Preservation

It must be September... I am taking more pictures of food these days than of my children.

I have been enjoying the preservation of the fruits of my labor so much these days.  With 10 tomato plants, and some decent tomato-growing weather this year, I finally have tomatoes to actually stockpile AND eat my daily BLT.

I started out just blanching, peeling and freezing the meatier varieties (Romas and Early Girls), but the last week or so I have made 2 batches of tomato sauce using my Bradley and Big Beef tomatoes.  I estimated I have used about 24 pounds of them and got ~200oz of tomato sauce plus some juice.  Judging by what I picked tonight and what is still out on the plants, I think I will be making at least a couple more batches.  This is good news, because crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce is probably one of the top 20 things on my grocery list.  We eat a LOT of chili, spaghetti sauce and beans and rice. 

I planted 4 green pepper plants at my lot at our church this year and MAN!  it is amazing what a little full sun can do!  There were weeks where I was getting at least 10 peppers every time I picked.  Way more than I needed for the week, but I didn't want to let it go to waste, as this is also a very common ingredient at our house.  My solution was just to chop them up and freeze them in baggies, ready to use for the above mentioned favorite dishes.

This summer I have also paid attention to sales and bought up seasonal fruit when it hit rock bottom prices ($0.79/# for peaches and $1.39/# for organic strawberries at a local farm!)  I blanched, peeled at sliced the peaches for use in smoothies.  For the strawberries I laid them on a cookie sheet, froze them, then dumped them in a baggie for use in smoothies.  

My freezer is getting so full I might actually have to learn how to can!  




















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