Raspberry Vinegar

Although raspberry vinaigrette is all the rage these days, not a lot of people are familiar with the cool refreshing drink that is Raspberry Vinegar. This is something Jim's mom has made for years--and so have I. Our kids' friends refused to try it when they were young. They didn't want to drink vinegar! But when we called it Raspberry Punch, everyone loved it.

It's very simple to make, but you do need to have a good supply of fresh raspberries. During the season, I picked off berries and just kept adding them to the buckets living in the freezer until last week when Hanna came home for a week of canning.

The first thing you do is add one part of vinegar to six parts of raspberries. Just regular old vinegar does fine. Snap the lids back on the buckets and let this brew for 2-3 days. It's not picky...it's pickling!



Then it's time to strain out the pulp and seeds so the juice will be clear and sparkling.



But there's still a lot of juice in the berries, so we hang them in an old pillowcase overnight, catching the remainder of the juice in a large bowl.



In the morning, we measure out the juice into a large pot and add an EQUAL amount of sugar.



Heat this up enough so all the sugar is dissolved. Then pour into canning jars, snap on boiling hot lids and screw bands. Can for about 15 minutes in a boiling water bath.

How much does it make? Each gallon bucket (ice cream bucket) of berries makes about three quarts of juice concentrate. Our batch this week made 14 quarts.

How to serve? This is super-concentrated. Each one quart jar makes about two gallons of refreshing goodness. Or you can pour your glass about one-eighth full of concentrate, add some ice cubes, and top off the glass with cold water:



Nothing better on a hot summer day, so we're ready for next year!

Garden Mayhem

It occurs to me that we haven't talked garden for a few weeks. Everything's growing really well. Except, of course, the things that aren't such as my green pole beans, which didn't germinate, I replanted, and still didn't germinate. Had poor carrot germination also.

No ripe tomatoes yet at our house.



The pumpkin plant thinks that not only should it produce giant pumpkins, the plant itself should be giant.



I've had several pickings of raspberries.



The dill and the chamomile are new best friends.



We're regularly eating beets/beet tops, swiss chard, and lettuce. We've begun stealing baby potatoes from under the plants. We've eaten one fennel and the other one needs picking. The kohlrabi-from-seed is doing well. Must thin the rutabagas soon. A few bush bean plants are doing well, but I don't know that they'll supply even one meal at a time. :(

The bees are happy and making honey, and we added another set of supers one evening last week. The current estimate (two hives) is about 120 pounds of honey.

We're finally getting typical hot July weather, which means Jim is out cutting hay. We're about two weeks behind on that because there hasn't been a rain-free window long enough in the forecast until now. The local farmers' market is in full swing (too bad they don't seem to have anything not in my garden--except ripe tomatoes!) and our friends' cherry trees are bowed under from the weight. Bad year for cherries because they've split from all the rain. But for someone willing to put them straight in the freezer or dehydrator, it's not so bad. The orchards that depend on shipping out are suffering.

That's about where things are in our 'scratch' world!