Sunday Stills Challenge: Food

Christmas shaped scones best enjoyed with blueberry jam from our own blueberries.

Scones courtesy of Paddock Boy and the Little Cowboy.

Apple Week

Thanks to Crunchy Chicken I dried a decent batch of cinnamon apple slices last week. They are already half gone and I need to make more!

And then thanks to Suzanne McMinn at Chickens In The Road I made a tasty batch of Crock Pot Apple Butter, only I left out the rum and raisins this time around.

Paddock Boy sampled the tiny leftovers from the canning and decided it was worth opening a jar for immediate consumption! And I sent a jar home with the in-laws the other day since my M-I-L helped by occupying the Little Cowboy much of last week. They even made an apple pie! I unfortunately knocked a jar off the counter and it crashed on the floor. :( Another jar went home with friends this evening... At this rate I guess no apple butter is going to make it to Christmas for presents this year unless I make some more.

One Last Experiment

I wasn’t able to track down any blackberries or huckleberries this past weekend, much to my dismay. I missed them by about a month probably. It’s just too hot over in Mason county to get any decent berries in mid-August. The search was “fruitful” none-the-less!

I came back from my very short walk with a very large amount of Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium and Mahonia nervosa) berries! A rather large bucketful in fact. And de-stemming Oregon grape berries is so much easier than currants! I had it done, with the help of one of my aunts, in less than an hour! I haven’t weighed the berries, but a one gallon zipper bag is full and sitting in the freezer awaiting it’s destined recipe(s).

While out on my search for berries I always find myself admiring how unspoiled certain areas on the forested hillsides are. The Oregon grape bushes were thriving Under the shade of the Douglas fir, madrona, shore pine and western hemlock, as well as the salal and many other plants. One that frequently catches my eye over in that area is a shrub that has bright orange fruits this time of year. At other times it has adorable flowers. And the leaves are distinctive. The last time I identified it I didn’t lock it very well into my memory. This time I will as it will be posted here for all of you to see, as well as for me to refer back to in the future!

Smith’s Fairy Bells/Lanterns (Disporum smithii (Hook.) or Prosartes menziesii) supposedly do have an edible fruit, but I have deiced that I am not going to sample it until I have a large quantity in front of me at one time. Each bush doesn’t produce much fruit so far as I can tell. I do hope to get some growing here in the treed area of our yard. It reminds me of native low-growing plant trillium that we have here in the Pacific northwest. My very wilted specimen:

Winding Down

The berry season is starting to wind down around here sort of. Our blueberry bush is loaded and the Himalayan blackberries are just now starting to ripen up. However, I got skunked on Sunday looking for huckleberries or blackberries up in the mountains.

We were at a pretty heavily used area for a mountain bike race and there had been a Backcountry Horsemen prize ride the weekend before that. No berries to be found in the camp area. Plus, my son wanted to ride in the kids’ race so we couldn’t stray far from the start/finish line. He got second in his division. :)

Last night I made a batch of blueberry syrup (with berry bits) from the berries that Paddock Boy and the little man picked. There are still more berries, but most will probably be frozen to use in muffins and pancakes through the winter.

I think my canning may be close to wrapping up. Only blackberries and huckleberries would spur me back into action. And I soooo want some blackberries!

We’re heading to The Cabin this weekend and maybe I can find blackberries over there, but usually they are well done and gone by now. I’ll be looking pretty hard, though!

Mystery Berry Game

It’s my first blog contest! OK, I haven’t come up with a prize, but maybe the prize should be a sample pack of my syrups, jams and jellies that I have been making. Here are some pictures of the batch of jelly I made tonight, from berries picked here on our place.

I will only give a few clues about the kind of berries they might be. You can look at the pictures as your first clue and then know that this is a “native” species found in the Pacific Northwest.

Another hint, which I don’t know how helpful it will be, is that a few cedar waxwings tried to land in the bush while I was picking and I scared them away when I stood up. They hung out in a nearby birch tree the rest of the time I was picking.

This batch is slightly bitter. I have sweetened it with some 100% apple juice. And there is no recipe, at least not one that I could find on Google or anywhere else on the internet. There may or may not be clues in my links to other sites, blogs and stores. Anything is fair game. < Very Big Evil Grin! >

If anyone guesses the berry type and has a clue as to a good recipe to use these berries in, I have at least one more bush of them I can pick. Otherwise I leave them to the waxwings and other birds, since that it the reason we planted the bushes in the first place.

Leave your guess in comments and any correct guesses will be winners. I have plenty of jams and jellies to give away! :)

And here are some pictures of Buena, Buster, Shadow and Ernie from this afternoon to keep my posts kind of back on the horse topic. It was pushing 90°F today and is supposed to be warmer tomorrow!

I’ll keep this game open for at least a week, or until someone guesses what the berry is.

Well that was fast!

But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised with all the smart ladies that put up their guesses. Cathi and Brenda, horse owners in the Puget Sound area, both correctly guessed twinberry. Here is some information:

Lonicera involucrata

Twinberry Honeysuckle

Las Pilitas Nursery

Lonicera involucrata

The Flavors of Home

So there you have it! Not particularly tasty, but the result is as black as night and if we don’t eat it, we can put it out for the birds to eat in the spring. I am guessing that Bullock’s orioles and other berry-eating birds will like it.

Buh! Buh! Buh! Buh! Blueberry Jam!

Tasty, tasty blueberry jam. Combination of our blueberries and some from my parents’ house. Not quite as good as the blackberry syrup, but still yummy! My son got to show Gramma how the KitchenAid juicing attachment works and “poops.” Since it helps to grind up the skins and he wanted to show Gramma, we gave her a little demonstration. I used the skins and seeds that would normally be thrown out to make jam instead of jelly. Those skins are also what gives the jam its great dark color, too. This was a full sugar batch, so those diet conscious folks (the grandpas and a few others) will need to be careful!

We’re pretty close to being ready for the class on Wednesday. It’s not too late to sign up if you are interested in coming. Amazing how much work we got done outside ripping out weeds, mowing and such. I much prefer that outside work to housework inside!

Surprise Strawberry Jam

What do you do with a huge bowl of leftover strawberries from a birthday party? Why, you send them home with me and I whip out a quick batch of no sugar added strawberry jam. Of course!

That batch of blueberry jam or syrup is on tap for tomorrow! And I have tentative plans to go huckleberry or blackberry picking next weekend with my sister-in-law.