Squash Plans( and other rambles...)

On the way into the grocery store this morning, I passed a huge bin of heirloom squash varieties. I've been fixated on them all day now, and am going to pick a few up to go into the freezer. Most recipes I found call for totally cooking and then pureeing the flesh before freezing it, but I have cubing it in mind. The hubby and I are going to start upping our veggie intake, and I think that having bags of squash in the freezer would make for a quick and tasty breakfast skillet hash (plus, squash is way more nutritionally dense than white potatoes). I think mixing it with some organic sausage or bacon, rosemary, and onion would be a perfect winter meal :). SO, I'm going to try peeling it, cutting it into 1/2" cubes, blanching, and freezing in quart size bags. Can't wait to see how it works out!

On the eat-more-veggies note, we watched this documentary called "Forks Over Knives" that really advocates eating a vegetarian diet. I don't agree with that entirely, especially since the majority of the research supporting their diet was done in an Asian population. They have eaten a primarily plant based diet for thousands of years, and their genetic makeup is programmed for it (or maybe it's the other way around, maybe their diet suits their genetic makeup). Either way, I don't believe you can take one way of eating and apply the entire style to a completely different ethnic group. For instance, the Eskimos traditionally ate a diet that consisted almost entirely of high fat animal foods, yet they thrived on it. It was only once they adopted the standard American diet of processed foods that their health began a serious decline.

I think one of the central problems with animal products in the USA now is that from the time an animal is conceived, throughout its life, and after it is butchered, we fill it with hormones, steroids, medication, and food that it was never intended to eat...and then we expect our bodies to thrive on it.

Next year, the man and I want to raise our own beef steer here on our land. We're still figuring out the whole process, but I'm up for anything and would feel so much better eating something that I took care of and was responsible for during its life than consuming something that came off of a shelf in a plastic wrapped package.

I was also really excited yesterday to pinpoint a resource for...fresh, unpasteurized cow's milk! I can go back to making my own butter and even take a whack at cheese! (Could get interesting. I might poison myself on accident. If I do, and if I die, Megan gets my killer awesome magnolia bakery cupcake cookbook).

Kitchen fun

Standing in what is quickly becoming my favorite spot in the house.

My stove covered in pots :)

Today I added 12 quarts of applesauce to the pantry. I also have about 1/2 a gallon of pumpkin puree cooling in the fridge and will put it into the freezer tomorrow. I definitely have a big learning curve with all of this...most of my enlightenment comes AFTER the fact when I realize "oohhh...maybe it would have worked better the other way!"

The hubby striking a pose...this was our first joint canning adventure. Who would think this tattooed biker would be into canning and cooking?

My baby pumpkins! I did learn that if you go to the pumpking patch, check the side that has been laying on the ground for any soft spots...when I was washing the dirt off, I found two mushy areas that we had to cut away.

Part of my mess...I think my grandma was enjoying the view of this from heaven :) We always managed to blow the kitchen apart when we canned together.

Tasting the apple butter...definitely want a sieve to press this through next year...the food processor just didn't get it quite as smooth as I would like it.

Apples! I love me some fall

No matter how some of these endeavors turn out, I'm so happy with being able to work on my "wife skills." I feel like a lot of things from our grandparents' generation are disappearing, be it canning, sewing, gardening, etc, and want to make sure that I do my part to keep those arts alive.
The next "foodie" thing I want to try out is making yogurt. I looked at the old way of using a jar and keeping it warm and wrapping it in a towel in a cooler that has warm water in it...yea whatever. I found one on Amazon for less than 30 bucks that is thermostatically controlled and has a timer, so you don't have to worry about losing a batch. Modern conveniences exist for a reason, right? ;)

autumn

Well, this week the husband and I decided to get some canning done for winter months. What with wedding craziness and me just getting settled into my new town, we missed most summer crops, but we still have apples, pumpkins, etc to work with. His family has lived here off and on over the last 17 years, so they know where to get everything and how to barter for whatever they can't get for free. We made the drive to an old orchard that is about an hour from us today to try for a few buckets of apples, but ended up only getting about 4 gallons worth. It was so sad because the orchard is over 100 years old and hasn't been maintained at all for the last few years. Anyway, the lady that owns it was super nice and told us to get whatever we could out of it :).

On our way home, I noticed a stand of trees on a hillside next to the highway, so we pulled off, found the owner's house, and were once again told to take as much as we wanted. JACKPOT! We filled our big bucket and ended up with around 30 pounds of apples for free.

We also stopped off at the farm stand today and picked up four little pie pumpkins to cook up and freeze...apparently pumpkin is rather fickle and not to be trusted when it comes to canning. This is why I love my mother in law...she was the Colorado state fair "Queen of the Kitchen" when she lived here, and is still the official canning expert that the state ag extension agency refers everyone to. A phone call to her put a quick halt to the pumpkin canning plans that I had.

Back to the apples, we put up 12 quarts of apple butter tonight! There are still a ton of apples left in the bucket, so once we get more jars (keeping the fingers crossed for finding some at the thrift store tomorrow), we'll be cooking up a big batch of applesauce. I'm really excited for next month to get here, because the bigger apples will be ready (hello pie/cobbler/crisp filling!)