Summer Passions - Canning Season Part 1

One of my favorite things about the summertime is being able to cook with and preserve fresh and local ingredients!  Last year, we did a CSA for the first time and loved it!  (Click here for more information about our CSA, or CSA's in general.)  We chose to do a CSA instead of a big garden for the past few years because having a toddler means giving up some of your hobbies - and gardening is one that takes a lot of time and energy so I cut back in the garden quite a bit.

This year, I have carrots, radishes, potatoes, and beets going in my garden, and most of them are still growing so we will see how they turn out. Along with our own garden veggies, we have been going out to pick your own orchards, getting produce from friends, and ordering extra from our CSA in order to gather the supplies for LOTS of delicious canned goods!  

This season so far I have made the following:

 - Strawberry Freezer Jam
 - Rhubarb Conserve (Conserve is like preserves, but with citrus and nuts)
 - Pickled Radishes (various types, from our garden)
 - Green Tomato Chutney
 - Bread and Butter Pickles
 - Gingery Pickled Beets

Here is some eye candy of all of those lovelies:

Rhubarb Conserve

Bread and Butter Pickles

Strawberry Freezer Jam

Pickled Radishes

Green Tomato Chutney

Pickled Beets

We use our canned goods as gifts, and to eat throughout the winter, fall and spring!  There's something so wonderful about opening a jar of something that you have made yourself - its one of my favorite things!  Plus with our diabetic daughter, it really allows me to control how much sugar goes into what we are feeding her!

Hopefully, early next week we are going blueberry picking, and I'm definitely making more (dill) pickles as well as some jalapeno pepper jelly in the next week or two!

Do you do any home preserving?  If so, what is your favorite thing that you make?  Or what is your favorite home preserved snack that you've ever had? I definitely love a good pepper jelly with cream cheese and crackers - or some fresh dill pickles on a roast beef sandwich!  =)

Summertime CSA Goodness - Pickles Edition

Hello there readers!  I hope everyone has had a great week!  I know it has been SO great to see the sun shining in Pittsburgh!

I want to start by talking about a great decision that we have made this year - joining a CSA!  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it basically means that you pay for a share in the goodies from the farm's growing season!  We paid for the entire season in May, and then from June - October we get a box of fruits, veggies and herbs once a week!  It's a really great way to try things you might not pick up at the grocery store, and to support local agriculture!

Another added benefit of our particular CSA (all work a little differently) is that we can order extra or specialty items each week as well!  This is really great for me during canning season, so I can order extra fruits and veggies to preserve for the whole year!

This week I loaded up on the pickling cucumbers - they were way cheaper than the store or other farmstands would have been AND the quality was awesome.  Even when I've grown my own pickling cukes, I never got ones that were this tasty, size appropriate, and crisp:

I mean, seriously.  Aren't these beautiful?

I had about 5 pounds of cucumbers, so I broke it up to make both fridge dills and bread and butters. I divided the batch into 1.5 lbs for the bread and butters and 3.5 lbs for the fridge dills - my favorite!

I find that when it comes to dill pickles, I get the best results making short term (fridge) dills that aren't water bath canned.  Honestly, they never last too long anyway in my house because they are so tasty!  I use a Bobby Flay recipe that I originally found over at One Perfect Bite.

            Sliced cukes mixed with garlic and dill.                                        Packed pickles in the jars after an overnight brine bath.

 Beautiful jars of briny goodness.                                                     `             All ready for the fridge!        `

As for the bread and butter pickles, I find those are much better when they are water bath canned.  I don't prefer the bread and butters, but my husband LOVES them on sandwiches so I always make him a few pints!  The recipe that I use is from one of my favorite canning cookbooks, Food in Jars.  Marisa also has a website with lots of great recipes and tips!  But I really REALLY recommend buying her book -- it's a great canning resource!

                                             Bread and butters getting heated through.                                               Finished bread and butters ready for the pantry!

The quality of the cucumber that you use definitely matters - so try to go as fresh and local as you can!  Being a mom now, I don't have as much time for my garden as I used to, so I only grow certain things.  Joining the CSA has definitely helped me to continue to get some of my favorite fruits and veggies in large quantities without having to grow them myself!

Are you canning anything exciting?  Do you belong to a CSA?  I'd love to hear all about what you are doing with your own gardens this time of year!  =)  Thanks for reading!

Happy Happy Birthday!!!

So recently I've been spending a LOT of time playing with my new stamps from both DeNami Design and Lawn Fawn (and sometimes together since the FABULOUS blog hop they held last weekend!!!)  The DeNami projects will have to wait for now (some of them are for ANOTHER blog hop this weekend, and others are just not quite ready to be shown off!) but here's something that I made with Lawn Fawn's little "Year One" set that I really, really like:

I recently purchased the "Fly a Kite" 6x6 paper pad from My Mind's Eye's Lime Twist line.  Isn't that PP just to DIE for?  I really like that whole paper pad... so bright and cheery!  It was just screaming for some Lawn Fawny goodness to make it awesome!  I also added some fun colored pearls that match colors in the starred PP, and some white grosgrain ribbon... I really wanted to make the white pop on this card!  I finished it off with some faux stitching (thank you new Tim Holtz ruler for helping me measure!) and there it is!  It's fun and cute and totally mailable!!!  I have a few important birthdays coming up, too!  =) 

This card was inspired by two fabulous challenge blogs:

1. Wee Memories Challenge #63 - Dare to Color

2. Tuesday Throwdown #61 - Birthday Cards

I hope everyone is still having a great summer!  I'm slowly coming to the realization that I'm going back to school SUPER soon, and so I've been trying to get ready for that.  I'm really going to miss all of the fabulous crafty time! 

So, I have one more thing to share with you tonight!  I've been doing a LOT of cooking lately, and I love LOVE cooking.  One food that I absolutely love is dill pickles.  And being the kind of person that always wants to make things themselves, I've always wanted to try making pickles but often felt they would be something that was difficult to get right!  Well, THIS RECIPE over at One Perfect Bite is SO easy and makes pickles that are SO delicious that I'm not sure why EVERYONE wouldn't start making their own pickles all the time!  Here's a picture of my (delicious) homemade pickles:

Yum yum yum!  Ok well that's enough for me tonight... thanks for reading!!!  =)  Have a lovely Thursday and weekend and as always thanks for stopping by!  =D