Post Holiday Life at the Cottonwood B & B

Wow, another month and a half has flown by. We were packed here at the Cottonwood Inn, many interesting guests from all walks of life. The skiing was good over the Christmas holiday and most of our guests found the time (and energy) to spend a few days up at the Taos Ski Valley.

Around the first of the year my Dad came to visit and we built the long-anticipated day run for the chickens. We had an interesting time working in the 10 degree weather and digging post holes in the frozen ground. Of course that activity finally answered a topic of some debate around here-- just how deep does the ground freeze. Well, not too deep-- about 3 or 4 inches in most places. This means that I have some hope for a few bulbs that got left in the ground last year. Who knows?

We were given an old barn gate by a friend and Brantly and I have spent some time trying to get it set into the frame. We're about half-way there and pictures are forthcoming.

Very cool guest Pamela C. gave us a FANTASTIC oil pastel of our bad boy Bernard. Pamela is an artist down in the Albuquerque area who found a muse in my ill-tempered rooster. Thank you Pamela, we love our new art work! Again, a photo of the painting is forthcoming....

Moist Apple Buttermilk Bread

This is a new recipe I tried because of the billions of pounds of apples we have this year (okay, maybe a SLIGHT exaggeration). I pretty much followed this recipe to the "T" as far as ingredients go. However, I let the butter/sugar mixture sit for about 45 minutes, stirring intermittently. I learned that little trick from a recipe in Cook's Illustrated, which claimed that this allows for a caramelizing to take place which lends a richer taste and moister product. I believe it works and use it when making any dessert bread and also with some cookies.

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups apples (I used what I had-- I don't know what kind we have on the trees, but they are very sweet) chopped & cored (I leave the peels on as I think it improves the taste)
1/2 cup nuts
1 teaspoon orange zest

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Cream butter and both sugars (let sit if you like, stirring every 10 minutes for 30 minutes or so)

Add eggs to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.

Alternate adding buttermilk and flour mixture to sugar/butter/egg mix.

Stir in apples, nuts, and zest.

pour into two greased and floured loaf pans (pick larger pans for a smaller slice and smaller pans for a taller slice)

Bake at 350 for 45-60 minutes, until knife inserted in center of loaf comes out clean. Invert onto wire rack and cool before storing. Freezes well, wrap in parchment before wrapping in foil.

Plums, plums, plums.

Today was the first load of Japanese plums-- over 150 lbs. picked, washed, pitted, and bagged. I won't be canning them until Monday or Tuesday. Right now, I don't even want to LOOK at another plum.

But I will have to.... A neighbor of ours (curse him) has invited us over to pick Green Gage plums (Prunus domestica italica, for you botany nerds). Of course I couldn't say no to free fruit! So, I'll be canning some of those, but I think I will also freeze some halved, to use throughout the winter for tarts, pies, et cetera.

Also coming along nicely are the pears and apples. We're on the lookout for either a cheap cider press, or some kind of communal press. If I can get my act together, KTAO-- Taos's solar radio station, the world's only-- will allow a person to get on air and beg, borrow, trade, or sell stuff and services. As a novice at apple pressing, I'd like to borrow or trade. I could trade...PLUMS in return for the use of a press!

We're having a last of the summer heat wave, as high as 90 today, and no rain in our future until Monday. That means lots of dragging the sprinkler from one part of the yard to the other. Still, we've got lots of stuff still blooming, not to mention all of the veggies I've been yanking out of the garden daily-- cukes, cabbage, yellow squash, tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, and dahlias! Yay! I've been getting a steady trickle of the smaller dahlias I planted, nothing much to crow about in the dinner plate department, and I planted over 35 dinner plate varieties. We've just had so much rain that every bug in the universe has moved in and settled down to dinner. Oh well, next year will be all pompoms and mid-sizes.

The dawgs and chickens are all fine, and I'm working on Brantly to get a couple of angora rabbits when the Taos Fiber Festival rolls around. I know the chickens would just LOVE them....

First Batch of Canning

Well, we have finished the first grueling round of canning-- about 8 cases. Two cases of apricot-cherry jam, 3 cases of Hatch green chili jelly, and a little over 3 cases of plum marmalade made from some frozen plums.

Also have been doing some experimenting on our head roo- Bernard. No, not the kind of experimentation that involves a trip to somewhere mysterious or a large cooking pot with sage. I trimmed his VERY long spurs last night, as well as tied some old towel cloth onto them, hoping this would slow the amount of feathers he seems to remove from the backs of the hens. I had bought "Hensavers," chicken saddles, to put on several of the girls, but after one experiment on Becky, who went wild, and was also ostracized by all the other chickens, I've decided to try out just a few more ideas....

Lots of interesting action coming off Taos Pueblo land-- and across our front yard! It's that time of the year when the Taos Indians take their young up into the wilderness to teach them how to live off the land. The procession of horses, with people wearing traditional clothing, has been fascinating to watch. I even had a group last night who, when they saw our sign, asked if they were too late for breakfast....

The garden news is purple cabbage, sweet peas, squash, squash, and squash, some spinach, broccoli, & radishes, not to mention the sour cherries. I keep meaning to assemble a veggie cornucopia to photograph, but we eat it way too fast.

The canning has begun!

Yes, I've started canning already.... As Brantly and I were driving through Hondo, we saw a tree with apricots lying under it. Well, I couldn't stop thinking about those poor apricots just LYING there, so we went and met the apricots' owner. Kind Mr. Benndick told us many interesting tales of the area-- as a long time resident of Taos, he has watched some huge changes over the years. He also told us to pick as many as we wanted!

So, I made my first batch of apricot jam. I found a recipe online, but found the first taste of it to be WAY too sweet (I think it called for 3 lbs. of apricots and 6 cups of sugar!)

Anyhow, we had just noticed something very surprising growing behind the raised flowerbeds in front of the parking lot-- cherry trees!! Yes, 5 or 6 cherry trees that had somehow escaped our notice until just a few days ago. These are tiny tart pie cherries, and went perfectly with our apricots to take a bit of the sugary -sweetness out of the jam. The flavor combination is AMAZING! Unfortunately, the cherries are so tiny that it took Brantly about 4 hours to pit 3 lbs.

Our next batch will be cherry jam, and we are also going back for more apricots. We are going to try making an apricot syrup, much like the plum syrup we make from our own plums.

If you haven't canned before-- you need to. There is nothing quite as satisfying as tasting your own home-made jam, jelly, syrup, or conserve. The Bell book of canning is a great start. But after you make a few cases you'll be experimenting to create something that suits your tastes. Last year we made rhubarb/strawberry jams with 3 levels of sweetener, as Brantly likes much less sugar in his jams.

Happy canning from the Cottonwood!