Peach Leather

We've had a plethora of wonderful peaches lately. Some of the ones that fell on the ground bruised a bit, so I decided to try something different with them--make fruit leather. I always called it fruit roll-ups, but I guess it's the same thing, except the homemade version is so much healthier. 

I found various recipes on the Internet and decided to incorporate a few to make my own. My ingredients: peaches, honey, lemon juice (and for one batch, cinnamon). I took the skins off the peaches and cut off the bad sections, putting the good parts into the blender. I added a couple squirts of lemon juice (maybe 2 teaspoons worth), and about 1/4 cup honey. Then I turned the blender onto puree.

I put Saran wrap down on the dehydrator sheets, and then poured the fruit leather mixture onto the plastic, using a spatula to spread it out into a somewhat uniform thickness.

Next it was into the dehydrator at 135 degrees. Some recipes said for 6-8 hours, but with the thickness I had, it was more like 10-12 hours. Other variations are to put the fruit leather into your oven at the lowest setting with the door open for a couple hours, or to put it onto big cookie sheets covered with cheesecloth and let dry outside in the sun for a couple days.

The end result is a firm fruit leather. 

If you're my husband and son, you just eat it straight from the plastic wrap, and suddenly it's all gone because it tastes so good! (They seriously ate one whole sheet in just one sitting.) 

The taste of the peaches is really concentrated, so it's almost like candy. 

You can also roll up the plastic, cut it into pieces, and put into Ziploc bags for storage. If you want to keep the fruit leather for awhile (say, because you're so tired of peaches), then you can put the Ziploc in the freezer and it will keep for a few months. 

Yum!

Freezing Corn

Having grown up in the Midwest in a small town surrounded by corn and soybean fields, I still consider myself a corn child. I love corn, especially corn on the cob. Our garden has been producing great corn, but I wanted some to freeze, so I bought a couple dozen ears.

I put a few ears into the boiling water at a time (not too many, because the water is supposed to return to a boil within a minute), and boiled them for six minutes.

Then they went into cold water for about six minutes.

Then they dried out.

Then it was time to get to work with my handy-dandy carving saw. I really like this part, and for some reason when a bunch of corn kernels are stuck together, they just taste better. 

I didn't want any corn to go to waste, so I made sure to nibble on the ends of each and every ear. (It's a good breakfast, right?)

Then I put 2-3 servings in freezer ziploc bags. It's definitely more work than just buying it at the store, but the corn tastes so good!

Snake Valley Days

This weekend is the big Labor Day barbeque and dance called Snake Valley Days. It's a fundraiser for the local volunteer fire department and a great excuse for the community and visitors to come together. The barbeque begins at 4 pm and the dance at 8 pm. 

Following is a post I did last year about the barbeque. It brought back quite a few memories, especially because a couple of the people pictured have moved or passed on. It made me glad that I do this blog (sometimes I do question why I put the time into it)--but the pictures and tales help me remember places, events, and most importantly, people who are important in my life.

Every Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, the Volunteer Fire Department holds a barbecue to raise money. It's been held for decades and is a great place to catch up with folks you haven't seen for awhile. My husband and I are members of the Volunteer Fire Department and the barbecue is held at the cookhouse next to our house, so we had great views of the event from start to finish.

The start actually begins several months in advance with the planning. Food is ordered, a cleanup day is scheduled the weekend before the barbecue, and tasks are divvied up. Finally the big weekend arrives.

On Friday night the meat (tri-tip roasts) is taken out of the huge walk-in cooler, rinsed, and marinated with yummy barbecue sauce. At first only one person squirted a bottle of barbecue sauce.

That was going slow, so another person started squirting. His squirt looks more sporadic than the first. Neatness didn't count for this part, because we had several coolers to marinate, plus the more barbecue sauce, the better!

One volunteer reaches into the cold meat to make sure that it is all covered. Looks nice and messy, doesn't it!? The meat goes back into the walk-in cooler until the next day.

At mid-morning on Saturday, more preparations take place, like shucking the corn. Coming from the Midwest, this is one of my all-time favorite tasks. As I shuck the corn I just imagine biting into those firm, sweet kernels, releasing a wonderful squirt of corn juice. Mmmm.

Tables and chairs are set up, signs made, lemonade mixed, potatoes wrapped and baked, beans prepared, and much more. Desert Boy kept me occupied for a little while so I didn't get a chance to take photos of all the separate parts, but you get the idea.

The serving line was set up in the cookhouse. Folks enter through one door and exit through another, making it an efficient process. The smells in the cookhouse are getting better and better as we approach the appointed hour.

At the back door of the cookhouse, the corn station is setup. Two huge pots are filled with water and a flame thrower is used to light the burners. Okay, it's probably not exactly a flame thrower, but it sure looked like one to me.

On the front porch of the cookhouse, this huge cauldron is set up. Can you see the smoke coming off the top? Why in the world do we have a witch's brew for a barbecue? This is the homemade root beer, and the dry ice is making the neat visual effect.

Over on the side the guys are grilling the roasts over a bed of charcoals. The barbecued meat flavor ensures that people are constantly circling around the grill to check out the progress.

Here's some of the circle. In the background of this photo you should see some mountains, but a huge rainstorm came in about half an hour before we were due to start. The wind started blowing, and we could see rain showers on the mountain. We tried to figure out what we would do if it started pouring rain or even hailing. We ended up deciding that the storm would blow through, and sure enough, it did.

The scary weather did scare some people away, but we still had many come. Here's the line forming at the front of the cookhouse to get the delectable food.

People whizzed through the serving line thanks to the attentive servers. Ready for the mouth-watering menu? Here it is: tri-tip roast (or hot dogs for the kids), baked potato, corn on the cob, beans, salad, roll, watermelon, cake, root beer, and lemonade.

I was trying to help sell tickets, so I parked Desert Boy with one of the oldest inhabitants of the valley. He quickly tried to steal her watermelon.

Some of the kids thought stirring the cauldron was really fun. The aroma of root beer filled the air.

After we had eaten as much as we could hold, it was time for the games. I guess I'm still a kid at heart because I volunteered to organize them. Here we are getting ready for the watermelon seed spitting contest. It's not so easy with seedless watermelons. (Thanks to K. Rountree for this and the next photo.)

The water balloon toss was a huge hit despite the little sprinkle of rain we had right before the dinner. In fact the kids clamored to do the water balloon toss again. So we did it again. And again, until we ran out of balloons.

Finally it was time to clean up. Leftover meat was bagged and sold, chairs and tables taken back to the school, garbage taken to the dumpster, and the floor mopped. It was a good, but tiring day. But we saved enough energy to head out to the dance and dance the night away.

Good Garden

This year I've had a wonderful garden. I'd like to take the credit for it, but I think the good weather is mostly to credit. It's my first year to plant sweet corn, and let me tell you, it is such a treat! I love to go pick a couple ears just before dinner. We also have eaten zucchini, broccoli, tomatoes, green beans, beets, carrots, peas, spinach, and lettuce. We're still waiting for the brussel sprouts, cabbages, melons, and bigger tomatoes. 

It's so fun to go out and harvest. I am also really good at growing weeds, and am thinking about doing a theme week of Weeds of My Garden for my A Plant a Day blog. It's sad but true I really do have a week's worth of material.

Here's one evening's bountiful supply. (We still need to eat the red beets--they are so big we can only eat one a night!) I sort of feel like a pioneer, eating off the land. It sure would be a lot of work to grow enough to last a year like the pioneers tried to do.

Helping Aunt Tana in the Cookhouse

Summertime means its haying time, and Aunt Tana cooks scrumptious lunches for the hungry hay crews. We went over the other day to the cookhouse and Desert Boy couldn't wait to help. Aunt Tana first showed him how to peel hard boiled eggs.

Then it was time to make his own salad, which he decided to spice up with some interesting combinations. He really enjoyed stirring it.

Finally it's time to get down.

And time to eat! The food is always delicious. And my husband says he's put on a few pounds since he's been eating at the cookhouse instead of making his own lunch. 

Scenes from Easter

Easter turned out to be a busy, fun, and memorable day. One of my goals was to get a nice family photo because we all got dressed up, but that didn't quite happen. Maybe the next time we all get dressed up we can try again. When will that be? Maybe Christmas, if we're lucky.

Nevertheless, we did get some photos of various events on Sunday. After church we went to an Easter egg hunt, except it wasn't really a hunt but a grab, because all the eggs were on plain sight on tops of tables in a row. Desert Boy was excited to pick up a few eggs and quickly proceeded to open them and spill the candy all over the floor. We stuck a couple eggs in his pocket for later distraction.

We went by the train and got to go on a train ride, which just delighted Desert Boy to no end. See next Monday's desert destination post for more details. Choo-choo.

While we were on the train, Desert Boy rediscovered one of his Easter eggs and quickly started eating the chocolate. 

And when I asked him to smile for the camera, this is the face I got.

Later in the afternoon we had an Easter egg hunt at our house, where the older cousins hid eggs for the younger cousins. It's always amusing. And I figure it's good for math skills to make sure all the eggs have been found.

Desert Boy gets some assistance from his pretty cousin. 

And then there was lots of yummy food. Here are some cupcakes in mini-ice cream cones, a favorite of the younger than 10 crowd--and those who wanted to take a brief trip back to that age!

Hot Tamales

Yesterday I heard a knock on the door in the evening. I opened it to find a friend seeing if I wanted any tamales. She had just made them and they were still hot. Of course I said YES! Tamales are one of my favorite foods. I developed a taste for them when I lived in New Mexico and a lady brought them to work everyday to sell. I ate so many tamales that summer that I think my Spanish improved just from ingesting Mexican food. I never got tired of them. In fact, long stretches often go by that I find myself tamale-less, and those are sad days. A good tamale just makes the day go better.

I peel back the warm corn husk to find the inviting corn meal inside. The smell is fabulous, my taste buds are salivating (if taste buds salivate), and I can't wait to devour the tamale.

Except I have some competition. Desert Boy loves tamales too, and he can eat an entire tamale by himself. I don't think a 23.5 pound toddler should be able to eat a whole tamale. He should leave at least half for me.

Fortunately I bought two dozen, so we have enough to get us through a couple days. Yum. I'm in tamale heaven.