Jan gets very, very distressed when food goes to waste. Well, not enough so that he cleans out the refrigerator. But when Ella wastes food, or when garden produce goes bad. So this year, for the first time, he’s made a concerted effort to learn to preserve what I grow. ‘Cause, you know, that’s not my job. I just grow the stuff. What I grow is not nearly as important as my being outside nurturing plants.
His first foray into preserving was the pesto. That was a resounding success. So he bought a pressure cooker/canner, and set about making sauces from all of the tomatoes that I’m bringing in from the fields.
A red sauce for pizza, using herbs and garlic from the garden. A green sauce from the White Currant tomatoes, as a spread and special pizza or pasta sauce. A ranchero sauce using our tomatoes and peppers that we picked up at the Farmer’s Market. We’re in sauce heaven.
For practice, Jan also canned some cherries from Whole Foods.
It all seems to have gone very well. But you don’t really know, do you, until you open the jars several months down the line? And I’m having a heck of a time explaining the whole concept to Ella. She’s really not sure why in the world we would have yummy food in jars, and not crack them open and eat them!
