Friday, September 29, 2006

Preserving the harvest

Thank you for all of the ideas.
For awhile I was ignoring the strong urge I have to make preserves in the interest of getting my kitchen up and running. The sink is in, I borrowed a friend's freezer, I have a fridge, stove and shelves. It's almost ready. Sadly, summer is almost over and since I mainly preserve local produce, my time was running out.
In a rush this week I made mainy things. Delicious pear butter which is still not as good as that made by the Ellen From Future Fruit who grows the pears.
I made a couple batches of apple jelly to use as pectin in other recipes. The first batch cam out fine but my ability to read directions got in the way of the next batch and instead of jelly I ended up with something with the texture of honey but with a distinct apple tang. I made a nutella and apple honey pannini with it. Yum! Sam thinks it will be perfect on biscuits. We will be at his parents this weekend and will give it a go.
I tried home made ajvar but the moral to that story is that if the store bought version blows your mind and is $3 for a big jar , you might as well get it at the store.
I picked raspberries at Blue Skies Berry Farm and had enough to make plain raspberry (enjoyed on an english muffin this AM- it is SO intensely flavored) Raspberry Peach and Raspberry Chocolate. I haven't finished the latter two yet but will hopefully post about them next week.
Keep the ideas coming and you may be rewarded with your very own jar of Raspberry Chocolate!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Oh, for the love...

I am terrible at naming things. When I bought the food cart, I had a contest with my friends- whoever came up with the best name got a case of beer. The cart became A La Carte and I was happy until later when my 8 yr. old step-daughter came up with the name Future Taco. Yup, that was better but it was to late.
Now the food cart is no more (anyone want to buy it?) and the time has come to name my new venture. I am going to sell my preserves and I need a name. For days I have been thinking about a name but it's getting a little ridiculous with ideas like "Fruitastic Preserves", etc. Can you help?

Here are the rules:

1) It can't have my name in it.
2) It needs to be relatively short and end in preserves- i.e. "Naked Berry Preserves"
3) I do jams, jellies, pickles, chutneys and syrups using fruit and vegetables so it should be inclusive. Naked Berry is actually my favorite so far but I have nixed it for this reason.

That's it. I'm thinking that since I haven't blogged regularly since May, I don't have many readers left so to sweeten the deal, if you link to this contest on your blog, I will send you a jar of preserves of your choice. Please leave a comment so I can contact you!

You don't need a blog to win, though. If I choose a winner from comments left on the blog, the winner will get a six-pack of my favorite preserves from this season. Apricot vanilla butter, yum!

In the future, I will have a website where you can place an order.

Entries need to be in by October 15th- the day I get back from my honeymoon. Thanks in advance for your help.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Back by popular demand...

Sorry, tomorrow turned into a month. I've been busy getting married. And ending one business (the food cart) while trying to start a new one (selling my preserves). I've rented my own commercial kitchen but it is a lot of work getting started. Cross your fingers for me.
Our camera has been missing since the wedding and I still have no wireless hookup which makes blogging less likely to happen for me.
We are off to Alaska in a few weeks for our honeymoon and hopefully after that things will get back to normal...