Pickling

Monday, I did some quick pickling. All three of these jars have currently taken up residence in the refrigerator, where time will work its magic and turn them into salty, savory deliciousness in just a week or so.

From left to right, they are: my own recipe for Super Easy Dill Refrigerator Pickles (found here), Pickled Onions (found here), and British Pickled Onions (found here).

New Hampshire Maple Weekend

Every year, around the end of March, New Hampshire celebrates Maple Weekend. All throughout the state, sugar shacks open their doors to visitors who come to see the process of turning maple sap into maple syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup! 

Hubby and I started out last Saturday by visiting a popular sugar shack and pancake house for breakfast! Steam puffed out of their sugar house's chimney pipe from their wood-fired evaporator.

The wait was long, but the blueberry waffles were worth it!

Then we traveled down a dirt, country road as we followed the signs that led to a family-owned sugar shack. A large number of neighbors and curious maple seekers, like ourselves, were gathered about chatting, watching the operation, and sampling the sweet, sticky syrup.

The sample was DE-licious! And this sweet, little glass bottle full of the liquid amber came home with us!

New Hampshire Maple Weekend

This is Maple Weekend in New Hampshire. Sugar shacks around the state are open for visitors...welcoming people to tour their little wooden structures in the woods and sample their syrup.

We started the day off with pancakes and maple syrup. Quick tip: buttermilk always makes pancakes better, lighter, and fluffier. Just substitute buttermilk for the milk called for in any recipe. 

Then, dodging raindrops and big, sloppy snowflakes, we visited a sugar shack in our town that is run by a family whose roots go back in this town to the 1700's. We traipsed across a mixture of snow and mud to reach the weathered door of the sugar shack.

Just inside, we could barely feel the heat from the wood-fired evaporator, so inched our way ever closer to keep warm.

We were offered homemade donuts to dunk in a sampling of maple syrup. Mmm. A taste of early spring in New England! We peered into the bubbling evaporator and smelled the sticky goodness of the sweet steam rising up and out of the roof.

After chatting with plaid-clad neighbors about weather and sap production and whether or not this is a good year for syrup (it is!), we purchased a pint to carry home.

It's a New England spring tradition I love...a bonding of a community after a long winter. Spring is here!