Storing Potatoes for Winter

It’s not exactly Indian Summer here in Zone 4, but the garden is still pumping out Fall food and I have plenty of time to bring in the potatoes.

Mine are just fine in their bins.  They can stay there for quite a while, as long as the weather is mild.  Eventually though, I’ll dig them up to bring them in for winter.  I don’t want them to freeze and rot in those bins.

Potatoes should be cured before stored.  After digging, I lay them out on newspapers in the basement where it’s cool and dark.  They’ll stay there for about two weeks, until cured.  Damaged spuds (like the ones you hit with the shovel) don't need curing and should be eaten immediately.

Then I’ll store them in ventilated bins, (I use bushel baskets) covered with newspaper to protect them from light.  Ideally, I’d like to keep them at 35 to 40 degrees, but potatoes will keep for several months at 45 to 50 degrees.

Potatoes should not be washed before storage.  It’s impossible to get them dry enough to store them well.  I just gently wipe the big clumps off them after curing them.

My container potatoes did very well, so far.  The small reds were nice roasted.  The yellow Buttercreams were very small, but very good in Puerto Rican Chicken and Beans.  The purples were the prettiest and most abundant.  They were a deeper purple than a Crayola crayon and their flesh baked up a delicious, flaky lavender.  Even the boys thought they were cool.  They had two apiece.  I still have half a dozen containers to empty.  It feels like an early Christmas present.

My dad didn’t have such good luck with his potatoes, but, in his defense, he got the very end of my seed potatoes.  And we really planted them too late.  He took it pretty well.  He had enough for a good two meals and we’ll try again next year.

Don’t forget, Save the Faves!  Pick the cream of the crop and save them for seed potatoes for next year’s potatoes.  Keep them in a sturdy paper bag at the bottom of the fridge, marked SAVE! SEED POTATOES.

Horseradish Beet Relish

Third time is hopefully the charm.

This is my third attempt at those Polish pickled beets from The Busy Bee in Chicago.  I keep upping the amount of horseradish to get that bite.

I made these with my dad last weekend and the horseradish in this batch really cleared our sinuses, but you never know.  We won’t know for sure if this recipe is it for another two weeks.

I’m posting it anyway.  I only have a few beets left in my garden and this is my last weekend to hit the farmer’s market.  Besides, I owe a Polish momma or two a stab at this recipe.

My dad will be here in a couple of weeks and we’ll open this most recent batch to give them a try.

In the meantime, pickle some beets of your own.

I found fresh horseradish at a larger co-op in the big city.  My dad got his at his local grocery store.

Horseradish Beet Relish

• 8 c. medium grated beets, about 4 lb. fresh beets
• 3 c. finely grated fresh horseradish root
• 3 c. red wine vinegar
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 t. pickling salt
• 2 T. pickling spices

1. Cook beets until tender.  Cool and peel.
2. Coarsely grate beets.
3. Peel and finely grate horseradish root.
4. Combine vinegar, sugar, salt, and pickling spice (tied in a cheesecloth bag) in a medium saucepan.  Boil for 15 minutes. 
5. Add beets and horseradish.  Boil an additional 10 minutes.  Remove the spice bag.
6. Pour beets and liquid into sterilized pint jars, leaving ½” headspace, and seal with 2 part lids.
7. Process for 20 minutes in a water bath canner.  Store in a cool, dark space for three weeks.

Pumpkin Enchilada Sauce

I have a friend with three boys who is a wonderful cook.  When she told me that she had an enchilada sauce recipe that was made with pumpkin, I knew that I had to have it.  Anyone with a recipe that successfully gets pumpkin down the gullets of boys automatically has my undying respect and rock star homegirl status.

My oldest can spot a pumpkin cover up a mile away so I had to add a few ingredients to throw him off the trail.  I think I have it.

 Pumpkin Enchilada Sauce

• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 2 roasted red peppers, I roasted mine last week
• 4 cloves garlic, I roasted mine with the pumpkin
• 1 jalapeno chili, I roasted mine the day before and removed the seeds.  This could be omitted or reduced to limit the spiciness of this dish.
• 1 t. chili powder
• 2 ½ c. water
• 2 t. salt
• 1 t. sugar
• 1 t. cumin
• ¼ t. pepper
• 1/8 t. cinnamon

1. In a food processor, puree the garlic, peppers, and garlic.
2. Add the pumpkin puree and pulse to incorporate.
3. Transfer to a saucepan and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes.
4. Use in place of canned enchilada sauce, much tastier and MUCH healthier.

My son, ever dubious, asked, “Is there pumpkin in this?”

With a completely straight face, I answered, “No.”

I had used squash (“Sunshine”) instead.  Any bright orange squash or pumpkin would do, “Butternut” perhaps.  A Cinderella pumpkin (“Rouge Vif D’Etampes”) would be even better.  Its flesh is more red in color, but I'd have to answer yes to the pumpkin hater.

Everyone said it was much better than the canned stuff at the store.  My evil plan worked!

Thank you, Gretchen!

Jalapeno Overload

Two Ways to Save Peppers:

At the end of the season I always have more peppers than my family would care to eat over the course of a week or two.  Peppers can be very expensive in the winter so I usually save that abundance for later.

One way to save peppers is to chop and freeze them.  I vacuum seal them in one cup servings for use in recipes later.  They soften in the freezer, so I add them to recipes near the end.  They may be softer than a fresh pepper, but they have all the taste of one.

Another way to save peppers is to roast and freeze them.  I did this with red peppers last week.  For full directions, see my October 21, 2011 post.

After cleaning out the garden, I realized that I had a grocery sack of jalapenos still in the garden.  I was at a loss as to what to do with them until I remembered a favorite recipe that calls for roasted jalapenos.  They roast up just as nicely as bell peppers.  The only difference in the process was that I donned food grade gloves for the job so as not to accidentally get jalapeno juice in any mucous membranes.

I vacuum sealed these individually to be used in recipes later.

With all these nice peppers, roasted and neatly packed away in the freezer, I’ll be looking for more recipes that call for them.  Let me know if you find a good one!

Winter Squash—Favorite Cucurbit

In the waning days of the farmer’s market, it’s all about the squash.

Some vendors carry them as decorations, some as dinner possibilities.  I plan to buy as many as I can and drag them all home this weekend.

My garden doesn’t reliably produce great squash.  I’m working on it, trying to find a sunnier spot or take advantage of some vertical possibilities.  Luckily, fellow homegirl extraordinaire, Peash, has offered up some of her garden space for more squash possibilities.  That thought will keep me going all winter.

In the meantime, how to get more squash into my family?

Winter squash is chock full of vitamins A, many Bs, C, niacin, folate, iron, and beta carotene.  Generally speaking, the deeper the color, the more beta carotene.

In need of a roasted chicken side dish, I tried roasting some “Sunshine” squash I picked up at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago.  My husband and I liked it as is, but the kids could have used a little encouragement to eat it.  “Not my favorite” is as negative as one is allowed to be at my dinner table.

Next time, I’ll try this recipe.  A little sugar and butter goes a long way with picky eaters.  I found it in our local co-op publication and it could work with any squash.

Maple Glazed Squash

For every 2-3 pounds squash,

• 2 T. butter
• 3 T. maple syrup
• ¼ t. cinnamon
• 1/8 t. garam masala (an Indian spice blend of cumin, coriander, black pepper, cloves, and cardamon)

1. Cut squash in half and clean out seeds and pulp.  Divide the halves into single serving slices.
2. Roast at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
3. Melt butter and add syrup and spices.
4. Brush the insides of the squash with half the butter mixture and resume roasting.
5. Bake an additional 20 minutes (or until tender, depending on density of squash variety).
6. Remove from oven and brush with the remainder of the butter mixture.
7. Serve.

Winter squash is plentiful at farmer’s markets in the late fall.  Many varieties will store all winter long in a cool, dry basement or closet.  Buy as many varieties as you can, ask about their attributes, and look for them in seed catalogs this winter to plan your own dream squash garden.

Walnut Basil Pesto

When it’s over, it’s over.  We can only cheat winter for so long.

I was hoping to dodge the frost bullet this past weekend.  I took a chance that my last basil plant would make it through the weekend, but it didn’t.

I had plans for a big pesto making session when I got back to town, but this past weekend’s cold snap changed those plans for me.

Maybe someone will have some armloads of cheap basil at the last farmer’s market of the season and I’ll still get a chance at making some.  If any of you in warmer climates still have basil in your plots, make some pesto and freeze it.  Before I had a vacuum sealer I’d put big scoops of it on cookie sheets and freeze it individually.  Then I put two dozen frozen glops of summertime into a freezer bag and enjoyed all winter long.  I use the vacuum sealer now and my freezer doesn’t smell like pesto.  A friend uses a jar of tomato puree and a quarter cup of frozen pesto to make a quick pasta sauce that is delicious.

And there is no sense in buying expensive pine nuts for pesto.  Walnuts are in season and work very nicely in pesto recipes.  One added bonus is the fact that walnuts are one of the healthiest nuts to be found.

Basil and Walnut Pesto

Ingredients:

For every 1 cup of packed fresh basil leaves,

• 1 clove garlic
• 1/8 c. chopped walnuts
• 1/3 c. olive oil
• ¼ c. Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Combine the basil, garlic, walnuts, and cheese in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped.
2. Add the oil and process until all ingredients and finely chopped and fully incorporated.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Freeze.

Roasted Red Peppers

With frost eminent, farmers will be emptying their gardens just as I am.  This past week, I bought a box of red pepper to roast and freeze.

My own pepper plants didn’t do so well this year.  It was a late Spring with a cool and wet June.  I got fruit, but it never ripened to red.

The following site has good instructions for roasting red peppers, but I don’t cover my bowl with plastic wrap to further steam the peppers.  Plastic wrap is made with #3 plastics, poly vinyl chloride and is nicknamed “toxic plastic”.  Heating that stuff up and exposing my food to it doesn’t seem like a great idea, so I put a dinner plate or a large pan lid over my bowls.  I can roast eight peppers on a cookie sheet and steam them in three stainless steel bowls.  See http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/roasting-peppers/detail.aspx for directions.

It’s a good idea to roast all sides of the peppers and steam them until they are cool to loosen the skins.

Once skinned and trimmed, I seal them in packs of two with the vacuum sealer, mark, and freeze them flat.  They are great additions to hummus, pasta dishes, and pizzas and much cheaper than the ones that can be bought in bottles.

Cucurbit Comestibles, Part 2

So I have all these pumpkins that I bought.  As usual, I overdid it.  They did make lovely pumpkin butter, but they weren’t really cut out for pies.  Their flavor was more nutty than sweet, so I decided to go for a savory dish.

Roasted Pumpkins are the most beautiful orange on the planet.

First I roasted them.  I cut them along their lines of latitude, instead of from stem to stern.  Think Tropic of Cancer.  I scooped out their seeds and stringy innards and threw those out for the chickens (happy chickens).  Then I popped their tops back on and roasted them for an hour at 350 degrees.  My oven has this great feature: cook time.  I set it for an hour and walk away.  After the hour is finished, the oven turns itself off.  It works great for roasting, but I wouldn’t recommend it for baking.

I perused the freezer and the garden to come up with some likely ingredients for stuffing a pumpkin and came up with this. 

Stuffed Pumpkins, Italian Style

• 2 c. chopped tomatoes
• 1 c. green peppers
• 1 ½ c. chopped onions 5 Italian sausages, about 1-1 ½ pounds turkey
• 1 ½ t. Italian seasoning
• 1 t. salt
• ½ t. coarse ground black pepper
• 5 small pumpkins, “Rockefeller” pumpkins have the taste of an Acorn Squash with a smoother consistency and a sturdy shell.
• Parmesan cheese

1. Open the pumpkins and scoop out the seeds.
2. Roast the pumpkins on a cookie sheet, tops on, in a 350-degree oven for 1 hour.
3. Into a large fry pan, remove the sausage from its casings, crumble, and cook over medium heat until the meat is no longer pink.
4. Add onions and green peppers and cook until soft.
5. Stir in the tomatoes and seasonings and remove from the heat.
6. Spoon the meat mixture into the pumpkins.
7. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  Place the tops on the cookie sheet to reheat the pumpkin flesh.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Pumpkins can be served with tops on, to impress your guests.  My kids opted to butter their tops and spoon brown sugar into them for dessert.

Fast and Local Pasta Sauce, Year ‘Round

In Zone 4, it looks like we have a chance at a hard frost every night this week.

That pretty much spells the end for most of my garden.  I spent the morning pulling as many ripening tomatoes as I could off the vines.  I processed the ripe ones and left the ripening ones on paper on the back porch to be processed as they ripen.

This afternoon I will pull as much basil and oregano as I can to freeze for sauce.

This is our last chance to hit the farmer’s market for some local fare to put up for winter.

Bushels of tomatoes will arrive at the market this week to be sold quickly before they can go bad.  Buy as many as you can carry and pull the basil and oregano (or buy some) to put away the ingredients for a fresh and local sauce to enjoy all winter long.

This is a modification of a Cook’s Illustrated Smooth Pasta Sauce.  It’s quick and easy and can be used on pasta or pizzas.  Fresh herbs like basil and oregano seal and freeze well.  Added to recipes, they taste just like they just came from the garden.

I freeze mine in recipe ready packets, making this an even easier sauce.

Fast and Fresh Local Tomato Sauce

• 3 pints of tomato puree
• ¼ c. fresh chopped basil
• 2 T. fresh chopped oregano
• ¼ c. olive oil
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 t. salt
• ½ t. fresh ground pepper

1. Heat a large pan and add oil.
2. Add garlic to hot oil.
3. Add tomatoes to pan (quickly, don’t let the garlic begin to brown)
4. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Adjust salt, sugar, and pepper to taste.  Home canned tomatoes tend to be more acidic than store bought tomatoes and may need some additional adjustments to the recipe.

Cucurbit Comestibles

cucurbit [kjuːˈkɜːbɪt] n

any creeping flowering plant of the mainly tropical and subtropical family Cucurbitaceae, which includes the pumpkin, cucumber, squashes, and gourds

co·mes·ti·ble  (ku-mes-ti-bul) n

something that can be eaten as food

My younger son is a pumpkin fanatic and will eat anything from the pumpkin/squash family happily.  My BFF and I decided to humor him and make him as many pumpkin things we could conjure.

We went to my favorite squash and pumpkin spot and brought home a dozen of a newer variety of pie pumpkin.  The owners were hoping for a multi-purpose pumpkin (who isn’t?), one that looked good, dried well, and made tasty pies.

I was happy enough for tasty pies.  My BFF eyed the handsome stems for her own crafty adventures.  Gary showed us a really cool dried pumpkin from last season.

We took a dozen wonder pumpkins home and cooked up half of them for kicks.

Not pie material.

They could have been mistaken for an acorn squash.  Yawn.

I was ready to feed the lot to the chickens and get on to the next cucurbit comestible.  Thank goodness that my BFF is more patient.  She surfed the Internet and we made some modifications and came up with a lovely pumpkin butter recipe.

Pumpkin butter must be frozen.  It is a low acid fruit and cannot be successfully sealed in a water bath canner.  Treat it like freezer jam and store it accordingly in your favorite containers.

Pumpkin Butter

• 14 c. pumpkin puree
• 3 c. white sugar
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 2 T. cinnamon
• 1 t. ground cloves
• ½ t. allspice
• ½ t. nutmeg
• zest of one orange
• fresh squeezed juice of half an orange

1. Mix all the above ingredients except the orange zest and juice in a large crock pot.
2. Cook on low for six to eight hours, stirring occasionally.
3. When the mixture reaches the desired consistency (spreadable, not too wet), stir in the orange zest and juice.
4. Freeze in small jars or containers.

Squash and Pumpkins Galore

I had a wonderful weekend with my BFF. A good weekend for us involves lots of food and laughter. Being Fall and all in the lovely upper Midwest, we had to soak it all in: the Fall colors, football games, and all the fruits of the harvest.
I had to take her to my favorite fall spot to buy squash. Gary knows all there is to know about squash. He’ll happily make recommendations and hand out recipes. I can’t wait to stop in each Fall to see what he has to offer. I’ll admit it. I buy squash like some women shop for shoes, the more the better. My front porch is littered with them and more occupy the flat spots on the back porch. They do double duty and serve as decorations until they go into a recipe.
Gary will tell you; squash is a super food, chock full of vitamins and nutrients and so much tastier than any dietary supplement you’ll swallow. I’m always trying to find a new way to get more of it on my dinner table.
So I took my BFF to meet Gary and he gave us a tour of his cucurbit comestibles.
I’m sure that most people buy these babies because they are beautiful. I do too. But I also like to eat them.
All of this squash is lovely to look at and perfectly edible. Different types have different textures and tastes. One can buy them virtually everywhere this time of year. If you are lucky to find a Gary, get as much information as you can regarding the variety and its attributes. If you like it, plan to grow some next year if you can.
Picture credits go to my BFF, Kellie!

Taking Stock

I’ve been home for two days now with two sick kids.  The youngest keeps me hopping with requests delivered in a quavering voice and I have had to break up a couple of fights over the couch.  Needless to say, I have gotten very little accomplished.

I did get a chance to arrange the canned goods and take stock.

Making a list of my canned goods for the season helps me plan for the garden year to come.  If I finish the winter with far too much of one thing and not nearly enough of the other, I can plan my gardening and canning accordingly.

For me, the key will be keeping the list in a secure spot.  I had a great garden notebook, but my youngest found it and made it her own.  I think I’ll hide my canning guide in the canning cupboard, far away from the art supplies and paper stash.

My list was both informative and a little shocking. 

I was able to count up the cans of tomato puree and chopped tomatoes and estimate how many times my family would be likely to eat recipes that call for those ingredients.  I feel pretty confident that my efforts will cover those needs.  A tour of the garden, a check on the ten-day weather forecast, and the list helped me to decide what to do with the rest of the season’s tomatoes.  It looks like I’ll be making more barbeque sauce.

On the shocking end of the spectrum was the number of jars of spaghetti sauce I’d put up for the winter.  In my effort to find a sauce that my whole family liked, I canned thirty-one jars of sauce, over twenty-one quarts!  Thank goodness I have big boys who are good eaters.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes them to go through all that sauce.

I am not sure how long home canned goods last, but I am certain they keep for more than one year.  I’m confident my grandchildren won’t be tossing my apple butter supply.

Better check your supply though!  Not difficult to go crazy with canning.

Pumpkin Pyramids, Squash Centerpieces

The local big box grocery store started carrying more than your standard jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  I'm guessing that they are marketing them as doorstep ornaments.

I have been buying them as I see interesting ones and using them as doorstep ornaments.  After Halloween, most of them are destined for the plate.  All but the warty one on the lower left are perfect for pie or any other recipe that calls for "one can of pumpkin".
The typical jack-o-lantern pumpkin tastes more like a squash and some squash, like the Queensland Blue and the Chersonkysa, taste more like a pie pumpkin.  The first and third from the top, are probably Cinderella type pumpkins, "Rouge vif D'Etampes", a moist and delicious variety.  The white one is probably a "Casper", not as tasty as the more deeply lobed "Lumina", but a good choice for pies or bars.
The key is not to let these cucurbits freeze or rot before you can use them.
To use them, first, roast them.
Before roasting, I check to see if the mystery cucurbit is "not a gourd".
A gourd doesn't taste good.  It also doesn't smell good.  If I open a mystery cucurbit and it smells bitter, it probably won't get better with roasting, so I take a pass.  If I open a mystery cucurbit and it smells like a pumpkin or a squash, I go forward.
To transform a decoration into an ingredient:

1. Cut open the squash/pumpkin and scoop out the seeds.
2. Cut the pumpkin/squash into quarters or eighths
3. Place the quarters/eighths on a baking sheet.
4. Roast until pumpkin/squash flesh is tender.
5. Remove flesh from the skin.
6. Puree the flesh in a food processor.
7. Vacuum seal, label, and freeze.

After a couple of years of drooling over seed catalogs, I recognize pumpkin/squash varieties and buy them cheaply at the big box store.  They make great decorations and even better breads, pies, and bars.  Keep an eye open for them.

It's Not Too Late to Plant Garlic

Today I ordered garlic seed for my garden.
I was reminded to do so but the horrid garlic I found in the pantry.  My dad bought it at the grocery last weekend.  It looked just fine, but it was dried, shriveled, and disgusting.  Compared to the beautiful stuff I have been buying at the Farmer's Market, that stuff was garbage, not even fit for the compost heap.
Garlic should be planted after first frost so my order wasn't late.  The only problem was finding a company that still had garlic seed in stock.  I wanted to get some from Hood River Garlic in Oregon.  Their website is so informative that I wanted to send them some business.  Unfortunately, their stock is pretty limited this late in the game.  I did find the varieties I was interested in on a site called Turtle Creek Trading Company.  I bought "Susanville" and "Chesnok" for my dad's garden and my own plot.
Over the weekend I pulled out the rest of the "Royal Burgundy Bush Beans" to dry them for seeds.  This late in the season I can't expect to harvest many more beans so I decided to prep the bed for garlic.  I left the bean plants minus the bean pods in the garden to decompose into the soil.  Today I mowed up some more leaves and grass clippings and piled them on top of the bean plants.  Then I topped the bed off with four buckets of compost from the compost pile.  I'll let the bugs and microbes work their way into leaves and grass and stuff and add a bit of water later.  There were so many nice worms in the compost.  They should have my soil beautifully amended by the time my garlic seed order arrives.
Locally grown garlic is so much better than the stuff that can be bought at the grocery store.  If you can plant some in your own garden, do give it a try.  If not, get some at the local farmer's market.  Remember that soft neck varieties store longer than hard neck varieties.
For more information on garlic cultivation, check out Hood River Garlic's informative site at http://www.hoodrivergarlic.com/.  They offer many varieties, but currently stock is limited.  I found more varieties at http://www.turtlecreektradingco.com/.  I'm looking forward to its arrival.

Sharing Raspberries

Raspberries have so many wonderful attributes.  One of my favorite things about raspberries is their prolific nature.  They send out runners and get into all parts of the garden.  This may annoy some, but I see it as an opportunity to share one of the most productive members of my garden.

This time my raspberries have sent their runners into the tomato patch.  Those tomatoes have pretty much fallen to blight, so I have been removing the plants as the fruit ripens.  I should be ready to dig up those raspberry canes and take them to their new home.

I am sharing these canes with a new friend who just bought a new house.  The lawn along the street is challenging to mow, so she thought it would be a nice to place to grow raspberries.  Planted there, neighborhood kids on their way to the park could eat their fill and she could get out of mowing a difficult bank.

In preparation for my delivery of raspberry canes, she should:

Call the local water and gas companies to be sure that there are no buried cables or lines in the area.

Remove the sod from the area, if possible.

Rototill the area to loosen the soil.  I am not usually a huge fan of rototilling, but it’s a quick and dirty way to prepare a bed.  Raspberries are not too picky and could probably grow in gravel.  If a rototiller is not available, the area could be hand turned with a spade.

Cover the bed with landscape fabric and secure it with landscape staples.

Using a utility knife (not the husband’s fillet knife), cut Xs in the fabric where the raspberry canes will be planted.  For ease of picking, the bed should not be more than six feet deep.

Plant the canes and water them in thoroughly.

Cover the landscape cloth with woodchips or mulch of some sort.

Water the area again and daily for the next two weeks, then weekly until the end of the season.

Raspberries will send their shoots everywhere, but with the street on one side of the bed and lawn on all others, they should be relatively contained.  The new shoots can be run over by the lawn mower and kept at bay.  The landscape cloth should keep out most grass and weeds but it isn’t strong enough to keep the raspberry canes from filling in the bed.

This plan should keep my friend off that bank and the whole neighborhood in really nice raspberries.

If you are hoping for raspberries of your own, look around.  Many yards have berries growing in them and they are so prolific, no one minds sharing.  If you have raspberries in your yard, pass them on to a friend!

Save Some for the Sauce

Last night I tested a theory regarding herbs and it worked like a charm.
A few weeks ago, with the threat of frost in the forecast, I rushed out to pick a bunch of basil and oregano. I chopped up these herbs, measured them into vacuum seal bags, labeled them, and popped them in the freezer.
Last night I gave them a try. They were great.
Everyone’s all-time favorite recipe is Chicken Parmesan. I use the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipes Cook Book. It calls for a smooth sauce made of minced garlic, olive oil, tomato puree, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, and sugar. The sauce cooks while the breaded cutlets are fried and the pasta cooks.
It was a real time saving pleasure to pull those bags of herbs out of the freezer, snip open the bags, and add them to the sauce. Not only did it save time but the sauce tasted so much better with the fresh herbs.
It reminds me of a Dr. Suess book that all my kids loved, called “Snow”. In the end, the main characters save snow from the Sun by putting it in the freezer. I take herbs and save them from the snow by putting them in my freezer.
Keep an eye on the forecast. When it calls for frost, remember:
Take some, save some
From the snow
Take all you can and go, go, go!
Get out the vacuum sealer and put those herbs away for winter.

It Isn’t Over Until It’s Over, So Enjoy It While It Lasts

Every morning I check the weather and it says the same thing for the next ten days: sunny with highs in the 70s.  The weather man hasn’t checked the calendar apparently.

I’ve been stuck inside processing tomatoes all week.  I finished up the most recent batch of spaghetti sauce and headed outdoors.

Since first frost seems far away, I tucked my broccoli starts into some former onion beds.  I don’t know if they’ll grow to their full maturity before the weather gets really cold, but they’ll do better in the garden than they would under the grow light in the basement.  I gave those starts plenty of compost and watered them in well.

I also planted a Fall and Winter lettuce mix I bought from Cook’s Garden.  They sell seasonal lettuce seed mixtures and I planted some salad greens in an easily protected spot.  Hopefully we can have salads well into Fall/Early Winter.

The nice thing about fall gardening is the low population of bugs and slugs.  I peeled away all the slug chewed chard leaves and the garden instantly looked neater.  If the broccoli really gets a good warm period to grow, the blue green broccoli and the rainbow chard should be just beautiful.

There are very few mosquitoes these days so I don’t have to coat myself in Deet to visit the zinnias.

The tomato plants are still producing and I bring in a colander full of ripe tomatoes every day to await processing on the back porch.

I pull carrots to be frozen daily and snip herbs for dinner recipes.

But it was nice to take a break from putting away food to plant some more food.  I may be pushing my luck.  I know that the expected date of first frost is right around the corner.  But I am living my life one ten day forecast at a time and I plan to get outdoors to enjoy every last stolen moment of it.