I overbought at the farmers market last week - a somewhat regular occurrence. But I try my best to waste as little as possible, so knew I needed to do something with the leftover bing cherries ASAP. I didn't have quite enough to make it worthwhile canning, so I grabbed a few more Saturday morning and canned two half-pints of sweet cherry butter. If you've never experienced fruit butter you should give it a try. It's thicker than jam and pureed. Apple and pumpkin butters are common, but many fruit work. Plus it's delicious in the baked oatmeal recipe in one of my favorite new cookbooks - The Food in Jars Kitchen: 140 Ways to Cook, Bake, Plate, and Share Your Homemade Pantry, by Marisa McClellan. I needed to wear an apron, though, because bing cherry butter bubbles and stains.
This week also marked the first Western Slope peaches at the farmers market. The first ones are always cling peaches, so great for snacking, but not for canning. I learned that lesson the hard way when I first moved to Denver and tried to pit a bunch of cling peaches for canning.
In addition to the market, our garden is beginning to really produce. We lost most of our spring harvest to hail, but the summer crops are coming in. For the past few years I have planted garlic in the fall for summer harvest and we got a bumper crop this year that survived the hailstorm. I plant both soft and hard neck varieties. The soft store longer and the hard produce garlic scapes, which are delicious in pesto and compound butter.
Finally, it's getting tough to cover our Italian basil when hail threatens since it's growing quite tall, so it was time to give it a first harvest and put some pesto in the freezer for the winter. I adore the smell of all the basils we grow - Italian, Thai, and cinnamon.
This week also marked the first Western Slope peaches at the farmers market. The first ones are always cling peaches, so great for snacking, but not for canning. I learned that lesson the hard way when I first moved to Denver and tried to pit a bunch of cling peaches for canning.
In addition to the market, our garden is beginning to really produce. We lost most of our spring harvest to hail, but the summer crops are coming in. For the past few years I have planted garlic in the fall for summer harvest and we got a bumper crop this year that survived the hailstorm. I plant both soft and hard neck varieties. The soft store longer and the hard produce garlic scapes, which are delicious in pesto and compound butter.
Finally, it's getting tough to cover our Italian basil when hail threatens since it's growing quite tall, so it was time to give it a first harvest and put some pesto in the freezer for the winter. I adore the smell of all the basils we grow - Italian, Thai, and cinnamon.
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