The Food Post

I know I have been writing a lot about food and baking lately on the blog, so I wanted to take a post here to show some photos and share a little bit about what I have been up to. Some projects have been solo endeavors and others with either Stephanie or Carol. There is something very satisfying about making a home-cooked meal from scratch, especially when using ingredients one has grown oneself. 

Again, as a disclaimer: I'm no food photographer! I'll try to get better if I keep posting food images, but... no promises! 

One of the first things Stennie and I did when she got here was mix up a batch of pie crusts. We made four crusts and formed them into discs. Three went into the freezer and one was made into a crust for this delicious pie:

Wishing I had taken a photo of a slice of pie so you could see the key lime part... 

This pie is a key-lime pie topped with fresh raspberries. The limes came from my Bountiful Basket and the berries were from Carol's raspberry thicket. Stennie and I did the crust together, but I whipped up the custardy lime filling on my own. I had never made anything custard-like before, and was really pleased with how it turned out.

It was a big hit at dinner that night, too. I carried it over to Tom and Carol's in this wonderful food carrier:

Made by Nancy |Olson

This was something I received at my bridal shower up here on the Hi-Line about three and a half years ago. It was made by a local woman who has since passed away. It's a perfect carrier for harvest-time meals, potlucks, or any time one is taking food to and fro.

Another plentiful garden vegetable right now is green beans. A few days after Carol returned from her vacation, we picked and canned these green beans as bean pickles, or dilly beans as some people call them. The contents are simple: green beans, dill heads, garlic, red pepper flakes, sugar, salt, cider vinegar. Canned using the hot water bath method, they are pretty simple and very delicious! I like bean pickles on grilled brats especially well in the summer, but they're also delightful eaten plain. 

The beans, garlic, pepper flakes, and dill have been packed into jars and are awaiting the hot cider vinegar solution, then to be processed. 

Carrots are also plentiful in the garden this year. I am really loving these rainbow carrots we planted. I think the colors are very beautiful. They look like a sunset in carrot form, some of them. We have been noticing that they vary in strength of carroty flavor depending on the color. The white ones are very mild, yellow is slightly stronger, orange tastes like a normal carrot, and the red ones are even more carroty. They are all delicous!

With the most recent Bountiful Basket, I also ordered a case of peaches. I have had a few questions from people as to the quality of the peaches, so I thought I'd answer those here. The peaches came from Washington. They were very sweet and lovely flavored. They weren't too big or too small in size. There was not a single unusable peach in the box. The whole thing was great in every aspect. 

Including, baked into peach pie! 

This was another tag-team effort between me and Stennie. We pulled two pie crust discs out of the freezer ahead of time and rolled one into the bottom crust and the other into a top-crust, destined to be a lattice crust. We had a lot of fun cutting the strips for the lattice top and weaving them together. It can be a bit tedious to accomplish, with several trips back and forth between countertop and freezer to keep the butter in the crust cool, but.... 

In the end, the pie turned out so beautiful and delicious, that it was well worth the effort! 

We shared the peach pie at a neighborhood dinner with some dear friends and family. It was a nice treat, especially with a little ice cream! 

My recipe made 9 pint jars of peaches in a light simple syrup.
I used those two books as references. 

With the remaining peaches from my case, I decided to tackle another canning project. I had never canned fruit straight-up before, so this was a fun process. I was delighted at how simple it was, too, especially contrasted with making marinara sauce, which is highly involved and usually takes me about two days to get through all the steps. The peaches only took about two hours, including blanching and peeling, packing into jars, making simple syrup and filling the jars, and processing. Stennie's help is also another big reason why the canning process went quickly and smoothly. I can't wait to open a jar on a cool fall or winter day for a little bit of canned sunshine and love from summer!

We've had many other delicious meals and baked goods, from homemade pizza to canned meat dinner. Stay tuned to the blog for updates on all our culinary adventures!