Fresh fruit is a real treat with breakfast, but on cold winter mornings when there is no fresh fruit to be had, home canned fruit is the next best thing. These honey spiced pears have been a canning staple of mine for a few years now, and I always look forward to those weekend mornings when we get a jar of them out of the cellar. I have always used foraged fruit for this recipe and ...
Canning
Dilly Beans
Farmhouse Dilly Beans 2 lbs. green beans 1/4 cup canning salt 2 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar 2 1/2 cups water 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes per pint jar 4-8 cloves peeled garlic per pint jar one head dill per pint jar Trim ends off of green beans. Combine salt, vinegar and water in a sauce pot and boil. Pack beans lengthwise into hot jars. Put 1/2 tsp pepper ...
A Recipe for Strawberry Jam and Life
A Mountain Hearth Recipe for Strawberry Jam and Life Ingredients: A local Farm Friends and People You Love 4 cups fresh picked strawberries 3/4 to 2 cups sugar 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice 3/4 cup water 3 tsp Pomona's Pectin 4+ tsp Pomona's calcium water (comes with pectin) Step 1: Do It Yourself! Strawberry jam, and most things in life are sweeter when you ...
Miss Thena’s Easy Applesauce
This post goes out in honor of my friend Thena, who got herself a homestead this weekend. She's been working hard towards it for YEARS and when I was up in Washington visiting her in June, she showed me around this lovely bank-owned acreage with an orchard, outbuildings, chicken coop, a pond, fenced pasture, and a woodstove. She and her partner had just made their offer on it that day and ...
Summer Jam Sessions
Strawberry Scotch, Raspberry Lavender, and Cherry Cardamom Preserves. Jam sessions are such fun! ...
Canning Local Food With Relish!
If you're going to can, you may as well do it with relish! I kicked off my weekend with a trip on Friday out to Riverbend Farm to get peaches and corn. Every year I go and get their distressed, or "seconds" peaches for half price. Then I can feel better about getting a couple of big boxes full. The corn was for making corn relish, a favorite canned treat in my house, and since we didn't grow wild ...
In a Pickle: Making Bread and Butter Pickles and Dilly Beans
It's canning time again. Bulging bags of green beans and pickling cucumbers awaited me in the fridge, all picked and ready for preserving. Some were from my garden, some were from my neighbor's garden, and some were from the farm where we get our CSA. It was a collaborative harvest. My friend came over to keep me company, and we spent the day making pickles. There is something ...
Strawberry Fields Forever
Strawberry Fields Forever "No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low. That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right. That is I think it's not too bad. Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields. Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry Fields forever. Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. It's getting hard ...