Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The season of Bounty is upon us, woot!



Just taking a break from the sweltering hot kitchen...todays preserved count thus far:

5 quarts of Dilly Beans


8 pints of Fig Jam


2 Trays of fig dehydrating

1 tray of 'fig leather'

1 tray of tomatos drying

3 pounds of banana cut up and frozen

2 gallon bag packed with bell pepper strips frozen


I HAD to use those figs today or lose them, when I picked them yesterday most were almost to the point of overripe, the sudden humidity with the heat made a whole bunch ripen on the tree even faster then I would have anticipated. They were too squishy to can whole. I still have 4 quarts of whole figs in syrup in the pantry ( I gave some away to family), they look cool in the jars. I'm watching the tree more carefully, with the next 'wave' of figs I want to can them whole again.


My face is all greasy feeling, all that steam and boiling water from canning and blanching is like a sauna, opens the pores which is good I guess but man I feel hot and gross. I keep washing my hands and face to cool off and not feel so oily but my face keeps pumping out more LOL. I'm just letting the kids eat something then mybe they will go take a little nap so I can shower.


I need to do another tray of tomatos in the dehydrator and probably chop some to freeze as well. I have the rest of the row of green beans to pick as well, I only got thru about 5 plants worth, they are so packed with beans right now. Need to do something with the eggplant....not sure if I can freeze it. Oh wait, lookkee HERE I can freeze it , nifty! Fresh eggplant to make curry with for the next few weeks.

I also have a bumper cop of basil I need to do something with, its flowering. I'll probably end up freezing it for later. I tried to keep up with snipping it so it wouldnt flower and affect the flavor, but serious, basil WANTS to flower, I swear the more you snip it the faster it tried to flower LOL. Time for frozen pesto.

1 comment:

AJK said...

WOW! Look at you GO! Beautiful preserving! I gotta get on that route... My tomatoes are going crazy right now, I've gotta learn to make Tomato paste and Sauce!