Fun with Food at the Farm
Just some snapshots this week, the first regarding Sunday afternoon’s project turning a batch of organic Roma tomatoes into red sauce for pasta. Here are some just after being harvested by yours truly from Vermont Valley Community Farm.
Here’s where they ended up after four hours of cooking on low with onions, garlic and spices. This chest freezer is large enough to hold a entire cow, so you’ll note lots of bags on the right that help keep things organized. (The red sauce will eventually go into the bag with red sauce, marinara sauce and pizza sauce. I just hadn’t organized it yet. It’s on the left right now.)
The freezer is so large that I used to lose track of everything in the bottom half, and ended up throwing much of it away when I finally cleaned the freezer out every 5 years or so. (OK, maybe I should do it more often.)
But then I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and she saved me with a simple idea: Keep a list of what’s in the freezer somewhere handy, and you’ll always know what you have. Brilliant. I’ve been doing it for 5 years or so, and I almost never throw anything away anymore. However, as you can see, it’s time for us to pick up our local, semi-free ranging chickens from our neighbor. We usually order 5 whole and 10 halves at a time. Our new 1/4 of pork is coming soon (also organic and local, we are so lucky…), so this freezer is going to bust at the seams soon.
Here’s the photograph that makes me happiest: A photograph of Jim, Willie and me that is my favorite of all time. Thanks to Nils Schlebusch for sending it.
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Patricia B. McConnell, PhD, CAAB Emeritus is an applied animal behaviorist who has been working with, studying, and writing about dogs for over twenty-five years. She encourages your participation, believing that your voice adds greatly to its value. She enjoys reading every comment, and adds her own responses when she can.
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Lovely photo of the three of you. My chest freezer looks diminutive beside yours, and is mainly full of meat for the animals, but I am inordinately proud of the 6 pounds of redcurrants I picked from a single bush my tiny garden and stashed in there earlier in the summer!
Beautiful photo. <3
Oh, Willie’s sweet face. He looks like that’s just where he’s belonged his whole life. So lovely so see him so relaxed and happy like that.
I’ve been keeping a list of what’s in my freezer for years, keeps me organized and it makes life a little bit easier! Nice photo too, thanks for sharing!
yum (food comment!)….
warm (photo of family members)….
beautiful family (stating the obvious)
Thanks (for all that has been shared)
What a beautiful photo. Willie looks so peaceful, safe in the love of his forever family.
My little freezer is probably in need of an intervention. It currently has chocolate chip ice cream, a few lean cuisines, a couple of gel packs for treating sore muscles, leftover fajita meat of undetermined age that’s probably freezer burned by now, and a bag of ice ’cause the icemaker’s on the fritz.
Yum!
We still love your ‘melted tomatoes’ recipe from a couple of years ago, especially for “zucchini pizzas” (grilled zucchini circles as the “crust”, topped with a melted tomato, sharp cheddar plus whatever).
Our freezer is packed with bags of (whole) tomatoes and blanched green beans. Freezing tomatoes whole is a fast way to deal with a ton of tomatoes; pick ’em, rinse (if needed), and pop them into freezer bags. In the middle of winter, we pull out whatever number we need, let them thaw just enough so the knife will bite into the skin (otherwise you risk a knife-skid – learn from my experience!). They shatter nicely into chunks. Then toss them into whatever we’re cooking. They retain that garden-fresh-tomato flavor. I do admit that bags of tomatoes take up more space in the freezer than sauce does.
What a lovely photo of the three of you! (How’s Maggie feeling? And what’s Tootsie up to these days?).
Wonderful photos, vegetables and family!
My big freezer is disreputable… no comment…however, it will have to hold some more produce: nice little Sun Sugar cherry (HA! At first I put “Cheery”! That too!) tomatoes that my husband grew, mmmmmmm….
Food at the farm… most healthy food ever, just mother nature giving us her love.