We're home from our California vacation, relaxed and ready to get back to life with the kiddos (who have been clingy since the moment we walked in the door on Saturday).Unfortunately, coming home Saturday afternoon meant we missed our local farmers' market, but the good news is, I have plenty of canned food stocking the panty to get us through the week until I can hit the market again. I also picked up a Texas watermelon at the local grocers on Saturday night so we're set for the week as far as fruit goes.
Of course 10 days of growth without any harvest means I still have tons of goodies in the backyard too. So in addition to the all-local pantry goods (spaghetti sauce, corn, pinto beans, stewed tomatoes, soup, and brown rice), we have chard, collards, lambs-quarter, sweet potato leaves, sage and basil out the wazoo just steps from our back door.
The only things we're really missing are eggs and some veggies for Dave (something along the lines of carrots or green beans). If I'm feeling up to braving the 100+ degree weather on my bike late this afternoon, I may hit our Monday market. But even if I chicken out, we can surely make do for a few days. Besides, isn't that what all that canning was for?
We have some serious eating to do so I'll close for now. Have a great week everyone. And as always, Happy (and mindful) eating!
P.S. So what's local in your kitchen?
5 comments:
Welcome home! I spent part of the weekend canning prickly pear jelly. I was going to make syrup, too, but opted to freeze the leftover juice instead. It makes awesome bright pink lemonade.
Welcome home Heather!
I'm going to take some time off of work toward the end of the month to do some major spaghetti sauce canning. But for now I don't have much canned aside from some strawberries, purple carrots, eggs, bread, tomatoes.
Could you please post the link/directions to your spaghetti sauce recipe? I can't remember if you have posted it before.
Chile - I'll bet it's good too! When I returned, my dad gave me some corn cob jelly from a lady he knows here in town. Yeah, sounds kinda weird doesn't it? I haven't tried it yet, but I'm really curious about how something like that tastes...
Beany - The sauce is super easy. I've done it two ways. The first way takes a bit longer, but I posted about it here.
The second way, was just to process all the tomatoes, then add the sauce packet that you can buy in the canning supply isle at the grocery store.
The second was way easier and I was surprised that it had a nice flavor. It also took less time because the sauce thickened up much quicker, but maybe I just didn't use enough corn starch in my first method. You'll have to let me know how it goes :)
I knew you had written about making the sauce but I couldn't remember when you wrote it. I think I will try the first method by doing the processing the long way (blanching to remove skin and then seeds) and see how it works out.
Beany - Good luck. Let me know how it goes :)
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