Preserving the Harvest: Zesty Salsa and String Beans

The ingredients for a batch of Zesty Salsa all from the garden:

Bell, Anaheim, Jalapeno, and Cayenne peppers. Roma and San Marzano tomatoes. Copra onions, Red Romain garlic, and Cilantro (not shown).

I roasted the tomatoes and peppers on the grill:

When the tomato skins cracked, they were removed from the grill. The peppers were grilled longer allowing the skins to blacken before removing. The tomatoes and peppers were allowed to cool until easily handled, then skinned, seeded, chopped and added to the pot along with jalapenos, onions garlic, and other recipe ingredients. I let it simmer, then placed the salsa into half pint jars and processed in a boiling water canner. There was some left over for eating. Grilling the veggies added a nice roasted flavor to the salsa. I wore gloves when handling the hot peppers, but one must have had a hole in it because a finger burned for hours after. I finally soaked it in milk and it seemed to help.

While I had the kitchen messed up and the canner on the stove, I canned a batch of beans. I had prepared the beans for canning earlier in the day:

I had enough beans to can a second batch, but ran out of time by the time the pressure canner cooled down with the first batch. So I removed the jars, placed the beans in the fridge, double checked that the stove was off, left everything else out, and went to bed. I finished the second batch this morning using up the last of my pint jars. I blanched and froze the rest of the beans.

As the canner cooled this morning, I went out to the garden to harvest whatever was waiting for me and give the garden a good watering. Temperatures may reach 90 today and I can already feel the humidity creeping up to uncomfortable.

I ended up with 14 pints canned beans, 2-quart freezer bags of beans, and 8 half-pint jars of salsa. Combined with the 37 cups of tomato sauce frozen on Saturday this amounts to my most productive weekend preserving so far.

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Harvest Monday: August 9, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The most exciting harvest this week are the tomatoes. After losing all my tomato plants to late blight last year, I may have overcompensated a bit this year in the amount of plants in the garden. Personally, I don’t like tomatoes and usually plant mostly paste varieties for making sauce and salsa. Roma and San-Marzano paste tomatoes are the varieties I am growing this year:

K loves fresh tomatoes and I wanted to plant a couple eating tomatoes for him. I had both Early Girl and Bush Boy seeds on hand. More seeds germinated than I planned and I found room in the garden for all the healthy seedlings. Seriously, is it possible to have too many tomatoes?

I made a batch of salsa with Cilantro, Onions, Peppers, and Tomatoes from the garden. I had to purchase a few Jalapeno and Bell Peppers as mine are just beginning to fruit. The picture below shows some tomatoes and the first Cayenne, Anaheim and Bell Pepper harvest of the year:

The windowsill is in constant rotation. The ripe tomatoes are washed and frozen as the new harvest is added to the windowsill:

Two gallon sized freezer bags have been filled and frozen for later processing into sauce:

Other harvest this week included more Fastbreak Melons:

Dark Red Norland Potatoes (3.375 pounds) and another Fastbreak Melon:

Some small carrots and some onions:

Three bunches of celery were harvested, sliced, and frozen for later use in soups and stuffings:

There are still a lot of cucumbers coming off the vines. I have made a couple batches of pickles and will use some for a batch of sweet relish. The rest will be given away:

This is the best year we have ever had for Blueberries. Every day we pick a bowl full and have frozen some for use future baked goods:

 This weekend, the cured garlic was also trimmed and cleaned up:

The bulbs on the left are Romanian Red which will make a return appearance in the Garden Spot. On the right are Purple Glazer. The bulbs are small and fragile. I want to try another variety.

Just a reminder, if you are planning on growing garlic, now is the time to get your order in. I purchased my garlic seed bulbs from wegrowgarlic.com last year. I noticed this year they are already sold out of many varieties.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Preserving the Harvest: Tomatoes

I began yesterday morning sorting through the tomatoes on the windowsill and counter pulling out the ones that are ripe. I washed them well, pulled the stems and piled them up for processing into sauce later in the day. I also grabbed a few of the frozen gallon bags of tomatoes from the downstairs chest freezer and placed them in the sink to thaw out:

We ran a few errands, did some groceries, and picked up some more freezer containers and canning jars for the weekend.

Once the groceries were put away, I chopped some garlic and onions and set them aside while we got busy with the tomatoes.

Have I mentioned that I love my new food strainer? It really cuts down on a lot of steps to making sauce. All I do is cut the raw tomatoes into small chunks and crank them through the strainer. The skins, seeds are separated out from the juice and pulp. Mine is a Victorio Food & Vegetable Strainer, but there are other similar products:

I got busy cutting up the tomatoes, and K cranked them through the strainer. It took about an hour to process all the tomatoes into juice and pulp and it filled my two largest pots. The house smelled so good as the sauce simmered all day and into the evening. It cooled overnight and was transferred into freezer containers this morning and stored in our chest freezer downstairs.

There are still a lot of tomatoes on the counter and more coming in each day. Another batch of sauce will be canned later for longer storage. I am also planning on making some salsa and a batch of ketchup.

First, I’ll be making a batch of relish and canning some of the bean harvest that came in this week.

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Preserving the Harvest: Tomato Sauce

I began yesterday morning sorting through the tomatoes on the windowsill and counter pulling out the ones that are ripe. I washed them well, pulled the stems and piled them up for processing into sauce later in the day. I also grabbed a few of the frozen gallon bags of tomatoes from the downstairs chest freezer and placed them in the sink to thaw out:

We ran a few errands, did some groceries, and picked up some more freezer containers and canning jars for the weekend.

Once the groceries were put away, I chopped some garlic and onions and set them aside while we got busy with the tomatoes.

Have I mentioned that I love my new food strainer? It really cuts down on a lot of steps to making sauce. All I do is cut the raw tomatoes into small chunks and crank them through the strainer. The skins, seeds are separated out from the juice and pulp. Mine is a Victorio Food & Vegetable Strainer, but there are other similar products:

I got busy cutting up the tomatoes, and K cranked them through the strainer. It took about an hour to process all the tomatoes into juice and pulp and it filled my two largest pots. The house smelled so good as the sauce simmered all day and into the evening. It cooled overnight and was transferred into freezer containers this morning and stored in our chest freezer downstairs.

There are still a lot of tomatoes on the counter and more coming in each day. Another batch of sauce will be canned later for longer storage. I am also planning on making some salsa and a batch of ketchup.

First, I’ll be making a batch of relish and canning some of the bean harvest that came in this week.

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Harvest Monday: September 13, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

It’s hard to believe that only two weeks ago the temperatures were in the 90s here in southern Maine. Beginning this weekend, they are more seasonably in the 60s. The summer garden is responding by slowing down production.

I spent most of the weekend making and canning 18 pints of sauce and 14 half-pints of salsa. I also blanched and froze another batch of string beans. I have enough of each preserved now for at least a year. I am feeling very satisfied.

The tomatoes continue to ripen and I anticipate making another batch of tomato sauce next weekend. However the yield harvested each day has dropped tremendously.

The Purple Trionfo and a few Kentucky Wonder pole beans are still producing. From this point on, I will be picking only what is needed for fresh eating. The remainder will be allowed to mature for seed saving. I am hoping to save enough Purple Trionfo seeds for next year. It will be my first seed saving attempt and the Purple Trionfo were grown right next to Kentucky Wonder, so it should be interesting to see what happens.

Here are some of the harvests from the garden spot this week:

I’ll post more about the grapes later this week.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Monday: August 2, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

I am a little late with posting my Harvest Monday post. It was a very busy weekend here at the garden spot. The weather was so beautiful with much less humidity than we have been experiencing. It was so much easier to work outside in the yard and garden without the oppressive heat. I was so motivated.

We ran out of tomato sauce, which is a staple in this household. So I needed to make a batch to tide us over until the garden tomatoes are ready. Everything that went into the sauce was from the garden except for the tomatoes, which came from cans. Good quality canned tomatoes, but canned nonetheless. I was thrilled to use my own grown garlic, onions, basil, parsley, thyme, and oregano in the sauce.  I can’t wait to use my own grown tomatoes.

I also took advantage of the cooler weather and canned up some Kosher Dill Pickles and some Salsa. In addition, the garden paths were weed whacked and gardens weeded. The plants were pruned, fertilized, and watered.

I am so thrilled to have tomatoes coming in fast and furious this year. The ones pictured below are Early Girl, but the paste tomatoes also began ripening this week as well. I will have some to show for next week’s Harvest Monday:

This week I also harvested a few of the first Nante carrots from the Square Foot Garden. These are shown below with some celery thinnings. The celery growing in the SWC was looking a bit ratty, so I took some scissors and cleaned it up and thinned it out. Some of these trimmings went into salads, but most were chopped and frozen for later use in soups this fall and winter:

More cucumbers were harvested:

I gave away some cucumbers and will probably be giving away much more in the future. I’ve made one batch of Bread & Butter Pickles and this weekend canned up 12 pints of Kosher Dill Pickle spears. We now have more pickles than we could ever consume. If they taste good, most jars will be probably given away as well. Here is the Dill harvest that was used for the Kosher Dill Pickle recipe:

I also harvested another batch of basil that was turned into pesto and frozen for later use:

The first Fast Break Melon was harvested on Friday. I don’t expect much from the first melon. It has usually struggled to grow and is pollinated early when the temperatures are quite cool and the plant is still trying to establish itself. This one was small, a bit deformed, and only about 4-inches across. It had already slipped from the vine when I found it. I ate this first melon for breakfast this morning, it was delicious:

A few more Fast Break Melons ripened over the weekend:

More Dark Red Norland Potatoes were harvested:

Blueberries, a few raspberries, and blackberries:

The first Kentucky Wonder Pole beans:

These were snacked on right after the photo. I usually grow bush beans for an earlier harvest, but decided against them this year as we had too many beans last year. Kentucky Wonder and Purple Trionfo Pole Beans were planted and they have just begun to form beans. Soon I will be harvesting beans every day. I can’t wait.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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Harvest Monday: August 30, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas. Here is an overview of what was harvested in the garden spot this week.

The tomatoes continue to pour in and I am thankful for each and every one. I’ve been busy making and freezing sauce so we can enjoy the harvest long into the winter months:

The pole beans are producing abundantly. The Japanese beetles are gone, leaving behind lacey leaves on the Kentucky Wonder pole beans, but the Purple Trionfo pole bean leaves are almost untouched. The Purple Trionfo pole beans are also more productive. A proven winner in the garden spot this year:

The Japanese eggplant have begun to fruit and I was able to harvest enough for a meal. Although, the most productive plant is a surprise:

The fruit is supposed to be purple, but one plant is producing all white eggplant. They came from the same seed package and the size and flavor of the fruit is the same as the purple.

The peppers seem to be lagging behind this year. I may have to start the seedlings earlier next year. The plants are now filled with small fruit, but they may run out of summer before they fully develop. I did have enough Bell, Anaheim, Jalapeno, and Cayenne peppers for a batch of salsa this weekend:

The melon patch has mostly died back. Most of the melons have been harvested, only a few Sugar Baby Watermelons remain in the garden. Finally, the first Sugar Baby Watermelon was ready for harvest:

We sliced into it and found the flavor to be very good. It was so worth the wait. There are five more Sugar Baby Watermelons in the garden that I expect to be ready soon:

The mid-summer planting of zucchini has begun producing:

I know the calendar says Fall is coming soon, but it doesn't feel like it yet. We are going to have another spurt of 90-degree weather over the next week. Some of the tomato plants are beginning to show signs of stress and disease. However, the San Marazano’s in the Square Foot Gardens are green, healthy, and full of heavy fruit. They responded to the rain we had last Wednesday by putting on another few inches of growth. I had to tie them up so they wouldn’t crowd the fall lettuce and spinach.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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