Juicing

Word of the Day

Tinger - A taste that is pleasantly sweet and sour like that of an orange.

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I started my morning with a project in mind. Juicing. But, before I could juice, I had to go down to the basement and bring my steam-juicer and the steam-juicer that Sarge loaned me upstairs. Sarge's steam-juicer was...not in tip-top condition. It looked like the hose had been chewed. I fixed it, removing the chewed part. As for the rest of the juicer, for some reason it was full of dents...even the lid. I fixed that...as well as I could, knocking out the dents in the strainer pan with a rounded rock and in the lid with the judicious use of a pliers. The clamp which clamps the hose so that juice doesn't flow when you don't want it to flow was....what the heck? I had to use my clamp as a model so I could figure out "what the heck"...using two pliers. I fixed it. I'm glad that she loaned me her steam-juicer because I really NEEDED it today and...I feel good that I was able to fix it so she'll be able to use it when I return it. As for my steam-juicer...it was fine. OK...two juicers, ready and useable.

I cleaned three trays of raspberries, saving the best ones for dessert and had one steam-juicer full of the remaining berries. I picked my black currants, mourning the loss of my red currants from some mystery disease...or old age. I ordered five new plants from Burpee's and I'll plant them as soon as I dig out the old ones. Another project for my friend's husband? I knew that I had enough black currants for one batch of currant jelly but I also knew that the woods are full of wild gooseberries...ripe for the picking?

After hiking the woods, I ended up with two buckets of gooseberries. Nice! It looked like the guy that mows my lawn got to some of my bushes before me but, he doesn't know my woods. Two buckets of gooseberries were plenty for me to try my hand at making gooseberry jelly so I wasn't upset with him, especially since I told him that he was welcome to harvest what he wanted.

I set up the juicers, one with raspberries and one with the black currants. The black currants only yielded on quart of juice (as I thought) and I added the gooseberries to that juicer, keeping the pulp of the black currants in the juicer to lend color to the gooseberry juice.

The raspberries yielded three and a half quarts of juice, some of which I'll make into jelly, some that I'll add to other raspberries to make a jam with half the normal amount of seeds. As I said, the black currants only yielded one quart which I'll make into one batch of jelly. As for the gooseberries, so far I have two quarts of juice and...the juicer is still working so...three quarts? I'll make jelly from some of it and add some of the juice to liven up whatever blackberry jam that I make later this season.

OK...by this time, you're probably wondering what the heck I plan to do with all this jam and jelly. HTP and I can't possibly consume all that I make. Not to worry, I never have any problems finding welcome homes for my jam and jelly. DD Daughter and her family, Sarge and her family, #1 Son and #1 DIL and her family, my folks, BW Babe and JC and their family, AND my friends. I'm lucky to have enough left for HTP and me after I'm done gifting. But before that, I'm running out of the special low sugar pectin that I use. I discovered that it costs a lot less if I order it online so...done and did. I'm set for pectin for the rest of the season...I hope.

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Random Quote of the Day

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr., O Magazine, December 2003