Not idle hands

My hands are most decidedly not the devil’s workshop of late. In addition to the weaving — which I will photograph and post soon — I’ve been preserving fruit.

Yesterday I made my second batch of refrigerator pickles from cukes in my yard. (FYI although I had some trepidation about using my English cukes for this, they worked beautifully.) These sweet pickles are SO easy and SO good, and they can be kept in the frig for about ever. Even better, they can be FROZEN and still retain their crunchy goodness! I didn’t get any pix of them, so instead am posting the recipe for you.

REFRIGERATOR/FREEZER PICKLES

Thinly slice 7 cups cucumbers and 2 large onions (I use the slicing capability of my food processor to make short work of this step.)
Add 2 Tablespoons salt and stir

Mix together:
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon ground turmeric

Pour this over the first mixture and stir. Sit on the counter/table and stir occasionally for 2-3 hours. Now you can put it in jars for the frig or freezer bags, as you prefer. (Truth be told, I save a second bowl and just put the juice ingredients right into the cukes/onions/salt and stir well.)

Then I cleaned a HUGE bunch of kale from my CSA share. Next I blanched, de-cobbed (is that a word), and froze 4 ears of corn, also from my CSA share. Then I spent a few hours visiting with a friend and playing Carcassonne. An interesting game. Only my 2nd time playing, but I enjoyed it and would play again for sure.

After he left I ran to the store for some supplies and set to work with jam. I made one batch of nectarine-raspberry jam (berries from my yard, nectarines purchased from a local farm) and one batch of peach jam (also purchased from a local farm) with lemon and ginger. Both jelled well. Isn’t it funny though, how I left the nectarine-raspberry jars upside-down too long so that the jam in the little jars is now firmly affixed to the top of the jar? Whoever receives these will have to accept my foibles.

(Another truth be told: When I pulled my SureJell out of the cupboard, I saw that it was outdated by YEARS. Perhaps that’s why my prior batches didn’t set? DUH!)

Then I went to my African line dance class, seeing these wonderful women I’ve missed for 3 weeks – 1 ‘cuz I was out of town and 2 ‘cuz the rec centers were closed.

Today I started the day with an exercise class at the Y. My favorite class all week, but the regular teacher wasn’t there, and I don’t really care for the woman who taught it. C’est la vie.

Then I made a run out to scope out a house for my son. (No, he didn’t get the one you all sent positive thoughts on. It is SO a seller’s market here, his bid of $15K over asking was the lowest of the 3 bids received on the day the house went on the market.)

When I got home I threw a load of clothes in the wash, and hung it on the line while I was heating lots of water in the kitchen. This rather forced me to close all my windows and turn the air conditioning back on while I canned 9 pints of Vanilla Spice Peaches.

Then I prepared several Asian pears for dehydrating.

This is a lot of fruit and so few veggies. I need to get some more veggies ‘put up,’ as my grandma would have said.