Scott and I are back home after a lovely week away. We started our trip in Brooklyn (where I was teaching a trio of classes), and then spent the rest of our time road tripping around Pennsylvania (Lancaster! Jim Thorpe! Milford!). It was a really good break from regular life and I’m feeling entirely refreshed and ready to dive back into work. But first, links!
- For the last couple weeks, Camille at Wayward Spark has been documenting her 2013 canning and preserving. It’s a fabulous series and you should check it out. So far, she’s featured fruit leather, cherry plum sauce, fridge pickles, and corn relish. Also, if you’re swimming in beets, make sure to cook up a batch of her honey pickled beets.
- While I’m not entirely ready for autumn fruit, these juicy pears in maple syrup are speaking to me.
- A much-tested recipe for homemade ketchup.
- A technique for water bath canned grape leaves.
- Glorious white peach and vanilla jam.
- Take care of all your winter-time enchilada cravings with homemade salsa verde.
- Dolgo crabapples. I’d never heard of them before reading this post, but now I want some desperately.
- The guys at The Bitten Word have done their annual tomato canning and the pictures are really fun.
- Hate watery salsa? Then this might be the recipe for you. And while you’re over at 6512 and Growing, read this too.
Time for winners! I just loved reading all your stories of your lunch boxes, packed lunches, and the many of you who had notes from your parents tucked in next to your sandwiches. We had ten winners and so here they are:
- #15 – Linn
- #42 – Angela Walters
- #315 – Karen
- #350 – Jamie
- #379 – Sue
- #423 – Lynne
- #448 – Meagan
- #576 – Kiki
- #711 – Robyn
- #720 – Sara
Stay tuned, because I’ll have another great giveaway up tomorrow afternoon!
Ah, Dolgo crabs. I have been picking from my two-doors-down neighbor’s Dolgo for nearly fifteen years, though it seems the writing’s on the wall for this generous and beautiful tree: sometime in the next year, it will fall to make way for a double garage. Sigh.
In the meantime, we feast. I put up crabapple jelly (just straight up the way my grandma did, one:one juice and sugar, best no messing around with that flavour), honeyed crabapple juice, and last summer I figured out how to use the pomade. Once I’ve juiced the apples, through the food mill they go. The bright pink pomade mixes beautifully with other fruit for sweet-tart jams (plum is amazing). And applesauce, oh my, with pureed strawberries and honey plus the syrup left over from whatever you’ve been macerating.
I’m going to miss you, old friend.
I have a Dolgo crabapple tree. I use the fruit last year to make a crabapple plum jam, which is delicious. This year I am going to try jelly for the first time.
this is the best recipe for Dolgo crabapples!
http://dianalischer.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/102/
from Vermont
Love canning season. Just canned my Spicy Zucchini salsa and hope to do some peaches and relish too! Thanks for sharing that documentary.
Dolgos are definitely the classic choice for a beautiful clear red jelly; if you can, though, also try to get your hands on some Hewe’s crabs, which make the best cider & a gorgeous spicy, pale-pink crabapple sauce, and some Wicksons, which pickle wonderfully & produce a golden-pink jelly that tastes almost honeyed (and are sweet enough to be eaten out of hand). Time to bring back the crabapple!
hooray! i’m a winner!! i’m super excited!
I’m a winner too 🙂 Yay for us. I can’t wait to try it out.
I don’t know how this works, but I hope I didn’t miss an email, I did have a ton of spam this morning from over the weekend. Thank you for the giveaway.
I haven’t gotten an email either, Sara. I figure with the holiday it may take some time to get sent.
You guys haven’t missed a thing, I’m simply running behind. However, you should have recently received an email. If you haven’t, please do let me know!
Thanks for the Salsa Verde shout-out!