Last week, we experienced some rather high temperatures that did not bode well for us in a home that lacks air conditioning. Moreover, our home’s south-facing windows—excellent for light—made the not-so-pleasant weather even more not-so-pleasant, especially considering we live in such a tiny space.
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So, with all our moving around and what-not, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to make some of our favorite recipes, or try new ones. A couple of weeks ago I finally felt a little more settled and decided to combine our favorite pizza recipe with my new love of essential oils. I had everything ready to go into the oven and found out that it hadn’t preheated…at all. My new-to-me oven wasn’t working. Thankfully, we have a toaster oven so with some pan adjustments and about four cycles, the smaller pizzas all made it through and were consumed. The flavor of the crust with the addition of the rosemary essential oil was amazing! As soon as our oven was fixed, I decided it was time for another round of pizza-making!
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I have been anticipating a sweet harvest after discovering a cherry tree in the backyard. We picked our first fruits in early June and I began figuring out how I was going to preserve the remaining cherries that we didn’t eat fresh. Our neighbors had more raspberries than they could eat, so we decided we could help them out. With all the red deliciousness sitting around my kitchen, I decided to dive in! I started out making some raspberry-cherry freezer jam, which turned out to be my absolute favorite jam recipe thus far! I used this recipe as a starting point, but modified it a bit:
raspberry-cherry freezer jam
Combine cherries and raspberries in a large pot and crush the fruit with with a potato masher while heating. Add the lemon juice and pectin. Stir until dissolved. Bring mixture to a boil and add all of the sugar. Boil hard while stirring for another 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into your containers to freeze. This recipe makes about 7 eight-ounce jars. If you want to try canning traditionally, I’m sure you could use the instructions at the recipe link above.
I dehydrated the remaining cherries, figuring it would be a tasty ingredient to add to a granola recipe.
What are your favorite ways to use up and preserve cherries?
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Things have been growing. After being away for two weeks I came home to find a garden I didn’t recognize. Seriously. There were even vegetables growing that I never planted (must have been not-quite-composted seeds in the compost?). The next morning I got to excitedly taste a small harvest of strawberries, cherries, salad greens, early potatoes, and peas. Since then we have also enjoyed onions, raspberries and kale.
This is one of my favorite parts of gardening…enjoying the results of all that work! Tonight I am planning to make and freeze some raspberry-cherry jam (thanks to the addition of raspberries from our neighbors).
I’ve been catching up and working on projects, so I am relying on Instagram for much of my garden photos lately. You can follow me @krystlereeves for more!
Have any of you been as excited as I am about eating things you’ve grown at home? Please share – I’d love to read about it in the comments below!
I love simple recipes. I love simplifying as much as possible, really. It makes this busy season of life a bit easier and stress-free. Thus, I have a collection going of easy-to-throw-together recipes and meal ideas. This cashew sour cream recipe makes the list. With only 3 ingredients (4 if you include the water) it is something I can easily blend up and serve with enchiladas or chili.
Drain and rinse cashews, then add to blender with the other ingredients. Blend until smooth.
Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links. I only recommend products I use myself. Thank you for helping support this blog and our goals for a self-sufficient homestead!
where the green things grow 