Monday, September 8, 2008

Weekend Recap, Preservation and Menu Plans

This past weekend was a busy, yet productive one. We did drive by the Swartz Creek farmers market to see if the garlic lady was there, but she wasn't, so we didn't even get out. I think I'm going to have to call her to get some more garlic. Since I'll be in Texas till midnight on Wednesday night, I didn't want things going bad on me while I'm gone.

In addition to all the normal weekend cleaning and packing for my trip, I had a productive weekend of preserving summer's bounty. I canned a batch of pizza sauce, a batch of chopped tomatoes, made three huge batches of pesto and froze in cubes (two basil plants down finally, one to go!), blanched and froze a batch of green beans from our garden, and grated/sliced and froze four huge zucchinis and two medium-sized zucchinis (and I gave away two huge ones to my aunt and my mom). I'm beginning to understand why people allegedly leave zucchinis on neighbor's doorsteps, knock and run. I feel like they're never-ending right now. I have another eight zucchinis growing on my plants right now, and there are another four female flowers that will grow zucchinis. I guess this is what you call a bumper crop. I'm debating on whether I should try a zucchini relish, but I have no idea what to expect it to taste like.

In terms of meals this week, Kevin will be on his own, eating leftover grilled chicken and steamed veggies, pesto pasta, and food from the freezer. On Thursday, we'll probably just have something really easy, like grilled cheese sandwiches or something. Friday my Mom is watching Carson, so we'll have dinner with them. Saturday and Sunday are undecided still, as usual I'll make something that creates a lot of leftovers for lunches during the week.

I'm expecting to return home to lots of ripe tomatoes on my plants, so I'll probably can another batch of pasta sauce over the weekend. If I'm able to find peaches at the Davison farmers market on Friday, then I will also can some peaches. If the cool nights haven't damaged my last basil plant, then I will also make more pesto - though I really don't know if we even need anymore basil-pine nut pesto. I think I may also make some parsley-pistachio pesto, too, I think that would be excellent to use on chicken. We'll see how much time I end up having, though.

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