Santa Rosa Plum Preserves

Canning with fresh farm produce form Yakima Valley will be an annual tradition. The plums that I picked up were no exception to the organic quality I was looking for. I had a conversation with the farmer's wife about their practices. This will make a nice addition to home made scones, pancakes, waffles or biscuits.



Fresh Plums from Yakima Valley.



Measuring out the cut up fruit.



One of my favorite canning books. Every recipe comes out perfectly.



Adding sugar to the fruit to macerate for a while before the cook down.



Prepping the lids.



Prepping the jars.



Prepping the liquid pectin. I NEVER use the dried stuff.



Starting the cook down.



Starting to turn color during the cook down.



The finished product yielded 12 half pints of chunky plum preservers. Not only does this taste fantastic, the color is beautiful in the jars as well.

Chunky Garden Style Salsa

Labor Day weekend yielded many canning projects. With some of the 75# of tomatoes that I purchased, I made another years supply of salsa for our consumption. This recipe is my Mom's recipe. I've adjusted it over the years to to my liking, kicking up the heat a little bit, but not making it overpowering.



Prepping the tomato pulp after a whirl in the food processor.



Adding more peppers to the simmer.



Cooking it down.



The finished product, ready for water bath processing.

Dan’s Chunky Garden Salsa

16 C tomatoes, chopped and skinned
6 Red peppers, chopped
6 Green peppers, chopped
3 Anaheim peppers, chopped
3 Poblano peppers, chopped
4 Sweet Onions, chopped
12 Garlic cloves, minced
2 T Kosher Salt
1 T Cumin
3 T Dried Basil
1 T Dried Oregano
¼ to ¾ C Honey, add to desired sweetness to cut heat
3 C White Vinegar
16oz Tomato Paste

Prepare ingredients by roughly chopping in a food processor. Mix all ingredients in a large stockpot and gently simmer just below boiling point for 30 minutes. Ladle salsa into prepared sterilized jars and seal.

Process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

Potato-Corn Chowder w/ Bacon

With autumn approaching and the abundance of fresh harvested produce from the farms, this is the time of year for soups, stews, chowders and chili. I made this potato-corn chowder on Sunday evening with friends. Based loosely on an old Cooking Light recipe. I adjusted the heavy cream out for half and half, to make it a tad healthier. I also had a bunch of homemade chicken stock in the freezer, but any purchased stock will do. Broth does not have enough flavor.



Dan’s Potato-Corn Chowder

½ package bacon
1 large sweet onion
3 cloves garlic
3 & ½ C fresh corn kernels (7-8 ears)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 qt chicken or vegetable stock
2 C half and half
1 & ½ C roughly chopped red or fingerling potatoes
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 T corn starch
3 T cold water
Fresh chives, diced

Slice bacon into thin strips. Render in large dutch oven over medium heat until crispy. Remove bacon from pan and reserve for garnish. Add chopped onions to bacon drippings and sauté for eight minutes until onion is tender. Add corn, garlic and thyme stirring constantly. Add stock and half and half. Bring to a simmer and add potatoes. Cover and cook until potatoes are tender.

Make slurry with the corn starch and water. Mix with fork until well combined and not lumpy and corn starch is fully incorporated into the water. Add to the chowder to thicken to desired consistency. If slurry makes chowder too thick, add a bit more half and half.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crumbled bacon and chives.

Chowder & Scones

We had friends over for dinner on Sunday evening, and I made up a big batch of these scones. I've been making these for years. Based loosely on a Martha Stewart recipe, I've adjusted it quite a bit to be a little easier to make and less labor intensive. This was a tasty side for the potato-corn chowder that I made with bacon and chive.

Dan’s Gruyere & Thyme Scones

2 C Flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
½ C butter, cut into small cubes
1 C gruyere or swiss cheese, grated
½ C parmesan cheese, grated
¾ to 1 C buttermilk
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp red pepper flakes

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment or silpat. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, dried thyme and red pepper flakes. Whisk until all dry ingredients are incorporated.

Add butter, and cut into dry mixture with a fork or pasty blender. I typically just use my hands and mix together until mixture resembles course crumbs. Add cheeses and mix until cheeses are covered with flour.

Add buttermilk and stir/mix until dough forms a ball. Adding more buttermilk if too dry, and more flour if too sticky.

Turn out dough onto floured surface. Shape into a circle about 1” thick. Cut circle into 12 wedges. Place onto prepared baking sheet and bake for 15-25 minutes, or until desired doneness.

Makes 12 scones

Sharolyn's Spicy Dill Pickles

I love this time of year. Harvest, the preamble to all the holidays. The nostalgic sense of preparing for the long winter ahead. The familiarity of family recipe favorites. Feeling a sense of connection to my mother who has passed away. I love Autumn for all these reasons. Our trip to Yakima was nice. Despite the hotel issues, as we were driving through the orchards I got a little emotional. Recanting memories of doing that with my parents, my mother in particular. Going up to Brigham City, UT to get peaches and pears. Layton, UT for corn and beans and cucumbers. Kaysville, UT for tomatoes and then spending hours in the kitchen helping make food for the entire family to enjoy all winter long. My parents loved doing that together. And Holly and I love doing this together as well and developing long standing traditions that bind and tie us to our ancestry. Generations old recipes have been made and adjusted. Sharing food with family and friends is one of my greatest joys in this life.



Prepping cucumbers for my mom's spicy dill pickle recipe.






Letting the slices soak in pickling salt overnight to draw the moisture out.






Prepping the brine for water bath processing.






Packed and ready for water bath processing.



Testing the seals post water bath processing.



24 pints of Mom's yummy pickles to eat all year long, until I prepare another batch next September.

Bring it on Yak-ima!

Apparently Labor Day weekend = canning. Who knew. Our friends have the canning bug and invited us to go to Yakima with them to get mega deals on produce, and of course enjoy an adventurous road trip. We were totally in since, of course you know, Dan also has the canning bug. Our eyes were wide with hopes of quaint towns, fields of produce and cheap prices.

We were off! Dan and I in our car following the Jones clan in their car. This is one of my favorite photos from the trip...



We stopped in Cle Elum, which was kind of cute and quaint, for lunch. We were pretty hungry so we took the first place we could see to eat, which unfortunately wasn't very quaint or cute. But, the food hit the spot. We then went to the bakery where I enjoyed a frosted doughnut with walnuts. YUM!





I got this great photo of Dan. This is the Dan I LOVE with his dimple and smirk, isn't he cute?



We decided to take the "scenic route" from Cle Elum to Yakima which turned out to just be the "off the freeway route". I took some shots from the car to capture it's odd beauty. I was particularly fascinated with how hills looked like splitting fur (not that I really know what that looks like).




The river was pretty, and we saw a lot of people floating in the river on rafts, which looked like it would be fun.



There was a monument...



I'm going to blow past this next part. The Hotel. Let's just say there were bugs, and an overflowing toilet tank. Enough said. The town also left a lot to be desired, it was very sleepy which made it hard to find a good place for dinner. We saw some locals gathering on the side of the road and thought maybe there was a parade or something, so we asked and found out that there was a car parade of sorts going on that night. Tons of old cars were dragging up and down the street, it was kind of cool. We finally found a place to eat and went back to the dump we were calling a hotel to get some sleep for the next big day of produce collection.

We all decided that one night in this little town was plenty so we checked out and took off for the farmer's market. Finally the town was redeemed! The market was lovely, the people were nice, the sun was out, and the produce was huge and cheap as promised. Look at these cantaloupe!!! This guy practically begged me to take his picture.








They had hot food stands, bread and pastries even fresh cut fruit.




The big draw for this weekend were the u-pick tomatoes. Rumor had it they were .29 per pound so we could make salsa, marinara sauce, BBQ sauce or whatever! As we drove to the farm we passed miles and miles of orchards, apple, pear, plum. I thought it was really beautiful.



When we got to the farm we decided the prices for already picked tomatoes were good enough and we really didn't feel like getting down in the dirt to pick. This place also had gourds and pumpkins, corn, beans, pears, peppers all of which looked great.






The cutest was when the woman at the check-out gave Miles a free pumpkin. He got so excited!



We had a HUGE load of food when we were done. I think the total was $26.00 for 75lbs of tomatoes, 12 ears of corn, some onions and a bunch of peppers.



We wanted some fruit so we took off to one last place and picked up some plums and apples. They even had things I'd never heard of before...like a Santa Clause Melon.




It was a good trip. The best part for me was getting more in touch with where my food comes from and who grows it. In most cases the farmers were so friendly and really loved talking about their produce, you could really see they were proud of what they grew. I think this might be an annual tradition, except we'll probably stay overnight in Ellensburg.

Personal Temple Worship

It's no surprise, I often times have a hard time keeping motivated for weekly church attendance. I don't always see the value in the "every day" aspects of my faith, and what I associate as "the necessaries" involved with being an active Latter-day Saint. With that said though, I'm very much engaged in the importance of temple work and the opportunity it provides for personal spiritual development; a one on one personal connection with God. All separate from the other aspects of service and giving of your time, talents and energies that are associated with my religious faith and the service opportunities you are expected to be a part of.

I love the temple for the importance of doing work for those that have passed on. Saving ordinances I feel that each of us need in order to return to live in God's presence. The connection to genealogy and family ancestry in evident in the temple, particularly to my own family members who are no longer living.

This book was a nice reminder of the blessing and importance of temples on the earth today. And encourages not only Latter-day Saints to attend the temple often, but for all of God's children to learn about the importance of temple worship in their ongoing spiritual development. There were nice pieces of insight in this book.