September - Preserves/Garden

Setember...

a pause, for summer to say

an awkward and lingering

good-bye

and for autumn,

sitting on a hilltop,

a jug of fresh cider

in one hand,

a bunch of wild purple asters

in the other,

waiting to say hello

-New York Times

This weekend I made pickles - for the first time ever.......bread and butter pickles from my friend K's family recipie. YUMM! Well - I found out a number of things about canning - it being the first time I ever tried to do it on my own....
1) You need to make sure you have ALL of the ingredients you will need -check and RE-check to make sure!
2) It takes a lot longer than you anticipate - you need to prep all of the food - wash, chop etc...
3) You should really make sure you have all of the equipment you need BEFORE you start
4) Where there is a will - there is a way.

I was at the supermarket EVERY day this weekend - because I'd remember I forgot something for the pickles.... In the end I never could find mustard seeds separately so I substituted pickling spice mix I already had in my cubbord. I also had to add some brown sugar because I ran out of white......I thought I had another box stashed somewhere, but couldn't find it when I was looking yesterday....

The 5lb sac I'd had in the pantry got used up in jelly making with the ladies last weekend. (2nd annual hot pepper jelly making extravaganza - we also made peach-ginger jam and rose petal jelly.)

I also froze some medium heat long peppers stuffed with goat cheese - they'll be an appetizer at some fall/winter gathering....

The tomatoes are also starting to come in - and when I get the chance I'll post a couple of photos of the garden in its current state. Yesterday we noticed a LARGE new addition to the garden - a garden spider - very colorful and very beneficial to the garden, but very scary looking. I'll post a photo of her too....