Mmmm, peaches

The second to last batch of peaches became peach sorbet. I found the recipe near the back of the Ball Blue Book. Very easy, and really yummy.

Everything's coming up pears

I wrote earlier about having apples, pears, and peaches in abundance. I am slowly getting everything off the dining room table and the refrigerator. I am happy to report that there is no more fruit on the floor around the table.

The apples are good keepers and good eaters. The apples that are not being stored are dried and kept in preserving jars. I enjoy drying them because it's easy to slip them into the oven after dinner is done baking. I feel a little medieval when I "stretch" the heat like this. I can get roughly 6 apples dried at a time. (For more on drying produce, see the August/September issue of Mother Earth News.)

I was making fruit leather with the apples and pears (really do not like "leather" and food in the same category), but the time for labor compared to the time to total consumption caused me to give up the cause. It will be moved to special treat status.

We gave away some of the apples today -- the kind that "I" of GAIN found by the railroad tracks. They were yellow and ripe when we picked them. There is nothing like the instant gratification of eating freshly picked produce. The fire station apples had to ripen for a couple weeks before they were tasty, so I really appreciated this batch of apples. Of course, we had to pick at the fire station when we did, or else they would have been picked by all the other taxpayers (and they didn't ask permission like we did!).

Some peaches were converted to peach butter. I'll probably make more since the peaches do not keep well. And I've got more than a few being kept. With only two ingredients (sugar and peaches) the butter is very easy to make (and yummy, too). I always remember _The Grapes of Wrath_ when I pick peaches. My peach jam that I made earlier has less chunks than the Target brand peach jam, so my kids are pretty happy with it.

Our pears are being stored. Probably half of them went into Ginger Pear Jam this morning. It's a lovely taste. I made my own recipe based on ingredients I had and research that I performed a while ago -- 4 c. cut up pears + 1/3 c. ginger root + 5 c. sugar + pectin = Three pints jam.

Last night, I bought a Blue Book for $1.48. I've read through most of it, but I'm not being inspired to make anything in it at the moment. Maybe I'll get crazy at the next farmer's market, or make it up to Turtle Farm's farm stand and buy things to can, but most likely I'll just hang out at home.

Just peachy

I have a bushel of peaches in my dining room. They are leftover from a canning marathon yesterday. Over 50 quarts and a dozen pint jars of peaches, plus half a dozen pints of peach jam. I have decided to bake peach goods, for freezing. I think the garage is cold enough to turn the deep freeze on.

I came home from the marathon to find my name cut out of paper. You can see it to the right of my pint jar. Must have been "I" of GAIN.

Fruity

Can you smell the fruit from our house?

We're full of fruit. We spotted a pear tree in a public place yesterday and plan to visit it. This picture shows a small bit of what we have at our house. This particular picture contains fruit from the fire station. When I called to ask permission, the man on the phone was speechless. Evidently people stop all the time to pick apples, but no one has ever asked. Until now. I guess I'm really polite.

We started picking apples and pears and just went crazy because it was fun. Mr. GAIN asked, "What are we going to do with all of those?" We gave a lot away to some homeschool friends over the next week -- and we still have a roasting pan heaping full of apples and pears here at the house. They have ripened nicely and are great tasting! I wish the apples were eating AND baking fruit. The pears seem to be good for both eating and baking. I am trying to figure out how to can them. I don't know if I have the right gear to do it, and that is what I'll research tonight. I need to move them to the fridge. In the meantime, I can make the following killer recipes: ginger-pear sauce (yummy on waffles) and apple-pear-cranberry pie (mmm).

"I" of GAIN recently spied an apple tree near the train tracks. "A" of GAIN and I stopped and picked some -- nice yellow apples, spicy flavor. I should have taken our apple picker since the tree was on a steep slope. We could barely reach the fruit. I still have to cook one on the stovetop to test for cooking flavor. They are in the refrigerator.

We were able to pick apples from my great-uncle's orchard over Labor Day weekend. His house, next to my family's home place, now belongs to non-family. It was nice to visit the place and see that the trees weren't taken down.

My sister also let me pick a couple peaches from her tree -- they rock! Her tree branches are ridiculously low to the ground, heavy with fruit. We ought to take before and after pictures, and weigh the produce. She predicted this would happen in June. She's so smart.