From my Garden.

Last week when I was watering the community garden I brought few tomatoes, peppers, basil and last radish. Everything is growing great, there is still plenty of tomatoes and basil and dill and few more peppers. 

And this morning I cut more herbs on my balcony. I also pulled out the sweet potatoes, few bigger ones but most of them are small. It's a big improvement from last year, I didn't get any just lots of leaves.

 

Peaches.

This weekend I made some peach jams, two ways. One was from a recipe from a book that called for 5 cups of sugar, which I think is way to much so I reduced it to 3 cups and the jam tastes much better, (I don't like anything really sweet). The second one I made my own way, like I do all my jams using special pectin that calls for 1kg of fruit and 350g of sugar. It is less sugar and you actually taste the fruit, but problem with this one is that it works well only with dark fruit and with light ones, after while, the jam turns brownish colour. So to prevent that I processed the jams in boiling water, which I never do with the dark fruits, I just put really hot jam into really hot jars and turn it up side down. You can see the difference in the colour of the jam, the one with more sugar is brighter.   

 

In my Garden.

It's unbelievable how fast time flies, summer is coming to the end and I can see that in my garden. Its getting empty in here, today I will pull out the cucumbers and plant more basil in its place. Soon I will also dig out the sweet potato and after that I will only have herbs left, and the strawberries which are still producing some fruit.

 

Weekend.

Weekend was busy as usual, this time I managed to make some chicken broth from left overs roasted chicken from dinner. Little Loki getting into the picture.

I picked more parsley and basil. I chopped the parsley and freeze it and basil was made into pesto.

I also made a peach pie, and this week will be under the spell of peaches, our local peaches are ready, on sale at the market and they are so sweet and delicious. 

Cherry turnovers.

Today something sweet with cherries before they are gone for another year.

Ingredients:

1 pkg (450 g) frozen butter puff pastry, thawed

1 egg

2tsp maple syrup ( I didn't use it)

2tbsp icing sugar

Sour Cherry Filling:

2 cups fresh sour cherries, pitted ( I used sweet cherries)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1tsp lemon juice

1tbsp all-purpose flour

Ricotta Filling:

¾ cup ricotta cheese

¼ cup icing sugar

1tbsp grated lemon zest

Sour Cherry Filling:

In a saucepan, bring cherries, sugar and 3 tbsp water to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 15 minutes. Stir in lemon juice. Whisk flour with 1 tbsp water; whisk into cherry mixture and cook until thickened to consistency of jam, about 1 minute. Let cool completely, about 1 hour.

Ricotta Filling: 

Meanwhile, stir together ricotta cheese, icing sugar and lemon zest; set aside.

On floured surface, roll out each half of pastry into 12-inch (30 cm) square; cut each into four squares.

Spread ricotta filling over half of each square, mounding in center; top with sour cherry filling. Brush pastry edges with water; fold one corner over filling to make triangle. With tines of fork, press edges to seal; pierce top of each in three places for vents ( this part its easier done after you refrigerate). Transfer to parchment paper-lined rimmed baking sheets. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or for up to 12 hours. Whisk egg with 1 tsp water; brush over turnovers. Brush with maple syrup. Bake, one sheet at a time, in 425 F (220 C) oven until puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes. Dust with icing sugar. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Carrots.

So yesterday I pulled out the carrots, I didn't know if there will be any because I tried to grow them for 3 years now and so far no success and this year I had many bugs on them. My plan was to use them for dinner but after I pulled the first one out I started to think about what I can do for dinner other then the carrots. I was really surprise after few more come out and when I finished pulling them out it was just enough for dinner. We had few raw and the rest I steamed with some broccoli and cauliflower. For dinner we had: fried potatoes ( I had some frozen dill from last year so I toss the potatoes with it), steamed veggies and chicken stuffed with broccoli.  

 

Cats.

About a month ago we got a kitten, we talked about getting one for a long time but somehow the time was never right, until now, when my husbands friend from work showed him pictures of her cat with six kittens. We didn't know how it will be when he comes home because we already have older cat, after two day of separation they met each other and started to play. There still is some tension between them, just because the little guy is full of energy and is all over the place, jumping on everything and on everybody, including the cat, but they adjusted really well and we are happy with our decision.  

 

Lemons.

I found a great deal on lemons the other day and decided to freeze some juice, but first I zest the skins and freeze it a jar for baking and then all the wonderful juice in ice cube trays for ice tea and lemonade. 

In my Garden.

So the potatoes are gone and the cucumbers are slowly finishing. I don't know what I'm going to do when my green walls are gone. The herbs are growing well and I still have many strawberries. Next week I will pull out the carrots and when the cucumbers are finished, my big containers will be empty. We still have few cucumbers every day and even though the bottom part of the cucumber is drying there are new cucumbers growing on top.