Show Me the Honey

Last night we harvested our honey for the first time - 17.5 pounds of the stuff. We haven't yet bought a fancy motorized extractor, so we had to use the crush-and-strain method. First, we had to remove the frames from the super. This was tricky, as the bees glued the frames firmly into place, leaving brown goo  (propolis) everywhere. Then, we had to cut the honey out of the frames and mash it with a potato masher. Russ purchased a special food-grade bucket and appropriate strainers. Once the honey and comb were sufficiently mashed, the mixture went into the strainer. One day later, we were ready to complete the process and filled 17.5 one-pound jars. It was very exciting to actually fill the jars and see how much honey we produced. The kitchen was covered in sticky honey and propolis, but it was worth it.

New Bread-making Efforts

Russ bought me this book for my birthday. I used to make a lot of bread, but haven't in a long while. I often start thinking about dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon and by then its too late to make bread that will be ready for dinner at 5:30. This book offers a whole new method for making bread. Instead of taking three hours  start to finish, this book gives instructions for making a large batch of high-moisture dough, no kneading required, and keeping it in the fridge for up to two weeks. When you want to eat bread, you cut off a lump of dough, shape it, let it rise for 40 minutes and bake it. I've been impressed with the results, though I've only made the first recipe.

 

The great thing about this approach is that the longer you leave the dough in the fridge, the more flavor it acquires, akin to sourdough bread. Russ and I have tried keeping a sourdough starter a few times and they are a lot of work. This method really is an easier, tastier bread. Alas, my loaf doesn't look quite as perfect as the loaf on the cover, but I'm determined to get there.  

Transformational Peaches

Nothing improves my day more than a fresh ripe peach from my own tree. I've been potty training Rosie for the last month, which comes with many frustrations.  Potty training accidents eat up all of my patience. I finished cleaning up another terrible accident  just before lunch and was starting to feel grouchy.  Then I sliced up one of these and shared it with the kids and the whole incident was forgotten. It was full of real peachy flavor that I hadn't tasted in  years. A truly transformational peach.

Sunflowers

Russ planted sunflowers in front of our house a few months ago. I've never been much of a flower person, so I was a little sceptical.  They grow quickly - the tallest of these is probably eight feet high - and in the last week they have started to bloom. I've spent the last hour sitting in the front room admiring the flowers while the rest of my family is in bed sick. They are beautiful.

Not My Favorite Job

A few weeks ago I tried canning some peaches (pictured above) and some apricots (pictured below). The apricots were fairly straightforward. Slice them in half, remove the pit, put them in hot jars, add syrup and place the jars in the canner. To can peaches, you follow the same process, except you need to blanch and peel the  peaches before you put them in hot jars. I blanched the peaches (put them into boiling water for a minute, then into ice water) but they would not peel. I tried blanching them again, this time for two minutes and they still wouldn't peel. I ended up removing the peels with a paring knife, which was not a fun or quick job. After discussing the problem with my mother-in-law, an experienced canner, I realised that the super cheap peaches I used were probably not ripe enough. Grrr. Hopefully I'll forget this experience and be willing to try again next year.

Sweet Loving Nature

Russ pulled this piece of comb from one of our hives and stuck his finger in to taste it. The amber-colored liquid looks like honey, but it isn't, as it hasn't been aged. It tastes like honey-flavored corn syrup. Alex and I have been enjoying it for the last few days. I can't wait for the real thing.

The garden might be dead, but at least we have apricots

As I was writing the last post, the apricots were starting to ripen, but  I was worried we would lose most of them to birds and bugs. The Chinese apricots did much better than expected and we dried them. I used to think of dried fruit as being somewhat tasteless and unexciting, but home-dried apricots are the opposite. I never had a dried apricot before I met Russ' parents. They used to have several large apricot trees and would dry the fruit every year. I tasted some when I first met them and was hooked. We eat them plain and add them to soups. The trick is to let them ripen as much as possible and then dip them in sugar syrup before placing them in the dehydrator.