I talked to a friend yesterday and she said she had some Italian prunes for me. They have 4 trees, I think, and her family is grown and out of the house so she doesn't do as much canning and preserving as she used to. She is very generous with her fruit as we picked plums from her other plum tree in August and I made some jam from them. The jam is a dark blush color and has a very light taste.
After church I drove over to her car and in the back she had two huge boxes of Italian prunes. Wow! Jackpot. Now, I have never processed plums before this summer and only did so because I was blessed with her bounty that she had shared. I rarely buy plums in the store because they are never very good, can be mealy and have little flavor and I don't like the texture. The plums I made jam with from her first tree were very good and we ate our fair share. But I had never in my life had Italian prunes before. They are outstanding. They have a dark purple skin with yellowish-gold flesh, and are about the size of a medium egg or smaller. They are sweet, tasty and wonderful.
So, this afternoon I have been pitting plums. They pit very easily like a freestone peach. I canned up 14 quarts in a light syrup. The juice after they have processed in the canner is a pomegranate color and looks lovely. I then proceeded to pit more but left them attached as I didn't cut all the way through. I put up 3 gallon size freezer bags full and then I had some leftover syrup from canning and quartered some more and put up 2 pints with a light syrup for the freezer.
I am now drying 6 full trays for prunes. I hear they are superb. I still have about 2/3 of the second box left to process. I'm not sure what I will be doing with them but will probably dry some more and make some fruit leather. I love that these don't need any pretreatment as this moves the show on a lot faster.
Since I have never had canned plums before, does anyone have any suggestions for their use? I have thought about making a plum crisp, but I don't have many other ideas. Also, suggestions for the frozen plums would be appreciated. Well, time to get rest of the kitchen cleaned up before dinner and take the few unusable plums out to the chickens.
Showing posts with label Dehydrating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dehydrating. Show all posts
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Sundays Alone with Mushrooms & Chicken Parts
Now that my youngest daughter also has a weekend job, along with her sister and my DH, I am home alone on Sundays. So what do I do to fill my time. Well, I go to church on Saturday afternoon, or on Sunday morning as I did today. Then to the store, and back home to conjure up something in the kitchen.
We had company last week and I cut up a chicken to BBQ. I buy whole chickens on sale for .89/lb. and cut them up myself. And I have found that deboning a chicken breast is actually super simple. I save the necks and backs in the freezer so I can make chicken stock at a later date. As I searched through the freezer for my bag of chicken parts so that I could add the neck and back to it,I found that I had 3 bags of chicken parts hogging precious freezer space. So, today, I decided to make chicken stock. I will share my method in the near future.
While I was at the store, I picked up a pound of mushrooms to dehydrate. I would have like to have gotten more, but since I am out of work, I didn't want to spend extra money. We are taking a trip to the coast in a couple of weeks, and every penny counts. But my supply of dried mushrooms is very low and I wanted to take advantage of the sale ($3.98/lb).
I love to dehydrate mushrooms because the only prep work they require is to be wiped with a rag and sliced which I do with my egg slicer for quick, uniform slices.
I bought Crimini mushrooms which I think have a richer flavor than regular button mushrooms. I slice them up, put them on the trays, and dry at 95 degrees for 2 hours and then up the temp to 135 until they are dry, about 6-8 hours total. I have my previous batch of mushrooms saved in a canning jar, but I think this time I will put them up in a small seal-a-meal bag. I just realized, that if I do that, I can't open up the jar and smell that intense mushroom aroma. Oh, well...
We rehydrate the mushrooms in hot water for about 15 minutes and use on pizza, in spaghetti sauce, or soups. Here is a recipe to make up in a pint jar to have on hand for a comforting meal. I found it in The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbader.
Mushroom Barley Soup
1/2 C dried barley
1/4 C dried mushroom slices
2 TB. dried minced onions
2 TB. dried parsley
2 TB. dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Combine all ingredients in a 1 pint canning jar and store in a dry place until needed. To use, add ingredients in jar to 1 quart of boiling water in a 2 qt. saucepan, cover and reduce heat to a simmer for about 45 minutes, until barley and mushrooms are tender. Enjoy!
We bought our dehydrator last summer and I love it. I also like to dry potatoes to use in scalloped potatoes. Plus, a couple of weeks ago, we knew we had to use up what was left of our potatoes from last year so we dried some. Actually, I did all the labor, DH was at work. They are great in soup or my favorite, scalloped or au gratin potatoes. I will keep you posted with other adventures I embark on in the world of dehydrating.
We had company last week and I cut up a chicken to BBQ. I buy whole chickens on sale for .89/lb. and cut them up myself. And I have found that deboning a chicken breast is actually super simple. I save the necks and backs in the freezer so I can make chicken stock at a later date. As I searched through the freezer for my bag of chicken parts so that I could add the neck and back to it,I found that I had 3 bags of chicken parts hogging precious freezer space. So, today, I decided to make chicken stock. I will share my method in the near future.
While I was at the store, I picked up a pound of mushrooms to dehydrate. I would have like to have gotten more, but since I am out of work, I didn't want to spend extra money. We are taking a trip to the coast in a couple of weeks, and every penny counts. But my supply of dried mushrooms is very low and I wanted to take advantage of the sale ($3.98/lb).
I love to dehydrate mushrooms because the only prep work they require is to be wiped with a rag and sliced which I do with my egg slicer for quick, uniform slices.
I bought Crimini mushrooms which I think have a richer flavor than regular button mushrooms. I slice them up, put them on the trays, and dry at 95 degrees for 2 hours and then up the temp to 135 until they are dry, about 6-8 hours total. I have my previous batch of mushrooms saved in a canning jar, but I think this time I will put them up in a small seal-a-meal bag. I just realized, that if I do that, I can't open up the jar and smell that intense mushroom aroma. Oh, well...
We rehydrate the mushrooms in hot water for about 15 minutes and use on pizza, in spaghetti sauce, or soups. Here is a recipe to make up in a pint jar to have on hand for a comforting meal. I found it in The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbader.
Mushroom Barley Soup
1/2 C dried barley
1/4 C dried mushroom slices
2 TB. dried minced onions
2 TB. dried parsley
2 TB. dried thyme
2 bay leaves
2 chicken bouillon cubes
Combine all ingredients in a 1 pint canning jar and store in a dry place until needed. To use, add ingredients in jar to 1 quart of boiling water in a 2 qt. saucepan, cover and reduce heat to a simmer for about 45 minutes, until barley and mushrooms are tender. Enjoy!
We bought our dehydrator last summer and I love it. I also like to dry potatoes to use in scalloped potatoes. Plus, a couple of weeks ago, we knew we had to use up what was left of our potatoes from last year so we dried some. Actually, I did all the labor, DH was at work. They are great in soup or my favorite, scalloped or au gratin potatoes. I will keep you posted with other adventures I embark on in the world of dehydrating.
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