Green Tomato Chutney

I'd like to thank all of you that made suggestions on what I should do with my green tomatoes.  And you know what I did?  Something not suggested, of course.  Not that I wouldn't make the suggested recipes, but I stumbled upon something that I just had to make myself try.  Chutney.

I had no idea what chutney is.  I've occasionally spied it on the tables at the local farmer's market, but steered away from it because, well, because it's called "Chutney".  What kind of name is that anyways??

I did some online searching for "green tomato recipes" and came upon several chutney recipes.  So curiosity finally got the best of me and I read a few of them.  Some had ingredients like jalapeno peppers, others had apples or apricots.  Not being one that likes spicy stuff (to Paul's utter dismay), I wanted something sweeter.  And as usual, I didn't follow just one recipe.  I have a habit of taking several recipes and tailoring them to my liking.  So here is my Green Tomato and Apple Chutney:

2 1/2 lbs. green tomatoes, chopped
8 oz onions, chopped
8 oz. raisins
1 lb. apples, peeled, cored & chopped
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup molassas
2 cups apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Dump all ingredients into a large pot & simmer on medium heat for about two hours, or until thickened.

Wasn't that simple?!  And as a bonus, the house smells wonderful - just like Fall!  Several of the recipes mentioned that the taste gets better if you allow the chutney to sit for a few weeks.  I, of course, couldn't wait.  It.  Was. Great! 
What have I been missing?!?!  It would be great on little crackers, or on top of porkchops or a pork roast.  And honestly, I can even see a somewhat-spicy chutney recipe in the future.

The above recipe made three pint jars and three jelly jars (not sure how much is in a jelly jar, hmmmmm).  Wonder if any of them will make it as gifts this year.

If you were going to eat this right away or keep it in the fridge, you wouldn't have to water-bath can the chutney, but since I was hoping to give a few away as Christmas gifts, I figured I should be safe and do so (ten minutes).  Nothing like accidentally giving your friends botulism for the holiday.

Cabbage Culling

I have a problem.  Well, I have several problems, but let's just deal with one of the more simple ones right now, shall we?

When I direct sow seeds into the ground, I put too many in.  And when the sprouts start pushing through the soil, I can't manage to yank them out.  They are alive!  And I don't have the best record at growing things, so I just can't make myself thin them out.  Yes, I know that you have to do it.  I know it's better for the rest of the plants.  That if you don't thin, the plants will be too crowded and will do poorly.  I.  Just. Can't. Do it.

But actually, I did do it!  Not right away though.  And I didn't exactly "cull" anything.  I planted cabbage seed in the middle of August and they have been growing quite nicely now that our heatwave has ended.  But I didn't thin them when they first popped up.  I waited until they were several inches tall, then I watered them real well and waited until the next day to carefully pull some of the "culls" from the bed.  It helped that the soil was very loose from lots of organic matter (homemade compost) so the plants came out easily and most of the smaller roots were still intact.

I transferred the cabbage plants to a non-crowded area in the same bed and kept them watered daily for a week.  And they survived!  So since my first little yank-and-replant experiment seemed to work, I did it with the remaining cabbage plants.  They've been in their new "home" in the following picture for just two days.  They still look a little wilted, but I'm hoping they'll come around with some more TLC.

Not sure if this would work with other veggies, but I'm definately going to try it again when I get the chance. 

Which unfortunately won't be until next spring.  Hope I remember.

Winner!!

Another highly scientific random name generator:

You can kind of see "Susan" on the scrap of paper, I mean, official document.

This process was witnessed and verified by none other than:

And was it just luck or divine feline intervention that my cat, also named Susan, was watching?
Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

And I was there to photographically document it all for posterity.
So if Susan at e-i-e-i-omg! would be so kind as to email me her address at carolynrenee at centurytel dot net, I will box up your teapot, teas and cat and ship it out in the next few days (or whenever I get my butt out of the house).
And thanks to everyone for playing! 

Isn't it weird how it's just as much fun giving away stuff as it is winning? 

Eating the Trees - Persimmons

The leaves are starting to fall and the persimmon trees are showing off their bright orange fruits.

Persimmon trees are easiest to identify in the fall when the leaves have fallen off but the fruits are still clinging to the branches.  The fruits don't generally start falling and ripening until there's a frost, but there have been enough falling to make it worth bringing a bag with when I go by a tree.

We only have very small persimmon trees around our property.  The largest persimmon tree I've ever laid eyes upon was growing next to a restaurant just up past the Missouri border.  The trunk was bigger than I could wrap my arms around.  It may not be huge for where you are, but it's the biggest one I've seen. 

There are three or four small persimmon trees in the goat area and four other medium-sized trees around the woods that surround the house.  The neighbors also let us pick from their tree.  Well, you really don't "pick" persimmons from the trees themselves but pick them up from the ground where they fall.  They are quickly eaten by the wildlife though, so I'll take the trunk in my hands and give it a good shake until more come down.  I was brave and ate one that was on the ground as it looked ripe for eating; thankfully it was ripe.  You do not want to eat an unripe persimmon.  Ask me how I know.

We got about five pounds of fruit, not enough to make anyting with just yet, so I'll put them in the fridge until we can get more.  Some of them weren't quite ripe anyhow. 

If we can gather enough I'd like to make preserves.  I made a real nice persimmon bread a few years ago and will again.  It would be nice if I can manage to shell out enough of the hickory nuts to toss in with the batter.  I haven't bought a nut cracker yet.....it's on my list though.

Almost forgot!  Today's the last day to enter MyBlog Birthday Giveaway!  Rhiannon will draw a name tomorrow.

Found it! Cinnamon Rolls

Found the recipe for the Cinnamon Rolls I made last weekend:

Copy Cat Cinnabon Recipe

I did make some slight modifications, however (imagine that).  I used half whole wheat and half white flour and I only inverted the pan of rolls for a minute or two (so the sugar / butter on the bottom soaks through the rest of the rolls).

Other than that, everything was done as instructed.  Although I will say it took much, much longer than the listed prep & cook time.  Guess I'm just slow.

My recipe made a pan of twelve and a smaller pan of six.  Personally, I think I would have liked to have had fewer rolls in the pan to allow for more expansion (fluffier rolls), but they still turned out great.

We took a package of two rolls out of the freezer this morning & warmed them up in the microwave.  Still tasted great even after being frozen.  Going to make this recipe again when we run out.

Chick Check, Week Six (and goat luv'n)

The Cornish are getting close to butchering size, although it does seem that their growing spurt has slowed down a bit.  It's hard to tell now that they are in the larger enclosure.

Pics of chicks at two days and three weeks.

And now, at six weeks:

They have gone though a fifty-pound bag of crumbles in exactly seven days.  I've also been supplementing their crumbles with any whey I have left over from my weekly cheese-making, usually about a gallon.  It's not much, but better than a sharp stick in the eye. 

On the goat front, this past Wednesday we came home from a morning homeschooling outing to a very vocal, very anxious little goat.  Annette was trotting around the goat pen, tail-a-flagging and yelling to let us know that under no circumstance was she going to let us leave without a visit to our buck, Pan.  Who, if you haven't already heard me say it like a hundred times already, stinks to unimanginable degrees.  The Army could use him as chemical warfare.

It was a pretty uneventful event though.  I went inside to take off my "goin' out" clothes to don an old pair of jeans, ratty long-sleeve shirt, work gloves and muck boots.  Put Annette on a lead to take her to the red light district and we were in there for maybe five minutes.  She got what she wanted and when she was satisfied, made it perfectly clear she wanted to go back to her pen and out we went.  Pan was busy pissing on himself so I got her out without having to wrestle Pan to keep him in his pen.  I didn't have a single thread of clothing or even a glove touch Pan so I was spared the buck-stench.  If only all breedings could be this easy.

Nettie was bred last month, Annette this past week, now all I have to do is find a meat-type goat buck for Ishtar and I'll be finished with breeding for the year.  If I can't find one for stud, I may (I can hear Paul yelling already) see if there are any Boers at the sale barn, use him and then take him back and hopefully get him sold again.  Although that may change once Paul has a chance to read this blog post.

Goodbye 'maters

I did it.  I finally pulled up the tomato plants in the raised beds.  Even though there were teeny-tiny undeveloped tomatoes on them and more flowers!  I have such a hard time ripping out plants that are still producing, but let's face it, the fruits left on the plants wouldn't grow much more, the bigger ones wouldn't ripen and the flowers have almost no chance of being pollinated.

So not only do I have almost ten pounds of green pear tomatoes, but I have two raised beds that are 1/2 empty.  And I haven't decided what, if anything I'm going to plant.  It's much too late for most cool-weather crops, but I think I'll put in some more lettuce and spinach in these beds and put plastic covers over the rows since the framework is still up.  I could put garlic in there, but I really don't want to dedicate these beds to that. 

I'm hoping that we'll (meaning Paul) will put in another two raised beds right behind these so I can make it into my yearly Kitchen Garden.  Two, maybe three cherry tomato plants, one or two hot pepper plants and the rest with herbs.  I'm much more likely to use the fresh herbs if I can just make a few steps out the front door to cut some basil instead of going to the other side of the yard to the fenced-in garden. 

Lazy.  You bet'cha.  But honest.  I get points for that, right?

Oh, and does anyone know what to do with a bunch of green pear tomatoes?  Recipes like relish or something?  I'm at a loss.  Although I did read on a recent blog post (forgot where, of course) that you can put the green tomatoes in a paper bag & they will ripen.  So until I find a good green tomato relish recipe, I'll just stick 'em in a paper bag.