Homestead Harvest of Delano

A Tiny Homestead

Today I'm talking with Ellen at Homestead Harvest of Delano. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Ellen at Homestead Harvest of Delano. Good afternoon, Ellen. How are you? I'm all right. How are you? I'm good. Are you looking forward to the snowflakes we're supposed to get tomorrow? Tomorrow?

00:29
Yeah. No, I did not know that. My weather reporter did not tell me that. Oh, yeah. We're supposed to get like a trace to an inch of snow. I'm in LaSore and you're in Delano, so I'm assuming you're probably looking at a little bit of snowflakes tomorrow. Okay. I will let him know that he has, you know, got a demerit for failing to keep me apprised.

00:57
Well, it is after mid-November. It's time. It's time for things to start looking holiday-ish, you know. All right, so tell me about yourself and what you do. I know you make jams. Uh, yep, I do. I started because my mom used to make wild plum jam jelly from our plums on our property and then she died and we had to sell the place and

01:27
I decided I wanted to make jelly like she did because it was so good. And so I started making it and I had a good time doing it. Thought it was a lot of fun. So I then decided that I wanted to try other kinds of jellies and or jams. And that's where it started. But my nephew, my great nephew really, really likes the wild plum.

01:57
So he kind of, you know, encouraged me as only a child can do. Yep. I've got four kids and they all are my biggest fans when it comes to trying out new foods, because they figure the worst it's going to be is edible. Yeah. It helps when you have somebody who will eat your practice sessions. Yes. We call it eating the evidence. Yeah.

02:27
Okay, good. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, my husband makes Christmas cookies every December and invariably some of them burn a little and none of us care because you just break off the burnt piece and the rest of it's yummy and he calls that eating the evidence. Yeah, that's, he's got a great point there. Uh-huh. And you can't waste food right now. I mean, you should never waste food, but right now don't waste food. It's so expensive to eat right now. It is. It's crazy.

02:57
I have chickens, so they can also eat the evidence. Yes. Chickens will eat anything. So will pigs. Pigs will eat anything too. Um, so I, I knew that jams and jellies didn't always have to be just sweet. I knew that they could be spicy or they could be even salty or minty. But a lot of people don't realize that the jams and jellies can be of.

03:23
a food that goes with like dinner, not just toast and jam. Right. Right. So over the past summer, I was asked by several people if I had any pepper jellies. And so I started making pepper jellies using my sister-in-law's peppers from her garden. And I've had good luck with those. I've had a lot of people.

03:53
enjoy them and buy multiple, you know, come back and buy more. Mm hmm. And, um, that is gratifying because I had never thought of jelly or jam except for mint, mint jelly, you know, you, you know about that. Cause it goes on lamb. Yeah. But, um, also I've had people put it on their fish and their chicken.

04:22
Your jams or mint jelly? Jams. Like, yeah, I have a pineapple variations and peach variations that are used on their meat, whatever, you know, chicken or fish or like that. And then I made, I had a boatload of tomatoes last year.

04:50
So I started making tomato jam and that is so good on like your, um, it's a savory jam. So you put it on your hamburger or your meatloaf or your ribs. And it, um, you get the tomato, but you also get all the, the spices, depending on which spices are used, it brings out the taste of the meat more.

05:19
Yeah, we tried a blackberry jelly and balsamic vinegar glaze on steak one time and that was really good. Oh yeah, that does sound good. Yeah, it was sweet. It was almost like a barbecue by the time it was cooked, but it was very blackberry-y but it had the zing of the balsamic vinegar. It was really nice. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, and years ago.

05:49
I used to do roast chickens and I would mix apple cider vinegar and apricot jam and something else. I can't remember what the other thing was. Like whisk it together in a bowl and put that over the top of the chicken like you would put butter over on a turkey. Yeah. And then- Yeah, baste it with it. And that's really good too. My mom still uses my recipe because I sent it to her. I was like, you should try this. And-

06:17
She's like, we make an apricot glazed chicken once a month since you sent me that recipe. I'm like, well, good, I'm glad you enjoy it. Yeah, no kidding. So yeah, you can use- That was a good idea. You can use jams in a lot of things. My, probably my favorite is my, I think it was my grandma on my dad's side, used to have leftover pie dough when she would make pies. And so she had this little, it was almost like a-

06:46
muffin tin but they were smaller sized muffins for the opening and she would put the dough in there and just squish it so it was just like a little tiny pie shell and she'd put her her homemade preserves in there and bake it and oh my goodness those were so yummy. So more like a tart. Yes, yep just little baby pies is what she called them. That's cute.

07:12
She'd be like, yeah, I just want to make baby pies. And I was like, yes, yes, we do. Please, let's make baby pies. So what a great memory for you. Oh, yes, absolutely. I can still remember the table in her kitchen. It was one of the Formica topped ones with the metal legs, the rounded metal legs. Yeah, I still remember. And she had the enamel sink that had the.

07:42
I don't know what it's called, but the old fashioned ones where there's the sink, but then there's like divots in the sideboard so that if you put dishes there, the water would run in the sink. Oh, a dish strainer. That, yeah. She had one of those. Yeah. Those are handy. Yeah. So she had the old fashioned farmhouse kitchen. It was really cool. I'd love to have a sink like that. I would too, but I would want it to not be up.

08:11
because enamel is a pain in the butt to keep clean. My kit, my sink is a white enamel sink. It was brand new when we moved in over four years ago and trying to keep that thing clean is the bane of my existence. Comment. Comment. Yeah, no you can't. You'd have to use like a soft soap, soft scrub. Okay. Not comment, not on enamel. Yeah.

08:39
Yeah, had I realized how hard it was going to be, I think I would just replace the sink with a stainless steel sink right away, but I had no idea. Are you drinking porcelain? No, it's not. It's enamel. Oh, okay. Baking soda is a movie. Okay, I'll try that. I don't know. Oh, I'll try anything at this point because it's just, it's clinging when I clean it, but it has like little scuff marks on it.

09:09
Yeah. That I can't get out. Yeah, in that bug show. Yep, I get that. Well, it's white. It's white. With scuff marks. I'm like, it's not marble. It should not have gray marks on it. Damn it. And my husband said to me one time, he's like, do you not clean the sink completely when you clean it? I was like, you do it. You try it. You try to get that off of there. You're welcome, I can do it.

09:34
He was like, okay. And he grabbed a magic eraser and tried it and that didn't even get rid of it. He was like, what is it? I said, I don't know. I don't know why it does it. He said, when this sink needs to be replaced, we are getting a stainless steel sink. I said, okay, anytime, whenever you're ready, let's get one. Great, that sounds good. Yeah, yesterday would have been great. So anyway, it's fine. No big deal. Just bitching, cause I can bitch about it. Cause it's my podcast, why not? Yep, that's right. The wild plums.

10:04
I grew up in Maine and we didn't have wild plums in Maine for some reason. You'd think we would have, but we didn't. And when I used to go hiking here, not even 10 years ago in Minnesota, wild plums grow everywhere in Minnesota. They do. So even if you don't have them growing on your property, did you know that you can harvest wild plums from state land as long as you don't cut the tree?

10:34
I did know that I hesitate to do that simply because I don't know what's been on those plants, those trees. You know, I don't know if somebody has gone by and sprayed whatever and I'm just like, I don't want to take that chance. You know, the fact that I'm selling these products makes me extra special, careful. Yes. Of what?

11:02
I use and how I do things. Yes, I hadn't thought of that. Sorry. But for anybody who just wants, anybody who just wants to try making wild plum jam, if you go for a hike out in the woods, like way out in the woods, and you pick some wild plums and wash them, it's probably fine. I would not, I wouldn't bat an eye about it if you're just doing it for yourself. So personal use, you bet. You go for it. Yep. And

11:31
The other thing with wild plums, we haven't made wild plum jam because wild plums are not very big. And I feel like, I feel like they're kind of a pain in the butt to process. Is that incorrect? It is. All you do is wash them, sort out the bad ones, stick them in a crop pot. Or you can do it on the stove too, but, um, add a little bit of water, put a top on, put it on low.

12:00
and let them start softening. And after they're soft, then you just run them through a food mill. And that takes the skins and the. Oh, slick. Okay. Yeah. Well, we have, we have a big old wild plum tree on our property. I appreciate it because we have a big wild plum tree on our property. We may have two actually.

12:28
And it put out a ton of plums this year. And I said to my husband, I said, we really should use those. Yeah. He said, do you want to screw around with them right now? And I was like, no. He said, neither do I. He said, maybe we can ask somebody about how to do this and we can do it next year. I was like, okay. So I found my somebody it's Ellen. Ellen knows what to do. Here I am. Thank you. If you have extras next year, let me know because.

13:00
Like I said, that kid loves the wild plum jam. Yes, I will let you know. I will make a note in my calendar for like, what is it, July? Yeah, you can, they harvest the end of August, generally, into September. Okay, then I will put a note in my phone, in my calendar that says, tell Ellen if the plums are ripe in August. Yeah, yeah.

13:30
And the great thing about them is that you can.

13:35
You can use them in so many different ways, like you were talking about using the meat, putting jelly or jam on meat. Yeah. The wild plum is great that way too. Uh huh. You can use it on.

13:53
everything. Ham is particularly good as a glaze instead of using the pineapple rings. Yeah. Yeah, I bet it would be delicious.

14:07
I am a huge fan of plum jam. I had never had plum jam in my whole life until a couple years ago and somebody, some brand was selling it, you know, like at the store. And I don't remember what the brand was. I think it might have been a store brand actually. And I was like, let's get plum jam. I've never tried it. And we had some really nice bread that my husband had made.

14:34
And I slapped some soft butter on there and some of that plum jam on took a bite. And I was like, Oh my God, this is heaven on earth right here in my face right now. Okay. Now store plums, the domestic ones are very different tasting than wild plums. Uh-huh. So don't expect, I had one lady that, uh, she wanted my jam, my gel.

15:02
It was, it's a jelly more than a jam. Okay. She wanted the plum because, um, you know, she thought it tasted good. And I said, I want you to taste it first because from her direction or her description, she was talking about a sweet plum from the store. And so she tasted the wild plum and she said, it is a different taste.

15:30
Is it sharper or more sour? Um, tartar, I think is what.

15:39
how you would describe it. I would be totally okay with that. That would be fine. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure, but I just wanted you to know that. Uh-huh. What other flavors of jams do you make? Well, we have the carrot cake, which is made with carrots and pineapple and pears, and tastes like a carrot cake.

16:06
Um, nice. Pina colada, which is pineapple. It's a pina colada in a jar. Uh huh. And this year I've made some pumpkin butter, spiced pumpkin butter. That is a lot like eating a piece of pumpkin pie. In fact, I took some of it the other day and swirled a spoonful into Katie's

16:36
Katie Hoker's yogurt, her goat yogurt, and it was so good. Yeah, before we go any further, Katie is your niece. I interviewed Katie months ago, and her place is Freedom Rain Farm, right? Correct. Yeah, Katie's fantastic, you guys. If you need goat stuff, go find Katie's Facebook page and get ahold of her, because she is great. She is, and she is very helpful,

17:06
We'll do so much to help you.

17:11
She's got eggs, goat milk, and soaps, shev, and the yogurt, like I just said. Uh-huh, yep. No, I love Katie. I actually have not met Katie, but I want to meet her at some point. I'm gonna have to take a drive up to Elano and meet you guys at some point. Yeah. Okay, so keep going. You said pina colada jelly? Pina colada jelly.

17:41
jelly. So it's yum. Yeah, it is. It's got pineapple, rum, wine. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Coconut. Can't remember off top my head if it has anything else, but it tastes very like a pina colada drink. Yep. Then I have the regular strawberry rhubarb and rhubarb and black forest.

18:10
preserves, which is if you're a fan of chocolate cake with cherry filling, that's it for you. I've had that on angel food cake, put it as like a drizzle on it, if you know what I mean. Yeah. And let all that chocolate goodness and cherry juice seep into the cake.

18:39
It's also good on ice cream. Yeah, I bet it is. I bet it's amazing on ice cream. It is so very good. And then I'm right now making Christmas jam, which is several different berries and cranberries. And is a very rich tasting jam.

19:08
Okay, does it have like, like, um, spices in it? Like, I don't know, pumpkin pie spice and things like that. Uh, cinnamon, ginger, cloves. Like that. Yep. Okay. And what are the berries in it? Uh, cranberries, strawberries and blueberries. And then there's orange juice, lemon juice, you know, give it some.

19:37
a little bit of tart. Mm-hmm. I bet your kitchen smells amazing when you're making that. I think it smells good. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. So, so are you doing this as a cottage food producer or do you have a commercial license? No. Cottage food. It's a cottage food. Yep. Okay. So you can't ship your stuff just like all us cottage food producers can ship our stuff. Rant, rant, rant.

20:07
Yeah, I don't know why that is. But nobody does. I don't know. Uh huh. That was the rules is right. Okay. I just, I feel like it's a cry and shame because I have talked to so many people over the last year who make amazing food things, they're doing it as Scottish food producers and they can't ship it. And I'm like, it sucks that you can't ship it. It's not fair. Yeah. I don't know why.

20:36
I suppose it has something to do with regulations and, you know, you can't control how it's shipped. So you can't do this and you can't do that. It makes no sense. But by going to markets and by going to different, like farm stands, you know, you can, you can do something about it that to get your product out.

21:06
And then you can always meet somebody if somebody contacts me on Facebook and says, hey, can we meet in wherever? I can do that. I can bring them the product. Yes. However, it just popped into my head that this whole not shipping stuff is silly because everything that is shipped is shipped with a tracking number now.

21:35
Yes, I know. So why in the heck can't we ship stuff if we're shipping it from the post office in our town that we took the stuff to, to the person that's receiving it. It's, we know where it's coming from. Right. It's, it's so weird. I hadn't even, I hadn't even thought about it at all in that terms until I talked to you today. Hmm.

22:03
good that I gave you that idea. Now you can research it and figure it out for all of us and let us know. I'm going to email my rep and be like, uh, my state rep and be like, um, explain this to me because hello, it's going from my kitchen to my vehicle to the post office in my town where it receives a tracking number and that tracking number traces it all the way to where it's going. What is the freaking problem here? Yeah.

22:31
Oh, it makes me so frustrated. It's fine. I'm not making anything right now any way to ship, so it's not a big deal for me, but it frustrates me for people like you who are very talented and make things that are unusual and yummy and only people who are in the area can get it from you. It's not right. You're right, it isn't. So, I'm gonna stop, because otherwise it's gonna be a 20 minute rant. I'm not doing that today.

22:58
So how did your event go this weekend that you had going on? Oh, well, we had one in Mound and we had one in Hutchinson. And did pretty well in Hutchinson, not too much in Mound, because the Mound one, I don't think, was advertised very well. I don't know.

23:26
And it just could be that so much was going on that people didn't know where to come. The vendor did tell, or the organizer did tell us that some of his signs had disappeared. Oh no. Yeah. So that, you know, I don't know. I don't know why people take things that aren't theirs, but. Me either.

23:56
Me either, because it's a mad, mad world, Ellen. That's why, because people are crazy. So do people buy your jams for Christmas presents? Yes, I have four ounce. I typically make eight ounce jars, because that's a good size for people to try. But I've been making some four ounce, too, for stocking stuffers.

24:25
Yeah, yeah. Or perhaps buy two or three or four different varieties to try them. Do like a gift basket. Yeah, yep. And that seems to be a very popular idea right now. Yeah. For example, the Christmas Jam. Yeah. Is the Christmas Jam the Harvest Gold?

24:55
pepper and maybe the strawberry pineapple jam, you know, and stick it in a box and wrap it up and give it to somebody for Christmas or a holiday of whatever sort that you want to do. Or bring it to Thanksgiving dinner. Yep. The the apple pie spice jam is

25:23
great right now because there are so many, you know, with the apple harvest and I'm able to get apples from the orchards or from, um, like Joy. I don't know if you know Joy Gullings? Nope. Um, she gave me a whole bunch that I turned into apple pie spice jam. And again, it tastes like a piece of apple pie, but without the pastry.

25:53
Mm-hmm. So I tell people that, you know, they get all the fruit goodness out of that, whatever pie it is like. Without the carbs. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. And all of my jams, jellies are gluten-free and dairy-free.

26:21
I don't put some recipes because of the foaming issues with the fruit. For example, the peaches and, um, strawberries are very frothy during the cooking process. Yep. Some people you can put butter into it and that cuts the frothiness down. And I don't do that because of the dairy allergies.

26:52
I just deal with the frothiness. Yes, and for anybody who doesn't know, the frothiness is not anything bad. It's not going to hurt you if you eat it. It just makes you look funny. Well, it's kind of like the froth on a beer. Some people really like the frothiness. It's tingly on your tongue.

27:22
I think it's good, but I scoop it all off and stick it in a jar and save that for me. Yeah, my mom used to do the same thing. She'd scoop it off and throw it away. And I was like, why are you throwing it away? That's the best tart. She's like, it's gross. I said, no, it's not. It's delicious. She's like, well, you can eat it if you want. It's very pretty. When I make the strawberry rhubarb, it gets very frothy.

27:50
And I put that in a jar and it's pretty pink with the strawberry rhubarb portion jam underneath it. Yeah. It's so pretty. Yeah. The other thing that you can do is I make a strawberry rhubarb compote to put over ice cream in the springtime from the first cutting of the rhubarb. Oh yeah. And I always end up pulling off some of the juice because there's so much juice in strawberries and rhubarb.

28:19
and I take that juice and I put it in a jar and I stick it in the fridge. And if you get like fizzy water, plain fizzy water, soda water, and you add some of that juice, that soda water, it's like strawberry rhubarb pop. It is amazing. Yes, yes. My mom used to make something called rum pot. And she would take a jar and put all kinds of different fruits in it, stick it on top of the refrigerator, and put it on ice cream.

28:50
Uh-huh. Was quite good. I hadn't thought about in a long time. Yeah. I have to do that. This is the beauty of these conversations. Cause I have that happen to me all the time too. Somebody would be like, my mom used to, and I'm like, oh my God, so did mine. I hadn't thought about that in 40 years. Wow. Mom's so great. Yeah. I love talking to you guys. Cause you just make me think of all kinds of things that have been stuck in the back of my brain.

29:19
Forever and not access and I'm like, oh I got to dig that out. I need to dig that recipe out or I got to Try that again Whatever it is. So All right, Ellen. We're almost at 30 minutes Um, do you have anything else you'd like to share or do you have a website you want to talk about or anything? Well, I'm on Facebook as Homestead harvest of Delano Mm-hmm, and I would love for people to come and visit me there

29:47
Okay. I'm just getting started with this project and I accept all kinds of advice and ideas. And I really like it when people try some of my jam and let me know what they think of it.

30:10
Well, yes, because if it's fantastic, you get to glow in that. And if it needs something, you know what to do with it. Yeah. Yeah, like the wild plum. Some people like spices in it, so I started putting the warm spices in. And that's really good too. Uh-huh. Yes, you get all kinds of creative feedback, which means you get to play.

30:39
Yes, and well, and that's why the carrot cake. That's how I started that with the carrot cake. I, I'm like, carrot cake jam. Hmm. This I have to try and it tastes like a carrot cake, a piece of carrot cake. Um, and the same with the black forest. It tastes or the pumpkin or the apple pie or, you know,

31:07
Those I call those my dessert jellies. Yeah, you're not just making straight strawberry, straight grape, straight orange. You're doing things that are fancy and fun. Although I did make a strawberry grape. I had leftover strawberries and some grapes. And so I decided to combine them. And a little at this last event, little boy, oh, I don't know, six, seven years old,

31:36
He tried the grape strawberry and he was like, oh, so his dad had to buy some for him. Well, yes. It's, you know, the kids, when they, they're very honest. If they like something, they tell you. If they don't like it, they tell you, you know? It's great that way. Yeah, and you can't get mad because you need that honesty. You need that kind of forthrightness. Right.

32:07
You can't take a fancy to something like that. So whatever. Not from a little one. No. Little ones tell you the truth and we need them too. So. Yeah. All right. Ellen, thank you so much for your time today. I am so excited that you're doing this because I think the world needs more fun jams and more fun ways to cook with it. So thank you. Oh, thank you. You have a great day. Thank you for inviting me. Absolutely. All right. Thanks.