Week #42 - Food shortcuts to extend your harvest

The fields are cleared and the majority of the harvest is canned, preserved or drying. As the last few weeks of Harvest 2016 wind down, I'm all about shortcuts to make our harvest last. 

Today I made sofrito, a mixture that you can make up when your tomatoes, peppers and onions are fresh and bountiful and fresh as a base for many recipes all winter. 

Sofrito is most commonly used a base for Latin, Puerto Rican, or Italian cooking... but in my mind, there are so many recipes that you need chopped tomatoes, onions, garlic and peppers that it is so handy to have some of this ready to go. Freeze it in ice cube trays and then pop out into freezer bags so that you can grab a tablespoon at a time or freeze flat in freezer bags (I do 2 cups per bag) so that you can grab for recipes all winter long. 

Of course, if you are short on freezer space, I imagine you could can sofrito using a water bath similar to salsa or pasta sauce. 

I use these storage tips for all kinds of garden produce. After making a batch of pesto from my basil harvest, I pop it into ice cube trays to access easier a bit at a time. 

This year we have a large number of sweet red peppers that are ripening late in the season (thanks to the late frost). One of the ways I extend our harvest of peppers, is to roast them, skin them and throw them into the vitamix (blender) along with a healthy amount of garlic. This mixture gets spooned into (you guessed it) ice cube trays and is used for pasta sauce, red pepper dip, and throwing into chili, stews and various sauces. 

What are your tips and tricks for extending your harvest and dealing with an overabundance of any one veggie at this time of year? 

Week #39 - Preparation and puppies

While the long range weather forecast is suggesting that the coming winter will be brutally cold and snowy on the Prairies, the fall has thus far been relatively warm and many veggies are continuing to produce and ripen. In fact some veggies do better in the fall with the cool nights than in the hot summer weathers. 

It is always a bit of a guessing game on when the first frost will occur and how long you can leave things out in the field. We need enough time to do prep for next spring but don't want to pull plants until we absolutely have to! The other factor of course, is how much processing, drying, canning and prep for storage you can do at one time!

This time of year, the kitchen is always full with canning salsa, pasta sauce, pickling and dehydrating, making soups to freeze and pesto galore! This week after our usual weekly batch of salsa and pasta sauce, we made a load of kale chips, roasted red pepper sauce, a huge batch of pesto and some late pickles out of the abundance of cucumbers we have left.

This coming week doesn't look like it will come with frost and we are hoping to gather up all the herbs for drying, dig up those that are coming in the house for the winter and mulch those that will weather the cold season outside.

Our last batch of chickens and turkeys will go in on Monday night this week, so hope for a dry night with light winds to make catching 200 birds in an open pasture a little more comfortable.

Our regular followers will know that Ozzie, a blue heeler puppy came to the farm last week and it looks like he might be a permanent resident! At 9-10 weeks old he creates chaos most of the time but compensates with a cuteness factor that is off the charts! We are hopeful that he will earn his keep working on the farm helping move livestock and keeping predators away but for now he's simply entertaining.



Hope your upcoming week has some puppies cuddles in it..... after all every week should, don't you think! 

Week #34 - Abundance of all shapes and sizes....

Harvest is in full swing both on our property as well as in the surrounding grain fields. The roads are busy with grain trucks rumbling past and the dust from the combines fills the air. Harvest on our farm lasts a long time and involves many activities. Given the diverse plants and animals we grow and raise, fall is an intense time! We pick for both our customers as well as for us and of course, then have to preserve, can, dry or store our food for the winter as well. This means lots of late nights in the kitchen....

The week held much excitement and milestones along with the steady harvest:

• Patty and her grown piglets have spent the week escaping their corral... at times joining the cows and goats and other times ranging around the property. I think its turning into a bit of a game now for them. Funny in the abstract but tiring and time consuming in reality. 
• We welcomed another new soul to the farm.... Oakley, a sorrel quarterhorse came to stay mid-week and is settling in well. Oakley was a rescue horse that has finally found her forever home. 
• Our youngest celebrated her fifteen birthday.
• We got off the farm to witness the marriage of Farmer Phil's nephew and his lovely partner. Congratulations to Kyle and Sam along with their children Sawyer and Lochlin.
• My second batch of kombucha was a success and my third is on the go. I learned much with my first batch! 
• We canned over 30 pints of salsa and pasta sauce! 
• Our middle child got his driver's license! (look out world!)
• We messed up the date for our chicken processing with the abbatoir and had to do a dash with about 2/3 of the birds in the back of the truck! 
• Oh and we harvested day and night.....I actually caught myself thinking wistfully of winter...

Looking forward to the coming week, as all my duckies (children) are home, I have the week off my off-farm job and Farmer Phil doesn't go back to work until the following week! Hope your week is filled with laughter and love. 

Only on her birthday can she wear her boots in the house

Patty always has the last word...

Fall upon us...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 267

This autumn display brought to you by the first full day of fall! My personal favorite time of year, the bugs are disappearing and temperatures are a bit more comfortable for working in. 

As we tuck food away, preserving, drying and canning in preparation for the upcoming winter, it feels great to see the pantry fill. 

Nightly routine...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 230

At this time of year, putting away the harvest is a nightly routine... 

Canning, dehydrating, or freezing are all methods we use to extend our harvest into the winter months. 

Tonight its canning tomato sauce...

What are you doing to put away summer goodies for the winter?

A peek inside our cupboard...

FFF Photo a Day - Day 33

As part of extending our harvest we spend a lot of time freezing, drying and canning in the fall. This picture was what my canning cupboard used to look like... its less full right now (and not as neat)!

We make tomato sauce, paste, pasta sauce and salsa with what is typically an over-abundance of fall tomatoes. Jalapeno jelly, ground cherry jam, salsa verde from our tomatillos, and various other assortments of preserves, pickles and sauces. 

For most of our canning we use the water bath canning process. I covet my neighbours pressure canner and hope one day to own and master that processing method. 

Week #7 - 2014 FFF CSA - What's in the Box

What started as a wet year has turned decidedly less moist! Watering is becoming a full time job as everything is looking parched. The nice thing is that this kind of weather slows down the mowing and weeding.... so trade offs everywhere. This is an exciting week of for all tomato lovers as your first lovely gems of the season have finally matured. We grow many different varieties and I hope you enjoy exploring the different colours and flavours as the weeks go on.

As the summer trundles along, we inevitably must turn our attention to the coming fall and winter and I encourage all of you to think about how you can continue your enjoyment of your veggies into the colder weather. At the risk of being called lazy, I thought I would simply link you back to my blog last year where I walked our shareholders through a number of ways that you can extend your harvest from freezing, drying and pickling. 

I'm busy drying our first crop of basil plants for you all so that you will have some dried basil through the winter and we will do the same with our cilantro/coriander plants a bit later in the season. So check out what you can do today to eat better tomorrow by checking out last year's post here.

So... What's in the Box this week?

• Swiss Chard
• Romaine Lettuce
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes New!
• Beets
• Broccoli for full shares
• Turnip
• Kohlrabi for full shares
• Beans
• Ground Cherries for full shares New!
• Kale
• Carrots
• Peppers (mostly hot)
• Onion New!
• Potatoes

We pick the vegetables within 24 hours of the box being delivered. We do rinse the produce but it would be prudent to wash all vegetables when you get them home. Keeping the herbs (ends) in a cup of clean water will keep them fresh longer.

Please return your empty box along with all re-usable containers (ice cream pails, plastic containers, etc) so that we can reuse them all over again. 

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