Taking a Cue from Grandma

Hubby and I have been gardening, in one form or another, for the last 32 years or so. We started with a very tiny patch in our second-to-last apartment and just continued with it for the most part. We did let it go for a few years but took it up again with zest and zeal about five years ago.

Off and on, over the years, I’ve blogged about our Gardening Adventures but have tapered off on that the last two years or so. I even set a schedule for myself to do it this year, planned ahead, and put it in my phone and everything but….

I digress.

This year we planted and tended our garden with an eye towards preserving our harvests.

That is not something we are good at. We give tons of peppers, cukes, tomatoes, squash, and eggplant away to neighbors each year.

With “things being what they are” we thought it would be best if we learned how to preserve things like grandma did. Not that either of our grandmothers did that….I dunno….one of mine probably did but I didn’t know them and as for him….I have no clue.

So…you know….just the stereotypical old fashioned American Grandma.

We bought a canning kit complete with tub big enough to bath at least two toddlers at once. Now, I have always wanted to do this but this is one of the ‘sciency’ things I talk about sometimes. I sucked at science. Like really bad. So I try to stay away from anything that sort of even ‘looks like’ it might be ‘science’. Like making hooch…I really want to try one day before I die.

Mostly, I just don’t want to kill anyone. Oh, you’ve heard the horror stories. I don’t want to be one.

Luckily for me, hubby is not working, he really needed a project, and he happens to be Mr. Science. So, off you go darling, learn how to can.

He did!

I helped.

I’ve made sauce and frozen it before so I did warn him that we’d be doing this several times as the tomatoes ripened. We did end up doing it about 4 times.

We ended up with 7 jars, 5 made by hubby and 2 by me. We would have had more but we had a lot of fresh cucumber and tomato salads with garlic and fresh herbs and oh my! So yummy.

Also, I started making this and it turned out to be a huge hit!

That’s fresh salsa or pico de gallo, whatever you’d like to call it but we call it freakin’ delicious. I made at least two of those big ceramic bowls of it and it was all gone in 24 hours each time. Most sources said I could freeze this but it wouldn’t be as good when thawed. I could have canned it but having it submerged in boiling water for so long would have, at least slightly, cooked the veggies and I didn’t want that either. So we just ate it right from the garden.

I did find a salsa recipe which I made and froze as directed. I think it’s a little too hot. I’m a wimp when it comes to that stuff so hopefully hubby will like it.

The green beans put off like crazy especially for just 4 little plants. I ended up half a quart bag of them. I blanched them and froze them to have over the winter.

Try as we do…and we do really try…our cukes and tomatoes never put off quite at the same time. There’s a small space there where we are eating those cucumber and tomato salads but it doesn’t last as long as we’d like.

What to do with all those cucumbers?

Let me tell ya, these are some damn fine pickles! Damn fine! Yes, some are a bit zest and they’re awesome.

Pickled jalapenos and banana peppers.

Speaking of peppers. For whatever reason, whenever I come across a pepper that I think is unique I have to buy one and grow it. Did that with the shishito and habanero peppers this year. We put the shishitos right into salads and roasted others or had them with onions. They were very tasty but I must warn you. Some people call it “The Surprise Pepper” because every once in a great while you get a very hot surprise. It happened to me. It wasn’t too horrible but it was quite…surprising. That little plant put off like crazy.

We ate a lot of jalapeno poppers and there are more on the direct horizon because I bought all the ingredients and those plants put off like there’s no tomorrow! I have so many jalapenos!

Two bunches being sun dried.

The poblanos also did well but I don’t know what to do with them.

Last, but not least, our habanero peppers. That plant was very prolific. But again, no idea what to do with them except maybe put them in salsa. Which I did for the frozen salsa and…yeah…it may be a little warm.

Sometimes in the grocery store I see habanero hot sauce. That’s something hubby would probably like. I found a recipe that was so easy I just had to try it.

One of the simplest things ever. Bonus….it’s quite good! Hubby loved it. So I scored on that one. There are more peppers so I’ll make another batch and those will be nicely preserved.

We ate all the eggplant. Nothing to save there.

We’re not huge on squash. Gave most of that away. I guess I just like the plant on that one.

We did get several good ears of corn this year….for once! Woot! On the right track there.

The cabbage was planted too late, it stayed very small, but we are going to try again and see if we can’t get one round of cabbage out of the garden now that the colder weather is setting in. It doesn’t like the heat at all.

I have to say, this was all fun and stuff but felt a bit foolish and like sliding backwards even though these were all things I always wanted to try. Then I got a gander at some of my friend’s FB pages, the ones who garden.

They all bought canning equipment this year if they didn’t have it already.

They were all learning how to preserve their harvests better.

Damn good thing too. Because it wasn’t just because we’re all getting old and bored. I don’t know about you but….

I had one watermelon this year. One. Just one.

Why?

Because I’m not paying $6.00 for a 1/4 of a watermelon.

I love peaches, nectarines, and plums. Every year I can’t wait for them and cherries and grapes to be in season so I can chow down. Not this year. I bought “eastern peaches” twice at like $1.69/lb and would not pay the prices for the “southern peaches” (what’s the diff?), nectarines, or plums. I bought a few pints of blueberries and strawberries. But we did not have a single fresh fruit salad this year. We love those!

Couldn’t afford it.

That’s bad enough. But, paying close attention, I noticed a lot of that fruit simply rotted on the shelves. I wasn’t alone in passing it by. A ton of it ended up on the “seconds rack”. Hopefully someone took advantage of it as it was going by-the-by and priced at a reasonable rate.

Eggs? Oh that was fun for a while, huh? Oh joy. I knew I should have gotten those damn chicks this spring. One day, I am going to have chickens in my yard.

Our favorite pickles are almost $9.00/jar!

Luckily we scammed the recipe for them….or you know an extremely close proximity thereof. Yep, those are them in the fridge. Nice cold packed pickles.

Red meat? You can almost forget about it. We’ve been living on chicken and pork for the most part. We love to grill in the summer, steaks! Smoked Brisket. Shoulder.

Nope.

Or, well, very little. We have to have some fun where we can. Hubby did learn how to make

Beer can chicken.

You can do it with Coke or 7Up. The beer didn’t seem to make any difference.

Coffee? $21.99 for the large can of Maxwell House Colombian. My favorite. Even the others are easily $17.99. Chockful-o-Nuts seemed to be holding steady at $14.99 so I grab one every time I’m in the store. Hell, we even bought a new fancy coffee pot to help us save money on our coffee habit. Very nice machine, Krups, with a carafe to keep it warm. Not the most user-friendly thing but the morning coffee, if there’s any left, is still warm and good at dinner time. I’ve gone from making 2 or 2.5 pots a day to just one.