Fruit Overload!
Posted by Midi in Food & Cooking,Local Island Stuff,Plain Ol' Fun
Went up to Townsend yesterday to pick blueberries. It’s funny because I always thought that blueberries were over by this time in the season… but apparently not! This little blueberry ‘farm’ is located just up from the Darien outlet mall at Exit 49 as you head west then north along Rte 251. This blueberry ‘farm’ – more of a large patch really – had the largest blueberry bushes I’d ever seen with some really great looking fruit. The place was clean, well kept and the lady who owns it, Peggy, was as nice as she could be! She and her husband have owned the place for about 25 years and the blueberries were already there!
Overkill?
There were so many berries on these bushes, I could have stood at one bush and picked my fill… You could just reach in and grab clusters of large berries hanging almost like bunches of grapes. I ended up picking two gallons while my husband picked two gallons for my mother-in-law.
Just like I picked two large baskets of peaches the other day near Reidsville – I think the two gallons of blueberries might have been far more than I needed. Out there, it seems like a reasonable amount of fruit to pick… however, inside your kitchen, you realize you went a little overboard.
I’ve spent the last couple of days making jam… lots and lots of jam. Anyone who makes jam knows it’s not something you can simply whip up. There are processes involved with sterilization and all that. A pot of boiling water going along with the pot of boiling fruit… and it’s not like you can leave the fruit alone and take a long break. Add to all this my peach allergy… yup, I’m allergic to the flesh. I can pick them with no problem, but once I get in contact with the juice, I break out into hives. So I have to use latex gloves when peeling and chopping, which makes the process even more difficult. I still broke out into itchy hives, with the gloves on and spent the last two days medicated on benedryl.
So I made three batches of peach & ginger jam ( I throw in chopped candied ginger which goes nicely with the peach)… and as you can see, have plenty of peaches left over. This is after we gave some away and there’s still more in the fridge!
And I made two batches of the blueberry jam… which between the jam, the cobbler I made for dessert last night and a quart ziptop bag frozen – still leaves me with an entire gallon.
The peaches I picked were white peaches, which makes for a beautiful jam – pale and jewel like. The funny thing is that I also canned a batch of peach salsa. My husband pointed out last night that while the white peach made beautiful jam, in salsa form, the pale fruit did little to make the salsa look appetizing. In fact, it sort of looks like vomit – his words, not mine, although I can see what he means.
White peaches on the left, yellow peaches on right (from last years batch) - can't tell if you can see here, but the white peaches have that pink translucent tinge that makes them look so pretty!
White peach salsa on left, yellow on right (once again, from last year's batch). The yellow peaches look like salsa... while the white peaches kinda makes the whole thing look yucky. It still tastes good!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|\
\
\
\
\
|
|
|
|
Boy this was a long post…
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I hope you plan on bringing some up when you come this week! It all looks great!
Got plenty to share! I know the boys like the salsa…