As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we had the perfect summer for growing produce. Plenty of warm days interspersed with the odd rainy day, which has had both the vegie garden and the orchard doing very well. I hate wastage and so have tried to preserve as much of the fruit and vegies as possible, to make them last.
TOMATOES:
I’ve made quite a few jars of pasta sauce with the tomatoes, cooking them up with onions, garlic and chopped capsicum. This can be used as is – mixed into pasta for a quick meal, or added to minced beef, for a bolognaise sauce.
I’ve also bottled a lot just as is (not even peeled, just chopped up) so they can be added into casseroles or pureed and used as a sauce for pizza bases.
Homemade tomato sauce (ketchup) is always a favourite in our family. I am always in trouble if I give away too many bottles, and we run out before the next year’s tomatoes are ready for saucing. I usually plant 8 -10 roma tomato bushes, which I find are ideal for sauce, but this year I accidentally planted mini roma’s which of course were NO good for sauce so I couldn’t make as much as usual because it meant using our good eating tomatoes. The mini’s were delicious in salads tho, and the kids would just eat them straight off the bushes.
ZUCCHINIS:
I love to just grate up zucchini and freeze it in bags, so that I can add it to casseroles and stews throughout the year. Also made zucchini pickles this year, which the family are loving on cold roast lamb sandwiches.
Bags of chopped up spring onions, capsicums, and grated zucchini – that have been frozen
CAPSICUMS and CHILLIES:
I chop up a lot of capsicums into strips, put them on trays to freeze, and then transfer to bags. This way they don’t stick together in one big lump, making it easy to grab out a handful for adding into various dishes. With the chillies I am in the process of drying a lot, which I’ll then grind up in the food processor and store in a airtight jar to use throughout the the year. Capsicum and chilly jam has been a big hit, in fact I have given a way a couple of jars, and had great feedback.
APPLES
We have a few different sorts of apples. The best producers this year were the Pink Ladies (some still to be picked), Jonathons, and Granny Smiths. The Jonathons were ready first so we started eating them fresh, but then once the Pink Ladies came in we realised how deliciously sweet they were and the Jonathons started being left so I bottled what was left. The Grannies were also bottled, and we’ve had some superb apple pies and apple strudels already! I have also made apple sauce and apple jelly!
Most of the canned fruit and veggies are stored out in the garage on shelving, but I keep a few of each variety inside in a couple of different spots, so I remember to use it!
Above you can see processed tomatoes, canned plums, plum sauce, canned nectarines, and plum jam.
And here I have zucchini pickles, canned capsicum and garlic, apple sauce, canned apple, jalapeños and tomato sauce.
I picked all our pumpkins on the weekend (30 of them!). They will store for a little while but I will need to find a way to preserve them!
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