Some Pickin’ Fun
We went to an organic “pick your own” berry farm this past weekend with my friend Amy’s family (Crunchy Domestic Goddess) in hopes of picking lots of luscious strawberries and raspberries. Boy were we sorely disappointed! The strawberries were slim pickins but we did get about 4 quarts worth (around 5#) and the raspberries were still 2 weeks or so behind schedule. Thankfully all was not lost and we wound up with a buttload (30#) of juicy peaches instead!
I remember going peach picking when I was growing up and really enjoyed it and it was really fun for my son and his friend Ava to get to pick an abundance of ripe peaches from the trees. They were so cute to watch and of course, we all ate peaches and strawberries as we picked them. Yum. Ava’s little bro, Julian was covered with berries and peaches. Needless to say, the toddler had a great time eating his way through the farm, too!
When we got home, I selected the most ripe fruit to work with that day and made some fruit leather, dried slices for use in granola, cereal and desserts and we also froze a bunch of slices for smoothies and raw ice cream. For my measly 4 quarts of strawberries, I made fruit leather and dried the rest for winter recipe use. Man did my house smell amazing with all of that dehydrating going on!
I am planning on making a bunch of raw peach cobblers and pies and freezing them for future desserts. I bought the low sugar pectin for my husband to make jam but he only wanted to make himself strawberry or raspberry jam and doesn’t like peach jam. He also doesn’t like canned peaches. Figures. So, we will be preserving the rest (that we don’t inhale fresh over the next couple of days) using the methods that work best for me and the raw vegan diet.
This organic farm also grows many things that they sell in their storefront so we also bought a huge watermelon, freshly roasted green chilies, purple green beans, roja garlic, candy onions and a melon (that was marked as a cantaloupe) that was called “Israeli Perfume” and when we cut it open it had green flesh and tasted very similar to a honeydew. I saved the seeds from it because it was so tasty I want to grow it in my garden next summer! They sell many other items but were already sold out of much of it by the time we made it into the store.
It was a fun yet hot day in the sun and Leif definitely was tired by the end. He finally got to experience real fruit picking at a farm. We like to expose him to lots of different activities in nature and especially have him learn about where his food comes from. I know he enjoyed it and would love to do it again, as would we!
photos © Nature Deva
August 25 2008 07:08 pm | Leif and food and food storage and gardening and green living and organics
