Gardening Floyd: The Cherries Are In!

The sweet cherries are in and ready to pick at Levering Orchard.  As far as I know, Levering’s is the nearest pick-your-own cherry orchard to Floyd.

Michael and I went picking yesterday.  The trees are loaded!  We picked 20 lbs in about an hour or so (a little over a 3 liquid gallon bucket full) from the ground reaching into the trees.  There are ladders into the trees and staff to move and set them as you wish if you’re into climbing.  Cherries were $2.50/lb at the orchard as compared with $6/lb at the market yesterday.  Hours are: Monday thru Saturday 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.  Sunday: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

If you go, wear comfortable clothes for bending and stretching, good supportive shoes with traction, sun screen/bug repellent (although the bugs weren’t bad yesterday), hat/bandana, and maybe a raincoat.  Take along a water bottle too.

To get there:  Go south on the Blue Ridge Parkway to just past milepost 193.  Turn left on to Orchard Gap Road.  Rap’s Convenience Store is right there on the corner.  Drive approximately 2 miles down the mountain.  Take your time, the road winds and is steep!  You’ll see the large sign for the turn off to the orchard on your right.  It took us about 45 minutes to get there from Floyd.  Maybe not that long.

On my cherry preserving list:

Dehydrated cherries (currently in the dehydrator)

Cherry Pie Filling

Cherry Jam

Boozy Cherries

Black Forest Preserves

I'll be preserving these over the next week and will have recipes and photos.

Preserving Floyd: Hands On Classes!

Eating Floyd is presenting the first of a series of seasonal home food preservation classes:

Preserving Floyd

We Be Jammin'!

Saturday, June 11th, at 2PM

Click on the Home Food Preservation Classes Tab above for more information.  Class size is limited.
Hope to see you there!

Preserving Floyd: Strawberries Part III - We Be Jammin'!

Making strawberry jam is a primer for making all kinds of jams and jellies.  The fruits may change but the technique remains pretty much the same.

If you read the last post on pectin you'll know that I prefer low/no sugar pectin that already contains the necessary calcium, and this post will be about strawberry jam and it's variations using Ball brand Low/No Sugar pectin.

Preserving Floyd: Canning Essentials - Pectin

No matter what groups you may move in, belong to, participate with, somewhere in that group there's always a tempest raging in a teapot.  Among home preservers that teapot tempest is Pectin.  To use vs not to use, commercial vs home made, regular vs low/no sugar.

I hope to do a little clarifying.

Spice Rack Challenge May: Coriander

Pullum Frontonianum/Apicus Chicken/Chicken a la Fronto

While searching for a recipe heavy on the coriander for this month's challenge, I came across Apicus chicken.  This brought back a whole lot of memories.  Michael and I once belonged to an historical society that did early medieval to late renaissance re-enactment.  A period feast was almost always a feature of their events and there were many accomplished cooks with a great interest in researching and redacting period recipes for their menus.  Apicus Chicken is one of these recipes.  It is a Roman recipe from a period cookbook written by Marcus Gavius Apicius.  This is a pretty close translation of the original recipe:

Ingredients
1 fresh chicken
100 ml oil
200 ml liquamen
1 branch of leek
fresh dill, saturei, coriander, and pepper to taste
defrutum

Directions
Start to fry the chicken and season with a mixture of liquamen and oil, together with bunches of dill, leek, saturei, and coriander.  Then cook in the oven.  When the chicken is done, moisten a plate with defrutum, put chicken on it, sprinkle pepper on it , and serve.

I needed to turn this recipe into something everybody could use.

Husbanding Floyd: "Girl, You'll Be A Pullet Soon"

Technically, I suppose they already are.  Pullets, that is.  In a few days they'll be 9 weeks old and they are doing great.

Hi Mom!  Hi Dad!

We were told that the chicks imprint on and call Mother the first thing they see after hatching.  If that isn't a brooder hen it's whatever's available.  We figured for our chicks it was probably a pair of hands in white latex gloves.  Judging from the way they act when we approach their coop, they really did imprint on us!  As soon as they hear our voices, they run out of the coop or away from whatever they're doing and gather in the corner closest to our approach.

Preserving Floyd: Herbal Vinegars and Maple Vinegar

It's been raining pretty steadily for a month now.  Every once in awhile the sun will deign to peek through, a patch of blue might appear.  But mostly it's gray and drizzling if not downright pouring.  Everyone's behind.  You can't plow, till, seed, or transplant because the ground is just too wet.  Water gushes up along the edges of my wellies just walking across the lawn.  The earth is saturated.  People are getting grumpy.

I think this is affecting the local strawberry crop.  For two days now I've been searching my usual sources and there's none to be had.  I'm hoping the berries have just slowed down until the sun returns.  I'm praying they're not rotting in the fields.

On the other hand, the perennial herbs are flourishing!  They need to be cut back now!  In order to use up a good bit of them I'm going to start steeping jugs of herbal vinegars.  It's just way too easy and takes no time at all.  And it will keep me busy until the strawberries return.