Miscellaneous Summer Food Projects

I've actually been getting better at blogging the meals we've been eating, but here's a little taste (sorry) of some of the other food projects I've been working on:

Sourdough Starter

I've been feeding a sourdough culture for a couple months now. I've used it to make delicious sourdough pancakes, amazing sourdough English muffins, and two giant bricks that were supposed to be bread.

Canning

Pickled jalapenos and pickles.

The DDH and I (well, mostly the DDH, honestly, while I ran baby-control) pickled a couple pounds of jalapenos and some cucumbers. He loves the results; I don't. I think it's the pickling spice he used.

Other Preservation

Blanched basil drying before being frozen.

I've turned tomatoes into sauce and tossed it in the freezer. I've been chopping and freezing jalapenos and strawberries, roasting, skinning, and freezing green chile, and blanching and freezing basil. This bit of work now will make the winter so much tastier!

CSA

Fried okra.

Delicious CSA watermelon.

We've been loving our CSA share from my friend Don at Bootstrap Farm. Most of the jalapenos and some of the green chiles have come from the CSA, as have all the cucumbers, basil, and most of the other produce I've mentioned (the strawberries, though, were just on sale at Aldi). It's great to pick up a giant bag of tasty, local, organic produce every week that I've already paid for. :-) It's forced me to get creative in the kitchen and try out some new recipes, from fried okra to eggplant parmesan and more.

Bone Broth

I made my monthly-ish chicken and bone broth batch this past week. This is seriously one of the best things I can advise anyone to do in the kitchen. Roast a chicken (I use the crockpot because it's easy, but I make the World's Best Roasted Chicken in the oven). The meat gets used for meals immediately and/or shredded and frozen for quick meals later. All the bones, organ meats, skin, etc. get dumped back in the crockpot and turned into delicious bone broth, which I also freeze. Whenever you see a recipe on here that calls for chicken broth or stock, this is what I use. It's practically free, delicious, and super good for you--stock from the store (or bouillon) is none of those things.

So that's what I've been up to in the kitchen this summer--how about you?