In the kitchen

The first batch of Faye Alberta peaches are ready to be canned.

The kitchen has been the central hub of activity in our house this last week. Canning is in full swing. We had enough nectarines to make a batch of jam and a large crisp. So far we have canned two batches of applesauce and lots of apples are left. We also froze enough to make apple crisps with during the winter.

We tried rose hips jelly for the first time, but it didn’t set so we will use it as syrup on our pancakes. The flavor is good.

Our Babcock peaches produced quite a lot of fruit so we are juicing most of them in the steamer. We are also using them fresh on top of our pancakes and for making crisps. The Faye Alberta peaches are starting to get ripe and that is the verity we use most for canning.

We did take an afternoon off to go shopping for supplies. While out we stopped at a used bookstore and found two books of interest. One titled “The Soybean Cookbook” by Dorothea Van Gundy Jones and American Cookery 1796 by Amelia Simmons, the 1982 version.

The cookbook is the one we started reading first. It also has a history of the soybean and a list of all the things made from the soybean as of July 1971, the date of the fourth printing of the book. The list includes food items, animal feed and non-food items such as printing ink, candles, linoleum, waterproof goods, enamels, rubber substitute and more. Food items include: soy sauce, boiled beans, baked beans, soups, coffee substitute, soy milk, soy flour, bean curd, salad oil and more.

The soybean has been the main source of protein in Asian countries and others especially in time of war. It was first introduced in the United States in 1804, but production in the US did not reach any sizable figure until 1924, when 5 million bushels were produced.

To find a current production amount we googled soybean production in the United States and found the following: A bushel is equal to 60 pounds. The average yield of U.S. soybean was 11 bushel per acre in 1924. This has increased through out the years. The highest recorded was in 1994, this was 41.9 bushels an acre. In 1924 the soybean production was 1.8 million acres harvested. This number has increased through out the years. The current number of soybeans produced is 63.4million acres harvested.

Other areas the cookbook goes into are details of nutritional values, how soy is used in different food products as well as listing many recipes. The recipes cover how to use green soybeans, dry soybeans, roasted or toasted soybeans and sprouted soybeans. Then there are meat replacement dishes, noodles, sauces, gravies, soups, salads, spreads, milk, tofu, breakfast dishes, desserts, candies, breads, pastry, cookies and cakes. At the end is an appendix that defines some of the items mention in the recipes, menu suggestions and an index.

We have some recipes that we use soy products in but after reading this cookbook we will be adding more to our list of favorites. We enjoy finding and trying different recipes that help us eat a more nutritionally balanced diet.