Sunday, September 14, 2008

Where the heck do I put all these jars?

I have a serious problem.  My pantry is full, but I can't stop canning! 

 I've started just leaving my canned goods on the kitchen table, thinking I'll find a place to put them soon enough.  But they're still here.


Last night I canned 2 quarts of peach pie filling, 4 half-pints of peach chutney, and 10.5 pints of peach jam.  But I already had 10 half-pints of cherries and 4 pints of spiced apples sitting on the table.  Oh, and three 16 oz bottles of tabasco vinegar.  So it's time to find a place for this stuff.  

I could keep it in the basement and just pull some shelves out of a dumpster somewhere...but things in the basement tend to get forgotten.  Like wet laundry. And the exercise machine.  

I'm hoping to somehow transform the useless space in the stairway to the basement into shelving, but really want my partner to help since he knows how to operate the saws and such.

On another subject- 
I found some pictures from meals in the last week or so that I meant to post and forgot about.


This was a rockin' good stirfry made with all local veggies!  What a difference a few months makes in the local harvest- I had garden broccoli, farmer's market carrots, WI onions, MN garlic, and a glaze made with some (not local) orange juice, sesame oil, tamari, and cornstarch.  On top is some tofu marinated in the glaze ingredients and baked at about 450 for 20 minutes.  Super crispy and amazing!

This looks really boring, but it was bursting with flavor.  I coated some little local potatoes with olive oil and covered them in smoked paprika, garlic, cayenne pepper, cumin, and salt.  Then I roasted them until they were tender. They turned out nice and spicy, so it helped to have some cool coleslaw nearby!
This was from Friday.  Doesn't it just look like a perfect day off of work?
I finished reading "Pickled, Potted & Canned: How the art and science of food preserving changed the world" by Sue Shepard.  If you are at all interested in food preserving, you should read this book.  It is fascinating!

The soup has a spice/aromatic base of crushed coriander (from the garden), cumin seed, fennel seed, salt, jalapeno, onion, and garlic.  I lightly browned the onions and spices in a bit of olive oil and then added about 2 cups of chopped butternut squash, 1 huge peeled, seeded, and chopped heirloom tomato, and enough water to cover.  I let this simmer until the squash was tender (15 min?) and then pureed it.  Even Mike liked it and he hates squash.

Today I need to preserve the pile of tomatillos from the garden, the grocery bag full of apples "rescued" from an abandoned house, and bake some bread.  But I have a co-op local foods picnic to prepare for (including making coleslaw)...so we'll see how far I get (and where the heck I put it all!)

2 comments:

morgen said...

I am running into the same problem here. An entire pantry shelf is taken up and there is no end to the canning in sight. What will we do when it gets to be December? Can snow? Holly berries? Hmmm.

Steffi said...

great minds think alike, again! I also had Friday off work and made squash soup, as well!