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I'll add- a lot of our canning and preserving recipes are really, really old. We make sauerkraut and brine pickles the way it was done by moms family from Ohio, and a lot of the greens, tomato and other veggies are from my Dad's side from North Carolina. We have A LOT of index cards, lol.
Tomato jam? We make it (and it's good!) Southern collard greens and hamhocks? Yep.
I think (for us) is that we like these foods that you really can't buy- so gardening helps us get to that end result. It might be a chicken and egg thing!
Last 2 cabbage heads and a small pile of second ears of corn. The white moths really love cabbage so we leave the lower leaves (heads removed) in the ground. It keeps them off the kale and bok choy. Right now the garden is filled with yellowjackets that are hunting the cabbage worms. Go boys!!
We've still got green beans coming off, kale growing and what looks like a bushel or two of tomatoes. Peppers are turning- we should get a few of those before frost. My wife's bingo beans are drying in place along the fence. The potatoes and onions will be ready in a few weeks. A new crop of beets and bok choy is growing as well. We skipped fall radishes this year.
Making some pork chops and corn on the cob (on the grill).
A guy I met last year sent me some spice that his wife and her friends make and sell- small cottage business (which is an excuse for the three of them to get together and drink wine, lol). GOOD STUFF! Simple ingredient blend and tastes great on corn, salads, meats- you name it!
Sauerkraut is easy! 3 TBSP of kosher or canning salt to 5lbs of shredded cabbage. Put a layer of shredded cabbage in a crock, sprinkle salt. Repeat until you've exhausted the salt.
Pound the cabbage with a stomper (a wooden potato masher or the end of a wooden rolling pin works) until the cabbage releases enough water to cover itself. Weight it down to keep the cabbage submerged in it's own brine and store covered in a 70deg area for a month.
Check on it every now and again sometimes a harmless yeast can form- kahm. Just scoop it out and let her go. We will store the sauerkraut in quart jars in our basement pantry where it stays 60-62deg year round. That slows down the fermentation. We are just now finishing up our last quart that we canned last fall! My grandparents in Ohio used to leave a huge crock in the root cellar with kraut. They would go down and scoop out a bowl to make with pork and dumplings. Man that was good stuff!
We're not going to go to extreme measures to extend tomatoes, squashes or other non cold hardy plants. If it looks like a real hard freeze were yanking the tomatoes and squash and into the garage they go.
We've been getting a handful of tomatoes off right now. Not enough to freeze or can. Oddly our squash has done squat this year. The zuch's look alien- like the cross pollinated with another squash and wound up aliens.
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