summer bounty

A neighbor dropped of some cukes last Saturday. I was excited! This year I wanted to make pickles, but more garden is a major flop this year. I have never bottled cukes for pickles, unless piccalilly counts. They were fun and easy. I can't wait for October when I can open a jar.

I've also been able to get my hands on free onions, blueberries, and apricots. We dried the onions; these onions are dried strips that Steven wants to reconstitute for fajitas. I primarily diced the onions for drying. A friend recommeded freezing onions because that is what she does. So I did and now my deep freeze smells like onions. Hopefully the other foods won't take on the onion flavor. We'll see how that turns out.

The middle jar is blueberry pie filling. Who would have known that here in little ole Mattawa there was an organic blueberry patch that I could wander, feast and pick at my leisure. I can't even begin to tell how good they tasted. We ate tons. So much in fact that my little guy literally had blue buns (hope that wasn't too much info). I dried blueberries, bottled some, froze them, made blueberry butter which is out of this world, syrup that is fantastic, and pie filling.

The 3rd bottle is apricot nectar. We like to mix it up as a drink either alone, with pineapple, orange juice, or Hawaii's Own mango drink. I did make one batch of jam. I made apricot jam years ago but no one really liked it. Well that tune has changed. We can broaden our jam/jelly spectrum to include apricot jam.

The Lord has blessed us through the generosity of others. Looking forward to grapes for juice, and bottling peaches, potatoes, and maybe carrots. I still have a lot of Applesauce from previous years along with green beans, and tomatoes canned or sauced. I am thinking that I might pressure cook some chili, beef, and soups. I let you know how that goes.