Cookin' Up a Storm

73 this morning, no rain in the forecast.

What a beautiful day. Sunny, a few clouds, lower humidity and no rain, at least for today. Tomorrow is a different story but today we are thrilled to see the sun.

Yesterday was a cooking day, and today will be the same. The gardens are producing well, except the poor drowned peppers. So yesterday I canned dill pickles and pasta sauce. 

Today I will make tomato juice as we start to restock the cellar with our best-loved tomato products. We are praying that we can hold off the blight long enough to get what we need, especially the tomato juice as we drink a lot of it. Last year's 80 quarts wasn't enough.

We are both feeling better every day. Still not quite over Covid but getting close. We rest a lot, drink lots of fluids and don't push ourselves too hard. What needs to be done is getting done, and that's all that's necessary right now.

I have been looking for ways to use all this produce as it comes in. Yesterday's dinner was the squash casserole made the day before, 

and a salad of fresh cabbage and cucumbers sliced very thin in the food processor, with cherry tomatoes and Italian dressing. 

I made some broiled perch to go with it, and it was all delicious, especially that salad. So simple! The shredded cabbage was very like lettuce. I will definitely make that salad again. It reminded me of one I made years ago and had forgotten. That salad had sliced hard boiled eggs, dill, cabbage and green onions. I think I will make that one too, as we have several more small cabbages in tbe garden.

This morning I made pancakes, a monthly treat. This time I used some over-ripe bananas in them, with a little vanilla and cinnamon, and made a blueberry sauce with berries from the freezer. Just amazingly delicious. 

 I mashed up the rest of the bananas, measured them into one cup portions and put them in the freezer to use later in banana bread.

I also dried more chives yesterday, thinking to give them as Christmas gifts this year. They are so handy to have on hand and none of my sons or my grandchildren grow them. 

While looking to make space in the freezer I discovered a large bag of beef bones given to us by a neighbor. So those are thawing out to make bone broth, another useful thing to keep in stock. Right now the freezers, both of them, are full, so I have a sorting job ahead of me, az we wi need space for the corn and later for more venison when hunting season comes around.

We are eating lots of cucumbers, and I am looking for ways to use up all the cherry tomatoes. We have black, yellow, red and pink cherry tomatoes, so pretty. If you have any ideas, please send them along.

Since it rained almost all day yesterday, Larry got started on repainting the bathroom. That room is still in an uproar after we put up new wall material and replaced the sink and toilet.  Between gardens and then this virus neither of us have had time to do the painting but now Larry has made it his priority--behind keeping up with picking and caring keeping the garden fences repaired. Deer got in again last night but didn't do much damage thankfully. He found the place they got in and added more fishing line. Fingers crossed that this fixes the problem.

Well, off of here now, and back to the kitchen. Please keep our Kentucky neighbors in your prayers as the news from there is truly horrible. We West Virginia's know only too well the devastation of flooding, one of the perils of life in these high hills.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.