Know Preservations

The long holiday weekend brought an end to my summer of preservation procrastination.

Early Saturday morning, while standing in a Warrier I Yoga pose, I swear I heard a voice tell me "preserve something already, it's September for goodness sakes!"

Needless to say, the weekend is over, and corn, tomatoes, and basil are all hibernating in their own little places in my kitchen.

At the market, tomato seconds were $1.50 a pound! My husband sliced up those puppies and we stuck them in the dehydrator. Dehydrating was pretty hands off. Except for rotating the dehydrating trays, it was a low maintenance food project.

(I encourage everyone take a BIG bite of a dehydrated tomato and have a camera close by when you do. You'll want to capture the look on your face)

While my hubs was tending to the toms, I was busy at the food processor batching up pesto. Basil, parm, garlic, olive oil, salt, and toasted sunflower seeds. 2 cookie scoops of pesto went into muffin tins for freezing. A nice substantial pesto clump, and enough for 3 months worth if we used one per week! Perfect for pizza, soups, sauces, smashed potatoes, risotto, the list goes on.

And then there was the corn. Blanched, cooled, cut off the cob, and frozen. 3 bags. The naked cobs went back into the liquid from which they were cooked, destined to become the flavor infuser of corn stock. Into the pot they went, and away boiled the water. Boiled down to half it's volume. That's the kind of kitchen work I like. . . walk away and let it do it's thing. The stock is in the fridge right now, gearing up for hibernation tomorrow.

All of these preservation projects in one weekend. It was productive, it was work, and in January, it will be delicious.

Be Well.