketchup, salsa, jellies and pickles. I have a freezer full of tomato sauce, green beans, and green peppers. You would think my pantry/freezer is full, but it isn't really. We ate a lot as we got it and we have eaten some since we put it away. I can already see where we will have to increase if I want to store enough to actually make it to or near the following season.

Peaches, Peaches

We finally made it to the peach orchard this morning. We've been calling off and on all of July, but they closed a lot due to all the rain we've been having this year. Finally today the schedule matched our, Paul had his final summer class yesterday and was home till noon so we headed out this morning.

The grass was very wet, and we were soaked in a matter of minutes...something Lakin didn't care for at all....
But there was lots to good, free stone peaches to pick and we ended up with over 80 lbs


The owner also gave the boys a free box of apples she had just picked, and let them pick their own to eat right then.
Now I have jars in the dishwasher, a cobbler on the counter and I am ready to peel and cut and can so I can have our dining room table and kitchen back in time for me to make and decorate !!! 3 !!! cakes tomorrow.

That's right it's birthday time again!

From this
To this

To this

in no time flat. And it is oh-so-good!

One of the main reasons I planted so many tomato plants this year was so I could store salsa, sauce and tomatoes for the off-season. We are picking over 5lbs a day right now- tonight we got over 7 lbs. Just tomatoes. I canned about 4 quarts of crushed tomatoes a few days ago, but the problem is it is so time consuming- and messy- to blanch and peel and seed and core all of them. Which is why this sauce is so good. It's not canned, but can be frozen.

You can find the recipe at Collecting the Moments....thanks Val! Or the original at Delicious Wisdom. I added onion into mine- just 2 very small ones.

Best of it is the tomatoes, onions, and herbs all came from the garden. Only the garlic (and oil/vinegar came from outside our home)

The Week in Pictures

Tuesday we went to the first cub scout meeting of the year; which doubled as a picnic and boat race. Rylan's "boat" is the raft at the top about to be placed in the water. He had fun making it...mostly because he used the handsaw. Yah, he could have snapped the sticks into the right size, but sawing is much more fun.

Here is Lakin "helping" Rylan with his math. He layed here with him for a little while, every so often rolling his head onto Rylan's book and laughing. Rylan was a good sport. Usually he gets very snippy and frustrated when there is too much noise or distraction while he does his math. This time he just laughed at Lakin or ignored him and kept working.

And Cohen sorting some more. He enjoyed this one more than the sorting into colored bowls. Now Cohen on the other hand got very frustrated with Lakin's "help"

Our first batch of pearsauce. Only 7 jars, I think I'll just can sliced pears with the rest.

And finally, a look at what has taken over the house. These little guys just keep on multiplying. For years we had just a few, they got played with every so often. Then we got cable last year. And one morning Paul flipped though and landed on the Speed Channel. From 7-8 every morning Monster Jams is on. So they began watching it while they wake up and eat thier breakfast. Now we have close to 25 trucks. Cohen got 6 for his birthday, and between them they have bought 6 more with their birthday money. They spend most of their free inside playtime driving them in elaborate storylines.

Lots and Lots of Pears!

This morning when I was reading though emails I came across a post in one of my local yahoo groups. Free pears, and they actually lived close to us. So we called them up and headed over before Paul left for work this morning. My camera batteries were still charging so no pics of the actual picking- just the results. The boys had a blast running and jumping to try and pick all they could. The tree was covered and had a ton way up out of reach, but we ended up bringing home more than 50lbs. They aren't ripe yet, but in a few days we'll can some pears and maybe make some pearsauce. Too bad they aren't ripe now...the boys are not wanting to be too patient! They've already eated a few that were not quite as hard as rocks!