Discussion Board

Wednesday, my next-door-neighbor gave me several beautiful "perfect" med.-sized zucchini and 4 smaller-sized yellow crookneck squash from his most recent right-off-the-plants-and-into-my-hands harvest. His garden is just across a fence from my apt. building. (We are not allowed to plant anything on our apt. grounds.)

I steamed a pot of the green and the yellow squash cut into chunks, sprinkled them with dill weed, and ate them all. YUM! There just is no food that tastes better to me than in-season, locally grown, fresh produce right from the garden! They were my entire meal--along with a couple giant slices of the most delicious fresh plain Honey Whole Wheat bread from the Big Sky Bread Company--also a gift from my son-in-law. SO good! --the best "home made" tasting bread I've eaten since I quit baking my own after my children left home!

He gave me a loaf of the Honey 100% Whole Wheat Bread and a loaf of the 100% Whole Wheat Three Seed Bread. Together, the loaves weighed 4 pounds 6 oz. and cost over $10.00!! --a gift for sure!
http://www.bigskybreadcompany.com/produ ... 6a7823c567
Then, I refrigerated an amount of the squash to eat fresh, and grated all that were left and spread them about 1/4"-3/8" thick on three 14' x 14" sheets in my dehrdator, and by morning they had dried and reduced down to one quart of dried shreds to add to my storage. So easy! --and so little clean up. --and couldn't be less expensive, since the squash were free, and my utilites are included in my rent, so it cost me nothing extra to run my dehydrator.

Yesterday afternoon, I was gifted with tomatoes "harvested" over the week-end from my daughter's friend's country garden--round and roma and tiny grape tomatoes . Over the weekend, my daughter made huge pots of salsa for canning, then gave me all the remaining tomatoes.

I'll allot out what I think I can eat fresh, and dehydate the rest as tomato fruit leather treats, plus some dried as slices, and some coarsely chopped for use later in soups, sauces, chili, etc., --and blend some to a liquid to dry on solid sheets to the very brittle stage to blend into tomato powder to store for use in making tomato juice and tomato ketchup, and tomato sauce and tomato paste.

I have "harvested" from a "friendship garden" this entire summer, and am very grateful to the generous gardeners who did all the planning, and tending, and hard work, and then kindly shared "the fruits of their labors" with me.

Clary, your diligence has inspired me to finally get that zucchini out of my fridge and into the dehydrator! Tomatoes are coming in here, too--I have been simmering a pot of them every evening to move them off the counter--the semicooked sauce goes into the freezer until canning day.

It's so wonderful to get gardening gifts! The best squash I ever ate in my life was grown by an elderly couple in North Dakota...their daughter is a friend of mine and they gave it to me on a visit here. I wonder if they came with a vanload of food? I'm sure I will never taste a squash again quite that exquisite.

Rarely does a garden ever produce just the right amount, in my experience. It's either a bust (like the year we got no tomatoes), or it's overwhelming and you're looking for people to pass the stuff along to! It's unpredictable, but always fun.

Hi Anna--
Did you get the zucchini done? Do you slice or grate the zucchini?

Good idea about the interim freezer stop for the tomatoes!

I finally got my dried, jarred and bagged, dehydrated peaches off the kitchen table and into the pantry.

Well, I did get all the 'maters soaked in the peroxide bath, rinsed and set out on towels to dry this morning. They are still sitting there, and I had a late stay tonight as the GrannyNanny , so the tomatoes will be diligently done manana! The tiny ones will require only one slice through and onto the trays.

Don't you love the simplicity of dehydrating? No close watching or "high maintenance" tending, and the prep and clean up is minimal. "It's a good thing!":nod:

Yes, the zucchini are dried, tossed into a jar and put away in the pantry. I like to slice & quarter them and have never tried dehydrating them grated--I'll bet it's faster. I use the pieces in soups and casseroles and spaghetti sauce.

About the tomato sauce--cooking and canning this is so messy, I really like to do as much as possible of it in one day or one weekend. So Saturday (after company leaves) I will take out all my various bags of tomato smush and start thawing it. Then I'll pop it all into crockpots and pans and start cooking it, most likely late into the night and early the next morning. Then by Sunday afternoon I hope to be canning it up.

I do like drying more and more as an easy way to save the harvest. In fact, this summer I have been planning to build a solar dryer, when I get time to focus on this project, maybe in a couple of weeks. Being able to dry things in the sun will make me feel even better about this method!!!

Have any of you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver? It's her recounting of their family's quest to live on local foods for a year while living on their farm.

Anyway, she explains that the only time that it's imperative that people lock up cars and front doors is during zucchini season 'cause if you're not careful someone will sneak a bag of zucchini on to your front seat or porch!

Y'all are inspiring, tho, so i'm gonna stick the pups on leashes and head to the Farmer's Market (could starve waiting for someone to sneak a bag of zuccs onto my porch!)

yumm-oh!

I grew up in a small town in Iowa, and this was literally true. People knew my folks didn't garden, so summer mornings there'd be heaps of stuff on the porch! The people who do this get up really early, so you never catch them. Garrison Keillor said the trick is to get up early enough that you can move the zucchini that's been left on your porch over to somebody else's porch, and get back inside before anyone's the wiser!

That's of course late in the season, when everybody is sick to death of zucchini and can't think what to do with it.

There was another really lovely tidbit in Kingsolver's book--do you remember this? On a trip to a village in Italy, she noticed oversized zucchini stacked neatly next to the house. At first, she laughed thinking we're not the only ones who let our zucchini get out of control! Then she wondered what it was for, and learned that they were saving it to feed the pigs over the winter. I thought that was nifty and have often thought I might like to have a pig (to enjoy my scraps, but not for the usual purpose!!). Pigs are very friendly and intelligent creatures.

I was sorry she focussed so much on meat in that book, it saddened me. There's a picture of her with her family on the back of my copy--they are overweight, as are most people nowadays. She's a wonderful writer.

oh, thanks for writing about those lucky Italian pigs, Anna - forgotten that one!

yes, it was disappointing and sad to read about the family's meat consumption - and especially about her daughter's chicken business!

Kingsolver is such a great author, though, you're absolutely right!