With all the garden bed prep work and seed planting, I have been dreaming of vegetables and tasty meals. Fresh squash from the garden cooked with some butter and served with some saffron rice. Fresh tasty peppers stuffed and served with some homemade tomato sauce. Getting fat just thinking about all the yummy food I can make from my garden. Paula and I have started out good so far with our seeds, lots of sprouts. Only problem is that we have a bit of a cold front here right now so have to wait to plant them into the garden bed. We're thinking of scavenging for some old wire hangers and bending them into a U shape to put over the container we have the sprouts in, and then putting some clear vinyl over it to make a taller greenhouse to give them a little more room to grow.
With all the vegetables we have been plotting to grow I have been thinking of food preservation and canning to make the most out of our future harvest. I have fond memories of different canned foods received from gardening friends. Peach jams, kosher dill pickles, and dee-lishious tomato sauces. After some research, I have decided to try both the water bath and pressure canning recipes and compare. I have the equipment just not the experience, so I have been asking a lot of questions and reading on the subject. Thankfully, Paula has some experience so this will not be a total shot in the dark attempt on my part. Another bonus to growing my own vegetables is the savings on my checkbook. The cost of vegetables has gone up insanely, vegetables laced with gold or expensive pharmaceuticals, so growing my own will save me money. And by preserving the harvest it will last longer and be more savings. Super all around.
Last but not least, I have also been researching different canning recipes and fresh vegetable cooking recipes. I have come across I highly recommended kosher dill pickle recipe, http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dill-Pickles/Detail.aspx , that I really look forward to trying. I am collecting recipes to try with my future harvest. I also have been re-watching a lot of my favorite cooking pod casts and blogs for ideas. I love Cooking with Clara and have her book and video on my wish list. If you don't know about this awesome granny then check out her website, http://depressioncooking.blogspot.com/ . I found her while looking for some depression era recipes way back when she first got on YouTube and feel in love. While cooking she talks about her memories of the recipe and things that were happening in her life when she learned it. If you like history and cooking, then you will love Clara. Also have been browsing the blogs for recipes too as I hear they are ripe for the picking when it comes to tasty recipes.
Help out the newbie! If you have any canning recipes you would recommend or just recipes involving fresh veggies that you would like to share then don't be a stranger, share! Who knows maybe someone will post something you would like to try. :)
My grandmother served an absolutely delicious garden relish at meals quite often. She purchased the relish at the Hospital fund bazzar and it was made by a little old lady in the small town I grew up in. Grandma had several jars of the stuff. It had finely minced carrots, cabbage and onion I believe in a wonderfully sweet yet vinegar-y marinade. GOD it was good. My grandmother passed away last year and my mother doesn't remember. I think I'll die if I don't taste it again.
ReplyDeleteI like relishes but do not eat them often. Just tend to crave a little relish with certain foods like tuna fish sandwiches and hot dogs. I was debating on trying my hand at making a small batch to have on hand for those times when I crave it. I have been trying to find this 1940's preservation booklet that talked about canning and had some recipes. I know it is somewhere in this overcrowded tiny apartment but darned if I can remember where.. I think in a storage box somewhere in the closet to protect it since it was delicate..Hmm Here's to hoping I do not get killed by the overflowing closet in the hunt for the booklet.
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