Trail Cam

4 different Big Moe's hanging out at the farm - can you see them all?  Yes, Yes the date is off by 1 month on the trail cam - sorry I was in a hurry...

Peaches anyone?

Peaches are in season - so it was time to make some peach salsa and some peach jam... it looked something like this...

Peach Salsa #3

6 cups fresh Peaches, diced (about 12 medium or 3 lb)
1 ¼ cups Red Onion, diced
4 Jalapeno Peppers, seeded and minced
1 red Bell Pepper, diced
½ cup finely chopped fresh Cilantro
½ cup White Vinegar
2 TBS Honey
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 ½ tsp. ground Cumin
½ tsp. Cayenne Pepper
Salt to taste
Blanch, peel, pit and chop peaches. Measure 6 cups. Combine all ingredients in a large stainless steel, or enamel, saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Reduce heat and boil gently, stirring frequently, 5 minutes.
Ladle salsa into hot, sterilized canning jars to within 1/4 inch of top rim (head space). Remove air bubbles by sliding a rubber spatula between glass and contents. Readjust head space to 1/4 inch, if necessary. Wipe jar rim to remove any residue. Process lids according to manufacturer’s instructions. Place lids and bands on jars. Tighten but do not over-tighten. Place jars in water bath canner and process 10 minutes. Cool. Check jar seals.

1 package no sugar pectin - I used Ball No Sugar needed box

6 pounds peaches
4 cups sugar
6 Tbsp lime juice
1 vanilla bean, split and cut into 1-inch pieces
6 Tbsp bourbon - I used Jim Beam
1.5 tsp almond extract
- Put the peaches, sugar, and lime juice into a large non-reactive pot and smash/blend the suckers into a rough pulp using either a potato masher or an immersion blender.
- Put the pot over medium-high heat, add the vanilla pieces and bring the peach mixture to a rolling boil, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. Boil for 1 minute, then add the pectin. Bring the jam to a rolling boil once more, stirring constantly, and boil exactly 1 minute.
- Remove the jam from heat. Stir in the bourbon and extract, ladle the hot jam into jars, and screw on the lids. Then set the jars on a rack in a large pot of boiling water--the water should be 1 inch above the jar tops. I just washed the pot I made the jam in (the only big pot I own), put the jars in, made sure they were under an inch of water and turned it on high.
- Bring the water to a gentle boil and boil the jars for 10 minutes. Then remove the jars from the hot water and set aside to cool. You should hear the lids popping within a few minutes of their bath.

Summer Fish Contest

A little weekend fishing competition was in order last weekend at Cork's pond.... the results are slightly difficult to report as Cole was keeping score (and cheating for his Uncle Bill)... so clearly Bill was the winner. We had a good time, surgery was not necessary and no one got skunked. Lexi was victorious in catching and releasing her own fish - no small feat for a 5 year old. Trevor fried the fish for the kids and we heard it was "delish" - although there is a large oil stain on his patio now (no telling how that got there).

2011 Bear Hunt

It's nearing the end of the summer and since we haven't had time to do anything too fun... Bill decided to go bear hunting... Bill and his brother Jim (and Jim's wife Stacy) were able to get a last minute trip to a place called bear lake wilderness camp (sounds fun doesn't it). http://www.blwc.com/ this camp is on an island and requires a 45 minute boat ride with all your hunting gear food, etc. to get to the camp (which has electricity part of the time and as Bill would say "no flushy toilets") - which is a huge bummer...

While the views were beautiful (notice the huge moose and buck in the photos above) no Bear's were spotted, therefore no bears came home. Here are some photo's of the trip.
https://picasaweb.google.com/PeckontheWebGallery/BearHunting2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL2v9ZX38fflWw&feat=directlink

Freezer Corn

I remember when I was a kid my mom, her sisters and my grandma Tootie (and sometimes even her sisters) would get together on a weekend (typically the hottest one of the summer) and freeze corn. Trever & I, and all of our cousins would spend the weekend picking and husking the corn. We would literally fill up the entire back of my dad's brown truck with corn. Since then I have felt it required an entire weekend and a small army to freeze corn.... Not true if you can slightly scale back from the truckloads they used to do. From field to freezer in just 4 hours you can freeze 9 quart bags of corn... it's easy - just follow this recipe I got from my friend Christine!

First start out by picking, husking, washing all the corn (cut out any bad spots) a soft vegetable brush works well for getting rid of the remaining silk - just don't brush too hard.

Then using a deep pan to cut down on the splatter - use a knife or your handy dandy Pampered Chef corn cutter shown below (if you don't have one of those call Aunt Lori) and cut all the kernels off the corn (yes you are reading this correctly we have not blanched the corn)

Recipe:

13 C. Corn Kernels

2 C. Water (more if the corn is not very juicy - this happens if the corn is past its prime)

2 T. Sugar

1 t. Salt

1 Stick Butter

Mix together in a stock pot and cook on med. heat until the corn begins to simmer. Stirring constantly wait for it to begin to simmer and let it cook for another 5 minutes then remove from heat and pour into a bowl to let it cool.

Once it has cooled, pour into quart sized bags making sure to distribute the liquid evenly amongst the bags, remove all the air from the bags, seal, freeze and Enjoy!

I didn't count the ears but one turky roasting pan full of kernels made 9 quart bags full of corn. That was 3 1/2 batches based on the recipe above (33 C. of corn)

Salsa Verde

Did you know that green salsa (Salsa Verde) is not made from green tomatoes? If you haven't had it - you should try it - it's the "medium" salsa if you've been to Qdoba and it's "Delish". Since Bill was off on his Bear hunting extravaganza I decided to play suzie home-maker and jar some salsa. Here's how it went...

First I needed some tomatillos - ours in the garden are not ready. Tomatillo's are these litle green tomatoes with husks on them (seen below)... you know they are ready when the husk part on the bottom splits open. You can get them at any grocery store or farmer's market.

To clean them you remove the husks and the core's (the little stem part) and soak them in water - they have some kind of oily film on them from the husks so make sure you soak them well. Salsa verde is pretty easy to make just put all the ingredients in the pan and cook - then run it all through your blender or food processor... you will get something that looks like this....
Process the jars in boiling water for 15 - 20 minutes and voila - salsa verde!

Ingredients: (there are many recipe's cook to taste)

51/2 cups husked, washed, cored tomotillos
1 cup onion
1 cup green chillies
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 T lime juice
4 cloves garlic
2 T cilantro (best fresh)
2 t. ground cmin
1/2 t salt
1/2 t. hot pepper flakes
(of course I added Jalapeno's to my batch)

Summer 2011

Wow - summer has flown by and no pictures on the blog to prove it. Here's a few highlights although there were many more fun times not pictured here:

Lots of party's on the peck patio, the kids decided that catching toads was a fun sport - then they let them go in the pond..... wonderful Nancy and I went to Traverse City to hang on the beach for the weekend - these are some baloons that were at one of the weekend festivals....
Can't have summer without a 4th of July Party at Trevor's house... complete with food, kids and fireworks It was a good summer for the flowers - we love hanging out on the patio all summer
Lilly turned 4 and Rilley turned 5 and neither of them hold still long enough for me to get a good photo...

We hope you had a great summer too!

~Bill & Traci