When The Raspberries Came to Town: Jam & Pie

The raspberry craze continued at The Homestead, only it got a little crazier.

A co-worker gave me about 2lbs of raspberries in addition to the berries I picked myself. It's not like berries last forever so a serious "housewife" day was in order.

First up was jam. We decided to use this recipe from this cute little blog, Laura Rebecca's Kitchen. It was a fairly fast concoction considering it was freezer jam and not the full-on cooked variety. We strained as many seeds out of the crushed berries as we could while still having enough berry mixture, and I'd recommend it. Seeds can be so irritating. After letting the jam sit for 24 hours it was ready to be taste-tested. Super sweet but excellent with Earth Balance on baguette. Behold.

Up next came Raspberry Nectarine Pie. Wow. I think this might be my favorite pie of all time. Tart and sweet and beautiful colors. The crust was perfect and not overwhelming. I was actually sad when I opened the fridge and found an empty place where the pie had been. In the spirit of Waitress we named it "Housewifery Out of Control Pie."

We used this recipe from this other cute little blog, Participation Breeds Revolution, and this recipe for the crust. We made two pies at once...Molly on one, and me on the other. One went straight to our tummies, the other to our neighbors as a "thank you" for being vigilantes about our chickens and caterpillar invasion, in addition to just being cool laid back neighbors.

Watch the process.

What else was there for us to do but fully take on the role of housewife?

(more Housewifery-Out-of-Control photos here)

When The Raspberries Came to Town: Muffins

Having approximately 5lbs of raspberries in the fridge of course prompted "Raspberry Baking Day." My friendly friend, Taune, came over for a few flour flying hours of putting our raspberries to good use.

She decided to make this little number. I can't really tell you how well it turned out... there was a mishap with the baking time and my sample was actually raw. But... I was told that an extra 25 minutes in the oven produced delicious cake-like White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Bars (not vegan).

I opted for raspberry muffins. Finding a recipe was surprisingly difficult. I decided to use this one, with a few changes (soymilk for milk, egg replacer for eggs, Earth Balance for butter).

I liked the result, but so did the fruit flies.

When The Raspberries Came to Town: Picking

Raspberry season took my house by storm this year. Lucky for me I work near a berry farm and have a friend who will pick me up at 3pm and take me out for some berry picking. Picking your own berries is clearly the superior choice to buying your berries at the supermarket. You can support your local farms, have a fun experience with friends, and pay about half as much as you would at the store. Nice deal. I think I picked about 5lbs this year.

Blog War: Milk Duds

Milk Duds are gross. Like I needed to tell you that.

It was in childhood when I first made the fatal mistake of ingesting a Milk Dud. I’m almost certain it was under the care of my aunt who regularly shoveled us full of Little Caesars Pizza, macaroni and cheese, and in one undocumented circumstance, grass from the backyard. (Was it any wonder vomiting almost always concluded our visits?) Plunking the chocolate coated caramel in my mouth I anticipated the sweet crunch of the all too similar in appearance yet not in taste Whopper. While my young mind was thinking, “Who the hell orchestrated that trick?” my young mouth uttered a succession of confused whimpers. I never made that mistake again.

Approximately 19 years later I find myself sitting next to a box of Milk Duds. Despite the encouraging claim on the box, “35% Less Fat Than the Average of the Leading Chocolate Candy Brands” I find that I am unable to even pull back the perforated flap. Is it possible for a candy to make you sick via proximity alone?

What about this candy is appealing to people? The name alone implies failure. This is America and Americans don’t like failure, right? Well actually… the original plan was for Milk Duds to be perfectly round (like the Whopper!) but that was impossible. The candy was dubbed a “dud”. But that didn’t stop Philo J. Holloway. So technically what we have here is a good ol’ American tale of slapping a clever name on a disappointing product and hauling in currency.

But let’s take it down to the ingredients. I’ll waive the sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, and remaining list of sweeteners. It is candy after all. My real problem concerns the basics: chocolate and caramel. Let’s take a hideous, goopy, sticky substance and cover it with chocolate so the unsuspecting child won’t know what she’s really dealing with here, Aunt Jeanie. Just like cement is the adhesive that holds together our civilization, caramel is the cement that holds together Candyland. And who the hell wants to eat cement? Chew a Milk Dud and your jaw is firmly locked for a good second or two. If you manage to swallow the glob, the residue still lingers. Hello tooth decay and a life riding the city bus. (Being a city bus rider myself, I can confidently claim that tooth loss and bus passes are a natural pair, but don’t ask me to explain it). Moving beyond the obvious perils, it’s just not all that creative, is it?

Let’s consider a few alternatives:
Raisinets… practically a health food!
The Butterfinger… if it’s good enough for Bart Simpson…
Fun Dips… hours of sticky sugar filled fun, and cheap too!

No, there’s no reason one should ever resort to Milk Duds. And don’t let this guy tell you otherwise. Ok, there may be one circumstance where Milk Duds come in handy, but I’m fairly certain the candies ended up in the bin.

More From The Garden

I am loving watering the garden every day. It is bursting forth with good things.

The first pea harvest:

The first green bean harvest:

And the "I don't think these carrots were quite ready yet" harvest:

Bee Box or The Project That Never Was

Some time around February or March a friend suggested we make bee boxes. (The point of a bee box is to make a place where mason bees can lay eggs in hopes of the bees pollinating your flowers). Ever since I've been trying to explain to people why there's a chunk of wood on my kitchen table.

"So... what's that...?"
"Oh... that's my bee box..."
"A bee box...?"
"Yeah... um... well... it's not really finished... what happened was..."

And it's too late in the season, so it probably never will be. But... our intentions were good. This is the story of the Bee Box or The Project That Never Was.

So way back in March a friend proposed the idea of making bee boxes. We didn't exactly have the right tools or materials, but a little improvisation never hurt anymore. No block of wood? No problem, found one on the side of the road. No saw? No problem, we'll work our muscles with a hatchet.

We started out drilling holes around the wood Taune found on the side of the road. It was fairly difficult because the wood was still wet inside.

Next we hacked and hacked and hacked to split the wood into two usable pieces.

Then we had to wait several weeks (probably closer to 2 months) with the wood propped up against the heat register to dry it out. Shortly thereafter we began to drill the holes that the bees live in...except... the drill battery died... and so did the project.

So now I have a chunk of wood with a few holes drilled into it sitting on my kitchen table that never fails as a conversation starter.

Garden Update

So I came back from Peru (you can see photos here) to find that my garden had exploded while I was gone. Very exciting... except for the peas and green beans that I had not staked appropriately before leaving.

I really wasn't expecting the peas to grow 4 feet! That's more than a foot a week! Since I hadn't staked them properly they were growing all over the ground and tangling up on each other. I sorted it the best I could. (These were left over peas that didn't fit with the others that have a climbing net... that's why they are in a pot.)

My first harvest was this romaine lettuce. It was very crisp and just lovely. We made it into a salad after washing it very thoroughly... little bugs up in there!

With the salad we had Potato Corn Chowder in soup form (I didn't feel like washing the blender). It is a favorite soup to make and is great with summer corn.

It has been fun to come home and cook with all the fresh fruit and vegetables from the garden and the farmer's makert. Ah, the best part of summer.