Processing our Harvest

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With Fall rapidly approaching, we are inundated with fruits from the field and vegetables from our raised beds. We are selling as much as we can, freezing a lot, and we now have to consider canning. Of course we have been making jams and cordials for the store all summer long. Now we seem to have to redouble our efforts.

With summer vacations over, our student help is going back to school so we have decided to open the store and restaurant only five days a week (from Wednesday to Sunday). This first "weekend" has provided us with an opportunity to catch up.

It all starts really with the berries. One way to use them quite effectively is in the production of wine. For every 5 gallons of wine, we end up using some 2 1/2 gallons of berries. So far, our greatest success has been a dry Purple Raspberry wine. Served cold, we think this could become a regular product of the farm and an addition to the restaurant (once we are licensed of course).

A refreshing glass of chilled Raspberry wine

With this success under our belt, and the abundance of Blackberries, we've now moved on to process Blackberry wine. We've changed our process somewhat and have started to ferment the fruit from the very beginning (that is we do not produce mead first, but begin the process with both fruit, water and honey).

We have "racked" our first batch and our initial results are actually quite nice. The brew is a little cloudy but the wine is pleasant with a touch of tannin and not overly dry or tart.

Racking our first Blackberry wine

What has been a real surprise is the short amount of time necessary to complete fermentation. Within 4 weeks, it seems we have a reasonable wine with all sugars consumed by the bacterial culture. Although we are trying to obtain a sweeter version of our wines, this is becoming elusive. As a result, we are experimenting with different concentrations of honey and different times to fermentation. Since we are working in the barn, one variable over which we have no control is temperature and I fear this may be one of the more important parameters. To this end, we will likely have to move our production to the newly finished cellars of the old manor.

I did mention jamming and cordials as another use for our crops. These have been important products for the farm over the summer, particularly as we refine our recipes and processes.

These have helped us preserve a lot of the berry "goodness"  and most importantly the new crops that have surprised us: the Red and Golden Raspberries which were just planted this Spring. Even now that our Purple Raspberries are done, we continue to pick these two new varieties.

The red Raspberries have been transformed into jams, jellies and cordials.

The latest addition to our line of cordials: Rapsberry

A lot of folks ask us about the cordials...in particular what are they good for? The bottom line is that these light syrups make a wonderful drink (over ice and mixed with water or sparkling water).

They make a wonderful mixer, especially Kir. Kir is a French aperitif usually made with a Creme de Cassis (Black Currant liqueur) topped with white wine... but variations on the theme using Black Currant cordial or Raspberry cordial work just as well. A Royal Kir would involve topping with Champagne or a sparkling white wine.

They also make a great sweetener for tea, adding a fruity dimension to both black or green teas. They are excellent additions to iced tea (in fact all of the iced teas we have served in the restaurant use one of our cordials). Finally, you can also use them just as you would a syrup...on top of pancakes or crepes, on oatmeal, ice cream, etc...

Basically, these are very versatile.

On the Golden Raspberry front, we have also been surprised. Originally planted as a novelty, these Raspberries have their own unique taste and texture. They are "meatier" than the others and seem to have less seed. While a bit tart, it turns out they make a wonderful jam.

Our first Golden Raspberry Jam

Of course, we also continue to process some of our "wild" harvest. In particular, we have still found some Elderberries (overlooked by birds). We decided to transform these into cordial, but here I have to add a note to our new processes.

When making our earliest batches of Raspberry cordials, we used the traditional method (a "simple syrup" poured over Raspberries). The result was a beautiful pink cordial. However, when tasting the Raspberries left over from the process, it was clear that we were losing a lot of the flavour. So now we juice our fruits and make a "simple syrup" with the juice instead of water. The result is a more intense and darker cordial.

With the Elderberries, our last attempt to juicing was a miserable and time consuming method. This time around (instead of using a steam juicer), we decided to simmer the berries in water and then filter the berries. This proved much more productive.

Simmering Elderberries

Our garden and raised beds have also forced us to do much more processing. Even our Cabernet vine on the back of the house was ready to harvest.

Our Cabernet grapes

Regrettably,we do not have enough of these grapes to attempt a wine or even a juice or a jelly. The only idea for these was dehydration....basically turning them into raisins using our new Excalibur dehydrator.

The most important garden crop for us has been our tomatoes: the Ropreco Italian heirloom, Cuostralee French Heirloom and Marizol Gold German heirloom.

The latter two are simply huge (1-2 pounds) and make excellent eating; Chef likens the Marizol to Peaches and has been using both of these beauties in the restaurant. In fact, the family has just been enjoying these fresh in salads or simple tomato slices on buttered bread with a touch of salt and pepper.

A simple tomato salad: Marizol, Cuostralee, Basil, Olive oil, Ice Wine vinegar, salt and pepper (yummy!).

The processing bit comes with the Ropreco. Unlike the mealy Romas, these actually taste great fresh....but they are so productive, canning is a must.

Our solution is Tomato sauce (we learned last year you can never have enough). To do this, we blanch the tomato to peel and then seed. The Ropreco turns out to be a very easy tomato to peel.

Blanching our Ropreco

Then it's all a matter of personal taste and using what is available. We ended up using a lot of Garlic (because we like it) and Basil (because we like it and also because we had a lot of it). To this we added mushrooms. Variations on our sauce include additional herbs (parsley, sage, etc.) or wine for more body (we use my favourite local wine: Baco Noir).

Of course spices are important and what more could you ask for than chili peppers (something from the garden I've not reported on).

Our peppers ready to spice up one of our tomato sauces

The results will work with a variety of pastas or even Golumpki (Christine's Polish cabbage rolls).

Our cellar is slowly filling with our favourite: tomato sauces

We have so much of these canning tomatoes, we also decided to dehydrate some (basically our version of sun dried tomatoes).

The results were amazing. We actually decided to store some in Olive oil for the long term.

Dehydrated Ropreco Tomatoes in Olive oil

At this point, I should also report on our apples which for the most part were ready for picking. These are Empire and McIntosh varieties.

We have experimented with various organic sprays earlier this year and I have to report that although the apples look a bit better and certainly larger....they are still looking like "troll" apples.

The Apple crop is not apetizing

Although ugly, we decided to process them and in this way perform a "post mortem". It turns out that few Apples were internally damaged by worms or insects. They were also juicier than last year.

After doing further research I realized that the Neem oil I used was not applied at the right time and certainly not sufficiently.

We really need to work this out since we intend to plant a hundred heirloom Apple trees in the fall of next year...but we do have a trick up our sleeves that I hope to report on next Spring.

In any case, there was no use in disposing of these largely tasty apples ....so we turned them into Apple sauce.

Our "troll" Apples look much better this way.

Given everything that is coming to fruition, processing of our crops will keep a lot of our attention over the next few months. Even cabbages have been picked and now Chef is suggesting we make our own Sauerkraut...not a bad idea since we are now considering doing something special at the tea room for Oktoberfest.

Even some of our Cabbages are ready for picking

In fact, we even found that the odd stray seed has produced for us. I thought our Watermelon Radishes had failed...the reality is we probably tore some out thinking these were weeds.

In turns out one survived and it was a real shock to see one of these for the first time.

A "stray" Watermelon Radish

Actually, this odd looking specimen turns out to have been worth a try, to the point where next year we are determined to get these right.

Beautiful peppery Watermelon Radish slices...definitely worth a try

Meanwhile, Tristan and I continue to work on our "Biodome". Left with the most difficult task: outside taping and framing, we decided to bring in the "big guns". Our fear of heights (basically enhanced by the concept of waking bare foot on a sharply angled plastic panel) meant that we had to find a suitable solution...so we rented a "lift" (Matt and Alois are probably laughing at us right now!).

Using the "big guns" to finish off the outside of the dome

In the end, we did manage to get a lot of the taping done...however, we also ran into some major problems. The machine could not accommodate the terrain and the slope. This means that on one side we kept getting stuck and did not have the reach necessary to finish all panels.

We also ended up doing this in rather windy weather. This meant that the very, very sticky tape was flying everywhere. So in the end, this dome probably has the ugliest taping of any dome on the planet....thankfully we'll be covering it up with a metal frame (once we figure out how to address the top panels).

Among all of this activity, we also had time to forage. This week, it was Goldenrod.

It's Goldenrod season

It turns out that this plant is an edible, but most importantly a great medicinal herb and has been used as such for centuries

Apparently after the Boston Tea Party, Americans with no access to Tea decided to use Goldenrod...the resulting Tea was called Liberty Tea and proved so popular that at one time it was even exported to China.

For me, the taste of Goldenrod is a bit too "medicinal". However, it was worth harvesting and processing for two reasons. First, the tea is great for a variety of ailments including kidney stones and other urinary tract illnesses. All you need to do is cut the upper third of these plants and lay them out to dry in order to use the leaves and flowers for tea. We did this in our cellar.

Goldenrod drying for future use as a medicinal tea

The second use of this herb is as a topical. Native Americans used its astringent properties on open wounds. It is also supposed to provide relief to rheumatism and other aches and pains. So we created an infusion using a vegetable oil and coarsely chopped Goldenrod flowers and young leaves.

Should we need it, it will make for an interesting evaluation of this plant's medicinal properties.

 To close this week, I have to say that the land and this property have proven to be "magical". There are so many elements of natural beauty surrounding us that sometimes we forget...until a visitor or tourist decides to take pictures. Or until young couples shyly ask us if they can have their wedding pictures taken here.

And this was the case this past week....

Wedding photos at the Tea Room