Yes, Thursday, since this is the start of our weekend. We took Friday off for S's birthday so today is pizza....umm...Thursday. :-)


This was terrific! I think it was the Cherokee Purple tomato that made it so amazing. We definitely are going to have to grow those next year. Yum.

Yesterday we pulled in a bunch of tomatoes from the garden: Early Girls, Viva Italias, Romas, Patios and a Purple Cherokee. This picture doesn't have the Purple Cherokee in it--it had blossom end rot so isn't very photogenic....

Here are the potatoes we dug up last weekend (mental note: just in case the weeds from outer space take over your potato patch and the plants die down to the ground from some disease--DO remember to mark where the hills are next year...) We found roughly 20...and aren't quite sure how many we missed. They did set potatoes, but not very well.

Tuesday evening, we found another egg in the nestboxes. This one was from one of the Red Stars, we know since S. saw it laying.

Saturday afternoon we finally bit the bullet and got a freezer. It had a rebate, it's 5 cubic feet since we want to make sure it's not too big for us: a pretty good deal, and we were just plain running out of space in our kitchen freezer. I'm glad for the extra space, since I'm hoping to be able to freeze some dough (or baked goods--biscuits maybe?) as well as maybe some soups. We made gnocchi a few years ago, and made some ravioli last winterand froze it for later (it's so nice to have something in the freezer that's like "convenience food" but isn't 'cause you made it yourself. I just love that.) so maybe we'll do that again this year.

I just don't know what I'll title my veggie freezing posts since 'why we need a freezer' no longer applies....

:-)

Saturday morning when we were letting the chickens out of their coop for the morning, I noticed one acting strangely. One of them was sitting in a nest box (not unusual since some of them still insist on roosting there for the night) looking down at the bottom of the nestbox. I went inside to look--it was looking at an egg. Our first egg! Amazingly, for such a young chicken, it had an intact shell. Actually, the shell felt rather thick, and the egg was an even oval shape, not tapered at one end like the ones you get in the grocery store.



I stuck it in the fridge, intending to crack it open to take a look at it later in the week.



Then, later in the day, we found this in the garage.


It looks like it splattered, but actually the white part was soft like gelatin. It does look like this one definitely had a small yolk, though---I spotted a yellow bit of the liquid (I'm sure there's a name for that). So thats more of what we expected for a first egg :-)

Friday we finally got around to making Dilly Beans. Here's the recipe, ala Ball Blue Book, as translated by moi.

Dilly Beans
(as stated in the recipe)
Yield: about 4 pints or 2 quarts

2 pounds green beans
1/4 cup canning salt
2 1/2 cups vinegar
2 1/2 cups water
1 tsp cayenne pepper, divided
4 cloves garlic
4 heads dill

We sextupled the recipe, so we used:
12 pounds green beans
1 1/2 cups salt
15 cups vinegar (we used white vinegar so that the vinegar wouldn't color the beans)
15 cups water
6 teaspoons cayenne pepper, divided
30 cloves garlic (2 per quart)
1/4 and 1/8 tsp dried dill per jar (We also divided a package of fresh dill--can never get that stuff to grow!-- amongst the 15 quart jars)

The recipe is as follows:
Trim ends off green beans. Combine salt, vinegar, and water in large pot. Bring to a boil. Pack beans lengthwise into [hot] jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Add 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1 clove garlic and 1 head dill to each pint jar. Add 1/2 tsp cayenne (we used a scant 1/4tsp per quart since I'm not a big spicy food person), 2 cloves garlic, and 2 heads dill per quart jar. Ladle hot liquid over beans, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes for both pints and quarts.


Our batch was about 12 pounds of green beans. The recipe of sextupled vinegar mix filled enough for 12 cans (unfortunately our batch of beans filled 15 jars...so we had to remake the vinegar mix in order to fill our jars)


All of the jars 'popped' but one--so we stuck that one in the fridge. I'm not sure how long it'll keep for. Pickles don't really taste right until they've had a week or two to sit, though...so I'm hoping they'll be ok for that long!


The next day, we inverted the jars to make sure that even the beans poking out the top of the vinegar solution would get well-covered and pickled. Later that day I flipped them back over to upright.

I can't wait to taste the jar in the fridge--they look pretty good...

Lots of things have happened so far this weekend. Unfortunately, due to my satellite internet connection FAP-ing me, (funny, but we weren't doing anything that's mentioned on their website as being a potential issue....listening to youtube when canning shouldn't be a crime...) I've been unable to share them. Not exactly thrilled with that. Here's an overview, though. Full posts to follow:

Friday, July 31 evening we canned our Dilly Beans. All but one quart sealed (even after reprocessing that one--I think maybe there was some dill or something left on the rim of that jar that kept it froom sealing)

Saturday, August 1 morning we were letting the chickens out of their coop, when I noticed that one was in a nest box (not unusual: there are still a few that insist on roosting/sleeping there) staring at something in the box. I went over to check it out and there was an egg---the first egg from our chickens.

Saturday, August 1 evening we finally went and bought a chest freezer. Good thing too, since the kitchen freezer was pretty packed. Interestingly, when we pulled the old fridge out of the mudroom (It came with the house and must have been about 10-15 years old. It wasn't even keeping the beer cold anymore) it dropped about 10 degrees in there. Must've been running awfully hot, is all I can say.

Anyways, full posts to follow as I get my pictures in order. (Satellite internet allowing.)