Unripe Apple Pectin

Apparently, it's a bumper year for apples. One of our young apple trees had a couple of branches loaded with apples. G asked me if I thought he should prop those branches up so they wouldn't break. I said no, the tree should be able to tell it's weighted down and shore up its own branches. 

Well, I should've listened to G. 

The two heaviest branches broke. ☹️ There are still apples on the tree, so all is not lost. But we did lose a decent chunk. With unripe plums on the brain, I wondered if I could put the unripe apples to use too... 

Some I have in the fridge to bake a pie. The rest I turned into apple pectin. 

Super easy recipe. Coarsly chop the apples, leaving the skins and cores. Put in a pot with just enough water to cover the apples and cook for one hour. 

Strain through a cheesecloth without squeezing. 

Let it rest overnight. Then reduce the strained liquid by half.

And boom, your pectin is ready. You can freeze it or can it for later use. Mine is in the freezer. TBD what I'll use it with...

Unripe Plums - Pickles

Even after all the syrup making, I still had unripe plums to work with. I found this recipe for pickled plums. Very simple and sounds like something I'd enjoy. 

I weighed the plums, scoring them as I put them in the jar. Then I figured out what 7% of the weight was and put in the equivalent grams of salt. I didn't have any star anise, but I did have whole coriander, so I put in about one tablespoon. Cover with slightly cooled boiled water and once it's completely cooled, store in the fridge for one week. Then they're ready! 

I am a little concerned that the salt I put in didn't dissolve all the way. I used a kettle of tea water I had heated in the morning but forgot to make tea with it. 😅 It was warm when I poured it in, but not anywhere close to hot. But chat gpt says it should be fine and the salt will even out over time. 🤷‍♀️ 

Before I moved it to the fridge, I added a glass fermentation weight just to keep the plums under the water. 

We'll see how they taste in one week! 

Pears

A friend of mine from the Fulda area has a couple of pear trees that produce more fruit than she knows what to do with. Last year she gifted me a number of 5 gallon pails of ripe pears, which I freeze dried. 

This year we planned ahead a little more. Pears are supposed to be picked when they are still green because they ripen from the inside out. If you pick them when they look ripe, you need to do something with them all immediately because they are pretty much overripe. 

She's been keeping an eye on the tree and let me know Wednesday night that they would be ready to pick. I happened to be going to Fulda on Thursday for a "farm field trip day" with my dad, and I recruited one of my sisters to help pick the tree after we got back.

Her height plus the extendable apple picker let us access most of the pears on the tree. 

If I had been thinking, we would've sorted pears as we went- "perfect" ones and damaged ones. As it was, we sorted them at her house later. 

The nieces and nephew got involved. As you can see, the youngest two were most interested in sampling the pears. 

We ended up with one 5gal pail of good ones and about 3/4th of a pail of ones to watch. 

Jaron helped me lay them out on the counter at home to let them ripen. My plan is to freeze dry the bulk of them. Hopefully the timing works out! I have a few busy days next week...

Unripe Plums- Syrup

A coworker of G's was looking for an unripe plum source once upon a time. She wanted to make a Korean plum syrup and the recipe calls for unripe plums. The concept intrigued me, but since I didn't have a source, I filed the idea away until our plum trees got much bigger. 

Then, we made a plum connection through our hosting of international college students at MSU. I got a message from her saying they pruned their tree and had a bunch of unripe plums to get rid of. G swung by after work and voila! We're in business! 

First the sorting - green, half green, ripe-ish, and damaged. And compost. 

G said that washing produce in ozone water is really good for getting rid of bacteria, etc. We have an ozone generator on our washer with an external spigot, so I washed the plums downstairs. 

After that it's simple- equal weights of plums and sugar. Score the plums, then pack them together with the sugar in a jar. The sugar will cause the plums to release juices and make a syrup. Let it sit for 100 days. 

It wasn't until the next day I realized I forgot to score the plums. 🤦‍♀️ I thought about taking them out and redoing it, but the process should still work. It'll just be slower. 

I had enough plums that I could make a second batch. This time I did score the plums! I washed this second batch in vinegar water instead of ozone. And I didn't dry them off. There's so much sugar I figured it would be okay. 

So, both batches need to be kept an eye on ...

There were some riper plums I left in a bowl on the counter to finish ripening. Unfortunately, I got in my head about fruit flies and set another bowl on top to be a lid. When I checked them the next day, almost every one had mold growing. 😭 Parts of most could be salvaged, so I made a plum sauce with the rest. And Jaron ate a few of the ones that survived without mold. 

The sauce turned out great! Just plums and a little water, so it was pretty tart. Perfect over ice cream. 😋

Sweetcorn

We didn't plant any sweet corn in our garden. I am a little intimidated by sweet corn because so many critters love to eat it and corn grows so tall. I figured we would find people with an abundance who would share with us. 

I did some 4-H judging over the weekend and drove past a farm place that had sweet corn for sale. We have a loose church connection (not enough to get any for free 😜). Since we know them, I stopped on my way home to buy a couple dozen. $10 for a baker's dozen. 

Jaron had a blast husking the corn on the back deck so the goats could clean up our mess.

He would hand me the ears saying, "heavy, heavy!" And then shout with joy when I handed him the husk. He tossed them to the goats and Gerda quickly nibbled them up. Senka is a little more shy. 

I stored the husked ears in a box so the goats wouldn't try to eat them. 

Jaron did take a bite or two out of an ear. Whether raw or cooked, he loves it! 

New Layers

We have a new layer in our coop- one of the copper marans I believe. Isn't the color beautiful? 

The one on the left is a pullet egg. The one on the right was from later in the week. I thought the chicken had matured quickly (and was laying regular sized eggs). But I cracked it open for breakfast and it was a double yolker! 

With the trampoline chickens laying, our egg cartons have a whole new look! 

Eggy Oatmeal

Longer ago, my cooking friend recommended adding an egg to oatmeal as something to try. It boosts the protein and adds creaminess. 

I finally gave it a try! 

Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl. Then, in the last two minutes of cooking, whisk the eggs into the oatmeal as fast as you can. One video said to take the oatmeal off heat while whisking. I did a combo because I couldn't manage the egg dumping and pan holding at the same time. 😅 

Looks pretty creamy!

My favorite way to eat oatmeal is to cook a banana and some dried berries in the last few minutes (adds sweetness and plumps up the berries). I still did that this time, but did it after the eggs. Maybe next time I'll switch the order. 

 It tasted great! Jaron was definitely a fan.