Saturday, July 26, 2008

One Local Summer

I took advantage of being on my own this week and put up lots of food - not as much as I'd hoped, but plenty.

Tomato sauce is not quick, for me anyway. There's the de-coring, the dunking in hot water, the peeling, the seeding...only to find out that I was too zealous in my de-seeding, or that the heirloom tomatoes are just very juicy (some combination therein) and that what I had actually made was a very flavorful tomato soup. So, a few days later I did this all over again and added more tomato pulp to turn part of my soup into sauce. I kept envisioning winter nights in this cold house with visiting family and friends eating cream of tomato soup. There were five of these boxes of tomatoes.
I froze two flats of blueberries (about six of what you see here) from a friend's blueberry farm.
I started another batch of kosher dill pickles (the recipe is at the end of the last local food post), this time with our smaller pickling cucumbers. They'll be gone by the end of the week.
Basil is still waiting on the counter for me to make pesto. Then there are peppers and green beans. That may be it for this year. We are lucky to have year round vegetables on our farm and we just gorge on them seasonally and don't do a huge amount of freezing.

I did cook one good farm meal for Nicolas and I - a stir fry with lots of squash, peppers, onion and garlic. The brown rice, of course, wasn't local.

5 comments:

Sara said...

I stared at the pickling cucumbers yesterday at the farmer's market, thinking about getting some, and then resisted since moving weekend is approaching. I told myself only essentials. Now I wish I gave in. Especially since I have dill with flowers on the balcony. Could have been a good packing snack!

Madeline Rains said...

Do it! When you get back there should still be pickling cucumbers, right? They are so good - if you like strong, garlic, kosher dill pickles.

Danielle said...

It all looks gorgeous!

Madeline Rains said...

Danielle, I was really wanting your super powered machine that takes on the peel and all... How did that sauce you made last year turn out? What is the name of that thing?

Angie said...

Our tomatoes are just now coming in and I can't wait to make sauce!