Salad From The Fields of Home

Chanterelle and Miner's Lettuce Salad

Sauteed chanterelles (I found them under an oak tree here on the property), miner's lettuce (Ashley found it growing wild in the vineyard), soft poached egg (from our chickens, of course), Hobbs bacon and a whole grain mustard dressing. How's that for eating locally?!

Walnuts!

Squirreling away our share

One of the many joys of living here is the giant walnut tree in front of our house. A quarter of it split and fell a couple years ago and it's still huge. Its a beautiful tree and every couple years it produces a bumper crop of walnuts. This is one of those years. We, however, are not the only ones that enjoy the fruit of this tree. We are in a race against the squirrel. I think we're winning so far, but I do have thumbs and buckets so I recognize that it is not a very fair race. We can hear them fall from inside our house and I can see the squirrel rushing out to find the fallen nut before I can get my boots on. We have been gathering them pretty steadily over the last two weeks. They really started to fall with the first big rain of the season. The nut itself is encased in a green husk which is hanging from the branch. When it gets ripe the husk cracks and releases the walnut in its shell. We were so excited about the baskets of walnuts we've been able to gather that I eagerly cracked open a few. The nuts were still a little soft and under ripe tasting. Last time I gathered nuts they didn't taste like this - they were wonderful. I think we might be collecting them earlier this year than I usually do - both because of trying to beat the squirrel and because of the rain prematurely knocking them out of their husks. I think that if we just let them dry a little in their shells that they will be delicious. We'll see. Walnuts are one of those things that I hated as a child and now I love.
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Walnut about to fall.....

Drying Apples

Bring on the Apples!

We are already blessed with an abundance of apples this year. Last night's project was getting a basket ready for drying.

Automation.

I've always been skeptical about devices like this. I'm pretty fast with a peeler and they look kind of rickety. Nevertheless I picked up one of these Apple Peeling Machines at the hardware store, knowing we have a full season of preserving ahead of us. This thing KICKS BUTT! It peels, cores, and slices an apple in about 5 seconds. Great for preserving. This baby enabled us to get a whole basket of apples ready for the dehydrator in about 15 minutes. A guy at the hardware store called it an "Apple Lathe".

Ready to Dry

Why Dry?
We will surely be making apple butter and apple sauce this fall, but wanted to get some dried apples put up. Why? Ashley's Great Grandmother's Apple Stack Cake, of course! Recipe to come...
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Padrón Peppers

 pimientos de Padrón

There are so many things I love about summer in Northern California. Most of them, of course, are centered around food. One of them is the Padrón pepper! Oh my goodness, they are delicious. The key is to pick them when they are pretty small - about two inches long or smaller. When they're older and bigger they are much spicier and you lose a little bit of that fresh, full flavor. All Matt does is fry them up in a some hot olive oil and throw a handful of coarse salt on top. That's it! And I am convinced that they are the perfect beer snack.

Plum Jam

Vividly Colored Plum Jam

Last Sunday morning's project was making plum jam. We had a huge basket of plums that we picked on Saturday from an overflowing tree up by the winery. Here's what I ended up putting in:

12 cups pitted and cut up (8ths) Plums
6 Cups Granulated Sugar
3 Packages Low Sugar Pectin

I brought the whole thing to a boil, let it roll for 3 or 4 minutes, then into the jars it went. Finally, the jars spent 12 minutes in a hot water canning bath. The color of this stuff is just amazing! It ended up tasting pretty tart. Good, but quite tart. I think there must have been a bunch of citric acid in that low sugar pectin. Lesson learned?

Useful stuff for this project:
Granite Ware 9-Piece Enamel-on-Steel Canning Kit
Back to Basics 286 5-Piece Home Canning Kit