8.28.2014

garden to kitchen








 




:: roasted tomatoes (with garlic and herbs) for the freezer~ to become the base of a rich and tasty sauce some winter day.  I will say I was shocked when the five pounds of tomatoes shrunk down to fill one quart freezer bag not quite all the way.  I shouldn't have been shocked, not if I'd really given it much thought, but still.

:: I've been stockpiling our sungolds for a few days, aiming to make a tomato jam recipe (one I found on Food in Jars) just about exclusively out of sungolds.  I figure I can probably use a bit less sugar given how super sweet these little golden orange orbs are.

:: we turned most of our basil into 5 jars of pesto. yumyumyum.

:: I am picking okra daily and waiting until I have enough to make at least a few pints of pickled okra.

:: the beets, however, got pickled even though what was left in the ground amounted to a whopping one! pound!  I divided the recipe I had (which called for ten pounds of beets) by ten and turned out a pint and a half of ruby red goodness and canned them alongside a few more jars of dilly beans.

:: we decided to keep about half of our garlic (the largest and hardiest looking bulbs) out on the shelf and preserved the rest, raw, in vinegar.  the woman who shared the method we used says they taste fresh when you rinse the vinegar off because the oils in the cloves keep a lot of the vinegar from soaking in.  well, I've had pickled garlic, and while I like it, that's not what we were going for here, so we'll see.

:: we got a total of, I think, nine apples from our tree this year.  a few have been munched and the remaining six are destined to become a pie any day now.

and that's the kitchen, this week.


16 comments:

  1. I read your post and now I'm hungry! Yummy photos.

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    1. we're all about food over here ;)
      well, mostly.

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  2. I love the sound and look of the roasted tomatoes, such a great way to store the taste of summer.

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  3. We do the same with our tomatoes. So nice to pull them out of the freezer on a snowy winter day for sauce.

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    1. yes and I love that it'll take no time to put the sauce together since there's no 'cooking down' time needed like with whole canned tomatoes or canned fresh sauce. yum!

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  4. Thanks for explaining the garlic! I was really curious. I love seeing all the color of the tomatoes!

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    1. we'll see how it goes! if the worst thing is that it'll end up all tasting like pickled garlic, well.... that's okay too.

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    2. also, the garlic is not processed- it just goes in the fridge.

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  5. lovely photos... as always. the whooping one pound of beets made me chuckle :) i just finished pickling 13 pints of beets but i didn't grow them. pickled beets are one of my new favorites... yum!! i love the garlic preservation technique... excited to see how that one turns out. and the tomatoes look sooo amazing! i will have to try the roasting... it sounds (and looks) lovely.

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    1. yeah, I've got just a pint and a half :) I need to crack one of the (2) jars open and give them a taste. oh the tomatoes are delicious, but wow do they cook down!

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  6. Hmm, I never thought to roast the abundance of tomatoes....grat idea!

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    1. they are delicious but definitely cook down A LOT. so, if there are lots of tomatoes to go around, I think it's a great way to go.

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  7. My goodness! These photos are so inspiring! I can just smell the deliciousness that must be your kitchen! I'm still very scared to do much else but can some tomato sauce. I tried and failed so many times in my canning and preserving ventures, I've just about given up. Maybe one day when I can learn from someone like you on how to do it all right!

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    1. thanks, Summer!
      oh but gosh, as far as canning goes..... I don't consider myself one to learn from, not really. I've done tomatoes and tomato sauce, dilly beans and pickled beets, curried zucchini pickles, and all kinds of jam. I love apple butter too but that I roast, puree, then freeze. I haven't really ventured outside of the high acid foods. but jenny at phishybee on the other hand, well that girl cans her own tuna!

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    2. I should add that the garlic pictured above is not shelf stable- we didn't process it, but just keep it in the fridge.

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thanks for taking the time to read and comment~