I think I may be done ... at least for this week

I had another preserving frenzy day yesterday and I think I need to take a break for a couple of weeks!

We have a huge apple tree in our yard.  I can't even begin to describe how big this thing is or how many apples it produces.  I can estimate thousands; a large number of which fall before they are ripe.  I think in the process of picking up all of the windfalls, we provide endless entertainment for the neighbours and provoke curses from the garbage guys.  Thankfully our town has a composting program.

So, given my new canning energy and my feelings of guilt over the thousands of apples that don't get used by anyone and end up as compost, I decided to get cooking.  I should tell you that I did try to give the better apples away to a food charity a few years ago but by the time the agency came to pick them up (they didn't encourage drop offs), they were rotting on the front porch (they last about one day off the tree).  It should also be noted that the apples in the photo aren't actually at full ripeness but very few stay on the tree until they are fully ripe so I generally use them for cooked applications.

On the bright side, this year there are a large number of apples within my reach so I was able to pick them off the tree instead of the ground which meant fewer bruises and fewer worms.

And just to keep up, the zucchini continues to sneak up on me, becoming massive before I can blink an eye.  Three zucchini went to neighbours and these guys went into more relish, pickles and a zucchini butter from Food 52. I couldn't find the energy to make the muffins I had planned.  Since I'm going to get the oven going tonight for a roasted ratatouille, I think I'll make them then.

Anyway, back to the apples, Food in Jars had quite a few interesting apple recipes and I made two kinds of apple jam and apple sauce.  The first, a honey lemon apple jam, tasted quite nice on toast this morning.  Regarding the second, apple almond honey conserve, I'm still a bit on the fence.  The applesauce tasted quite nice, spicy, sweet and apple-y.

That is all for this weekend.  I have basically been relaxing today, making progress on some knitting, reading and now watching Milos get soundly trounced by Nadal in Montreal.

As for canning, by the time the tomatillos are ripe, I might be ready to get the engine going again.  Until then, I'm listening to podcasts and out knitting on the deck.

Just thought I would check

I have been making bread since we moved back into our new kitchen.  The only bread I have bought from the store has been the occasional baguette.  I like making bread because I know what's in it and nothing tastes like homemade bread fresh from the oven.  But I was also operating under the assumption that baking bread was saving me money.  I finally decided that I should check it out.  So, ala Squawkfox I decided to do the math.  And I'm mostly right.

The kind of bread that I usually buy, the artisan bread from the bakery costs $1.34 more per loaf than my price per homemade loaf.  This doesn't include the impact of the cost of electricity to bake the loaves but my prices assume that nothing is on sale and I'm buying name brands.  The house brand of whole wheat flour at Longo's for example is almost $2 cheaper than the name brand version.


Homemade cost
Yeast                       0.94
Buttermilk               1.12
Honey                     1.08
Canola oil                0.32
Whole Wheat flour  1.22
Bread flour               1.62
cost for 2 loaves       6.30

for 1 loaf                   3.15

Grocery store cost                                                     Savings/cost
Artisan bread from Longo's bakery            4.49 -1.34
Artisan pre-packaged bread                        3.39 -0.24
Pre-packaged sliced bread                          2.99            0.16

So, in addition to really, really liking homemade bread, I feel even better for having confirmed that the price is right too.

Apologies for the funny alignment of the numbers.  I can't figure out how to cleanly copy tables into the blog.

And it continues

The lovely overabundance of produce in the garden continues.  The garlic in this picture is the leftovers after using 1 3/4 pounds of the stuff to make pickled garlic.  I have no idea what pickled garlic will be like but when you have 1 3/4 pounds plus of garlic, you make it.  And hopefully like it because some of the leftovers will are headed for a fall planting in advance of next year.  The recipe says to use the pickled garlic in pasta, in antipasto platters and in salads.

The other preserving done today was a wild blueberry peach jam.  I was going to make wild blueberry and peach separately but both jams would have used up all of my fresh fruit and I would like to actually eat it as is too.  So I combined it.  Since blueberries and peaches go well in a bowl, in my opinion, I thought a tasty jam was pretty much guaranteed.  And I was right.  Yum.  The only sad thing, is that it only makes 2 1L jars.  Since my dad, who is visiting, spent the fortune on the wild blueberries and helped me with the jam and the garlic, one will be going home with him so I really will savour the one that will be left with me.

Maybe I'll try using the tame blueberries in the coming weeks to make some more.  I can't imagine that it will be as good but it might come close enough to satisfy.

And happy birthday to my dad's cousin Norma who was 90 yesterday and you would never know it.  I hope I got her genes in the lottery and look forward to the future birthday celebrations that my cousins are very good at planning.

Lots of Listening

On my vacation, I've been taking a long walk most days and listening to podcasts.  While I have several standbys (Q, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Stuff You Missed in History Class, The Splendid Table, The Dinner Party Download and I could go on), I recently downloaded a number of knitting podcasts and this has gotten the motivation in high gear.  I've been sampling a bunch but the ones I've been sticking with are:  Prairie Piper (which had a good rating on iTunes so I downloaded it).  She led me to Down Cellar Studio who sent me to Never Not Knitting.  Not sure which of the above sent me to 2 Knit Lit Chicks.  Prairie Piper got me interested in a pattern designed by Alana of Never Not Knitting before I knew about her podcast so it is all quite circular.  Anyway, I find all of  these podcasts have good conversation about patterns and yarns and I have been marking quite a few patterns as favourites on Ravelry lately.  I've also picked up a couple of books at the library based on the 2 Knit Lit Chicks recommendations.  Enjoyable all around.

I'm still not sure I get it

But I do like knitting dishcloths.  I don't really think I want to use them to wash dishes - too bulky.  They seem more like napkins to me. And I have thrown the two I made previously in my lunch bag when I remember which beats using paper towels.

This dishcloth is the often-seen one recreated in Mason Dixon Knitting from a yarn company ball band.  It took no time at all to knit.  Start to finish in an evening.

For some unknown reason (although I think I actually had an idea in mind at the time which I have now forgotten), I bought a bunch of cotton yarn from Zellers when it was going out of business.  The lure of the sale possibly.  This used half a ball of the Peaches and Cream Twist and a small amount of a yarn called Ecofil.  Not sure I need as many dishcloths as the rest of the yarn will make so hopefully that original thought comes back to me.

It was on sale

The Sweet Sheep is closing in it's current format so all items are 30% off.  I just had to order a few skeins of sock yarn.  I couldn't help myself.  And the one thing I don't have too much of in my stash is sock yarn so feel less guilty than if I had purchased something else.  I can't wait until it gets here.

Success at last ... I think that's a good thing.

Under the heading of "be careful what you wish for", I have hoped for a large zucchini crop for years and have had relatively non productive plants.  I'll get just enough to eat but not enough to really go crazy with.  So this year, I planted extra plants.  And this year, they must like the weather, or the bees have been better at pollinating because I have zucchini.  A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about 3 loaves of bread and zucchini fritters from one large zucchini.  This morning, I found five large ones in the garden.  I hope I found them all.  The largest, a 3 pound sucker was the last one I found and it was purely by accident.  As a result, I knew the direction my day was taking.  Fortunately, the weather also agreed that an in house day was not the world's worst idea.

So I've been busy.  First on the agenda was Zippy Zucchini Relish from Canadian Living's The Complete Preserving book.      I have had some very good success with recipes in this book and the relish was no exception.  It is delicious.  Definitely a go to recipe again next year (or maybe next week).  We tried some of the relish on tortilla chips and it also makes a good salsa.  It used up 3 pounds of zucchini.  Which was good because I'm not sure the 3 pounder would have been good for general eating.  In a relish, it had lots of time to soften up but was pretty tough to cut.

Bon Appetit's issue this month has a page devoted to zucchini.  Last night I made up the Squash and Tomato Gratin (because in addition to the bad boys picked this morning, we've had a pretty steady diet of zucchini for a bit now).  Today for lunch I whipped up the Curried Squash Soup.  It was good.  Fairly mild but the curry helps counteract the natural mellow taste of the zucchini.  Served with a dollop of goat cheese, a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds and one of my whole grain rolls from the freezer.  Very nice.

I made two more loaves of Lesley Stowe's chocolate zucchini bread and zucchini cookies from Food 52.  I tasted the cookies right out of the oven and they are actually more cake-like than cookie.  I think I like them but the true test will be after they have cooled down.  All of that used up 2 more zucchini, I gave one to my neighbour and the other went into the crisper.

Phew.  Now it's time to decide on what to make for dinner.  Zucchini anyone?