Tuesday, July 31, 2012

From the Garden(s)

Having amassed numerous zucchini and cucumbers from our garden and Joe's, Terry went into cooking mode today.

First she baked up seven loaves of zucchini bread which will now be heading to the bowls of the freezer. Then she made up a double batch of sweet pickle relish. That gets canned in one cup jars and is in the process of being boiled as I type. We should get around a dozen jars to go on the shelf.

There are still plenty of cucumbers to deal with (thanks Joe!) and they will be turned into bread-and-butter pickles.

Meanwhile, the zucchini and cucumbers are still producing as are string beans. The onions are about ready to harvest and the beets will come out of the ground in a couple of days. There are a couple of green bell peppers that need to be taken off the plants before they weigh the poor things down. And tomatoes...if all those that set turn ripe we're going to be up to our whazzoo in cherry tomatoes, Early Girls and whatever the third variety is. Now that the ground hog has been hustled off to the pearly gates (or the fires of Hell, whichever) the tomatoes are doing just fine. And the lettuce is producing again, too.

Then there's the head of cabbage Joe gave us. That will be turned into stuffed cabbage and some will be eaten while the bulk will get frozen.

The eggplant were delicious, BTW. One got chopped up with onions, peppers, sausage, a little mozzarella cheese and a bit of tomato sauce. That was served on a bed of rice. One got sliced thin, breaded and fried. Add some tomato sauce and mozzarella on a bun and we got two meals out of it and a couple of slices got eaten along the way.

3 comments:

Rev. Paul said...

If my wife & daughter weren't such great chefs, I'd be thinking about moving east - so I could mooch. Of course, you're well-armed, so that might not work for long.

But it's a thought. :)

Ruth said...

Last year I did up my zucchini bread as muffins (no recipe change, just poured the batter into muffin tins), which make it MUCH easier to portion control them....otherwise we have this tendency to eat an entire loaf in a very short period of time.

joated said...

Paul- Friends are always welcome.

Ruth- Tell me about it! Loaves are easier to freeze but also easier to over indulge in. We've done muffins for short term, company is comming presentations, but they tend to require more wraping for freezing and aren't practical for the long haul. Shredded zucchini in Zip-Loc bags however....