Diane Gumaer is a passionate gardener and cook. She and her husband, Rick, live on an acre of land in Sunderland, where she loves to grow and harvest as much food as she can.
At this time of year, it is natural for her to offer the fruits of her labors as gifts to friends and relatives.
When they purchased the property 30 years ago, the Gumaers planted apple and crabapple trees. Gumaer uses this fruit (along with other seasonal organic produce) to produce jellies, pickles, jams and chutneys in the summer and fall months.
The only problem with this bounty is that Gumaer and her husband now live alone; her two children are grown up. So she turns her handiwork into gifts.
“Now that there’s just two of us here, I don’t think we could ever use it up,” she said.
She compares her cooking to her knitting. “I mean, how many scarves can I wear?” she asked with a laugh. “I have a lot of (preserved food) on hand and it’s nice to be able to share with people.”
She makes her jars as pretty as she can and labels them with a list of ingredients so people know what they’re getting. She also supports charities by donating baskets of her wares to auctions and raffles.
Gumaer feels that, by sharing her products, she shares her beliefs. She eats heathy, organic foods. Her jellies and jams are low in sugar and use all-natural pectin.
Her gifts also share her life, which revolves around the cycles of nature. In winter, she orders seeds and uses up canned and frozen foods.
In spring, she plants her gardens, visits local plant nurseries, orders composted manure and straw from local farms and picks early crops.
Summer she characterized as “weeding, weeding and weeding.” In that season, she also harvests and preserves vegetables and fruits “at the height of readiness” and dehydrates herbs at their peak.
In the fall, she continues to pick and process. She and her husband press their own cider and use the mash left over from the pressing to make vinegar. And she prepares those canned goods and herb mixtures for family and friends.
Each holiday season, Gumaer prepares big baskets of canned goods, herbs and vinegars. When she visits family for the holidays, she lets people pick their own gift from a basket. “People get their favorites,” she said.
This year, large family gatherings will be less possible, but she can give many jars out locally. She can also mail some of her creations, particularly herb mixtures such as her dreamy-time tea.
She created the tea when her daughter, who is now 30, was a teenager. The young woman suffered from stress, aches and cramps. Gumaer’s daughter found the mixture helpful and started telling friends about it. “Now it’s in high demand,” Gumaer noted.
She declared that the mixture “is soothing, relaxing, and aids sleep and digestion.” It also helps those who drink it stave off and treat sniffles and colds, she noted.
“People will write and tell me, ‘I had a terrible cold, and I was feeling bad. And I had some of your tea, and I’m feeling better,’” she explained
To make the tea, she dries herbs from her garden, augmenting her harvest by purchasing organic herbs that do not thrive here in New England. Each year’s blend depends on what she has on hand.
Another popular choice among the gifts, one Gumaer prepared earlier this fall, is autumn chutney. This concoction allows the cook to use up tomatoes that won’t have a chance to ripen at the end of the season. While she doesn’t know for certain, Gumaer said it probably could be made with canned tomatoes.
Gumaer serves the chutney with sharp cheddar cheese and crackers, as an alternative to cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, in baked brie, or on top of cooked salmon or baked sweet potatoes. She also puts it in the seed cavity when she roasts acorn squash.
Obviously, not everyone wants to garden and preserve as much as Gumaer, for whom interaction with nature is one of life’s greatest joys. Just about everyone can make something tasty to give away in this season, however. Here are a couple of Diane Gumaer’s recipes to inspire readers.
Gumaer varies the proportions of her tea mixture depending on what is available. The ingredients below reflect the blend she made this year, which was dominated by the tulsi basil, the mint and the chamomile. Ingredients should all be dried; quantities as available and desired.
Mint, Raspberry leaves, Rose petals, Echinacea, Lemon balm, Goldenrod, Tulsi basil, Bee balm, Comfrey, Lavender, Anise hyssop, Chamomile, Valerian
Combine the ingredients well. Divide them into little jars. Tell your recipients that each cup of tea should be made with 1 heaping tablespoon of the mixture. Gumaer often includes a tea strainer or a dozen paper tea bags with her gift of tea leaves.
2 quarts peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes (under-ripe ones are fine), about 12 to 15 tomatoes
1 quart peeled, cored and chopped apples (5 to 6 medium apples)
1½ cups chopped onion
2 cups chopped, ripe, sweet peppers (red, orange or yellow)
1 cup raisins
3 cups light brown sugar
1 small hot red pepper (optional)
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups apple cider vinegar
Combine all the ingredients in a large, nonreactive sauce pot. Cook slowly until thick, about 1½ to 2 hours, stirring as needed.
Ladle into sterilized pint jars, seal and process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes. Makes about 6 pints. This recipe may be doubled.
Tinky Weisblat is the award-winning author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.