Quince...

A new tradition for us is making quince paste about this time of year.  Up until three years ago, I had never even seen a quince.  However, now I am thinking we need to plant our own quince tree.  I did manage to trade some walnuts for a few pounds of this pear/apple relative.

They are very hard and very bitter.

Yellow skin.  White flesh. 

Lots of quince paste (aka membrillo) directions online and in old cook books.  I simply 

core them, 

take out any ugly spots, 

chop them up, 

cook them 'til soft, (with a bit of water so they don't stick or burn)

run them through a food mill,

put the pulp back in the kettle,

add the same quantity of sugar as there is pulp.

And cook.

And stir.

And cook.

And stir.

For a very long time.

Until the yellow turns to a deep pink.

Until it is very thick and the path of a wooden spoon through it doesn't disappear immediately.

Then turn it into a pan covered with parchment paper.

I love parchment paper.

Put it on top of the fridge for about a week until it is dry and a little less stiff than a gummy bear.

I love cinnamon gummy bears

After that keep it covered and in the fridge.  It will last forever. 

Serve with a dry cheese.  I put some on a ham sandwich yesterday.  Yum.

Quince Paste/Membrillo

Crows..A Scene from Hitchcock

Dense, foggy morning, and dozens and dozens of crows.

I couldn't capture the numbers with my camera.  The crows were everywhere.
In the trees, the fields, on the lawn and the driveway.

Felt like a scene from The Birds.

100's of pounds of walnuts....done!

How many of these buckets of nuts have we picked in the past two weeks?

1000's?

Maybe it just feels like 1000's.

No more walnuts!

We both work really hard gathering the walnuts.

We get walnut stained fingers,

walnut stained knees,

and walnut stained clothes.

Now the walnuts are off to the dryers.

Should be home on Thursday.

2.25 per pound.

We have someone who would buy all of the nuts, but he will just ship them to China.

There they would be shelled and packaged,
in order to send them back to the US

to be sold in little cellophane bags at your local Wal-mart or Kroger store.

We don't want to be a part of that process.

So instead we sell them to folks who want 

local,

natural,

real

food.

We end up trading,

giving,

sharing,

the nuts with others.

There is something that is very gratifying about the whole process,
and also addictive.

Thank you big old wonderful walnut trees!

Orange

such a pretty time of year

The Forest Giveth.....

Perfect fall day

On the road to hunt for the elusive chanterelle

Will there or won't there be edible mushrooms?

The first chanterelle of the day

Another one

Old lobster mushroom.  Leave it.

A beautiful hike and mushrooms, too.

The bounty

8 pounds of forest goodness

Nothin' Much, You?

Wow! Summer really is over.  It took so long to get here, stayed but a minute and then skipped Autumn taking us right to November.  Dark cold rain.  But a great excuse to be finished with gathering, canning, freezing, drying food.  No more weeding.  No more mowing.  Seems like we hurry to do so much during the spring and summer that now I feel guilty when I slow down to read a good book or spend a day with my sewing machine.  I actually have to tell myself that it is okay to stop.  Just stop!

These next few weeks are a slow gift that I give myself.  It won't be long until the walnuts are ready to be harvested, dried, bagged and sold.  Work at the winery will pick up soon.  So I plan to own the next two weeks, slow things down to a comfortable crawl, be a turtle, do what I want, not be subject to all the "shoulds" that dictate a fast pace.

Sometimes it seems like life becomes an unannounced contest whereby the one who does the most is the undeclared winner.  Everyone trying to do more, faster, better than the next person.  I listen to the conversations around me.

"I picked 40 pounds of tomatoes out on Baker Creek."

"Well, I picked 70 pounds of heirloom tomatoes that I grew myself."

I think I will practice some different responses to the question, "What are you doing?"

• I have read 7 great books in the past week and 2 books that are just okay.
• I have arranged all the lace and ribbon in my lace box, and my buttons are now sorted according to size and color.
• I was just rearranging the dried beans into a mosaic so that our soups and "hot dishes" will be beautiful works of art this winter.
• I have spent the week looking out the window, waiting for the elk and the bluebirds to return.
• I have been playing marbles, cribbage, and just dithering the time away.
• I have been really busy watching Libby's hair grow so that I will know when she needs to be trimmed.

I have been counting the bees that come to the sunflower seeds.
I have been counting the sunflower seeds.
I have been counting the leaves on the sunflowers.
"He loves me.  He loves me not."

Hmmm, maybe I will just say, "Nothin' much.  You?"

Bean shelling time.....

A few years ago we started growing beans for drying.  We save the seed every year.  And every year the beans do better and better as they adjust for our short cold growing season.  Of course, growing a lot of beans has a down side.  All those beans have to be shelled, and we don't have some kind of shelling machine that takes care of that for us.  

Black Beans

The Peregion beans are the only Oregon native bean.  Pretty markings, good flavor.

Peregion Beans

We started with growing beans for drying with a bag of plain old kidney beans from the grocery store.  They have evolved over time from bush beans to semi-pole beans.

Kidney Beans

A year ago we tried garbanzo beans. That was pretty much a joke.  They only got to be the size of a pin head.  But it was a good experiment, though a failed one.

Besides shelling beans, we've been making tomato sauce, green and red salsas.  And yesterday I made blackberry ketchup.  We finally have ripe blackberries, saw the ketchup recipe and gave it a try.  Recipe says it will be good on pork chops.   

Tomato Sauce/Red Salsa

Also, lots and lots of pears this year.  Anyone have something wonderful that you do with pears?