kitchen doings

another basket of greens rinsed and chopped for the freezer.  I'm intrigued by the idea of drying some kale to use later.  although I'm not a smoothie-in-the-winter person anyway, so maybe not.  if you dry yours I'd love to hear some ideas (aside from smoothies) about how you use it.

putting up some peaches.  well, sort of.  these are soaking in bourbon (I did also make two batches of peach jam/butter).  they've been in there for a week or so and I've started sneaking some here and there.  you know, at appropriate times and all.

a last batch of salsa, bringing our total to about 30 jars.  once the tomatillos are all ready we'll add some jars of tomatillo salsa to up that number a bit more.

apples from a neighbor's tree.  these will become apple rings.  yesterday we pressed 5 gallons of cider and that is bubbling in the fermenting bucket now.

the fermented carrots are peaking out from behind the basket.  I'm really loving these!  you simply cut the carrots as desired and pack them into a quart jar with any spices you desire (I often will do some or all of the following: garlic, hot peppers, dill, coriander, celery seed) and then add 1.5 tablespoons of salt and top it off with water.  I tuck a cabbage leaf in the jar to keep the carrots submerged.  wait a few days ('burp' it once a day or so) and once it gets to the right flavor for you (I like them after about a week) put the jar in the fridge.  yum, yum.

an interesting afternoon mix.  iced coffee on the left, oat straw and lemon balm infusion on the right.

I looked at it in the beer cooler at the store the other day and wondered if it was too soon and quickly decided... hell no it's not too soon.  pumpkin beer, friends!  because, September.