Archive for July, 2010
Red, White and Blueberry
I always look forward to this time of year. It gives me a chance to reflect upon our great nation, with the liberties and freedoms we enjoy, regardless of budgets and economies and politics and climates. My mind turns to those, known and not known, who have paid the ultimate price to preserve what I enjoy every day.
Our small town celebrates the 4th with a community-wide picnic at the local park. Hundreds of families spread out on blankets eating fried chicken, potato and macaroni salad, watermelon and a festive dessert, while they wait for the military fly by and of course a wonderful fireworks display.
This time of year is a busy one on our suburban homestead. Veggies are picked daily and canning is a weekly occurrence. It’s also a time that we share the bounty of our farm with friends and family. And now I want to share some of our favorites with all of you.
Red Raspberry Crisp
1 quart raspberries
1/3 cup sugar
½ cup butter
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cup rolled oats
Blend butter, flour, brown sugar and rolled oats. Spread half over bottom of 9-inch baking pan. Sprinkle raspberries with sugar and spread over oat mixture. Top with remaining oat mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Serves 6.
Serve a warm or at room temperature with homemade whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
White Peach Cheesecake
Base
3 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup flour
Body
24 ounces cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
3 eggs
16 ounces white peaches, peeled, pitted and sliced
1/4 cup Amaretto
Base
Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in egg.
Add flour; mix well. Spread dough onto bottom of 9-inch spring form pan. Bake at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes.
Body
Combine cream cheese, sugar and flour, mixing at medium speed on electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add peaches and liqueur; mix well.
Pour over crust. Bake at 450 degrees, 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees F; continue baking 1 hour and 5 minutes. Loosen cake from rim of pan; cool before removing rim of pan. Chill.
Garnish with toasted almond slices and additional peach slices, if desired.
Blueberry Jam
9 cups fresh blueberry puree
6 cups sugar
Wash and remove stems. Discard any bruised or damaged berries. Using an immersion blender, blend berries until smooth. Measure after each batch until you have 9-cups. Pour into large stock pot and add sugar. Bring mixture to a boil and cook for 20-30 minutes. Jam is ready when it is thick, jamlike and sticks slightly to the bottom of the pan.
Pour into hot, scalded half-pint jars, leaving ½-inch headspace, and seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Makes 9 half pints.
Because the blueberries are blended the consistency of the jam will have a fruit butter texture.
photo credit: Rubber Slippers In Italy
Not Burning Daylight
There is a cool late afternoon breeze outside our little farmhouse as I type. It’s a welcome change compared to just a few short days ago, when the days were warm and summer seemed to break out into its normal weather patterns. Days are longer too. It’s light enough to work until almost 8:30PM.
After work I took time out to play with the dogs, water the garden, let the chickens out to run around and check the progress of Brianne’s market lambs. This has been an ambitious year for our little homestead. Between the garden, the animals, the shows, job, school…all of it feeling more intense than years past, more intense than I ever imagined when I first started this blog.
I had no idea my life would lead me to a homestead in suburbia, to raising sheep, rabbits, and chickens… Yet here I am, writing you fresh from a short nap on my back lawn. I fell asleep because I stopped moving. I have found this to be a common side effect of what are suppose to be the lazy days of summer.
I love our little farm, but this month has taught me a new kind of tired. I have never been this consistently sore and exhausted in my life. It’s the kind of work that leaves you aching, reeling, and hopeful at the end of every day. It is a lucky place to find yourself. To know you’re alive and healthy enough to take care of others, and make dinner rise out of the ground like Lazarus himself.
We use up every minute of daylight at the end of the day. There is so much to be done – plant, feed, water, tend. We’ve been doing battle with ground squirrels, rabbits and gophers that have wrecked havoc on our garden. Sometimes I feel that with the fairs coming up quickly it may be fruitless to replant. Literally. Fortunately we have a long growing season so there is still time to plant beds of root crops for winter canning. Over a long weekend I can replant squash and beans and maybe even a short harvest pumpkin patch. I do this all for the October that I love dearly.
Brianne’s show sheep are doing well and in just a few short weeks we’ll be off to the state fair. The chicks we hatched in March are getting bigger by the day and we finally identified the young roosters. Their adolescent crowing is a dead give away, a contorted combination of crooning and gagging. They’ll be taken to the feed store and given away. We’ve already made a winter’s batch of blueberry jam and we have a date with friends to make salsa and pickles next week. All is well here on our little homestead, and I know in my heart that all this work is not wasted. You pay it forward in this world, and I’m happy to shell out. Come fall we’ll be eaten like kings in spite of the four-legged varmints that mock our efforts.
Music seeps through the open windows, the dogs roll in the cool grass, there’s still a glint of daylight as I finally put dinner on the table. Fall is not far off, folks. Not far off at all.
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