03 August 2010

D is for Daunting

I'm beginning to get overwhelmed with food from the garden. After being away for a week, I picked 17 pounds of produce yesterday (and that's not including the enormous marrow that was lurking under one of the courgette/zucchini plants). This afternoon's harvest wasn't as large, but was still respectable:


I've been using a different method this year to preserve the tomatoes. I saw it on a Food Network programme: Laura Calder's French Food at Home. It's a bottling/canning recipe which is extremely simple and which was originally published by the culinary writer Anne Willan (confusingly, the recipe title on the Food Network refers to Anne Willian: I spent quite a while trying to find out who she was before discovering the truth!). The recipe involves putting the tomatoes into jars, adding some onion rings and herbs and then boiling the jars for 90 minutes in a large panful of water. The preserved tomatoes should then keep well into the winter for use in soups and pasta sauces.


The chicks have been growing well in my absence. Gender-wise, I think the ones I picked up from the poultry farm are all female, this time, but I'm fairly sure that the three that hatched from our own eggs are a mixture: two pullets and one Sunday lunch. If I can steel myself to deal with him accordingly, that is...


D also stands for 500, of course, and, according to Blogger this is my 500th post. Hm, perhaps I should have blogged about something slightly more exciting than vegetables and chickens.

But then that would have been completely out of character, wouldn't it?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such a nice problem to have too many veggies! However, I know you have some work ahead of you getting all that stuff canned. Good luck! :)

Northern Beauty Seeker said...

Happy 500! Chicks and veg are a perfect anniversary post. :)

Quinn said...

Congratulations on reaching 500!

And don't give up hope on the gender of your chicks - one of my hens is very rooster-y in appearance even as an adult, but she lays an egg every day :)

Daphne Gould said...

Congrats on your 500th. That is a big one. I need to start canning my tomatoes too. I'll probably do sauce though.

thyme2garden said...

Happy 500 post to you! Wow, that's sounds like a lot of blogging for this newbie blogger, as your 17 lbs sounds like a lot vegetables for this newbie gardener.

meemsnyc said...

That is quite a harvest! Awesome! Those chicks are adorable.