Antelope Valley Fair

The Antelope Valley Fair wrapped up last weekend and it was a pretty good year. We didn't enter any vegetables (hardly anyone did) but did have a few other items entered.

Katie did her first ever fair entry with en Elsa themes case. She received Honorable Mention which is not bad at all.

My Kite quilt took first and my Ruby quilt took second. This was a complete surprise and the larger sized quilts are most competitive but I was very happy with it.

I entered my scrap purse and it received Honorable Mention.

I purchased a bunch of raspberries this year I made a blushing peach jam which had raspberries and raspberry peach. Very different tastes and entered in to two different categories. They both took Honorable Mention.

We made peach butter which took second place.

The corn relish was a hit with the judges and took first.

Peaches for the summer

The peach crop this year has been short so getting good peaches has been a challenge. I was able to get one box from the CSA and put them to good use.

First we made Peach Raspberry Jam from Taste of Home Canning and Preserving 

Next was Blueberry Peach Chutney from The Complete Book of Pickling

Third was Peach BBQ Sauce from The Art of Preserving

Finally was Peach Butter from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Altogether a great way to to save the peaches from this summer. We are using the BBQ sauce on some chickens for dinner tonight!

Corn and Relish

In my box of weekly vegetables I recently added on a dozen, then a few weeks later got another ten ears from the extra they had available. The result was canning corn.

My father was able to get a few zucchini from his plants so we made our favorite zucchini relish! So glad we got to make some this year as it is so delicious. 

Grapes and Beets

This year my garden is really not taking off, usually I would have a whole bunch of posts highlighting all of the bounty from the garden...but not this year. We have pulled two small zucchini, grapes and beets. Not sure what the problem is this year but we have not given up yet!

Here are the grapes. I went to Las Vegas for the annual gathering of librarians known as ALA. When I got home I looked into my back yard and found a nice purple surprise! In a few weeks the green grapes should be ready as well.

Also a little over a week ago I was weeding the garden and noticed the beets were ready. I pulled all of them not sure if they were going to be ok, some were huge which usually means they will be fibrous. This was by far the largest crop of beets I have had survive. 

A day after picking them we canned them There were a variety of types of beets but we cooked them and canned them. They were delicious! We did two canning methods, the smaller beets were left whole and the larger ones were sliced.

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Cherries!

This year we decided to go cherry picking in Leona Valley. Ten pounds of delicious cherries later I decided we should make jam. I found two recipes in Blue Ribbon Preserves, one for a Cherry Conserve and another for Cherry Jam.

Here is the conserve which has sliced almonds:

And here is the Cherry Jam:

So far we have only tried the jam but it was quite tasty!

AV Fair Wrap-up

The AV Fair has come and gone, here is a wrap-up of what was entered.

Vegetables - It was a bad year all over the AV and this was clear by the entries. We did not submit nearly as much as we had planned and the total turn out was really low. Here is what we entered and how they placed: 

Japanese Eggplant 1st Place

Banana Squash 1st Place

Hubbard Squash 3rd Place

Tomatillo 3rd Place

Pumpkin 1st Place

Canning - We entered the most in canning

Carrots 3rd Place

Bread and Butter Pickles 2nd Place

Cucumber Pickles 1st Place

Blackberry Jam 1st Place

Strawberry Jam

Apple Preserves Honorable Mention

Apple Jelly 2nd Place

Jalapeno Jelly 1st Place

Lemon Jelly 3rd Place

Mint Jelly Honorable Mention

Blueberry Chutney 2nd Place

Golden Gossip Chutney 2nd Place

Dried Zucchini 3rd Place

Quilting - I entered two quilts and actually did well with one, I have never placed at all in quilting

Halloween Jelly Roll Race Quilt

All Framed Up Quilt 1st place and Best of Division

It took first for its category, machine pieced and machine quilted and best of division. All quilts are split into two divisions based on size so it took the top ribbon for all quilts 42" and under. I was pretty excited about this!

Canning progress

Time to update what has been canned but I will start with dried. When we had an abundance of zucchini we made zucchini chips. They were slices and then mixed with onion soup mix then dried, pretty tasty. 

Blueberry Chutney You Can Can

Sweet and Tangy Gerkin Slices The Complete Book of Pickling

Bread and Butter Pickles The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Sweet and Tangy Zucchini Pickles The Complete Book of Pickling

Strawberry Jam from the pectin box

Zucchini Fennel Seed Relish The Complete Book of Pickling

Strawberry Jalapeno Jam

Fall Canning

With this post I will bring everyone up to date with what we have been canning in the mlast few months. There have been quite a few green beans which we now easily clean, cut and can, this take so much pressure off of trying to get them used up. Going back to September through the final item which was made yesterday we have canned these, in sort of chronological order.

Zucchini Relish

Corn Relish

Blackberry Jam

Apple Pie Filling

Apple Jelly

Grape Jelly

Spiced Apple Chutney Put em Up

Golden Gossip Chutney Ball Complete book of Home Preserving

Apple Preserves Ball Blue Book

Jalapeno Jelly Ball Blue Book

Red Pepper Jelly Ball Blue Book

Pumpkin Butter Pick your own website (not photographed)


Green Tomato Chutney Ball Complete book of Home Preserving

Lemon Jelly Blue Ribbon Preserves

We have been busy and the cupboards are full!