Garden Harvest Time
Suddenly you are overwhelmed with the produce you dreamed of all summer. Here are some quick ideas how we use and save those garden treasures:
Cook and eat! We live on sliced tomatoes for much of the fall. A plate of sliced tomatoes with feta, or layered on an open faced grilled cheese sandwich, stacked on top of a plate of pasta, or my very favorite, ratatouille. We also love to roast veggies with olive oil and rosemary on them for a cold fall night dinner. This too, is a mainstay of our fall diet.
Freeze- We often freeze overflow of fruit, like plums and apricots. They are great in smoothies or fruit desserts. I also freeze sliced & peeled apples, nice when its time to make a holiday pie and you are too busy to prep them. We freeze batches of tomato sauce, roasted veggies and ratatouille. I make pumpkin puree from our pumpkins and freeze in small blocks to throw in smoothies with nutmeg, yogurt and bananas, yumm!
Dehydrate- We have a nice dehydrator, but also just use our oven on a low setting much of the time. Favorite to dehydrate are cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes. Also fruits into fruit roll ups. This sets us up for some good camping food later.
Ferment- This seems to be a new craze, my husband has been fermenting food for a while now. Last year he made tons of saurkraut, we made pickles, onions, jalapeños…. it is so easy and tasty to ferment veggies.
Good old fashion canning- I must have spent 1/4 of my time canning fruits, jams and sauces as a kid. My mom drafted me into the kitchen to help her make a huge variety of yummy preserves. The best part wasn’t opening a jar of fragrant raspberry jam in the middle of winter, the best part was the time I spent with my mom doing something together!
And of course, loading up your neighbors and friends with some of the bounty is very rewarding!
