I love this photo. Aren't they cute?

Every year, the kids and I (and often our friends) head to local farms for pick-you-own fun. This past weekend, that meant apple picking. The apple picking season generally starts in September and goes through early November here in Connecticut, so we are more than half-way through the season (and late by our standards). Fortunately, the day we chose was sunny, but neither too hot nor too cold. Read the rest of this entry…

Do you love strawberries? I do! When I was a little girl, I would eat them dipped in confectioners sugar. … Or straight from the vine if we went strawberry picking. If you have ever eaten one from the vine, you know that the sweet, warm berry is enough to make you close your eyes in enjoyment and just moan out loud.

They are just so good. I am salivating just thinking of it.

And this year, berry picking season is already here for Connecticut — two weeks early. Considering that the typical season lasts only three or four weeks, that means that in around the 15th of June, the super-sweet berries (typical of late season picking) will be all ready to go.

According to local farmers, the unseasonably warm conditions in May made the strawberries mature at lightning speed. If you are in the local Fairfield County area, Jones Family Farms is in full swing with their strawberry picking.

What are you to do with all the berries? Well, eat them of course! From Strawberry Sauce to Strawberry Kiwi Fools to Strawberries and Cream Crepes, there is so much that you can do with these ruby gems of summer. I also suggest that you freeze some for the winter months — that way you will always have the freshness of summer available and ready. Whether you prefer them plain (so good like that!) or used in other recipes, they are best eaten fresh and in season. There is just no comparison between the berries picked fresh and locally and the ones you get in the supermarket in January. None.

Do you berry pick? We do every year!

The sky turned a brilliant blue today … better than anything Crayola could imagine. And the temperatures were downright warm — along the lines of what we expect from early October, but certainly not November. It was just one of those gloriously beautiful Sundays.

A day like today should be spent outdoors, enjoying the weather and the land. So, the kids and I packed into the car and headed to Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, Conn., for some apple picking. Honestly, I didn’t know that you could pick apples in November, but you can.

Read the rest of this entry…

One of my goals for this year is to extend our local eating for as long into the winter as we can. I’ve done this hear and there in the past, putting up jams and relishes and freezing pestos and sauces, but this year I want a more comprehensive effort. As fruits and vegetables hit their peak, the kids and I will be gathering them, making some for the family to eat now and processing the rest to be stored for the winter months. First up: strawberries.

After picking strawberries last weekend, I quickly set about to use all the berries we brought home. When you pick as much as I did (somewhere between 10-12 lbs of berries … mmmm!), you have to do something with them quickly so that they don’t go to waste.

I immediately started work on jam for the winter (and a little for the summer too), which is a two-day process for my favorite canned version. About 12 cups of strawberries went into jam making using two recipes — four half-pints of my favorite fresh strawberry jam recipe and about a cup of fresh strawberry jam using a Cooking Light recipe. The Cooking Light recipe cooked way faster than it was supposed to, so that came out much thicker than I anticipated. But it’s still very tasty.

Next came some strawberry sauce, which we’ve been eating on pancakes and waffles all week. In fact, the picture above is the kids eating waffles with strawberry sauce on the front porch. Mmm.

Finally, I froze about eight cups of berries for the winter months. Locally grown strawberries taste so much better than the ones you buy in the store, so freezing local berries means that we can have fantastic tasting berries all year wrong … and not settle for what’s available. At first blush, I questioned whether this would be enough berries to last through the winter — and truth be told, I am still playing with the idea of picking some more — but I realized that we will also be storing peaches, apples, raspberries, blueberries and more (if all goes according to plan!), so we will have a big variety to eat from and don’t necessarily need tons of one type of fruit.

What do you think? Would you store more than eight cups of strawberries, given the opportunity?

Read the rest of this entry…

The kids and I and two of my friends went strawberry picking yesterday afternoon. So what that it was raining? So what that the skies clued us in that this was a rain that wasn’t going to just pass … It just didn’t matter. We all wanted the berries and nothing was standing in our way.

In past years, the coming of rain would have  (and did) scared my friends and I away from the strawberry fields. But perhaps we are just older and wiser now. Or maybe we were just too fixated on our plans. Whatever the case, when two of my friends arrived from New York on Saturday afternoon, it didn’t matter a smidge that it was starting to drizzle. We packed into the car and headed to Jones Family Farm, a local pick-your-own farm.

When we arrived, we found that we weren’t the only crazy folks taking to the fields for some speed picking (seriously, how else would you do it in the rain?). I can’t tell you exactly how much we picked, but I can tell you that the big, red, rosy berries have the sweetest, juiciest, most luscious flesh … They are beauties. Read the rest of this entry…

Have I mentioned that it’s apple season here in the northeast? Of course I have . . . And apple season is off to a great start. The apples are plentiful both in the fields and in my home (we’ve done lots of picking this week!).

Can you guess what Will did after we dropped my sister off and ran a few quick errands on the way to pick up my friend? And yes, it was a good thing. He actually got a decent nap in the car, believe it or not.

The heat wave in New England has subsided. After day after day of intolerable heat, it was cool yesterday (while it rained) and warm today. Thank goodness. The stifling heat is just too much for this pregnant woman to take.

Fortunately, today also happened to be the day that Virtual Frolic and I had planned to go blueberry picking with Will. It wasn’t overwhelmingly hot. And while we did get quite toasty in the sun, we lasted about an hour before wanting to head back. Actually, the heat wave probably worked to our advantage in that respect – there were tons, and I mean TONS, of beautiful, big ripe blueberries on the bushes at Jones Family Farms in Shelton. It’s definitely a good time to go blueberry picking. Be aware that they are closed on Sundays and Mondays though. The season is also coming to a close soon, so call before you go to verify hours and that they are open.

Will had a blast from the time we arrived. (Did you notice that I color code his clothes to the fruit? Yea, it’s deliberate . . . he’s just a little boy after all and it saves us from unnecessary clothing changes due to fruit stains.) And, being the big two-year-old he is, he carried our basket for quite a bit. But there is nothing as cute as his squeal of “weee!” when we rode on the Berry Ferry out to the field and then back later. He ate quite a few berries and was kind enough to pick a few too. And, miracle of miracles, the ones he picked were mostly ripe.

VF and I have had a ton of fun doing the pick-your-own circuit this summer. Strawberry picking in June, blueberries in August . . . and maybe, just maybe, we’ll head off for peach and other fruit picking in the fall.

But for now, what to do with my 3+ pounds of blueberries . . .