June Update: Fruit

In the yard we have a few fruit trees, vines, and bushes. I'm finding that not much fruit set, most likely because of a hard frost we had while the trees were in bloom in mid May.

We have a sour cherry tree on the side of the house. It only has a few green cherries on it this year. The sellers of the house left us a jar of jelly made from it last year so they must have had more fruit.

In the front of the house another tree, which I thought was ornamental. A few weeks ago I was weeding underneath and found a cherry on the ground. I looked up and have found a few other sweet cherries on the tree. I hope we can pick the handful of them when the ripen before the birds get to them.
We also have three apple trees. Apparently they were just planted last year. There are only about 5 apples on all three trees.
This spring I planted everbearing raspberries. They are just beginning to get their first blossoms. I probably should pluck them off and let the plants establish.
We found some blackberries in a pot at the back of the house. They are developing nicely. We've also seen a few places in the woods nearby where we should be able to pick blackberries.
For my birthday at the beginning of this month, I received 25 Honeoye strawberry plants. We won't let them fruit this year, but hope they will get well established.
There is one lone blueberry bush. It cross-pollinated with some in the field behind our house so we have a handful of green berries waiting to ripen.
On the front picket fence is a green grape vine. It is starting to set fruit. I'm not sure what we'll do with green grapes. Can you make green grape jelly?
This year's fruit will be measured in handfuls, but I hope it will be signs of bounty to come.

Raspberry Muffins with Goat Cheese Filling

Inspired by this recipe from Eating Well which I read the night before, and raspberries in the freezer, I came up with a new recipe this past Saturday morning. These are best right out of the oven, but we have found you can make the cheese warm again by microwaving them in a paper towel for 1 minute.

Raspberry Muffins with Goat Cheese Filling
Ingredients
3/4 cup crumbled goat cheese (or cream cheese)
2 tbps honey
1 tbs orange zest
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries.

Dry ingredients
2 cups flour (can be 1 cup white whole wheat)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients
1 egg
3 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 tsp orange zest

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 12 muffin tin.
Mix together the filling ingredients in a small bowl (goat cheese, honey, orange zest, 1/4 tsp vanilla). Set aside.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredient in a smaller bowl. Add the wet to the dry, stirring to just combine. Fold in the raspberries.

Spoon half the batter evenly into the 12 muffin tins. Add 1tsp of the goat cheese mixture to each muffin. Cover with the remaining batter, so that the goat cheese does not show. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 13-15 minutes until golden brown on top. Let cool 5 minutes in the muffin tin before tuning out on a rack to cool.

Currants and Raspberries

After making one jar of currant jelly on Tuesday I decided I wanted to make more. So we returned to Cherry Hill Farm and picked seven and a half pounds of currants last Thursday. Currants are fairly easy to pick. You just lift up the branch, and strands of currants hand down. You lift the whole strand off the branch.
I used the recipe from Joy of Cooking's: All About Canning. Basically you wash the currants, but don't have to remove them from the stem. You put them in a pan stems and all, crush some of them to release the juice, and bring to them to a boil. Then simmer the currants for about 10 minutes until all the berries have burst. Strain the juice through a jelly bag. For every cup of juice, add 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar. Bring to a boil in a large pan and cook until the jelling point. Pack into jars that have been sterilized in boiling water for 10 minutes. Then process the jelly for 5 minutes. My yield was (7) 1/2 pint jars of jelly.
The owner also gave us some of these champagne currants. I cooked them separately and then mixed in some of the red currant juice so that I had enough to make one 1/4 pint jar of jelly. We'll have to wait and see if it tastes any different, but it is a lighter color.While we were at Cherry Hill Farm we couldn't resist picking some raspberries as well. We picked about two quarts.
Matt had made a great apple tart before from Joy of Baking.com. So I headed there and found a Raspberry Cream Cheese Tart Recipe. We added in a few currants too, and it looks like they burst in the cream cheese during the cooking. It's a very good tart and we're still enjoying it for breakfasts.

Raspberry Pepper Jam

Last fall I bought some Raspberry Pepper Jam at a farmers market. We really enjoyed it with cream cheese on crackers and it was the perfect blend of sweet and hot. My goal this summer was to re-create that jam. Unfortunately I could not find any recipes for it online. I found some related ones and used those to experiment when I made strawberry jam. The strawberry pepper jam was just alright. It wasn't quite hot enough and I didn't like the texture, it was too clear, more like jelly. I made a few changes and think I've hit on a good recipe for Raspberry Pepper Jam.

So here it is.

Raspberry Pepper Jam

Ingredients:

5 cups fresh raspberries
2 jalapeno peppers
1 bell pepper (red or green)
4 cups sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 package powdered pectin

(Note: Jalapeno peppers vary in strength. Depending on your preference and the strength of the peppers, you may need to add more.)

Directions:

Wash and pick through raspberries. Place one cup in the bottom of a large sauce pan and crush. Add the remaining 4 cups of berries to the pan. In a food processor, chop the jalapenos and bell peppers. Be careful of the jalapeno oils that come out. They made me cough if I accidentally breathed some. Add the chopped peppers to the pan along with the sugar and vinegar.


Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring often. The sugar should dissolve.
Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 15 minutes until all the berries are broken apart. This concentrates the berry flavor and boils off some of the liquid content. At this point, stir in the powdered pectin. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 to 2 minutes.
Ladle into hot 1/2 pint jars and process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes.

Makes about (5) 1/2 pint jars.