This might not be worth it...

So I left off last Saturday with grand plans. I was going to make cobbler, meatloaf, banana bread and tomato basil sauce. Well, 3 out of 4 isn't that bad right? I'm not sure.


First thing I made is the banana bread (that took nothing from my veggie basket but used up gross brown bananas!).

 

Second thing to be made last sunday? Meatloaf. Again, I used absolutely nothing from the veggie basket. Not true... as it turns out, I used some onions.

Then, with the help of my two fabulous (but mightily tiring) daughters, we made the rhubarb cobbler. I managed to use 1 tiny item from my basket for that.

 

I never made it to the tomato sauce. It just is sooooo much work peeling and seeding tomatoes. And you have to do that for any recipe you want to cook tomatoes in. All that to say that I never made it to the tomatoes. There is just so much to do in a weekend, on top of the two young kids we have. I don't have enough time in the week. I swear, this is work for a stay at home mom. I can see how easy it is to keep busy, just with cooking alone!

So this week, we have managed to use the mini squash and patty pans, finished of the weird beans from 2 weeks ago, had a crazy salad that was inspired by Madge (you know who you are). I have to side bar and describe this salad for you. I am quite disappointed that I didn't take any pictures. Anyways, I used the micro greens that were in our basket this week, onion, pepper and cucumber (from 2 weeks ago) and added strawberries and raspberries to it. Then I took some almond slivers that were lying around in a cupboard (from like, christmas baking I swear!) and candied them in butter and brown sugar, and threw them on top. I made a lovely vinaigrette with some white wine vinegar, honey, olive oil and dijon. Fabu!

I'm sure we used other stuff from our basket but things we most definitely didn't use: eggplant. That has gone the way of the compost. 

I try to be organized and have a monthly meal plan in place, however when I made this months meal plan, I also had done august at the same time. By the end of September I was, well, uninspired. I have nothing scheduled for this week. I have to come up with some meals AND use up these veggies. God knows the next basket is just around the corner. I digress. I finally made the tomato basil sauce. I managed to use up 2 items from my basket and the amazing organic garlic my friend grows.  Now, I need to pre-empt all this by stating that if the hubby had not volunteered to peel and seed the tomatoes, their fate would have been quite different (I would have chucked them). Well, all that work and here is the fruit of my labour:

That's a whole lot of work for not a lot of yield. I mean we had two full baskets of tomatoes (like in photo) and all I get is 1 jar of sauce? I just keep coming back to "Is it worth it?".  I am working my butt off here to use up these products, but the just don't send enough to make any given recipe. And I am running out of ideas on how to use the tomatoes they keep sending us. So hubby says to me, have you asked them to send less tomatoes? And I say that no, I don't think it's necessary to make such a request, what with the weather turning cold. Then he says the worst thing possible: "greenhouse". Sigh.


On a side note, I just came back from apple picking with the girls this morning. I will be making apple jelly and a nice apple crumble I think!


Results:

• Almost 1L jar of tomato basil sauce

Used up:

• Tomatoes
• Basil

Suggestions?


Anyone have a delicious scallop potato recipe? I would love it for the army of potatoes I am accumulating. 


BTW, if you want the recipe for anything I make just let me know and I will post it. I'm all for sharing!

Basket numéro 3

Well ladies and gentlemen, basket number 3 has arrived. What does a basket look like? Well, it basically looks like my cooler stuffed with veg.

Oddly enough, I feel like this week we didn't get a lot of vegetables compared to the last two deliveries. Trust me, I am NOT complaining. This is challenging enough as is. So what did we get today, and what the heck are we going to do with it? One thing I didn't get (and am eternally grateful for) is broccoli!

Here is what I did get:

Tomatoes (shocking but true) - for the third basket in a row!

Potatoes

Fennel

Fresh basil

Eggplant (I think)

Radishes (again, we think - it's the long red thing next to the possible eggplant)

4 corn on the cobs (I think this might be the last time we get some)

Pearl onions

3 garlic cloves

Yellow carrots

Some kind of sprout (that is apparently good on sandwiches - according to the hubby)

Patty pans (aka panty pants)

Summer squash

Green beans

Lettuce 

and... Rhubarb

As an aside, we had our first packing casualty. Nothing major, so far everything shows up in pristine condition - except this little guy:

Anyways, so what is the plan for all this you ask? Well here we go. This weekend I plan on making the following:


Banana bread (what else do you do with brown bananas???)
Fennel, Squash & apple soup
Rhubarb cobbler
Tomato, basil pasta sauce (need to buy big jars to preserve in)
Meatloaf (plan on putting veg in there somewhere)
Caprese Salada


So, as I mentioned in the last post, I am trying to not spend more money in order to use up what I have. I still had not used up the squash from the last basket and so I figured it was time. Step one? Cut a whole in the box... But that's a whole other show. I really had no idea what to do with the Fennel. Maybe some of you use it more frequently (hell, I never use it so any use would be more frequent than me) than I do, but I had no idea what to do with it. I wanted to make this squash soup, I had fennel... I used google. I found a whole bunch of recipes for squash/fennel soup (who would have guessed), but I really just didn't have the energy for anything complicated. So in the end I went with basics. I used the normal equation for making any potage: 60% veg + 40% onions, cover with broth. 

Now I wanted some kind of flavour so I added apples (I saw that in a recipe at one point during my search) and had to flavour somehow. I was inspired by the apples so I added salt (for flavour), cinnamon for the apples and turmeric for a little umph! Bring this concoction to a boil and simmer for... well, till the veg is mushy. Pure, et voila! It's pretty good. I will finish it off with cream when I serve it!

So that's all I managed to produce today. I sorted my veg, washed it put it away and made a soup. I also started with the rhubarb cobbler. I am pretty excited for it. I will add strawberries to the recipe (I have some I need to use up). 

I have an abundance of potatoes right now. We really aren't eating them. Any suggestions, aside from the usual? They are pretty and deserve a good end.

Also, looking for a suggestion for the eggplant (not ratatouille - or maybe ratatouille). 

Results:

• Two meals of soup

Used up:

• All the squash from the last 2 baskets
• Fennel (which I feel is a huge accomplishment)

Lessons learned:

I just might be too tired to have learned anything. I am starting to notice that as exciting as this basket is, I don't like that they just give you enough of something so that you have to come up with a solution, but not enough to make a recipe out of. Take the tiny amount of rhubarb they sent me, or the beets from the last time. 


Tomorrow I will be making the cobbler, meatloaf, tomato-basil sauce and banana bread (hopefully). Let's see how that works out.

The beet goes on

Well after god knows how long, I finally got to the beets. My purple days are done!!! I thought pickling beets would be onerous, but it was quick and easy once the hubby and I established a system. Now, it's been to long for me to remember the funny (and mostly crazy) stories I had so, I think this one is going to be short and sweet. 


After asking my godmother for her recipe (and being told I could get it from my dad), I finally managed to get a copy of the recipe - and he sends me a broken recipe. So off we go to the ingredients. 


Beets (always useful) - 10 lbs (is it just me, or does this sound like a crapload of beets???)
Sugar - 4 cups (I thought we were pickling, not making jam)
1 tbsp of whole cloves OR 1 tbsp of whole allspice (ps, it's actually 2 tbsp of whole allspice)
3 tsp of pickling salt (this makes sense to me)
7 cups of vinegar (now I believe this recipe is for pickling)
3 cups of water
4 sticks of cinnamon (really???)

Did I mention I LOVE my aunts beets? So, I guess I have to trust that the recipe is correct (save for that one little typo).


The way it works is, you wash your beets, then you boil the crap out of them (roughly 45 mins). Plunge in cold water, and the skin should come right off! Hubby peeled, I trimmed and plopped the beets into the jars. While all this beet prep is going on, you have to have the other ingredients come to a boil and simmer for 15 mins. 

Once a jar is full (of beets), you then add the brine and wipe it down. Seal and voila. Now I am not sure about this next part, but I don't think we can eat them till roughly christmas. This is NOT an instant gratification project. It is however a lovely dying project.

 No, I am not usually this red. 

Results:

• 13 500 ml jars of pickled beets!

(note: lighter beets are my organic, heirloom beets)

Used up:

• 4-6 of the 8 beets we got in the first two baskets

Lessons learned:

I am finding it challenging using up the veggies without it costing me an arm and a leg in additional ingredients/supplies. The pickled beets?  I'm supper psyched about, however I bought a crapload of stuff to complete this project:

• Beets
• Sugar (ran out due to all the jam I made last week)
• Vanilla sticks
• Whole allspice & cloves (yuk)
• Pickling vinegar
• Pickling salt

All that for 6 beets. I don't think I am doing this quite right. 

Purple day!

Well, there's a reason you can't find blueberry JELLY recipes anywhere! They are incredibly time consuming and wow, costly!!! I started the damn blueberry jelly last night. Pureed the berries and left them to strain overnight. Talk about an exercise in futility. When I got up this morning, nothing had strained. So I did what all the jelly recipes tell you not to do, I pushed the pulp through... I guess it makes for a cloudy (and pulpy) jelly. Once I got that all strained (no I did not manage to tough it out for the whole batch), I then had to re-strain the juice through a cloth bag. So now I've strained the stuff twice, I don't actually have a recipe (yup I am making this up as I go) and I have put in just under 20 hours into this project... yeah I'm a genius. I follow the directions for the concord grape jelly on the certo box and finish it only to worry that it will not congeal. So I bring it back to a boil and add a second box of certo. SNAP, talk about jelly. Well, don't tell the hubby, but blueberry jelly is NOT a cost effective jelly. I spent $40.00 on the berries, plus additional ingredients. Tally, tally, tally and you are looking at roughly $5 a jar (250 ml jar that is). But damn, it tastes good!

Beauty, right?


Anyways, I don't know if I mentioned yesterday, but part of what we got in the last two baskets was beets. Not a lot, but some. So I thought, mmmm I love pickled beats AND my godmother makes the best ever! So I planned on making pickled beets today. When I finally got ahold of my aunt's recipe (by way of my dad), it called for 10 lbs of beets. I had roughly 2 lbs. So off we went to the Parkdale market to pick up some beets and to Herb and Spice for the cinnamon sticks required as well as some whole, all spice.


Did I mention I get carried away? I'm in the middle of blueberry jelly disaster, I am running around trying to get the ingredients for pickled beets (on labour day no less), and what do I behold???

That's right, concord grapes. I needed to make concord grape jelly!!! I had bought some a couple of weeks ago and wanted to make jelly, but it seemed more complicated than I was ready for at the time. So we ate them happily. But there they were again. It was destiny, right??? So I bought 3 KL and thought, yea! 


When we got home (after desperately trying unsuccessfully to find cheesecloth on this lovely labour day), Hubby suggested that I do both the sweet (blueberry and concord grapes jellies) dishes first, then move on to the beets. As it turns out, they were wise words. I ran around getting all the ingredients for the beets, but did not have enough sugar for all three canning projects. 


The beets are currently on hold till next weekend. 


So I pureed, boiled, strained (twice!), boiled (with sugar), cooled while skimming and jarred the second batch of jelly for the day. Sigh. 

Now as a point of interest, Certo makes both powdered and liquid pectin. The recipes for the powdered pectin included a concord grape jelly. Those for the liquid one did not. I made followed the powder recipe using the liquid pectin. Not sure how "jelly" it will be... Will update later.  But I did manage a very large amount of possible jelly.

Now I have fifty bazillion pots of jelly!!! Yea, I love jelly!!! Can you tell which is which?

Anywho, I have to get my act together and do the beets now. God this takes a lot of time. 


I feel a little fraudulent. If you know me even remotely, you know that I am not suzy homemaker. I have this great credo: "There are people for that". But here I am making all this stuff. I don't know how long it will last, but I seem to be inspired right now. Someone suggested that I make ratatouille to get rid of my squash. I think I will totally be making a batch when I get more zucchini! Someone else said I should make squash soup. It's actually the only plan I have had for the squash since I received it. However, if I keep getting industrial quantities of squash... there is only so much soup one girl can stomach. 


Results:

• 2 125 ml jars of blueberry jelly
• 8 250 ml jars of blueberry jelly
• 4 125 ml jars of possible concord grape jelly
• 9 250 ml jars of possible concord grape jelly

Used up:

• ahem... nothing

Lessons learned:

• This is an expensive endeavour (I keep having to go buy more ingredients and have made tons of extra stuff - specifically all the jam/jelly)
• Always double strain your jelly (I barely had any skimming to do!)
• Powdered and liquid pectin are not the same thing... I think
• All this work = A LOT of dishes!!!
• Best laid plans of mice and men... poor, sad, discarded beets

P.S. I had some of the salsa today... wow, I think it is the best salsa ever! I am including the recipe:

www.canadianliving.com/food/peppy_salsa.php

Peppy Salsa

By The Canadian Living Test Kitchen

182 people added this to their Recipe Box

Put up a whole season's supply of this favourite salsa – a much-requested recipe every season.

This recipe makes 11 cup (250 mL) servings

To change the number of servings, enter the number of servings you'd like in the box below, then press "calculate".

• or revert to original portions

Nutritional Info
per 1 tbsp 15 mL : about	-
cal	6
pro	trace
total fat	0 g
sat. fat	0 g
carb	1 g
fibre	trace
chol	0 mg
sodium	41 mg
% RDI:	-
iron	1%
vit A	2%
vit C	17%
folate	1%

Suggested Recipes

• Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar
• Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar
• Blueberry Balsamic Vinegar
• Steak Salad with Blue Cheese Buttermilk Dressing
• Stuffed Beef and Cheddar Burgers

Ingredients

8 oz (227 g) jalapeno peppers
8 cups (2 L) coarsely chopped, peeled tomatoes
3 cups (750 mL) chopped seeded, Anaheim, Cubanelle peppers, or sweet banana peppers
2 cups (500 mL) chopped onions
2 cups  cider vinegar
1 cup (250 mL) chopped sweet redpeppers
1 cup (250 mL) chopped yellow peppers
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 can (5-1/2 oz/156 mL) tomato paste
2 tbsp (25 mL) granulated sugar
1 tbsp (15 mL) salt
2 tsp (10 mL) paprika
1 tsp (5 mL) dried oregano
1/4 cup (50 mL) chopped fresh coriander

Preparation:

Wearing rubber gloves, seed, core and finely chop jalape?eppers to make 1 cup (250 mL).

In large heavy nonaluminum pot, combine jalapen?tomatoes, Cubanelle peppers, onions, vinegar, red and yellow peppers, garlic, tomato paste, sugar, salt, paprika and oregano; bring to boil, stirring often. Reduce heat to medium-low; simmer, stirring often, until thickened enough that 1 tbsp (15 mL) dropped onto plate flows slowly in 1 stream when plate is tilted, about 1 hour.

Add coriander; simmer, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes.

Using funnel and ladle, fill hot 2-cup (500 mL) canning jars, leaving 1/2-inch (1 cm) headspace. Cover with prepared lids. Screw on bands until resistance is met; increase to fingertip tight. 

Boil jars in boiling water canner for 20 minutes. Transfer jars to rack; let cool for 24 hours. Check that lids curve downward. Refrigerate any that do not and use within 3 weeks. Refrigerate after opening.

And then there was more...

So I didn't do to well at eating all the veggies we had from the last basket. By the time my second basket had arrived, I had only used up the lettuce, some of the corn and the stuff used for the rainbow ketchup and stew. Needless to say, when I cleaned out the fridge yesterday morning to accommodate our "new arrivals", my husband was less than pleased. 


I know, I know, but it's hard changing my habits. I'm trying to do better! Anyways after some fancy footwork, and LOTS of negotiating, we have decided to try for a little while longer. 


So I forgot to take pictures of this basket, but it was a lot of the same. Tons of tomatoes, 1 whole onion (who are they kidding, you need lots of onions - always!), 1 whole garlic clove, corn on the cob (though a lot less this time), lettuce, some kind of sprout thingy, fingerling potatoes, purple carrots (yup, purple), yellow beans, white striped purple beans, 1 red pepper, broccoli (WTF - ok, I don't like broccoli and there was plenty), cilantro, zucchini, panty pants (okay, fine Patti pans), a ridiculous amount of squash, a cucumber, and a cantaloupe. On top of this lovely basket, I also purchased a pound of organically grown garlic from a friend at work (government worker by day, organic garlic producer by weekend!), and two large baskets of blueberries (can anyone say blueberry jelly???).


I had already guessed that I would be getting more tomatoes, so I had a plan. But as for the rest of it, no clue. I mean, they sent me broccoli! Why?!?! 


Here is what I came up with:

• Salsa (what else?)
• Chocolate zucchini loaf ( I thought I had more zucchini and I would be making 28 batches... wrong, it was the squash that was plentiful!)
• Broccoli casserole (Hubby had to come up with the broccoli solution)
• Pureed and frozen garlic "cubes"
• Blueberry jelly (yum, yum, yum!)

I got the basket on Saturday and started with pureeing fifty bazillion organic garlic cloves. With hubby's help, I think it took about an1 hour. Then I made 2 zucchini loaves and went out for dinner (at an Italian restaurant, so no one would notice I reeked of garlic) with a girlfriend. 

Today's plan was to do the casserole and the salsa, with aspirations of jelly.  I started later than I thought I would (at around 1:30 pm) with the broccoli casserole, while also prepping for the salsa. I think I finally really started the salsa at 2:30. Damn, salsa is an involved process, but wow - totally worth it!!! We finished up (I say we 'cause I would have never finished if hubby hadn't helped) at around 7:30 pm.

Never quite managed to get the jelly done, but the process has begun...

You are looking at two baskets worth of blueberries, washed, picked through, pureed and now straining so that I can only have blueberry juice!


Results:

• 32 garlic puree "cubes" (to use as needed)
• 2 chocolate zucchini loaves
• 1 broccoli casserole 
• 4 250 ml jars of salsa
• 4 500 ml jars of salsa

Used up:

• 2 zucchinis from last basket and 2 from this basket
• garlic from this basket and the leftover from last basket
• the 1 onion they sent me
• all broccoli
• all the tomatoes
• cilantro

During our dinner I also managed to use up the carrots and potatoes from last week plus almost all of my weird purple carrots.


Lessons learned:

• processing means that you can keep your jars on a shelf (not in the fridge) for up to 1 year! 
• I think that I will be buying a lot less store made food... wow.

BTW, anyone have suggestions on what to do with the squash? I have a lot of them.