Yeah, I ended up freezing the batch of tomato sauce, and I only ended up with a couple of quarts worth. I guess I should have made a double batch, but a lot of the tomatoes were not completely ripe yet. Next year, I'll be sure to stock up on jars and lids as soon as they put the canning stuff out.

I looked up that Strawberry Margarita Preserves recipe, and it looks yummy! I assume the alcohol content is cooked out of it, and that it's okay for children? Are the grapes and strawberries store bought, or did you grow them?

Oh, and what are you going to do with your peppers? I dehydrated all of my Alma Paprika peppers, then ground them into powder, but I still have several bells, and cubanelles that I'm not sure what to do with. I've thought about just coring and freezing them, but do I need to roast or blanch them first, or can I just freeze them raw?

I can't imagine how the folks with large gardens manage to keep up with preserving the harvest. My tiny little 60 sq.ft. garden kept me pretty busy this year, and I'm amazed with how much it produced!

Bonnie

dafygardennut says: "Since I don't have room to hang the tomatoes I just cut off all of the clusters.The only vine ripened tomatoes this season came from Fantastic (from Home Depot); everything else I started from seed but hadn't gotten to taste yet. Guess which ones I'm definitely growing next year :-)"

Ooooh, I'm no good at these contests!! Even when I'm right, I'm convinced I'm wrong . . . and, when I'm convinced I'm right . . . I'm wrong, too!

dafygardennut says: "Thessaloniki - We ate the ripe ones Sunday night with Hummus and pita. Very acidic by themselves, but fantastic in that combo"

I've got it!! Fantastic - since you've mentioned that variety twice and there was something about ripeness . . . (Thessaloniki acidic? I could have a taste bud or 2 out of joint. The other day, the doctor told me that we interpret responses differently as we get older.)

Fantastics? I used to grow that variety and was convinced that it was the only one for me unless I wanted to go back to Sub-arctics or stick unswervingly with to the Early Girl/Earliana route. Nope.

This was all quite a long time ago. Seems like I fell for the "improved" Super Fantastics and crashed & burned. I did that with Sweet 100's and then tossed them for Sweet Million, assuming that "more was somehow more" and better . . . nooooo! I suppose if the people that brought us Big Beef come out with "Stupendous" Beef, I'll drop the lead and go tripping down the Garden Path after that one, too.

digitS'

Bonnie - My roomie has a friend who lives in downtown Denver and has grape vines over both sides and back fence so we go over every year, everyone who can come brings jars, sugar and pectin, and we make a bunch. We play by Little Red Hen rules and everyone who helps splits the jars. We had grapes picked that we didn't get juiced so brought them home to do later. She also has huge rose bushes that we covered in red hips so while the grapes were juicing we were out cutting as many as we could get. I promised to give her a share of the results. I don't know that I'll do that again though since it took so long to cut all of those prickly hips, boil, mash and strain overnight just to get about 2 cups of juice. It took forever to decide that it tasted like vitamin C. It tastes good though.

I bought the strawberries at King Sooper - 4 pounds for $5. The strawberry margarita jam is OMG good. The only alcohol I could really taste was the triple sec. I ended up using raspberry schnapps since the only strawberry schnapps at the two liquor stores I went to were the pucker (sweet & sour) kind. I'm planning on giving it as Christmas gifts to my sisters, friends and neighbors who enjoy going out and imbibing.

Most of the alcohol cooks out, but anytime you add alcohol there is always some left no matter how long you cook it, even if it's just a fraction of a percent. That being said, my 14-year-old says it's better than Smuckers.

I strung the cayennes up to ripen and dry, and plan on either pickling or roasting and freezing the rest of the peppers. My other option is to roast them and then throw them in the dehydrator - haven't decided yet. You can do either, freezing raw or roasting. It really depends on how you want to use them. We'll probably use most of them in salsa or chili in the winter so that's why I would roast them and then freeze. I don't think I would blanch them first though.

Digit - just based on yield I'm already planning on Thess, Double Rich and the black plum paste :-) Black Plum didn't seem to have a lot of flavor though. I'm also going to try Ropreco Paste next year since the bugs ate those seedlings and I didn't get to try any this year. Fantastic was okay but didn't seem to have a lot of flavor character.

Somewhere I read that women have a better sense of taste and smell than men, but can't remember where.

jen

dafygardennut says: "Fantastic was okay but didn't seem to have a lot of flavor character.

Somewhere I read that women have a better sense of taste and smell than men, but can't remember where.

jen"

Smell, I'll argue that I'm fairly nosey . . .

I'll start another thread on another nosey nuisance just so as not to pester ya'.

Yep, I didn't find Fantastic fantastic in the taste department but coming from Sub-arctic, it was a big step up.

di'S'

dafygardener - I want to try making rose hip jelly someday, but right now I just make prickly pear jelly. I get the fruit when I visit my folks in Tucson. Anyway, they too are a real pain too peel,(thee fruit have stickers all over them) so instead I put them in the blender with a little water, puree until it looks something like juice. Then I line a colander that fits over my stainless pot with paper bags, 5-6. Pour the mixture into the bags and let it strain for the night. Make the jelly the next morning. Works great and is a whole lot cheaper than cheesecloth. Oh and I can throw all the pulp, seeds and bags into the compost pile.

Billie

Billie - wouldn't the bags disintegrate?

The problem with rose hips is the seeds and hairs on the inside. There is not much to the actual fruit. You either have to scrape them out before you start cooking them or strain them out. I ended up freezing them for a week (until I had time to work on them), took them out about an hour before I started, and then cut the stem and blossom ends off, and cooked, mashed and strained overnight. I think part of my problem was using too many layers of cheesecloth.

I thought the bags would, but the paper is thick enough that with the collander, the bags held up just fine. The PP fruit are mostly seeds in the inside too, that is the beauty of the blender, you don't have to deal with them The seeds are large, about the size of tomato seeds and the fruit has a lot of pulp. I really don't know that it would work for rose hips, just a thought.
Sounds like a lot of work for just 2 cups. I sure hope it turns out good though.

Billie

The recipe I used was 5 cups of prepared juice (apple and rose hip) so it's more apple juice than rose hips, but it makes it taste like a twangy apple, not really tart apple. I might have to try the prickly pear, what kind of flavor does it have?

jen

Wow, how to describe the flavor of prickly pear. No ideas really. It's not like apple, grape or anything. It is sweet with just a little tart. Bright red, unless you add too much nonripe fruit, which helps it set for jelly.
It really has its own flavor. The last batch I did I actually left thin so it would be pancakes syrup instead. Very fruity, maybe berrish? It really is hard to describe. You might be able to find something more on the web for a description.

Prickly pear jelly pics: http://www.wayward-volvo.org/drop/070818.html

Picking is a great activity for kids. They really like to help with this chore. Use metal tongs to pull fruit and don't touch the fruit ever, its not necessary. If you get stickers, glue them.

Let me know if you try it.

Billie

Here is a link that might be useful: Desert USA Store

Forgot to mention, there is no difference if you freeze the fruit and juice later.
Also the syrup is fabulous for dipping poppers into. This is my favorite use.

Billie

I'm done for the season. I've filled every canning jar in the house. I'm still drying beef steak tomato slices, and that will stop in a few days.

Now its time to go fishing for big browns.

I've tried pickling perch. It was many years ago . . .

Making sausage with a little smoker in the backyard was modestly successful. Pastrami made in a crock was okay. Corned beef was less so - mostly because I didn't want to use potassium nitrate so it was gray corned beef. All of this was 20 years or more ago.

Bought 160 lbs of beef this week. Quite a lot for a couple of empty-nesters but we've done that regularly for years.

Goin' to preserve those trout, David? . . . other animal protein?

digitS'

I'm winding down on preserving the harvest too. Earlier this week, I roasted all of the bells and cubanelles, then froze them. Sent a couple freezer bags full of cherry tomatoes to work with DH to distribute to his coworkers, and still have one large bowl full of partially ripe ones. Either today, or tomorrow, I'll have enough ripe full sized tomatoes to make one more batch of sauce, which will go into the freezer, and that will pretty much be the end of this year's gardening season. Other than harvesting seeds out of the flower garden, and general clean up of the garden, pots on the porch, etc.

Bonnie

Steve, at this point, at least around here, the trout fisheries is under such enormous environmental stress that if I catch something, I just put them back - exception would be hatchery rainbows. I might grab a bucket of salmon from the Fish and Game guys this fall when they catch them to strip the eggs as they come up from McPhee Dam to smoke - that can be pretty good.

I'm conflicted on the potassium nitrate to keep the meat red - on the one hand, deliberately adding the stuff seems odd, but then so does grey meat. I grabbed a couple of those bagged pork loins when they were on sale and froze them, and at some point when it gets cold enough, I'll brine, smoke, and slow roast them and hopefully come up with something I can use for sandwiches. Grey ones. But, if you slather enough mustard on, and add some green pickles ......

I'm now working on cleaning up the veggie garden after the hard freeze. This is the one garden chore I really don't like. Cart loads of whiffy, rotting vegetation. Bushels of fermenting tomatoes. When I ask my kids to help, this being part of the farmers market toil, they very suddenly have really, really hard home work they just gotta do.

I was surprised to find out that my green peppers, picked 10 days ago and refrigerated in plastic bags, are still just wonderful.

Actually, David, I recall using separate recipes for the brisket/corned beef & brisket/pastrami but they are really the same thing. The difference is the smoking of the pastrami which lends some color to the cured brisket.

I may still have those recipes around here but now, Dad doesn't have the smoker in his backyard . . . I used to use it for sausage making but, as I said, with limited success.

Dad often makes breakfast sausage with ground beef. It's good but nothing cured, smoked, or anything more than seasoned.

That's okay . . . beats having a hamburger for breakfast. Dad used the "fresh natural breakfast and fresh natural country seasonings" - both are good. I think I'd better get 'em this time around.

Yeah, salmon . . . gotta have salmon!

d'S'