Basket O' Peaches, Peaches for Me...

Ok so last week on the Sauvie Island Blog I read that because the weather had been so crazy, and they still had a ton of ripe peaches, they were going to have their peaches on special for $1 a pound, a pretty good deal really.

With visions of fruit tarts, cobblers, and jam dancing in my head I headed out to the farm late Saturday afternoon, and guess what I saw...


That's right it was the Yarnia Lady's(I assume, until told otherwise) car!

Anyway after I geeked out over that for a few minutes I headed over to get my basket weighed, and was told that the Red Havens were on the tail end of production, and the Hale Havens next to them might still be a little green. So I dutifully tromped into the Red Haven section, hoping to find some peaches left. Unfortunately with the recent rain storms & high humidity pretty much all the ripe peaches I found had begun to mold on the tree, with that came a very distinct smell, and drunken bees & yellow jackets fluttering drunkenly about(someone realy should cut them off when they've had too much fermented fruit).



I ended up only finding a couple in the Red Havens that were still good, so I crossed over into the next orchard and picked the Hale Heavens, they were a little bit unripe, but I put them in a paper bag for a couple of days and it fixed that easily enough.

Now that they've softened up, it's time to make freezer jam!

I know that you're supposed to scald & ice them but honestly the skins came off these without much of a problem, so I didn't bother.


At look at it mid mess.
I really love that you don't have to cook the jam with this method, and I think it tastes more like fresh fruit.



Right before I was going to ladle it into the tubs I decided to add a little ginger to it, I think it was probably about 1 teaspoon to a double batch. I was aiming for a really subtle hint of ginger to help enhance the flavor of the peaches. I'm going to try it out tomorrow, and we'll see if I succeeded or not.



There was a bit of a problem though, I still have about 9 pounds of ripe peaches to deal with, I think tomorrow I'll slice them up and freeze them for smoothies & cobbler.

Strawberries!

Ok, so I live in the northwestern part of Oregon, and for those of you who don't already know, it's the home of the best ever strawberries, if you don't believe check this out.

Yes, California is were most strawberries found in grocery stores come from, they are bred to be large, high yield, and have a long shelf live. Unfortunately, California is hot, and while this gets the fruit to ripen quickly, it doesn't allow the berries to fully develop their sweetness and flavor. Strawberries tend to like wet, sunny springs, with cool nights. They do not like to be too hot, in fact the fruit can cook right on the vine if you're not careful with some cultivation methods.

The down side to having such sweet and great tasting berries is that they really don't last very long. Most of them, if they are freshly picked will last about 2 days in the fridge with a damp cloth over them, after that they are pretty much mush.

The next factor to take into account is what variety do you have? My family are devout Hood fans, but this year I started trying others out, I tried Firecrackers, Puget Reliance, Shokusan, and our old standby The Hood.

First I picked up some of the Firecracker berries from a lady on Sauvie Island. The ones I got were VERY tart, and fairly firm. I don't know if this is typical of the variety, or if because we had an early season, they didn't get as sweet as they normally would. So while I wouldn't use these for just eating, I think they'd work really well for jam/jelly/preserves, I froze the rest and plan on using them in cobblers and crumbles later in the season.


Next I picked up 1/2 a flat of the Puget Reliance from guy on Hwy. 30, these were smaller and sweeter than the Firecrackers and a little citrusy, I used them in a crumble, and they cooked down pretty completely so I'm thinking the ones I froze should work really well in a fruit bar or for jam.

After that I picked up some of the Shokusan from a lady on Walker Rd., they are a medium sized berry, nice sweet flavor, and since I only got a pint they didn't even make it home. I'm thinking that I might need to try and get some more, as well as some chocolate to dip them in.

These are theHoods, these as always had a wonderful sweet, citrusy flavor, and I used them in a second crumble. I didn't get a picture of it though, because it'd been broken into right after dinner (before it was even cooled down), and it was completely gone by lunch the next day. It tasted awesome though and a little whip cream on top made it absolutely perfect. The berries held up nicely as well.