4/23/20 …now let's do something with the bounty we grew...
6So, now that you have a garden planted (or just got a huge bag/bunch/basket/box of [fill in the blank]) what are you gonna do with it?
Most of my produce is destined to become fresh veggies for meals. Some, like the jalapenos will be make into chipoptles/chipotle powder and or combined with the green peppers for pepper jelly. Tomatoes may get made into salsa and/or chutney (while green) if there are enough.
Fruit will be eaten fresh or made into jams, pear liqueur, and maybe if I get a wild hair I will make some wine from the grapes on the back fence line.
So what about you… what happens to your production…
Do you freeze your stuff? (pro tip, use the (at one time) ubiquitous FoodSaver Vacuum from meh for that).
Do you make (and can) jams/preserves/pickles/chutney?
Do you use all those extra fruits to make wine or liqueurs?
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Assuming a good crop (last year was a bust
) many of the apples and pears will become hard cider/perry, some will be pies/cobbler. The tomatoes that aren’t eaten fresh will be canned whole or as sauce. The uneaten berries will be frozen or make jam. Some of the beets and cucumbers will be pickled.
We don’t end up with too much more than we can eat. Most extra goes to my parents but I do freeze beans.
We also have a CSA share and I make and freeze a lot of soups. I’ve also canned jalapenos and banana peppers from that. I made green hot sauce but forgot to peel the tomatillos so it didn’t turn out right. I have grand canning plans that have not materialized.
I also dehydrate a lot of things like herbs and hot peppers for chilli powder. I also make my own hot sauce.
I use my dehydrator to make sun dried tomatoes and homemade tomatoe paste
@CaptAmehrican yummy. If you have a smoker making jalapenos into chipotles/chipotle powder is pretty easy. I actually bought an extra “coffee grinder” from WM just so I could process herbs and chipotles etc.
@CaptAmehrican
How do you do the paste pray tell…? Then do you can it or freeze it (or just use it fresh?)
@chienfou you take paste tomatoes and remove the skins and seeds and then puverize them add a ittle lemon juice and simer down over low in a wide pan until beginning to be thick when thick enough not to run off you put in layers on parchment paper covered dehydrator trays and then set to low. Every hour ish you scrape up mix and re smooth out and then you do this till tomato paste consistency. Then you use your foodsaver to make plastic tubes. Pipe the paste into tubes and vacuum seal and freeze. Then when want you defrost 1 tube, squirt what you need and reseal.
@CaptAmehrican
TIL! Thanks, that is awesome. I bought some tomato paste (Italian) in a ‘toothpaste tube’ once at the Dollar tree and it was SUPER handy. That sounds like it would be even better and taste fresher. I’ll have to try that is the armadillos will stop digging up my tomato plants.
POPSOCKETS! ROAD ROCKETS! SONNY CROCKETT! AWESOME!
I’ve got a shitload of dried catnip in the freezer.