No wonder she picked it

Of all of the fruit picking that we do around here, apples are my favorite. Quick, shady, and cheap- for these reasons, I pick numerous times over the course of the fall. Only with apple picking do I get a fulfillment of my expectations of how the experience will really be- a nice brisk walk up the hill, twenty minutes of humming quiet while I pretend I'm twelve and climb up to the higher limbs thinking of how resourceful and fabulous I am to be climbing trees for cheap apples, a back spasm on the way down the hill as I carry a really heavy bag of apples, pay my 12 bucks plus an extra 75 cents for an apple cider donut and I'm off to contemplate my many many apples. I must say that most fruit picking experiences don't work out this easily (although they are all totally worth it, sunburn, tick bites and all), but apples are just like that. Last week, I picked a half bushel of honeycrisps, and my kids are eating two to three of these a day.
Of course apple recipes are as numerous as apple varieties. but here's a good one for apple bread adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It's kind of healthy and works pretty well for school lunches.

Apple Bread

2 Cups coarsely grated apple (you can keep the skins on if you like)
3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. lemon rind
1/3 cup light brown sugar
4 Tbs. melted butter
1 large egg, beaten

1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup finally chopped nuts (whatever you have around except peanuts)

Combine grated apple, lemon juice and rind.
Beat together sugar, butter and egg. Combine with apple.
Sift dry ingredients together into a mixing bowl. Make a well, and pour in the first mixture. Add vanilla and nuts. Stir until combined.
Spread into buttered loaf pan.
Bake 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees.
Makes one loaf.

the great tomato debate

For the second week in a row, as I was picking my farm share, I once again thought that it was a fabulous idea to purchase a box filled with 25 pounds of tomatoes that needed to be dealt with within the next 6 hours. No matter that I have had a rough time of freezing tomatoes. My eyes went all glassy and I probably mumbled something about food for the winter. And that is how I found myself making tomato sauce at 11:00 last night.
People make all sorts of claims on the freezability of tomatoes. All I know is the ways that I have tried have resulted in me defrosting curdled tomatoes with a texture of really old milk. So I'm trying it two ways this year. Last week's tomatoes I treated in the following manner:

Core and quarter the tomatoes. Spread on a parchment lined backing sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and fresh herbs and crushed garlic if you wish. Roast in a 400 degree oven until the tomatoes dry out, about an hour. If you have more time, roast in a 250 degree oven for two to four hours, and this will be a bit more superior. Cool and load into freezer bags. This is the method prescribed by my friend Elizabeth Keen of Indian Line Farm. And she certainly knows how to deal with an excess of tomatoes.

Last night (and nearly into the morning), however, I made sauce. And let it be known here that I have always been lazy with my tomato sauce. I don't tend to take the skins off, and I have never "coaxed the seeds out" as Alice Waters puts it. But last night, I did it all. And oh, the horror.


Yup, I really showed those tomatoes. Here is my recipe...

Ingredients:
25 pounds of tomatoes
4 White onions (I used fresh eating onions), diced
2 heads of garlic, diced
the leaves of 3 large stems of basil, roughly chopped
fresh oregano leaves (to taste)
3/4 cup really good olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Set aside a large work area. Cut a small t in the bottom of each tomato (thank you Molly for this tip). Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for about a minute, or until the skin starts to separate. Then drop in ice water for a moment. Peel off the skins.
Okay, here's the part where you make a big mess and stop wanting to ever see a tomato again.
Core and seed the skinless tomatoes. I did the majority of this work with my hands, but a knife will come in handy at times. Try to preserve as much of the meat as possible. And save whatever juice you can scoop up from the counter.
Get a very large pot. Heat the olive oil a bit, throw in the onions and then stir them around every so often for about 10 minutes, or until they are nice and shiny. Then add the garlic, then the tomatoes and juice. Gently boil for about 45 minutes, adding the herbs, salt and pepper along the way. Cover, then bring to a full boil. Don't take the lid off! Turn off the stove and finally fall into bed. Your sauce will stay sealed and sterile all night, and the flavors will meld. (Thank you Molly, again) In the morning, cook uncovered for another 30 minutes or so. Then, eith put some of the sauce in the blender for a few seconds, or better yet, use an immersion blender till it's blended but still chunky. Cool and freeze.

So those are the two methods. In a few months, we will revisit this issue, to see how they froze.

I can hardly bear the suspense...

Breakfast With Elmer

There is a little town in the hills of Western Massachusetts called Ashfield. It is a mysterious town, not quite close to anything, but in itself it is a mecca for those desiring the certain food experience that Ashfield has to offer. Beyond the single block main street, there are a plethora of farms that offer angelically raised meat, raw milk, and perfect and chemical free tomatoes. Ashfield is also the home of the New England Cheese Making Supply Company, the spiritual center of home cheesemakers nationwide.
On this beautiful autumn Sunday morning however, I didn't come to worship the homemade cheese or to take my children to the llama farm. I came to have breakfast at Elmer's.
Elmer's has all of the traditionally fabulous elements of a local breakfast place. Almost all of the ingredients on the menu are locally sourced. The eggs are a deep pasture-fed yellow and the bread is made right there in the kitchen. They even give a choice between powdered hot chocolate and real melted chocolate hot chocolate (there must be people out there who like the powder better, I guess).
What brings Elmer's into the realm of the extraordinary, however, is the fact that the food is really, really good. It is worth a very long drive, even with gas prices as they are. The eggs, homemade toast, and sausage patty nearly brought me to my knees in that Sunday morning house of breakfast worship. The pancakes are cloud-like and you can even order a plate of 35 pieces of french toast for $105.50 if you are really hungry and really rich.

For those of us with more humble means, breakfast runs between about 5 and 9 bucks, but you'll like your waitress so much that you'll spend you're grocery money on the tip. And after breakfast, there's a little store to walk around, with everything from local potatoes to fancy candy. And we must take a saunter saunter around the store, as we all know that no trip out is complete without the experience of at least one child throwing a tantrum because they cannot have an Elmer's T-Shirt.

Okay, so maybe skip the store if there are small children involved. But definitely eat Breakfast.

Canning the Guilt

So I'm new to this whole putting up food for the winter idea. And although I am wildly enthusiastic about the process of food preservation, the reality is not always as perfect as I imagine. Warm, fabulous smelling kitchen, the rosy glow on my cheeks as my daughters and I stir jam together, then lining up the many colored jars with our own special sticker that we created together.
Maybe other people have this experience. But let me share my first jamming experience last summer: 40 pounds of quickly rotting blueberries needing to get canned right now, even though it is 105 degrees outside, the logistics of my kitchen preventing me from getting jars in and out of my canning pot, giving into my screaming children and letting them watch Mary Poppins...twice, well, let's just say that jam was extra salty from all of my tears.
So now I only can in other people's kitchens, and I made the very important purchase of a chest freezer. When I bought this freezer, I said, I will preserve everything.
Now it is September. And I am finding that I am having trouble keeping up with my own ambitions. But I keep on reminding myself that this is a process. Like gardening, I'll get more comfortable with it every year. So I'm trying really hard not to feel guilty that I have frozen no green beans! No corn! (yet). But I do have twenty or so jars of blueberry chili jam that I made with a friend in her spacious and beautiful kitchen far away from my children. I have a few bags of frozen peaches. And as of the last two days, I have roasted and frozen 25 lbs of tomatoes, and this makes me feel a lot better.