Prepping for Oktoberfest

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With the Downton Abbey High Tea event under our belts, it's now time to prepare for Oktoberfest. We expect to hold a quaint celebration on October 3rd, featuring a traditional German feast ....and beer of course!

Preparing for this is almost like preparing for the Fall. With the kids back at school, it may still be Summer technically, but already the land is telling us otherwise. As such, we're now decorating accordingly both inside and out of the barn.

We had to take a picture of our old trolley fast....before the Chipmunks get to the corn stalks (as they did last year).

Our old train station trolley....before the expected Chipmunk assault.

With the onset of Fall, both Tomatoes and Apples are rapidly coming in from our raised beds and the field. We've had to be imaginative to put all this good food to use.

As indicated last week, we are making very good use of our tomatoes in soups and relish, but we've also decided to make some Tomato chips (something we discovered a few years back using our Italian canning tomatoes). To accomplish this, we simply use a dehydrator (what has become an essential tool for us when preserving various foodstuff).

When it comes to the Apples, we were thrilled to have enough to finally make our own "stuff". Of course this meant the first obligatory Apple pie for the Tea Room. But it also has involved making our own (hard) cider. This is so simple it's a shame not more people do this.

From tree to table.....our first Apple pie of the Season

The process we use can be found on last year's blog entries when we used another farm's Apple juice. Since that time, we have been able to consistently make a rather good sparkling cider. Of course the taste is defined by the juice you start with.

Since our current Apples are primarily McIntosh (with some Empire variety), our home made (and home grown Cider) does not have the complex structure we hope to achieve with our new Apple trees. We have to admit though, it is as good if not better (and much cheaper) than anything we get at the Liquor store.

Naturally sparkling, home made cider...refreshingly good!

Speaking of fermentation, we have not reported on some of our wine experiments. However, as we were getting a bumper crop of Black Currants this Summer, we decided to focus on Black Currant wine (technically a Melomel or fruit flavoured mead). It is now in secondary fermentation and we hope to report on the results later this Fall.

Fermentation is not limited to preservation using alcohol but also concerns preservation via lactic acid or lacto-fermentation. this time of year, for us, it means the production of Sauerkraut. Beautiful cabbages are coming from the fields and a home made Sauerkraut beats anything store bought.

To produce our Sauerkraut we shred the cabbage and toss it with Kosher salt. We use 3 tablespoons of salt for every 5 pounds of shredded cabbage.

The real trick is to press the cabbage as it will ferment. We've jerry-rigged a food safe plastic container and use a pie pan to press on the cabbage. The pie pan supports a large stock pot filled with water. We use plastic wrap to keep the whole thing protected from the elements.

Sauerkraut in process...simple set up leads to amazing Sauerkraut.

Finally, we'll close this week with a another picture taken of our new friends/pest, the wild Turkeys. Like clockwork, they are the first thing we see every morning as we head to the Tea Room.

Every time we see this flock we can't help but think "Thanksgiving"