I am spent! I spent a majority of the weekend in the kitchen (despite the fact that it’s tiny & crummy since we hope to one day remodel and don’t want to spend any money replacing the original 1940′s fixtures it’s still my favorite place.)
The garden is really producing right now and this turn in the weather has got bees stinging and gardeners scurrying to prepare for fall.
I made batches of dilly beans, pickled beets, bread and butter slices with marketmore cucumbers, zucchini relish, stewed apricots, 20 pounds of frozen, dehydrated or fruit leather with #2 strawberries from Billy’s at the market and neglected the half flat of blueberries in my fridge that I also brought home from the market. I managed to make vanilla bean ice cream to go with them so I’ll take them out in the morning for blueberry muffins & cobbler to follow tomorrow night’s dinner.
I also managed to make pizza and bread dough, a loaf of chocolate zucchini bread and some northern corn bread from both dried & fresh ground corn. We are still eating the grilled corn on the cob.
My husband made the mistake of throwing a picked over cob down on the patio for the hens and they have taken to begging for food while we eat on the patio now, much to his chagrin. The dog is beside herself since she’s not allowed table scraps unless we place them in her bowl and now the pecking order is all confused. Is she above the kids? Below the chickens? She has no idea the poor dear. And while I feel sorry for her the chickens are highly amusing when they beg for food.
Tonight we made pizzas for dinner and to make things even more special I was involved in canning when I needed to start the pizza dough (I had already scrapped the soaked dough I usually make and resolved just to make it the hour before) so I pulled out my contraband bag of all purpose flour rather then grinding the white whole wheat berries we normally use for pizza dough.
We topped it with pesto made fresh from the garden (basil, my own silver rose garlic, parmeson, olive oil & nearly the last of the Chinese pine nuts from the freezer – not sure what I’ll do about pine nuts when they are gone), more roasted garlic that I keep in the freezer, artichoke hearts from our own plants, ricotta, chevre & mozzarella that I had previously made and frozen and sun dried tomatoes. If only they were MY sundried tomatoes but they were the last of the Costco bag from the freezer.
That pizza may well have been the best pizza I’ve ever had. I’m not sure if it’s because the ingredients were so fresh or that I knew how much of myself was in that pizza. Usually when you labor over a meal by the time you sit down to taste it you are so tired you don’t enjoy it as much as you would if you had been served that same meal. Tonight it was the opposite.
I hope you are enjoying the freedom to steam up your kitchen as much as I am!
That pizza looks wonderful! YUM!
You were wicked busy this weekend! I feel like such a slacker in comparison. LOL!
Isn’t it such a nice feeling to have the garden really producing and being able to set food by for the coming lean months? Had to laugh about the chickens, they are quite the characters.
Usually when you labor over a meal by the time you sit down to taste it you are so tired you don’t enjoy it as much as you would if you had been served that same meal.
I so agree! what a treat to be able to enjoy it!
I too have been consumed with cooking this weekend, it is the most comforting thing I know.
I have to say that I still have a huge bowl of roma tomatoes I picked expecting to can them today and I’m too pooped! Hopefully they can last until Wed when I get back from driving the kids to the peninsula to play.
annette,
i’m not sure where you may live but i think i am nearby… Sequim, Wa
i would love to get together and chat
if you would like to too, give me a shout
bohmbim@mac.com
Hi Leslie,
I’m in Seattle – shout if you head over this way!
Leslie, I so admire you!
You can harvest your own pine nuts. You should be able to get them in Sept.-Oct. If you contact your local BLM office, they should be able to tell you where the best place is to harvest. It would be a fun family outing for a day or two.
I did not mean to type Leslie. I was reading the above email as I was typing. A BAD side effect of trying to save time!! Please forgive me!
Hi Nicole, what is BLM? Oh that would be so great if I could find local pine nuts!!!!!
Lookie what I found: http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/nv/recreation.Par.60356.File.dat/pine_nuts.pdf. I’m so excited – I didn’t know you could do that! Our pine tree got a bumper crop of cones this year for the first time (we’ve had it 3 or 4 years now) and I bet I can eat THOSE! If not I bet there will be some at the farmer’s market. I had no idea – I thought they all came from China! thanks for the gem Nicole.
I’m glad you found that info. Local and self-harvested pine nuts are so much better! My sister is lucky and has her very own pine trees in her yard. I’m jealous of you both.
Do you know if there are any certain pine trees that taste better, or ones that you shouldn’t eat the nuts from? There are pine trees all over Seattle in everyone’s yards. I had no idea you could eat anything from them!
I have only harvested from the Pionion Pine and Lodgepole Pine. They tasted pretty much the same. The nut sizes were different. I would imagine that you can eat any pine nut.