Shhhh! Don't tell the raccoons...

... but the Candice grapes are ripening!  They don't ripen all at once, so I'm picking about every other day.  What gets picked goes straight into the dehydrator.

I set the dehydrator for 135F and start with 24 hours.  It usually takes longer - about 36 hours - but this way I'm keeping an eye on the grapes.  I dry them until they're really dry - and pretty hard as well.  I'd rather err on the side of caution than find out I haven't done them enough and they start to get mouldy.

When it's time to use them, I sometimes soak them in a small amount of hot water.  The water goes into the baking as well.  Candice grapes are small, pinkish and seedless.  They dry fairly quickly and I don't have to pierce them as you do with larger grapes.  When dehydrated, they have a tart grapey taste.

We have two other grapevines up in the garden growing against the fence; a purple and a green.  Because they've had competition from the cedars, the soil is quite acid and fairly dry as the cedars are greedy when it comes to water.  I've limed the soil for the last couple of years and this year, we finally have some purple grapes.  I've long since forgotten the varieties, but the purple ones are sweet and tasty.  Perhaps I'll give them some water next year even though grapes don't need all that much and I'll be sure to lime the soil again.

There are still lots of bunches on the Candice vine and I'll monitor them every day, picking the ripest bunches.  This will only be the third time I've beaten the raccoons.  It would sure be nice to get the whole crop, but I won't bank on it.  In the meantime, I'm very grateful for what I do get!

Easy Banana Bread with Raisins and Walnuts

There's an excellent crop of grapes this year on the grape arbour at the back of the garage.  The vine is Candice which produces sweet-tart seedless grapes that are small and pinkish - perfect for making raisins.  Raccoons permitting, there might also be an excellent crop of raisins!  I still have lots of last year's raisins as well as a bunch of over-ripe bananas, so it's time to make banana bread.

This is one of the easiest recipes for banana bread I've found.  Since I always seem to have over-ripe bananas on hand, I generally double the recipe, cut the loaves in half and freeze for later use.  The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of sugar, but since I add raisins, I cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.  The original recipe didn't call for the addition of raisins or walnuts, but we like it this way.

Easy Banana Bread with Raisins and Walnuts

2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
2 ripe bananas, peeled and broken into pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Combine eggs, butter, bananas and sugar in a food processor (or blender).  Process for 30 seconds or until smooth.  Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Add nuts and raisins.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir only until combined.  Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until done.  (I usually wind up baking it for 60 minutes) Turn out of pan to cool on a rack.  Allow to cool thoroughly before you slice.  Freezes well.

Zucchini Bread

It's official.  I've grown too many zucchini plants!  Yesterday I came back from the garden with 8 zucchinis and 2 of them were starting to get large.  I'll have to be checking them every day now and I hope I can find some friends to take excess.

However, today I made a really nice zucchini bread.  I used my own raisins and it took 2 good-sized zucchinis to get the required amount.  I used butter, but oil would probably work just as well.  You could use pecans instead of the walnuts, and dried cranberries would be a good option.  Next time I'll try brown sugar instead of white.  This recipe makes 2 loaves.

Zucchini Bread

2 eggs, beaten
1 1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups grated fresh zucchini
2/3 cup melted butter
2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup walnuts
1 cup raisins

Grease two 5x9 loaf pans and preheat the oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Stir in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter.

Mix the dry ingredients in another bowl and add to the wet ingredients a third at a time, mixing well.  Fold in the nuts and raisins.

Divide the batter equally between 2 loaf pans.  Bake at 350F for 55 minutes (or until done).  Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then cool on wire racks.

Applesauce Cake

Tonight my Dad is coming for dinner.  We're having the Chicken with Gremolata Crust (recipe in this blog titled Aconite, Snowdrop - & Chicken!) with rice and a kale salad using fresh kale from the garden.  I always make a dessert when Dad comes, so today I made an applesauce cake.  The recipe comes from my old favourite, the Five Roses, A Guide to Good Cooking with a few changes.  I'm using applesauce made by my daughter and raisins I dehydrated last fall.

The homemade raisins give the applesauce cake a nice tangy bite.  Since my daughter's canned applesauce already contained cinnamon, I toned that down a bit.  Of course I used butter instead of the shortening called for in the recipe.  My daughter, who hates raisins, would probably use chopped walnuts instead.  The cake turned out excellently - moist and flavourful.  Definitely one to make again!

Applesauce Cake

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup applesauce
1 cup raisins

Leave 1 Tbsp flour to dust the raisins.

Mix all dry ingredients together.

Cream the shortening; gradually add brown sugar and cream well until light and fluffy.  Add egg and beat well.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the applesauce beating after each addition until smooth.  Fold in the floured raisins.  Bake in a greased and floured 8" square pan at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes.

The recipe goes on to suggest various icing options but I think the cake tastes just fine as it is.

The Best Apple Crisp Ever!

One of the great things about having a garden is getting to cook with your own ingredients.  Today I made an apple crisp using our own stripy Gravenstein apples and the raisins I just finished dehydrating.  The apple crisp recipe I've been using for years has a short-bready type crust and it always brings compliments.  Since I didn't have any walnuts on hand, I skipped that part (the walnuts really finish the crisp beautifully) and added the raisins to the filling instead.

Gravenstein Apples

Filling:
6 tart apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp lemon juice

Peel, core and slice the apples into a bowl. Mix the filling ingredients together and put in a buttered oven-proof bowl.

Filling waiting for the topping

Topping:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup chopped nut meats

Blend the topping ingredients to a crumbly consistency.  Add the nuts and sprinkle over the apple mixture.  Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until the apples are tender and the crust is nicely browned.  Wonderful with whipped cream or ice cream.

Apple Crisp!  Yum!

Grapes to Raisins

We have a very nice Candice grape vine off the back of the garage.  It grows over an arbour which also shades the dog's yard.  And no, when grapes are ripe and in danger of falling in the run, the dog is not put in there because grapes are very bad for dogs!

We never seem to get many grapes because just when they reach ripeness, the raccoons arrive and clean us out.  The first we realize that we've been robbed again is when we hear thumping on the roof and many rapid little footsteps - and by then, of course, it's much too late.  Grapes are ripe enough when they feel soft to the touch, taste sweet and have a bloom on them.

Only once have we ever gotten grapes for ourselves.  About 4 years ago we had a bumper harvest and beat out the raccoons.  I had enough grapes to give lots to friends and to make raisins!  And this year we seem to have another good harvest, so hubby and I were out last night picking bunches which had ripened. Since there was no time to process the grapes last night and today was a busy day, the processing took place tonight.

Candice grapes washed and ready for stripping

I washed the bunches carefully and picked off wizened grapes.  I think these were exposed to the birds who were trying to get in ahead of the raccoons.  My dehydrator trays were nice and clean from last year, so all I had to do was strip off the grapes and fill the trays.  I know I should have taken more care in placing them so they didn't touch, but too bad!  If some stick together it's no big deal.  After reading up on the Internet, the dehydrator was set for 12 hours at 135 degrees F.

Stripping grapes

I still have a few of the raisins I processed last time.  Perhaps I may have dried them a bit too long, but I understand now that this makes them last longer.  I also read that if you add a wee bit of water to the raisins and give them a few seconds in the microwave, it softens them up.  I've always done it by soaking them for a few minutes in hot water and then using the hot water in whatever I'm baking.

The raisins I've gotten in the past have been superb.  Candice grapes make a really grapey-tasting raisin. Hopefully there'll be more grapes to harvest as there are still quite a few bunches up in the arbour getting riper.  It would be very nice if the raccoons gave me another raisin year!

2 Days Later:  The grapes took much longer to dehydrate than I'd expected - probably 36 hours in all.  At the end of it, though, I have a nice little container of delicious raisins to tuck away.  Here's what they look like.