Final Strawberry Tally for 2010

Over the course of a couple of weeks, we picked 96 pounds of strawberries from our garden. (Kansas Dad spent a lot of time on his knees picking strawberries.) This number does not include any that our friends picked and took home or the ones the kids ate right off the vine or out of the bucket before they made it inside. (Seriously, once First Daughter grabbed one of the buckets, plopped herself down on the log and munched away until they were all gone!) It also doesn't count the ones we lost when Kansas Dad was out of town and I didn't even try to keep up with the picking. I would guess we could have almost doubled the total picked, if we had wanted. (We like being able to invite friends to come pick berries.)

(We have a lot of strawberry plants. Kansas Dad planted 150 last spring, about half of which were June-bearing, I think. Many of those put out shoots that he stapled with garden staples so they would put down their own roots. We'll be planting more next year or so and I'll try to post then on what we learned about strawberry plant placement for maximum ease in picking.)

So what did we do with all of them? We ate a great many (yum!) and froze quite a bit (over 40 cups, mostly hulled and whole; we've already been digging those out for smoothies).

We also used a bunch right away:

• strawberry soup (I used a recipe online that was ok but not great so I didn't even save the link. Mostly it tasted like melted smoothie.);
• 4 loaves strawberry bread (I decreased the oil in the recipe because it was almost too moist!);
• strawberry shortcake (from The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution);
• sour cream strawberry muffins (substituting for the blueberries in a recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains, very tasty!);
• strawberry crumble bars (substituting for raspberries in a recipe from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains, very good but next time we'll have to make them for a party - it was too many to eat before they went bad);
• strawberry pie using oatmeal nut pie crust (Both of these were delicious, especially that crust! I pressed the crust into the pie pan, refrigerated for 30 minutes, baked for about six minutes, then cooled and refrigerated again before putting in the strawberries.);
• strawberry compote (which is just strawberries and sugar, to use on my very first angel food cake);
• 2.5 pints strawberry-banana freezer jam (which only First Son really liked; we're probably going to use it up in smoothies or something); and
• 2.5 pints strawberry freezer jam (which we don't like as well as the canned jam we made; freezer jam seems to have a stronger taste and we prefer it a bit more mellow).

Then, there was the canning. I'm planning a separate post on what we learned about canning strawberries and a few tips, but here's a picture of all our jars (minus one we already gave away):

I particularly like that pretty strawberry jelly on the end:

Here's what we have (all recipes from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving):

• 17.5 pints strawberry jam (the original quick recipe, some with liquid pectin and a variation with some lemon peel so it's "lemony");
• 6 pints strawberry jelly;
• 11 pints quick strawberry lemon marmalade (We love this recipe. Next year we'll be more ambitious and try some of the traditional marmalade which should be more caramelized.);
• 3.5 pints strawberry syrup (for pancakes and waffles and other such yummy fare);
• 2 pints strawberry sauce (for ice cream and other desserts - very yummy, but a bit harder to make than the quick jams with pectin because I had to stir boiling strawberry goo for 15 minutes. It's a good thing we have one of those plastic mitts to protect my poor hands - I still had to switch hands every few minutes because they'd get too hot!); and
• 3.25 pints maple strawberry smooch (a very good dessert topping option for those who prefer maple syrup to sugar or who happen to live somewhere that has a lot of maple syrup. You know who you are.).

Some of the pints I tallied are actually canned in half pint jars. We have more than enough strawberry jams, jellies and treats for the year and plenty to give away, too.

I highly recommend the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Many of the recipes can be found inside the Ball boxes of pectin (including the marmalade recipe), but the back of the book has an extensive "tutorial" on canning with lots of tips and explanations that make following the recipes a lot easier. There are also a bunch of other recipes (many of which can be made with a simple water bath rather than a pressure canner) that we want to try with tomatoes and other produce. If you have excess garden or CSA produce, you're sure to find something intriguing to try.

Now I can save this post to read when the harvest gets overwhelming next year. I'll remember how wonderful all these treats were throughout the year and how satisfying it feels to look at that table full of jars! (We've also been even more inspired to get some other berry plants in. Perhaps we'll be able to plant some next year.)

For those that are wondering, we still have a few fruits on the ever-bearing plants, but it's not enough to even make it into the house.

Flower and Harvest Update

Probably no one out there cares, but I wanted to have a little record (since this blog serves as my garden journal in addition to my baby books) that the irises are officially no longer blooming. We have a few fading flowers at this point.

The daylilies have sent up their flower stems, so we're hoping for blooms soon. We're pretty indifferent to the flowers out in the garden, but learned last year they are quite wonderful as daily cut flowers for the kitchen. (Eventually we'll probably plant something other than orange ones.)

The wildflowers have gone crazy with all the rain (and still no one to mow; anyone have a tractor and want to mow a couple of acres for us?). The plains larkspur have bloomed all over the yard and they're lovely. We also have lots of sweet little yellow flowers all over. I'm not quite sure what they are as I didn't take any pictures yesterday or bring any in and there are a bunch of possibilities. According to our paper, Kansas is one of the  most prolific states in wildflowers and I'd have to say our bit of the Range is living up to their expectations.

Oh, and Kansas Dad picked 16 pounds of strawberries yesterday morning. Instead of mopping, I spent the entire day dealing with berries:

• made 2.5 pints of strawberry-banana freezer jam (incredibly easy with the freezer pectin) which First Son thought was good but the girls both hated,
• hulled 24 cups of whole strawberries, cooked and crushed them, then let them sit in cheesecloth overnight to drain juice for jelly (a double batch scheduled for this morning),
• hulled and crushed 6 cups of strawberries for strawberry lemon marmalade, also scheduled for this morning,
• we ate strawberries at lunch, dinner and breakfast...and there are still a few sitting out.

Anyone want to come pick strawberries? You can take home whatever you can fit in your baskets! (I'm not kidding. Really.)

Strawberry Update

From the 11pounds of strawberries Kansas Dad picked on Friday:

• 7 pints of strawberry jam
• 4 cups frozen strawberries
• ate about 4 cups with whipped cream.

From the 11 pounds of strawberries Kansas Dad picked yesterday:

• 2 loaves of strawberry bread (very yummy and very moist)
• strawberry shortcake shared with Grammy and Paw Paw (Kansas Dad made real shortbread and real whipped cream)
• 10 cups of frozen strawberries
• some we ate fresh

We didn't pick any today, but Kansas Dad is going out in the morning so I'm sure we'll be doing something with strawberries tomorrow. We also stocked up on some lemon, cheesecloth, pectin, jars, extra lids and freezer containers so we can try even more recipes from our Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. There are a lot of strawberry recipes in there, so we shouldn't get bored too quickly.

The chickens are probably in heaven. Not only are they eating strawberry hulls to their hearts' content, they even got the sugary foam from the strawberry jam. Today, they thanked us with seven eggs, the most we've gotten in a long time!

By the way, I do have some pictures from our strawberry jam. I've just been too tired to get them off the camera. Hopefully I'll get to that tomorrow. You know, because our jars of strawberry jam are going to look very different from anything you've seen before. Or not.

Kansas Dad also planted a bunch of tomato plants yesterday and today. I think the pepper plants will go in tomorrow. I know I'll be thankful when it's salsa time!

I Sense Jam in Our Future

Kansas Dad just picked eleven pounds of strawberries.

Eleven.

The First Strawberries

Second Daughter is nearly as troublesome as the birds when ransacking the patch. Kansas Dad plans to put bird netting over all the rows when his ankle heals (sprained late Friday night).

We've moved on to much larger harvests and think we'll have enough to try a batch of strawberry jam this weekend!

Lessons Learned

In an effort to increase Second Daughter's fat intake, we want to feed her more yogurt. Unfortunately, the organic whole milk yogurt at the store is very expensive, even the big containers that don't have pictures of babies on them. I was recently reminded by some friends that I can make my own yogurt.

Only I learned making yogurt in my crockpot is not going to work in the wintertime. I ended up with cold milk, a little soured. It's just too cold in my kitchen. (I should have known since even in the bread machine I have to increase the amount of yeast I use in the winter.)

I tried a more traditional method (cooking the milk on the stove then placing it in the oven) but managed to end the process halfway through by letting the oven get too hot and killing the bacteria. (The chickens liked it, though.) It would be fine if I could get six hours of guaranteed interruption-free time.

So, the moral of the story is: we buy our yogurt until spring. (Kansas Dad joked we could just set our thermostat higher, but I think that would be more expensive in the long run than buying the yogurt.)

Also, in case you were wondering, shelling popcorn is not as easy as all the books and websites would have you believe. (They all just say "Shell your popcorn, store and eat!") I spent a few hours (while also overseeing snack time and paper plate turkey construction) shelling it by hand and ended up with half a quart jar of popcorn and a big blister on my thumb. We're going to try one of these, even if they say it doesn't work. There has to be a better way. (I'd be happy for any advice on the matter.)

More Pumpkin Goodness

I've still been cooking lots of pumpkin - almost one a day though I think we'll slow down a bit now.

We've tried:

Pumpkin Soup - This was alright, but I think Kansas Dad isn't a pumpkin soup for dinner kind of guy. Next time, I'd like to try a more robust recipe like this one.

Money Saving Mom's Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins - These were good, but we think we like the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking one better. (I just double the pumpkin bread recipe and make 18 muffins as well as a loaf of bread. Bake the muffins for 18-25 minutes, depending on the recipe and the oven.) We also want to try the Cooking Light pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips. They were pretty good!

I made some of this pumpkin bread recipe, too. I substituted 1 cup of the white flour with wheat and some of the oil with ground flax seed. I also included the cloves. It was pretty good, but they seemed a little strong on the spices so I might leave the cloves out if I make it again.

Soft Pumpkin Cookies (The link for these was wrong in my earlier post.) These are excellent soft pumpkin cookies. They taste just like little cakes. I didn't bother with the glaze, but I think that would be a nice touch. I wish I had stored them with wax paper in-between. They stick together a little.

By far the best thing we have tried is Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal. It is scrumptious. Kansas Dad says it's even better than our blueberry oatmeal. (The kids wouldn't try it, though. More for us!)

I thought I had a long list of new recipes to try with all our pumpkin, but then Money Saving Mom posted a link to The Finer Things in Life list.

I have some more baking to do. (Just as soon as Kansas Dad gets home with more butter.) I really want to try Brandy's oatmeal pumpkin cookies!

Pumpkin Recipes

Last Thursday, Kansas Dad and I baked a pumpkin. Well, I asked him to cut it in half for me because I was a little nervous to handle the knife myself. Then I baked and purred it. It made a lot! You can read a nice post on baking and processing your own pumpkin here. I mainly followed these instructions. I just baked them cut side down (no water or anything) in the oven for an hour at 350. The ice cream scoop mentioned on the Money Saving Mom post was much easier than a spoon, but I didn't bother cutting off the stem. It pulls right off after baking if it seems to be in the way. (All based on my vast experience with one pumpkin on Thursday and one today.)

I think Kansas Dad said we grew Connecticut Field pumpkins. They may not be the best for baking, but we've been enjoying everything so far. We've made:

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread and Muffins from Whole Grain Baking (I modified the recipe and didn't like it as well as I remember. I'm going to try it again without modifications.)

Pumpkin Muffins which were light and fluffy. I topped them with turbinado cane sugar instead of the brown sugar mixture and they were delicious. (I keep it on hand for our sour cream blueberry muffins so it was easier than mixing something up for a topping.)

And the Ultimate Pumpkin Waffles, which really are tremendous. Mmm...

Of course we saved the seeds. I made the Fiery Pumpkin Seeds from How To Cook Everything and the Savory Seeds mentioned here.

First Son wouldn't try one, but here's First Daughter enjoying a pumpkin waffle:


There are lot of other recipes I want to try here and maybe this one, too. Oh, and these and this! I may also try out Money Saving Mom's pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

I've got pumpkins on the counter and on the floor and about twenty cups of puree in the freezer, so there will be lots of pumpkin for experimentation.

So Pretty

First Fruit

We cut it into four pieces and each enjoyed a tiny taste.