Savvy Eats

I may have overdone it on the homemade food gifts front this year.  Even after the popcorn seasonings, hot cocoa, maple cream and cranberry mustard, I couldn’t resist making one more thing.  I wanted something else canned, something my giftees could hang on to and open when the sweet cookies-crazed month of December was over. [...]

This year, I’m all about the food gifts, interspersed with small handmade or store-bought gifts. Simple little gifts that I am fairly certain they will all love. One family member (I’m not telling who!) is getting a box of cookies and a 2013 calendar from their favorite artist.  Another will receive a box of popcorn seasonings and a [...]

My favorite place to spend an afternoon is a U-Pick farm, gathering fruit and vegetables and enjoying the upstate New York views. I have a spreadsheet in my head of which farms have what and when and how much they charge. For strawberries, I split my time between the tidy organization of Brookside Berry Farm [...]

Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly expanding my repertoire of produce preservation methods. Two summers ago, I started canning, simple things like fruit butters and applesauce to begin.  Last year, after acquiring our chest freezer, I revved up my freezing. I also started making jams, canning fruit slices and even infused a jar [...]

I’ve been spoiled by fresh blueberries. Every summer, I fill bucket after bucket with the little blue balloons of fruit at the U-Pick farms, barely restraining myself from employing a ‘pick-one-eat-one’ policy. Aside from this being unfair to the farms, I remind myself, I don’t want to turn into a Violet Beauregarde blueberry-person being rolled [...]

Aren’t these the cutest little jars you’ve ever seen?  The first one came from my gramma.  She gave it to me at the family reunion this summer, and I love its shape and pattern.  The second is an adorable “elite” jar from Ball. And that gorgeous rosy stuff inside? Blood orange marmalade.  We fell in [...]

In case you were wondering what 75 pounds of tomatoes looks like, it looks like three of these huge bags: Needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time with my knife and cutting board in the past few days, trying to get all the tomatoes frozen before they went bad. I’m freezing three different [...]

I spent most of Saturday morning out in the sweltering sun, hoping my migraine from the day before wouldn’t come roaring back. I just had to get some golden raspberries before they were all gone. Despite the sweat dripping down my back and a slightly throbbing head, I put in my headphones, tuned out to [...]