Mint

The first time I tired to grow mint was in three indoor pots.  We basically loved those plants to death. We loved the mint so much that we over harvested and killed those poor plants. From that experience, I got it in my head that I couldn't grow mint.

This summer I planted mint in our herb garden, with little hope that it would live. Imagine my surprise when the mint plant not only lived, but started spreading out and taking over! I now have a beautiful, healthy and delicious mint plant growing in our herb garden.

About once a week I have been able to harvest a big bowl full.  There is always a pitcher of mint and water in our fridge, just waiting to refresh the hot, overworked gardeners that live here.   I have also been preserving the mint by freezing it into ice cubes. So we'll have mint water to drink in the winter.

Yesterday I got the crazy idea to make mint jelly.  I'm not sure if it will be good or how we'll use it.

 But it sure looks pretty!

If the timing works out, and I still have mint when the peppers come on, I'd like to make a batch of jalapeno mint jelly as well.

This season's 1st batch of salsa

It's early yet for salsa. So I was tickled pink the other day, when I was gifted 10 very ripe tomatoes from our community garden. Because it was such a small amount, I googled "small batch canning recipes" and came across the Fiesta Salsa Small Batch recipe at the Ball site.

Because this salsa was intended for fresh eating, (Note: If I had meant for this salsa to be processed and shelf stable, I would have follow the recipe exactly!) I changed the recipe up a bit. I added about 1/2 an onion and a jalapeno. The recipe calls for 1 tablespoon vinegar, but I added about 3 and I cooked the mixture down for way longer than the recipe called for. I wanted a nice thick dipping salsa.

The results are exactly what we have been craving! Nothing beats homemade salsa!

Chokecherries

This week has been filled with the picking, washing, processing and putting up of chokecherries.

My sweet neighbors allowed us to pick the chokecherries from their tree. They lent us their juicer and even gave us her mother's jelly and syrup recipes. I am so glad that they shared this heritage with us!

This is a steamer:

The fruit your juicing goes into the top and water goes into the bottom.  As you heat the water, the fruit is steamed and the fruit juices drip into the middle compartment. I juiced our chokecherries for about 8 hours. I could have juiced for another day, but I was ready to make my jelly and wanted to return the juicer.

The jelly recipe I follow called for:

• 3 cups juice
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 package of pectin

Her recipe didn't call for processing. She said just to made sure the lids seal and they'd be fine. That my friends is crazy town and never never never going to happen at my house!  I know her family and her mother's family have been surviving this for about 100 years. But that, like I said, is so not happening here.

So I processed the all my chokecherry batches in a water bath for 15 min.

I doubled the recipe for the 1st batch and ended up with 12 1/2 pints of delicious, but pretty thin jelly. It was more like syrup really.  So I did a little on line research and found that by adding 1/2 cherry juice and 1/2 apple juice the jelly would set better. So that is what I did for round 2.  That batch gave me 4 1/2 pints of VERY jelled jelly.

I had just enough juice at that point to put up a batch of Pioneer Chokecherry Syrup. (4 pints)  I found this recipe in a Wyoming pamphlet on putting up wild fruit.

• 4 cups chokecherry juice
• 4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp cream of tartar

Before this week, I had never even seen a chokecherry, let alone tasted it's jelly or syrup. This jelly is so incredibly delicious.  It is so so yummy in a very unique way. I hope to add chokecherries to our yearly canning list.

Canning Dry Beans

This weekend, Shane and I put up 7 quarts of kidney beans. Note: Before I started canning my dry beans I would be forever deciding I wanted beans for dinner too late to get them soaked and cooked. This way they are ready to go any time I want them.

Last time we processed beans, we followed the instructions in the Blue Book, and ended up swimming in par boiled beans. The recipe calls for 2 1/4 a pound dry beans per quart.  That is way Way WAY to much!!!

This time we did 3/4 a pound per quart and still had too many beans, but it wasn't nearly the disaster that the last time was.

I'd like to get another batch done this week. I think I'll go with 5 pounds for 7 quarts. We'll see how it goes.