the persistence of squash

My uncle grew Hubbard squash this past summer. I don't know if this was on purpose or by mistake. Hubbard is very very sweet and tasty. It also is huge. My brother got one that was 52 pounds! The first year that Bill and I put in a garden, he insisted that we grow Hubbard. What he really wanted was sweet mama's. A modest sized squash that is sweet and keeps relatively well. When our garden filled with light green monsters, he realized his mistake. The vines even climbed up the hedge.

Liam and Simon with the squash in the field. Liam is eating a cucumber. No wonder the kids grew an inch in a month. He never stops eating.

Our squash was a moderate 26 pounds. I didn't have time to deal with it in the fall so it took up residence in the living room under my loom bench. And then I proceeded to ignore it. Before Christmas I was always so busy and after New Years I just didn't want to deal with it. Memories of my sister dealing with her squash "for days" had me running scared. It started to turn orange

and I played the gardeners version of chicken. Who will give in first? Me or the Squash? The squash gave in first and started to rot. It happened really quickly! Once a squash has decided that it has had enough, it doesn't waste any time.

You can see the black end and the whitish area on the top was also soft.

I had the day off yesterday and it became squash day.

Skins on Hubbard's are thick. Skins on old squash are thick too. So you can imagine how thick and tough an old Hubbard would be. When my big knife only scratched the surface the question became what next?

Thankfully Liam had asked for a hatchet for Christmas. He was going to break in to the squash when it was time, but his friend was more alluring so it became my job. I gave it a few wacks and it split in two.

You can see the thickness of the skin. It is the slightly lighter bit along the edge.  I scooped out the seeds and hacked away the rotten bit (again with the hatchet) and baked it in three pieces. Even after it was baked and I had scooped out the meat, the skin was solid.  What with the loss of weight for the skin, rotten bits, seeds and goo, and possibly loss of moisture over  4 or 5 months, it weighed a lot less than the original 26 pounds. But it was still a lot of squash so I made squash soup.

Squash Soup

9 lbs squash
2 tbsp oil
5 pears seeded and diced
3 large onions chopped
10 cloves garlic
3.5 tbsp curry powder
salt
pepper
4 quarts chicken stock (veggie would also do)
1.5 cups white wine (chardonnay)
1 cup heavy cream

Bake squash until done.
Saute onions and garlic in oil until soft then add pears and cook until soft.
Combine everything (except cream) in a BIG pot and cook until throughly heated.
Blend with a hand blender or in batches in food processor or blender until smooth.
Serve swirled with heavy cream.

I feel like I should be posting

And really I probably should. I have been doing things. All sorts of things. I just haven't felt much like writing about them. A lot of them should have been photographed, but that really didn't happen either.
In sort of the right order.......
I have been to Liam's year end review. He was in Cadets this year and he really enjoyed it.

We planted the garden. Mostly the same stuff as always with the addition of brussel sprouts. Or brussel stench as Mira calls them. There is a lot of weeding to be done, but that is also nothing new.

I attended the Craft College graduation cerimonies. Where Rachel, Celine, Katie, and Jessica all marched up in their caps and gowns and were presented with  their Diplomas. Congradulations all! I am so proud of you!

I did a stint as an artist in residence. It was in a different location than last year and I didn't like it nearly as much. Thankfully the renovations that caused the move are going to be complete and we will be back in the regular spot next year.

I heard Nicole's choir sing at the retirement party for her school principal. They all performed really well and we were able to duck out before the speeches began. Sorry for the blurry photo but with other peoples kids I think blurry is better.

I taught a silk scarf dyeing workshop for my weaving group. We all had a great time but I didn't take any pictures. (slaps own hand)

UPDATE: I had forgotten that I had dyed a scarf myself at the workshop! I found it in it's hiding place and rinsed it out and here it is! Still wet. It was a quick pattern (simple knots) with different greens on each segment. I am rather pleased at how it turned out.

Before I finished work for the summer, I took advantage of the nice warping mill at the school and made up about 6 warps. With some of the dye left over from the workshop, I dyed some of them and some will wait until later. The dyes that we used are fibre reactive dyes that only last a very short time once they are mixed up.

And I also dyed some some soya silk sliver. It looks and feels like silk so we will see how it spins up.

 One of the reasons that I have been neglegent about posting is that I have been suffering from sinus problems for more than a year. I have some good days and some bad days. On the bad days, I feel like my brain is full of fluff and I have sinus pressure. On the good days, I feel almost normal. I have tried two different courses of antibiotics, and various types of nose sprays as well as allergy medications and x-rays to see if there were any strange growths in there. Nope. I am now waiting to see an EMT.  Here's hoping that I get the call soon.


I am weaving a series of 4 silk noil scarves right now. I am finding it hard to find the time to do much weaving because there is always so many other things that are clammoring to be done first. I am not selling anything anywhere this summer so my first big show is Labour Day weekend, and then nothing until November and December, so I guess that the weaving isn't really yelling all that loudly at this point.

It Is Time

The seed catelogue came in well before Christmas. So early in fact, that I thought that there must have been some sort of mistake. I guess that the seed people must have been lookig to cash in on some Christmas shoppers.
However, I was busy with all things Christmas (mostly of the making kind) and so it was set aside. And, I will admit, forgotten.
It resurfaced the other day and so Bill and I started to look through it. I chose the peas, he chose the tomatoes. We also ordered broad beans, green beans, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and dill.  Lettuce, beets and brussel sprouts round out the order. We have other seeds left over from last year and so will also have spinach, broccoli, onions, corriander, and basil. Mira might try her gourds again. Hopefully this year, we can keep them in check a little better. They really grew. A lot! Very quickly! And for a long distance. I was quite shocked to go back to the garden after a few weeks absence and find gourd vines having traveled more than 30 feet!
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been blessed with weather that was unseasonably warm. There were a few days when I was able to go about with my jacket unbuttoned and my hat and mitts in my pocket. Sunshine, no wind and temperatures just above freezing. Now we have been dropped back into the deep freeze with night time temperatures in the -18 to -24 C and the daytime highs being -15 C ish. Reality in my little corner of the world. The thought of green things growing in the warm summer sun is a little balm for my frosty toes and nose. Only 4 months till last frost!

cleaning up

my desktop. Here are some yarns spun this summer. If you have seen them before, please forgive my forgetfulness. It happens sometimes.



And some dyed roving.

Now that I have shared, I can get them off my desk. Just a few more things to clean.
Like the garden. We are suppose to get a hard frost tonight. Grrr. Guess what I am off to do?

Up Date

Yes I have been busy. No, I haven't been blogging. Or taking pictures. Or doing anything beside being busy. 

I have worked at our little shop. 

I have taught a morning workshop in paper weaving to 7-10 year old kids. 

I have taught a weekend workshop in temari balls to 6 adults. 

I did 6 hours of spinning and dyeing demonstration for the New Brunswick Crafts Council at their summer shop. 

I spent a hot sunny day washing clothes and hanging them on the neighbours clothes line because my dryer broke.

I don't want to talk about it. 

I've cooked and cleaned and tried to wrestle with some of the piles of things in my house.

I got a call that my grandmother lost her battle with cancer. 

I have ignored the big garden and tried half heartedly to do something about my irises that are rotting because of all the wet and weeds. 

I am scheduled to start my Fredericton Arts Alliance Artist in Residence week tomorrow so I have been getting ready for that.

I found out that I start back to work a week earlier than I thought. August 24 instead of August 31. 

I feel like my summer hasn't happened and now I am looking at it being over in three weeks. 

I am tired. 

And in case you haven't noticed, I haven't felt very much like blogging.

I feel slightly over extended.

Having said all of that, I think that I am going to take a small break from blogging. 

Maybe something will show up here before Sept 1, but more than likely not.

Thanks for all your love and support and I'll see you in September

End of a season

Yesterday was the day that we hauled out the garden. It was a beautiful calm sunny day and so onto our bikes we hopped and pedaled our way out to the garden.
Along the way we heard several flocks of geese doing their annual migration. A couple of groups stopped on the river to have a rest (and maybe a snack). They were quite far away and my telephoto will only do so much, so sorry for the less than crisp photos.
While we were pulling dead tomatoes, peppers, and beans (not to mention a lot of very much alive weeds) out of the garden plot, we heard more geese calling and I ran to grab my camera. They were flying onto the sun when I snapped this, so I will admit that I am quite happy that I managed to get them at all!
Along with the weeds, there was one Very Large Radish. As we pulled up the creeping charlie encrusted carpets, and dug out the remaining pea fences (darn you deer!), I came across a small radish patch that Mira had wanted to let go to seed. She is very much a gatherer type of person, and had wanted to grow and save seeds from radishes so that she could plant them next year. The radish had indeed grown a few seed pods (OK, a LOT of seed pods) but they were no where near mature. It was decided that we would pull the radish patch. Imagine my surprise when that patch turned out to be ONE PLANT!
Here is another view of that bad boy. Bad girl actually, seeing as it was silly with seed pods.
Most everything is out of the garden now (except for a few leftover weeds and the two million seeds that they produced) so the gardening season is at a close. And I am glad.

It will start up again in January when the new seed catalogue comes out and I can dream big for a couple of months before paring my order back to things that we can fit into the garden.

To answer a few questions

Mamoo: The pickles are on the shelf in the kitchen. For those of you who have never been in my kitchen, the shelf is a shelf made specifically for holding your canning jars. It was a cast off of a friend and I was happy to take it. What doesn't fit on the shelf, gets put back in the boxes that the jars came in and they are tucked under the bed. Some people have sweaters under their bed. I have pickles.

Teyani: Thanks! And yes we do use them all winter and spring and summer until they are gone. The banana/ crimson hot mix is so delicious that they sometimes get snacked right out of the jar. Sometimes they get placed on a slice of cheese before being devoured. They also make appearances in hamburgers and sandwiches of all types. The juice gets used up for marinades and salad dressings.
The kids around a jar of dill's is reminiscent of lions around a downed zebra. Actually it is more like piranhas around the proverbial cow. They even eat the dill and peppercorns. And can do it in about 15 minutes flat.

The hot pepper recipe is the same basic recipe that I use for dills.

3 cups vinegar
3 cups water
1/3 cup pickling salt

bring to a gentle boil and scoop in a couple of cups of sliced hot peppers of your choice. Let heat for about 1 minute and transfer with a slotted spoon to jars. The reason that I do this is to soften the peppers a bit so that they will pack more efficiently. They will settle a bit and you can top them up with pepper rings until the peppers are about 1/2 inch from the top. Continue until you have enough full jars for a batch. Ladle the pickling liquid into the jars. I usually use a sieve to catch the excess seeds. Wipe rims. Put on softened snap lids. Apply screw bands.Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Christine: Most ripe crimson hots were made into pickled peppers. We used to freeze some and make a wonderful hot sauce, but we have found that the hot sauce wasn't getting eaten as much as it used to be, so we stopped. There are still some in the freezer from last year. A lot of the peppers that were in the pepper cookies were green crimson hots as well as the smaller and unripe bananas.
And I have found that the chopped peppers take up a lot less space!

I would also like to note that not all of my produce is in my possession anymore. When I ran out of jars, I put out a call at work asking for mason jars. I offered one jar of pickles for 6 empty jars. I actually had quite a few responses. One woman also offered to buy her pickles from me instead of the lady that she had been buying them from. Which lead to one of her neighbours wanting some Lady Ashburnhams too. Some have also been gifted out. And more will be going out the door at Christmas time. But most of the dills will be staying to be consumed by the children.

Done Done Done Done Finished

Did I mention that we were done? As in ALL DONE with the canning, pickling, and preserving.
The last to go was the peppers.
One of the things that I do with the smaller peppers is make what I call "pepper cookies". I'm sure you all know of the frozen cookies that come in a roll and when you want to make them, you haul them out of the freezer hack off a few and chuck them in the oven. I make rolls of peppers that are the same concept. First they get chopped in the food processor and laid out on wax paper.
Then they are rolled into a cylinder with the ends tucked in to try and prevent spillage.
Then the tray gets put in the freezer and when solid, put in a ziplock bag. Any time that I want to use some hot peppers in soup, sauce, chili, whatever, I just hack some off and drop it in. It slices surprisingly easy for something that is frozen.

And now a note from Bill......


The Ants are Done

Well, Flick and Atta were at it again this weekend. The last of the pickling is over for the year, and I'm glad to see the end of it.


And I think we surpassed last year's count by a wide margin. Here's the tally for the season's efforts.

Pickles

Beets 6 jars
Dill 105 jars
Bread & Butter 22 jars
Lady Ashburnham 39 jars
Jalapeño Peppers 21 jars
Banana Peppers 41 jars

Salsa 5 jars
Green Tomato Relish 7 jars

Jams

Blueberry 8 jars
Elderberry 16 jars
Strawberry 11 jars
Carrot Cake 12 jars
Peach 5 jars

The grand total is 298 jars. Those are the ones that "snapped". There were a few that didn't snap properly after processing and they were consigned to the fridge and eaten straight away, so the "real" total would be over 300. And we will run out of some of these things rather quickly, especially the peach, blueberry and strawberry jams. Next year we'll be more organized and it's likely to climb even higher as more fruit jams get added to the mix.

And this says nothing of the sun dried tomatoes and sauce we made and are making still. We have about 6 one-litre jars of sun dried tomatoes, and a bit of well reduced seedless tomato sauce, and I think we'll have to make more of the sauce because there are still two big boxes of tomatoes ripening in the kitchen. There are some other vegetables too, but more of them are eaten fresh.

It's a big effort to put all of this food down, but it does taste good in the winter. Especially the banana pepper rings. The commercial ones aren't cored so you get lots of slices with hard bits of stem and core in them. We core ours. I think they put pectinase in theirs too, because our juice is viscous while theirs is watery. We use every drop of our pepper juice as marinade for chicken, which gives it a wonderful flavour, especially when barbecued.

Change my name to Peter

As in .....Peter piper picked a peck
(including jalapeno,
crimson hot, and banana peppers)
of pickled peppers.
This is of course a small sampling of the jars and jars that we pickled last week. First we did the crimson hots and banana peppers and the I switched to jalapeno. And you can see from the middle jar that the switch over happened mid jar. And there are more to come.

For those of you who are interested in pickling your own hot peppers.....

3 cups vinegar
3 cups water
1/3 cup pickling salt

bring to just boiling point
spoon sliced peppers (Bill does all of ours by hand, but if I have to do them, I do them in the food slicer) and let simmer 1 minute
scoop out of pickling liquid with slotted spoon into clean jars and pack lightly
ladle pickling liquid to within 1/2 inch from top of jar
wipe rim and apply snap lid and screw bands
put in boiling water bath for 10 minutes
let cool on counter on towels
remove screw bands and wipe jars

Just call me Flick

And for those of you who don't have kids and haven't seen A Bug's Life, Flick is the hero. He is also, you guessed it, an ant.

Yesterday, Bill and the older kids went to the garden and brought back some of the bounty that resided there. It was all washed and dried and put in heaps (see yesterday's picture) and then we went to bed.

Today was a day to deal with that which needed to be pickled. Starting with the peppers. We had three types of peppers to pickle. A banana variety called Hot Spot, our regular Crimson Hots, and Jalapeño.

Here are the banana peppers. Aren't they just a thing of beauty? The pile beside the big bowl is some of the crimson hots. So sexy with their shiny red skins and nice broad shoulders. Mmmmm.

Also on the list was bread and butter pickles, and dills. All together today's pickle production was 40 jars. My mother in law called earlier and when she found out what I was doing, said that I sounded like a pickle factory.

I feel like a pickle factory. I'm tired like one too. And to think that I now am looking forward to a week of work, followed by, most likely, more pickling next weekend. The garden is still producing an amazing amount and frost is nowhere to be seen. Coupled with the heavy rain that Hannah dumped on us over night and today, and I see more veggies in my future.

Oh my.

Ant behaviour Continues....

Bill took Mira and Liam out to the garden today to do some picking.

You can see most of the harvest below. There was cukes, basil, beets, tomatoes, broccoli, and peppers.

Here is a photo just for David. Who asked about my peppers. Tomorrow most of these will become pickles peppers. Makes me sort of wonder if they are a peck. Anybody know how much a peck is?
Mira decided to celebrate the lovely harvest with a tomato sandwich from a tomato with one slice.

On the agenda for tomorrow are bread and butter pickles, maybe more dills, perhaps another batch of Lady Ashburnham pickles , and pickled peppers of many different sorts. Time depending, I may even get a batch of salsa in too!

Like an Ant

Most of the summer, I played at being the grasshopper from the kids tale of the grasshopper and the ant I did put in the garden and weeded a few times. We watered a couple of times. But basically the garden was just left to fend for itself. Then we went to the lake for a couple of weeks. My summer of leisure is now over. Now it is time for me to be the ant in the story.

I have been turning this....

into this....
Lady Ashburnham pickles (which originated here in Fredericton- Who knew?)
and this.....
Dills dills and more dills.
and this.
Pesto premix. basically 4 cups of packed basil and a cup of olive oil. These get thrown in the freezer and hauled out every now and then to make pesto. All I have to do is add 1 cup of each parmasan and pine nuts as well as garlic and a pinch of salt and we have pesto.

I have also been doing some weaving of the warps that I managed to dye during my artist in residence stint in July. I'll hopefully get some good pictures soon and share them with you all.

yet more pickles

Do I have a new picture of pickles? No. If you want to see what they now look like, see my previous post. Coincidentally, I made another 26 jars of dills in various sizes.

I have been taking a bit of an enforced break from the computer for the past week or so. And I have another week or so to go before we get back to our regularly scheduled life. In the mean time, here is a small glimpse of why I have been absent.

See you next week.

It has begun.

We went out to the garden on Sunday to see the amount of damage that two weeks of rain had done. All I have to say is that weed is a four letter word.

So is deer.

But the cucumbers, like the weeds, loved all the rain. When we got home, the cukes were washed and sorted according to size. Large to be sliced or spears, medium to be packed whole, and small to be packed into the interstitial spaces. The dill wasn't quite ready yet and so I had to resort to dry dill seed.
All together it worked out to 26 jars. Some are 1.5 liters, some are quarts. All I know is that is a lot of pickles. And that is just the beginning.

You are suppose to leave them to cool undisturbed for 24 hours. And imagine my surprise when I looked at the jars and some of them had this funny layer of suspended dill seeds!

We biked to the garden to do the picking and then had to go pick up some vinegar and salt to do the pickling and about 15 minutes after we were all back home, the skies opened up the rain came down. The rain is bouncing about 6 inches off the ground. Am I ever glad that we were not biking in that!

The other thing that we picked was basil. We make a premix for pesto that then gets tossed in the freezer. Four cups of packed basil leaves, one cup of olive oil, buzzed in the food processor then put in plastic containers. When we want pesto in the winter, we thaw a tub, toss it and the rest of the ingredients into the food processor and voila! Supper!
The kids helped with the plucking of the leaves.

Bill did the washing of the leaves,


And I did the buzzing and packing of the finished premix. So far, we have four tubs in the freezer. And the basil doesn't look like the it has had anything picked at all.