Summertime and the canning is (not so) easy

Costco already has Christmas stuff on out display, can you believe it? I can't, and I refuse to think about Christmas, especially when we're having nice sunny weather.

I enjoy summers because of all the fresh fruits and veggies in season. I haven't done any canning in a few years, so this year I decided I would pick up some fruit and make some jam again.

I met a woman at work who has 5 acres and grows fruit in the organic manner. In other words, she is not certified, but she doesn't use sprays or pesticides. She had some lovely berries, so after I unloaded a good chunk of my wallet at her house, we came home with raspberries, blueberries and white currants.

Jam making is a lot like soap making. It takes patience, a sense of timing and one should always start with the lightest colour and work towards the darkest colour if one doesn't want to wash out the pot every time. :)

White currant jelly

White currant and raspberry jelly

White currant jelly on bottom, white currant and raspberry on top. Waste not, want not, right?

 White currant juice with Perrier

Mango blueberry jam

Last but not least some basil from her garden

Do you grow your own fruits and vegetables? Do you do any canning during the summer?

Baking Season

Fall is that time of year when I want to bake. Okay, I want to bake quite often, but in the fall and winter is when I especially want a warm, nice smelling kitchen. Bon Appetit tweeted the other day an apple galette based on the one by Chez Panisse. It looked so good, I just had to try it.

I had a couple of nectarines left over that were as hard as a baseball, so I figured they would make a good substitute for the apples. Other modifications included using the jam I had in my fridge rather than using the apricot preserves as suggested, and adding a dose of apricot brandy along with brown sugar to sweeten up the tasteless nectarines.

For some reason I couldn't roll the dough into a circle. And no, I hadn't been imbibing prior.

 

Folded in the ends. Guess I should've paid more attention to the picture they had to see how it's done.

Fresh out of the oven

 I think if I had made it to their specifications, it would've been great. As it was, I didn't fold up the dough well enough and ended up with a bit of a mess in the oven. Good thing there's no smoke alarm in the kitchen,