Some Successes, Some Failures

Dehydrating blueberries -- bah!

I tried dehydrating blueberries once before, a few years ago, and they turned out as inedible dark blue pebbles.  It took me this many more years to give it another try.

Read up on ye ol' Internet on how to do it along with perusing our three or four books on dehydrating.

Nope, I was not going to puncture each berry with a toothpick or sharp point of a knife before placing them in the dehydrator.  Next best option (guaranteed to work -- uh-huh, sure) was to immerse the berries in boiling water for 30 seconds before spreading them out on the trays. 

I had 17 cups from our more recent good-sized harvest.  Cleaned them as usual and then gave them the 30 second baptism in the hot water.

From my research I was prepared for them to take a long time to dry.  These pictured above had been drying for 24+ hours.

Nowhere did I find it suggested that I might have to sort the berries into size categories before drying.  (Makes sense, but just how long would that little project take?)  The smaller berries were turned into crispy cinders while the bigger ones were still squishy and wet.  It was impossible to remove the smaller berries earlier than the larger ones they were mixed in with because they were stuck like glue to the trays.

I finally decided to scrap the whole project, even though I whined a lot over losing 17 cups of what were once lovely blueberries.  How long did it take to carefully scrape (so as to not damage the stainless steel screening on the trays) all remnants of this fiasco from the eight trays?  You don't even want to know.  I still have to wash the trays (thank heaven for our big utility sink in the garage) which should be fun, too.

* * * * * * * * * *

But not all this week has gone the way of the great blueberry debacle.  Out in the garden our slicing cucumbers continue to produce at an almost alarming rate, so I've been able to make many more jars of kimchi.

This fermented vegetable mixture should keep in the refrigerator for months (some sources claim years even -- yikes!), and give us countless health benefits well into the winter.  The very best part of this deal is that the kimchi tastes really good!

This is our pretty little Annie who was born with her right foot completely folded under so it looked as though she had only half a webbed foot.  (You may recall we were able to successfully splint it so she had no permanent damage.)  We don't believe it was a genetic deformity, but rather from being positioned in a bad spot as she developed in the egg, so she's going to be one of our "keepers" this fall and hopefully will turn into a fertile, good mother goose in the future.

Stuffin' Them Peppers!

I've had requests for making and freezing my stuffed peppers so here goes.  First the recipe:

Stuffed Green Peppers

2 cups of uncooked rice
Cooked in whatever method you prefer

2 pounds lean ground beef
2 medium onions, chopped
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup salsa
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 - 15 oz. cans tomato sauce

Approximately 16 sweet peppers, green or red
Shredded cheese of your choice

Cook the rice until well done.  (I like to use half wild rice, half brown rice.)

Brown the ground beef in a large skillet.  Add the onions, garlic, salsa, seasonings and tomato sauce and mix well without further cooking.

At this point since my skillet isn't big enough to hold the rice, too, I transfer the meat mixture into a stock pot, add the cooked rice and mix well.

Either before or after you prepare the meat mixture, prepare the peppers by slicing in half, seeding and removing membranes so each half of the peppers can hold a nice amount of the meat mixture.

I cut my peppers in half top to bottom, so I have close to two identical halves.

Then blanch each prepped pepper half in boiling water for just three minutes.

Remove immediately and place in cold water.  Our well water is extremely cold so I use it rather than submerging the pepper halves in ice water to cool.

Drain pepper halves cut side down.

Next I lay the peppers out, cut side up, on large cookie sheets and slightly mound a portion of the meat mixture in them.

Into the freezer the stuffed peppers go until they're fairly well frozen, then they're either wrapped in freezer paper or put into freezer bags for storage.

When I want to serve some for dinner, I take them from the freezer several hours before the meal, put them into a shallow baking pan and let them defrost (they're really hard as rocks right out of the freezer) on the counter.

Before baking, I sprinkle grated cheese over the top and bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

To make the process less daunting, I like to cook my rice and prep the peppers (but not blanched) the night before.  Then the next day I make the meat mixture, blanch and stuff the peppers, freeze and wrap.

The last batch I made I had 22 peppers, but they were all medium to small in size.  The number of 16 peppers noted in the above recipe would be about 16 medium to large ones.

I've been tweaking this recipe for years, but I think I have it the way I like it now.  Needless to say, you can change any of the seasonings to suit your own taste or cut the recipe in half if you don't want to make so many of them.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask and I'll be glad to clarify anything that isn't clear. 

Kristen, sorry it took so long to get this to you.  Bobbie, you certainly can used defrosted ground beef in the recipe.  That's what I always have.

Geese

This morning I walked around to the far side of the pond to see if I could get pictures of the geese and ducks paddling around.

Some of the geese were the only ones in evidence.  Upon noticing a big, bad figure stalking around the outside of the fence, they immediately set up a "Danger, danger, stranger danger!" squawking.
 

When I started talking to them, and they recognized my voice, they came right over to me . . .

. . . to see if I had any food say hello.

The pond is going down, down, down and sadly needs a fresh infusion of water.  We've had no rain for a while now, but there's the possibility of some tomorrow . . . fingers crossed.  The water fowl and the garden would welcome it.

I'm elated to report that our day time temperatures have dropped quite a bit in the last day or so, the humidity is lessening and sleeping at night has once again become comfortable.  Hooray for this first little glimpse of autumnal weather! 

Another Sweaty Day But A Good Day

I had a really good day today.  (I can say that now after the sweat has stopped running toward the floor from all parts of my body.  TMI?)  Yep, I was out in the garden for much of the day, but got bunches crossed off my To Do List.

My zucchini plants (both of them) have stopped producing.  Just plain stopped.  And the leaves haven't been looking too good either.  Nope, no evidence of insect damage.  I thought all squash liked hot weather as we've been having so what's the problem?  I gave the plants some attention, a trim removing yellowed leaves and a chirky pep talk.  We'll see if that does any good.

Staked up a couple of (still headless) broccoli plants that were beginning to lean.  Since they prefer cool weather -- of which we've been having none -- that may be the problem.

Pulled out my green and yellow bush bean plants.  Harvested the last of what I wanted yesterday and now I have plenty in the freezer for our year's supply.  Threw half of the plants into the poultry yard, and saved the rest for our daughter to take home to her chickens.

I had planted a couple hills of "assorted gourds" that I thought would be nice to have for fall decorating.  These tiny white pumpkin-like things are the only "assorted gourds" that are growing.  If I remember, the same thing happened last year . . . and I used the same packet of seeds this year.  (I expected a different outcome?)

Pulled the last of the Sweet Pea vines that died on me prematurely.  Better luck next year, eh?

Staked up an apple tree branch that was hanging mighty low because of all the apples on it.  Not a bad problem to have.  We even "thinned" the apples when they started to form earlier this season.  Can't complain about the apples not developing well this year, can we?

Weeded the little 10' x 16' plot in which we've got our experimental dwarf apple trees planted.  How do weeds come up so easily through a thick mulch on the ground?  Not fair, I say, just not fair. 

Dead headed the bachelor buttons, marigolds, cosmos and zinnias.  Don't know if they feel better, but they sure look better.

When our strawberries are done bearing, we always mow them down with the lawn mower so they can make a burst of new growth before going into dormant winter time.  We did this a couple of weeks ago and they've made a lot of regrowth in just that time.  The weeds that had popped up in the patch were quite impressive, too.  So I attacked them this morning and now the area is looking good again.

You may not be able to tell it from this picture with nothing to compare the size of them to, but it looks as though our onions are going to be of a right good size this year.  This is one of the three beds of them.

This is a couple of my fall planted cauliflowers.  The plants are all of about 3" tall.  I keep thinking maybe they'll really take off . . . one of these days.  (Go, little plants, go!  You can do it!)

And here's the bed of fall planted greens:  lettuce, spinach, mizuna mustard, arugula and Swiss chard.  I've had it covered with a frame of shade cloth in this continuing hot weather.   (Does the terrible angle of this picture make you dizzy like it does me?)

I made two more jars of my Minnesota Kimchi.  They're now doing their thing on the counter for a few days.  We've already gone through a first jar, have another in the fridge and now have these two more coming along.

The one thing still remaining on my list is harvesting the ripe blueberries which could have been done today.  My rationale is that I had to save something to do tomorrow, right?

A Rainy Saturday -- Yay!

The sky looked very much like rain this morning when we got up, so even before faces were washed or coffee was consumed (yes, we both were quite stunning, you can bet) we grabbed bowls and went out to the blueberry patch to harvest the ripe berries.  We got a little over six and a half pounds of the blue gems picked before the rain drops started falling on our heads.

Back inside I sat down for some work cleaning and sorting them.  I kept two cups out fresh for a Blueberry Cream pie "someone" in this house requested for tomorrow.  Also a container for fresh eating in the next couple of days went into the refridge.

Smooshed up four quarts for a batch of jam (which just came out of the canner), and put the rest in the freezer.

Remember last year when my green pepper plants kept dying one after another?  I never did figure out what was killing them, but as a result I managed to get only four and a half (some must have had to eat peanut butter and jelly that night) servings of Stuffed Green Peppers in the freezer.  Well, this year the pepper plants are hale and hardy and are producing their little hearts out so I made a double batch of stuffed peppers yesterday, and another one today.

When the batch from today is frozen solid and wrapped for storage, we'll have thirty meals worth.  To which my dear husband said, "You will make more yet, won't you?"  'Tis one of his favorite dinners, and he would eat it a couple of times a week with no complaint.

I just took this pic while standing on the back porch looking across the yard.  (The rain is still coming down steadily and is so very, very welcome.)  See those orange leaves just to the upper right of center?  They are on a little scrub bush we call a Moose Maple up here, and it's always the first to turn color when we start moving toward fall.

Best of all, the rain has arrived with dropped temperatures and it feels so good!  Bring it on, I'm ready to be able to snuggle in bed at night with the covers up to my chinny-chin-chin!

What's Happening in the Garden?

Well, for one thing, we have one broccoli head forming on our late planted broccoli.  This head is about 4" across right now.  So why is it that this one plant looks like this . . . and none of the other (same aged) plants have even started forming heads yet?  'Tis a mystery.

Blueberries and beans are the main crops coming in right now.  To date we've harvested a total of 40-1/2 pounds of blueberries.  Considering last year all we got was about 2 quarts, I'd say this is a better year.  A way better year.  And there are LOTS more still to ripen.

My bean row has gone all flopsy-mopsy on me.  I think the hot weather has made them grow so tall and lush that they can no longer stand upright as respectable bush bean plants should do.  No harm done, but it does make for harder picking when it comes time to harvest.

This is my fall planted bed of shell peas.  Coming along nicely . . . but quite a long way from harvest, wouldn't you say?  Those are giant snapdragons in the center that I didn't have the heart to yoink out when I cleaned up the rest of the bed so I could plant the peas.

Wowzer, will ya look at this apple?  It's one of quite a few on our new, intensively planted dwarf trees.  It's pretty close to full-size already.  Gads, could it be we might get a decent harvest of eating apples, like matured with flavor and everything, this fall?

This one of the little pie pumpkins.

And here are a couple of the big, jack o' lantern pumpkins.  A fur piece from full-size (about bigger than a basketball right now) and orange in color, but they've got time yet.

We had a bear prowling around last night.  He first tested the heavy plywood top of the box we keep our recycling materials in (tooth marks on the edge), then he opened it and checked out what was inside.  We keep all the cans, bottles, plastics, etc. well rinsed out precisely so the aroma doesn't attract bears.  He chomped on a couple of the plastic jugs and then apparently went looking elsewhere for something tastier.  Considering the extensive damage bears can do, we were very glad we had no real damage.  Makes us glad the birds (and honey bee hives!) are inside enclosures behind electric fencing at night!