Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree...

Determined to cut down their own tree, the McClains scoured the options, and after much research,decided on a Hann's Christmas Free Farm in Oregon, WI. Josh was at the hospital, on call... and after 2 snows, the 3 of us piled into the 4Runner and were off!

With Maureen at the wheel ( there was no way I was getting in the driver seat ... duh! there is snow on the ground, not to mention snow on the car, the door was frozen shut, and there were icicles that had formed from the running boards and tire wells of the car.)

Using our expert navigation system (hand-written directions), we arrived and were greeted by a friendly worker atthe gate house. We parked, and the trek began.

Greeted by the holiday cheer of the rest of the Hann's Christmas Farm crew,Maureen picked out the perfect saw and I thought to my self.... there is no way we are cutting downa tree with

that thing! But, we treked through the farm, my toes starting to become frozen, inhigh spirits looking for the perfect tree. (Thoughts of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation were running through my mind and I was hopeful that we would be more careful and find a tree that was squirrel-free.)

I learned that there are different types of trees -- and that in Maureen's family, they alternated each year because her mom and dad liked different types of trees. I cant tell you what type of tree they ended up getting, but it is a nice one. Nick was so excited that we found the tree, that he felt compelled to dance and try to kiss it, but the tree reallydidnt want to kiss him!

Ok, its time

We have been very slack, to put it lightly, about updating in our cooking efforts....

But to create some excuses and reasons why...

- its the cooking season and we'd rather spend time with our dear loved ones than post, but its a way to connect with our dear loved ones that are not freezing their nose hairs in madison, so this is not an excuse.
- maureen was out of town for turkey day.
- we made corn syrup pies for a fundraiser and were a bit grossed out by food.
- it started snowing.
- nick and maureen got a new saw and were meticulously putting up shoe molding for a weekend
- sadie was sick ... and still has a cold (those darn elem. kiddos love to share their germs)
- nick and maureen got a wood burning stove - enough said. If you havent ever sat infront of a wood burning stove, its easiest to summarize that your to do list and priorities are erased and it just you, the fire, and relaxing (not to mention being warm .... sure beats your nose hairs freezing!)

We will get back on track.
Tks for being patient.

Apples, Cheese & Dinner

What would you do on a day off with your Mom? We chose a trip to the Apple orchard (what else would you expect from Washingtonians), a trip to a cheese factory (we are in Wisconsin you know), and an evening processing the apples into applesauce. And just to keep use even busier we decided to try a new vegetarian meal "South American Squash and Vegetable Ragout" from the new Vegetarian Times magazine.

We went to an orchard called Eplegaarden in Fitchburg. The Norwegian theme is a bit much, but the people were really great and able to give recommendations about which varieties are best for applesauce and storing. They have a corral of red wagons to carry your apples and pre-sell bags for "Selv Plukk." There is a list of rules to follow, but the main ones were no climbing the trees, don't throw apples on the ground and leave your cellphones off...pretty easy to follow!

The orchard has many different varieties: Paulared, Zestar, Gingergold, Golden Supreme, Gala, Honeycrisp, Redmax, Macspur, Redcourt, Cortland, Spartan, Empire, Haralson, Smoothee, Sturdeespur, Redchief, Jonafree, Jonnee, Jonagold, Melrose, N. Spy, Fuji and Braeburn. Most of the apples were already done for the season, but there were still a few varieties left to be picked. We were pointed in the direction of the Jonafree and Melrose apples and set off to fill our bags.

Unsure how to pick the appropriate apples, we fell back on the taste test method. I believe one of the many rules was that you may eat A apple in the field, but we extended this to 4-5 in order to best decide which apples we wanted. We started with an apple that wasn't on the recommended list...Empire...but it was so good that we filled a bag of those (25 pounds of the yummy red apples). Then we got to the business of procuring applesauce apples. We never found the Melrose or Jonafree, but were quite pleased with the taste of the Jonagold and so filled our second bag with those.

Originally I had thought this apple adventure would take all morning based on my previous experience with picking raspberries, however it really was just an hour from start to finish. In the car Mom mentioned a desire to take some cheese home and so we took a spontaneous trip to the Cedar Groove Cheese factory in Plain, WI. It was a pretty cool operation that even boasts a living machine for management of their grey water (All the more reason to prioritize buying cheese from them at Willy St. Co-op). There was way too many choices, but after much deliberation about the cheese tastes of my family at home we were able to make our cheese purchases. The two highlights of the trip were the squeaky cheese curds and the Jalapeno and Basil Jack Cheese spread. Upon getting home we found the cheese spread accompanied slices of apples very nicely!

Sadie came into the picture at this point once she got home from work. I was starting to lose a little steam, but she was able to get us going on peeling and chopping the apples to be cooked. Our individual personalities came out at this point, where I wanted to be very precise and Sadie was all about getting the task finished! It makes for a good partnership as we can find a great balance in our cooking. I do have to say that I was feeling a little out numbered though as I had two "Recipes are a suggestion" cooks to my one "Follow the recipe exactly" :) We were able to cook down the apples (no sugar needed as they were so fresh and sweet on their own!), wash the jars and hot pack them.

Nick normally stays clear of the kitchen when we undertake these adventures, but I do have to spotlight his awesome invention to make up for the faulty tool we previously had. The store bought version of the lid grabber was constantly loosing its magnet and so my ever resourceful husband made us a new one out of an old Sonicare toothbrush magnet and floss. Its not the most attractive kitchen tool, but works so much better!

Finally we were able to get the jars in the water bath, process them and call it a night. Mom was able to multitask the whole time and dinner was finished about the time the applesauce went into the water bath. Perfect timing!

Here's Mom with her "Mama Stewart" moment.

It was great to be able to share the kitchen with her!

Other ideas...

We attended our preserving class last night and if we werent hooked before, we are hooked now. We learned from the expert-resident Deb that you dont have to add salt, acid is the key when canning in a water bath and for anything that is low acid, you either freeze or pressure cook.... otherwise, botulism will cook you!

We also learned a canning technique that will cut our tomato canning by more than half! AHHH HAAA moment for sure. Blanch, peel, squish into a jar (+ lemon juice --> acid) and can. No juices, no de-seeded... voila! Tomatoes. SO MUCH EASIER.

And.... did you know that roma's are the canning tomatoes? They are known to have less juice and more flesh. Well, there ya go... another reason why we spent so much time de-juicing during our last tomato escapade.

(This is a picture of the place where we take the preserving class... look at those leaves!)

On to the roma's we go.

Canning Tomatoes -- 50 Pounds

Today we took on 50 pounds (of tomatoes). Had no idea that it would be as involved, even though we had a precursor to canning with our small batch of 10 pounds.

We didnt make any jam this time -- its almost too cold for the berries to still be on the trees (said by the Southerner). With that said, there is condensation on all of the kitchen windows because of how much warmer it is inside vs. outside. Maureen walked with the wagon that holds 800lbs up to the farmer's market, we fetched the 50 pounds of 'maters and headed back home. We prepped everything - which actually takes time but is not the longest part of our Saturday endeavour. Prepping included getting all of the jars in the dishwasher, scoring the bottoms of all 50 pounds of tomatoes, boiling water to blanch them and the ice water bath.... and everything that goes along with those tasks: emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the sink, making ice, and cleaning up to just make a huge mess (there is tomato literally covering all parts of the kitchen).

Once the tomatoes are blanched, you give them a quick dip and take off the skin. That only took 2 hours or something close to that. We decided that it was lunch time so we took a break so go back to squeezing the juice and seeds out of al 50 pounds. This took the longest time -- and was the most tedious. We came to the conclusion that back in the day, yes, back in the day, our grandmothers fingers must have been much stronger and conditioned for this type of back-breaking finger-hurting work. Seriously, repetitive motion injuries are coming our way, but well worth every minute of it. Sadie had to put on dish gloves because she's a wimp and the acid in the tomatoes was making her finger tips hurt

After all of the tomatoes were squished, they have to cook. We filled 2 complete pots and had the water bath heating up on the other 2 burners. With the stove completely full, we realized we needed another burner to boil the lids and rings. Improvise was the word of the day so we made a batch of tomatoes one at a time so "cook" or uh, sterilize the lids.

Filled up the jars, improvised on the amount of salt, and water bathed our quarts of tomatoes. We ended up with 13 quarts of fresh crushed tomatoes.

Then it was on to re-purposing the tomato juice we spent 3 hours squishing out of the tomatoes. Yes, we are exaggerating the time but it definitely felt that way, especially to our fingers and joints.

We had a recipe but because we were improvising, we added a little of this and a little of that to the recipe: carrots, onions, garlic (extra of course), horseradish (extra extra extra), beets, parsley, basil, thyme, tomato parts, peppers, pepper, a little salt and lemon juice. We (thankfully) remember that you cant add a lot of hot liquid to a food processor so it took a while to blend all of our juice to incorporate all of our ingredients, but Maureen has the patience of Job so we successfully accomplished that task (and Sadie wore her dish gloves and washed the dishes).

After canning the juice, we figured we had been at it for 5+ hours and it was time to call it a day.

Stay tuned...