Autumn Garden Relish

 I believe our incredible warm weather streak has finally ended as of yesterday. It's not a moment too soon that we got that canopy up over the fifth wheel, either. I find it satisfying to walk outside and not get wet when it's raining out. Bob was so kind as to go out and gleen all the tomatoes off of the plants and pick all the beans. We're going to see if we can get our remaining zucchini to get a bit bigger before picking it. I will plant garlic this coming week and, after that freak hot weather streak through October wiped out all of my fall seedlings, I'm opting to not do much of a fall garden. I'll tackle it again next season.

I have a ton of unripe tomatoes. I've put up 5 pints of  Picalilli. I'm going to be canning up sliced green unripe tomatoes this afternoon so that we can enjoy fried green tomatoes this winter. Yesterday, I put up 6 pints of Autumn Garden Relish. I used this recipe from Healthy Canning as inspiration. Click here to view it.

Without further ado, let's dive right into this recipe.

This recipe starts out with a lot of finely chopped vegetables. I used cabbage (leftover from when I made Picalilli), cauliflower, unripe green tomatoes, onion, green pepper, red pepper and celery. This gets tossed in a bit of pickling salt and I left it to sit overnight in the fridge.

The next day, I drained this veg mixture. I prepped 6 wide-mouth canning jars by washing them in hot, soapy water and then I boiled them for 10 minutes. I left them to sit in the hot water until I was ready for them. In the meantime, I prepped the brine for this relish.

I started out by adding in the spices I would be using: mustard powder, turmeric and celery seed.

Then I added in sugar and white vinegar. This gets mixed up and brought up to a boil before you add the veg.

Once you add the veg, bring the mixture to a full rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Everything will get a golden hue from the turmeric.

My stove only has 3 burners, so I wind up shuffling pots around so that everything has a place. I've finally got a system down that works for me.

These get processed in a water bath canner for 15 minutes.

Once these jars come out of the canner, I set them in a towel covered baking sheet (so that they can be moved easily) and I cover them in a couple of layers of towels. I want them to cool down slowly, over a 12-hour period. I don't want them to cool too quickly because that can actually weaken the jars.

After the jars are thoroughly cooled down and all the lids have sealed, I write what they are on the lid, date them, put them back into the box and we are storing these under our bed because it lifts up, it's very cool under there, it's dark and it seems like as good as place as any to put them. It's my canning pantry, so to speak.

Autumn Garden Relish

Yield: 6 pints

4 cups chopped cabbage
3 cups finely chopped cauliflower
2 cups chopped unripe green tomatoes
2 cups diced onions
1 cup diced green bell pepper
1 cup diced red bell pepper
1 cup diced celery
3 tablespoons pickling/canning salt
3-3/4 cup white vinegar
3 teaspoons celery seed
1-3/4 teaspoons turmeric
3 teaspoons mustard powder
2-3/4 cups white cane sugar

Mix all veg together with pickling salt. Put in fridge overnight.

While you are prepping the brine, let the veg drain thoroughly in a colander.
Mix all spices with sugar in a large pot. Add vinegar. Bring to a boil, lower heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add drained veg. Bring back to a full boil, lower heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Put into prepped jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Process in boiling water bath canner for 15 minutes. Turn off heat, let jars sit in hot water for 5 minutes then remove to cool completely for 12-24 hours.

Enjoy!

Mid-September Garden Harvest

 It's that time again. It's been a minute since I posted a garden update. We are actively harvesting now. I've put up several jars of pickled items. I've made a lot of stuff with blackberries. We're picking our tomatoes when they've reached a blush stage. Ideally, I'd leave them on the vine to fully ripen, but we are running a month behind this year, so when they blush, they get pulled unless there is higher temperatures in the forecast and no chance of sprinkles.

The above photo is one of my Reisetomate tomatoes. They are an oddity, for sure. From what I've read, they aren't the greatest tasting things, but they are sure a conversation piece.

Don't mind my volunteer tomato. We still don't know how that happened, but we're going to roll with it and see what it does.

We got a small rain prediction for today, so we thought it best to pull all the tomatoes that were beginning to blush. I'll ripen them up inside instead.

We just need a few more weeks of warm weather and I'll get a harvest. It won't be enough to sustain us through the winter, but, at least, have an idea of how many I'll need for next year.

Growing my own, from seed, was easier than I thought it would be and it's opened a huge door as to the varieties that I can grow. I'm approaching the 200 varieties mark in my personal seed stash for next year.

The Sart Roloise tomatoes are stunning. Absolutely stunning.

This volunteer ....er tomato just cracks me up. It's starting to flower.

Bob's getting some weeds cleaned out by one of our strawberry patches.

We decided to see if we could find any potatoes. We didn't. We'll have to wait for a bit and dig down into the soil at the bottom and see if my method worked or not.

We only tried in one corner, to be honest. Who knows about the rest of this contraption.

These are cannellini beans that I'm growing out for someone else. How it works is that they send me a small number of seeds. I grow them out. I send them back between 60-100 seeds and the rest are mine to grow out from then on. I like doing that.

More cannellini beans. These are one of my favorites. I always have a can in my pantry and after next year, I'll be able to have a supply of them dried.

Here is the Sart Roloise I picked today. This is just a stunning looking tomato.

Tomatillos, tomatoes, and some Dragon Tongue beans so far.

I was able to find some cannellini beans that were dried out. Bob harvested some rhubarb and I picked the okra, cucamelons and the Tanya's Pink Pod beans.

That Jing Orange okra is pretty to look at. It tastes really good, too. I haven't cooked it. I just eat it raw.

A view of today's harvest.

More of the harvest.

Bob went down to the bean bed and harvested any that were dried. This is my collection so far. These are for our own personal use. I grew some stunning looking varieties this year, for sure!

My Black Beauty zucchini plant is starting to really produce. I'm going to be turning zucchini into crushed pineapple in a later blog post.

These are my Jealous Neighbor F1 cucumbers. You can see that we overlooked one and it got a bit big. These are a hybrid variety that I ordered from a company in Ukraine, so I won't be able to save seeds from them unfortunately.

Rose says THANK YOU for reading!

Blackberries

 We are running roughly a month late here in western Washington state, but blackberry season is now upon us. Bob has been picking them for me and I've been experimenting with recipes. It's cool to have so many blackberries around here that I can experiment a bit.

Blackberries are an invasive species here. They are everywhere. Lots of people kill them off. I have seen them engulf entire houses if left unchecked. We don't mind them as long as they don't encroach on our space. We can coexist.

I made 2 different blackberry recipes this afternoon. The first one is Blackberry Spice Cake. This is my new favorite cake recipe, hands down. Not only is it just too easy to whip up, you don't need a boatload of blackberries. You only need around a cup or so. You can just eyeball the amount. You don't have to be exact.

This is a simple and delicious cake recipe. I don't feel it needs frosting at all. If you feel the need to put something on it, sprinkle it with powdered sugar. I don't feel it's necessary, however. It can stand alone.

I creamed soft butter with sugar. Then I added in a couple of eggs.

The spice mixture is cinnamon, allspice, cloves and nutmeg.

I picked out a cup of some of the best looking berries and added those in.
Then, while this was baking, I put together an Apple-Blackberry Pie.
The apples came from our orchard.

So, you'll get a bonus blackberry recipe in this post!

This cake is so delicious! I'm hoping I can make it with frozen berries and not have a purple cake. We shall see later on.

And the pie turned out great. It wasn't cooled down by the time I started writing this post, so we'll wait until tomorrow to cut into it.

Blackberry Spice Cake
*Makes one 9x9-inch cake (9 generous servings)

1 cup fresh blackberries
2 cups flour
1/2 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Mix dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs. Add half of the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk
Fold blackberries into batter very gently so that you don't break them up. Spread evenly into baking dish.
Bake 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle pulls out clean.
Cool completely before cutting.


Apple Blackberry Pie
*8 servings

Pastry for a double 9-inch crust
5 cups peeled, cored and sliced tart apples
1 pint fresh blackberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line pie pan with bottom crust.
Mix sugar with cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside. Peel, core and slice apples and toss with lemon juice. Add sugar mixture to apples and toss to combine. Gently toss in blackberries. Add to pie shell. Top with other crust and crimp edges.
Mix egg with a bit of water. Brush over the entire top crust. Cut several vents into top crust to release steam. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until filling is bubbly and the top crust is golden brown.
Cool thoroughly before cutting.

Enjoy!

Carrot Pie

 This afternoon, I thought it would be a great day to try to turn these carrots into a pie. I hoped it would resemble a pumpkin pie.

These carrots were pretty big. I decided to use the same amount of pureed carrots as I would with pumpkin. I peeled them and boiled them until they were soft.

I decided to break out my homemade vanilla and I also opted to open up the Tung Hing cinnamon that I bought from Penzey's Spices. 

All this deliciousness gets whipped up and mixed with pureed carrots. 

I can't tell the difference by simply looking at it.

I can't tell the difference after it's baked, either. It cracked when it cooled off. 

The consensus is that the texture is just a little bit different. That's all. Other than that one minute detail, I could not tell the difference between carrot or pumpkin in this pie. I'll make more carrot pies in the future, for sure.


Carrot Pie

1 9-inch pie shell
2 cups pureed carrots (about 3 large, peeled and boiled until soft and pureed in a food processor)
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
3/4 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl until well combined. Pour into prepared pie shell.
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, lower heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 50 minutes.
Pie is done when you can put the point of a knife into the middle and it comes out clean.
Cool completely before cutting. Refrigerate leftovers.

I do not receive compensation from Penzey's spices. This is not a sponsored post.  I just really like their products.