Is everyone ready for some weekend R & R? Can you believe that September is nearly half over? The busier I get, the faster the weeks fly by. Despite the busy-ness, our family tries to gather for dinner every night. Some nights this means all 4 of us assembled around the table, and other nights this means just 2 or 3 of us. My family understands that this is important to me, so they make the effort. (And I appreciate that.)
Here's what we ate this past week:
Friday -- another cook-out
hot dogs
buns
quick and easy sauerkraut
tossed green salad
s'mores
Saturday
bean and cheese burritos in these homemade tortillas
carrot sticks
corn tortilla chips
Sunday --a quick dinner after an afternoon out
peanut noodles with cabbage
fresh blackberries
Monday
Cabbage Patch soup
fresh French bread and homemade soft butter
green salad
blackberry cobbler (using this easy tip for a baking powder substitute)
Tuesday
leftover soup
garden salad
French bread and butter
leftover cobbler
Wednesday
fried tofu with peanut noodles
sauteed beet greens, onions, and garlic
vanilla-rhubarb sauce
Thursday
homemade cheese pizza (using the same dough recipe as the french bread)
garden salad
fresh peaches
Family favorites for our time together
You may have noticed that we repeat our favorites often, such as homemade pizza, bean burritos, and the numerous summer cook-outs. I guess that you could say that we've found what works for us. The summer cook-outs, especially, are family favorites. Roasting hot dogs over a fire ring is incredibly inexpensive, yet provides not only a meal but entertainment for us. As a result, we all linger just a little longer when sitting around the fire than when we're just having a normal, kitchen supper. (And mom gets just a little more time with her family.)
The veggie garden
Our garden continues to produce for us. We're currently harvesting tomatoes, lettuce, Swiss chard, kale, summer squash, winter squash, cucumbers, green beans, beets, and herbs. I pulled the last of the beets the other day (have them cleaned and in the fridge right now) to make room for the fall greens.
Remember I started some spinach and radish seeds in a flat a few weeks ago? Well, most of the spinach plants got devoured by a slug, but the radishes are looking good. I transplanted them into the trough where the beets had been, tightly packed together to promote greens instead of roots. I also transplanted the last of the lettuce and kale seedlings into various spots in the garden. My hope is to have fresh salad and cooking greens through all of October and cooking greens alone till the middle of November.
Working on preserving what I can
Whenever I can, I freeze excess greens to use next winter. It really isn't a lot, but any amount will keep us eating healthy during the months that the garden is not producing (December through mid-March).
Sometime this next week, I'll harvest the basil, oregano, peppermint, lemon balm, rosemary, dill, cilantro, and sage to either chop and freeze or dry. I prefer to freeze both basil and rosemary, but I will use my dehydrator for the other herbs. Years ago, I bought a basic American Harvest food dehydrator. At the time, I think I envisioned batches of beef jerky, homemade fruit leather, and granola bars. In truth, I think I use this machine most for drying herbs and chopped/diced fruits and vegetables. The other foods just seemed to have too many steps to the process. As I live where the humidity tends to be high year round, the dehydrator has actually been a good appliance to own. Air-dried herbs mold more often than not in my kitchen.
My parsley didn't grow very well this year (slugs kept eating the newly planted seedlings), so I won't have much parsley to chop and freeze. However, parsley is biennial, so I will have a second crop in early spring to harvest next year, without any planting work on my part.
In addition, my winter squash and pumpkins are still sizing up and ripening, and the potatoes are about ready to dig. Before the end of the month, I'll need to do the hard digging work for those potatoes.
I tried a new-to-me brand of canning jar lids and rings this past week -- Walmart's Mainstays brand. A package of 12 regular-size lids and rings cost $2.32, a much better price for me than the name brands. And, they seemed to work just fine for me when I made jam earlier this week.
So much of my energy is focused on food -- planting, harvesting, preserving, or procuring. It is what it is.
I hope you had a pleasant week and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend. Have a good one!
