Author: hillcreekfarmpa

Like many farms in Pennsylvania, we have many black walnut trees that grew up on their own.

You don’t have to have a farm to have harvestable black walnuts.  As a child growing up in Pittsburgh, my mother would harvest nuts from trees in the neighborhood.

Personally, I like English Walnuts and find Black Walnuts too strong and astringent.  Mom, however, loved black walnuts, as does my brother.  They would get together and harvest the nuts, then put them in their favorite white cake recipe, Texas Sheet Cake, and eat the whole thing themselves.  I’m obviously missing a gene here — not only do I not like black walnuts, I’m not too fond of Texas Sheet Cake, either.  My brother loves Texas Sheet Cake so much, he had Mom make it for his wedding, but the community garden didn’t have black walnuts, so his guests were spared the “nut addition.”

Whatever.  Like many PA farmers, I was inclined to “live and let live” on the black walnuts and pretty much just ignore them.  But a “find your local farm” listing asked me to check off if I had them (which I do) and I’ve actually received calls from that listing!  Then one of my Tuesday NIght Weeding friends had a Christmas Cookie recipe that takes black walnuts.  Then, my brother did me a professional favor.

So, now I’m out there picking the black walnuts up from off the ground as pictured:

The husks need to dry before we can shell them, so I’m storing them in racks left over from the garlic harvest:

This isn’t the only season for black walnuts.  While the mature walnuts are prized (by some!) in baked goods, the immature walnuts are used in Italy and France to make liquors.  You can find the recipes here and here.  The blogsphere raves about how good these liquors are and I do enjoy making liquors, so maybe I’ll try them out next year and blog about it.

If you’re interested in mature black walnuts for baking and/or immature black walnuts for liquor making, we have plenty!  You are welcome (e-mail me first!) to come and harvest what you can use, then simply make a donation to Hill Creek Farm.

My cousin Ed wanted to learn to make jam, but our Sparkle Supreme strawberry bed was new to us, so the season came and went (deliciously, I might add!) before we had a chance to “jam it up.”

So, when a friend asked if we could use 25 pounds of Concord grapes,  we leapt at the next chance to teach Ed the fine art of jam-making.

First, you need a good recipe.  Epicurious rarely steers me wrong, but when I saw that “100% would make this recipe again,” I knew we had a winner.

Next — and this is crucial — you need a preserving pan.  Mine is pictured here:

This pan was purchased as part of a set by Frank’s aunt in 1954 at Wanamaker’s as a wedding present for Frank’s mother.  It has a lid, but I’ve never used it.

Preserving pans are wide and shallow with heavy bottoms so that as much water evaporates from the jam/jelly/preserves as possible.  It is MUCH easier (and faster) to get your jam to jell if you use a preserving pan than a regular saucepan.  If you decide you like to make jam/jelly/preserves, invest in a preserving pan — it’s worth having.

As the recipe suggests, we pinched the skins off the grapes, then ground them in the food processor with a cup of sugar, then placed the gloop in the perserving pan with the skinned grapes, more sugar and lemon juice.

One of the reasons I wanted to teach Ed to make grape jam is that there is enough pectin in the grapes to jell the jam without adding pectin.  Start simple, then get complicated!

I also use a wooden paddle instead of a wooden spoon to stir the jam — it keeps the fruit mixture moving so that there is less chance of scorching or burning.

After a slow boil for 20 minutes, the grapes break down enough to release their seeds.  No one wants to break a tooth on a hard Concord grape seed, so into the food mill the fruit mixture goes.

I used a Corelle cup to put the literally BOILING HOT fruit mix into the food mill and had a pryex bowl under the mill.  Don’t use anything that might melt or break — go for the pyrex and be safe!
The seeds/skins left in the food mill go to the compost pile while the jam that passed through the food mill goes back into the preserving pan (which was rinsed out to remove any seed and skin fragments).

Another slow boil until the jam is jelled (directions in the recipe) and after a hour to cool down (yes, it’s THAT HOT!), we have jam to eat!

While the recipe has instructions on how to can the jam, I figured just making refrigerator jam was enough for my cousin Ed at this point.  Right now, it’s in the frig while we munch on Peanut Butter and Concord Jam sandwiches and give out containers to those that helped us on this journey.
We had about 19 pounds of useable fruit and made about 9 pounds of Concord Grape Jam.  My cousin Ed has decided he is NOT going to kick it all and become an Artisianal Jam Maker, but we had fun and are prepared for the strawberry harvest next year!