It seems so odd not doing a weekly challenge update this week. I think I'm going to miss that challenge, even if there's not much to report from the gardening front.
This week was all about food preservation and food stores. We made homemade beef stock from some soup bones and sub-par root veggies. The difference in homemade stock and store-bought stock is simply amazing. We canned the stock for soups later this winter, or for sipping to comfort sore throats and stuffy noses. I also made up a second batch of roasted red bell peppers...dang, I love those things! And the peppers are so inexpensive at the local market, I just can't help myself.
On Friday, Mara and I worked for a few hours at a small, local apple orchard; mainly bagging apples, but also working with customers. What a great afternoon! I came away with a grocery bag FULL of Honeycrisp apples, 3 winter squash and 3 pumpkins. Mara and I enjoyed ourselves very much, so it was a win-win-win situation. The apples have already been dehydrated, the squash we'll eat for dinner tonight and the pumpkin will be canned for pies and bread this winter. Trading labor for produce is such a great way to stock up your pantry, as well as strengthening connections and building community ties.
So that's what I'm doing: canning food and trading labor for seasonal produce.
What are you doing to build up your food stores?
1 comment:
I don't can pumpkin. I had read that it was too dense to get the interior hot enough for successful canning. I would love to find out I am wrong. I love canned pumpkin. I just ordered 24 chickens form a friend. When they are butchered, I am going to can them in quarts which is just about a meal and a lunch for us. 24 chickens is just about 30 quarts so I will have a month worth of meat. This is a real deal as the family is moving and Bruce is helping them with the carpentry and such to get the house ready for showing and they are giving us the birds. What a deal!
Post a Comment