Raisin Experiments

Things have been rather hot and steamy here in the Bay Area as we are experiencing a bit of a late summer heat wave. During this time, I have been scaling back the canning because it is no fun in the heat to stand over bubbling pots of hot liquids. I decided to try my hand at drying grapes into raisins. I love fresh raisins from the farmer's market, but often times I just cannot justify the expensive price tag. I thought that perhaps I could get similar results at home with my dehydrator as the grapes dried in the sun.

After a good washing, I decided to follow the guide book and blanch the grapes in boiling water. My dehydration book suggested a three minute dip in the water, but I think this was just too much. The skins of the grapes split open and the flesh started cooking. I think the next time I make raisins I will just not blanch them and see what color loss I have. The split skins made for a sticky finished product.

From there the grapes had to be plucked off of their stems and placed onto the drying sheets. This was made a bit harder due to not only the split skins but the searing heat the grapes retained long after being taken out of the water bath. The nice thing about making my own raisins though is that I can make sure there are no little pieces of stem still attached to the finished product. Nothing is more annoying than eating oatmeal or a cookie or other baked item and finding stems in your food.

The grapes were rather large, so the estimated drying time was quite off. It took nearly a full day for them to dry rather than the 10 hours the books predicted. There were also some still way too hydrated to store, so I just ate them immediately. I am not sure which type we are going to like better. The flame grapes have an almost candy like flavor and texture to them. It is more similar to a date rather than a raisin. I also love their bright pinkish purple color.

The black grapes look and taste more like commercially produced grapes. The biggest problem with them is the size. They were not dry for quite some time, and they also were quite sticky due to the split skins. They are, however, the nice dark color that grapes generally have. I will have to stir some into oatmeal soon to determine if I like them better. If I do, I will be buying end of the day grapes for the dehydrator soon.

I could not leave the canning completely behind. I did do a small batch of Brittany apricot jam yesterday. It was a hot job even in the morning. From there it was on to reorganizing the sewing room. There is a lot of sorting and putting away to be done after the big "renovation" that I did. I had to make room for the new computerized cutter, so furniture was cleared off and moved around the room. I like the new layout of the room much better than any of the other incarnations. The computer is now easier to use as the glare from the windows is no longer a factor, and the sewing table is closer to the windows for some much needed natural light. Now I just need to sort through all these little odds and ends that I have wanted to organize for some time. I think this requires a trip to the store for some organizational bins, my biggest weakness. There is a mess to clean and new software to learn. If you don't hear from me for a while it is because I am cutting up a storm with the new cutter!

Busy Harvest

I have been so busy this late summer that I wonder when it is all going to slow down. I suppose it will not really happen until winter, and that brings its own time full of things to do. Last week was very busy with the rebuilding of the tent at 826 Valencia. I spent quite a while on Tuesday and Wednesday over there working on the massive project. More on that tomorrow with a detailed posting with pictures.

Thursday was spent teaching a friend all about canning. I am by no means an expert canner, and call on my mother and sister as well as another good friend for guidance often. They are all able to send me in the right directions. I BARTed out to where she could more easily get to me, and we headed out into the country for some farm stand goodness. I was happy to be out of the city for a day and enjoy seeing nothing around me but wind farms, brown grass, and fruit trees. There was even some corn fields to make me feel like I was back in Illinois. We found good peaches at one stand, and at another there was some of the famous Brentwood sweet corn that Annie assured me would be just as good as my missed peaches and cream variety from Illinois. She was right, it is just as good. At the stand where I got the corn, he also had these wonderful green variety of figs that are pretty common around this part of California. They have a sweet but smoky flavor, and I though they would be great for some jam. The farm owner, after realizing that I was making jam with them, brought us out a flat of figs that were too over ripe for selling at the stand but would be perfect for our cooking. Best of all, when I went to pay for the corn and figs, he gave us the 5 pounds of figs for free! I gave him a few dollars for them as I just could not take them with out giving something to him for the favor. I look forward to getting more corn from him soon!

Annie, being the food person that she is, wanted to learn to make jam not using the commercial pectin that we bought. I had not done that before and was willing to learn with a partner in cooking crime! We washed the figs off and blanched them for 10 minutes in boiling water to remove the natural wax and soften up the skins, which were already pretty soft.



From there, we opened up a bottle of wine and began destemming and rough chopping them up.



Then it was into the pot, adding a thermometer this time, and lots and lots of stirring. We learned the spoon test and also the cold saucer test for the jam. I found the spoon test to be very hard to learn, but the cold saucer really worked well. Before you start your jam, you place a couple of saucer in the freezer. Once your jam gets around 220 degrees Fahrenheit, you take a spoon of jelly and place it on one of the frozen plates and place that back in the freezer for three minutes. After that time, you run your finger through the middle of the jam puddle to look for correct jam texture for you. It was also nice because you got a preview of the finished product. Once the jam is at a proper jell for you, I like mine so that the two sides of the puddle do not come back together, you stop the cooking and start the canning. We ended up with five very full pints out of the free fruit.



We then moved on to cocktails and peach jam! We took less pictures of that one, but here I am stirring the pot of jam:



It was so fun! I also received some wonderful flowers this week from Dan. While I am not as great at arranging flowers as my mom, here was my attempt:



My flower arranging teacher in college said that when someone gets flowers for another person, they get them for anyone they pass by because seeing another person bringing flowers to someone brightens up the viewers day as well. I hope this brightens your day!

My posting is late today due in part to my need to use the light when I have it for pictures. I took several pictures for new hairflowers that I hope to list this week in the Etsy store. I am also going to list up more destash clasps and things that are great for jewelry makers out there. Today I am hopefully going to finish processing the rest of the bushel of apples in the new toy - a food dehydrator! It is fun and I love it. I am also going to get the house straightened around and cleaned a bit more. There is also fabric for Christmas presents to be tossed in the wash. Yes you read that right.... Christmas presents are going to be started waaaaaayyyy ahead this year so there will be less hair pulling and gnashing of teeth come December 20th. I want to make mailing deadlines before prices are through the nose again. Tomorrow I will have the tent wrap up finished with the pictures!

Gravenstein Apple Fair

We ended up embarking on the trip to the apple fair in Sebastopol, California this weekend. It was in interesting drive up to the fair, and it took way longer than any time estimates said it would due to the heavy traffic, two hours one way! We were rewarded, though, with a fair right out of the midwest. It took the edge off missing our steam show and threshing bee that I have gone to most years since I was a child. This fair had some of the same things, the early gas engine displays and church groups selling delectable foods, animal shearing, but it also had the added benefit of selling, by the bushel, my new apple obsession: the gravestein apple.

There was a train that pulled kids in homemade barrel cars:



And a maze made out of hay bails, which we could not go into because of my allergies to hay:



I even got to see a mohair sheep get shorn:



The biggest hit, besides Grandma's apple fritter stand, was the all you can drink yard of lemonade.





Dan and I loved this. After you bought your glass, you could drink as much lemonade as you wanted. The stand had two spigots coming out of it so it was serve yourself. The vendors would even fill up your glasses with more ice if you asked. It was a nice thing to be able to stay hydrated all day.

Once we came home, I started into applesauce making. We sorted the apples out into sauce and butter apples versus pie and eating apples. There were few apples with problems, and even those problems were small and only skin deep.



Dan would peel the apples while I cored and cut them up. We don't have a food mill, so we had to do this all the hard way, plus Dan likes chunky applesauce so a food mill is kind of out anyway. We put the apples in a pot with a little water and surprisingly little sugar due to how sweet they are naturally and let them all cook down.



I put the first two quarts full of this plain sauce into jars, and then I added some really nice cinnamon from Penzey's Spices into the pot to make two pints of cinnamon apple sauce. This way we can have plain or cinnamon when we want. We tend to eat more plain than cinnamon sauces, so it worked out nicely.



I hope that they work out. My mom said she always had a hard time keeping her applesauce jars sealed. I hope that these seals stick and that it does not go bad. We will have to see what time will bring. I will be monitoring them for the next week or so to see what develops, or hopefully does not develop!

Today I need to run to the fabric shops to gather some supplies for tomorrow's tent rebuild at 826 Valencia. I am also hoping to get some apple butter cooking away. First, though I need to call my sister, the apple butter queen, to get some recipe and technique advice. Hopefully I can get a hold of her soon! I also would like to get some more hand sewing done on those belts, so I can quit dragging my feet and get them listed. There is also some belt accessory experimentation that I need to do either today or tomorrow as well. So much to do in the late summer harvest season. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum and get a lot done this week!

More Jam and Letter Writing

I am up early today and feeling like I have already accomplished a ton even though that really is not the case. I used to be an early riser, a very early riser. When I was a teacher, I was up at 5 am each day to get to my job that was quite the hike from the house, but once we moved to California, I took on Dan's working hours. That means staying up late, 2 am ish, and then sleeping in till 8 or 9 if I am lucky. This has resulted in me feeling like I never get anything accomplished. Today, however, I got up with the rest of the civilized world at 7 am sharp. I had to meet the plumber who was replacing a broken fixture in our apartment, so being up and ready for the day was a must. There is just something though about being up and doing my computer work earlier that makes me feel like I have more of my day ahead of me. I just can't explain it.

Yesterday I dropped off the curtains at 826 Valencia, and while I took the camera to take a picture of the finished products, the hanging hardware was not in place yet. When I go back next week for tent reconstruction I will make sure to take plenty of pictures for the blog. I also got the apricot jam done. This is my best of the jams so far. I used a little less sugar than the recipe called for since the fruit is so ripe, and the texture of the jam is much better. It is not quite as stiff as the other things I have made.



I also used the half pint jars that I saved for this and apple butter. I have to say that while the pints will be good for applesauce, they seem just too big for jam. Perhaps when I have a bigger family they will see better, but the little jars are still my favorite.

The patio garden has been getting some visitors as of late:



We always get song birds and sparrows sitting on the railing, but lately two pairs of doves have come to visit. Sometimes they sit on the rail and do their preening; other times they come down on the deck and walk amongst the plants. It is always fun to watch the birds out the window when I need a sewing break.

Today in the shop, I am going to finish off correcting mistakes to the bottom ruffle of my personal skirt. Once that is finished, I am picking up one of the two belts that I started. I am leaning toward the upcycled one since that is closer to being finished. As soon as I need a break from that, I am going to write up some personal thank you notes that are long over due as well as a letter to my Grandmother that is also very tardy. I hope to make it to the Gravestien Apple Festival this weekend. It sounds like a mini Sycamore Steam Show Threshing Bee from Illinois, which I missed very much this year, but with an emphasis on apples instead of just steam. If that happens, I am going to see if I can buy a scant bushel of these apples for some apple butter and sauce. I have to say that the crisps made out of these was phenomenal. I meant to take a picture of them, but, well, they were immediately eaten. They are a really sweet but strong apple flavored fruit! Usually you get apple or sweet, but this is truly the best of both worlds. The canning will continue until I run out of jars and produce, or Dan calls a halt! :)

I am feeling inspired to sew, and since I have more of my day than usual ahead of me from my early morning, I hope it is truly productive.

Canning Setback

I have always been very sensitive to mold, and while it is usually a good thing, there are times when it is not so great. Mainly this has to do with my foodie side of things. I cannot eat things like blue cheeses, and while I would love to go into Cowgirl Creamery in the Ferry Building I cannot even get close to their stand. The mold rind and strong blue cheeses knock me out just passing by. When we were shopping for a house back in Illinois, our Realtor even joked that I should rent myself out to home buyers as I could detect both mold and mildew upon walking into a space. I instantly get stuffy and cough like a tuberculosis patient. So, you would think that I would listen to this reaction instantly, but when it started on Sunday at the Farmer's market, I ignored it. I just figured that I was still not over the Chaos Wars cold I caught. Well when I started to get things ready for making the strawberry jam yesterday, I learned why I was having such a stuffy nose and cough. The first layer of strawberries was really soft, and the bottom layers were completely molded through. I guess it will have to wait until I hit another stand on Sunday to buy another half flat. It was a sad state of things.

Today I have the curtains to sew for the 826 Tutoring Room I went to several stores looking for the correct shad of red in a fuzzy fabric, but the usual Pirate Store crimson was no where to be found. Right when I was about to give up, I found some neat looking crimson fabric by the door of a shop. I bought all that they had, and while it is enough to cover the space, I am not sure it will be full enough for a long term solution. We will have to see what Maria and the crew thinks about them when I bring them in this afternoon. After I do that, I am going to get the canning back in action and get the apricot jam processed. I also want to pick up my socks that I am learning to knit when I head into the city on BART. If there is enough time after all this, a crisp is in order with those great apples for tonight's dessert, and I would also like to pick up one of the belts I am working on again. I guess I should get to it and get some of this done. I feel inspiration coming on!