THE LAST HAUL OF THE SEASON...

Saturday was the last day for local farmer's market :(    A sad day since it won't open again until June of 2013.  So I decided to make the best of it and go buy the place up.  Hehe, not really.  I did walk away with much more than I would normally buy.  I felt compelled to - the last day and all.  It's not as if I can't get another vegetable between now and June.  It is however, some of the last local veggies.

Planning to be quite busy the next few days.  

So here's what I got...

• Two dozen sweet corn and five (more) pounds of green beans to blanch and freeze. 
• Six butternut squash to roast, mash, and freeze.  
• Several small zucchini to dehydrate and add to my soup mix.
• Many hot peppers (mostly jalapenos) to dehydrate and spice things up this winter.
• Green peppers to freeze for beef sandwiches.
• A dozen cabbage sprouts (not pictured) that went into the dehydrator.
• and a nice size container of local honey

The tomatoes were given to me by my aunt.  They were green, but they are ripening nicely in the window so I'll be able to make some more tomato sauce.  I also went to the apple orchard this weekend and picked up apples to can apple sauce this week.  So I've got plenty to do this week.

How about you?  Are you putting anything up this week?

Tomato Sauce

Putting Up Food - Tomatoes

As I've said in the past, I like to make pizza from scratch to help keep the budget in check.  We eat pizza once a week so ordering out all the time would get costly.  Something else I've started doing is making my own tomato sauce to go on our pizza.  It's not about saving a buck though because tomato sauce for the most part is pretty cheap at the store.  Making my own sauce is more about the self satisfaction I get from growing our own food and going local to help support local farmers.

I started a few tomato plants back in late May, but due to our shady yard, they've been few and far between and slow to ripen.  Hence, I started a tomato collection in the freezer.

Every time we had ripe tomatoes on the vine, they got put into a freezer bag to await their fate of becoming sauce.  Once nice thing about freezing tomatoes for sauce is that the skins slip right off when you run them under warm water.  This makes for super easy processing.

I wish I could say that I relied completely on my own plants to provide enough tomatoes for sauce, but I can't.   Thankfully though, my CSA provider was able to sell me some at a good rate.  I picked up seventeen pounds for $10.  Being fresh tomatoes, they take a little more effort to get them peeled.  A pot of boiling water works best.  You just slice an X into the bottom of the tomato and then drop it in the boiling water for about 30 seconds.

When you pull the tomatoes out and they begin to cool, the skins begin to pull away.  I wait till they are cool and slip the skin right off.

With the skin off, I cut off the top end.  That's all the cutting I do.  Rather than chop, I gently squeeze each tomato over a large bowl to expel excess juice and some seeds.  The remaining pulp gets thrown in to my stainless steel pot.  Once all the tomatoes have been squeezed and have gone into the pot, they get simmered over medium low heat for two hours.  I mash and stir occasionally as well.

After one hour 

After two hours 

You can see by the residue lines on the inside of the pot that over half of the water has been evaporated.  That's exactly what you want to happen so that you end up with a nice thick sauce.  At this point, I put mine through the blender to make it smooth.

After that, I let it cool in the pot for about an hour.  Then I portioned it out to go into the freezer.  I like to put one cup of sauce into snack size ziplock bags.  This is the perfect portion for our pizzas.  To make sure it's freezer safe, I put the snack size bags into a freezer rated ziplock.

My twenty five pounds of tomatoes yielded 9 cups of sauce.  When I am ready to use these, I just drop one into a large cup of hot water.  When it's thawed, I cut the bottom corner off and am able to squeeze it onto the pizza crust with no mess. 

This post is shared with Fat Tuesday, Fill Those Jars Friday and Frugally Sustainable.

Green Tomato Salsa

Green Tomato Salsa

So happy to say that last week, I not only got a crate of Concord grapes, but also a large box of green tomatoes from my aunt.  I have to say that it pays to tell people what you're wanting to do in terms of canning.  This is the second time that I have got a response that equals, "Oh, I have that growing in my backyard.  Would you like some?".  Yep.  Saving Money.  Going Local.  Putting up food for future use.  You bet I would.

I am especially fond of green tomato salsa because it makes a great soup addition to my Sausage and Shrimp Gumbo.  I just toss it in during the last five minutes of cooking.  It adds great flavor and helps thicken up the soup.  Other than that, green tomato salsa is also great served over cream cheese with crunchy crackers for dipping.

The recipe I use comes loosely from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.  I have adapted it a little.  I swapped out the lime juice for 1 cup of apple cider vinegar since it's what I had on hand.  I also omitted the cilantro and oregano.

So I started with clean, washed green tomatoes and a few red tomatoes and red peppers (to add a little color).

The tomatoes get peeled and chopped.  I try to remove as many seeds as possible but don't sweat it.  The recipe calls for seven cups of chopped green tomatoes.

Next, I rough chopped two large yellow onions, four jalapeno peppers, and one banana pepper.  You can use any combination of peppers.  I only chopped them into large pieces because I also ran it through the food processor for a finer texture.

 All the chopped veggies then went into a bowl together.

 Then I added some spices - 2 teaspoons of ground cumin, 2 Tablespoons of garlic powder, and  2 teaspoons of pepper.

I also added 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons of canning salt.

Once everything was well mixed, I put it on the stove over a medium high heat and brought it to  a boil.  

After 10 minutes of boiling gently, it was ready to be jarred and processed.

Jars were filled to a half inch head space.  Lids then added and bands screwed on until finger tip tight.

Jars get processed in a boiling water bath for twenty minutes.   When twenty minutes are up, the stove gets turned off and the jars rest in the water for an additional five minutes with the canner lid off.  Once the jars are removed, they are allowed to sit for 24 hours undisturbed. 

* If you are in fact thinking of doing your own canning, please refer to a reliable source book such as The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving for all the exact measurements and details.  Also, always check with your local extension office for changes in time, temperatures, and higher altitude conversions.

This post is shared with Make Your Own Mondays, Fresh Bites Friday, and Homestead Barn Hop.

Apples

"Putting Up Food"  - Apples

Recently, I was given about 20 pounds of apples from my fil so this weekend had me putting up apples.  There are two main ways I like to do this.  One is to make and can applesauce.  The other is is slice and freeze them.  This is the route I went this weekend.  Sliced apples are good to have on hand to make pies, apple fritters, and my favorite, apple crisp.  Like green beans, it's not hard.  Just time consuming.


First, you wanna wash all of your apples.

Next, peel and slice.  Try to keep your apples evenly sliced for even cooking times later.

Then put into a citric acid bath to prevent browning.  I use this citric acid with good results.  Just put a teaspoon of it into about a quart of water.  After slicing the apples, I put them into the citric acid bath until I have enough to put into freezer bags.

Once you have a good amount peeled and sliced, remove them from the water and allow to drain.  Four to six cups of sliced apples will yield a pie.  You can freeze accordingly depending on how thick you like your pie.  I used quart sized bags which hold four cups.  The plan is to use these apples for apple crisp.

I can almost smell the cinnamony sweet goodness baking already.  How bout you?  Putting up any goodies lately?

Green Beans

"Putting Up Food" - Green Beans

This past weekend, I picked up ten pounds of green beans from the CSA.  I am trying to build a good stock pile of local veggies to be eaten this winter.  How nice it will be to have food on hand and know where it came from and how it was grown.  I especially like that putting up food will potentially save me from running to the store later.

To put up greens beans via freezing is pretty simple - just a little time consuming.  Just grab a comfortable spot where you can cut the beans the way you want them.  I use my spring loaded kitchen shears to snip off the ends and then cut them into about one and a half inch pieces.  Once all the beans are cut.  I start a pot of water to boil on the stove.

Then I clean the beans by rinsing them well in the sink to remove any debris.  I  also pick through them to toss any that look spotty or rusty.  

The beans get a two minute dunk into the boiling water and then are dunked into cold water to stop the cooking process.  They come out a nice bright green with an good crunch to them.  

I then bagged them into quart size freezer bags containing approximately  one and a half cups each.  I didn't measure - just eyeballed what looked like a necessary amount for a family side dish.  I ended up with fifteen bags of green beans to go into the freezer for future use.

Typically, I would cook these in a small crock-pot with a few strips of bacon for a few hours on low.  The bacon really gives them a nice flavor.  I also like to saute green beans in a skillet  with butter and then sprinkle them with Parmesan cheese.

How about you?  Are you putting up any goodies?  Share your recipes or ideas with us below.