Hi ho, hi ho

I've finally finished off this week's food TO DO list and I'm gearing up to get ready for more work this weekend. I will have to say that this lifestyle is definitely more time consuming, what with making bread, cheese, jam, sour cream, and the like. Not to mention the freezing, drying and canning. But believe me, I'm not complaining. The labor intensive aspect of eating is what I'm looking for - actually thinking about what we eat and feeling connected to it from birth to delicious meal.

Tuesday I finished freezing some leftover Swiss Chard and also had to redo some jam that didn't set right the first time. I love the colors of the Swiss Chard, and blanching it made them even brighter. The inside of our freezer is like a chronological account of the local growing seasons. In the back are carrots, spinach, peas, cauliflower, broccoli...stuffed on top of those are strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, eggplant, zucchini, squash, corn, chicken broth and pesto. The chard has now been added in all of its rainbow glory, soon to be followed by containers of my first ever tomato sauce.

Saturday is d-day for tomato canning. Lacking a pressure canner, I've got to be careful about the recipes that I use to make tomato sauce, except for those that I freeze. If the pH is off, the sauce could spawn Botulism - obviously not my goal. I'm thinking of just canning some basic sauces for pizza and freezing some fancier ones destined for pasta. I'm putting up some plain old canned tomatoes too, for use in pretty much anything.

I've never tackled pickles, but I'm gonna give them a go as well. They actually seem pretty easy-I'll report back and let you know.