Wednesday, August 26, 2015

More Vegetables

With yesterday's farm share pick up, my vegetable drawer is rather full. Since we just can't eat that much, it's time to start making things with the veggies. First up, a batch of caponata. For this I had 2 eggplants, so I scaled the recipe up by 1/3 and used 4 peppers (instead of celery), 4 small onions, 4 tomatoes, and the last of my Kalamata olives. I didn't have any green olives for this batch. This made 3-1/2 pints of caponata and I'll take one jar to my parents' tonight.

The next thing was another 2 quarts of green beans, which are currently in the canner in 4 pint jars becoming "Zydeco Green Beans." Essentially, they are dilly beans without the dill. Instead, there is garlic, mustard seed, and a chili pepper in each jar.

The farm share is a bit out of control: 1 spaghetti squash, 1 pound of carrots, 1 bunch of beets, 1 head of lettuce, 1 bowl of arugula, 3 heads of garlic, 4 onions, 8 peppers, 2 quarts of green beans, 1 bunch parsley, 2 quarts blackberries, 1 quart peaches, 2.5 pounds of summer squash, 30 leaves of kale, 1 quart cherry tomatoes, 2 pounds of regular tomatoes, 8 tomatillos, and I didn't even get the flowers, husk cherries, basil and seasonal herbs. As soon as I got home I made a salad for dinner, used some of the tomatoes and onion in our enchiladas, and baked a peach and blackberry crisp. Which was dessert and breakfast. The berries had been too squishy to eat straight so I needed to bake with them. I contemplated a peach-blackberry jam but the crisp seemed a better option.

I've been keeping an eye on the bees, and have made a pint of "Bee Food" concentrate: sugar, water, lecithin, lemongrass oil and spearmint oil. This is added to the sugar syrup, 1 tsp. per quart. When I replace the quart jar tomorrow afternoon, that will be the first time they get it, hopefully they will like it. It's supposed to give them some essential nutrients.

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