(Nothing But) Flowers

Raspberries picked at Smolak Farms in North Andover.

So, yesterday my partner and I finally made good on our promise to ourselves to prep food to store for the winter (in our efforts to eat more locally, thus avoiding food shipping = carbon emissions). I’m worried about those Polar bears and lots more. Seriously, I can’t think about the Polar bears & global warming, I get too sad even though I know many human beings will be affected as well.

So what did we do?

Blanching & Freezing: We prepped our first set of blanched vegetables by boiling ‘em for about a minute (or 2, or 3) and then cooling ‘em down and then freezing them. We did this with some swiss chard we grew ourselves, some green beans from our farm share, and some yellow beans from my partner’s uncle’s garden.

Pickling: Yesterday we tasted our first pickles that we pickled ourselves last week! Well, my partner pickled them– I looked on skeptically, but now that they turned out great I’m willing to take credit! So, we pickled two more jars along with some hot peppers from our garden yesterday.

Raspberry picking and freezing: Our morning started off with raspberry picking at Smolak farms. We got black, red and white raspberries (see pic above). But, now that I’ve picked them, I’m willing to go ahead and buy them from my farmer’s market. They’ll still be local & won’t require standing under a 90 degree sun for three hours. I did learn about the different types of raspberry bushes, but I only need a one time lesson in that.

Lessons: One thing I am realizing this summer is that trying to eat locally and do things yourself takes much more time & effort– but its worth it. We are finding ways to save time such as steaming all of our beets from our farm share early on in the week so that we have beets for salads and sandwiches all week. Or grilling up all of our summer squash & zucchini so that they are prepped for salads and sandwiches too.