Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Thanksgiving books

Some of our favorite this year!

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott
Thank You, Sarah by Laurie Halse Anderson
Three Young Pilgrims  by Cheryl Harness
This is the Feast by Diane Z Shore
The Boy Who Fell off the Mayflower  by P.J. Lynch
The Thanksgiving Door by Debby Atwell
A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin
In November by Cynthia Rylant
Thanksgiving is Here! by Diane Goode
Give Thanks to the Lord by Karma Wilson
The Pilgrims of Plimoth by Marcia Sewell
Giving Thanks by Katherine Patterson
Pilgrim Voices Our First Year in the New World by Connie and Peter Roop
A Pioneer Thanksgiving by Barbara Greenwood
*Pilgrim Cat by Carol Antionette Peacock
*The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh
N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims by Robert San Souci
Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley
Sharing the Bread by Pat Zietlow Miller and Jill McElmurry


Winter is Coming by Tony Johnston is a beautiful fall book!
The Raft by Jim LaMarche

Monday, November 9, 2015

Preserving 2015

This has been a big year!  Here is the run down...

Frozen Items

Beet Greens 1 big bag
Garlic Mustard  4 small bags
Swiss Chard  6 small bags, 3 quart bags and one huge bag
Kale 21 small bags, 3 large bags
Green Peppers approximately 100 peppers chopped and sliced for fajitas
Orange Pepper 4 quart bags sliced for fajitas
Mulberries  6 quarts, 5 gallons
Black caps 5 quarts
Red Raspberries 1 quart
Blueberries 9 quarts
Peaches 1 gallon
Garlic scapes 14 bags chopped, 10 jars of paste
Strawberries 6 jars of sliced, 1 gallon whole
Tart Cherries 2 gallons
Green Beans 14 big bags, 10 medium bags
Cauliflower 7 bags
Pesto 20 small jars
Zucchini 4 bags shredded
Garden Marinara 2 quarts
Garlic Lemon Veggies for bisque 5 jars (3 soup recipes)
Zucchini Butter 6 large batches
Beets 6 bags
Cinnamon Apples 6 gallons
Squash/butternut squash/pumpkin puree  17 pb jars
Pumpkin Butter 10 1/2 pint jars


Dehydrated
Apples 7 quarts
Cherry tomatoes 2 quarts, 1 pint
Thyme, Oregano, Chives, and lots of Mint

Canning
Garden Marinara  7 quarts, 2 pints
Tomatoes 22 quarts, 1 pint
Tomato 'water' 4 quarts
Salsa 16 quarts
Spiced apples 2 quarts and 9 pints
Pears 25 quarts, 5 pints
Peaches 12 quarts
Peach Juice 4 quarts, 1 pint
Cherry lime syrup 3 pints
Applesauce 51 quarts, 2 pints
Apple 'juice' 2 quarts
Pear 'juice' 3 pints
Dilly beans 9 pints
Garlic Dill pickles 20 quarts
Bread and butter pickles 7 quarts
Pickled garlic scapes 1 quart, 11 pints
Chard Stems w/ Sriracha  5 pints, regular 3 pints
Roasted corn salsa 9 pints
Fiesta Corn relish 10 pints
Spiced cranberry apple sauce 3 pints, 1 half pint
Sliced apples 4 quarts
Apple Bourbon Chipotle BBQ sauce 15 pints, 1 quart
Spiced Pear Pancake sauce 4 pints, 1 quart

Jam

Mulberrry jam 13 pints, 2 half pints
Blueberry cinnamon 4 pints
Black cap/Mulberry 6 half pints
Pear spice 7 pints, 4 half pints
Wild grape jelly 11 half pints
Rhubarb vanilla 2 pints


I still have about 15 butternut squash and 3 large other ones to freeze (one Hubbard and two other ones).  These got eaten and turned into puree and pumpkin butter.  I've got about 5 small cabbages in the fridge along with beets and turnips.  Kale, chard, turnips, lettuce and spinach still out in the garden and doing okay in the frosts/freezes so far.  Lots of maple syrup canned up, along with pinto, black and garbanzo beans, chicken and beef stock.  We put 21 chickens in the freezer (gave two away) and have a little pork (last year's pig purchase) and lots of beef (fall of 2013) left from previous years.  We get our honey from 2 miles away and our milk from 10 miles away.  Most of our produce came from our 10 raised and 1 in ground gardens, mulberry trees, and black cap vines.  The extra squash and peppers came from Brad at the market, garlic scapes from The Blossom and The Bean, apples from multiple neighbors and Orchard Ridge, pears from tree near church and Orchard Ridge, cherries from our tree and Korleskis, corn from McCabes and peaches from Kaufmans.  Really happy with everything turning out as good as it did with our incredibly challenging year and especially summer.  We foraged the garlic mustard and asparagus in the spring and just missed out on some puff ball mushrooms this fall!  Lots of jars are filled...makes me feel so content and secure to see them filled up.  Still had a decent amount of applesauce, tomato chutney and other items left from last year.  Last count put the jars filled right around 450 or so :)