Jammin' in Boise

I am running out of containers and refrigerator space, as my kitchen overflows with late-summer bounty and I feel compelled to do something with all of it before it goes bad.

On my recent drive back from Seattle, I stopped to pick up a couple flats of peaches, fresh from the central Washington orchards. In Boise, it is a bumper-crop year for my front-yard apple tree.

Neighbors have shared fresh pears by the dozens, and the grapevines next door are sagging, laden with small but delicious white table grapes.

Since last weekend, I’ve sliced, boiled, strained, mashed and ladled like a professional chef. If you showed up, I'd enlist your help! And you'd be given a nearly impossible choice: Take home some peach pie, peach jam, pear/apple jam, applesauce, apple butter and/or grape jelly.

A friend also recommended I try making pearsauce – same as applesauce, only with pears – which I’d never heard of. It’s delicious!

Weeks ago, I opted to freeze the white currants, my backyard raspberries and a neighbor’s blackberries and rhubarb, since I can get to them later and they don’t take up much freezer space.

I’ll freeze just enough homemade jam and applesauce to delight a few guests – and myself – with a taste of summer, later this winter.