Peachy Keen Jelly Bean

From the country...

So I will add to sister's last post with a few quick words. It is so GREAT to have farmers as friends! I received an email from my pal, Duncan Smith over at Two Century Farms who was looking for some direct sales. A little bit of logistics and 5 bushels later, I had peaches coming out of my ears. After a few late nights, I have jars upon jars of canned peaches in simple syrup, more frozen peaches that you can shake a stick at, an amazing peach butter and I am just finishing up the last bite of peach crisp.

Thanks for the peachy hook up, Duncan!

The amazing peach butter recipe is from here.

The Week Sour Cherries Ruined Our Life....

From the country...

Last week we packed up all the lil' ones and headed out for our annual trip to Grimsby Ontario, to D. Smith and Son, Two Century Farms. We have been trucking to this beautiful farm for 3 years now and every year I stand there in awe. The Niagara Escarpment is breath taking.

I suffer from a little known ailment called "Eyes bigger then belly" syndrome. This ailment reared its greedy little head while I was in Grimsby. I came home with 12, 7 litre wooden baskets of sour cherries- and while Mark was trying to shove them into the car, I purchased a few baskets of apricots- just to make our already hectic lives a bit more challenging...

Goodness, we canned cherries in simple syrup, in rum and brandy. We stemmed and pitted the suckers for the freezer. We made lil' no bake cherry cheesecakes. We had compote and ate alot of them right out of the basket- finally we shoved the remaining basket in the in the freezer (on trays- pits and all!) for jam later. Oh! and a lovely apricot jam was made- and I managed to finish the currant jelly that was lurking in the fridge.

All in all lots of preserves were made, but it almost cost us our lives (not to exaggerate too much...)

Ahh.. summer..