Just a Little Crabby Apple.....

Chad and Lily were walking in the woods and found.....CRAB APPLES! 

I put them in a paper bag for a week to ripen them and get them nice an pink. The flavour of these beauties is fantastic, sweet and sour all at once. I wanted jam but I didn't want to ruin the perfect sweet with too much sugar. I started with an apple butter recipe and added sugar until the taste was perfect. I canned according to the butter recipe, 15 minutes hot water boiling. It turned out PERFECT.

No spices, just cook crab apples simmered in half as much water until they break down, sugar added and cook down some more.

What is more interesting to me than this simple canning recipe is that these fruits were in our back yard and we never even noticed. Folks had told us about the hidden apple tree back there, but the last 3 years weather has been strange. We have plums this year ripening too. Chokecherries. Wild grape. Elderberry. Mulberry. Wild raspberry. Gooseberry. All right here.

I don't strip the plants down though. I leave enough for the wildlife and for reseeding. That equates to harvesting maybe 1/3 at most of what is there, if even that. Because of the strange weather, there hasn't been a lot of fruit which means there hasn't been food for animals and birds and the plant couldn't reseed. Not a lot of folks talk about that aspect, just the flowering and the bees. We are trying to maintain a real balance here, as well as feed our family, be good stewards of the land and animals we care for. That is a complex system that involves plants, soil, animals, ground water, insects, and us. We have 40 acres here and we raise meat animals. Creating a balance is difficult, but not impossible.

From the fruits of our labour, we dine on crab apple butter/jam.

Today in the Kitchen

More peaches. Today we skinned and sliced, tomorrow they'll get canned. Then for dinner I pulled out one of the last Poulet Rouge chickens out of the freezer. Isaac saw it and clapped and screamed excitedly! He signed chicken and wanted to eat right away. Sorry kiddo, it takes 2 hours to table. :)

I pulled out my red French Oven, a cast iron enamelled lovely pot. In it went halved mushrooms, a chopped leek, a yellow onion, celery, and red bell pepper. I placed the chicken on top of that, smeared it with Irish butter and Tickle a spice from The Spice Shed, sprinkled with course salt and then tiny potatoes from our garden tucked in around it.

I first broiled the chicken on high for 10 minutes and then turned the heat down to 350 degrees F. to cook the rest of the way. It took about 2 hours, but I don't trust timers. I always take the internal temperature with a meat thermometer.

Oh, this chicken was fantastic. The mushrooms and leek and the spices were just perfect and the carcass and leftover veggies are now back in pot with some carrots, more celery, and water filled to the top. That will simmer in the oven, covered, at 225 degrees over night. That is how I do stock in the summer, in the winter it sits covered on the wood burning stove.

I was really happy with how this turned out. 10 minutes of chopping prep is so very easy. We'll get three meals or more from this one bird.  I love our farm chicken so much.

Making a meal like this isn't actually hard. For my whole life I thought it was some magical feat to make nourishing food and that it would take all day to make it. Years of attempting and failing left me discouraged.

It wasn't until I stumbled on some historical fiction about French peasant women baking bread and soup that I realized that for centuries people made good food with only what was in their region, usually in season. Sometimes only with one pot, did they accomplish hearty meals. I started paying attention to food in historical accounts, living history museums, simple recipes.

That's where the change came, the heart of it. I studied the chemistry and the layering of ingredients and recipe equations, but the heart of food isn't the math and science..... it is something else. The joy I have in my simple kitchen, the fresh food from my farm, the joy on my child's face when he sees me pull out the red pot and chicken. It is the thankful gratitude my children share at the beginning our our meal together. The random exclamation in the middle of the day or the overheard conversation where they declare that I am the best at making food and it is always yummy, my husband sharing his delight at a simple meal with friends on social media, the intensity of centerdness that I get with my spoon swirling broth in the pot, breathing in the aroma of herbs and fresh meat are the heart of my kitchen. That isn't something in a book or a classroom that can be taught, it is something you experience in the moment. It is something that only simple food has given me.

Recipe for Summer French Pot Chicken:

1 leek, chopped
1 pint of mushrooms, chopped into bite size
1 yellow onion
1 red bell pepper
1 cup of chopped celery
seasoning and salt
handful of potatoes
1 run of the farm raised 3-4 lb chicken
4 T. grass fed butter

Broil for 10 minutes
350 until internal temperature reaches the safe temp for poultry


For the Bone Broth/Stock

Throw the bones back in after the meal, fill the pot with water, leftover veg, add carrots, bay leaf (optional), apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, and simmer for 12-48 hours. Yup. 48 hours.

Ps....peaches are still in the making. They are so perfectly ripe that they are spoiling and we are focused on canning and freezing. The dessert posts are on their way, very soon.

Not Back To School Picnic!

Another year, not back to school! Another celebration at the park with a great group of homeschooling families. Three kids covered in peach juice sticky glory and sand, pine sap in their hair, grinning ear to ear. Queen Lily and Super Hero Holly and Zippy Zap (Isaac) had the best day ever and I heard all about it in detail, with a small break at Grampa and Nana's, until bedtime.

Me? These social gatherings take a lot out of me. I am not someone that moves easily in social situations without a lot of hard work and paying attention to social cues, and that is exhausting. Sometimes I space out in the middle of a conversation or get distracted, which is very rude and not intentional, so I have to work very hard to stay focused and on task.

Yet, I do this to teach my children that it is good to be around people and enjoy the social interaction. My children are naturals, I actually have learned a lot from them. Many of you, maybe even the moms I met today, probably have no idea how difficult the gatherings are for me. I am an introvert. I am at my best completely alone, at a picnic bench at my farm, with the stars and the crickets as company. That is what recharges me. That is where I am centered.

These past few years though, I am getting better at being around people. I am actually seeking out people to get to know. I am even enjoying it. The last 3 months I have met so many amazing people, all who have cheered me on, all who have stories to share too. That got me thinking about blogging and what role it has historically, what role all of this social media has. I have a lot of thoughts on that I am still working out, but for framing this, the social aspect of facebook and twitter has allowed a lot of the pressure and anxiety to be worked out for me. I know who will be there at an event, mostly, I can get familiar with the location, and I get to know people through their pages and groups we are in before hand so there is not that scary factor of not knowing who I am talking to. It is mostly public who is friends with who and who is not, so most of the time I can avoid being drawn into drama that I am not a part of if I pay attention.

People also know where I stand on issues, so there are very few conversations that turn awkward which is a huge blessing. Working on the relationship part, understanding different perspectives, is a lot easier when that part is out of the way. No one likes to invest in a conversation where one of the people drops a huge unexpected poo bomb of awkward political belief one way or another, social media allows us to get to know each other and filter for that ahead of time. Oh, trust me, it still happens, but it is certainly less frequent. Let me tell you how valuable this is in the homeschooling community. Not that people with polarising beliefs don't end up friends, they do, and that can be a very rewarding friendship, but now I know generally what topics to avoid in discussion and what jokes not to make. This alone has helped me so much be able to just talk to folks. That alone is so taken for granted, because just small talk comes so naturally to most people.

So today was a smashing success, not just for my lively and bright children, but for their painfully un-social quirky nerd of a mother.

Wednesday Workday: Berry Harvesting