What’s for dinner? Better question, what’s in the freezer? Or in the canning jar? Or on the shelf?
We love to eat seasonally. It’s the best way to get the ripest tomatoes, the juiciest strawberries and the crispiest greens. Food has such wonderful flavor when it goes straight from harvest to table.
I can’t wait for early-season salads with romaine lettuce and beet greens. This year’s seed potatoes are ready to plant. The tomato, pepper and eggplant starts are growing quickly under grow lights in the basement. The garlic and rhubarb are already up.
But we usually raise, grow or pick more than we can eat in one season — intentionally. Our goal is to have enough of an item to last until the next crop. So we freeze, freeze dry, dehydrate, store and sometimes pressure can a considerable supply, which leads to our current season of using things up.
If all grows well, we are soon going to need plenty of storage space. So the first place to stop for meal ideas involves evaluating what we still have in abundance.
Tomato puree makes great pasta or pizza sauce. I can serve it over spaghetti squash until they get used up. Sometimes I just start adding zucchini to everything.
Since the chickens start laying eggs faster as soon as the days get a few seconds longer, I can mix extras from the freezer into quiches and omelets.
Casseroles and soups work to gather a variety of things into a meal. We often mix fruits in a crisp or cobbler. It adds variety and gives us a way to use small quantities if we don’t have enough of one kind.
Butternut squash, pie pumpkins and tromboncino squash fill our open storage space. Amazingly, stored in a cool area, many are still edible months after picking. My son likes to fry a big pile of them in the morning for breakfast and snacks on them the rest of the day. Some of the pumpkins do make their way into pies too.
Seeing more in your freezer than you think you can use before the next crop is ready? Consider blessing your friends or extended family with some of the extra. Give the items in their preserved form or make some treats to share.
Think about next year. Maybe you have some fruit trees that produce more than your family can use. Give away some of the fresh fruit instead of trying to store the extra.
Don’t forget your chickens if you have them. Those extra pumpkins and squash will taste great to them.
Take an inventory of your preserving supplies. Do some need to be replaced or updated? Should you invest in equipment to increase your options? We bought a freeze dryer last summer. Some of my first efforts worked better than others, but we are starting to learn how to use it and how to use the freeze-dried results.
Consider whether you need to plant items again this year. I love cayenne pepper, especially the kind we grow. It has more flavor than most I find in the store. However, we really only need to plant it every other year to keep our needs met.
Although the warmer days can get us thinking of all the fresh produce to come, take a little time to check out what you already have so you can enjoy it too.
