What a Week

57 this morning, clear and nice, but humid now as rain is moving our way. It is very welcome as we are still behind in rainfall this month.

It has been a garden and food week here, it seems. Already we are harvesting: snow peas and chard are in the freezer, with regular peas to pick soon, and plenty of kale too. 

You have to laugh about the yields from greens. 4 bags, from a bushel of chard! But with the beet greens and kale, we will have a good supply in tbe end.

There are a few cabbages ready, and broccoli is heading up. The squash are ready to start blooming, as are the cucumbers, and the onions need to be pushed over to dry in tbe next few days. Tbe third planting of lettuce is ready now, and so are a few radishes. Today I side-dressed many of the plants in my garden with rabbit manure, and Larry used manure tea in tbe tomatoes. We are also picking raspberries, not a lot but what a sweet treat.

In tbe kitchen I have had a cooking week. With our granddaughter visiting and our son coming over often to help her on her cabin site, there have been some hungry people here. Here is what Tuesdays cooking looked like:

I wanted to make a kale soup, and found this recipe by the NY Times for Kale Sausage And Potato Soup. It was absolutely delicious. My son said, before tasting it, that there was no good way to use kale, but he changed his mind! I made a pan of cornbread to go with the soup.

I had bought the ingredients for a pineapple upside down cake back in May, planning to make it for Larry's birthday. That didn't happen, so on this rainy Tuesday I got it made.

While making the soup, I also made a huge kettle od spaghetti sauce to can. We were given several large bags of frozen hamburger and 4 one-gallon tins of tomato sauce. I needed the freezer space the meat was taking up so I added celery, onions, and spices to the meat and sauce, and ended up with about 11 quarts of pasta sauce, canned in the pressure canner.

I had a container full of raspberries that I thought to make into jam, but decided instead to flash freeze them to use in cereal, salads, etc.

And since we had a loaf of French bread that was getting stale, I tried making herbed croutons for the first time. So simple to make,, I can't think why I haven't done it before.

Wednesday we had the leftover soup for lunch, then for dinner I put together a salad bar, with lettuce, cherry tomatoes, pickled beets, pickled jalapeños, carrots, radishes, green onions, croutons, turkey, and a few other things I can't recall. It was fun and so easy. No photos of that, unfortunately.  I just didn't think to take them.

Breakfast yesterday was chopped apples, black walnuts and vanilla yogurt mixed into my usual pancake mix, with cherry pit syrup from last year. I still need to make this year's syrup but have tbe seeds in the freezer for when I get time.

Today's breakfast was tomatoes on toast, because our son brought us a nice bag of tomatoes from his friend's greenhouse. Lunch was corn chowder or white bean and ham soups from the cellar,  with the rest of the pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.  Tonight? Actually we are still full from lunch!

Well, I didn't just cook all week. I spent the weekend with the pressure washer. Hours and hours, but the deck, patio, and sidewalks look much better. And we had some wonderful firepit evenings and porch conversations. Such good times.

Now our granddaughter has gone home, and it is quiet and kind of boring around here. It is always such a pleasure when she comes and we look forward to her next trip. 

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