For the last week or so, I’ve been working on getting back on track in my kitchen. What does that mean? Digging around in the back of my freezer and my pantry and finishing eating things up! I’m a little bit of a food hoarder, and while it is comforting to have a couple of jars of tomatoes left “just in case I need them,” preserving season means it’s time to start fresh and new for the coming winter.
But that doesn’t mean the CSA veggies stop coming in and that doesn’t mean the garden stops producing. Good thing I have a few extra bodies around the house to help me eat up the bounty 
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The Share
Potatoes
Green beans
Kohlrabi
Beets
Carrots
Kale
Onion
Summer squash
Blackberries
The Garden
The garden is doing fantastic, in spite of my naiveté in planning it. (Certainly the squash won’t get big enough to take over the carrots. I’m sure they’ll be fine wedged in right there.)
This week we have beets, radishes, green and dragon tongue bush beans, rainbow and swiss chard, kale, bok choy, and… no carrots. The fig tree is also in full fruit, and we’ve been eating fresh figs every day. We also have a couple of tomatoes just about ready to go. Yay summer!
The Meal Plan
Eating from the garden has been a new and deeply enjoyable experience for me. I love that when I make a meal, if it doesn’t look quite green enough, I can just pop outside and bring in anything that looks good. We’ve been having lots of salads, squashes, and greens along with my random pantry creations.
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Baked oatmeal
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Homemade yogurt, granola & berries
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Breakfast burritos with sautéed greens
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Salmon, wild rice & garden veggies
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Burgers & cajun fries
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Fig newtons
This Friday is the second delivery for Sustainable Eats’ big tomato buy. I’m going to head up to Seattle to pick up 120lbs of tomatoes. From there it’s paste, sauce, salsa, and soup making for a few days, but then the pantry will be stocked until next summer. Also on the agenda is fig jam, fig newton filling, pickled peppers, and sauerkraut.
What’s in your box this week? Anyone have a good recipe for pickled cherry peppers? Are you starting to preserve anything for the winter?
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How do you make Fig Newtons? I love the packaged FNs, but I bet homemade would be the bomb!
Mil recently posted..Rethinking Raised Bed Gardening
I use this recipe and “healthify” it (sub oat flour for white, rapadura for sugar, etc.). They’re more like their own totally different food than they are like packaged FNs, but they are SO delicious! I make fig newton filling and freeze it so we can eat them all winter