Festival of Foods

Dear Readers:
My garden this year has produced, and produced and produced (every pun intended). I almost can’t keep up with it-neither can my freezer. I’ve been harvesting daily, canning, freezing, dehydrating and when all else fails, inviting others over to stuff them full of veggies.

I hope to prolong and save back as much of the garden’s goodness as possible. I thought I’d show you all what I’ve been up to.

Roasting whole cherry tomatoes has become a favorite past time. I throw these on a pizza, a sandwich or I just eat them plain. Yum. I’ll do a large batch, freezing several small baggies for later use.

To use up cucumbers, I concocted a cuke salad adding black and red beans, red onions, vinegar and stevia. So tasty.

Of course, canning is a must. I’m set for the next couple of years in the salsa, whole tomatoes, jalapeno pepper department.

My little $5 dehydrator has been pushed to its limit and has seen the likes of tomatoes, green beans, okra and peppers. I freeze most of the dehydrated items to use in recipes down the road.

And Bicep’s favorite are my chocolate zucchini muffins. So, I made lots of them-96 to be exact. Most I freeze, but I pull out a few from time to time if he’s been a good boy.

This is the only thing my garden hasn’t produced, but that I love to make-granola! I make 4 batches at a time and freeze 3 ziplock bags full for the future.

Biceps even got in on the action and for the first time ever, made french baguettes. They were amazing.

My poor little freezer-I have pushed it to the limit. I stuffed it so full of awesomeness that the air wasn’t circulating and nothing was freezing. Our ice cubes were water squares.

I think it’s safe to say that next year, I’m saving up for a chest freezer. End of story.

Sweet ‘n Salty-Neighbor Presents

Pretzel rods will please even the pickiest pallet-or the neighbor you don’t know very well-but would like to. I know this idea isn’t new and you’ve probably either made, consumed or purchased pretzels rod sometime in your life.

They look so pretty all lined up and ready to be eaten.
For this decadent looking but simple to make treat is:
white and chocolate almond bark
a hammer
wax paper
peppermint candies
pretzel rods.

 

I wanted each household/neighbor to have 8 pretzel rods each. That meant that I needed 88 rods total. I picked out all the full rods from my bag, setting aside the broken nubs to be consumed by yours truly.

 

Next, I hammered all of the peppermints while they were inside of a thick waxed bag (cereal bag or something similar works great).

 

By microwaving the almond bark in a tall glass, the pretzel rods were easy to cover in chocolate, leaving about 2 inches at the bottom for a finger hold.

 

While the chocolate was still warm, I rolled half of my rods in the crushed peppermint.

The other half I drizzled with alternating types of chocolate.
Yum.

 

The leftover chocolate was used on my reject pretzel nubs, or eaten with a spoon by a certain Biceps and the mother of a certain Biceps.
So simple, so pretty and oh, so good.
Merry Christmas neighbor’s!