Preserving the Harvest  by Mary  (late fall 2012)

We never went to the farm after October 29th this year as we were busy with holidays and recitals.  However, the harvesting and processing of food continued into late fall.  Todd & Nancy shared their field garden produce with us - even canned green beans.

It was very satisfying for us to sit down to a meal of which a good portion had been grown organically.  I recently read that if a person eats most of their produce organically, they rid their body of 90% of the herbicides/pesticides in two weeks.  Wish we could grow bananas!!

Homegrown Organic Food:

From the farm:
sweet corn - fresh & frozen
potatoes - fresh, canned, & frozen
green beans - fresh & canned  (Todd & Nancy shared)
cucumbers - fresh
butternut, acorn, spaghetti, & zucchini squash - fresh & frozen
pumpkin - fresh & frozen
blackberries - fresh & frozen
gooseberries - frozen
rhubarb - fresh & frozen 
apples - fresh & frozen

From our city garden:
Lettuces and radishes - fresh
tomatoes - fresh & frozen
peppers - fresh & frozen
onions - fresh 
beets - fresh
cabbage - fresh
broccoli - fresh

We invested in a small upright freezer.  I much prefer the ease of freezing food and the taste is better also, with the exception of green beans.  

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Experiments that work:

Potatoes only keep in a cool area in our basement through December before they sprout.  Todd and Nancy always can a few jars and then use them for hash browns or potato soup.  They have given us some and it is very handy to open a jar of already cooked potatoes.  This year, I learned that if you bake potatoes first, then run them through the food processor, they make good hash browns.  I then froze them in sheets, and it was so easy to break off just enough to go with bacon and eggs, etc.  We like the baked flavor, and I intend to process a lot more this way in the coming season. 

Spaghetti squash can be used in place of zucchini in recipes.

Freeze prepared horseradish in small amounts in ice cube trays.

I froze butternut squash in one cup containers, and we often have a serving with our meals.  Healthy!

We loved blackberry/banana yogurt drinks  - as delicious as any you could buy!   I will freeze as many blackberries as possible.

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Recipe:  Nancy found this yummy recipe, so I froze pumpkin in 1 cup containers and scooped out enough to make the two of us this   pumpkin drink.  The recipe is easy to adjust to the number of people.

Spiced Pumpkin Sippers
4 c. milk
1 c. pumpkin puree
1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg

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