Harvest Time!

I forgot to take pictures, but I've turned into "Suzy Homemaker" this week.

I am currently canning 7 quarts of marinara sauce. I started this morning with a big box of tomatoes from our garden, and grabbed only things from our garden (except for garlic and Italian seasoning) to make sauce. Tomatoes, a few carrots, some zucchini, basil, parsley, onion, green pepper, and a couple of bright red cayennes. I cooked that down, and used my magic immersion blender to blend together (didn't even peel the tomatoes!) and then cooked it some more. It's now in the pressure canner, and I can't wait to put the jars on the pantry shelves!

I made a batch of soap two days ago, and need to bottle 12 gallons of wine and keg 10 gallons of rye pale ale.

Sometimes I LOVE "housework"!

 

Don't rush me!!!!! The hops aren't quite ready yet. I have cascade, chinook, and centennial that look wonderful and should be harvested in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, there is also wild rice to harvest in a week or so, plus whatever wild fruits we can find for wine. There are NO chokecherries this year, or apples, due to the incredibly warm spring followed by a frost.

 

I've been doing smaller batches, and trying more things. I have a great recipe for coconut milk soap- you know, the canned stuff for my Thai curries. I need to find a cheaper supply of coconut oil, but I am really into the organic stuff so it's just going to be more expensive.

Last night, I mixed up some whipped shea body butter for a friend. I've made lip balms and salves and lotions. I'm having a good time with it!

 

I will try to remember to send you my favorites! The chocolate/peppermint bars were my favorite so far, but I have high hopes for the newest batch.

We have a friend giving us ALL of their grapes this year- we just have to go harvest them tomorrow. So in thanks, I made her a gift package:


I forgot to include a photo of the tin of body butter, though. The soaps aren't ready yet, as they still need more curing time to be perfect, but I think they'll be good!

 

Thanks for the link! I've been getting mine from essentialoilsdepot.com. I'll check out your link now.

 

Oh, and Bob did harvest the chinook hops while I was at work on Friday!

The cascades aren't quite ripe enough yet, and neither are the centennials.

I'm not harvesting the hallertauer at all, and I didn't get any willamette this year. The northern brewer and EKGs are first year plants, so I didn't even look at them yet.

 

I actually have more harvest photos, well sort of!

I went to my friend's house, and Bob and I picked a TON of these:





The garlic was from her garden.

Now, I have to admit we didn't "harvest" the little steer. but he will be butchered in about 6 weeks and we're taking 1/2. It's Scottish Highland, all grass fed (except for the apples she and Bob are giving them!).

We checked the wild rice in the river, and it's not ready yet.

 

Today I'm making soap with the tallow she gave me. I'm making a beer soap! I'll post pictures later on.

 

Well, it's hard to take pictures while making soap, but I took a few!

I can do a little soap tutorial someplace else if anybody is interested. But here are some starting photos:











You can see that the soap looks orange in the picture, as the beer mixed in and it darkened but it's not really orange- it's more of a tan.

The fat was rendered, but it still needed to be strained. I strained it though cheesecloth after melting, and then weighed it.

There are some things to note- safety is important! Googles, gloves, etc, are imperative when working with lye. Chemical burns are no joke!

I didn't get to take any pictures of the beer soap tracing and getting poured into the mold. But the last picture is the second batch, which is a tallow/coconut oil/olive oil soap, with a little chocolate added in a swirl. My chocolate soaps have been a bit hit with my women friends!

 

A few more photos:




I use silicone loaf pans, so the soap pops out easily.

The soaps are insulated in a box, wrapped in a towel so they hit a "gel" stage. Tomorrow they will come out of the mold and be cut, then put in a dry place to cure for about 8 weeks.

 

Ok, I will! I don't have a ton of photos, as it's hard to do it, and photograph it at the same time. But I think I could write up something soon.

Today, I did the soap and some marinara sauce while Bob went out to the river with a friend. I picked up him just a bit ago, and here's what he had to show for his effort:


While I was waiting for him, I went over to lschiavo's camp, and we killed a growler of my rye pale ale while waiting. I think I had more fun drinking with him than Bob did on the river!

 

We went out to harvest wild rice today. It's very labor intensive, and the hard part comes later with the processing- this was the easy part.

One person "poles" the canoe through the wild rice bed. It's hard to do, as you have to stand and push the canoe through grass (wild rice is a grass). One person uses the "knocker sticks" and pulls the rice over the canoe and taps it with the other stick to get most of the rice that falls off in the bottom of the canoe.

Wild rice grows in muck bottoms, so it's a tough job to pole the canoe as well as getting the canoe in and out of the river. We spent about 4 hours today, and got 45 pounds of rice. When processed, it'll be about half that amount due to removing the husks.

The wild rice has little barbs on it, so you need to protect your head/eyes/body but it's really hot too so I usually wear a T-shirt and just put up with tons of microscopic cuts on my arms and legs while Bob covers himself fully.

Here are a few pictures of us today:










Tomorrow, I'm harvesting cascade hops. The chinook are already in the freezer. The centennial hops aren't ready yet.