Compost Heap, Week 12

Okay, so we're food obsessed this season. This is a natural progression I suppose--we were kitty obsessed in the winter, chicken obsessed in the spring, now food obsessed in the summer. Here's a picture of the week 12 produce delivery, gorgeous isn't it! This really is just what came from the farm this week--it doesn't take into account the remnants of week 10, having skipped week 11, what came home from the Tumwater Farmer's Market last week, and the huge bag of the neighbor's pears Anne sent us home with yesterday. I told Don, we need two refrigerators.

Obviously, this is more than we can eat in a week. I finished Barbara Kingsolvers new book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about living locally for a year in Appalachia. In the book, she spends the month of August canning (or as Karen would call it, jarring), freezing and drying the mounds of produce from their garden to eat all winter. I started this book at Karen's were she was planning her next Once a Month Cooking event. The idea is that once a month, you cook enough meals to freeze and eat throughout the month. For a family of 6, this requires cubic yards of freezer space! I see it as a compromise to allow people who don't like to cook to still provide home cooked meals to their family. It's like a day in agony in exchange for a month of freedom. While I was at Karen's, she was supposed to be planning her next batch. This was something I was supposed to be helping with! But how much help could I be really? Our dietary requirements are in opposite world. In my world, a tasty recipe has lots of veggies and no cheese. In Karen's world, exactly opposite. I was just picking out the for-sure-not-to-try recipes!

The thing is, I like the concept of having freezer meals, especially for next year when we'll be having gym practice three nights a week until 7 pm. Plus, now that Don and I both work from home, there will need to be lunches too. Plus, I love to cook, and despite (or maybe because of) being raised in the 70s and 80s, I have developed an aversion to food containing multisyllabic chemical compounds. Plus, produce out of season tastes bland, is expensive, and is hard to find organically here on the way to the edge of the map (okay, its not Billings or Blackduck, Camas is on the map if most people don't know which side of the river). So, upon return, I went to Costco to fork out the $125 for a food saver. (BTW, much better deal than Bed Bath & Beyond--both cheaper and more features.) Since, I've been making Papa Snacker crazy with the mounds of dirty dishes! My form of freezer cooking is to cook two batches (or two different things) for dinner (my theory is that cooking two things at the same time should use fewer dishes, papa snacker says otherwise), then freeze the left overs. I kicked Don out of the house Friday night (or rather, he fled), while I cooked two different batches of vegetable soup. I would have made muffins too (zucchini you know), but ran out of counter space and steam.

Now there's a whole new batch to veggies to get through. You'll notice the first of the eggplant in this week's delivery. Thanks to mom's gift of an all eggplant cookbook, I'm ready this year! The weird looking thing in the upper left is a kohlrabi. Don't ask, no clue. Nelson tells me I can cut it up match stick style and put it in the Snackers' snack tray. Right. Sure. Wish me luck with that!