The Juneberries are Ready

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As indicated in earlier posts, we discovered this Spring a few Juneberry trees. These are also called Saskatoons, Service berries or Amelanchier.

These berries are very much a North American plant having been used by Native Americans for the production of  pemmican (fat and powdered meat and dried berries).

Our Juneberries are ripening

Living up to their name, they have finally been turning blue... so it was time to pick. With the very humid and sultry weather we've had this week, I felt as if we were picking coffee beans on a Latin American plantation.

Picking our first crop in sweltering heat

Having never used Juneberries before, I challenged Chef to come up with something. The result was a frangipane tart with Chantilly cream which has become a rather successful desert at the Tea Room.

Juneberry frangipane tart with Chantilly cream and a berry coulis

We've now decided to sell some of our berries and process others for a rather special preserve.

Chef has also not let us down with the Mulberries we had picked earlier. As promised, he came up with a rather nice White and Black Mulberry Biscotti with Hickory nuts. The nuts were incredibly hard to crack and we were left with some small pieces of shell in some cookies...so we'll happily be keeping these for the family since they are so delicious.

White and Black Mulberry Biscottis with Hickory Nut

As the season progresses, Chef has been making good use of our vegetable raised beds. He is lucky since we have no kitchen in the house as we continue to renovate.

Chef's collection from the garden: squash flowers, pea cuttings, parsley and dill

On another front, we continue to forage. Last year, we were introduced to the pleasures (taste) and hardships(shells) of the Black Walnut. This year, I was determined to try them again....but this time differently.

We chose two methods: one Italian, the other Armenian. Both call for the picking of the nut in late June, when the shell has not yet had a chance to form. At this point they are basically the size of limes.

We were lucky to find some low hanging Black Walnuts of just the right size

The Italians produce a liquor with these young nuts. It is called nocino.

The recipe is simple. You wash your nuts and then quarter them (easy since they have no shell). They are then submerged in an alcohol solution. Some use extremely strong grain alcohol or Grappa, we opted for Vodka. For half a liter of alcohol, we added about a cup of sugar. We used large canning jars for the process and added some spicing (a couple of table spoons of cinnamon and the zest of half a lemon).

Adding a zest of lemon to our nocino blend

Now, it's a waiting game. The nocino should be ready for Christmas. All that remains to be done between now and then is the straining of the solution.

I have to add one quick note. Something like nocino is probably a decent drink...but I think this may actually make a much better addition to some of our pastry recipes.

For the Armenian recipe, we've decided to make preserved Black Walnuts.

Having picked and washed the nuts, this recipe calls for their peeling. Not a very easy task, this is best done with a sharp paring knife. Once this is done, we will be soaking the nuts for the next week constantly changing the water every day as it turns dark brown.

Sous-Chef giving us a hand peeling the young Black Walnuts

Eventually we will be cooking them in sugar syrup before canning them...but perhaps we are getting ahead of ourselves as we plan to report on this in future blogs.

Another foraging experiment had to be completed this week. For those following the blog in the past few months, this is the last chapter in the cattail saga.

The Cattail pollen is ready to be collected

The male portion of the pods are beginning to turn yellow and it was time to collect the pollen. It turns out this is a bit difficult. The pods produce an amazing amount of pollen so a large plastic bag is called for (not the small Ziplock we used). You simply cover the pod and tap it in your bag. Once home be sure to sift it since you will probably have collected some bugs in the process.

This plastic bag did the trick but was much too small

The result is the collection of a very fine bright yellow powder...which can be used as a flour.

Beautiful bright yellow Cattail pollen/flour

Without a kitchen in the house, I did not want to bother Chef to make the traditional cattail pancake. In fact, I am still looking for something perhaps a little more exciting to make. In the meantime, Chef has decided to use the cattail flour/pollen along with bee pollen as a decorative element to his cheese plate.

Our crops are progressing quite well...even with all of the rain we've been having. In fact, the Purple Raspberry is so abundant that we have come across a new problem. The canes are falling to the ground and breaking. We will have to completely rethink our raspberry trellis concept.

The Raspberry canes are so heavy with fruit they have a tendency to break

I think this abundance of large berries may be due to the weeding we've accomplished over the past year. In fact, we now have help to do this.

You may have noted new faces on the blog. We've hired two students: Julianna and Hanna. They were hired to pick, but we've also been working together on weeding....and not just any weeding. These girls are really adept at just about everything that needs to be done on the farm so they've even been helping us with the very tough chore of cutting out Wild Rose bushes.

Julianna and Hannah weeding...two great additions to the team

In the process, we've uncovered a variety of "wild things"...and the most interesting this week was a snake which I believe may be a DeKays Brown Snake. We were probably close to its nest because this rather large snake was definitely very aggressive (to the point of following and chasing me!)

I'm not certain of the identification of this very aggressive snake (any suggestions are welcome here). 

I leave you this week with another interesting discovery made just outside the back of the house. "Eagle Eye" Christine was weeding and on the ground facing her was a coin. It turned out to be a half penny token produced by Lesslies and Sons. This would have been minted in 1822 or 1824. On one side is a plough on the other the scales of justice.

I did not know this, but during much of the century preceding confederation there was a chronic shortage of small change. No official coins were provided in Upper and Lower Canada so foreign coins were used and tended to flow out of the country. The gap was partially filled by merchants....and this is one of the tokens used at the time.