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( Aug. 25th, 2014 01:56 pm)
Made another 2.5L "bruschetta-in-a-jar" today (currently processing in the canning bath). Have also started the apricot butter (FINALLY), though I'm not expecting a lot of end-product by the time it's done... Maybe two cups at the most? We'll see.

Canning Update:
5 pint jars of bruschetta + 7 one-cup jars of bruschetta = 4.25L bruschetta in a Jar
2 pint jars of diced tomatoes + 8 one-cup jars of diced tomatoes = 4L diced tomatoes
5 cup jars of tomato-peach sals + 1 half-cup jar of (mild) tomato-peach sals = ~1.3L salsa
+
8 pint jars of garlic-dill cucumber pickles
1.5 C black currant jelly
2 one-cup jars of asparagus relish (one of which lives in the fridge, as it didn't seal quite right)
4 half-cup jars of black currant curd (made with ribena – aka black currant simple syrup – about a month ago)
+
1-2 C (flattened out in a single freezer bag) frozen edamole (made from previously frozen edamame)
9 half-cups of frozen roasted-and-diced Sicillian eggplant
2-3 C frozen golden zucchini rounds
2 C frozen (freezing) raspberries
2 L (or so) frozen serviceberries
1 L (or so) frozen red currants
+
~1 C dried nectarine chunks (stored in the fridge because they're not totally dry)
~2 C dried peach chunks (stored in the fridge because they're not totally dry)

~*~

I'm hoping to add the following (but we'll see what we can get):
2+ one-cup jars of apricot butter
+
12-20 half-cup jars of roasted-garlic-balsamic tomato sauce
+
8 one-cup jars pear butter (with maple syrup for some of the sweetener)
8-12 one-cup jars pumpkin butter (with maple syrup for most of the sweetener)
8 one-cup jars of apple butter
4-8 half-cup jars of crab apple jelly
4-8 half-cup jars of cranberry curd
+
9 (more) half-cups of frozen roasted-and-diced Sicillian eggplant (this will totally happen, as the eggplant is already part-way processed and just needs to be rinsed, roasted, diced, and frozen before I can check it off my list)
2-3 C (more) frozen golden zucchini rounds (we'll see when I get around to this - I'm quite enjoying having them fresh right now)
24 half-cups of frozen blanched rainbow chard and/or other cooking greens (wish me luck)
+
1-2L dried tomatoes (here's hoping I can slice them thin enough to make this work)


NOTE: I will, of course, also be availing myself of as many bags of frozen broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, snap beans, and edamame as I can manage to stuff into my chest freezer... but I'll be letting companies like Arctic Garden and President's Choice do that bit for me.

Wish me luck with the rest of my canning! :-D


TTFN,
Amazon. :-D
Okay.
So I spent the past hour chopping up peaches and nectarines.
Know what I've learned?

(1) For some reason, the stone-fruit that I'm getting at the grocery store (Foodland Ontario peaches and netarines from Nicastro's + Foodland Ontario peaches from the Glebe Metro) have cracked pits, or pits that are not-too-solid and that slice open when you go to cut the fruit off the seed. I have no idea what this means, though I'm somewhat inclined to try growing a peach if that's looking like it could work out.

(2) The nectarines I got were cling-stone rather than free-stone, so not all that easy to work with.

(3) Even when the fruit that you get is from in-Province (so, like, a day away by truck rather than a day away by airplane - still a day away), you're going to have a mixture of already-ripe, nearly-ripe, and not-ripe-at-all peaches/nectarines in your 3-litre box of fruit. Gods, that's a piss-off. :-P

Anyway. So here's what I've done:
I cut something like 9 peaches and 18 nectarines into eighths (so cut them in half, and then cut each half into quarters) in the hopes that (a) they'll dry a little faster - I'll talk about that, shortly, and (b) they'll be pre-sized for as many different purposes as possible (so, like, good for thowing into a coffee cake OR into a yoghurt parfait OR into a braise OR into a bag of car-snacks... without having to be trimmed or halved or whatever once they've already been dried).

Drying times for nectarines are listed (in the instruction manual that my dehydrator did, in fact, come with - it was tucked between two of the trays rather than down the side of the box) as 6-16 hours. Drying times for peaches are listed as 14-18 hours.

I know that I'm going to have to rotate the trays - bring the ones on the top of the stack to the bottom and vice-versa - rought every three hours.
I also know that my peach chunks aren't all the same size. Same goes for my nectarine chunks.
Basically, I'm going to have to keep an eye on things all day. :-)

So we'll see how this goes.

Right now I'm feeling weirdly stressed about it all. This may have more to do with needing to eat breakfast than anything else, but my shoulders are kind of up around my ears a little bit. Also, the dehydrator totally sounds like an electric hand-dryer is going on the other side of the room. I suspect this is going to become a little grating by the end of the day, but we'll see.

I'm fretting about a dozen things right now - mostly to do with Vigilance and worrying about who/what is going to come out of the wood-work (and try to eat the food) if I leave the house for a couple of hours between tray-rotations.

I'm trying to distract myself by (A) listening to podcasts, (B) sorting out my to-do lists, and (C) writing a chocolate-chili peanut-butter cookie recipe that... I think is going to be pretty damn good. :-)

Anyway. I've got candles and cookies to make - which will hopefully take me the hour-and-a-half that I need to fill between now and the first time I have to rotate my drying racks (after-which point I am hitting up the grocery store because I'm out of yeast(!) and need that if I'm going to make me some bread - so I'm going to head out.


TTFN,
Amazon. :-)
Hey, okay.
So this is really only relevant to people who are easy biking distance of urban Ottawa, ON. So, if you live in Gatineau, this probably applies, but if you live in Renfrew County... maybe not so much.

I've just discovered Hidden Harvest Ottawa. And I think a big heap of my friends - the Phamily Dinner crowd, the Pagan community, the Local Foodies, and everyone else in the venn diagram - would probably enjoy taking part in their endevors.

Basically, the idea is to pair up volunteer harvesters (e.g.: me) with people who've got fruit/nut trees on their properties and need help with getting all the fruit/nuts in and, er, actually used.

The idea is that 1/4 of the harvest gets split between the harvesters, 1/4 of it stays with the tree-owner, 1/4 of it goes to the food bank (or similar), and 1/4 of it gets sold (at area farmers' markets, I assume...?) by Hidden Harvest to offset the costs of running the program[1].

FYI (for people with yard space to put such things): Hidden Harvest will also be selling fruit and nut trees to private buyers who wish to grow their own fruit and nuts.

I'm totally excited, and I think we should all sign up. :-D

<*confetti*>


TTFN,
Amazon. :-)


[1] I have no earthly notion how getting this program started would cost $10,000-$15,000, but apparently it did... (???)
.

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